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“I need you to be something that blends in well, that doesn’t catch a lot of attention.”
He should have specified more clearly. Yes, something that blends in well, but not something that will tear his heart out on the spot. As he watches Tyranny change into a human girl, all he sees is his own little girl. The exact pigtails with the yellow bows she always wanted him to do, preferring his hair work to her mother’s. The little nose he booped to make her laugh when she was crying. The freckles covering her rosy cheeks, forming constellations like the stars in the sky. The warm light in her big brown eyes when she excitedly greeted him at the door when he came home every night. The sweet, sweet smile she’d gift him that made her look so much like Marienna. The flowy yellow dress she loved so much that she wore it day and night when she first got it, never missing a chance to twirl and show off the dress in front of her father.
Is he still a father?
He can still hear the screams echoing in his mind, can still feel the drop in temperature as he entered the house, a chill burrowing itself in his bones. He never quite managed to warm up again after that night, not even when he drowns himself in booze.
The pale face of the sorcerer still haunts his dreams and his failure to find and end him his every waking moment.
Suffering and torture really must be in Tyranny’s blood. There’s no other explanation as to why she would choose this form, a sweet little girl that looks so awfully similar to his own baby girl they could be sisters. She’s wearing the same flowy yellow dress.
“Like this?” Tyranny asks, smiling sweetly, unaware of the agony she’s just caused.
She twirls once and looks at him expectantly.
Kattigan clears his throat and blinks the burning and the horrors behind his eyes away.
“Yeah. That’s nice. Let's go.”