I’d like to believe that there’s still good somewhere deep inside me.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: June 29, 2058

Character: Mishkael Daishi
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human
Age: 74, physically about 27
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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Whenever I look at photos of the kids as they were growing up—Cristina’s pictures more than Tiberius’s own—I get a mild pinch in my heart. I can’t claim that raising these kids was a piece of cake; it wasn’t. Tiberius was quiet, I always told myself that he took after Max more than me and that wasn’t far from the truth. He was just so quiet and well-behaved.

That’s not to say Cristina wasn’t quiet and well behaved but when her baby brother came into the picture? Her behaviour changed. It wasn’t quite drastic, but it was there. The spoiled-kid act, the tantrums. You name it. At times I felt like we were failing as parents because of that behaviour and yeah, I started acting the bad cop of our relationship just so Max could have a breather. I hated every second of it, no matter how much she frustrated the fuck out of me, but discipline was hard with her.

I love my kid, don’t get me wrong. She’s mellowed out something fierce now, but I know there’s still plenty of fire in her. There’s a fire in Tiberius too, mind you, it’s just a more sort of controlled fire if that even makes any sense.

During those times when I had to let my demon side come out—a figure of speech, I never met my father and I had some questions while I was growing up but I’ve made my peace—I feel as though that, to essentially calm back down after dealing with whatever tantrum she’d thrown, I’d have to dig deep into myself and remind this demon side of me that there was still good in me. It might have been buried way, way deep down, but it was there.

In a way, that seemed to be my sort of cue that the ‘bad’ was done—it felt like I was being bad, for the sake of being good, back then—and that I could let it fall back into its pit.

Max is the reason I started thinking that way and it turned out to be helpful in the long run.

I’m not proud of this memory, I recall one of the times Cristina really got into a tantrum that wouldn’t let go and I sort of lost myself to that demon. Again, this is a figure of speech. Normally I’m fairly cool when I play the bad cop, but I was having such a hard time letting go back then, even after she’d been set in timeout that it took Max just holding me and murmuring away to me that there was plenty of good deep inside me, to get the demon to let go.

I don’t know how much time I spent curled in on himself almost crying that one time. I didn’t hurt her if anyone thinks that things might have gone that far. Furthest from. I was just way rougher with her—emotionally, mentally—as I was trying to get through to her than I’d ever been, and it hadn’t felt good. Her reaction when she’d essentially broken out of that tantrum of hers hadn’t felt good.

I wondered on those days if her demon wasn’t taking over; it certainly felt like it and I knew how it felt too. I blamed myself fully when she’d have these tantrums, not that I ever told Max that. I don’t know how he would have reacted. I blame myself; I blamed the demon side of me as though that explained everything when I didn’t even know how the man had been.

Knowing what he did to my mother is enough for me to know that he wasn’t a good person and that’s all there is to that.

As the kids grew older and didn’t have to spend quite as much time together, things got a little easier. Not perfectly so, I never imagined that we’d get to that, and we didn’t. Not while they were growing up. Things are easier now but both of them are adults and have long since been out of the nest, so I don’t think that counts, even if it does.

There’s no need to lie, I’ll admit willingly that I didn’t expect to ever be able to have both of them at home while they might have been visiting to celebrate a birthday or something similar. At least, not without some sort of half-sided war going on. Tiberius never fell for his sister’s behaviour; somehow, it was as though it didn’t reach him, and I’ve always wondered about that.

Not that I need to know, not at this point in our lives. I’ll just keep on looking at the photos and remind myself that despite the demon coming out at times, I was still a good person, way deep down inside.

Final Word Count: 807

Wait… you’re married and you never told us?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Mishkael Daishi
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human
Age: 73, physically about 27
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 765 words
 

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I found an old duet piece that I hadn’t seen in decades. For the most part, whenever I’d start in on the cello, I’d be doing so without sheet music. It felt more natural. I already knew most of the pieces I played by heart and when it was something new, I almost preferred to learn it by heart before anything else. Looking at me, I know that you wouldn’t think I know how to be gentle.

Thing is, yeah, I’m a redhead. I have a temper though it takes a lot of pushing to get me to my limits, I know how to use violence to my advantage though I haven’t done that, either, in a really, really long time. I haven’t had to since we’ve come back. I know how to seem like a monster and a cold-hearted villain if need be but, again, since the kids were old enough to move out, that also turned out to be something I haven’t needed to turn to. Anything to give Max a semblance of normalcy while the kids were growing up. It wasn’t always easy, but we figured things out as they happened for the most part.

I know how to be gentle, though. In the more private moments of my life, I’m a gentle giant. I’ll even admit that there are things that I honestly don’t even dare touch because I feel like I might break them, no matter how gentle I’d be with them. So, the cello? It was a soothing sort of thing. Accompanied by the breathtaking piano, I could lose myself elsewhere and I was in a good place.

This sheet music, though, I think I first had that paper between my hands when I was twelve. It goes back that long. I hated it at first. It was more complicated than anything I’d ever played, and I just didn’t know my way around it at all. I felt clumsy trying to play it in any way, shape or form. It was, I don’t know, more delicate in a way, than anything I could manage at that point. I faintly remember setting it aside because I was so stupidly frustrated by it that I didn’t want to even think about it if I could help it.

I was sixteen, I think, when I picked it back up. It’s only with a good bit of help that I tried to learn it again. There’s one particular memory that I remember as being attached to that particular piece of music and, well, I hadn’t thought about it since I’d gotten out of high school, I guess. Possibly even a little before.

I had a few friends back then, we were a ragtag group. In that very group, we were the youngest ones. Not that the others were much older, as the oldest might have been nineteen. I remember that little bit of memory because the song itself ended up being associated with it, in a way. I’d been looking through old stuff that I’d long since forgotten in my locker when someone in the group approached me, they’d been held back once and were the oldest of the group but they were in their last year. When they saw the sheet music, they got this goofy look on their face and told me that they’d gotten married to that duet.

I think we both froze for a minute; that wasn’t something I was aware of, I don’t think any of us were. That particular friend had never worn any rings and I don’t remember ever hearing them even talk about being with someone. So yeah, that turned into a huge discussion at the end of that school day, as I remember it. How they were married, and they’d never told us.

It’s not a bad memory, I’m pretty sure that if I were to show this duet to Max, he’d probably remember that particular memory too. It turned into such a weird afternoon. Not that I think any of us were mad, I think it’s more along the lines that we all thought we were a close group, that these were things we should have known about. I mean, you share that kind of information with your friends, don’t you?

Looking at the piece itself, I don’t know that I want to play it again, though. It’s a sweet duet, certainly, but it feels dated. It didn’t age well. It was a good piece all those decades ago, but I guess that certain things just age poorly. It’s all right, though.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come, even if I seemingly haven’t done much.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Mishkael Daishi
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human
Age: 72, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 672 words
 

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Despite how long it’s been since we’ve all come back and since we’ve settled into the life we have now, I know that my relationship with Randall is never going to be perfect. Despite being twins, we look nothing alike. Somehow, born from two different fathers, we’re both so different from one another that you possibly couldn’t find twins who are more opposite than we are.

I still remember the big fight we had when we came back. I stupidly blamed him for everything that had happened because I needed someone to blame and he was the perfect scapegoat. For the most part, he actually took that blame without much of a fight and, it’s that, later on, that made me realized how fucked up I’d made things. He’d never been one for fights; it always surprised me that he did security work down at the city while we were growing up.

The year it took before either one of us got in touch—I reached out to him, at Max’s nudging—was a year of settling. A year of trying to find balance. I’m not going to lie, there was anger inside of me and it’s still there but it’s much more subdued, now. I think that this is whatever is in my blood. Whatever my father is and whatever it is he left of himself inside mom that then passed down to me. I’m a redhead in all ways. My hair is as red as it will ever be and I’ve got a nasty temper when you push far enough to get me to snap.

That being said, it takes a lot for that temper’s limit to even be reached anymore and I’m glad for that, I’m not going to lie. It seems like I haven’t done much but I’m proud of how far I’ve come, as far as my anger and my temper are concerned. It’s when I also knew that getting in touch with Randall to try and rekindle whatever friendship we might have ever had was a mostly okay time.

See, I didn’t say that I knew it was a good time to try and rekindle something with my brother, I said I knew it was a mostly okay time. There never would have been a good time. That fight, it broke whatever fragile friendship we’d ever had but, decades down the road now, I can say that we can talk like civilized people and, even if left alone, together in a room, we won’t fight or argue, we might even still manage to hold a mostly decent conversation.

That’s not to say we’d pack up and spend a week together in the same room, I think we’d both just end up ignoring one another and that would be the end of that but I’m also quite fine with that, in the end.

I’m not perfect. I’ll never be perfect. Am I a good person? I don’t know. I think Max makes me as good a person as I might ever be and our kids helped me learn to be someone better than I was, too. That’s not to say I’ve ever treated anyone—but Randall—like shit. Max can attest to that just fine. I might be a complete asshole on some days but I’m not a terrible person and these ‘I’m an asshole’ days are so rare that I don’t think I’ve had one in years. The last one might have happened while Cristi still was in the house and I think that it was inevitable.

Whatever it was that made me who I was and still am, it clearly was very present in her as well and she was a bit of a problem child. I still love her, I do. We just had to learn to deal with things as they happened and, well, I now have a feeling I know how mom felt while I was growing up so I know how strong and patient my parents were. I’m glad they were.

I don’t say it often, but I do love you. Very much so.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 2nd Generation
Characters: Mishkael Daishi
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human
Age: 70, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 652 words
 

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I’ve never been very good at show-and-tell. According to mom, I’ve always been more of a ‘show’ than ‘tell’ kid, even while I was growing up. I preferred to let actions speak louder than words and at times, that didn’t work in my favour, not really.

I used to get in trouble while at school because I wasn’t really talkative. Though I suppose that’s a little bit of a lie, it’s more because I had a bit of a fighting spirit and by fighting spirit; I tended to get into fights for completely pointless reasons. It was in my blood and that’s not something I’m going to deny or lie about. I don’t know who my biological father is but clearly, there was something to his demon blood.

Or it was just me. Randall didn’t have that fighting spirit, we weren’t quite like day and night but that was close enough to the truth. He’s always been quieter, though. More keep to himself. He could hold his own but while he was just as quiet as I was, he didn’t go looking for fights, so maybe it’s just me, there might just be something wrong with me but so what?

Cue Maxwell.

That’s my ‘so what’. He’s the reason I’m sane, the reason I’m in one piece, the reason I’m still alive and breathing. Those Dark Years, they were ugly and the less I think about them, the better. These years, they changed us but at the same time, I’d like to think that they helped us grow closer.

One thing I know I’m guilty of is how little I tend to offer those ‘sweet’ words that probably make the world go round. As I’ve mentioned, I’m a show person more than I am a tell one and I’ve always preferred to show him just how much I love him more than I tell him. Now and again, though, I’m left to wonder if I don’t need to say it more often.

Not that there’s ever been any hint towards the fact that I might not utter the words often enough but it’s just something that crosses my mind. Now and again, I just seem to realize that it’s been a while since I’ve just told him, in a simple and straight-forward way, just how much I love him. I cherish him, though, I do. I’m not going to start listing everything I do, that’s not the point of this.

The point is that I know I don’t say the words often enough so I’ve hatched up a small plan for a little getaway that should just scream I love you, adore you, need you in my life until the ends of time. I’m sure that most people who look at me think I’m just a tough guy but I’m a big softie, in the end, trust me. At least, certainly when it comes to him.

So I’ve booked us a getaway of undetermined time away halfway up a mountain. We’re high up enough to have access to all the snow we’d like, we’re actually almost level with the clouds but we’re a little above, we have a pretty large area to trek through as we’d like with no fear of tumbling down the side of that mountain and about five minutes away, there’s a natural hot spring so that just adds a little something else.

It’s a pretty new addition to the list of getaways we can book and I think it might have had all of one or two visitors before us. Our bags are packed, the key’s ready, I just need to locate that blindfold and walk us through the doorway to our escape from our daily lives for as long as he’ll want to stay there.

Nothing but mountains, sun and snow as far as the eye can see from what will be our balcony.

It wasn’t my fault and you shouldn’t treat me like it was.

Timeline/World: Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Mishkael Daishi
Race: Demon
Age: 69, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 528 words

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Growing up with a twin brother who was his almost polar opposite was never easy. It actually was troublesome and often he wondered just how it had happened and how come they were related at all, they were so different. At least he looked like his mother and this he never failed to taunt his brother with, it always brought him to frustrated tears. It had made him feel strong and powerful, back then but thinking about it now made him feel ashamed of how he’d treated his twin.

He’d been a bully, it was that simple and he accepted that fact easily now. There was no changing the past and he was glad that Randall held no ill will towards him. They still were so different that at times he still couldn’t really wrap his mind around the simple process of accepting they were born of the same mother… just different fathers. That one took a lot of time to accept, how could twins be born of different fathers? It wasn’t unheard of but it was rare, he knew.

Any time he could, any incidents that happened, he would blame his brother, act the innocent and sniffle a bit. It only worked until they both could formulate full sentences. That or their mother—and adoptive father—had an odd way of raising them, he just couldn’t tell at this point. Not that punishment ever was severe or bad but admitting that he’d done wrong had never come easy, he’d always been headstrong to a fault. It was better now, of course. Raising kids of his own had helped curb that part of him. That and the breakaway, of course.

Rekindling with Maxwell hadn’t been too difficult though just the same it hadn’t been easy. Rekindling with Randall had been something else entirely and remembering how things had gone still made him wince. He’d been angry; he’d wanted to take his anger out on someone, anyone, and who better than the brother he’d always blamed for everything while they were young and growing up? Their fight had been the biggest one yet and it took them almost a year before tentative discussions took place, with much urging from their parents, of course.

The time away hadn’t done either of them any good, that much had been clear during the fight but the year spent apart without any contact hadn’t hurt much. It had given both of them enough time to try and settle back into their lives, try and find peace with the fact that they were back with their loved ones and all those they’d known were safe and sound.

He knows that he’s as much to blame for everything that ever happened between them as his brother is. This is something he’s had to come to terms with, something that he would never have accepted as a teenager, always believing he was right and that he could do no wrong. That particular thought feels him with tired bitterness so he tries not to focus on it too much. After all, the past is just that, past. The present should be cherished, the future looked forward to.