Once we’d teleported back to the forest, Burin told me he needed a few minutes alone. To take a leak, I assumed. So, we found a place to rest for a few minutes, and he trudged off into the woods. Once we were seated, Gregor nudged Terry and said, probably just in good fun, “Like father, like daughter, eh? Maybe your family should just stay away from trees. If they ever team up with the goats, you’re all doomed.”
Emily rounded on them. “I am NOTHING like him!”
“What the hell’s your problem?” Terry exclaimed. She glared up at him. “We won. Typhon’s dead. Sure, maybe we have his wife and bastard to worry about, but a win’s a win. We checked the body this time. It’s him. He’s deader than dead. And if we’re gonna save your brother from being deader than dead, we’re gonna need your mom. So stop being a selfish brat. It’s time to stop playing with your angels, giant lizard, and squid and summon her, kid. I’m not asking.”
Ooh. Yeah. Not how I would have phrased it. But no one has ever accused Terry of not being an idiot.
“You’re not asking?!” she shrieked incredulously, her face burning red with rage and her thin body trembling. “Well guess what, Dad? I’m not asking either. I don’t need you to answer any questions for me. Because I know everything that you did while you were wearing my body. But if you really, really want, I can summon Momma and we can all talk about how you put a bullet in my brain, nearly killing not just me, but Mister Burin too!”
Terry stumbled back as if she’d hit him. He looked both surprised and ashamed. Yet Emily wasn’t done.
“Or how about we build up to that?” she offered sarcastically. “How about that time you almost shot Miss Lyriana? Or really, how you can’t seem to communicate without trying to shoot or blow people up? If Mister Gregor and Mister Burin weren’t so awesome, you’d have almost blown them up to pieces a dozen times over by now! And that’s what they get for just trying to be your friends. Especially Mister Burin! From the very start, with that time-warping-dragon-thingy, all he’s done is trying to watch out for you! Help you! He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body!”
“I suspect he is secretly powerful dark lord, though he is very good at hiding it,” Gregor said, joking. “What, is wrong time to make joke? Fine, Burin is good guy, even if he needs to train more. He does seem to be even more jovial now that demon has been exorcised.”
“Exactly!” Emily said. Oh God, I was getting “warden” flashbacks just looking at the wild-eyed expression on her face. “Even with his own problems, all he does is try and help people, be their friends. And never once did he give up. And he wasn’t playing F@##ING UNO while I was kidnapped by Nocticula! No, he and Miss Lyriana went into the Dreamlands and saved me.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “And I’m really nothing to them! Just some broken girl they’ve only known for a few weeks. I’m your d-daughter.” Her voice broke on the last word. “And even when you try to ‘help’ people, Dad, everybody suffers. You tried to save me, Mom, and Toby from Aunt Hecate and how did that turn out? Toby’s dead, probably in the Abyss, I was sent there, turned into a demon plaything while you wore my body like a sock, and Momma might be more than half demon now.
“I talked to Uncle Coffin about it. After Mister Burin gave me advice on leveling up, how I can’t take on Nocticula now, at the level I am now. But the more I use my magic, train my Pokémon, I might,” her voice hardened, “I will make her pay. But Uncle Coffin told me something very interesting: human souls can’t become eidolons. Momma’s not just a ghost. She’s being corrupted into a demon.” Emily frowned deeply. “She’s close…Really close…Uncle Coffin isn’t sure, but there’s a chance that every time I summon her, she’ll come back more and more demon until there’s none of Mom’s original self left.” She looked at Terry accusingly. “So while you probably just want her back so you two can…be gross, I’m over here trying to save her soul!”
Terry slumped. “I…I didn’t know,” he said very quietly.
“I love Momma,” Emily sobbed. “I wish it was her and not you here. All she wanted was to be a hero. I don’t think anybody except her understands why she fell in love with you, but she did and now both her and Toby are paying for it.” Her features suddenly became cruel and unyielding, exactly how they would when Terry wore her face. “If you really want me to summon her again, I will. But it depends on you, Dad. Depends on whether or not you think Mom will still love you when I tell her how you gave up, put the barrel of your rifle in my mouth, and pulled the trigger.”
“Are you done?” I asked softly, doing my best to contain the rage building in me.
“W-What?” Emily asked, still sobbing.
“With your tantrum? Has it not occurred to you two idiots to try talking, instead of screaming at each other? Has it not occurred to you two that each of you is hurting and needs the other’s support?”
“That’s not -” Terry said, but shut up as I glared at him.
“Of course it hasn’t. You’re both f@*~ing idiots.” I looked at each of them, waiting for either to try to argue with me. Neither dared. I turned to Terry. “We’ve already talked about your stupidity. You daughter is scared. More than anything, she needs you there to tell her everything will be okay, even if she knows you don’t have any clue whether it will be. Trust me, I’m a daughter. It’s necessary.”
Terry didn’t argue, he just looked defeated and hung his head.
“And you,” I said, turning to Emily. “You have several things you need explained to you. First of all, you’ve been forced to grow up quick, I get it. But you still seem to cling to the idea that your father should be perfect. And you have to understand that he’s just a man, with all the weakness that sometimes entails. Yeah, he tried to kill himself while he was stuck in your body. But as far as he was concerned, you were dead and he had no way to bring you back.
“You think that weak of him? Maybe. Let me tell you about my father. He’s the Runelord, one of the most powerful men alive. But before I was born, he was just an adventurer, unprepared for what he encountered. He once told me he very nearly walked away from it all, that the dangers he faced were too much for him to handle. But he had my mother at his side and she gave him the strength to go on. So yeah, your father took the path of a coward. But he was alone, with no one he thought he could count on and nothing he thought he could live for. He deserves your sympathy, not your scorn. To act otherwise is to act like a spoiled child. You’re old enough now that such behavior does not become you.
“And don’t think I’m done, with any of you. You trust ‘Uncle Coffin’? He’s a DAEMON. They’re EVIL made manifest. They want your soul. Is it possible this one is different than the rest? Maybe. Or more likely, he’s playing a long game, trying to get that which he values with a smile and a handshake. So take what he says with a grain of salt. They have nothing keeping them from lying to get what they want. For all we know, summoning your mother here buys her a reprieve from what she’s going through. Just like when we brought you back, when she’s here, she’s safe. Or maybe summoning her is causing problems, because the contrast between what she has here and what she experiences there is too much for her to bear. I don’t know. I don’t claim to know.
“But what I can tell you is that it doesn’t matter whether she’s turned into a demon or not. WE. WILL. SAVE. HER. Just as an angel can fall and become a demon, so too can a demon rise and become an angel. But you’re going to have to believe in me. You’re going to have to believe in Gregor. You’re going to have to believe in Burin. You’re going to have to believe in yourself, and your mother. And you even have to believe in your father. Because if you don’t…if you tell her what you’re threatening to say right now, out of spite? You could very well be the one who damns her forever. Is that what you want?”
Those last words hit her like a slap in the face. “I-but…” she began crying anew and ran away, bumping into Burin as she ran. “Sorry,” she said to him before running off into the forest.
“What was that about?” the dwarf asked.
“I said some things she needed to hear, though I don’t know that she’ll ever thank me for saying them.” I sighed. “Where have you been?”
“I was talking to Baba Yaga,” he said, handing me the matroshka doll.
“Right.” One headache at a time. “I guess someone should go after her.”
“I’ll go,” Burin said.
“I am not believing you have much choice,” Gregor said, pointing at the dwarf’s beard, which was dancing with sparks. “Girl has become very fast. Perhaps she has been training?”
“She probably teleported,” I pointed out.
He looked disappointed by that for a moment, then brightened up. “Training with magic is still training!” he declared triumphantly as he clapped Terry on the back. “There is hope for your daughter yet.”
“Yeah,” Terry said with a sigh as he looked at the ground. “I guess.”
Then Burin disappeared.