Archive of Our Own

If there was one thing Cassina knew, it was that she's a burden.

Children were expensive. She was a child. Not much sense trying to announce herself as the exception, when even a six year old could recognize the importance of money in their society. Her family had left her behind because they didn't have enough of it. She'd been left in the slums because her life was too heavy a burden to bear.

It's not all bad, now that she's on her own. Without anyone looking after her, the feelings of being a burden fizzle out, replaced by the rush of surviving surrounded by perpetually inebriated addicts and the creepy older folks who lingered just beyond the mouths of the alleyways. It's almost like a game, weaving between watchful eyes, avoiding the stares and judgement of the normal civilians who look at her as though she were a pile of vomit left behind by a drunkard. She thinks she might smell the part, with her unwashed body and dirt-stained clothing.

They were all too cushy, in her humble opinion. Always worried about their next bath, spritzing themselves with perfume and buying expensive soaps and rags. What's the point of having an expensive rag, if it's just going to get dirty? The mysteries of the privileged. She'd never understand.

Unfortunately, Cassina had to admit the smell was beginning to produce a headache in her too. After months of crawling around in her own filth, she was overdue for a bath.

She didn't enjoy the trek to the river; it took all day, which meant no time to scrounge for food scraps or barter with the other homeless kids for their leftovers. Another day going hungry. She's no stranger to the pangs of hunger (starvation, realistically), but at least if she's in town she could hide around the corners of restaurants, smell the food and pretend it was hers. Sometimes, on her luckiest days, the chefs would spot her bony frame and take pity on her, offering some end-of-day leftovers. She had her best sleep on those nights.

But the river would mean no begging. She'd not even bothered to try and snag a bite of bread from the boy she'd passed out next to last night. The grime was getting to her, and while she didn't mind the feeling of it under her feet and coating her hands as she ran about the forest, she didn't like it in her hair. It weighed her head down, made her feel weaker than she already was. Reminded her of the weight of being a burden.

Perhaps, instead of a burden to her parents, she was now a burden to herself. Funny how that works.

There was a caravan gathered some ways down the shore, but she figured if she stayed far enough away they wouldn't bother her.

She should've known better. Adults loved to pry into things that didn't concern them.

In a rare blessing, she's not removed her clothes yet, standing with feet in the freezing water, watching the lapping waves slowly eat away at the dirt on her skin. She sang a soft tune to herself, one she didn't know the name of, nor the full version, only heard in passing. The sound of footfalls on the dirt caught her attention, and she peered back over her shoulder and froze.

A big man. He wasn't dirty like most of the men she avoided in the alleys, but he was as big as most of them. His face wasn't hard-set with a frown lined by wrinkles either. Nor did he have the bald patches she associated with the creepy stares. He was just… a man. A man with long black hair, just like hers.

Brief fear must've shown in her form, because the man crouched with slow, steady movements, face harbouring a soft smile. He made no move to get closer, and for that she was grateful. Creepy or not, she didn't like strange adults getting close.

“That song,” he said, “do you know its name?”

“No.” She wished she did. She wished she knew more songs, too. She liked to sing, soothed by the vibrations of her voice inside her own chest when she was all alone.

The man nodded. “It’s a good one, an old folk tune. Where'd you learn it?”

She shrugged. “Heard it somewhere. I never heard the full thing.”

“Would you like me to play it for you?”

Whatever tactic he thought he could employ to make her indentured to him wasn't going to work. She's not stupid, nor unobservant. She's six years old, living alone. You didn't live to six years old on the streets without being smart.

“No, thank you, that's okay.” She sank to her knees, dipping a hand into the river. “I need to wash up.”

She didn't turn to see his reaction. She didn't want to. She didn't care to know his pity, or his shame, or his anger at the dismissal from a child.

The opening words to the song came from a baritone voice. A verse before the one she’d come to think of as the beginning of the song. Hopeful words about life and love. The man sang, even as Cassina kept her back to him, scrubbing the dirt from under her nails, and the sting in her eyes felt like the dirt from beneath them was migrating to her eye sockets.

By the end of it, she stood up, and padded small steps over to the man.

“I think I have a spare towel, if you'd like it.”

Her lip trembled, and she gave a meagre nod.

Dagda was a good person. A kind man, the type you heard about in fairytales and poems the older kids talked about, the ones she wished she could read. Wrapped in a blanket and plopped next to him at the open campfire all night, Cassina waited to wake up. The dream had to end eventually.

When the sunrise acted as her alarm clock the next day, there's a plush weight beneath her head. She rolled over as gracefully as a fat, old cat, lifting her head briefly to burrow her face in the softness of whatever makeshift pillow she'd woken up on top of.

The pillow grunted. Fisting her hands into the fabric beneath her face, she looked up at the black curls of her impromptu caretaker from the night before. She feels like her heart should freeze, but it keeps beating.

She should be afraid of him, start considering her options for a quick escape route. Run away. Get far, far away from this man, before he stopped being friendly. Before he demanded payment for his kindness. All of the adults were the same, after all. Children were a burden, and she was not the exception. Food wasn't free. If she knew two things, that would be the second.

Perhaps it's the weight of the blanket on her shoulders, or the remnants of a warm dinner around the fire, or the way a hand, half-conscious, blindly reaches for her scalp to run soothing fingers through it. Even in sleep, even after headbutting him for no good reason, he's still acting a saint. Briefly, Cassina remembered the devotion some of the other homeless held for their fake gods.

Briefly, Cassina wondered if she'd died and entered the afterlife.

If only. She didn't particularly want to die, but it certainly would've been easier than trying to live off of mold-riddled leftovers. The trees she'd miss the most, she mused. They were quite fun to climb. If she ever lived in a real house, she'd like a big, gnarled oak in the backyard.

She didn't really want to die. She didn't really want to run away, either. With the hand on her head coming to a sluggish halt, movements dragged off by slumber, everything seemed alright. For now, everything was alright.

It didn't take a genius to notice they were poor. Not just Dagda, but the whole caravan. Every member of their little ensemble was struggling to get by, but they had enough food and water and clothes for everyone, and they shared what little pleasantries they owned between them. A joint effort for survival, not dissimilar to her life on the streets. Not a glamourous upgrade, but here people actually seemed to care about the fate of those around them.

And she had Dagda looking out for her. Not even the other children had offered to watch her back in the slums.

Despite their lack of resources, Dagda didn't complain about offering Cassina food, wordlessly filling her bowl with bigger portions than necessary. The first few days she could barely stomach it all, not used to digesting so much after years of near-starvation. But she'd rather risk throwing up than seeming ungrateful or wasting food, so she ate everything offered to her.

Cassina wasn't used to eating, but more concerningly, she wasn't used to being unable to count all her ribs on her torso. She had to stretch her arms over her head to do it now, craning her head forwards to see the sharp lines her ribs cut into her skin. Her shoulders and elbows and knees were still knobby, the tendons on her hands more visible than all the other children's, but her stomach didn't appear properly concave anymore. It was weird, very weird. She wasn't sure she liked it.

On the other hand, Dagda seemed quite pleased about her gaining weight. He never said those words exactly, but the emphasis in his voice when spoke about her ‘needing to eat properly to grow strong’ served as enough of an explanation.

Eventually, she started to refuse some meals. She spun a tale about her lack of appetite in the mornings, not fond of breakfast. Dagda made a valiant effort to get Cassina to eat more snacks, bigger portions later in the day, but she refused. She had to give credit to Dagda; the man was almost as stubborn as Cassina, but not quite stubborn enough. She won this battle, and eventually he stopped offering.

And somehow, despite her eating less than before, her ribs continued to disappear day by day. A slow but painfully noticeable process, one she couldn't stop thinking about every time she saw her bare torso. Her legs were gaining a slight curvature they'd not had before, her arms too. When she bent forward far enough, a roll of fat creased in the centre of her tummy, and that, too, was weird.

How on earth Dagda was managing to rectify her malnutrition baffled her. Was he sneaking things into her meals behind her back? Or was she just so thin, even the small portions she ate every day were enough for her body to store fat again?

One day, while chewing on a piece of pink taffy Dagda had tossed at her without a comment, Cassina pulled the candy taut held between her teeth and clenched fingers, it snapped in time with her dawning betrayal.

Dagda was abusing her sweet tooth. Not just him, but the whole caravan. Every single person in the whole caravan had been handing her little sweets, tiny treats she thought nothing about. Assuming them too small to be worth anything significant, she'd take the offered candies free of guilt and nibble at them throughout her day. He must've put them all up to it, the bastard.

The next day, she accepted a lollipop from an older teenager in their group, and realized she'd been fighting a losing battle all along. Dagda had won; she'd developed a taste for candy, and now she couldn't give it up.

Well, maybe a few candies wouldn't hurt.

On their way into the next town, Dagda handed over a thread-worn tunic and baggy pants. Boys clothes. Hand-me-downs from the other caravan members, she's sure of it. They didn't have money for new clothes.

She didn't ask for the why. She didn't need to, not when the men in the slums they'd just passed by used their lecherous eyes to rove over her tiny body. She's not stupid, nor unobservant. And though she's sure they both knew the clothes wouldn't extinguish the risk, it gave Dagda an excuse to keep Cassina extra close, a watchful eye always one her, deterring any ill-intentioned fools from straying too close.

She'd heard a story from another girl, only a few years her senior, in a town they stayed in briefly, of the older men who’d preyed on her. She wished she could forget the images her words conjured up. Later on, she'd hear of more horrors hidden behind dumpsters and closed doors, from both girls and boys, never believed by the adults, never offered help, and for a while she'd considered herself another victim waiting to claim the title. Dagda had scooped her up before it ever happened, but the concerns something horrid was waiting to creep up on her still persisted on some dark nights.

So she donned the boy's clothes and tied up her hair in a ponytail the same low height as Dagda, and when she finished she struck what she presumed to be a cool, masculine pose. Her guardian laughed, and she felt overcome with glee. She liked hearing it. She liked knowing she brought him even a sliver of joy to offset the burden of her existence.

“If I were a real boy, what would you name me?”

Dagda let his head tilt inquisitively, pondering an answer. For some reason, she hoped he was thinking real hard about it.

(Sometimes, she wondered if her parents put effort into naming her, or if Cassina was just another thing to toss alongside the actual child.)

“Custas,” he said, reaching out to brush a stray hair on her head back into place.

From that day forward, Cassina was gone, and only Custas remained.

Long past daylights rest, with the stars blinking in the vast night, Custas laid herself next to Dagda on their pile of blankets they used as bedding. She buried her head in his shoulder.

“Cassina?”

“Custas.” She's growing to hate that name, the one her parents gave her. They'd abandoned her on the streets with nothing in her possession—what right did they have to decide on her name?

“Custas,” Dagda said, amending himself. “Are you alright?”

“What if I was a boy always?”

Silence. Custas wondered if this would be the point of no return, if Dagda would finally recognize the broken heap of a thing in his grasp claiming to be a child, saddling itself to him and draining his resources like a leech. The cost not worth the grimy outcome.

A burden. Custas or Cassina, it didn't matter; they were not the exception.

“Is that what you want?”

Was it? A strange sense of pride followed throughout the day as people referred to Custas as a boy. Dagda's son. It felt good. It felt right.

“I think so.”

Dagda hummed, wrapping both arms around Custas and pulling him closer to him, tucking his head under his chin.

Safe. Right here was safe. Guilty as he felt watching the man struggle to pay for both of their survivals, he didn't think he could give up the comfort of a warm embrace now he knew it. He'd go hungry each night in a flash if it meant staying by Dagda's side.

“My son, then.” Dagda's chest rumbled with his voice, seeping into Custas' skin.

Hands grabbing fistfuls of the front of his tunic, Custas began to sob.

Dagda did the courtesy of telling the caravan on his behalf.

No one questioned it, beyond a few odd looks. They all had their own problems to deal with, too many to concern themselves with Dagda's weird little girl turning into a weird little boy.

For that, Custas was grateful. He could lay Cassina to rest with no protest, and let Custas bloom from the fertilizer of her corpse.

At his first festival with the caravan, Custas learned a hard lesson.

He's staring at a stand full of plush toys, marvelling at their button features and embroidered paws. Plushies weren't something he'd ever paid much mind to, but now they're in front of him, nothing else seemed very interesting at all. Not the parade, not the music, not the dancing.

He strayed a little further from Dagda's side, trying to catch a better look at the fluffy, black bird plush resting at the edge of the table. A profoundly rotund crow with two yellow beads for eyes. Staring at him, unblinking, as though tempting him to come over and run a hand along its silken feathers.

“Those are cute,” Dagda said.

If the world dropped out from under his feet, Custas would allow it to drag him under. Dagda wasn't supposed to notice his staring. He wasn't supposed to notice Custas' interest.

He couldn't see the prices from here, but any amount was too much. They were too well-made, too enticing. Non-necessities. Custas didn't want one. They needed to save their money for other, more important things.

The little stuffed crow leered at him, as Dagda shuffled over. Custas desperately wanted to plant his feet to the spot, to let go of Dagda's hand and cross his arms like a petulant child, but his fear of getting lost in the crowd outweighed the stubbornness, and he trundled along beside him.

Dagda had a short conversation with the elderly woman stationed behind the counter, but Custas wasn't listening, shuffling over to peer at the little crow again. He raised a hand to poke its beak, but retracted it quickly. He didn't want Dagda to see.

“Do you like that one?”

Custas stiffened. He shrugged, in part not wanting to lie, but not willing to deny his interest. Sure, he liked the bird, but there were lots of things in life Custas liked and couldn't have. If there were three things he knew, the third would be this: life is unfair. Custas didn't get to have things, and that's fine. He liked the crow, and he couldn't have it, and that was fine. No different from the way it's always been.

“It's too much,” he muttered.

“You don't ask for much, Custas. Let me buy you something.”

He never asked because he didn't need anything. He grew up with the shirt on his back. He hadn't even owned a pair of shoes as a kid, feet covered in blisters and calluses. Dagda had given him a balm for them after they first met, when he realized how badly the skin was peeling, how awkwardly Custas walked on his burning soles.

Dagda gave him so much. Too much. He didn't need any of it. He didn't need the food, the clothes, the balm, the stupid plush toy, the gentle embraces. He'd survive without them. He'd done it before.

But Custas was a terrible, selfish creature, and he didn't want to give it all up, even when he knew they were struggling. He wanted to feel cared for. Maybe not loved, maybe not not a burden, but a lighter one. Not the exception, but maybe a burden worth keeping.

No protests were given. He simply nodded, feeling his eyes sting with unshed tears. The plush toy was handed to him, its fur soft between his fingers, and Custas cradled it close to his chest and buried his head against Dagda’s legs to hide his sniffling. When a hand combed through his hair, he only cried harder, a hand twisting into the fabric of his cloak.

He'd wasted his money on him, money they didn't have to spare. It was Custas' fault for showing any interest in the stupid toy. He had a half a mind to throw it out, throw a tantrum that somehow proved to Dagda he wasn't worth spending money on. But the bird felt soft beneath his fingers, and the colours of its eyes reminded him of the golden bands on Dagda's clothes. Throwing it away would be no better than tossing Dagda's hard-earned money away.

Custas kept the crow, took excellent care of it, as best as a poor boy who slept most of his days on the open road was capable of.

And from that day onwards, Custas took even greater care not to show interest in any other non-necessities, to ensure Dagda didn't waste his money on him again.

Three weeks later, under the cover of darkness, Custas ran away.

Not very far, mind you. He'd not a clue of the time when he clambered out of bed, untangling himself from his place at Dagda’s side, not really thinking through the motions as he slipped on his shoes and began meandering off into the moonlit moors. Over the patches of dandelions in the field around their camp, he crept into the edge of the evergreen forest, stepping over shed pine-cones as he went. He picked a spot between two bushes to camp out, nestled at the foot of a trunk so wide he didn't think his arms could wrap around half of it. Maybe not even a third.

The outline of their caravan remained faintly visible from his hiding place, undisturbed in the night. No lights flickered on; nobody noticed him leave. Nobody knew he was gone. Exactly as he'd intended, a perfect outcome.

Alone in the woods, Custas slumped to his feet, back pressed to the ancient, too-wide-to-hug tree. Birds chirped at him overhead, squirrels chittered and scratched about. With the corrugated bark digging into his spine, he weeped.

Guilt had been boiling inside him. Ever since the day Dagda bought him that stupid crow plush, the internal mush of his torso had been deteriorating into a sickly green, a vat of poison caged within his ribs. All he could think about, each time they ate, was how much money his meals were worth. He looked at the quilts, the hole-free and unstained clothing, the bars of ivory soap, and the stupid, stupid crow plush, and all he envisioned were the price tags. How much money Dagda must spend on him every day. How much less he’d have to spend, if Custas weren’t around.

He's a burden, but he must be one worth having if he’s kept him around all this time, right? But Dagda hadn't been the one to say those words. It was all born from wishful thinking on Custas' part.

If Dagda truly cared, he’d awaken and become worried at his absence rather than relieved. That’s why Custas left. And though a part of the acidic burn in his chest hissed of guilt at making his caregiver panic over his disappearance, the need to confirm the care part of his title growled louder.

Just once in his life, he wanted someone to worry about him. Not the quiet, concerned looks Dagda passed him when he said something he realized, post-speech, was very sad. No, he longed for confirmation that Dagda cared when he was gone, that the care persisted even when he's absent to witness it.

And if he didn't care, well. Maybe it would make running away for real a little easier. He could return to his old life knowing Dagda would be better off without him, both his presence and the cost of it not sorely missed.

It only took a few hours for Dagda to wake, and the shouting started almost immediately. The pained hollers carried over the hills into the trees, and as it reached Custas' ears so too did the guilt.

There's a bittersweet comfort that came from hearing the worried shouting of Dagda in the distance. Custas needed to hear it, the fear colouring his tone, the frantic calls as he searched for his lost boy. He knew he shouldn't be hiding, he knew Dagda didn't deserve the fright he's causing, but he needed to hear it. He needed to confirm that he cared.

An hour later, Custas emerged from the brush with tear tracks staining his cheeks, shamefully dragging his feet through the grass. Dagda spotted him, ran over and picked him up in his arms, held tighter than was comfortable for either of them, all the while whispering words of concern, promises of love. No yelling at him, or blaming him as he deserved.

Maybe he shouldn't have come back.

Dagda asked, over and over and over, again and again, if Custas wanted to learn to play the lute. He didn't, and that wasn't a lie born of guilt or believing himself unworthy. Listening to Dagda play served as one of his favourite pastimes—he might even call it a hobby, how often he asked for it—but no interest in playing lived in his heart. He liked to sing along to the songs, try to harmonize his high-pitch with Dagda's lower register. Melding their voices together in harmony, he could almost pretend they sounded alike; the shared tones in the voices of two relatives.

(Almost. He hated that word, how sad it felt to use it. Sometimes Custas was grateful he couldn't read so he couldn't learn more similar, sad and mundane words.)

He's been thinking about that title a lot these days, the term father. Custas didn't remember his own, not his face or his name, not even his personality. His mother was much the same. The two existed as facts, unknown truths of his past. Essentials in his existence, and nothing more.

Dagda called Custas his son often. It's like he couldn't stop announcing it to anyone they passed, stranger, acquaintance, or caravan member who knew damn well Custas hadn't even joined their entourage as anyone's son. He said it to Custas too, straight to his face, the word piercing straight into his chest and leaving a hollow, yearning feeling in its wake.

Perhaps it was an unvoiced invitation for him to refer to the man as his father. Deep down, hidden beneath brittle layers of fear and anxiety, a small part of him had already accepted him into the role. When that happened was hard to say. Maybe it occurred last night, or maybe it was the very first day they met, when Dagda wrapped a towel around his dripping frame and wiped the lines of snot and tears from his face with his bare hands.

But Custas couldn't bring himself to say it out loud. The lie he'd chosen to believe for now stated Dagda was more than a father, a greater being than any father in the world, and no silly title like dad or papa could describe him and his importance.

The moment he accepted Dagda as his father, the moment he acknowledged he had a family of his own, he'd be forced to face the reality of his own family leaving him behind. The chance that one day Dagda might leave him behind, too. Because try as he might, Custas cannot forget the facts of his life, and while Dagda may think of him as his son, his first father taught him his first lesson, the fact of his existence as a burden on others.

So it's Dagda. Dagda, who called Custas his son, and Custas, who only saw Dagda.

If the man was ever upset by this, he never showed it. And even when Custas called the man who fed and clothed and sheltered him by only his name, Dagda still referred to him as his own son.

Winters brought poor weather and poorer conditions for business. People didn't want to trek out through the biting cold to watch a travelling minstrel show. Most people would find this reasonable, but Custas couldn't help the bitter tang seeping into his blood.

How nice it must be, to sustain the ignorant, privileged worldview that those with money lived. Some people didn't get a choice about staying out in the cold. Some kids froze to death on the street while bystanders merely watched, gawking at the black and blue fingers of their frostbitten corpses, and by the next morning the bodies would disappear. No names ever appeared in the papers. No obituaries added to the local cemeteries. Too much of a burden to receive a proper burial. Another kid close in age to himself, lost to what rich people dictated as unsavoury history. Poor souls deemed unworthy of remembrance.

By now, he might've been inside another unmarked grave, body buried somewhere deep in the woods. In hope of being forgotten, left undiscovered by the masses, until he decomposed into the earth and everyone could forget he'd ever lived and breathed at all. One less dirty, nasty child polluting their pristine streets.

If it weren't for Dagda, Custas was certain he'd be rotting by now. The death of Cassina not a metaphor, but a reality.

When the morning dew on the grass began to freeze in the coldest, early hours—a sign of imminent snowfall within the week—Dagda sewed him a pair of mittens, constructed with pine-green fabric that looked suspiciously like one of their old sheets, and lined with thick, soft bundles of sheep's wool. He didn't know where he got the wool. He got the sense Dagda hadn't wanted him to know, so he didn't ask, despite his curiosity. He wore the mittens all day and all night, refusing to take them off come bed time.

He tried his hardest not to think about the purple-dyed fingers of the kids stuck in subzero nights. Dying in the cold, alone and afraid. He tried not to think about how much easier Dagda's life would be, if he stopped being afraid, and allowed his body to succumb to the elements.

As Custas grew older, so did the awareness of his growing needs and the strain on their budget they brought on.

Long ago, mere days after they'd first met, when it became clear to him he'd remain a permanent resident of the caravan, a constant fixture at Dagda's side, he'd tried to convince Dagda to let him work with him in the minstrel. Dagda had refused back then, insisting Custas too young to work. Determined to prove his usefulness, Custas continued to ask, resorting to begging and crying for Dagda to let him pull his weight, help him earn money to repay him. But he insisted children shouldn't worry about money.

What a joke. Custas had been worrying about money since before they met, Dagda had to know that. He was painfully aware of the cost of everything. Even when Custas didn't end up accompanying him for the shopping trips, he knew exactly how much Dagda spent on him.

He only stopped after four months of tears that went ignored, and he finally conceded that maybe a seven year old shouldn't be performing for money, at least. It seemed foolish, considering there were kids far younger than him begging on the streets; he'd spoken to many directly. But Dagda proved Custas wrong again and again about who the more stubborn of the two was, and Custas stayed a member of the audience during the shows.

A few years have passed since then. Custas was almost eleven (he thinks, at least). He's taller now, stronger, with lean muscles wrapping his limbs, his ribs no longer stark indents on his torso, merely faint etchings, only popping out if he fully expanded his chest or stretched in certain ways. There's a healthy warmth to his skin, no longer sporting the dull, ashen tone that used to dilute his melanin. Hair undisturbed by mats and tangles, it shined under the midday sun from natural oils instead of grime. Easy to run a hand through, to twirl soft strands around his fingers.

Custas was, as strange as it felt, healthy. He was eleven years old, and he was alive, and he was healthy.

All because of Dagda.

He'd done so much for him, taken way too many odd jobs in the middle of the night to keep him fed and comfortable. Sneaking out after he thought Custas was asleep, but the boy knew. He also knew he wasn't supposed to know how hard Dagda worked for him, but how could he not, when he couldn't sleep with the space next to him empty and cold? He still pretended not to know, for both of their sakes.

He needed to pay Dagda back as soon as possible. He'd find a way to convince him to join the other performers. To finally pull his own weight among the caravan members.

Custas hatched a plan. He'd always loved to sing, memorizing the songs Dagda played for him on his lute. He'd learned to dance with the other children, memorizing the motions and patterns, familiarizing himself with the rules behind fluid spins and intricate footwork. When he told them he wanted to learn a routine and perform it for the caravan, they appeared overjoyed, and quickly got to work choreographing.

For weeks and weeks, he threw himself into the world of a performer, never speaking a word of it to Dagda. As he found joy in the art form, he prayed Dagda would see his devotion, his dedication, and realize he could be useful to him for once.

Sweat dampened his forehead, formed beads on his torso and dripped in rivulets down his underarms, down the small of his back. Custas danced with vigour, alongside the two girls who'd been teaching him, twirling and twisting and bending and leaping across the ground. The flowy sleeves of his borrowed dance clothes billowed around him, catching air the way a bird's feathers would. He let the melody the flautist played guide him, matching his steps to the notes of the song, going through motions so familiar they came as easy as breathing.

At the end, the two girls sandwiched him on either side, sweaty hands clasped together, and they gave their stage bows as the small crowd clapped and cheered with rancour.

When he spotted Dagda, he’d stood from his seat near the front of the crowd, putting all his energy into clapping for their performance. He didn't cheer, his mouth flattened into a tight line, brows furrowed, eyes visibly misty; Custas suspected he was doing everything in his power to hold his composure together.

Custas beamed his biggest smile at him, and skipped over to jump in front of him, barely taking in the compliments of the people around him. He didn't care for any opinions besides Dagda's.

“I'm so proud of you.”

Like a needle stabbed into a shared water-skin, both of them began to shed tears.

“What did you think?” Custas asked Dagda, fresh from changing his shirt after dousing his sweaty armpits with water from the nearby pond. He sat right next to the man in front of their small campfire, a black iron cook-pot placed on a rack over the flames. He could smell something savoury marinating within, spiced meat, likely a stew. He loved stews, maybe more than any food in the world. They tasted like days spent huddled next to a loved one, and sat heavy in his stomach for hours like a warm hug from the inside.

“My tears not enough? You were brilliant, Custas.” He reached up and hand to ruffle his hair. Custas shrieked a small protest and Dagda chuckled, uttering an apology and brushing the strands back in order with his fingers. “I didn't know you loved dancing as much as singing. You have a real natural skill for it, you know. Lots of people spend their whole lives trying to dance and never quite figure it out.”

“You talking from experience, old man?”

“Hey,” Dagda said, glaring at him from his peripheral vision, but his grin stayed vibrant even as Custas giggled at his expense. "I'm not that old.”

He leaned forward and spun the pot in the fire, lifting the lid for a split second to eye the contents of it. Custas thought he saw potatoes, or some of mashed up vegetables. Whatever it was, it was definitely a stew. He stretched out his feet and clacked his shoes together in silent excitement.

“How long did you practise?”

“Months. Since Spring started, I think. I convinced Edith and Lillyette to help me, and they taught me so much. I didn't even know you could do so many things with your body. It's so cool.” He smacked his head against Dagda's bicep.

“You're a fast learner, you could be a proper dancer one day, if that's what you're interested in.”

His heart skipped a beat. That was his opening. This was the moment he's been waiting for. All he had to do was push a little, and Dagda would finally let him work, finally let him pull his weight. He could ease the strain on their budget, even if only a fraction. Anything to repay him. Anything to prove his investment in Custas had been worthwhile.

“I was hoping I could join some performances now. I'm old enough to, and I won't slow anyone down with clumsy feet.”

Dagda nodded very slowly, his grin falling a fraction, and though it never left his face Custas noticed. A sense of dread crept up on him.

“You know you don't need to work, Custas. You're only eleven.”

“I'm a teenager! I can work!”

Dagda's face twitched. Custas' lips curled back in a silent snarl.

“If you don't think I'm good enough, just tell me!”

“That's not what I said.”

“It's what you thought.”

“Custas.”

“Why?” Custas shouted, rage boiling over the sides of his soul, spewing hot liquid at anyone who ventured too close. If only it burned himself the way real boiling water would. “Why won't you let me be useful to you? You do so much for me, and you never let me do anything to help besides wash dishes. Washing dishes doesn't make us any money!”

He watched his face fall, ready to retort his claims, but Custas kept going.

“You don't get it, no one ever does. I lived on the streets, I don't need to be pampered. I want to help! I don't want to feel like a useless burden to you anymore!”

Dagda's eyes widened, jaw going slack. Custas clamped his mouth shut. He wasn't supposed to say that last part out loud. Dagda wasn't supposed to know. Now he's staring at him with anguish haunting his features, drawing his brows tightly together, and no feelings of inadequacy hurt as bad as seeing his own pain inflicted on the only person he cares about.

“Custas,” he said, almost a whisper. “Do you really feel that way?”

He won't reply. He couldn't. If he did, the tears would start to fall, and then Custas wouldn't have any plausible deniability anymore.

“My boy. Please, tell me you don't think that way about yourself.”

Custas' facade crumpled under the weight of his concern. He dug his nails into the skin of his knees, trying to distract himself from the urge to cry. He dragged his eyes away, staring into the heart of the burning fire, wishing the white hot glow would burn the sight of Dagda's despair from his mind.

“Why shouldn't I?” His voice cracked as he spoke, warbling from withheld tears. “I'm a second mouth to feed. We don't have much money, I know you work extra when I'm asleep, I know you don't get to rest as well as you used to or have free time. All because I'm here.”

“Custas…” He sounded in pain; Custas had hurt him. “Did something happen to make you feel this way?” There's a short pause filled by the crackling of the fire. “Did I do something to make you feel this way?”

“No!” He slammed his hands to the ground on either side of him. “But I'm not blind, you know? I know how hard it is to care for yourself, let alone another person. And I can help, you said it yourself, you I'm good! I can perform just like the others, so I don't understand. I'm older now. I'm not a little kid. If I work, then we don't have to worry about money, right?” He wheezed at the end, rambling until he ran out of breath, a half-sob stealing the last of the wind from his sails. “Right?”

A hand came to rest on his shoulder. He stayed firmly in place, refusing to lean into it.

“Custas, please look at me.”

He shook his head. He didn't want to look into those sad eyes again. There's a quiet sigh, nearly lost amidst the crackle of the flames.

Dagda leaned forward, gentle hands grasping him on the shoulders, twisting him to face Dagda and holding him still as he dipped his head to look Custas in the eye. A magnitude of emotion greeted him, pride and sadness and confusion, but above all else, the love was palpable, a near physical force that barrelled into him at full speed, leaving Custas out of breath and gasping from something other than his own barely concealed sobs.

“I love you, Custas. You're my son, and I love you more than anything in this world, and no lack of money or number of hard days is ever going to change that, okay?”

The words widened the gap in his chest, a knife twisting and churning, an invader of flesh. He expected it to hurt. He expected a throbbing pain to radiate out to the ends of each of his nerves.

Instead, the sense that flooded him was warm. Not the boiling heat of rage or the scorching flames of the fire on his retinas, but the warmth like the heft of stew in his belly, like the soothing warmth of the body he drifted to sleep next to every night. Warmth shaped like Dagda, like his father.

Custas' lips trembled, his head shook, and so did his shoulders, his arms, his torso, and every single inch of his body. Shivering from head to toe, a leaf in a windstorm formed by his own emotions, Dagda's words the branch he so desperately clung to.

“Papa,” Custas muttered, throat scratchy from his own sobbing.

His father's face contorted with what almost looked like pain, but his smile broke through. A joy so intense it hurt him. As though hearing Custas call him papa were a gift descended from the heavens.

A part of Custas bared its teeth and insisted the display was a lie, but a bigger part of him, the one that knew the simple truths of his life better than any other, had already begun to write down the fourth fact of his life. Perhaps the most important of them all.

Dagda loved him.

“I know it's hard for us sometimes.” Dagda rubbed his thumbs in back and forth motions on his shoulders. His voice was getting choked with emotion, too. “We don't have a lot, and it's true that I work extra jobs sometimes. But Custas, my love, have you ever thought that I do that not because I have to, but because I want to?”

No, he hadn't. Why would someone possibly work more than they needed to, on behalf of Custas of all people? It made no sense. He was already enough of a burden as an extra mouth to feed.

“But why? If we have enough food, then I don't need anything else.”

He didn't need the sweets. He didn't need more than one set of clothes. He didn't need the trio of plush toys Dagda kept buying him despite his protests. He'd gone without all the extras before, he could do it again. Maybe he liked the sweets and the clothes and the toys, but it didn't matter if he liked them because they weren't necessities. He didn't need them, and that was fine.

“You're eleven years old. You should have things of your own. Even if it's only a few small belongings, you deserve to have things you can claim as yours.” His mouth opened to protest, but Dagda continued. “It makes me happy to know you're happy, Custas. I don't want you to feel guilty for wanting things, and I don't want you to feel bad because I spend money on you. I do all of this because you're my son, and I want to see you happy.”

“I've never done anything for you.” Snot dripped past his lips and down his chin. Custas had given up on wiping it away.

“You've given me a family, Custas. There's nothing more I could ever ask for.”

A guttural wail tore its way out of his throat. Dagda lurched forward and tugged Custas into an embrace, squeezing him tight between his arms, small circles rubbed into his back.

“You’re a remarkable dancer, and you'll be a fine performer one day. But I don't want you to work because you feel obligated to, okay? You will never owe me anything, Custas. If you want to owe me something, owe me your trust. Believe me when I tell you that loving my family will never be a burden.”

Through heaving sobs, Custas nodded, smearing snot and tears across the front of his father's tunic. His belief didn't come fast, but too many long nights spent by Dagda's side proved as ample evidence for his claims. It didn't make it easy to accept, but it did make him want to. He never allowed himself to want things, but he'd never thought he'd find someone who cared enough to take him under their wing either. Sometimes he still felt like a little kid, waiting to wake up from a dream.

“Okay?”

Custas inhaled deep, searching for his voice. “But I want to dance-”

“Next year. We'll talk about it next year, okay? It's not ‘cause I don't think you're capable, you're just too young. You can spend all year practising and seeing if it's what you really want to do, and then we'll talk about it.”

Perhaps he's always been too young. Too young to be abandoned, too young to live on the streets. Buried in the warmth of Dagda's arms, he felt too young to understand any of the circumstances he'd been thrust into over the years. His whole life, he knew he was a burden, that food wouldn't come free, that life was oh so unfair. He would never get what he wanted, and couldn't allow himself to risk wanting things.

More than anything, Custas wanted Dagda to love him. He wanted to believe it could be true.

“Say it again,” he muttered.

“Say what?” Dagda pulled Custas closer, dragging the boy onto his knee in order to cradle him in the cage of his arms. Tucked away from the plight of reality.

“You love me,” Custas could barely hear himself, cheek smushed against the fabric of his father's cloak. He balled a fist into one side of it, thick fabric scrunched between his fingers, and Dagda shifted him slightly to wrap the other side of the cloak around his shoulders. Cocooned against the man's chest, Custas shuddered.

“I love you,” Dagda said.

It's so easy to believe, ensconced by sturdy arms and a heavy cloak, fire crackling quietly as the stew cooks on top. All the cruelties of the world he allowed to dictate his actions appeared as hollow threats to him now, held close by the only person who claimed to love him. And despite the doubt and fear clawing its way through his gut, etching warnings of abandonment along his stomach lining, Custas trusted the one who held him.

Maybe Dagda was right. Maybe family was a burden worth bearing, if it felt this right being held in his arms.

A tiny whimper fell from his lips. “I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

He still saw the pained face of his father behind his eyes. He never wanted to be the cause of that look ever again. In all the times Dagda spent money on him, he'd never seemed hurt by it the way Custas' words had affected him tonight.

He didn't think he'd ever stop worrying about the money. Not when the sick reality of poverty knocked on the doorstep of his nightmares. He'd worry about the cost of things as long as he lived.

But perhaps, for now, just until next year, he could try to learn how to ignore the voices, if only a bit. He could believe in Dagda instead of his fears.

“It's okay,” Dagda buried his nose into the hair on the top of his head. “I love you,” he repeated.

Custas took a deep breath, and melted on his exhale, settling into the warm embrace. His eyes fell shut.

“I love you, too.”

If there were four things Custas knew, four essential truths of his life, they were these:

One: he was a burden. Not the exception, never exempt. At least, in the past he wasn't, but these days he thought that might be okay. He was a burden, but sometimes burdens were a necessary part of life, just like food and water. Dagda always said so, and Custas trusted his word. Custas believed him.

Two: food wasn't free. No one liked handing out meals to beggars unless it made for a good sob story, and Custas was no longer pathetic-looking enough to beg. Even the forage they found in the forests cost time and effort to acquire. But they had enough, and when they didn't the caravan was there to feed him. And last week, Custas finally agreed to eat breakfast with Dagda for the first time in years.

Third: life was unfair. He'd felt it every day since he was born, and he still felt it when they passed through cities with slums, kids limping through the streets. At least now he could offer them change or a meal. They didn't have much to spare, but Custas could handle one night hungry if it ensured another soul wouldn't be scrubbed from history come morning.

The fourth, and the most important: Dagda loved him. If he had to scrap everything he knew, and pick only one of his four facts of life, he'd pick this one every time. Sometimes he still struggled to believe it fully, but then Dagda would appear, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, ruffling his hair, holding his hand and guiding him through busy streets, and he knew.

Custas was a burden, and he was loved in spite of it.