Pre-Canon Adventures Collection

Father's Day

Father's Day: a human celebration for the children of Ardonia to celebrate their father figures; but just because the Ardoni don't celebrate it, doesn't mean that they don't think about it

Even those who don't have fathers anymore

Or those who have a father figure in absence of flesh and blood. It only takes memories to resurface to realise what they have

Author's note: this is an idea I've had for a yonk and only just got round to writing

ngl, this is 90% headcanon since I am assuming most of Dominus' personality and assuming that Ardonia has father's day (mind you, even if they don't, it's still a fun concept to think about) and my OC in place of Achi's father also makes another reappearance because yes

(Ardorus is a fully-fledged developed character now, don't you know? XD)

it starts off a tad angsty, but it's wholesome, I promise XD

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Father's Day: a human celebration for the human kingdoms of Ardonia. It is not one commonly observed by the other species of the land, Felina nor Ardoni, but it never stopped small groups of curious children wondering what the celebration was all about.

As the name implies, a celebration for the fathers of Ardonia, but to Ingressus and Achillean, while their curious minds would ponder the reason for such an occasion, they couldn't help but feel a void between them, unfillable by anything but grief, for their lives lacked the very essence for such a celebration. They were as much victims of a blood-woven war amongst the clans as those soldiers whom boldly strode toward the danger that the strife brought unto the horizon and never found the sun again; however indirectly.

It was a mutual void that the two boys shared – one of few – even if the circumstances were untimely and unfortunate. For Achillean to have lost his father to the Voltaris as he had with his mother, Ingressus' arrival into Nestoria was nothing short of a stab in the chest, a twisted dagger tearing at the fibres of his flesh and opening a wound that had only barely begun to heal.

For Ingressus to have, not just been in the midst of, but bear witness to his father's death and then land himself a life with one of the very clans to have struck their swords of lightning upon his family and his home was a torturous show displayed before his very eyes, gazing at his own life from the perspective of another, watching on from the sidelines, helpless and forgotten.

They both had wounds and inflictions across their minds that would not heal, but in finding an identical wound between them, they could aid each other's.

Father's Day picked at that single wound, scarring the flesh of thoughts, marring the mindless wanders and gnawing away at what was once whole. The fact that the human children – most, if not, all – could celebrate without inner turmoil was more salt in what already stung daily, but that was not to stop the boys from finding some solace in sharing the blood that ran from missing fathers.

"What was he like?" Achillean asked, hoping to open the door into Ingressus' quiet space in the back of his mind with the first question as they swung their legs off the edge of the pier along the shores.

They had not brought their fishing equipment with them on this day as the sun set, glistening the water in a volley of warming colours and blinding twinkles as the waves licked at their ankles, so this was not a passing comment to spark a conversation mid-activity. Achillean had genuinely wanted to know about Ingressus' father, to see if the clans were as different as the elders spoke of in the spun stories, twisted and untrue as they were.

Ingressus pinched the edge of the wood as he looked down at his toes lightly dipped in timid waves. His fingers twitched under the salt-soaked board as his knuckles tensed, thinking only of his last moments with Dominus Voltaris.