Were you and your father close?
Ask about my muse's parents.
Such an invasion of his personal life seems highly inappropriate, though then again not so out of character coming from the smaller woman. It could have something to do with the scene laid out before them: an obvious father figure killed in the street, his young son clutched in his grasp as though to protect him from the violence that had no doubt been the cause of their demise. War was often times brutal and unfair in its claims.
He turns and stares at her for a moment once he’s shaken himself from the unexpected trance, mounds of muddy troops colliding with the blue knights of kindness and good intention that sit in her eye before they break away.
“I guess that would depend on your definition of close,” he says firmly, a stern demeanor sitting atop his solemn brow. Piers’ stature shifts along with his sight, hands resting on the cool metal beneath his touch. No one wants to admit that the relationship they had with their father was anything less than perfect, and Piers faces an especially difficult situation with the question. He is morally conflicted. Between what he thought and envied about most others and their fathers as a child, and what he had and grew to know as exceptional discipline that turned out for the better in molding him, preparing him, for his goals and dreams of enlisting.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” he starts, a business like tone to his voice. He sounds partially irritated, however there is not anything to suggest any heavy contempt toward the girl and her sudden curiosity in his voice besides the serious tone he most often bears, “but my dad and I were close so long as I didn’t cross or disobey him. You didn’t wanna get caught in the way of his right hook, believe me.”
His father was a strict man. He was negative and rarely if ever smiled Piers had his speculations that he thought of happiness as a sort of weakness. And James Nivans was not to be viewed as weak. He’d always seemed to be in denial about something, but neither him nor his mother knew about what, or at least that’s what she lead on.
The pair of them grew distant over the years, his mother and father, and as he matured, Piers had begun to wonder why it was they were still together. It was obvious neither of them were happy. His mother often looked as though she’d had the life sucked out of her with a vacuum cleaner and his father was the one who flipped the switch. Piers seemed to be the only reason she had left to smile those days.
“He was a Colonel in the military,” he begins again, his stare averting only slighty, “his dad before him and so on — when he found out I wanted to continue in their footsteps he started looking at me as more of a soldier in training and less of a son from there.” Even though his tone held no direct contempt for his father’s actions, there was a noticeable lamentation in the way his eyes fall, and the way he speaks as though he were looking into a virtual recreation of his past. And it’s like he’s there again, thrown back in time and his father is screaming at the top of his lungs, ordering him and his fifteen years of youth around like a mule with a bum leg. He shouts about discipline and doesn’t spare any negativity as his son wipes away at a bloodied lip.
“He’s a great leader,” finally, sounding rather defensive, he reemerges into speech, his head lifting with it to meet her eyes once more, “I would be lying if I said any different. He’s also my father, and I learned what I could from him. I’m grateful for all he’s taught me,” his sight locks in on the other’s, looking and sounding almost as though there was a ‘but’ to follow. Except it never comes. Instead he just stares before breaking the link respectfully. He wouldn’t dare disgrace his father’s name. There was no denying his methods produced results.
Piers wouldn’t crumble to his knees because his father chose drills drills over playing catch. Or that he used a strict boot camp-esque regime of motivation and training. It made him a stronger person, growing up with his father. It made him a better soldier.
