"Good morning, High Captain Sakoda!" a young inner guard smiled. He turned his brown eyed gaze just slightly down to the tall child whose beautiful blue dyed cotton dress seemed not to quite pair with their bare feet and half-shaven head. "This is...?"
"Jana," Sakoda replied for the fifth time that morning. "My eldest."
Jana could almost feel the " 'Eldest what?' " that the guard likely would have asked had the object of the conversation not been standing right there. A ripple of nervous energy caused them to clench and unclench their fists a few times.
"Well, good morning, Miss Jana," the guard cooed. "How old are you, darling?"
"Fourteen harvest tides," Jana answered evenly, despite tensing their jaw.
Sakoda watched the discomfort bloom in his child's chest, but compelled his face to be calm.
"So, close to handfasting age!" the guard smiled. The enthusiasm was genuine, but a bit too hopeful. Both child and parent tensed their upper bodies as a result. "You're certain to make a beautiful partner to whatever lucky guy gets your ribbon about his wrist."
"Perhaps," Sakoda replied, trying to not sound as irked as he felt. "We've a while yet for that. Apprenticeship first."
"Oh, I see," the guard said. While he was still smiling just as brightly as before, something about the response still struck both listeners as less than pleased with Sakoda's words. "Well, Tymora grant you fortune on all fronts."
"Thank you," Jana said simply. When the guard moved away, they relaxed the tense muscles between their shoulders.
"Damned birdhounds, almost to the last man," Sakoda sighed gustily when he and Jana had gotten far enough away to go unheard. "Half the force in charmhouses, the other under their lovers' skirts, and they all wonder why I stay in the wine cellar."
Jana snickered as a response, and the left corner of Sakoda's mouth tipped up into a smirk at the sound.
The two walked over the painted emblems of various gods, and Jana took their time to gaze down at the symbols of Vecna, Lolth, and Shar.
"Don't worry so loudly," Sakoda said without even looking down at Jana. "Ci-ci isn't made of such stuff as would worship the likes of them."
"But she spends a lot of time with Dale," Jana noted quietly.
"Asmodeus's symbol is over there-" Sakoda noted, pointing at a stone too far to his left for Jana to be able to see from their vantage point. "-and I should be looking for Shar's, seeing as you've spent just as much time with that paper white skinned Shadar-kai girl recently - what's her name again? Kashiknaira?"
"Kazikmyra," Jana corrected automatically. They looked up at their father sharply, biting their lips as though they'd just told a dear secret. "But... no one... calls her..."
"Right," Sakoda shrugged, forcing himself to be calm about the situation despite the knot that tied itself tightly at the pit of his stomach. "Myra, then. Not hard to look at, I've heard. And when she gets angry? Quite literally electrifying."
"I... can... stay away, if..." Jana began, the words grinding slowly and painfully between their teeth.
Sakoda gave a short, quiet grunt. "No. Your mother said she was worried about your not having any friends, so... no."
"Her mother doesn't like me one bit," Jana said. It was a strained attempt at comfort, but Sakoda took it for its intention.
"Because you're a Human at all, or because you specifically have Ser Sadist for a father?" Sakoda asked frankly, unable to find a more delicate way of addressing the situation.
Jana licked their lips and bit them again. "I... think she likes Ditch just fine."
Sakoda hummed- a deep rumble absolutely fitting for the seismic activity roiling just underneath the tectonic plates of his face and upper body.
"But neither of them worship Shar. Myra hates Shar, actually, and says she doesn't worship anything at all. Which... she might really not, and..." Jana looked back down at the painted stones as the two continued walking over them. "I don't think I can convince her of Lathander."
"Of course not; you're not even convinced of Lathander," Sakoda scoffed.
Jana looked up at their father with an absolutely cold terror.
"I'm not angry about it, and I haven't told your mother. If I told her everything I either suspected or outright knew, you would have been shunted up to the hag on the hill so soon as I noticed you making eyes at the Lliira acolytes," Sakoda soothed. "I solved two... and I hesitate to say 'problems'... at once; so far as your mother knows, you're immensely interested in becoming a Lliira acolyte yourself, and that's why you've been so half hearted at temple lately. When she finds out I'm 'wrong' about that, she'll only blame it on my being a man, and thus, out of touch with you and Ci-ci."
"That's..." Jana wiped at their nose, which had begun to burn.
"I know. Not the first time I've lied, and it won't be the last. The peace we'll temporarily enjoy because of it, is worth it." Sakoda knowingly picked up the pace, and didn't stop to make any kind of conversation with the guards at the manse doors, the messengers, or even the few seated counselors already in their thrones for the morning. All of them, used to his sharp, quiet morning salutes, thought nothing of the lack of words exchanged. When the two arrived at the steps down to the dungeons, Jana slowed down, only taking a few tenuous steps after their father.
"C'mon, Nannie; keep up," Sakoda urged without looking back.
A protest prickled the tip of Jana's tongue, but they bit it, and headed quickly down the stairs after their father. Once safely below the manse's stone floors, under the first two levels of the prison, and past the door that separated his grotesquely furnished "wine cellar" from the rest of the prison's lowest floor, Sakoda turned around to face his child. Jana was astonished at how worn his face was, as though he'd aged a decade in ten minutes.
"Alright; now, tell me who you are," he commanded in a still, quiet voice.
"Who I...?" Jana began, unable to keep their confusion off of their face or their fear out of their eyes.
"Yes," Sakoda urged. "I don't want your sister to keep trying to hint at me, or the hag to go through whatever pretense of a test she's cooked up for... look, I want you to tell me yourself, and I get the feeling that this might be the only place you'd feel safe enough to do it, so here we are."
Jana breathed deeply and wiped at their nose, but couldn't stop their eyes from welling up. "Dad, I..."
The cold winds of the outer realms seemed to pass between father and child.
"Well, I am glad you know that much," Sakoda sighed when he realized that fear had put too firm of a grip on Jana's throat for them to finish their sentence. "Nevermind going down to the Pillars to have my name ripped off you; that won't happen. So breathe deep, and take your time. Once I'm down here, no one above expects to see me for hours. And Gwennie-I can send her off when she comes, if that helps."
Jana shook their head, but still couldn't manage to make any words come out of their mouth. A million excuses, a million lies, swirled in their head- falling apart, and exploding, and tumbling over each other in the panicked chaos of their mind. Nothing made sense; there was no single through line or explanation anywhere.
Sakoda watched the storm wash over the strong, striking facial features that were so much like his own. He remembered wiping food, blood, and dirt from the mouth, neck, and hands when they were all much smaller. He recalled with same-day clarity the first struggling steps Jana's feet had ever taken- and their first outright run, which had been accompanied by gales of laughter. Their free, full throated laughter, the type of laughter that had recently grown more and more scarce with each passing year. He found that his own eyes were burning, and decided that if tears came to him, it would be better to let them fall than to pretend that he was distant or uncaring about how difficult this moment was for both of them. Squaring his shoulders and straightening his back, he put himself into an at ease stance and compelled himself to breathe calmly.
"Aberrant," Jana finally managed through a dry throat and clenched teeth. "Both because I like girls, and.. because... I'm not one. I'm not a girl."
"You're a boy, then?" Sakoda asked, even more quietly than before.
"No..?" Jana answered uncertainly, their voice cracking in the attempt. "Well, almost yes, but... not all the time."
Sakoda sent his tongue around his gums as he thought carefully. The quiet that whistled between father and child was still chilly at first, but warmed a bit as Jana stopped fearing that the deep contemplation evident on their father's face was really anger or disappointment.
"Sometimes a boy, but never a girl," Sakoda mused. "Like oil. Sometimes it's a weapon, sometimes it's for cooking, but it's never for drinking straight."
Jana thought for a moment, then nodded. "That's closer than I've ever got to explaining it. And I've tried."
"Well, Ci-ci would love and protect you even if it turned out that you were a direct descendant of Shar herself," Sakoda chuckled weakly. His martial stance melted slightly, so that he seemed more ready to have a conversation with his child than to receive orders from a commander he didn't like. "Give yourself credit; talking to me is harder."
"She keeps calling herself a witch," Jana frowned.
"I know; that worries me too," Sakoda admitted. "But I can only deal with one of you being terrified of my opinion at a time-"
"-and this is harder," Jana finished. They realized that they had hugged themself in some strange attempt at protection from- something- and released their arms so that they hung at their sides in something close to a natural way.
"It is," Sakoda agreed, noticing Jana's physical change. "Before I tell you what I think, I want you to decide for yourself that it doesn't matter what I think."
"But it-"
"No, it doesn't. Oil doesn't care about what water or wine does with it. It is what it is. Water runs from it. Wine can become vinegar, and the two can then work nicely together. But the oil itself couldn't give a rat's ass what either does or doesn't do. It is what it is, reguardless."
"Mom is going to be water, isn't she?" Jana sighed miserably.
"It doesn't matter," Sakoda insisted, struggling to hold his child's gaze.
Jana locked on to their father's eyes and found the courage to pursue the attack. "But isn't she?"
"Listen to me, Nannie," Sakoda said seriously. "Train yourself now to not give one cold fuck about either of our opinions."
"No; your opinions matter to me because you matter to me," Jana argued. "I can't... I can't train that away. Or if I did, I'll have trained you away; do you want that?"
"What I want is for you to be who you are," Sakoda admitted quietly. "Who that turns out to be- I'll bear it, whoever it is, so long as it's you. Really and truly you. No hiding, no shame, no fear, no pain. I've been a trained, paid killer and torturer for years. Longer than you've lived. I know pain when I see it. And I don't want my dau- my child, rather, to be in pain. Not if I can help it."
"But Mom isn't going to see it that way. And neither will a lot of people, and for most people, I won't care. I promise; I won't. But for you... I do," Jana answered in a low, quiet tone. "I can bear a lot of people being water; I already do, every day. But... not you."
Sakoda closed his eyes and ducked his head as though he were absorbing a solid punch to the chin. "Well," he breathed when he had recovered the power of speech, "I don't know that I've ever been particularly sweet. So being vinegar isn't any huge leap for me."
Jana burst into tears and threw themself against their father like a much younger child, and Pohatkon Sakoda laid his bow-calloused left hand on their head.
"I have a lot to learn," he admitted. "It's going to be hard for me not to see the little girl I once held in my hands when I look at you."
"Look at me now; really look," Jana breathed, stepping back slightly to look up at their father. "Talk about out of touch? She doesn't look at me, even. Especially now that I shave my head this way. She thinks it's ugly, and won't even look at me to say that."
"I know. And I wish- actually, nevermind her right now; just rest on me, Nannie. Just rest for now." When Jana laid their head back on Sakoda's chest, he wrapped his arms around them and began reciting an old litany he had used to calm colic, nightmares, and playtime accidents - but with a few items removed. "I love you, my little one, my heartbeat, my precious jewel; I love you, my dearheart, my morning sky-"
Jana recognized the list, along with the purposefully omitted parts, immediately, and hugged their father even more tightly. "My dad," they whispered with a breath of gratitude that the giver didn't know they could possibly need just as much as the recipient. "I love you too, Dad."
"One more thing," Sakoda smiled wearily, pulling back just enough to look down. "Ser Sadist is looking for an apprentice."
"Gwen better not hear that, or she'll have a fit," Jana smirked, wiping tears with the heel of their hand. "Although, if he wants another-"
"He does," Sakoda affirmed.
"Then Ser Baggage is at your service, ser," Jana smiled as they pulled themself into an admirable imitation of Sakoda's own at-ease pose.
" 'Ser Baggage'?" Sakoda said, raising an eyebrow. "Heard from some sea side spectators that the title wasn't much of a compliment when a certain boy spat it out of his mouth."
"Was 'Ser Sadist' always a compliment?" Jana shrugged.
"Never was," Sakoda scoffed. "First, I was insulted, but I put up with it. A bit later, only the inner guard kept up with it, and I answered to it when called. Then they brought me that Shadovar bitch. Making her sing like a damn bird brought something out of me- made something just... click. It was like opening a door that should've stayed shut, bolted, barred, but... well, it's open now, and there you are. They made that bitch a permanent prisoner, and made me the ultimate punishment anytime she really pissed them off. And in the meantime, I so much as introduced myself as Ser Sadist to all the greenhorn inner guards. Maybe I didn't plan on it or even like it, but it was who I had become."
Jana nodded. "It's like that- except the only 'click' for me was the realization that I wasn't a girl in itself. And I do like Ser Baggage. It suits me- plus, it's fun to say."
"Then welcome, Ser Baggage," Sakoda nodded firmly. "Consider yourself a torturer and executioner's apprentice from this moment forward. First charge is to check on the mice- while they're never going to be happy in that cage, they shouldn't be suffering. The point is to keep them a bit hungry, but not miserable or dead. Gwennie's the one named them, so don't blame me for what you're about to hear me call each of them."
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