30 Days of Drabbles::Day 3
Character(s)::Calla, Robert, and Cord Word Count:: 2,388 @babyitsmagic because I know you’ve been waiting for this one and @unconventional-weapons because this opens up Robert meeting his siblings
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"No. I don't want Yin or one of your siblings to take me. She's your mother and if anyone should be introducing me to her, it should be you."
They had been having this fight for nearly an hour now with no real end in sight. She was stubborn, Robert would give her that. He knew he should have expected that, stubbornness was genetic and her mother had been just as headstrong. It was interesting, seeing what parts of them the girl had managed to inherit, but it was also exhausting.
"Yes, she is technically my mother, but we have been estranged for over three hundred years. I see no reason to change that just because you exist."
Calla crossed her arms and glared, refusing to back down. Yin had warned her this was a fight she might not be able to win, but she had spent years following the ley lines to find where she belonged, she could wear him down if she had to.
"You were the leading cause of my mother's death. Your mother was the last person she trusted. You owe both of us this and you know I'm right."
That was definitely more of a line he would have used to try manipulating a situation and, for a moment, Robert wasn't sure if he should be proud or annoyed. He was leaning more towards annoyed.
"I am hardly the one that put a gun in your mother's hand and I most certainly am not the one that pulled the trigger either. Try a different tactic. And, before it crosses your little mind, tears do not work on me."
Calla huffed, sulking for a moment before she remembered just how close they were to a nearly dormant ley line. One she could easily wake up and use to force his hand.
"You can take me willingly or I can force you there. I think we both know I can use the ley lines well enough to keep you locked to one," she replied sweetly, giving her best, most innocent look despite the obvious threat.
Robert set aside the book he had been trying to read, finally taking his unexpected daughter more seriously. "I think we both know that will not end well for you," he warned, giving her a rather sharp look.
"And I think we both know if you try to retaliate in any way, you'll have to deal with Yin. Which one of us has a better chance of winning in that situation?"
"For a girl not raised around either side of her family, you certainly are a manipulative little thing. It's almost impressive."
The comment should have made her feel bad, made her back down, but it was the closest to a compliment she had gotten from her father and some little part of her craved that validation.
"So when do we leave?"
Robert didn't answer as he rose to his feet and grabbed her arm, pleased that he had managed to startle her before the room disappeared from around them, leaving them standing at the edge of his mother's property. He wanted to simply leave her there at the edge, let her make her own way from there, but he had a nasty feeling that wasn't going to be good enough.
The touch had been startling enough but nowhere near as disorienting as teleportation was and Calla stumbled a little, Robert's grip on her arm the only thing keeping her upright until the wave of vertigo passed.
"Thanks for the warning, dad," she groused as she tugged her arm free and glared at him.
"Don't call me dad and I did exactly what you wanted. I brought you to your grandmother's property. Call Yin when you're ready to leave."
"No, I said I wanted you to introduce me to her. That means you actually have to go inside with me."
Robert gave her a rather reproachful look at that, tempted to just vanish on the spot but he was fairly certain she would find a way to follow him if he did. Or, worse, call Yin.
"Fine. But do not refer to me in any parental context while we're here. I did not raise you, I only donated genetics."
"Deal."
Saturday mornings were slow enough at the bar that Cord used them to a little inventory, just to keep the bar itself stocked enough to handle the Saturday night crowd. There had been a time when it would have been a dead night, but that was decades ago and now it ran better than some theme bars across the country. Of course, none of her customers were human.
When the door swung open, she barely glanced over, busy swapping out a couple of near-empty bottles for full ones. Nothing would have prepared her for the sight that greeted her when she did turn fully, eyes landing on her eldest child and a girl barely old enough to be setting foot in a normal bar.
"Robert. Can't say I was expectin' to see ya 'round these parts again," she greeted cautiously, wondering briefly if he and the girl with him were in some sort of trouble. "Who's your...friend?"
Robert glared at his daughter before looking back at his mother, hating just how much he still missed the damn woman.
"I believe you know her. She's Muirenn's daughter that you helped hide from me," he answered cooly, taking at least some pleasure in the way her expression shifted from curious to concerned.
"Calla? Calla Dixon?" Cord asked as she was pulling herself up and over the bartop to get a better look at the girl.
She seemed unharmed and the way she looked at Robert with a mix of exasperation and something close to fondness was unexpected. It made her wonder just how long her son had known about his daughter's existence.
"You fucking suck at introductions," she grumbled at him, giving him an unimpressed look when clenched his jaw. "Yes, although I don't think I want to use that last name anymore. They weren't the best when my affinity manifested," she answered, turning her attention to Cord. "Why did you hide me from my parents?"
In any other circumstance, Robert might have been proud that she had gotten right to the point, but he also knew the answer to this question. Anyone that had known him prior to Ever and Sonja would have known the answer as well.
"It was the last request yer momma ever made. Yer daddy weren't always the best of sorts and had a real nasty habit of gettin' folk in his own bloodline killed. Ain't that right, Robert?"
Robert shrugged, not in the mood to lie or play games. It was true enough, he had done that and worse over the centuries, but he had no intentions of allowing harm to befall Calla and he couldn't quite put a finger on why she was different.
"Which I told you myself, if you recall," he reminded the girl, wanting more and more for this meeting to end so he could go back to pretending this place didn't exist. He was just grateful Cord seemed to be the only one around.
"You did, but I wanted to make sure you weren't lying." Even if Yin had basically told her the same. "So, you knew my mom?"
"Yes and no," Cord answered, gesturing the two of them to one of the booths. "I only knew 'er for about 2 days, just long enough to help bring you into this world. Her requests had been that I keep ya hidden and that whoever took ya in didn't change yer first name. She really wanted you to have that small connection to her, even if ya never knew where the name came from."
Calla slid into the booth first, Robert reluctantly following suit as Cord made herself comfortable across from them. She would have never guessed that her mother had been the one to pick her name, her adoptive parents had never told her that. She had seen that it was the name on her birth certificate, but it had been a copy of the record, not the original, so she had figured they had changed her name for whatever reason.
"I think, had things been different, she would'a wanted to raise ya herself but between the mess the was in with him and the kind of woman her grandmother is, givin' ya up was the only way she could keep ya safe. Charlotte Daniels was a cruel old bitch in her life and she wouldn't'a taken kindly to her daughter comin' home with a little cambion child."
Calla looked to Robert as if for confirmation, only looking back at Cord when he nodded. He had met Charlotte when she had been in her teens and he had taken a rather deep dislike of the woman. The fact that he had been able to take two of her three children from her had been, at one time, a point of pride for him.
"Why do I get the feeling you had something to do with Charlotte's death?" Robert inquired, studying his mother closely. He knew there was a darkness in her, one that she had probably held even before hell, but this was definitely an interesting direction.
"She put a price on Colette's head. Colette was under my protection at the time. I sent my regards with one of the hounds. Marrow is quite skilled at creating a rather large mess. Calla, if you wanna meet yer cousin at some point, she does still live here. Her daddy and yer momma were siblings."
"How did she end up here? How did she piss her grandma off that bad?" She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to meet someone that another person had been willing to pay to have killed.
"Oh the usual. Met a boy, fell in love with the boy, the boy's ex-boyfriend was Azazel, she turned to darker magic to keep the boy safe. Azazel came real close to killin' her and now I got a good understandin' of magical poisons out of it. Seemed safer to just let 'er stay here after all of that shit."
"Orpheus's daughter went against Azazel and lived" Robert definitely had not been expecting that level of gossip and it was, honestly, quite the feat. He didn't know many that had crossed that line and been able to walk away from it.
"What can I say, stupid and reckless with good luck seems to be damn genetic. Think both of us are proof of that given that we both made stupid ass crossroads deals," Cord pointed out, not even considering that maybe Calla wasn't aware of that. "Ya know, yer both welcome to hang 'round. Robert, I know ya ain't lookin' to forgive me any time soon, maybe ever, and that's fine, I still ain't figured out how to forgive myself, but I know the other kids wanna meet ya," she offered quietly, not at all surprised by the returned stiffness in Robert's frame at the offer.
"Noted," he answered stiffly, not wanting to get into that conversation, especially not with Calla sitting beside him. "Calla, if you would like to stay longer, that is fine, you can be picked up later, but I have done as you requested." His tone left no room for argument and Calla merely nodded before waving him off, a silent permission for him to bolt if he needed to.
"Yeah, I want to stay a little longer, but you're the one that's picking me up, not Yin."
He didn't answer as he stood and crossed the room, glad for the chance to escape, but still glancing back at his daughter one last time before disappearing from view.
"Why does he hate you so much?" she asked once he was gone. She hadn't been able to get much of an answer out of him and she needed to know if she was going to try to trust the woman in front of her.
"Oh he don't hate me, little one. I broke his heart's what it is. He was old enough to remember me when I died. I had been his whole word when he was little, but I knew I was on borrowed time when I had him and his brother and sister. Crossroads deals don't care if ya got kids when it comes time to collect. And then I never came back, even after I got out of hell. I wanted to, don't get it twisted, but I was a demon then and bein' 'round my babies would have damned them or gotten 'em killed. I was doin' what I thought best to keep 'em safe. He don't owe me nothin', not forgiveness, not time, nothin', and I don't blame him for being hurt. I still regret it myself." She sighed, shaking her head sadly. "He deserved better than I gave him. I just hope he can be better for you than I was for him."
"Have you told him this?"
"No. This is only the second time I've seen him since I died. The first time, he didn't realize it was me and I didn't realize it was him til a friend of mine said somethin'. He left and I got into a nasty fight with said friend for never tellin' me he had made a deal himself when he was alive."
It was something she still hadn't actually forgiven Sorin for. Maybe if she had known then, things could have been different. Maybe she could have made amends, maybe he would know his younger siblings. She tried not to dwell on the what-ifs, but it wasn't always easy.
"I think I'm going to hang around for the day. I want to see how this place runs and maybe I can talk him into coming by on occasion," Calla mused, wondering if it would do more harm than good but figuring the potential for good outweighed the risks.
"More 'n welcome to hang 'round as long as ya want, but bein' here or not needs to be his own choice. Forcin' him to be where he don't feel comfortable ain't gonna help nothin'. There's food in the kitchen if yer hungry, feel free to help yourself."