Chapter 19: Chapter 19 – Daddy Issues

Why do the things men do in this world continue to surprise and confuse me?

“Excuse me?” I stammered.

“My dear Amelia! I have been waiting a long time to meet you!” 

He opened his arms wide in welcome.

“You have no idea how patiently I waited for your arrival at my beloved temple!”

I started backing away and waving my hands frantically, “Wait, wait, wait. Chad, this isn’t funny anymore. Frankly, it wasn’t funny when it started. Roll your eyes back to the front of your head and let’s get out of here!”

Suddenly, Chad vanished, a wisp of smoke all that remained where he once stood. Each of us spun our heads around, searching for where he might have gone. 

This had to have been a trick. Right? 

Suddenly, I felt something pinch my ass!

“Eeek!” I spun around to see nothing there, just more wisps of smoke.

I wrapped my arm around my chest, fearful of another assault, my head on a swivel. 

“Satisfied yet?” 

Chad reappeared at Obarith’s statue, lounging across one of the bare feet, head propped up on a fist and admiring the nails on his other hand.

I scowled at him. “Alright, you proved your point. Whoever you are, you obviously aren’t Chad. Bring him back! Now!”

The body of Chad sighed at me. “I already told you who inhabits this form now.” He looked up at me with a devious grin. “Would it help if I told you the private thoughts he has about you? The glances he sneaks your way when he thinks you’re not looking?”

My ears burned, “Pretty sure that stuff is his business. Don’t you have any respect for someone’s privacy!”

He simply waved his hand in front of his mouth with the gesture of an exaggeratedly bored yawn, “We could move this conversation along so much smoother if you would just accept me.” 

He opened his eyes again and took us all in, his eyes still without any color, only now they glowed brightly.

Convinced it was, indeed, Obarith, the head God on campus, Dorian, Ash, and Max all fell to the ground in reverence, foreheads pressed against the temple floor as forcefully as possible.

I stayed put. I had already bowed to one asshole today. God or no, that check had already been cashed. 

Obarith stood up and walked over to me. 

“Well, that’s mostly better.” He started to circle me and look me up and down. “Usually, women know their place around me.” He stopped after a full rotation, and added, “The Goddess certainly did.”

I bit my tongue. Everyone was trying to push my buttons today. Was this a test to see how far I could be pushed? 

“But you are my daughter, so I will allow the insolence.” he waved off the perceived insult.

At that, I spoke up, “Listen, I don’t know who you think you are to me, but you are not my father. Neither my father back home, or my father purely due to the Goddesss’ hand in my summoning and physical form!”

He gave an exasperated sigh, “But you don’t seem to understand, Amelia! The ability for the Goddess to accomplish what she did was only due to my grace! One could almost claim you are here at my behest as well!” 

His eyes seemed to glimmer a little brighter, “But I will not. I have grander schemes in motion and cannot be bothered with whatever quest she desires you for. You are here because I allow it, and because I humor my beloved wife.”

My left fist was a blur as I smashed it into his smug face. 

I heard a crunching sound on impact and Obarith’s body flew backward and landed on his ass, bouncing and skidding a bit after the landing. 

I probably broke something in Chad’s face. Ash would have to work on that later.

He sat there, cradling the front of his head in his hands. 

“What the hell? Who hit— Amelia!” His eyes the brilliant blue again, I realized Obarith had left his body right before impact and had avoided feeling any of my frustrations. 

Once again Chad, he was bleeding profusely from his nose. I honestly felt horrible about it. He had gotten smacked around a lot today, and I had just unwittingly added to it. He hadn’t even deserved it this time.

No time to dwell on that now. Where was Obarith?

I spun to the three boys still bent over on the floor. They had at least looked up to observe the commotion, but none of their eyes had lost their color. He hadn’t possessed them. 

Yet.

Suddenly there was a clapping sound. I turned and saw a form appear from behind one of the statue’s legs. He stepped out from the shadows, and I saw the new form he had taken.

He was a shorter, unimposing slender figure. He was wearing a modern blue business suit and tie. He had think rimmed glasses perched on his nose and black hair in a smart, neat comb over. His brown eyes were tired and kind as they looked at me. 

There was something familiar about this man.

“….Dad?”

The figure chuckled and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“No, this is not the human you consider your real father. Merely a facsimile I chose to possibly elicit better responses from you.” 

He nodded at Chad, still crumpled on the floor and tending to his broken nose. “You both harbor some unresolved issues for one another.” Obarith waggled my father’s eyebrows at me. “You should probably do something productive about that.”

That was the last straw. 

“Why does everyone keep insisting Chad and I settle down and make with the babies? Specifically, me settling down? Don’t you people have lives? A country, world, or universe to run? My body and what I do with it shouldn’t honestly be nearly this high on anyone’s priorities!”

I stabbed an angry finger at Obarith, “And this is the only warning I’m going to give: get out of my Father’s body!” I seethed. 

He ignored me and addressed my previous question, “But just think of the genetic possibilities! The offspring of a pairing such as yourself and the next heir to the Crown? With a human that contains my glorious line within the strain of humanity!” He raised his hands to the air for emphasis on the scope of his vision. 

“You could be the mother to a whole new line for your race! You will be that mother! If you care at all for your children and the future of humanity, why wouldn’t you pair with a specimen as genetically perfect and magnificent as that one?” 

He gestured at Chad still on the floor, currently a poor depiction of the perfect picture he was attempting to paint. Ash had decided “to Hell with it” and had gotten up off his knees and was tending to Chad’s face. 

I stalked towards Obarith. “I’m still stuck on the part where you ignored my previous threat. It thought I was perfectly clear it wasn’t a request! Leave that form!” I was clinching my fists so tightly, I felt my nails cutting into the skin of my palms.

“Next time, you won’t be fast enough, and a woman will lay hands on you in a manner most unpleasant!”

Obarith didn’t flinch nor back away. He just studied me as I approached. It looked like he wanted to call my bluff. Unfortunately, for him, I had backed down too many times today. I was going to win our game of chicken.

I grabbed him by the lapels of his suit and shook him hard. 

I clenched my teeth, “Get. Out.”

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He smiled and raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. How could I say no to that face?”

His features slowly started to blur together and melt away, as the form in front of me changed. His form filled in and his shoulders became more rigid. He gained some muscle mass, where before the shape of my father had him slim and trim in a nondescript way. His jawline pushed out, as if an artist had erased what was there previously and drew it back in sharply and with purpose. Some thin, attractive facial hair grew in on the chin and jawline and faded up into his sideburns. His hair changed from the black to a coffee brown, swept back like someone was constantly sliding a hand through it. The glasses faded away and his eyes took on the Chaddington blue, but appeared to have electricity rumbling through them, barely containing his power within. 

He smiled softly, disarming me for a moment.

“Better?”

I glanced up at the statue and then back down at the figure still clenched in my fists. His clothes had remained modern, but he had lost the sport coat and was now wearing grey pinstripe pants and a vest, a black tie around his neck with a burgundy-colored button up shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing thick and powerful arms. 

I released him and stepped back. 

“Why don’t you look like, well, that?” I gestured up. 

He looked back up at the statue, his acknowledged likeness captured in marble.

“Times change. Keeping the same look for thousands of years is boring.” He looked back to me, “Besides. I figured this is a look you would be more comfortable with. A style from your home.” He raised an eyebrow, “A home you long to return to?”

I tried to come up with a quick comeback, but words failed me. Dorian and Max had sat up but remained on their knees on the ground. Chad and Ash were only partially invested in his present state and were also watching my conversation with Obarith intently.

“So, my dear Amelia. What to do with you?”

I found my voice again, “Pardon?”

He inhaled deeply, “There is so much conflict within you, my child. You want so many things. To help these people, yet to return to your home. To be powerful, and yet to not be faced with the burden of responsibility and true choice!” He brought his open hand up in front of me and then clinched it shut tightly.

“You positively reek of self-doubt. You question everything you do.” He waved at the boys, who had all finally stood. “They squabble and fight for your affection and, rather than embrace the attention like your mind screams for you to do, you cower like a turtle in it’s shell.”

He leaned close and loomed over me, close enough that I could have smelled him, if he had any smell at all.

“Fear. Despite all of the gifts you have been inexplicably given, you still let fear control you. I don’t know exactly what task my wife has laid before you, but it frightens you down to your core. You should take up my suggestion for Man’s best interest instead. The Goddess’ plans for humanity are obviously too large and involved for someone such as you.”

He finally leaned back and stared at me, his arms crossed, a sly satisfactory smile on his face. I felt naked under his gaze. There was nothing I could hide from him. 

He was right. This despicable creature was right.

“I know I’m right. It’s part of what being omnipotent means!” he said. 

I gave him a hard look. 

“Get out of my head!” 

I rested my hands on my hips, “We already had the discussion about other people’s privacy. Or was that another point in our conversation where you chose to ignore me?”

To emphasize that claim, he started to circle me again and continued his previous comments.

“You do have passion, you just don’t know how to properly focus on it. Instead, you are trapped on what you have left behind. You long, so much, to go back home. You cling so desperately to those memories, that you have attempted to rip pieces of it here, to this world.”

He was in front of me again, and he started to tick off items with his fingers, “Your sword. Your stories to your friends.” He grinned slyly, “My appearance as your father was merely spawned from your own thoughts!” He gestured to himself, “My appearance now!”

He sighed and crossed his arms again, “If you are ever to be able to fulfill a greater vision of humanity, you must remove these distractions from yourself!”

He vanished into thin air again. I started frantically looking for him, not wishing to be caught off guard by another close encounter. Instead, all we heard is a voice, almost like a whisper.

“There is so much potential in you, my daughter. But you must find the will to use it.”

The voice was all around us. The boys were sweating hard, a mixture of awe and terror on their faces. This entire visit had made them extremely uncomfortable. They had been speechless since Obarith’s appearance. I wondered if they had ever seen their God before. Surely Ash hadn’t, but the rest? If he really did reside here, it’s possible Chad and Max had before. But even if they had, I was sure this interaction was completely out of the ordinary. My experience with the Goddess hadn’t been anything close to this. I couldn’t help it. All he had said was true.

I was filled with fear. 

He could do anything. My aggressiveness earlier hadn’t been confidence. It had been purely instinctual. I had been running on rage. I smiled for a moment in my mind. Maybe Chad and I had more in common after all.

“I seeeeeeeee yooooouuu!” 

Obarith’s voice floated through the still air.

“There you are! For one filled with so much uncertainty, the moments when your confidence peaks out are surprising!”

There was a disturbing chuckle.

“While it is delightful sharing a secret that only you and I are privy to, let us lay the truth bare! It’s time to show the rest of the world who you truly are!” He paused for a moment before bellowing out one, last word.

“Amy!”

I felt his touch press and linger on my forehead. Goddess, it burned! I let out a shriek of agony and grasped my face with my hands!

“AAAAAAAAUGHHHH!”

I collapsed, shaking on the floor. I felt the touch leave my face, but the burning sensation remained, ebbing away slowly. I panted heavily, waiting for it to stop. Eventually, the burning, searing pain ceased and I had a throbbing headache in it’s place, but I no longer felt Obarith’s touch. I took my hands away and was not ready for what I saw next.

Sweatpants.

Black, dirty, oversized, sweatpants. 

I rose, pulled my arms away from my body, and stared at it in bewilderment. Gone were the curves that I had gotten so used to. The long and shapely legs. My hips. My boobs! I reached up frantically… my hair. 

My Earthly form had been restored. I was no longer the tall and confident Amelia.

I was again short, basic, and bland.

Amy.

I was wearing my oversized grey hoodie I always wore back home, zipped up to hide a body that wasn’t impressive to begin with. A body that didn’t inspire me confidence to show it off. My black hair had returned in my desired style, short and straight, barely touching my neckline. 

I was me again.

A part of me should have been excited, I thought. But instead, I was filled with dread. Was this still really who I was inside? Who I had always been? Was Amelia just the persona I had shown and shared with the people of Eitania, for those brief moments, because I was too afraid to show my true self? A true self who was powerless? Which one was real?

Amelia, or Amy?

I looked up at the boys, all of them frozen in terror.

What could I say?

“….Hi…?”

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