We’ve all made bad decisions, more so recently than anything, but has that ever stopped us?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: June 4, 2058

Character: Riverae Kaminari-Myrias
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human – Meta – Water / Demi-God of Fate
Age: 72, physically about 22
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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Am I still as much of a thrill seeker as I was when Taka came back into my life? I don’t know that the answer to that could be yes. Sure, while Cyprian was growing up, both of us mellowed down but, in a way, I think that I almost expected that part of me to come back with a vengeance once he’d gone from the nest. Not that I was ready for him to be gone from the nest, but eventually, he did, and I know that he’s in the best hands ever. Especially now that, somehow, his issues with his memories are fixed.

Not that all the memories that were left behind were brought back to the surface once the curse, as it could have been, was broken because those really were forgotten and not just tucked away. However, I think that they’ve made the best of that and, like the vast majority of us, they cherish every second moment as they happen.

Surfing didn’t really take much of a back-burner spot once the kiddo was born, though. I didn’t go to dangerous places as often as I used to before, but I still went out surfing. I went paddleboarding more often than not, and during those times, I’d take the kiddo with me. From the moment he was old enough to be safe and secure in a high-vis flotation device, I had no qualms about taking him to the water. Some parents might be appalled by my decisions back then, but I think they just taught him things that while he might not remember clearly, he still knows about.

I never had to teach him how to swim, not in the general sense of things. Innately, he knew these things once I’d started taking him with me to the lake. Sure, I taught him basic survival stuff, not that I expected him to remember them but I taught him; I had been ready to teach him those things every single time but a little part of him remembered them; just like he remembered that he had to be careful with warmer foods, or that certain parts of fruits—though we removed those as much as we could—weren’t meant to be eaten. Little things.

Did we make bad decisions while he was growing up? Sure. I think that every single parent out there has made them. They might not willingly admit to it, but I’m pretty damned sure that mistakes were made by every parent here. Was there a time in our lives when there were more of those bad decisions than at any other time? I’m sure that was the case, but I think that this is something we possibly could have realized more as we were reunited all of those years ago than now.

Time really did mellow both of us out but, bad decisions or otherwise, it has never really stopped us from moving ahead and it has never made us question ourselves. Though I know I can’t speak for Taka, I know that all of my bad decisions, my mistakes, and my mishaps, have shaped me into who I am now and I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t be this way if I hadn’t done all of these things.

I believe in not regretting past actions; no matter that some of these actions—my constant trying to get eaten by a shark while separated from Taka—turned out to be stupidly moot. This desperation stayed with me long after we were brought back together, and it made it loud and clear to me that we really were meant to spend the rest of all eternity together. I was his, he was mine, and we were two halves—somewhat broken ones—of the same part.

We’re better together; corny as it sounds and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that way about my partner. He completes me and there are days when I can’t find the words for certain things that seem as though they’d be stupidly easy to find the names for and he’s there for me with that information, just as I am with him. I trust in his decision as he does in mine and if I mention I want to try to new adrenaline-pumping activity, he might give me a quiet look for just a moment, but he won’t deny me my experience.

That, in itself, is as perfect as I think our relationship will ever be. I don’t get these urges for adrenaline much anymore. I think I’ve got the biggest part of that out of my system when I was too busy dealing with all of those shitty decisions I’d made. It comes now and again, but it’s more of a thing about how I want to try something at least once and then I leave it be.

I no longer needlessly put my life in danger for the thrills of it, no thank you.

Final Word Count: 832

Why does everyone feel the need to pile their stress onto my shoulders? I have enough as it is.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Riverae Kaminari-Myrias
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human – Meta – Water / Demi-God of Fate
Age: 70, physically about 22
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 758 words
 

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I don’t know why I went looking through the memory box. I tend to keep that thing put away at the back of a shelf because, for the most part, they’re not memories of a good time. It’s the box of memories associated with the dark years, but I guess that now and again, I do feel a sort of perverse need to go over the things that happened back then because they did shape me into the person I am now.

Though, thinking back about it, I think that my whole life has shaped me into who I am now, there’s no denying that. It would actually be pretty foolish to ignore it, but I guess that this is just one of those things. My father’s behaviour, my mother’s own, being swept away from her, Taka, the dark years, more Taka because there’s never enough of him in my life, being a father myself, there just are so many things.

This box, though, this box is all dark years and that’s all there ever will be in there. There are a fair few photos in there, a good few trophies and other pointless things that are a reminder as to the life I was so desperately trying to end back then. It was that bad. I didn’t want to be alive. I didn’t want to be saved. I just wanted Taka and I couldn’t have him and that’s the end of that.

Most of the photos are of the groups I used to teach once I was down in Australia. Most of the time, I only had to contend with one of two students at once, but now and again I had seven or eight people wanting to learn all at once. Normally these groups were mostly just the whole ‘this is my group of friends; give us the bare bones and we’ll be on our way’ set. It was fine by me. I’d give them the basic, they’d pay the fee and that was the end of that.

I do remember one particular group though, five friends that had requested a full day of teaching because each wanted a little one-on-one time. Four of the five were young women and the fifth was their male friend that seemed to have a really hard time focusing on what I was trying to teach him. He was too busy salivating over the sight of his friends in their revealing bathing suits.

It was light-hearted for most of the classes though I recall that one of the girls was constantly complaining about how everyone always felt the need to pile their stress onto her shoulders. It made me roll my eyes a little because she very much so had the daddy’s trust fund princess vibe going and considering she’s the one that paid the fee for her friends, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t all that wrong about her.

Most trust fund kids that I’ve had the pleasure to meet have never had to worry about a single thing before in their lives and really, I would have laughed in her face at her complaining if I didn’t mostly just need the money to keep that roof over my head at that point. No matter my obsession with trying to feed me to the sharks, something that was very much so futile, but I still felt necessary in my life.

It was a fairly good day, that aside. The weather had been nice though there had been storms that evening. The group had been interesting besides the complaining diva and their ogling male friends. All of them were willing to focus on me when it was time for one-on-one and I think that I did manage to get through to them the basic safety information that they did need.

They all went on their merry way with happy smiles and wishes of good days and that’s possibly the last I saw of them. Groups like these, it was just so rare that I ever got to see them more than once. They just wanted some barebone information; they wanted to know how to hang onto their boards, how to balance, how to have fun.

The ones I got to see on repeated visits were the more dedicated surfers and they did take away from me for just a few hours, the desire to waste away into nothing.

Not everything about the dark years was bad but, for the most part, no Taka makes for a very cranky River.

Why would I be grateful to you? You didn’t even do anything.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Riverae Kaminari-Myrias
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human – Meta – Water / Demi-God of Fate
Age: 70, physically about 22
Final Word Count: 729 words
 

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Did I ever mention that I visited my mother during the dark years? I probably never did mention it but I did, visit my mother just the one time during my dark years.

I was still pretty young when dad came and snatched me away from her. It was for the best, really. She’d never been much of a mother, not that he’d been that great of a father himself but it’s one of those things. The lesser of two evils if you can even just think about it that way.

Of course, my visit was before I’d found my way down under in Australia where I was trying to feed myself to the sharks. It really wasn’t a good time in my life; no amount of lying to myself about it will change that.

It would be a lie if I were to say that I don’t know why I went back to see her. I know exactly why I went back to see her and that’s because I wanted her to see me as a grown arse man, even if I wasn’t really feeling that back then. I was bitter as all fuck and I just wanted someone to validate me, I guess.

As anyone might be able to guess, it didn’t work out so well.

She didn’t recognize me at first, of course not. I’d been out of her life for years but I look enough like her that she could tell if she looked at me real close and she did. Then she turned up her nose a little, probably high on whatever drug of choice she’d picked for on that night and told me I should be grateful to still be alive and that this gratefulness should be directed her way.

I scoffed, how could I not? She’d never really done anything to me, not really. Oh sure, there was toast for me to eat in the morning and some water and some canned food for lunch and usually dinner. I suppose if that’s what parenting is supposed to be like then sure, I can be grateful to her. Except I just wasn’t. She was constantly leaving at night, most likely to whatever work it was she did or to get some drugs from wherever. What kind of mother leaves her child—I was so young before dad came to get me—alone at night in a house in a pretty terribly neighbourhood? My mother did, that’s who.

The rest of my visit to her on that day is fuzzy. I really do mostly just remember her words and how haughty she sounded as though the only reason I was alive at this point was thanks to her. I remember scoffing at her. I remember telling her that she’d been a terrible mother and I honestly think I told her that I hoped she’d choke on the next dick she’d suck and die.

Well, I did say I’d been in a bad place back then but, even so, I think that I would possibly have talked to her that way even if I hadn’t been. She didn’t deserve my gratefulness. It’s not because she’d ‘popped me out’ that she deserved anything.

I only stayed around her part of the world for the day before I was gone again. That visit certainly hadn’t helped the gaping hold that my fight with Taka had left but you could say that it’s just one of those things and there was no helping it. I couldn’t change that. We had fought, I’m not even sure what about, and I was on a very, very self-destructive path.

I mean, I tried to feed myself to the sharks constantly, I don’t think you can get even more self-destructive than that and, to just make matters worse, I never even got a simple nibble out of them.

Though I’m sure that Taka would quite like to argue to the contrary that he’s quite glad that they didn’t take much more than just a passing brush at me because, well, I certainly wouldn’t be alive and well at this point in our lives and we wouldn’t have been reunited.

Even now, I still don’t know if it was because of my mostly uncontrolled gift or whatever it was that was wrong with my brain. I haven’t bothered asking, it doesn’t really matter.

I tried to tell myself I was good enough, but it’s hard when everyone else disagrees.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 2nd Generation
Characters: Riverae Kaminari-Myrias
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human – Meta – Water / Demi-God of Fate
Age: 69, physically about 22
Final Word Count: 678 words
 

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During the years of darkness, I tried to feed myself to the sharks. No lie. I was in such a bad place, that I figured I was better off dead but even the sharks wouldn’t have me. Of course, that was either the fact that my bloodlines are so screwy and my power still mostly not under my control, or that I just had shit luck, but I was in the path of sharks more often than I kept count of and not a single one even took a small bite.

Not helpful to my mental health was the fact that I was sick. I don’t know exactly which ‘one’ it was. I don’t know if it was the beginning of schizophrenia, if it was something closer to a dissociative identity disorder or if it was a tumour. I didn’t ask to know when my dad decided to bash my head to the wall to render me unconscious so he could take the ‘bad’ out of me, somewhat literally.

All of this drama and I don’t even remember why.

I mean, I know we had a fight but I don’t even recall why we had a fight; just that we each went our separate way and I felt like I was complete bullshit. I felt like I was wrong, I felt like I wasn’t good enough for anyone. I was a failure and that’s all that stayed with me.

For the longest of times, I actually tried telling myself that I was good enough but I felt as though everyone out there in the big bad world was disagreeing with me. Never mind the fact that I had students coming in from all over the globe to participate in my classes, I still felt as though I wasn’t good enough and the only one who could fix that was the only person who wasn’t in my life anymore.

When he came right back into my life—with a few difficulties along the way—everything slowly started falling back into place. Him and my father’s visit, I’d have to say though I still place most of this ‘getting better’ bit on Taka’s return into my life.

I’m incomplete without him. I feel like I have no sense, no reason to be, I feel pointless. When our son was born, I felt like the happiest idiot on the planet but when we learned about his memory troubles, I was winded. I blamed myself for that for the longest of times and I think that I still would be blaming myself for it if Taka hadn’t talked eventual sense into me.

Those memory issues have long since been fixed and I still call that fixing a miracle, but deep down inside, there’s still that nagging little voice that pipes up and tries to make me believe that it’s all my fault. That if my mind hadn’t been broken beyond belief during those dark years, our son wouldn’t have had so many issues though they never stopped him and he was an amazing kiddo. I wouldn’t change anything in how we raised him and how he turned out because, in my eyes, he’s perfect and nothing will change that.

Am I still broken? At times, I think I am. I do what I can to not let these particular thoughts drag me down into a pit of absolute despair but every so often, I find myself too weak to fight. I’m too weak to argue with my own mind about my own self-worth and only Taka can manage to find the real me during these days. He’s the only one who can pull me from my shell.

I might seem like a well evened out young man but I’m not. Not really. Never mind this need I still have for surfing and cliff jumping, that has nothing to do with that but my mind is fractured, it’s never going to be completely fixed but I have the best glue at my side and he makes getting up every morning worth it all.

Please, spare me the tears. I know where this is going, I’ll help you.

Timeline/World: Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Riverae Kaminari-Myrias
Race: Human – Meta – Water / Demi-God of Fate
Age: 67, physically about 22
Final Word Count: 571 words

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I can’t say that my biological father was a great guy, he wasn’t. Except he’s the only father figure to ever have any presence in my life so I don’t really have anything much to compare him to. I’d like to think I was a better father figure than he’s ever been and when I look at Cyp, all grown up, happy as can be, I think I’ve done well.

The mother I grew up with wasn’t much better, at least until I was mock-snatched away and back to this place. This place that saved my life until it all swept it away from me like pulling at the rug I’d so comfortably settled onto. One of the vague memories I have of my mother is of me sitting on the corner of her bed, watching her get ready to go out to do whatever it is she did back then, I can’t remember. I didn’t want her to go, what little boy wanted their mother to head outside and leave them all on their own for the evil night monsters to feast on? I remember the tears, I was fighting them down so she wouldn’t be exasperated with me but she ended up that way anyway.

She’d just look at me while I sniffled hard to keep the tears to myself, she rolled her eyes and there wasn’t even that little twist at the corner of her mouth to let me know she wasn’t really mad at me, wasn’t really exasperated. She took my hand, telling me to buck up, to spare her the tears. She’d help me keep the monsters away—she didn’t. Well, in a way I suppose she did. She tucked me into bed, told me a very shortened version of the one story I loved as a kid, sprayed one underside of the bed with a bottle that was filled with water but was meant to be ‘monster-away’ spray. I knew the truth but I let her at least believe she had that much sway over me.

She left. I didn’t sleep that night, I never slept on those nights, and I just couldn’t. The room was cold and dark, it was creaky and the rest and sleep was impossible to achieve.

I think I remember this one well enough because it was a repeat occurrence until dad came to fetch me away from the woman I eventually saw as the wicked witch. I don’t know what happened to her after we left. I don’t want to ask, I don’t want to know. Dad wasn’t much better, there are times when he was even a complete asshole but I think that’s just part of how he lived his life up until other-dad came into the picture. Mind you, I was too old to really ‘adopt’ another parent when Thaddeus came into the picture but in a partial way, I still did. He’s nice and he’s mellowed dad out in a way I never thought I’d see, so he gets plenty of respect from me on that particular subject.

The relationship between me and dad still isn’t great, though it’s not as rocky as it used to be. Then again, with the ‘bad’ out of my brain and the ‘bad’ out of his system, I think we’re both in much better places than we’ve ever been before, so in the end, it’s all good.

Impossible

Timeline/World: Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Riverae Kaminari-Myrias
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human – Meta – Water / Demi-God of Fate
Age: 66, physically about 22
Final Word Count: 512 words

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I don’t like thinking about the great split. It brings back memories I wish I could mostly forget, though some of them I guess I should cling to. My life had no meaning during that split. Between the headaches and the even more painful heartache, all I’d really wanted was to be eaten by one of the many sharks I saw when I was out onto the water but as my luck would have had it then, none of them were interested in me. It’s like I was shark repellent or something, it made my heart sink even further.

So when we were reunited, at first, I was certain I was dreaming it. It was impossible. We’d parted on bitter words after that one fight and I was so sure I would never again see him. It was why I was just about suicidal by then, of course. That and the tumour or whatever that was sitting deep in my brain that my father saw fit to ‘removing’ in his own way. Thank you but next time, can we please do this without bashing my head, literally, against the wall? Then again, can there just be no next time?

Now, living in this city, in this world that is all ours, I cherish every little moment. I want nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity with him. Catch a few waves when they’re good and spend some more time with him.

Watching our son growing up was a challenge at times. I don’t know if it’s because of what was wrong in my head or something else, but his memory was something we couldn’t really count on, at least not the short term memory. That he now no longer has that issue, and the means by which that was achieved, baffles me but to see how bright-eyed he looks, how his face softens when he thinks no one’s watching and he’s looking at his mate, it’s all enough to melt down what little worry there might still have been left around my heart when the split happened.

This life we have now, this… peaceful day in and day out way we go about things, I never thought it would happen. I have no words to explain how my heart aches now and again, but in a good way, when I think about all we have now and what we have to look forward to. I can’t say that I’ve completely forgotten the past, the memories surface now and again but I don’t spend much time thinking about it. It would make no sense.

What I did learn from the split is that I can’t live in the past. I have to live in the present and look ahead to the future. We live our lives one day after the other, cherishing what we have, cherishing one another and just appreciating every new day. At least, I know I am and when I look in Taka’s eyes, I can see my own thoughts mirrored in them.