Chapter Text
Sophie wasn't entirely sure why she had been called into Forkle's office, but the second he said "The Black Swan has a new mission for you," she decided she didn't care about a thing he had to say. Tiergan was there too, she dimly registered. Maybe that was relevant to the mission. She wasn’t really paying attention. She was so, so tired of this.
“Why should I help you if you never tell me anything?” Sophie snapped. If the Black Swan wouldn’t trust her to know anything, she wouldn’t just do whatever they wanted. It was as simple as that. She was so tired of you’re too young to know, of classified information, of we’ll tell you later and "later" never arriving.
Forkle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“I want to know who my father is,” she said, surprised at how easily the words came.
Tiergan and Forkle exchanged a look that Sophie couldn’t decipher. She was sure they were having a telepathic conversation, and she briefly considered listening in on it, but that would destroy the miniscule chance that Forkle might tell her anything ever again. So, she waited, until Tiergan nodded at Forkle and turned to her. “I am,” he said. Quietly, as though that would make the blow any softer.
Sophie gaped, turning to Forkle because looking at Tiergan right now was… no. It was too much. Her brain wrapped around this information again and again, through years of memories and interactions and whatever clues Forkle had given about her parents. “You said it would be world shattering,” Sophie said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’s not– well, it’s not like he’s a councilor. It won’t matter to the world that he’s…” She couldn’t make herself say my father.
“Tiergan being your father isn’t world shattering in the way that Oralie being your mother is, but I knew it may shatter you. And as the Moonlark, the fate of the world rests on your shoulders. You know that.”
That didn’t… Sophie couldn’t even think about that, right now. The fate of the world was too much. She couldn’t think about that, not on top of the knowledge that Tiergan, who she had relied on, fucking trusted, had been lying to her as long as she’d known him.
“So, what, you were planning to never tell me?” she managed, eventually. Asking questions was easier than doing anything to express how she felt. She felt… she didn’t know. She wanted to scream, wanted to go on pretending nothing happened, wanted to make Tiergan hurt, wanted to forgive him, wanted to hate him, she wanted .
She never wanted any of this.
“I knew I would have to, eventually. I just… delayed it for as long as I could. That was wrong of me, but I…”
“Because you didn’t want to deal with me being mad at you?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt you, Sophie.” Tiergan swallowed, his expression pained, and that made Sophie want to punch him, because how dare he be in pain right now, after all he’d done to her? “As much as you may doubt it right now, I do care for you.”
“You’ve done a shit job of showing it.”
“I know,” Tiergan whispered.
“Or– I guess you did do a good job of showing it, because you really did act like you cared about me, and you made me trust you and then– and then I find out you’ve been lying to me for fucking years?” Her voice rose, and oh, that was the emotion, threatening to break through like a storm, and she wanted it to stop, wanted to stop feeling so damn much, but the storm kept rising and rising and rising.
“I’m so sorry, Sophie.”
“I don’t fucking care,” she screamed, and Forkle said something about giving them space before he slipped out. Tiergan looked like he wanted to follow, and Sophie half expected him to, because apparently he was a fucking coward and he couldn’t face what he’d done to her, but he stayed. “I don’t want– I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to have not betrayed my trust, and it’s a little fucking late for that, so I just– I don’t want to be around you right now.” The fire had drained out of her by the end, and she fought back tears, but she clenched her jaw so they wouldn’t spill. He didn’t deserve her tears.
He nodded and said he understood, and he let her leave. She didn’t know where she was going, really, just away from him. She wasn’t sure she could stand to be near him a second longer. She wasn’t sure she could stand to be near him ever again.
But even that wasn’t completely true, because there was a very loud part of her wanted nothing to change between them. She wanted to show up to her Telepathy session early the next day and smile and have a light, easy conversation with Tiergan. She wanted him to still be the mentor she could rely on to help her through whatever she needed. How was she supposed to rely on him now, after this betrayal?
How was she supposed to forget everything else he had done for her, every time he’d been there when she needed him, every time he’d supported her?
How was she supposed to reconcile Tiergan, her mentor, with Tiergan, her fucking biological father who had neglected to be honest about this in all the time he’d known her? How could they both exist?
How could she love him and trust him and hate him and feel betrayed by him all at once?
She wanted to understand how any of this could be happening, wanted this to stop happening, wanted to understand how she felt, wanted to stop feeling, she wanted.
She wanted.
She wanted the idiot who had dreamed up Project Moonlark to have never done such a thing.