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Lilia Vanrouge, almighty fae general, was having a bad day. He had slaughtered countless humans and swam through bloodbaths, experienced creative torture unsuitable for the average imagination, but nothing had yet come close to the pain that came with raising a child. He believed it was one of those days of parenting when nothing went right and everything went wrong.
That morning, Lilia had left the house in nine year old Silver's care to go buy grocery after finding an almost empty fridge. ‘Silver, be a good boy and hang out the laundry in the sun to dry while I'm gone, would you?’ Silver nodded groggily, still half asleep from where he was standing to bid Lilia off.
Lilia set off on his way, humming a merry tune. Everything was fine as his basket gained more and more weight under the newly bought groceries and more strikes littered his checklist. Until, it seemed as though the entire town was out of mushrooms. Lilia scratched his head. This made making mushroom risotto out of the question. It pained him to imagine little Silver's disappointed face. That would not do. He promised his son mushroom risotto and he would make it. A little detour into the forest surely wouldn't take too long?
An hour and a snake bite later, Lilia ended up on the front porch of his cottage, sucking on his bitten thumb. He was dejected and frustrated beyond belief. Which ogre took every single mushroom in the vicinity?! Was it even possible for a forest to run out of edible fungus? Lilia swung open the front door, almost dropping his grocery haul in the sight that greeted him.
The entire animal kingdom had somehow summoned themselves into his living room and were currently playing cards.
I think I didn't get enough sleep, Lilia grumbled tiredly, pinching his cheeks. The animals did not dissolve, but they did scatter in a cacophony of screeches in Lilia’s presence. Silver was the only one left, looking timidly up at his father from his place on the carpet with a deck of cards splayed in his hands, his eyes innocent with the most adorable spheres of lilac. A pair of bunny ears poked out of his hair, where the furry creature was likely taking refuge in, and Lilia could easily recognise some more fur balls quivering behind his back. The sight would be humorous and downright adorable if only Lilia was not in such a sour mood. "I thought I told you not to bring your little animal friends over, Silver." Lilia said, forcibly keeping his voice calm. "And yet you brought the entire forest."
Silver looked down apologetically. "S-sorry papa, I wasn't meaning to. The rabbits came over and wanted to play a game and when I played a game with them they brought the others over and-"
"Its fine, forget it. Just clean up, okay?" Lilia cut him off tiredly as his eyes swept across the living room and saw the floor positively scattered with all of the playing cards the animals had left behind. His eyes landed on the full basket beside the sink. "And the laundry, Silver?"
Silver quickly stood up like a bolt of lightning. "Oh! Im sorry, I completely forgot! Ill do it right away." Noticing Lilia's foul mood, Silver grabbed the basket and sprinted out the door before Lilia could say anything. Shrugging off his coat and tiptoeing over the web of cards that Silver had left behind to gather dust and become their new carpet, Lilia precariously walked over to the kitchen and started assembling lunch.
By the time he was done cooking, the sun was already high in the sky. Whats taking Silver so long? Lilia set down his pot of questionable soup and set out of the house to look for him. He did not have to look very far, for the human was passed out, napping on the grass beside the clothing lines while snuggling into one of the blankets. One of the blankets he was supposed to set out to dry!
"Hey! Stop snogging that blanket you rascal, its wet!" Lilia snapped at the sleeping kid, tugging the material. He had to physically extract the sopping blanket from Silver's iron clutch. The sun was too toasty and warm for Silver to wake up, so Lilia ended up dragging him into the house after some unsuccessful shaking. Once Silver was settled snug on the couch, Lilia went back outside to set up the forgotten laundry. The sun was indeed too toasty, as Lilia's head was soon brewing up an ungodly migraine.
Back at the house, Lilia used up the last reserves of his concentration amidst the tidal waves of headache and painstakingly patched up some of Silver's clothes as the little boy- now finally awake- obediently finished his murky soup. The boy quickly excused himself to the bathroom. It was always a wonder to Lilia, exactly why Silver had the need to go to the bathroom directly after every meal. It was a peculiar thing indeed. Oh well, his headache didn't give him much room for further inspection. Once he was done, he finally stood up and stretched, his ancient bones creaking as loud as his staircase.
"Silver, Im going to taking a rest. Do not disturb me, okay?" He called out, to which he heard Silver's tiny voice responding back in agreement from up in his room. Lilia promptly entered his own room, swung the door shut and flopped onto his bed with the grace of a troll. Squeezing a pillow over his head, he desperately rolled around the mattress as though the movement would somehow extinguish the headache, trying to find a comfortable position. After an agonisingly long period of time, he finally drifted off to a sweaty and uncomfortable sleep.
A jarring crash from downstairs caused Lilia's heart to almost fall out of his mouth. He scrambled up hysterically, his brain barely catching up as he groped around for some sort of weapon. Arming himself with a hairbrush, he opened the door, frantically calling out Silver's name. With the swiftness of the assassin within him he sprang down the stairs, colliding groggily into furniture on the way which slapped him into sense.
"Ugh.." As Lilia massaged his injured forehead, he took in the state of the house. Once again, the most generous animal kingdom was having a tea party in his living room. There were squirrels, badgers, rabbits and hedgehogs, along with Silver's bird friend and its ten other friends, and a godforsaken bear cub resting on Lilia's favourite rocking chair.
That was it.
"Silver." Lilia glared, his red pupils contracting into slits. Suddenly, the person standing on the doorway was not the tired father of a little boy, but the fearsome general Vanrouge of three hundred years back. Silver was standing guiltily beside the stove, a large pot rolling on the floor in front of him with its content spilling onto the wooden floor. On his hand and beside the stove were mushrooms. The mushrooms Lilia had been searching for all day. Of course it was Silver's stupid animal friends that were hogging all of the forest's mushrooms just for their stupid little tea party! To think Lilia got bitten by a snake all because he was searching for the fungi when his own son had them all. What a joke, he thought bitterly.
"Papa, you're awake...?" Silver mumbled, shifting his foot awkwardly. Lilia snapped. "Yes, I'm awake. Im not sure how exactly you expect me to sleep through noise equivalent to a cannon explosion?" Silver winced, but Lilia was not having it. He was not going to let Silver have his way again with his annoying adorable boba eyes.
"I have had enough with you. I searched so hard for mushrooms the entire day, not finding a single one in sight! I come back home with a snake bitten finger to find laundry undone, our home stinking with animals and a mess on the floor. Thats okay, thats alright! The least you could do was clean up the mess after you, right? But no, you run away with the laundry, leaving the cards behind. But thats ALSO fine cause at least you could complete the laundry? Turns out I was putting my own expectations too high cause what do I find, if not for you dead asleep on the grass, and the laundry STILL undone! And now here you are, using the stove without adult supervision, animals back in despite me strictly forbidding you from letting them in, storming up a racket loud enough to wake up the dead. And just when my headache was receding!" Lilia spat out his words scathingly, his soft voice long evaporated with his patience.
Small tears were threatening to fall down Silver's face as he tried to explain himself. "I-im sorry I was just trying to-"
"No, shut up. I don't want to hear any apologies from you. You never listen, do you? Always running around with your animal friends and sleeping everywhere while I’m stuck here scraping their shit off the floor. You keep doing things I tell you NOT to, its like you enjoy playing with my temper. Sometimes I wonder why on earth I ever took you in!"
The words were blurted out before Lilia could swallow them back in. How Lilia wished he could grab the words mid-air and shove them back down his throat. He didn't mean what he said to begin with, but Silver's crestfallen expression twisted his heart in such a painful way Lilia genuinely thought he would die. Who needed daggers to kill anymore?
"W-why you took me in...?" Silver just stood there and gaped at Lilia, his pudgy hands still gripping the mushroom pathetically. His saucer-like eyes stared at the fae with such shock and so so much sadness it would be enough to wipe out the sun. Trying not to but failing miserably, his tiny mouth broke into a whimpering frown which used up half of his face as tears broke through the dam and rolled down his chubby cheeks.
All of Silver's animal friends had fled by now, leaving him alone to his fate.
"Wait wait, I'm sorry, no, I didn't mean to say that, ugh I-" Lilia stammered, massaging his forehead. As he stood there against the tiny boy with blobs of tears dripping down his flushed face, he desperately wished time could turn back. Never in his 700 years of life had he felt as helpless as he did now.
Silver blubbered incoherent words as a sob tore out of his throat. Before he could fully break down, his tiny feet pattered towards the front door and just like that, he was gone into the evening. Lilia just stood there at the base of the stairs, grappling with his own demons as the severity of his words dawned on him.
Just because Lilia was having a bad day, he had just lashed out at a nine year old kid. He had spewed out sizzling hot hateful words, spitting them out with the intent to hurt, to dig their claws deep into the child's skin, to scar him into learning a lesson. And amongst them he had explicitly said that he wondered why he took in his son. His own son. How could he ever say such a horrible thing?
Lilia was a bad father. Noticing his cookbook open on the kitchen table, he read the title of the page.
Mushroom risotto
The mushrooms in Silver's hands, the pot on the stove, the animal friends, they all made sense now. As Lilia tore out of the house and into the evening, he came to a conclusion. He was not a bad father. He was the worst father in the entire world.
As night descended upon the forest, Lilia's eyes adjusted to the darkness. Silver could not have gone far by now, he was certain. Silver's footprints were nonexistent as the boy had run off barefoot, and Lilia couldn't help but worry that his soft feet could get injured. It didn't matter how dark the night wished to be, as Lilia was a bat fae. It was in the darkness that his eyesight and hearing dominated the battlefield.
"Silver, where are you?!"
The freezing wind sliced past his skin as he ran, his eyes scanning for the slightest movement, the smallest reflection of moonlight on silver hair.
Where was he?!
Lilia's eyes stung. He should have found Silver by now. His son was probably cold and lost. What if Silver was cornered by some sort of predator? There were snakes around these parts after all. What if a child trafficker got their hands on him? What if Lilia never found him again? A tear escaped his eyes, and then another one. If the last thing Silver ever heard from Lilia was how he wished he never took the boy in, Lilia would never be able to live with himself. He would not let fate be so cruel to him. Lilia shook his head, quickening his pace.
He was well within the heart of the woods when Lilia's ears finally perked up with the sound of very soft snivelling. He halted in his tracks and redirected himself to the source of the crying. In front of him soon appeared what seemed to be a century old enormous weeping willow. The willow’s branches extended upon the clearing like arms embracing the land, with a curtain of vines falling from them like rainfall. It almost looked like the tree was protecting its little land from the harshness of the rest of the world. Lilia slowly parted its curtain of vines. The clearing inside the weeping willow was magical, with small speckles of moonlight sifting through the vines and landing on the dark forest floor like glittery freckles, illuminating parts of the tree with its generous light. In between two of the tree's thick coiling roots was curled up the little boy, his silver hair catching the moonshine every time wind blew. Silver was pouring his heart out in a place where he thought no one could find him. Someone was stabbing Lilia's heart again. He made his way towards the boy, sitting down beside him and gently placing his hand on the small of Silver's back, running circles between the child's collarbones.
"There you are. I was worried sick searching for you." Lilia said tenderly.
"N-no...go away!" Silver snuggled himself deeper into the ground. "I don't wanna go home!"
"Its late dear, we need to go before we freeze to death, okay?" Lilia responded, making no moves to leave his position. Silver finally sat up from his place on the ground after realising that the fae was not leaving, and Lilia brushed the boy's long sticky bangs away from his face.
Silvers face was wet with tear tracks and snot, his red-tinged eyes glossy and damp. Even his lips were red from all that crying. "Why aren't you going away already..?" Silver blubbered. "You don't even c-care about m-m-me..." His own accusation was too harsh on himself, as even uttering the words sent him over the edge again, whatever tears left on his eyes free falling without hesitation once more.
Lilia brought Silver to his chest, hugging his lithe frame like it would get snatched away by the wind.
"Who says I don't?"
Silver sobbed with his whole soul. "I n-never had a mama, I keep seeing rabbit with her mama and it makes me wonder how it feels to have one. But its always okay, cause I always have my papa instead. B-but now, my papa doesn't want me anymore either....w-will you also leave? Im sorry, Silver will be a better c-child I promise, please don't leave!"
Lilia wiped his own tears silently falling down his face as his heart was crushing itself into a million uneven pieces. "You silly, why will I ever leave you? You are my one and only precious son, Silver."
Silver furrowed his eyebrows. "But you said..."
Lilia’s eyes softened. This was the moment he would set everything right. Or, try to. "I did not say anything of the sort. What I meant is that sometimes, you do things that annoy me a little, which make me upset. But most of the times you are a wonderful son, and even when you make me mad, you are still the best son I could ever ask for and Im never going to leave you. Understand?"
Silver looked up to Lilia, his twilight eyes sparkling with surprise. He extended his pinky. "Really? Pinky promise?" Lilia mustered his biggest smile, intertwining his own pinky with Silver's, making sure to be careful not to graze the child's finger with his sharp charcoal nail. "Of course, pinky promise. Now come, lets go home?"
Silver nodded reluctantly, allowing himself to be hoisted up by Lilia. Once Silver was safely latched onto Lilia’s back- his legs locked around his father’s waist and his arms swung around his neck- Lilia started on the journey back the the cottage.
"Hey papa."
"Hmm?"
"Im sorry about today, I just wanted to make you mushroom risotto.You said you wanted it for dinner yesterday."
Lilia sighed. The child would be the death of him. Lilia had no preference for food except tomato juice, hell he could even eat rats, but the reason he wanted mushroom risotto at all was because Silver loved it. Lilia burst into a giggle.
"Why are you laughing?" Silver asked with a pout. Lilia smiled, "Its nothing. I love that you thought of me Silver, but you are not old enough to cook alone yet, even with the supervision of your animal friends, okay? We can go home and make mushroom risotto together tonight, thanks to your friends who collected so many mushrooms for us."
By the time Lilia reached their cottage, Silver was sound asleep. His head was drooping onto his father's shoulder, cheeks squished against Lilia, silky hair falling onto his face and shielding him from the light.
Placing him on the bed, Lilia placed a kiss on Silver’s forehead. He could still feel the shadows of the tears that had fallen down his own face from the day’s stress and panic, now long evaporated. Raising children could be so exhausting. But at the end of the day, seeing his baby's sleeping face made every second worth it.