Chapter Text
When she’s just born, he’s thirty and finds her thrust upon him without warning. “Here, take care of the kid,” like he’s not got his hands full being the champion of scientific advancement for the Eliatrope people. Now he and Shinonome have a sniffling infant – and it’s Nora, which can mean nothing good – and an overly playful baby dragon to add to their little family collection. Like she’ll break he takes the child into his arms, and she coos happily and grabs at his beard.
“Hello, kid.” He takes a bony finger and pokes it into her cheek, and she grabs it and pulls. Chibi laughs.
When she’s two, she calls him “papa” for the first time. It’s after he’s snatched her swiftly away from one of his experiments, bubbling and hot and dangerous, and he has no idea how to respond. He knows, after all, that he’s not her father, she hatched from an egg for Goddess’ sake, and he has to be quick with his response with the damn kid looking straight at his face.
“I’m not your father, Nora. I’m—“ But he’s caught without words when that face, innocent and forward and without the world-weariness that coats his heart, stares him naked in the eye. He sighs and carts her out of his lab.
When she’s seven, she breaks her leg, and when he sees her falling out of the tree he’s suddenly filled with adrenaline. Before he realizes it he’s running towards her, portaling for greater speed, and all he can think – though irrational he knows it to be – is oh goddess I hope she doesn’t land on her head oh goddess she’s gonna die. Thankfully, she lands on her leg, but he swears he can hear the snap of bone. Without the slightest hesitation he scoops her up and carries her back into his lab.
He’s used to tears, and he’s used to blood, but their combination when he’s putting a cast on her leg makes his heart ache. He knows broken bones well enough to know they hurt, but he knows they don’t hurt that much, but Nora’s his… He proceeds not to think about Nora’s role in his life, just murmuring “you’ll be okay” to her as he wraps that frail leg in plaster.
When she’s ten, she starts puberty, and that’s a nightmare in itself. He knows the six original Eliatropes can’t reproduce (oh, he knows), so why do they have to go through this long and complicated process of sexual maturity? Why do they have to be so moody?
Qilby wishes he knew, even more so when Nora chucks a book at him for the accident of walking in on her changing, or when she flips out on him for “not understanding.” He wants to yell oh, I understand, do you know how many lives I’ve lived?, but he’s got to come to terms sometime with the fact that he doesn’t really get it when he’s dealing with a girl coming of age.
When she’s thirteen, she comes to him questioning religion. She doesn’t know, she says, she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to be so grateful to a goddess she can’t see or feel. Qilby pours her a cup of tea, with honey the way she likes it, and sits her down for a talk.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know either.” He proceeds to spill his own doubts, as easily as breathing from the amount of times he’s cycled them in his head and with Chibi. Nora’s shoulders slump, she’s less tense now that she knows she’s not being judged, but unease is still pooling in her head.
“I don’t understand. Why does Chibi need to keep these secrets?” Nora really doesn’t understand. She looks betrayed, searching for something true in the eyes of the man who raised her, and Qilby can’t help but drape his arm around her shoulders.
“I don’t know either, Nora.” Qilby winces. “I wish he wouldn’t.”
When she’s fourteen, she takes notice of Yugo, and Qilby wants to scream.
He wishes there were some other young man she could shack up with, anyone; he could be a criminal just as long as he isn’t Yugo. That kid infuriates him beyond belief, he doesn’t know shit about how the world works but still worms his way into all the positions of power, and isn’t he eighteen anyway? After living with and teaching Nora day in and day out for fourteen years, not to mention that most of his lives she’s been younger anyway, he still sees her as this little girl who needs protecting.
He almost vomits when he realizes this is how men feel when their daughters grow up.
When she’s fifteen, crying her eyes out over something stupid, she calls him “papa” for the second time.
Almost immediately she catches herself, though, and she clamps a hand over her mouth. “I mean, Qilby, I—“ yet he simply walks towards her, wraps his arms around her, and she sobs into his chest.
He’s seen Nora in so many stages of life he can’t count them all, but something in him aches desperately for that 15-year-old heart so vulnerable before him.
When she’s sixteen, he lies awake in bed with Chibi and asks him how to let go.
“Goddess, I’ve known her for eternity, when did I start thinking of her as my kid? It’s ridiculous! It’s just that…” Chibi wraps his arms tighter around Qilby, quieting him.
“That you raised her? That you were in charge of her life? It’s anything but stupid,” Chibi says. Qilby kisses the crown of Chibi’s head and smiles.
“I suppose when you put it that way.”
“So does that make me Nora’s other dad?” Qilby smacks Chibi under the covers.
When he passes, when she passes, he never quite stops seeing her as a kid.