Fic: Homo Homini Lupus Est -- Epilogue

[neotoma]

"Daddy!" Jocheved yelled, and threw herself into his arms at the train station. Sakuntala toddled away from Maia, blessed, kind Maia, who had brought the children to meet their train, and pressed herself against his leg, smiling up at him gummily.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said.

"I was so worried! Did Mommy find you? Are you all right?"

"Yes, I am."

"Jo," Kali said, "Your father has something to tell you."

Jocheved looked up at him with worried eyes, another question already on her lips.

"I left my family, and changed my name."

"You left..? But we're your family, me and Mommy and 'Tala." Jocheved complained.

"My old family. My brothers and sisters," He explained. "I had to go up and say I wasn't being part of their family anymore, so that I could be with you and Tala and Mommy."

"Okay..."

"And I had to change my name."

Jocheved gave him a suspicious look. "You won't be 'Daddy' anymore?"

Kali snorted, and waved him off when he glared at her.

"No, I'll still be your Daddy. But I had a name of my own, you know."

"Daddy," Jocheved said in tones of aggrieved patience, "that is your name."

"No. My name was Gabriel," he said.

"Oh. You and Mommy have names? Like real people?"

"Yes," Kali said, suppressing laughter. "We do."

"What's your name, Mommy?"

"Kali Mahayana."

"Like me! You're Mahayana, like me, Mommy!"

"Yes, dear, I know." Kali said smiling.

"And Daddy?"

"Call me..." he looked up at Kali, who nodded, "Loki."

Previous

Comments

[neotoma]

Well, BIRDS original idea was that Gabriel's Vessel was a 10th century Icelandic hay-farmer, but I couldn't make the timeline work out. That's why Hrafn is an Iron-Age Norseman instead of a Viking-Age Norseman. I did read all of Byock's "Viking Age Iceland" though, which is very interesting and full of concepts that would work great for world-building SF and fantasy stories.

Zetas was just me being grumpy and subverting a trope. I do that a lot. And I really wanted to have Jo in a story -- I hadn't written her before, but she definitely doesn't get enough love in fandom.

Writing Cas is actually quite hard. He's very not-human in his thinking. And I completely understand about being squicked about making characters rapists -- it's a very particular mindset, and it's not fun to imagine favorite characters having it.

Actually, I find feedback on DW to be more conducive to actually having a conversation than on AO3, so if you want to keep commenting here, that's fine by me.