Page 75 of Call of the Fathoms

“Father, I believe that’s the first time you’ve ever said anything bad about another depthstrider.”

“I am not without my faults.”

He grinned at his son, knowing that at the very least, he would always have Aulax by his side.

“It’s hard to call them humans,” he muttered. “The colorless ones have always fit them. They are so... bland.”

“They do not come in a rainbow of colors, but I have found there is still color in them. Mira’s hair. Anya’s eyes. Ace’s bright laugh that fills the room with bursts of bright light. There are plenty of colors in the humans, father. We just don’t see them.”

Perhaps he should listen to his son’s wisdom. The boy had matured far more than he was comfortable with. Where was his little boy, who had pulled the tails of visitors and played pranks on those who lived beside them? Now he was looking at a young man, a formidable warrior, and a person he respected.

He sighed, disgusted with himself. “I find it easier if things do not change. I can look at my people and myself with far less... Discomfort.”

“Change is good. Change brings about new ages of people and exploration that we might never have tried on our own. I, for one, am very excited for our future with the humans at our side.” Aulax grinned at him. “Even if you aren’t all that excited.”

“I am rarely excited.”

“Maybe it’s time to start getting excited. Maybe it’s time to start feeling all those things that you have refused to feel for such a long time.”

But feeling meant he put himself at risk. Feeling the good meant he had to feel the bad too.

Aulax saw far too much, and then his son gently said, “Wasn’t Alexia drugged? It made her incapable of feeling things?”

“She told you that?”

“Alexia is very honest if you ask her literally anything. But you remember that part, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” It still made him want to rip apart everyone in Tau. She deserved to feel, and feel as gloriously as she had in the abandoned facility with him. What he wouldn’t give to go back to that moment before anyone else had seen them together. Before he had all these questions raise in his mind.

“Then maybe you need to consider that while she had medication to hide her emotions, that doesn’t mean other people haven’t been doing the exact same thing to themselves without the drugs.” Aulax flicked his hip fins in agitation. “You’ve spent your entire life adhering to complicated rules that no one asked you to uphold. You were the one who made yourself live that way, and you were the one who refused to feel anything because you were so afraid of losing someone else like you lost mom.”

He stared at his son in shock. He’d always thought Aulax was spared from most of what he was feeling. His son was intuitive,of course. He was more like his mother than not. But he hadn’t thought Aulax saw through him that easily.

“I don’t know what to say,” Fortis rasped. “I thought I had hidden all that from you. I struggled when your mother died, but I never thought...”

“Father, I have known everything from every moment. I was with you through all of it. I just chose to not hide myself, like you did. If I had to hurt again, like I hurt with mom, then it was still worth it. Because I wouldn’t trade knowing her for the world.”

He felt the fins on his hips shudder in sadness before he nodded. “I understand. But replacing your mother?—”

“It’s not replacing,” Aulax interrupted. “No one is taking mom’s place. No one is pretending she didn’t exist. She is still in our hearts and our memories, but if I have learned anything through all the pain and torment I have been through, it is that these feelings are worth it. No matter what it costs to feel them.”

He hated that his son was so honorable. And loved it, of course. But he hated it at the same time. This wasn’t a child before him. It was... Aulax. A man who saw the world more clearly than his father did.

Heart in his throat, he nodded at his son. “You are wise beyond your age. I should listen to you more often, I fear.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“Yes. I don’t relish taking advice from my son so often when I should be the one giving you advice.”

Aulax grinned. “I guess that just means I’ve grown up, father.”

He hated that. It felt like time had passed so quickly when his son was a child only moments ago. He feared he hadn’t done enough in the time that he had been given. He wasn’t a good enough father. He hadn’t taught Aulax enough, but clearly that fear was unfounded.

Fortis quite liked the man in front of him. A lot.

Now, he would bring Alexia to his people, he would get them to fight, and then he would destroy the city that had caused so much harm. To his people, and to so many others.

Even if it meant changing how he saw the world around them.

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