by ToxicShadow » 03/16/2014 7:23 AM
((As the circumstances have changed, since Xanthus actually got to have a daughter prior to being with Kitche, I deleted my original post and, thus, am replacing it with something that suits the plot change.))
"I doubt these are the sorts of things that people are supposed to understand," Xanthus said, and though he was entirely serious, there was a hint of dark amusement in his voice. The things that he had been exposed to, they weren't the sorts of things normal people were supposed to see, and hardly things that were intended for them to understand.
Kitche wanted him to explain it all in great detail, but that just wasn't something he was fully capable of. Why did he take such an interest in her? He didn't know the exact reasons himself. Sure, the woman was beautiful to him, but it wasn't as if he fancied her just because she was looker, then and now. The best way he could put it... "You're safe, Kitche." Being beside her, it put him at ease somehow, something he hadn't felt since he was a small child. It was like when he was with her, nothing else in the world mattered, and he cared for her and wanted to protect all the more because of that. "I am myself around you. You are comfortable and comforting to be around. Your presence... puts me at ease. And you're headstrong to boot." Which, apparently, that was something he was into. Weak women, or those that were easily manipulated, they were certainly not as interesting as a woman that held fast to their own thoughts and values, willing to fight for them or spout off their opinions of something. She was a challenge and didn't take anything from anyone, and he liked that about her. He admired that quality in her.
He moved one hand to gently stroke the back of her hair repeatedly as he held her close, in a comforting gesture of his own - his way to brace her for the answer to her question. Xanthus was terrified of having children, but one of the important reasons behind it was something he was hesitant to tell her, as if it would topple the remnants of the very unsteady, decent opinion that she may have still held for him. Still, being as involved as she was, she also had a right to know. He was about to paint himself in an even more terrible light.
"I... have a daughter," he revealed, staring straight ahead of him, unwilling to see her expression. "It was a common occurrence, before he came to believe that you're the ideal genetic partner for me, that I was frequently sent out meet with women that he had made arrangements for me to meet. Usually harmless things, like blind dinner dates. At the time, I had no idea what he was up to, why I was to meet them. Having a child was completely unintentional, how could I want to bring a child into this world when I live the life that I do?" He wasn't fit to be a parent, nor was he in any situation that would have been an acceptable environment to rear a child. "The mother, a woman I hardly knew, made the decision to carry the child, but turned out even more unfit than I was to care for her." From the tone of his voice, he carried a lot of grief for what had happened. "I... I should have done something more." He made the decision to raise Xillia, not willing to abandon his child, but maybe he should have. There had been the option to give her away, send her to an orphanage, and maybe she would have had a better life. The uncertain aspect was what had stopped him, countless times. She might have had a better life, but she might have been worse off, being raised by complete strangers, or she might not have been adopted at all. At the very least, he wanted his daughter to know that at least her father loved her.
"The things he's done to children... He's stripped the souls from the bodies of two children of one of his experiments, that doesn't even know she's an experiment from him tampering with her memories. The souls were put into puppets, while he's... cultivating the bodies to use as hosts. He altered both their own memories and that of their mothers, so they have no idea of what happened and supposedly don't find it unusual that they are living puppets. There was even another child, belonging to a woman that is under a contract similar to my own. He forced her to rear a child, the same he intends for me to do, and her daughter was slated to be murdered so that he could gain the abilities that she was born with. He has the reputation of killing those with desirable powers and taking them for himself, including trying to kill the woman he supposedly loved." He shook his head, unable to imagine it, as he held Kitche just that much tighter against him. As twisted as Jakerz was, he even betrayed the person that loved him and that he claimed to love in return, only wanting to use her as a tool, a means to an end for himself. "The mother pleaded with him to spare her daughter's life, said that she would give anything, but was unable to be swayed. I helped the mother send her daughter away before he could get to her, but that isn't to say that she's safe."
"In the end, I couldn't stop him from experimenting on my own daughter... She's not really... normal anymore. I tried to protect her, but all I could do was stop him from really hurting her by throwing myself deeper into his clutches. He treats her incredibly kind, so she even agreed to the experiments very willingly, but that makes me all the more wary." Not only wary, but he sounded downright horrified and furious by the thought. Whatever Jakerz had planned for Xillia, Xanthus was unquestionably certain that he wouldn't like it, but, even as her father, there wasn't much he could do if Xillia made her own decision to make a deal with him.
"I've already failed to protect one child, one that he had no specific interest in having exist." If he had been anyone else, any more normal person, the thought could have broken him completely. He was a failure as a father, too weak to protect even his own child properly. Yet, he had never been allowed the luxury to feel weak, embarrassed, or to show any of his sorrow. There was no time for that, he had to be strong and indifferent, and the least he could do was put on a brave face for Xillia. "I have no doubt that whatever he had planned our for children, ones he wanted especially, would be much more heinous. Although I would have done everything in my power to stop him from doing anything to harm them, I can't say that I would survive a confrontation with him. He is swayed if you make a deal with him or convince him something is for his convenience, but he isn't the type to have pity or mercy." He'd only protected Xillia in the ways that he did by binding himself in stronger chains to Jakerz but, sometime, he would run out of things to use as leverage. There was only so much of himself that he could barter away before there would be nothing left.