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Alastor has issues.
Quite a lot, in fact. One of them… just so happens to surpass all other issues.
That being his daughter. And before you say anything about him being aroace and the sorts, she is adopted. Quite unwillingly so.
When he was alive, this little girl was dropped on his front porch. And because societal expectations related to the church and God and all above existed…
He took the girl in.
He never regretted it. But no way in all unholy was he going to let her be the ideal housewife. He saw a very intelligent girl, and that brain was going to be used.
Which meant he never married her off. And BOY did he pray she never got married to some random grunt when he died.
When she came to hell, he found out she wasn’t married off.
Some boy, one he knew very well and knew could not support his daughter in a million years, had tried to marry her to him against her will.
She had a simple solution.
A sneaky murder. Wonderful girl. Just like her dad.
She was never found out. But when the people found out that she would not be married, they drowned her.
The rage he felt could fuel a volcano.
Alastor got them a home (instead of the striding around he usually did all the time) to house her and himself when she forced him to for once be home.
She was a pretty little thing. So smart. But her design…
Alastor had seen better.
He had not seen cuter.
She was a deer demon, just like him.
But. She had rounder eyes and nose, soft fur and…
The spots.
Like a fawn. Spots all up and down her back and such a white stomach. The little bleats too…
So precious.
But he knew that if he got overprotective, she would get mad at him.
And he could not have Ann Hartfelt be just Ann.
Alastor was a father.
He was proud to be.
But Ann… that girl was very reckless.
Inventing left and right, stealing from VoxTek (good girl) and making her own new stuff that was so much better than Vox’s… scraps. Yes. Scraps was the polite version.
Alastor was just tired of hearing explosions and half expecting that it was her. He’d jolt every time. Often, it was just Cherri Bomb (when he was at the hotel, that is). When he was not, he knew it was her.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t get himself to be mad at her. He loved her dearly. But it hurt him every time she got hurt and he had to stitch her up.
Eventually, his worry managed to get through to her, and she started to be a bit more careful.
Things can get through to a reckless genius.
Alastor was happy.
After a long and tiresome day, he could come back to the forest he had made his own. He had sold the old house (Or rather given it to Husk as a reward for the cat’s hard work) since neither he nor Ann used it much.
When Ann was done exploding things all over hell and getting breakthroughs far greater than the snake’s, she sought to the forest.
Often earlier than Alastor.
Which meant that he could go through the forest without a care in the world, find the specific moss he knew she would be in- and look.
She would be laying like a little fawn.
Sometimes muttering equations. Sometimes breathing quieter than the wind. Always curled up. The spots were hard to see. Maybe it was just him seeing like a deer, but she was well hidden.
And he enjoyed laying himself around her.
Alastor was terrified.
Vox had shot the city with the heavenly beam thing, sure, but it was not the city he was worried about.
Vox had shot the forest.
There was nothing left.
And knowing Ann… she would be there at this point of time.
“Alastor?!” Charlie yelled out.
He must be looking like a fool. Ears pinned down, smile gone.
He couldn’t care less.
“Hecks’ got him out of sorts?” Zeezi questioned.
He couldn’t answer. He searched through the rubble. Surely there would be blood, bone, skin, any tiny trace that his girl was there, he had to know!
Worried voices called out for him.
He could answer later when he wasn’t breathing this fast. When the city wasn’t cracking into bits. When there weren’t voices calling out to him and confusing him even more. When there wasn’t a tiny whirring annoying him- wait, whirring?
He looked up.
And laughed.
“OH, YOU CLEVER, CLEVER GIRL!” he yelled out.
His daughter had gotten away in time. The hoverboard she had worked on all month?
She distributed the weight. It looked like a stingray. She laid on her stomach while steering it like an overgrown controller. The soft whirring was in the “fins”, the motors providing stability as she flew.
The moment she landed, she jumped up and into her arms.
Alastor was happy.