Alder's Grove

After Convincing, after Identity.

“Tell me who you truly are, and give us reason to believe it.”

Adder panicked.

Stuck in the man's gaze, he had no choice but to answer. But what could he say?

"I'm Adder, sh'Hana, cy'Caitrin, called the Link. I was oro'Orlaith in my first year of school. We joked about it being oro-oro, remember, Ora? And when I Named Hunter, when I named my son," he was freaking out and he didn't know how to stop, damnit, the first time he met his son and he was hyperventilating. "When I named Hunter, you looked at me, and rolled your eyes, and you said, 'why, Addy?' and all I could say was 'he's going to need both halves to get through it.' Is that enough, Ora, please?"

He dropped his Mask, holding out his hands with the tiny pointed fangs under the nails. "And you know I never show anyone these."

"Careful with those, Adder." Her voice was level and unimpressed. "Silas, I'm convinced. This is the boy I Kept my last year of school."

Adder held his breath. There was no mistaking the fact that she was deferring decision to this... this man. This man who had taken his spot, his Ora, his son.

He needed them. Adder waited on judgement.

After Step-Father, after Old History, after At the Gate, after Fathers.


Charity case. Hunter-Hale didn't question his father.

Nor did he question his mother. "I'll be right down, darling." Her voice sounded both tinny and icy over the intercom.

He turned back to the guy claiming to be his father instead. "So you're Adder." He didn't look like much. The way his shoulders rolled forward, the way he kept looking at the ground; he looked like a beaten dog, one really hoping someone would throw him a bone.

Hunter-Hale wanted to feel sorry for him, but his parents had taught him the dangers of that. What they hadn't taught him, the end of the world had.

("You little shit," the man had screamed at him. "Do you know who I am?"
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Just for fun.


Year 28 of the Addergoole School

Hunter-Hale was just barely fourteen, and all his sisters and one of his brothers had headed off to school, when the man with a face like his rang the bell at the front gate.

(The world had started ending more than ten years ago, but his mother was a doctor and both his parents rather clever, and in their little corner of the city, the electricity still ran, most days.)

It was Hunter-Hale's turn on the gate, so he answered it, his gun ready but not aimed. Standing on the sidewalk, rucksack over his shoulder, was the face he saw in the mirror every day.

"Hi. I'm here to see my son, Hunter-Hale?" He even had the same sideways smile Hunter-Hale had borne his entire life.

He did not shoot the interloper, although it was tempting. He pushed the intercom button, instead.

"Dad!" He hollered. "There's a guy at the gate who says he's you!"

While he waited for his father to show up, he stared at the stranger. The stranger, clearly confused, stared back.

"You look like me." The other man broke the silence. "But you've got Ora's eyes."

Hunter-Hale coughed. "Look. I know, reasonably, that my dad can't be my biological dad. I remember meeting him, sort of, when I was a baby. But even if you look like me - that's a pretty simple Working, isn't it? - you're a stranger. Who happens to know my name and my mom's. Which makes you a creepy stranger."

"And your mother taught you not to talk to strangers?"

"My mother taught me not to invite strangers over our threshold, and to shoot if threatened. Actually." He grinned, because it felt good. "My father taught me that part."

"But I'm..."

"Sit tight. My dad'll be here soon."