Saying Goodbye This Time

[Phoenix1]

Continued From Here

The moment the words "pretending to be human" left your mouth, Carmin's hand flashed up to deliver...well.  What certainly could, in principle, have been a stinging slap to your cheek.  Or it might not be.  On the one hand, a slap isn't really a combat action.  On the other hand, you were a Huntress and she was a pampered socialite, so if you actually did anything to stop her she really had no way to gainsay you there.

Either way, Brock gasped, because even that much crass physical violence was simply not something your mother did. Either way, your mother then hissed out, "How dare you!"  As affronted as the words were, they were nothing next to the hissing scoff in which she said them, that single exhalation seeming to contain entire paragraphs, pages, volumes of furious reprimand.

...But for all that, they were neither a confirmation nor a denial.

Your words had been loud enough for others to hear, and the (attempted?) slap had drawn some attention. Your father's silver eyes were now fixed on you. The Atlesian officers he had been talking to were all looking your way now. Brock was staring at you with eyes wide as saucers, the look on his face not so much one of either anger or admiration, but rather shock and perhaps some worry. Many of the people sitting around the room had also turned their heads in your direction - many of them, you could tell from the style of their clothing, Atlesians themselves. Visiting for the tournament, no doubt, and having come to seek shelter in the SDC Headquarters from the chaos of the night. Many of them were bedraggled, their clothing a bit tattered...but much of it was fancy enough for all that.

Most of them hadn't really been paying attention previously. Now they were. This confrontation was officially turning public. You could back down from it here. You could maybe get your mother to take it to a more private venue. Or you could push harder for the answer you sought, and let the consequences fall where they fall.

Edited April 2 by Phoenix1 (see edit history)

[Arlin]

Anya visibly leaned back away from her mother, flinching instinctively. She did not, however, take a step back, and she let out a small huff of a sigh before glancing apologetically at Brock. This was most likely going to cause trouble for him, but... this was a question that had haunted her for so long, and there was a very real chance her mother would never be caught off guard like this again. Her brow furrowed, then she met her mother's gaze.

"How dare I? All I'm doing is speaking the truth," Anya said quietly. In the silence and attention of the room, her words would likely not be missed, but this actually worked in her favor whether she consciously noticed it or not. Ironically enough, she was pulling a tactic directly from Carmin's own playbook: when your enemy is in disarray, gather your poise and seem largely unperturbed to cement their social floundering to all spectators.

"I did some research, in my time at the academy, you know. About human and faunus relations. According to every reputable study I could dig up, children of a union between two faunus of the same variety match their parents. Two faunus of differing varieties produce entirely random varieties in their offspring, but statistically far less likely matching the type of either parent. Children of a human and a faunus, however," she continued, glancing over to meet her father's eyes momentarily and returning, "have a roughly equal chance of turning out entirely human or entirely faunus, the latter matching the variety in the parent."

Based on that and the situation, that left only a few possibilities. The original assumption was her mother had produced Anya with a bat faunus, which was unlikely both due to the rarity of bat faunus in general and her mother's personality. Or she was a faunus herself and had been with some other kind of faunus to get Anya by sheer random chance. Or- and this was seeming more and more likely to her as she turned the thought over- her father was actually her biological father. With his silver eyes.

Anya let a pause linger as she set her jaw. "Now, let's consider that it is highly unusual for a faunus to have vision that is merely comparable to a human's, but hearing on par with, for the sake of argument, a bat." she said, coming off a bit less like a professor as her emotion started to bleed back through to her tone. Anya tilted her head sardonically. "So tell me, mother, how is it again that you can hear and react to sounds miles off that only I have been hearing?" she asked, reaching up to tap on one of her bat ears in unnecessary emphasis. Her vision blurred as tears formed in spite of her best efforts, but they did not fall.

Later, she would probably regret doing it this way. It was the social equivalent of going nuclear, given the way information flowed through Atlas high society and the military. However, a lifetime of ill treatment, cemented by her actual father's words earlier and fused with fatigue into a molten ball of resentment. Before, there had been pain and loss and grief, but the idea that her mother had even briefly followed emotion and made an actual big life mistake had been humanizing. Sure, there had been frustration before, but at the end of the day Anya had simply wanted a fraction of the acknowledgement and warmth that had been lavished upon Brock. Instead, her mother had apparently decided that her own personal loss of face was more important than one of her children. And she hadn't even been shy about rejecting one child in favor of the one that supported her cover story. The lesser of two "evils."

 

Eventually, she might regret doing it this way. Right now... Anya wanted her mother to hurt.

 

"Did you even tell your son? Or your husband?"

Edited April 10 by Arlin (see edit history)

[Phoenix1]

Your mother clearly saw where you were going before you finished your first sentence, inferring your intention purely from the tone you took with her. Her expression did not change, at first, but she let out a long, tight breath through her nose. It conveyed to you as clearly as if she had spoken aloud, So you're really going there, are you? Fine. Come at me, then, and we shall see which of our reputations survive the night in-tact.

Her expression began to flicker as you spoke, not with a look of anger of affront. But with hints of doubt, resignation, a conviction starting to waver. As you continued talking her face begam to droop with remorse, with a sort of pained guilt, the resigned sadness of someone who knew they had to do something that would cause someone they loved pain. And yet, a certain look of respect, even pride, in her eyes, the bittersweet sadness of a parent seeing that their child has grown up.

It was fake, of course. All of it. It was hard to say how you knew that. There was nothing, nothing in her expression or her body language that suggested it, that provided any hint that the feelings on her face were anything but real. Your mother's poker face was as good as just about anyone's alive.

...Just about anyone's alive. But there was certainly one person who was Carmin Indigo's match and better in that fine art. As skilled as she was at navigating the treacherous arena that was Atlesian high society...your mother was no Nessa Kershaw.

There wasn't anything in her face or body language that gave her away. There didn't have to be. You had spent the better part of a year working in the office of the most powerful empath and very possibly the single most skilled dookier of bulls on the face of Remnant. It was pure instinct, an almost Pavlovian reaction. There had been certain times over the past several months where you had seen Nessa just...sitting in her chair playing on her Scroll, or walking casually across school grounds, or just saying "Hi, Anya," where somehow, through some jangling of instincts brought about by sheer pattern recognition, you just knew she had done something, or was doing something, or was planning to do something that was going to give you, probably Zhi, and possibly Detective Riley Argos an absolutely miserable afternoon.

And that same jangling was telling you that here, now, your mother was faking that expression, and her intent behind doing so was not going to be anything like enjoyable to deal with.

You finished speaking, dropping the bombshell that was your final question. Your mother drew in a breath, undoubtedly to heave one of her practically-aeropathic sighs that would be beginning of her retort-

And inaudible to anybody in the room but you and she, a Nevermore the better part of a mile away shrieked out a strangled death-cry, its dying wail carrying to your bat-like ears as a sharp discordant whisper in the wind.

And Carmen.

Indigo.

WINCED!

She winced visibly, clearly to anyone who was watching. She had gathered her poise about her, drawn herself up, shifted fully back into the mindset of a high Atlesian socialite. And had this been a hoity-toity party in one of the nicest banquet halls in Atlas, perhaps she would have delivered the sort of response that tore your accusation to shreds. Had she been in her element, at the top of her game, perhaps she could have turned your every word against you, humiliated you in front of all observers, and come away looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Perhaps.

But this wasn't Atlas, and the cry of the Nevermore pierced through her composure like a stiletto sliding through a fancy gown.

Nobody else heard the cry. Nobody else would understand that it was evidence in support of what you had said. But that didn't matter. What they saw was that your mother had responded to everything you had said with a wince.

The room erupted into scandalous whispers, salacious speculations, tittering laughter. It was a quiet but pervasive hum of noise, to one with human ears.

You could hear every, single, word.

And so could your mother.

"M-Mom?" Brock asked. Your brother did not have your mother's poker face. He wore his heart on his sleeve. Shock and dawning realization were in his eyes, but his voice was concerned, worried.

When she spoke, then, it wasn't with poised disdain. And it wasn't with whatever false remorse she had been building up to. Her voice was flat, almost hoarse.

It must be made clear that what she said did not constitute a social defense. It would never have been taken at face value, not like this. Maybe in another place, she could have spun it, built it up with precisely-chosen words and flickers of emotion and gentle sighs. But that wasn't what she did here. She had to know that saying these words, in this way, would do nothing to mitigate the damage you had done to her reputation, would do nothing to silence the whispers and the laughter. She had to know that if anything, they would only make her look worse, in the eyes of everyone present, and everyone they repeating the story to, and everyone they told in turn...

She had to know that. But when you had spoken your accusations, presented your evidence, it had been with the intent to make her hurt.

So when she croaked out, "You are not my daughter," she was simply responding in kind. Brock gasped audibly.

Nobody would believe that as a claim of historical fact. It had not been a statement about your parentage.

It was a statement about your relationship, now and going forward.

And then, drawing the tattered shreds of her dignity about her like a cloak, your mother turned and stiffly walked out of the room.

The look on your brother's face was stricken, as he looked at your father. "Dad?"

You could see surprise not so much on your father's face, but in his stance, his posture, and in his silver eyes as he regarded you. Surprise...and a deeply furious anger, as he regarded you. He was surprised and angry...that you had said those things, and more, that you had done so in this way, in front of all these people.

But he did not seem so surprised about what you had said, about the contents of your accusation.

...He knew. And he had always known.

"Stay here!" he told your brother sharply, though not taking his eyes off yours, glaring at you as if he didn't know you at all. And then he went hastening off after your mother.

Brock let out a shaky breath, and looked to you with his eyes full of tears. He didn't look mad. He just looked confused, and scared. And hurt.

"...Sis?"

Edited April 10 by Phoenix1 (see edit history)

[Arlin]

The tears fell.

Anya sagged for a moment, the weight of her mother's words evident. She had tried being vicious, but she wasn't a patch on the master. If pressed, Anya couldn't have told you why she even cared. She obviously had never been treated well, and yet... somehow she had still hoped to gain approval, someday. This struck deep.

She couldn't break down now, though. More than anything in that moment, she wanted to just let it out, to grieve. But she was a Huntress, and she was needed.

Anya turned to Brock, giving him a tight hug. "I'm here," she said softly, despite her voice breaking a little. By some miracle, she managed to pull herself together a bit more and forced a little laugh. "It looks like you have a full sister after all," she murmured. The forced levity fled quickly, though, as a thought struck her. "...although. This might make things hard for you, at home. I'm really sorry. It seems unlikely that I'll get to visit, now."

If he pulled away, she would let him, but for now she kept up her hug. It was hitting her now, it was very possible this was the last she'd see of him. He'd been one of the few bright spots growing up, even if he was getting taller unreasonably quickly. Right now, she would be here for him.

When she was alone again, this was going to hurt.