Hey! Just wanted to say I was really interested to learn your V, Dal, had a child before the events of the game and Iâd love to hear more about how having his daughter around affected things for him in Night City! Also whatâs Kerryâs relationship with her like, if they have one?
AAAAAAA thank you so much for this I love to talk about them! I just always forget to actually make posts đ
Some background, his daughter is named Lera, and she's a holdover from his original iteration as a dragon age inquisition character (his full name in Dragon Age is Dalinev, usually shortened to Dalin or Dal. He's just Dalin/Dal in cyberpunk). She ends up in every verse I make for him in some form.
The biggest obstacle for Dal is finding childcare, I think. I stretch the timeline out longer, Lera is around 2 and a half at the start, and she turns 4 right before the endgame. So he always has to arrange someone to watch her if he's going out. Early on, that's usually gonna be Vik, Misty, Mama Welles, or his neighbor (Jackie would ofc, but he's usually going with). I headcanon his neighbor in the mega building is also a single parent, and he'll sometimes pay her to watch Ler, and will occasionally watch her kids when she needs and he's home.
Later on, after doing Panam's quest and befriending the Aldecaldos, he brings her out there more often than not, especially if it's a long or especially dangerous mission. As the plot progresses and things get more and more dire for him, he thinks a lot more about what he wants to happen to her if he doesn't make it. His mom died when he was a baby, and his dad when he was 4 (a big reason why he tries to hold out for her birthday) and he has a lot of feelings about growing up an orphan in a nomad clan, but he'd prefer that for her than anything else. He has an agreement with the Aldecaldos that they'll take her in should something happen to him. As a result, Lera is pretty close with Panam and with Mitch.
They lost a lot of community feel when they moved to NC, so he takes her to see his friends when he can. I think she only met Judy a handful of times given what was going on, but she develops one of those baby crushes on her, declares she's going to marry her lmao. And he absolutely brings her to the barbecue with River's family. She's younger than Joss's kids so he helps her in the game but she has a blast.
Kerry's relationship with her builds up slowly. He's aware of her from the beginning, before the reunion gig I think, so Kerry goes into the relationship during Boat Drinks knowing that will be a thing. I think he's accounting for that in his "life's loops" thing. His arc ends with him turning a new page, and we really don't get to see any of that cause his quest ends there, so I don't think it'd be too unrealistic in this scenario to say Kerry is accounting for the fact that Lera will be part of his life as long as Dal is. That he's going to end up having some sort of authority/parental-ish/Dad's boyfriend type relationship with her.
He's awkward with her at first, he doesn't really know where the line is of what's appropriate or not until he gets a better understanding of Dal's parenting style, which is... Not lax, exactly, but he doesn't really hide things from her. He's more about explaining at an age appropriate level whenever he can, not babying her. I think his ex wife's expectations on parenting are very different than Dal's (and there's clearly a lot of toxicity and animosity with his ex on that subject in general, and he hasn't exactly been processing it well up to this point), so there's a lot he has to unlearn and rebuild his confidence. Things that might have caused a fight with his ex might be totally fine by Dal, and other things Kerry took for granted may be entirely absent, especially with dalin's nomad "make do with what you have" mindset. Beyond that, Lera is a pretty confident/outgoing child and I think they get along really well once they spend more time together and Kerry stops doubting himself. She also ends up very into drawing and art and eventually wants to be a tattoo artist when she grows up, and he's totally supportive of that he thinks that's cool as hell.
This got so long and so far away from me, I'm sorry đ I just have a lot of thoughts about this and haven't written them down anywhere. Super happy to answer any other questions about them though, these characters have been dear to me for nearly a decade at this point đ
