A Father’s Daughter

“Grief doesn’t ask permission. It just walks in, drops its coat, and makes itself at home.”

Walking along the edge of the frozen Lake Gunlah, each crunching footstep echoed oddly in the stillness, as though the ice itself were holding its breath. Krid had informed me—helpfully and without ceremony—that the lake had always been frozen. I wasn’t sure whether she meant always in the historical sense or in the magical, vaguely ominous sense. Neither felt especially comforting.

The vast white landscape stretched endlessly before us, a windless expanse of pale blue shadows and glittering frost. The surface of the lake was a mirror to the bleak sky, fractured by faint cracks and the tracks of creatures I hoped not to meet. The silence was total, save for our footsteps and the soft creak of Cody’s fur coat as I moved. Every step felt like confirmation: you’re not on Earth anymore, Gladys.

Had it not been for the steady reminder churning in my mind—that I was now, somehow, a Guardian, with the potential to leave this unforgiving tundra—the desolation of Lake Gunlah might have fully sunk its teeth into me. As it was, the cold was biting. Merciless. Without the gentle buffer of a wine-induced haze, it seemed to cut more sharply through bone and thought alike. My fingers ached despite being buried deep in the coat’s sleeves.

In the distance, thin trails of smoke curled skyward from chimney stacks, wavering like ghostly signals. Life. Or something like it. We pressed on, our breath visible in short, puffy clouds.

As we approached the settlement, I took in the landscape with growing disbelief. Buildings stood scattered across the snow-swept ground in a way that defied any logic or planning—no grid, no rows, no order. They looked like they had been built on impulse, wherever someone had happened to stop walking.

A few narrow cobbled streets meandered haphazardly through the mess, like veins unsure of where to lead. We walked along one in silence, and I noted the absence of people. Not a soul stirred behind the frosted windows or down the crooked alleys.

"I’m not surprised no one’s out," I had commented to Krid earlier. "If I lived here permanently, I wouldn’t leave the warmth of my house either." The thought had been half joke, half truth. The place exuded a kind of weary isolation I couldn’t fathom living with day after day. The air itself seemed resigned.

Then, suddenly, Krid stopped.

I was too busy staring up at a chimney that appeared to lean precariously out of its building like a drunken hat and nearly collided into her. My feet skidded awkwardly on the icy path as I jerked to a halt.

“We’re here,” Krid announced, her soft voice cutting through my distraction. She looked up at me with that same serene smile she always wore, as though everything were exactly as it should be.

I gulped. A tight knot had formed in my throat, and it wasn’t just the cold.

"I don’t think I can do this, Krid," I whispered, my voice low and brittle. The house loomed before us, its wooden walls warped slightly from years of enduring the cold. A thin wisp of smoke drifted from the chimney above. The idea of facing anyone else right now—someone who might know more than me, expect more from me—was suffocating.

"You don't have a choice," Krid replied, her tone steady and unyielding in a way that made me momentarily forget she was only six. She reached for the door, pushed it open, and with one small but surprisingly firm tug of my hand, pulled me inside.

The door groaned shut behind us, sealing out the cold with a reluctant creak—a sound that felt eerily final. Like a chapter closing.

“Krid, is that you?” a woman’s voice called from deeper in the house. There was a musical quality to it, layered with warmth and curiosity.

Krid slipped off her coat with ease and familiarity, hanging it on the rack beside the door. “Yes, Freya. It’s me,” she said, already reaching for mine.

I stiffened, hands gripping the fur collar tighter. “I’d rather keep it on,” I murmured, the words automatic. I wasn’t ready to be that exposed. The coat still carried Cody’s scent—smoke, cedar, something uniquely him. I needed it like a lifeline.

Krid nodded, accepting without judgement. “I understand.”

A sudden clatter from the other room made us both jump.

A small ceramic plate hit the wooden floor and shattered, the sound snapping through the air like a firecracker. In the archway stood a woman—tall, slender, with an intensity in her eyes that made the room feel smaller.

Her gaze fixed on me immediately.

She said nothing for a beat. Just studied me. Eyes narrowing, not in suspicion but in recognition—like seeing a face you didn’t realise you’d missed until it was in front of you. Her posture shifted slightly. The shattered plate at her feet forgotten.

“Gladys!” she gasped.

Before I could move or even process her tone, she crossed the space in swift, purposeful strides. My breath hitched as I instinctively stepped back. The moment twisted, too quick, too close.

A shiver rippled up across my shoulders, more instinct than logic. My fingers clenched around the edge of Cody’s coat as if it could shield me from the intensity now rushing toward me.

The woman—Freya, I now realised—pulled up short as if she'd walked into an invisible barrier. Her expression shifted the moment she saw the unease in my posture, the way my hand still clutched at the fur collar of my coat like it might anchor me in place.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, voice low and soft with genuine remorse. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay," I replied, though the words felt thin, too small for the rush of emotion building behind my ribs. My voice came out a little steadier than I expected, but my eyes... they betrayed me. I couldn’t look away from her.

There, in the lines of her face, in the arch of her brow and the delicate shape of her mouth, I saw him. The resemblance struck like a sudden chord—unexpected and too perfect to ignore. She looked so much like Cody. The familiarity of her features felt like balm and blade in equal measure. That echo of him, standing alive in someone else, stirred something inside me that I wasn’t ready to name.

She turned her attention to Krid, her tone tinged with apprehension. "Where’s Father?"

The question hung in the air like frost, still and waiting.

Krid’s shoulders slumped before her voice could form a single syllable. The movement alone told the story. She rushed into Freya’s arms, burying her face against the young woman’s waist. It was a child’s embrace—but also something deeper. Protective. Grieving.

My breath caught.

Freya turned her gaze to mine, and in that brief moment of eye contact, no words were needed. My silence was her answer. She read it in my face, in the red rims of my eyes, in the slump of my shoulders. I saw the moment the truth landed.

And then she broke.

Her composure crumbled with a fragility that made me ache. Her lower lip trembled helplessly before the dam burst, and tears poured down her cheeks in torrents. She dropped to her knees like the grief had struck her physically. Her body shuddered as sobs overtook her, arms wrapping around Krid and pulling her in tight, seeking comfort in the only warm thing within reach.

The sight of it—so raw, so unfiltered—was unbearable. I could hardly breathe.

What have we done? The question repeated in my mind with quiet fury. What have we lost? The words echoed like a heartbeat, over and over, dull and aching and endless.

Krid pulled back just enough to look up at Freya. Her little hands reached up and cupped Freya’s face, and for a moment the room held its breath again.

“Don’t cry, Freya,” she said, her voice impossibly soft and yet unwavering. Her thumbs brushed gently across the damp cheeks before her. “Hold strong. We’ll be okay.”

I felt something rupture inside me.

My hand flew to my mouth, stifling a soft gasp as my eyes stung with tears I no longer had the strength to hold back. The scene before me was too full—of love, of pain, of something ancient and infinite. It broke and rebuilt me all at once. My shoulders trembled. My heart felt pulled in every direction, stretched between mourning and wonder.

Then—like the turning of a page—a sound echoed from the hallway behind me.

A cry.

No—not a person.

A familiar, piercing meow.

Before I could even turn fully, a blur of movement leapt into the room. Soft, white fur, a streak of grey along her flank. The sound of rapid, scampering paws across the wooden floor.

“Chloe!” I cried, my voice catching as it cracked on her name.

She flung herself at my legs, all twitching whiskers and excited tail. I dropped to my knees instinctively, coat rustling as I scooped her up. Her body was warm against mine, her fur tickling the underside of my chin as she nestled into the crook of my arm like she’d been waiting for me all along. I kissed her head again and again, inhaling the familiar, slightly dusty scent of home.

My chest tightened, this time not from grief, but something else. Something lighter.

Relief. Love. A sense—however fleeting—of peace.

I closed my eyes.

For the first time in what felt like days, my body loosened, my thoughts slowed. Chloe’s purring filled the space between my ears, and a kind of quiet settled over me.

This is where you belong, Gladys, came a voice—wordless yet unmistakable. Not from Freya. Not from Krid. Not even from within. It was Clivilius. The world itself. Speaking not with words, but with knowing.

And for once, I didn’t argue.

The three of us sat closely together, our knees almost touching, the fire crackling in front of us the only barrier between the chill of Belkeep and the fragile warmth we’d built inside. Its amber glow flickered across the wooden walls, casting our shadows into soft, shifting shapes.

Chloe lay curled up on the small rug before the hearth, one paw tucked beneath her chin, her sides rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm that soothed something deep within me. Watching her breathe, I felt a tiny thread of normality stitch itself into the quiet.

I had just finished recounting the tragic events that had unfolded—the loss of another Guardian, a death that still echoed within me. My voice had cracked more than once, but Krid and Freya had listened without interrupting, without flinching. Grief, even shared, didn’t lessen in weight—but it could, I was beginning to understand, be carried together.

Freya, ever composed in her sorrow, moved with quiet intent. She picked up another log and threw it into the fire. Sparks leapt upwards, bright and angry, like they too were fighting to exist in this cold place. The flames welcomed the offering eagerly, crackling louder as they wrapped themselves around the dry wood. I watched the fire devour it, wild and alive, and felt strangely comforted by its hunger.

Dragging myself upright, my legs stiff from sitting too long on the hard floorboards, a sudden thought struck me—one that shouldn’t have taken this long to notice.

“You don’t have electricity?” I asked, glancing around the room with new eyes. No light switches. No hum of appliances. No screen-glow from corners. The place was a timeless shell of survival.

“What's electricity?” Krid and Freya responded almost in unison, both looking at me with that same gentle curiosity.

Their synchronised innocence startled me. It was like being handed a mirror that showed just how far I’d come from the world I knew. I blinked, suddenly dry-mouthed.

What the fuck have I got myself into?

The thought wasn’t unkind—it was just… overwhelmed. The gap between our worlds was yawning wider by the minute. This wasn’t just another place. It was another life. One that had never known power grids or mobile reception or the comforting buzz of a fridge in the dark.

“I’ll introduce you to it later,” I said quickly, covering the flicker of panic behind a thin smile. Somehow, I added silently. I had no idea how I'd explain solar panels or toaster ovens to people who’d never seen a light bulb.

But there were more pressing matters.

I turned to Freya, drawing in a slow breath to centre myself. “I’ll bring your father’s body to you as soon as I can,” I said. The words felt strange in my mouth—formal, solid, heavy. A promise made not from duty, but from something deeper. Something personal.

Freya’s gaze held mine for a heartbeat, then she moved quickly, grabbing her coat from the hook beside the door as I reached for the latch. “I’ll walk you back to the Portal Cave,” she said, already slipping her arms into the sleeves.

“You stay here and look after Chloe,” she added to Krid, just as the little girl made to rise.

Krid’s lower lip poked out briefly in protest, but then she nodded and obediently sat back down beside the cat, stroking Chloe’s back with quiet reverence.

As much as I really, really wanted to be alone—ideally in a quiet place with a heavy bottle of shiraz and no one to witness the fragile implosion happening just behind my ribs—I was also quietly relieved. This world, Belkeep, with its haunting silences and omnipresent cold, still felt like walking around inside someone else’s dream. Every building looked the same. The snow muffled everything. And there were no signs. No lights. No street names. Just endless white, and the crunch of your own footsteps reminding you that you were, in fact, still here. Still lost.

Freya’s company, unexpected though it was, felt like the smallest lifeline in a sea of unfamiliar things. Her presence didn’t erase the weight on my chest, but it made it bearable. Like a hand on your back, steady but not demanding. She knew how to walk in silence. That alone made me trust her, just a little.

“Thank you, Freya,” I said, as we entered the cave.

And then—without warning—she pulled me into an embrace. Soft and firm. No hesitation. Not a friendly pat on the arm, not the awkward hug of strangers. It was the sort of hug that said I understand, and you’re not alone, and possibly I miss him too—all at once.

I startled, unused to warmth that wasn’t wrapped in sarcasm or alcohol. But somehow, I didn’t pull away. I returned the hug, and I held on. Just for a moment. Long enough.