Page 70 of Forgotten Arcane

For example, there’s a creature that is called a Dimple. I thought that sounded pretty cute, and definitely not threatening.

I was Wrong. Really wrong.

It will literally eat your face off. Not metaphorically either, I mean that’s its diet, that’s how it eats. It starts with faces, and it doesn’t discriminate either, it doesn’t care if you’re human, or what kind of supernatural you are, so long as you’ve got a face, then it will eat you.

The worst part is that they actually look pretty cute too, they’re like these little colorful fluffy balls, with no features whatsoever, like a starfish, their mouths are underneath them.

I shudder. Cute things that do disturbing shit is probably one of the things that freak me out the most.

“Are you okay, Love?” Coen asks, and Van’s parents’ eyebrows once again hit their hairlines.

I choose to just breeze past it rather than try to explain Coen and our complicated past.

Grinning sheepishly, I realize that I’ve missed some of the conversation because I was too busy thinking about cute abominations.

“Sorry, I was thinking about Dimples,” I reply, which of course is a really vague thing to say.

“Why?” River asks, pulling an absolutely adorable, confused face.

“Erm, it would be a really long and confusing explanation because my brain sort of went on a random tangent without my permission,” I reply.

Everyone looks confused at my reply, apart from River, who just nods with understanding.

“Ah, I get that,” he replies.

“You do?” Reed asks incredulously.

River raises one eyebrow and smirks, while asking equally incredulously, “You don’t?”

Reed chuckles, “Touché, dude.”

“Would you like to know more about your dad?” Eamon asks me. “You said that you knew that your father came across with you from Trieneliea.”

I shift nervously in my seat.

I want to know about him. I want to know anything that they can tell me to be honest, but I’m worried about what they’re going to say.

“He kept in contact,” Calia says gently as if she can sense my worry, and my eyes dart up to hers. She continues, “He wasn’t supposed to, but he has always been damn good at finding loopholes where most people couldn’t. The Gods told him that he couldn’t stay in contact with you, but they said nothing about staying in contact with us, even though we all knew that it wasn’t technically safe.”

“He asked about you monthly, which was still far too often for us to be in contact, but try telling your dad that. He didn’t care that it put him at risk. He knew about all of your big milestones and is so fucking proud of you,” Eamon continues.

I swallow down a knot of emotion.

“He about lost his damn mind when you ran off, and he couldn’t fucking find you. He looked and carried on looking. I don’t know exactly what happened, but eventually he stopped getting in contact. We have no idea where he is or if he’s still alive. We haven’t seen or heard from him since about a year after you had gone,” Calia continues to explain.

“He’s alive,” I tell them. Their expressions fill with such relief that it’s obvious that they genuinely care about him as a friend. So, I go on to explain about Pete and the subtle ways that he’s been looking out for me since I arrived in the town.

I’m now coming to realize that he found me, and he kept me safe in so many little ways that I really fucking appreciate. The more I look back, the more I see, and he did the best that he could, probably even more than he was supposed to, considering the order from the Gods.

I’m suddenly not so scared to go and find him. I’m actually looking forward to it.

When I’m done filling them in, they’re both smiling widely.

Eamon chuckles, “That sounds just like your dad to make sure he had whatever relationship that he could with you. It must have killed him that you didn’t recognize him, and that he couldn’t tell you who he was.”

I frown, so much has happened that I missed the obvious.

“He doesn’t have wrinkles, does he?” I ask, seemingly randomly, but there is a reason for my out-of-the-blue question.

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