23 LAST NIGHT

Sunday Night July 18th, 2240 ATE. SkyHaven Outskirts. The Grey's Cabin….

"That's it. I'm quitting my job."

"Dad! It wasn't that bad." Claude said as they sat at the dinner table. He now wore a simple knitted green sweater and thin cotton shorts. He probably would've looked cozy if not for the scars and crooked nose.

Gil raised his eyebrows in that way parents do when they're either going to slap you or grill you for an hour.

"Wasn't that bad? Kid, I've had C-Ranked Tangents go smoother and I have no System to save me. Seriously, how did you two get caught between two bucks in mating season? I taught you better." Gil explained.

Frosty whined.

Claude promised himself once he got to the University he'd never lie again.

"Hello?" Gil pressed.

"We— no, I went looking for them." Claude said with his eyes low.

"You're still deer hunting? Damn…. There was more out there than I thought." Gil mumbled to himself.

"It's over now. I'll do my best never to be that reckless again. I'm sorry." Claude scooped up some peas and chewed in silence.

"No— no. I'm sorry. I've been busy with work. I usually can handle it. But I didn't. You manned up. Sometimes it can get messy. As long as you're ok and you learned something." Gil pointed his spoon at him as he spoke.

"Oh I learned something alright…." Claude thought as he looked over to Frosty.

The pitwolf began to pant. They'd been roughhousing all day, trying to rebuild his confidence. You'd think it was working wonders the way he looked to be smiling.

He looked back to his father. The man looked like he aged just in the last two weeks. He had dark circles around his light brown eyes. His skin was pale as if every Tangent he'd entered during his work days was in eternal night. He was thinner too. His cheekbones looked ready to rip out of his face and the veins in his arms sat like ropes beneath his hairy skin.

"Dad?"

Gil looked up.

"Work?"

"Huh— yea…. Work." Gil nodded before clearing his throat and sitting up straighter. He wasn't wearing his leather jacket, but he would've fiddled with the pockets then if he was.

"How is it?" Claude asked nervously. He was never nervous to ask about work.

"Well." Gil cracked a half smile, "Rocko shit all over the place. He broke out of his cage and ate Ilka's peanut-butter cookies in the middle of the night."

"Damn—"

Before Claude could say anything else, Gil scooped up a pea with his spoon and flung it at Claude's face.

It splattered on his forehead in a blast of mushy heat.

"Dude— what are you doing?!"

"Language. I'm monitoring language. What are you doing?" Gil asked casually.

"Scraping pea guts off my forehead. Also, sorry. Also… you cussed too."

"Be better than me." Gil handed a cooked deer leg to Frosty.

Claude tried to hide his smile as he rolled his eyes.

Frosty damn near swallowed the deer leg whole.

"I'm serious, kid." Gil started, "When you get to this University tomorrow, work on being a hero the whole way. Have enough discipline to watch your mouth— stop your tongue from twisting like a serpent or salamander on demon-blood."

"Scary thoughts…" Claude mumbled as he played with the scraps on his plate.

"Scary reality." Gil corrected.

Claude shivered, remembering how he sweat black sulfuric ooze and nearly died from the kiss of dark blood. "Don't remind me."

"Don't puss out now. If your aspirations hold up, you'll be up against far worse things than low level demon-snakes, Mr. Save the planet."

Claude hid his eyes from Gil behind his spoon, "Dad, stop before I get embarrassed."

"Don't be. Your dreams should poke the sky. Screw with the clouds. Go that high and everything underneath is free game."

"Have you been reading philosophy? Is that why you're asking about fatherhood and looking off in the distance these past couple weeks?" Claude questioned.

"No. Just having nightmares." Gil winked.

"I'm totally your son." Claude replied.

Gil laughed, "The folks at the kennel used to think you were adopted, you know?"

"What? White guys can't have brown kids anymore? We're going backwards."

"That's what I said!" Frosty barked as Gil raised his voice.

They spent the rest of their dinner silently. Content. Enjoying food.

Claude fell into his own head. As he'd been doing more than usual. With his previous sickness, he tried not to engage his negative thoughts. Now freed of it, his mind roamed. And after the buck and the dryads, his mind went to a very specific place.

He remembered the fear so strongly— how badly he wanted to run. How afraid he was. How much it wasn't like the books. It was pain and cold and discomfort and terror all wrapped in violence. In despair. That buck wasn't a monster. It didn't start that way at least….

"What if I hate my job, dad?" The question fell out of his mouth before he even properly thought it out.

"What?" Gil seemed as surprised as he was to say it.

"I mean, statistically speaking, I have a very weak class. My weakness and strength is at my side at all times, and when I lose it, I lose my mind. My class isn't regarded for its strength or rarity. What if I hate my job? What if I hate killing and fighting and almost dying inside Tangents?" Claude asked.

Gil smirked, "Claude, I want you to hate every waking second of your job."

He'd be lying if he said he expected that response from his father.

"Nobody should love slaughtering endless waves of life. That's not what a hero is. It's not heroic to enjoy death. That's not you. You've been saving life since you were eight. The dogs love you for a reason. Heroes save lives, slayers take them in mass. Nobody should want to be a slayer. Slayers are monsters in their own right, and nobody should want that. Not even monsters want to be monsters…."

"Dad…. In all my books slayers and heroes are used as the same thing."

"Oh my apologies. I didn't know books were the arbiters of truth and allergic to propaganda." Gil replied sarcastically.

Claude was too young to fathom any of what his father just said.

"Heroism— true heroism, isn't about loving your job. It's about loving what it does. How it affects people. It's about loving it so much that you can endure what is otherwise the absolute shittiest job this world has ever offered mankind."

Claude was silent.

"Do you think you'd love the results?"

Claude suddenly remembered the first splint he put on a dog. The first warhound to accept him despite its life of trauma. How much he wished he could've helped Frosty this morning…

Not only did he love the results, he hated the lack of them.

"Hell ye—"

Another pea to the forehead. His father might've been an archer in secret.

"Dad— WHY?!"

"Your failing as a hero and you haven't even made it to the University yet. Rough start, kid. Looks like we're taking the zero to hero route. You have NO potential." Gil pushed his plate to the side and kicked his feet up on the table.

"Zero to hero by definition means I have all the potential." Claude said.

"Hey, shut-up."

They laughed.

Gil stretched once before adding, "You get what I'm saying, though?" Hints of his old Arthurian accent poked through there. Claude had no idea why.

"Don't listen to the books. Listen to what I feel."

"No. Don't listen to anything. Listen to what you know. It's inside. Truly. You're one of the most intuitive and instinctually driven people I know. You're a natural more often than you're not. Let it guide you. Even if it pulls you away from others."

Claude finished his food, "Thanks, dad. My night before school advice being listen to no one and hate my job is perfect. This is exactly what I needed."

Gil shrugged as Claude got up and gathered their plates, "Ah, pep talks were never my thing. Us Grey's aren't leaders, son. We're explorers. We look into the dark and wonder what lives there. We watch elves converse and wonder not only what they're saying, but why they say it that way. But then again, you aren't much like your old man, are you?"

"What?! Of course I am." Claude said from the kitchen.

Gil didn't reply.

***

It had been a long day. Even still, he was so nervous, he couldn't get to sleep right away. He laid in bed, looking over his letter.

In the dark, the numbers glowed. When he first gazed upon the black page, the numbers read, "9/15."

Now they read, "14/15"

He'd know what that meant by morning. And more.

"Love the results. Listen to what I know…"