Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Terzo’s firstborn child never questioned his scar. She never even thought twice about the angry, uneven line that ringed the circumference of his neck, marked throughout by the ghosts of stitches. No, she never questioned it, and Terzo and Omega never talked about it. 

At least, she didn’t question it until she was four, because she’d never seen her Papa without his scar. To her, it was part of who he was, and that was what made her first playdate all the more confusing. Due to the size and isolation of the ministry, her first encounter with another child, aside from her little sister, was not until just after her fourth birthday. Her very first friend was a five-year-old fire ghoul named Ash, and the first thing that absolutely perplexed her about Ash was her parents. Ash had a daddy, as was to be expected, but she also had a mommy, which was something Starlight had only seen in books and movies. She didn’t fully grasp how that kind of family makeup worked. 

And while Starlight had never questioned her Papa’s scar, Ash did question it, quietly grilling Starlight about what had happened to Terzo. Ash explained that every scar came from getting hurt, so how had her Papa gotten hurt? Starlight had no answers for her, but she was left with a lot of new questions. She was good and didn’t ask anything in front of the family of fire ghouls, but once they got home, Starlight had some burning questions that demanded answers. What happened to her Papa? And didn’t all ghouls have a Daddy and a Papa? She knew that not all ghouls had a human parent, and weren’t themselves half-human, but the rest of Ash’s family didn’t make sense.

“Daddy?” Starlight asked Omega with wide eyes before wiping her nose on her sleeve—it was ragweed season, and unfortunately, she’d inherited some of her Papa’s allergies. She didn’t wait long to interrogate her fathers, striking almost as soon as the door to their quarters closed. Terzo had just barely had a chance to set the diaper bag down and get Astrid out of her sling. Omega smiled wide and picked Starlight up, situating her on his hip and finger-combing her windswept white hair. 

“Yes, princess?” Omega had replied, his voice full of the same gentle warmth it was always overflowing with. That warmth was all she’d ever known of her Daddy. Starlight took a moment to figure out how to phrase her question, fidgeting with her spaded tail as she gathered her thoughts. 

“How come Ash has a mommy? Ash is a ghoul too, how come she doesn’t have two dads like we do?” Starlight inquired first, puzzled by this arrangement of a family unit that she’d never witnessed firsthand before. To be fair, she’d never met any other families at all until this point in her life; to her, a family with two fathers was not only the norm, but the way ghouls had families. She’d never given another arrangement much thought. “I thought that was just what humans in stories do!” 

She saw Terzo freeze for a second in front of her, his eyes widening. When his gaze fell on his oldest, he began to open his mouth in reply, but was interrupted by Astrid, who was cranky after being awoken from the nap she had been taking in her sling—Astrid always slept best when one of their parents held her, and she hated being moved. Terzo and Omega exchanged a look. 

“Well, uh…” her Daddy floundered for a moment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You see, little Star,” Omega started, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “Anyone can fall in love with any other person in the world, no matter their gender or sex.” Starlight nodded, even though she was unsure of where this was going. “Many of those couples want families, and any couple can have a family, one way or another. But the thing is, for human couples, usually only a man and a woman together can create a baby.” Starlight cocked her head to the side in confusion.

“Wait. Why can’t humans who are the same gender have babies together? I don’t get it, that’s not fair,” Starlight mused. She watched her Daddy’s face flush a darker shade of grey as his hand found its way to the back of his neck again, and her confusion grew.

“I don’t know, sweetie. That’s just how humans are built,” Omega offered with a shrug as he stared at some far-off point. “For couples who are the same sex, they often have to adopt children, and because of that, a mommy and a daddy is considered what is ‘normal’ in human society. That’s how it works in most of nature, actually.” Omega looked to his husband for reassurance, a worried look on his face, and Terzo nodded. 

“But out of all of nature, ghouls are very special. They can have babies with almost any other person, even if only one of them is a ghoul. It’s much easier for ghouls to have children with someone of the same sex, like Papa and me, than it is for two humans to do the same.” Omega gestured to Terzo, who gave him a small smile as he rocked their baby, holding her close; she was beginning to doze off again, worn out from all of the sights and sounds of the outdoors. “Because of that, more ghouls like people of their same sex than humans do. Ghouls don’t have that same biological drive to be with someone who’s a different sex, because they don’t need it. At least with a little help, ghouls can—” 

“But Daddy!” Starlight interrupted. “That makes even less sense! If Ash’s parents are ghouls and can have babies with anyone, why are they a boy and a girl together if they don’t have to be? Why not just two dads like us?” She heard Terzo make a strange noise, and when she looked at him, she saw him covering his mouth with one hand. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think her Papa was laughing at her! She crossed her arms and squirmed to be put down, unhappy at being made fun of. Omega set her on her feet, then kneeled to help her take off her powder-pink sneakers. 

“Mia bambina intelligente,” Terzo cooed, running a hand through her hair, effectively mussing what Omega had just put back in place. Once her shoes were off, Terzo put a hand on her back and led her to the sofa before settling down in the recliner with Astrid. Not happy with being left out of her favorite spot to sit with her Papa, Starlight got into the chair next to Terzo, snuggling into his side despite still being irritated with him. Terzo chuckled, pulling her closer. 

“You can stay as long as you do not wake your sister, stellina, you know the rules.” Starlight knew her Papa was trying to be strict with her. She also knew that he wasn’t very good at it. Still, she didn’t want to deal with Astrid crying right now. She would be good and keep her voice down, then. 

“Star…” Terzo started as he rocked the chair softly. “If only two daddies could have children together, what about the girls? Are girl ghouls just not allowed to be parents?” Starlight chewed her knuckle absently as she pondered her Papa’s question. She had never thought of it that way. 

“Ok, Papa,” she started with some uncertainty. “I guess that makes sense… But—” Starlight spoke the last word a bit too loudly, and Astrid began to stir. She waited for Terzo to soothe her back to sleep before asking her next question. “But,” her voice was just above a whisper now. “Why wouldn’t the girl ghouls just have a baby with other girl ghouls if they don’t have to be with a boy? A boy and a girl together seems gross,” she declared, making a face. Terzo really did laugh this time, and so did her Daddy. She crossed her arms once more and glared at Omega from across the room; she expected this from her Papa by now, but from her Daddy, too?!

“Do you think that it is fair for boys and girls not to be allowed to fall in love with each other?” Terzo asked, his voice full of mirth. Starlight’s brow furrowed as she tried to open her mind to possibilities she hadn’t previously considered. 

“N-no,” she said, still uncertain. “I guess that’s not fair.” 

“Sì, that is right. It is not fair to tell people who they can and cannot fall in love with,” Terzo gently affirmed. “Think about how you would feel if you were not allowed to start a family with a boy you fell in love with.” Starlight’s eyes widened. 

“I won’t ever like boys, Papa!” Starlight wanted to yell, but she really didn’t want to hear Astrid cry, so she kept using her inside voice. “Boys are so gross!” Both of her parents chuckled again, to her immense frustration. 

“Star, you’ve never even met a boy in real life,” Omega pointed out, amused. “Not one that isn’t family, anyway, and technically they’re all men. They don’t count as boys anymore.” 

“So? I’ve seen boys on TV and in books, and they’re yucky,” Starlight continued to assert her stance. Her Papa kissed the top of her head. 

“You never know, cuoricino mio. People change their minds about things when they grow up. Anything can happen,” Terzo advised affectionately. Offended, Starlight stuck out her tongue at her Papa. 

“I said I’ll never like boys. Boys are gross!” she repeated, trying to get her point across. With that, she climbed out of the chair with some difficulty and made her way to the sofa, where she flopped down on the side opposite of where her Daddy was sitting. Getting cranky herself and wanting to telegraph that she was now trying to take a nap, she rolled over with her back to the rest of the room and curled up into a ball. Both Terzo and Omega kissed the crown of her head, one of them draping a blanket over her before leaving the room to give her some space. 

Starlight fell asleep for what felt like only a few minutes, but she knew from experience that sometimes even sleeping through a whole night could feel like blinking. She tried to fall back asleep, but quickly gave up and decided to go find her parents. When she sat up, she felt dizzy, so she squeezed her eyes shut against the feeling. Upon hearing hushed voices coming from somewhere, she got to her feet and walked unsteadily towards the source, pushing through the disorientation in her curiosity. The sound was coming from the kitchen, she discovered, and it was definitely her Papa and Daddy talking in low tones. 

Willing to risk getting caught to see what was going on, she peeked around the corner of the wall separating the sitting room from the kitchen. There at the kitchen table, she saw Terzo and Omega sitting in their usual spots, chairs pushed together side by side. Thankfully, their backs were to her. Omega’s head was on Terzo’s shoulder, Terzo holding him close as his hand rubbed slowly up and down the large ghoul’s arm. 

“Amore mio, I promise you, it is not your fault,” she heard her Papa soothe her Daddy. 

“Yes, it is,” Omega replied glumly. It sounded like his nose was stuffy, like he’d been crying. Starlight’s heart started to race in her chest. Had something she’d said earlier upset her Daddy? “If I were a human, they’d be able to leave this fucking place. They wouldn’t be stuck here,” Omega bemoaned with a sniffle, and Starlight had to cover her mouth to stifle a gasp. She never heard her Daddy say bad words, not like her uncles did. “If I weren’t a ghoul, they wouldn’t be treated like outcasts by the humans here. It’s all my fault that they’re growing up so isolated, and it’s not fair to them. Our sweet girls deserve so much better than this…” Starlight couldn’t understand what her daddy meant, but her eyes started to water at hearing him sound so sad. Terzo squeezed him tightly. 

“Mia ombra …” Now her Papa sounded like he was crying, too. “None of that is true, please do not talk that way. I love you exactly the way you are. All of you...” She then realized what it was that had woken her up; her nap had been disrupted by the tidal waves of sadness she felt rolling off of her father with her quintessence. At least, it had been just one of her fathers at first, but now it seemed to be emanating from both of them. “The three of you are my world. We are a family, and I would not change a single thing about any one of you. It is not your fault that the ministry was built on hatred. You did not choose subjugation, it was forced on you.” 

“But I should be able to give my children more! Today shouldn’t have been the first time they ever met another child. It’s not right! It’s not fair to them…” His voice broke as his sentence trailed off. “As their father, isn’t it my job to provide for them and to give them a good life?” She watched Omega lean forward onto the table and run his hands clumsily through his hair.

“I am also their father, mio caro,” Terzo interjected quietly. “And clearly, I have not been able to do more for them, either. If it is your fault, then I share just as much of the blame. I grew up here, too, and I do not want that for them. If anything, it’s my fault that we are stuck here... If I weren’t a human, then we could all go to…” Terzo trailed off, like he couldn’t finish his sentence. 

“Terzo…” Omega said, his voice much softer than it’d been moments earlier. “Don’t say that, vita mia. It’s not… time for that.” They both sat in silence for a long moment. “You’re doing everything you can. You didn’t ask to be bound to the ministry, you know.” 

“Neither did you,” Terzo retorted, and this time, Omega didn’t have a response. “And yet, if it weren’t for the ministry, we wouldn’t be together. Our little girls wouldn’t be here at all.” Omega let out a shaky sigh. “Sei il mio universo. All of you,” Terzo assured him, his voice almost a whisper. With that, Terzo kissed Omega’s cheek, and Starlight quickly ducked behind the wall so that she wouldn’t be seen in case he turned further around. “Please, mia ombra… Please do not speak that way about yourself, or about our family. I cannot bear the thought of losing anything of any of you. We are giving them everything that we can. Our situation is unique, and we are doing our best.” 

“I know, tesoro… I know, you’re right. I just wish that—” Omega started, sounding like he was sorry, but before he could get any more words out, all three of them heard the sound of Astrid crying from down the hall. She must’ve woken up from her nap, too. Before Starlight could react, she heard the scraping of chairs against hardwood. She tensed, preparing to flee. 

“Stay here,” she heard her Papa tell her Daddy firmly. “I will get her. I need you to focus on yourself, amore, you are in no condition right now. Even without their quintessence, they would be able to see that you are upset. It is no good for anyone.” Wanting to avoid getting in trouble and knowing her father would surely see her if she stayed where she was, Starlight raced back to the sofa as quietly as she could and pretended to be asleep. 

She heard Terzo walk down the hall and open the door to the bedroom the girls shared, and then he was singing softly. After a minute or two, Astrid stopped crying, but her Papa kept singing. It was always such a comforting sound; her Papa’s voice had been the soundtrack to her life for as long as she could remember, reaching back to her very first memories. That afternoon, it was enough to lull Starlight back to sleep, even though her mind was troubled and racing. 

When she woke up, it was to the enticing aroma of something delicious—someone must’ve been making dinner. How long had she been asleep? Groggily, she got to her feet and stumbled into the kitchen, where she was greeted by the sight of her Daddy standing at the stove, cooking something that she couldn’t see but could absolutely smell. She was relieved that Omega was the one who was cooking tonight; even though she liked Terzo’s cooking just fine, Omega was truly talented. All of the tastiest things she’d ever eaten were made by her Daddy.

One time, she said at the dinner table that she liked it better when her Daddy cooked, and while her Papa had simply smiled at her and continued eating, Omega looked up at her with wide eyes. Through his quintessence, he’d reached out to her and silently asked her to please not say things like that in front of Papa. She obeyed and didn’t bring it up again, but she was very confused, at least until Omega pulled her aside after dinner and begged her to please not make Papa feel bad about his cooking. He explained that she could hurt Papa’s feelings by making him feel like she didn’t like what he made for them. Papa worked just as hard in the kitchen as he did, and everything he made for them was made with love. Not wanting to make her Papa feel bad, she agreed to be kinder, feeling remorseful for her words.

Remembering the conversation that she’d overheard before she’d fallen back asleep, Starlight approached Omega from behind and tugged on his shirt, looking up at him with her big, mismatched eyes. When Omega looked down at her, she reached up for him with both arms, indicating that she wanted to be picked up. Omega shook his head sadly at her. 

“I’m sorry, sweetpea, Daddy is cooking right now. The stove is hot! I don’t want you to get hurt.” Although he was denying her, he still put his spatula down to pat her head affectionately. “Why don’t you go sit with Papa and Astrid?” Starlight looked over at the table, where, sure enough, her father and baby sister were sitting. Astrid was in her highchair playing with her utensils, and Terzo was watching Starlight and Omega with a soft smile. She wasn’t sure how she missed them; she must’ve been so focused on the source of the smell that she’d just walked right on over to her Daddy. Nodding, Starlight decided to hug Omega’s leg before she left; if she couldn’t give him a regular hug, then this would have to do. She needed her Daddy to feel better. 

Not feeling content to sit by herself as she waited for dinner, she climbed into Terzo’s lap and leaned her head on his chest, comforted by the steady thump of his heart as he played with her hair. She must have really been exhausted from playing today, because she’d nearly fallen back asleep in her Papa’s embrace by the time the food was ready. Although she grumbled at being asked to get up, she made her way to her seat anyway, rubbing her eyes as though that would ward off her persistent sleepiness. 

“Did you have fun with Ash today, princess?” her Daddy asked as they ate, breaking the comfortable silence they’d been sitting in as they enjoyed Omega’s cooking. Well, everyone was enjoying his cooking except for Astrid, who was being picky with her food, as usual. Astrid would probably need a bottle after dinner, she guessed. Starlight, on the other hand, was speeding through her meal, not realizing how hungry she was until she’d started eating. She nodded in response to the question, waiting until her mouth was no longer full to answer like she’d been taught. 

“Yeah!” she replied earnestly. Today was the first day she’d gotten to play with another kid! It had been an amazing experience. Even though her parents could chase her and play with her in many different ways, they couldn’t swing with her or use the small amount of playground equipment the ministry had. They tried their best, but today she’d learned that there are some things that other kids can do that parents just can’t. And even though she knew Astrid would be able to play with her more someday, right now she was just a baby, so there weren’t a lot of ways she could play, at least not outside. She told her parents as much, and they both had big smiles on their faces the whole time she spoke. 

“I am so happy to hear that, gioia mia!” Terzo sang, his voice full of pride as he reached across their small kitchen table to take one of her hands in his. “Do you think that you would like to spend time with her again?” he asked, lightly squeezing her hand. Starlight frowned.

“I already told her we would play every week, Papa, she asked me to!” Starlight said defensively, worried that she would be told no to a weekly playdate. She didn’t realize that playing again wasn’t a given. Her parents exchanged a quick glance. 

“It’s ok, Star,” Omega reassured her, his voice calm and steady as he reached to place a hand on top of where her and Terzo’s hands were already linked. “You can play with Ash as much as you want, I promise. We wouldn’t ever want to take that away from you.” Starlight let out a breath of relief. 

“Actually, mia piccola amore,” Terzo said, sounding as though he were announcing something. “If you feel ready for it, I think that we have something we would like you to try.” Starlight’s ears perked up, and she sat up a little straighter in her seat. 

“What is it, Papa?” Starlight asked excitedly. “I love new things!” Both of her parents chuckled, but this time, it wasn’t irritating. Terzo looked up at Omega beside him, Omega’s cue to take the lead. 

“So…” Omega started, strangely rubbing the back of his neck for some reason. “Here at this branch of the ministry, there’s a little… school, I guess you could call it. There are only about 30 kids who live here, so it’s pretty small, and about two-thirds of the children are humans. We’ve been waiting to see what it would be like when you were old enough to go. But…” He closed his eyes for a beat too long, making Starlight nervous. “If you think you’re ready… I think now would be a great time for you to start attending. You can go as many or as few times a week as you’d like, I don’t think you need to worry abou—” 

“Really, Daddy?!” Starlight interrupted with a squeal, bouncing in her chair. “I want to go every day!” she declared, clapping her hands together. Omega’s violet eyes widened in surprise. 

“A-Are you sure?” Omega stammered, caught off guard. Starlight nodded enthusiastically. 

“Yeah!” she confirmed excitedly. She loved new adventures, and if school would be anything like today, she wanted as much of it as she could get. “Can I go tomorrow?!” Her parents laughed again, and Omega’s shoulders seemed to slump in relief. 

“Tomorrow is Sunday, stellina,” Terzo said, amused as he grabbed one of her hands again. “The school is not open on the weekends.” Starlight pouted, but agreed to wait. It would only be one more day. 

Starlight asked a constant string of questions as they all finished dinner, her parents answering to the best of their ability. Just when she ran out of questions at the end of their meal, she remembered a question that Ash had prompted earlier in the day, one that she’d gotten too irritated to bother asking. 

“Papa?” she asked much less cheerfully than before. She wasn’t sure why, but she was a little hesitant to ask what was on her mind this time. “I was wondering something.” Terzo’s eyebrows shot up. 

“What is it, my darling?” Terzo asked as he sat back down with a bottle and began to feed Astrid, who was now fussing in his arms. Starlight had been right—Astrid definitely didn’t get enough to eat. She wondered in disbelief how her little sister could refuse their Daddy’s cooking. 

“Where did you get your scar?” Starlight asked, unsure why her voice was hushed but feeling like it should be anyway. “What happened to your neck? I thought that was normal, but I’ve never seen a human or a ghoul with a scar like yours.” Her Papa froze, eyes going wide, all of the blood draining from his face. There was a crashing sound then, and Starlight jumped, startled, and whipped around to face the source of the noise. Her Daddy was frozen, his shoulders stiff as he stood with his back to her in front of the sink. He must have dropped one of the dishes he had just started washing. Starlight looked anxiously between her parents, wondering if she’d accidentally said the wrong thing. 

“Papa…?” she nervously prodded her father, who still hadn’t moved, and now didn’t even look like he was breathing. He had a far-off look in his eyes, and it was starting to scare her. The water turned off at the sink, and Omega made his way back to the table and put his hands on Terzo’s shoulders, slowly massaging. Astrid continued to drink from her bottle, oblivious to anything being wrong. 

“It’s alright, tesoro,” Omega told Terzo softly, his hands seeming to bring life back into her Papa. “It’s ok. It’s ok,” he soothed. “I’m right here.” Starlight was beginning to regret her question, feeling guilty as she felt the anxiety rolling off of Terzo. Her Papa shifted Astrid to the arm furthest away from her Daddy’s chair as Omega sat down, then reached out blindly for his hand. Omega grabbed it in his own immediately. Finally starting to breathe again, Terzo looked over at Omega, and they stared at one another, seeming to be communicating silently. Omega was the first one to look at her. 

“Star…” Omega started, and Starlight couldn’t get a read on his voice or his emotions. She hoped she wasn’t in trouble. Picking up on her fear, he reached out to her with a tendril of his quintessence, reassuring her that nothing was wrong, that she was safe and most certainly not in trouble. She closed her eyes to the feeling. When she opened them again, to her horror, her Papa was wiping away a tear. The silence they sat in this time was tense and uncomfortable, and Starlight had a hard time sitting still. 

“I’m sorry, Papa, I didn’t mean to—” she started, repentant and unsure of how much longer she could handle sitting there quietly, but Terzo hurried to interrupt her. 

“No no no,” Terzo rushed out, his voice thick, like he was holding back more tears. “You did not do anything wrong, mio miracolo. Papa was just… surprised.” He shot her a small, watery smile. “You see, stellina… A long time ago, Papa got hurt.” He started strong, but by the end, his voice was quivering. Starlight heard her heart thunder in her ears, fear piercing through her at the thought of either one of her parents being hurt. Omega noticed, quintessence brushing up against her mind once more. She watched as Terzo took a deep breath. 

“Papa got hurt,” Terzo started again. “And they had to give him stitches, to help him heal. Do you remember when Astrid was born, and the doctor had to put in stitches in Papa’s tummy?” Starlight nodded slowly, following what her father was saying, but still confused. “It is just like that, principessa. That is why there are these faint dots running along the big part of the scar, they are from the stitches. The doctor just had to help Papa get better.” 

“Ok, Papa…” Starlight said hesitantly. Her head was still swirling with questions, but she was acutely aware of how upset both of her parents were right now. And she knew that it was her fault. “I’m glad you’re better now,” she said, staring at her feet and trying not to tear up. Terzo motioned for her to come around the table, and she obeyed. He let go of Omega’s hand in favor of cupping her face, pulling her close for a long kiss on the cheek. 

“Papa is ok now,” he said against her cheek. “I promise you.” Unwilling to upset her parents once more, Starlight left it at that, from then on vowing to herself to never to bring it up again. 

Astrid was a different story. 

From the time that Astrid could walk steadily on her own, she followed her sister everywhere, looking like a duckling trailing after its mother. And, as rowdy as Starlight was, she frequently got hurt, especially when playing outside. Starlight was strong and never cried when she fell or got a scraped knee, especially since, as a ghoul, she healed so quickly that a small injury was of no consequence. 

Astrid, on the other hand, would immediately run to her big sister and cry her eyes out. Cry like it was the end of the world. At least, that’s what she did for the first few months. As she got older, any time anyone around her got hurt, she would still cry, but she would also reach out to them with her quintessence, full of concern and trying to offer reassurance rather than seek it. The first time their Papa experienced Astrid’s new behavior after slicing his finger with a knife as he was preparing dinner, he cried too as he held her close. Starlight watched the pair with her head cocked to the side, wondering how both of them could be such a mess. 

When Astrid could speak well enough to string a few words together, she started running her little clawed fingers along their Papa’s scar and saying things like “Papa hurt” and “ouch”. Terzo looked shocked and uncomfortable, but didn’t pull her hand away. 

“No. Papa is ok, angioletta mia.” Terzo reassured his youngest, but she would always start to fuss and cry. He looked like he had no idea how to respond, and the worst part was how misty his eyes would get. After the fifth time that Starlight witnessed this exchange play out, their Papa finally responded differently. 

“Yes, piccina mia. You are right,” Terzo said softly as the three of them sat together in the recliner one evening. He took Astrid’s little hand in both of his and kissed the back of it. Astrid fell silent. “Papa did get hurt, a long time ago. But Papa is all better now. I promise.” He kissed her hand again. “Okay?” 

“Okay,” Astrid responded quietly, after taking a moment to think about it. When she gently patted Terzo’s cheek, Starlight could see his eyes brim with tears. He hugged Astrid tightly against his chest and subtly smelled her hair, the way he often did with both of his children, not realizing that Starlight had noticed by now. She wasn’t going to tell him she knew, not if it was something that brought him comfort. 

“Thank you for worrying about me, my sweet girls,” Terzo told them both as he pulled Starlight against his side with his free arm. “Papa is just fine, especially now that he has you.” 

Despite Astrid’s young age, she stopped questioning their Papa’s scar once they had that conversation. They both trusted their Papa implicitly, so if he said he was okay, then he was okay. Starlight didn’t know Astrid’s motivations, but part of why she put the issue out of her mind was how badly she wanted to avoid making her Papa sad again. Their Papa’s scar was just another part of him, and that was that. 

Neither of them thought hard enough about it to put the pieces together, at least not for a long while. As both a sheltered young child and an immortal being, Starlight didn’t brush up against death until she was seven years old. It, like many other things, was something that only existed in stories, an abstract concept that she’d never bothered to give much consideration. When death came calling in real life, it rocked her world to its foundations. 

Out of all of his rats, Rigatoni was Uncle Copia’s favorite, and although Starlight didn’t like to admit she played favorites, Rigatoni was absolutely her favorite rat as well. The first time they met, Starlight was three and trying her best to hold herself together during a crisis. She was stressed, scared, and in the care of Uncle Secondo while her Papa and brand new baby sister were in the infirmary after what she’d later learn to be serious birth complications, resulting in premature delivery and emergency surgery. But at the time, she had no idea what was happening, and none of the adults around her would tell her anything other than “everything will be ok.” The comfort that sweet, gentle, furry little creature brought to her was exactly what she needed to soothe her nerves, even if she didn’t understand much of what was going on around her. 

Starlight and Rigatoni only played twice during that time period, but once her family was reunited and her Papa had recovered, she begged her parents to let her go back to Uncle Copia’s again to play with the rat and his packmates. And so, that was the beginning of Starlight rotating between the care of all three of her uncles for her Friday night sleepovers, instead of only staying with Uncle Primo every weekend as she had since she was a baby. Once Astrid was a year old, she started joining in on the sleepovers, which greatly worried her Papa—especially when they stayed with Uncle Copia. Starlight promised to look after her little sister, though, and she meant it; from the first day they met, Astrid had always been the most important thing in Starlight’s world. She wouldn’t let anything happen to her. 

Starlight should have been suspicious when the first of Rigatoni’s packmates went missing. She should have been, but she had complete and utter trust in her uncle. He had never lied to her, and surely never would, because he was family. Copia’s other three rats went missing one by one over the years, and every time the story was the same. The rat had simply found a new home with a sibling of sin, one who was lonely and needed the friendship more than Uncle Copia did. Since she knew her Papa never much cared for the rodents, she didn’t bother bringing it up at home, and Astrid followed her lead. In truth, she did her best not to think too deeply about it, because losing their companionship hurt. 

When Uncle Copia came to visit the siblings one day after school the week after her seventh birthday, his eyes red and puffy, Starlight knew something was up. Even her parents looked somber, but since both of them had gotten quite good over the years at shielding their children from their emotions, she couldn’t get a read on them. Starlight’s heart was in her throat as they all sat down together in the living room, the little family on the sofa together, while Copia took residence in the recliner that Starlight used to snuggle with her Papa in. 

“Star, Astrid,” Copia greeted his nieces, his awkwardness overshadowing how raspy his voice sounded. “I…” he trailed off, looking down at his socked feet, and Starlight was sure that her Papa had made him take his shoes off when he entered, like he did everyone else. Truthfully, he looked quite silly sitting there in his formal Frater attire without any shoes. 

“I, eh… have something I need to tell you.” Starlight didn’t know why, but ice shot through her veins. Perhaps it was the serious tone of Uncle Copia’s voice, his usual goofy playfulness absent. “Rigatoni…” he interrupted himself with a sniffle. Starlight froze, wondering just why on earth her family would all sit down to talk about her favorite rat. “I’m afraid that Rigatoni… has passed away.”

Wait… what?

Starlight felt dizzy, but she didn’t know why, because what did that even mean, really? She knew that “passed away” meant that someone had died, but… No one she’d ever known had died. That was something she’d only seen in stories. No, clearly Uncle Copia wasn’t telling the truth, that was just a lazy excuse. He was trying to cover up what he really did.

“That’s not funny, Uncle Copia,” Starlight scolded, glaring at him from across the room. She heard a quiet, high-pitched whining sound from beside her and looked over to see Astrid crying in their Daddy’s lap, the first tear already beginning to run down her cheek. Starlight’s heart stopped, then tripped over itself trying to find its rhythm. Her Papa’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her close to his chest, but she didn’t know why. “Who did you give him away to?” she accused, but her voice was more wobbly than she expected as it hit her ears. “Who needed him more than me?” Her voice really did break this time, traitorous tears welling up in her eyes. Terzo ran a hand up and down her back, something that had brought her comfort for as long as she could remember. Not today, though. 

“Dolcezza mia, what do you mean?” Her Papa’s voice was gentle, but he sounded confused. Starlight’s brow furrowed, but then she remembered that she’d never told her parents about Rigatoni’s packmates. 

“Uncle Copia told us he gives his rats away to siblings of sin who need them really badly,” Starlight spat. It happened so rarely, but she was angry. She couldn’t believe Uncle Copia would give Rigatoni, of all of the rats, to someone else. Someone who didn’t love him or understand him the way she did. Hadn’t she proven she was good enough to take care of him? Was she not important enough to deserve his love anymore? She felt her claws bite into her palms as she clenched her fists hard. “I guess Rigatoni didn’t matter enough to keep around.” Her Papa’s arms tightened around her, and all of a sudden, she felt steamrolled by a rage that her Papa couldn’t shield her from. 

“You told them what?!” Terzo hissed through his teeth at his brother. She saw her Daddy’s hand find its way to her Papa’s shoulder, resting heavily as if to anchor him. Her uncle looked like that phrase she’d read once—a deer in headlights, eyes wide and all of the blood drained from his face. “We do not lie to our daughters, Copia. You know this.” Wait, what? Lie? She watched her uncle wince. 

“It was, eh…” Copia started weakly, trailing off like he was scrambling to figure out how to respond. “It was a white lie, fratello. One to protect them. You know, from…” 

Starlight heard a low rumble from beside her, her Daddy growling at such a low frequency that she doubted either of the humans in the room would be able to hear it. She looked over to see Omega’s ears low, his fists clenched, hands a mirror image of her own. She couldn’t feel any emotions rolling off of him, but she didn’t need to—her Daddy was furious. Her father was a very calm, gentle person; it took a lot to set him off, and it usually involved threats to his family. But Uncle Copia wasn’t a threat… was he? 

She’d never thought so before, but given the admission he’d just made, she was beginning to reconsider. Based on the sadness she was now picking up on from him, the news of Rigatoni’s death must have been true. That could only mean… Uncle Copia lied. He didn’t just lie, but he lied about something important to her, and to her baby sister as well. He betrayed them. For the very first time, she was second-guessing her trust in a member of her own family. 

“Do they look protected to you, you idiot?!” Terzo shot back, looking between his children, who were now both crying. His voice was strained, barely below a yell. When Starlight sobbed into Terzo’s shirt, he softly shushed her, slowly rocking from side to side. Starlight still didn’t really understand what she was upset about. She didn’t get what it meant, ultimately, that Rigatoni was dead. What she did get was that her Uncle Copia had lied to her, not just once, but multiple times over. He’d just admitted to it.

“Look,” Copia said softly, addressing both of the girls once they had calmed down enough to be able to participate in the conversation. Starlight reluctantly looked up at him to see him leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I was wrong. I never should have lied to you two about this. You deserve to know the truth.” That was an understatement if she’d ever heard one. “I should’ve at least talked to your parents first. We could have figured something out.” She heard her Papa make a small noise, brief but full of bitterness and irritation. Copia kept moving through his train of thought. “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me for a little while. You don’t have to forgive me.” 

Starlight’s knee-jerk reaction was to say that she would never forgive her uncle, that she hated him and would hate him for the rest of time. Part of her wanted to tell him as much. But she knew that was just a temporary feeling, and that once she calmed down, she would feel bad for saying such things. There were some words that you couldn’t take back. 

“But,” Copia started again after a long pause, drawing Starlight out of her thoughts. “I am having a little funeral for him, right after I leave here.” Upon seeing the confused look on Starlight’s face, Copia quickly explained. “A funeral is a ceremony where you honor someone who’s died. Usually the person… er, or animal, is buried immediately after.” Starlight flinched a little, despite her lack of context for any part of what was going on. “You don’t have to go, of course. But the invitation is there, if you would like to.” 

They sat in a painful, tense silence for longer than Starlight thought she could handle, the only sound being both of the girls’ sniffles as their parents comforted them. Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, her Papa spoke up. 

“I think that you should leave, Copia,” Terzo said flatly, only lifting his lips from the crown of Starlight’s head long enough to tell his brother off. Copia sat up straight from where he’d been slumped forward in his borrowed chair. 

“Ah…” Uncle Copia started, clearly uncomfortable. That made five of them, if Starlight had to guess. “Right.” He got to his feet ungracefully, nearly tipping out of the recliner, not expecting it to rock as far forward as it did. Starlight was too dazed to laugh the way she might have otherwise. “I am terribly sorry for all of the trouble I’ve caused.” To his credit, he did sound genuinely repentant. “Girls. I know that you probably hate me right now. But I need you to know that I love you, and I—”

“Papa,” Starlight interjected against Terzo’s shirt, loud enough to cause Copia to stop in his tracks. She sat up enough to face Terzo, needing him to see her face and know that she meant what she was about to say, especially since she didn’t believe it herself. The young ghoul didn’t quite understand what it meant that the rat had died. Not really, not in any practical way. She felt like she needed to see for herself exactly what was going on. “Can I please go with Uncle Copia? I want to say goodbye to Rigatoni.” Terzo’s face was soft, but he looked like he was waffling on his answer. 

“Yes, princess. You can go,” her Daddy interjected before Terzo could make up his mind. Terzo’s mouth opened, but quickly closed when he saw the look on Starlight’s face. Choked up, he simply nodded. 

“Can I go too?” Astrid asked timidly, her voice weak. Their Papa spoke up much more quickly this time. 

“Mia preziosa bambina,” Terzo cooed, reaching behind Starlight to cup Astrid’s tear-stained face. “You are too young for such a thing. I do not want you to go through that.” Omega made a face like he wanted to protest, but he said nothing. Astrid closed her eyes and leaned into their Papa’s hand, another tear rolling down her cheek. Starlight wanted to cry too, but she couldn’t decide if what she felt was sympathy for her sister’s pain, or frustration over the fact that she seemed to be the only one who wasn’t getting this. Based on Astrid’s reaction, even her baby sister seemed to grasp the concept of death better than she did. 

Starlight was angry the whole way back to Copia’s suite, barely resisting the childish urge to stomp her feet as she followed behind him. When they finally arrived, all of her anger evaporated the moment the door opened and her eyes fell on Rigatoni’s cage. Rigatoni’s empty cage. Where usually there was her chubby little friend squeaking and running up to the side of his enclosure, his nose and little paws poking through the bars in his eagerness to greet her, there was… nothing. Nothing, and no one, only a cold, empty silence. She froze, scouring the large cage as though if she looked hard enough, she would find him. She knew Uncle Copia would never let him roam by himself, so where else would he be? It began to sink in that no matter how hard she looked, he would never appear again. Is that what death meant? Her legs started to feel weak, but she still didn’t… get it. She needed to know more. 

“Wh… Where is he?” she asked her uncle, breaking the heavy silence that filled the room. When she met Copia’s eyes, they were full of sorrow. 

“He’s in a shoe box, out on the balcony. I figured he would appreciate being outdoors, you know much he loved to play in his little pen out there,” Uncle Copia said, keeping his voice light. A shoebox? Even to a seven-year-old, that seemed disrespectful. Her brow furrowed and she opened her mouth in protest, but, anticipating her objection, Copia explained himself. “It’s very normal to bury small animals in boxes. It’s like a little coffin, only cardboard.” She wasn’t sure she was happy with that answer, but then again, she didn’t know anything about death, did she? That much was becoming clearer by the minute. “Do you wanna go see him?”

Starlight swallowed hard. Of course, seeing him was the whole reason she’d asked to come here, but now that it was getting real… She wasn’t sure if she could handle it. That wasn’t fair, though. Not to herself, and not to Rigatoni. She needed to get a grasp of what was happening, and if this really meant he was gone forever, then she needed to tell him goodbye. 

“Yeah,” she said, her response coming out as a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yeah. I think I need to see him.” 

Copia led her to the patio, a place where they spent a lot of time playing with the rats while they were safely contained in a little wire pen. They were always happiest when the sun was shining on their fur, sniffing the fresh air as the birds chirped in neighboring trees. In the middle of the concrete floor was a large black shoebox, looking more ominous than a cardboard box had any right to. Uncle Copia bent to pick up the box, then gingerly placed it on the small wrought-iron table that sat pushed against the railing. 

“Are you sure you want to see him, little Star?” Copia asked, his voice tender and full of concern. Starlight nodded. She was determined to figure this out. She needed closure. He put a hand on her back. “There are some things you can’t unsee.” 

“I’m ready,” Starlight confirmed, displaying a bravery that she really did feel at first, but was now just a front. 

Harshly exhaling, Uncle Copia lifted the lid with trembling hands. Inside the box, lying on his side and looking as though he were merely taking a nap, was Rigatoni. He looked… peaceful, like he was tuckered out after a long day of scampering around. She held her breath as she waited for his, but the rise and fall of his chest never came. This was the most still she’d ever seen her lively little rodent friend, even when they would take naps together. 

“He’s not moving…” Starlight whispered as her throat threatened to close. The tears began to flow then as it finally started to make sense, tears that were her own and not triggered by the feelings of others like every other time she’d cried that day. “Why isn’t he moving?” she choked out. Uncle Copia wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she started to sob, turning away from Rigatoni and into her uncle’s embrace. She felt so out of body, so disconnected from what was happening. Uncle Copia hugged her tightly and just let her cry for as long as she needed to. 

When she’d calmed down enough to remember why she went there in the first place, she pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes, as if that would somehow ward off the tears.

“What do we do now?” she asked through a stuffy nose, looking up at her uncle with stinging eyes. Copia shifted his weight and looked down at his gloved hands. 

“Now, eh, well… Now we bury him.” Copia sounded about as uncomfortable with the idea as she felt, but she nodded numbly. They walked down to the treeline that was visible from Uncle Copia’s balcony, with Copia saying that he figured Rigatoni would like to rest in the place he spent his life gazing out at. Starlight picked wildflowers while Copia dug a grave, arranging them around Rigatoni in his box. When she touched him out of morbid curiosity, he lacked his usual warmth, instead feeling like the temperature of the world around him. She decided to pet his soft fur one last time. She thought he’d like that. 

When it came time to put Rigatoni to rest, Starlight insisted on being the one to lay him in the ground. After a tense minute of gazing down into the open grave, Copia lifted his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. 

“Rigatoni,” he started, his voice sounding a little unnatural and stilted. “Thank you for giving me so many years of unconditional love. It was an honor to be your Papa.” Starlight didn’t understand how he could be so stoic right now. How wasn’t he falling into a million pieces? “I hope that you find peace, and lots of cheese and peanut butter, with your friends.” His friends? Oh, right… The other rats that had been “given away” over the years. She fought against the urge to roll her eyes bitterly as she was reminded of all of the other lies Uncle Copia had told. Copia turned to her then. “Got anything to add before we say goodbye?” Starlight’s eyes threatened to tear up again at the mention of goodbye. She nodded. 

“Rigatoni,” Starlight started, modeling her speech after her uncle’s. “When we met, I was the most scared I’d ever been. You didn’t know me, but you were kind to me and loved me anyway. Thank you for always being there when I needed you.” She fought with all of her might to make it through what she wanted to say without crying again. “You were a good rat, and a good friend.” Her lower lip quivered. “I’ll miss you.” When her voice broke, so did her resolve; despite her best efforts, a tear slipped out anyway. 

Once they’d filled the hole and Starlight had put a big sunflower she’d stolen from one of Uncle Primo’s gardens on the dirt mound, they headed back up to Uncle Copia’s suite. Although all she wanted when they were outside was to go home to be with her parents and her sister, once she walked into Copia’s quarters, she couldn’t do anything but flop down on the sofa and close her eyes. She felt her uncle sit down beside her, quiet for so long that Starlight started falling asleep. 

“He was an old man, you know,” Copia said out of nowhere, startling her out of drifting off. 

“Who was?” she asked, once she’d reoriented herself. “Rigatoni?” Now that she thought about it, she didn’t know how long rats usually lived. 

“Yeah.” Copia looked at his watch and then sighed. “He would have been five in three weeks. Well, three weeks and two days.” Starlight wondered if he always kept track of all of his rats’ birthdays like that. “That’s pretty old for a rat. Like, really old. He lived a good life, he was the oldest rat I’ve ever had.” Starlight’s eyes widened. 

“Really?” she asked. Copia nodded. “He didn’t seem old.” Her uncle huffed a laugh.

“I know, right?” he mused. “He was such an energetic little guy. He was so energetic that I was almost starting to wonder if this day would ever come, actually.” Okay, now Starlight had to ask the question that had been eating away at her ever since she’d first seen Rigatoni motionless in that box. “I know how much the rats meant to you and your sister, but especially to you. I’m sorry I lied to you for so long. You deserved to know the truth… You always have. Your Papa is right. I’m an idiot.”

“How can you stand to have rats if they don’t live very long? Aren’t you always saying goodbye?” she asked, skipping over the thing about him lying, because she could only deal with one earth-shattering upset at a time. Starlight didn’t mean to hurt her uncle, or to imply that he shouldn’t have had Rigatoni, but she had to know. “Why would you want to feel that pain all the time?” 

“Heh,” Copia laughed, although it was more of a sound of pain than of amusement.  He rubbed his temples. “Everything ends one day. Everyone dies. Everyone except ghouls, anyway. Most of this world doesn’t get the privilege of eternal life.” Starlight was surprised by his answer; she’d heard her whole life that ghouls were immortal, but she never really stopped to think about what that meant, or what it meant for everyone else by comparison. Her parents certainly never explained it any further, either. “You’re in a special club, kid.” 

“But that doesn’t explain why—” 

“Just because something ends doesn’t mean it didn’t make you happy, or that it didn’t have any value or meaning,” Copia explained, anticipating what she was about to ask and cutting her off. “What matters is making the most out of the time you do have, and sharing as much love and joy as you can with those you care about.” He shifted nervously, looking at his shoes— shoes that he most definitely didn’t mind wearing in his quarters, unlike her Papa. “That love and joy get to live on in your heart forever.” Starlight felt a lump forming in her throat. She had more questions than she had answers now, but she didn’t know if she could handle finding out any more heavy stuff. Hadn’t she learned enough for one day? All she wanted was to go home and curl up in her Papa’s arms. 

But… what about her Papa? 

Papa was human, and Uncle Copia said that only ghouls were immortal. It was true that she’d been told her whole life that she was an immortal. She was someone who would never get sick, who would heal quickly, who could travel between worlds, particularly to a place called “the pit”. The pit was supposed to be where all ghouls came from, but she wasn’t sure if she believed that, because she and her sister were born on Earth. 

But if ghouls were immortal, what happened to creatures that weren’t immortal when death came for them? What happened to people who weren’t immortal? She vaguely knew that death was a thing that existed, but she’d never given much thought to what it actually was, or what it meant to die. Not until today. Her sister and her Daddy were ghouls, too, but… Did that mean that one day her Papa would die? What about her uncles? Oh no. Oh no, no, no. 

Starlight was so wrapped up in that train of thought and in using every ounce of her strength to hold herself together that she didn’t notice they’d arrived at her front door. She didn’t remember much of the walk over; frankly, she didn’t even remember leaving her uncle’s quarters. When her Papa opened the door, she threw herself into his arms and started crying again, unable to process her sorrow on her own, but also unwilling to spread it like a disease to her loved ones. She was glued to her Papa for the rest of the night, and in that moment, he seemed to need her just as much as she needed him. They all slept together as a family in the same bed that night; no one wanted to be apart. 

Astrid slept in Starlight’s bed for the next week and a half, even though their beds were only separated by a few feet. Starlight had been so lost in her own grief that she almost forgot she wasn’t the only one suffering, and she was grateful for the company. She did her best to push that sense of impending doom out of her mind, instead focusing on comforting her baby sister. Astrid was so sweet, so compassionate, so sensitive… Starlight needed to be there for her. 

And once the wound Rigatoni’s death caused started to heal, Starlight did everything she could to keep it from reopening, burying the dread and the fear of mortality in the deepest recesses of her psyche. She owed it to the ones she loved to be strong and cheerful. She needed to live up to her namesake—she needed to be the light that illuminated their darkness, the way she was always meant to be. 

Chapter Text

For a couple of years, Starlight managed to keep those pesky thoughts of death from resurfacing, but it was only a matter of time before they caught up to her. No one can run forever, and on some level, a part of her knew that. But still, she tried her hardest. 

When the girls were nine and six, Terzo and Omega had a vow renewal ceremony, in no small part due to pressure from their children. When the sisters learned about the way their parents wed over thirty years ago, in secret and solitude in the dead of night, they insisted the couple needed a do-over, and to do it “right” this time. Their relationship wasn’t a secret anymore, after all. They were no longer under threat of dire consequences should they be caught, so why shouldn’t they celebrate their love with family and friends? There weren’t even any photos for the family to look back on! No, that simply wouldn’t do.

Their parents were hesitant at first, insisting they were perfectly happy with the wedding they’d had. That night held so much meaning for them. It was special. So special that they both still teared up talking about it, even forty years later, by that point. 

In the end, the girls won. Together, they began gleefully planning for the upcoming big day. 

It was a small affair in terms of guests, but the girls conspired with Uncle Copia and several of their parents’ friends to make it as elaborate as possible with the resources they had. 

The bulk of the designing was done by River, a water ghoul whom Terzo and Omega used to babysit, and had been their honorary child before the girls were born. Thanks to the efforts of everyone involved, the ceremony went beautifully, and the betrothed were moved by the love and care that went into pulling off such an elegant ceremony. Even more so, they were moved by each other, Omega wiping away a tear when he watched Terzo walk down the aisle in his dress, and Terzo getting choked up as Omega said his vows. Starlight couldn’t hide her smug smile as her parents kissed. She was proud of herself for the part she played in making this day happen, as she felt she should be. They all came together to give her parents the wedding they deserved. 

After the wedding came the reception, where they made the most out of their time together before the “newlyweds” were to be whisked away to a secluded mountain cabin for their honeymoon the following morning. Everyone was a little nervous about the four days the couple would be spending away from home, none more so than Terzo. The longest the little family had ever been apart was the three days Terzo was in the infirmary in critical condition after Astrid’s birth, and that wasn’t by choice. Even at three years old, Starlight would never forget how her Papa cried over how much he’d missed his oldest daughter while he was recovering, and even at her tender age, her heart broke for him.

Omega assured him that their girls would be just fine in the care of their uncles, the same way they were fine during every Friday night sleepover they’d ever had. Their trip would be just like that, only for a few extra days. Uncle Primo tried to set his brother straight, harshly scolding him for ruining such a rare opportunity to “get out of this damn place” with his incessant worrying. 

“Brother, I am deeply offended that you don’t think I can keep two immortal children safe,” Primo scoffed. “What in Satan’s name could I possibly do to fuck that up?” Terzo turned beet red, and Starlight could almost see steam coming out of his ears.

“Well for starters, you could poison their minds with your foul mouth even more than you already have,” Terzo admonished through clenched teeth. Uncle Primo pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily, the sort of sigh that came from rehashing the same arguments over and over a hundred times. “They do not need to be exposed to such crude language. I do not know what is so difficult for you to understand about that!”

“If they haven’t picked it up by now, I think we’re probably in the clear,” Uncle Secondo derided, although the twitching corners of his mouth betrayed the amusement lurking behind his scowl. Starlight hadn’t even seen him approach, but she knew his presence meant trouble. Uncle Secondo had a knack for showing up whenever a fight was brewing, and not to break it up, either.

“Hey now,” Uncle Copia chimed in from behind Starlight, startling her; the last time she’d seen him, he’d been all the way on the other side of the courtyard. What was with all of her uncles sneaking around today? “He’s got a point,” he said, nodding to Terzo. “They’re not your kids, guys, you’ve got to listen to what their parents say about—” 

“Shut up, rat boy,” Secondo berated his youngest brother before returning his attention to Terzo. “If you don’t like the way I speak, don’t leave them with me. Simple as that.” Astrid whined beside Starlight and grabbed her hand; she hated it when the adults would fight. Starlight didn’t much care for it either. 

Starlight saw her Papa about to argue back, his face dark, but before he could get a word out, Omega stepped between him and the rest of his brothers and shepherded him back to their sweetheart table. 

“Mia luce, they’re not worth it,” Starlight heard her Daddy say calmly as her parents walked away together. “We can do this any other day, vita mia. Just not today.” 

When it was time to open presents, the couple received a wide variety of gifts that catered both to their individual tastes and to their collective benefit as a family. Starlight was most excited about the fancy stand mixer they were given, imagining all of the baking her Daddy was sure to do with it once they’d returned from their honeymoon. 

The most interesting gift came from Air. Their former bandmate presented them with a large black leather book that turned out to be a photo album. Air explained that it was full of promotional photos from their time in the Ghost project, telling the girls that these were the only photos of their parents together before Uncle Copia took over the role of Frater and freed the ghouls. Due to the harsh stance the ministry had on humans and ghouls mingling back then, it was too dangerous to document their life together. Digging all of those old photos up wasn’t an easy task, Air boasted, and she could tell he was looking for praise. He didn’t get any from their parents, which Starlight thought was a little rude. Air didn’t seem surprised, though. 

Inside were easily over a hundred photos, many of which featured masked people she didn’t recognize standing around the figure in the middle of the frame. The central figure had his face obscured as well, but Starlight would recognize his makeup anywhere; it was her Papa’s signature face paint! She’d never seen it on anyone but her Papa; it was unique to him. He still wore it sometimes for important occasions, although not nearly as often as Uncle Primo and Uncle Secondo did. 

“Papa, who are the people behind you?” Astrid asked curiously, speaking louder than she usually did in public, just as excited as Starlight was. They’d never seen pictures of either of their parents any earlier than the three years before Starlight was born. 

“Well, uh…” Omega interjected, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. That was weird, Starlight thought. Why was he uncomfortable? “That’s me and the rest of the ghouls in the band, baby girl.” 

“Oh!” Starlight exclaimed. She had almost forgotten that ghouls had to be under glamor magic in order to be seen by humans outside of the ministry, for safety reasons. That’s what the masks were for: they were their binding artifacts! 

“But how did you tell everyone apart when you couldn’t see their faces?” was Astrid’s follow-up question, something that Starlight had been wondering as well. Terzo chuckled. 

“Trust me, mie belle ragazze,” Terzo said warmly as he gently placed a hand on both of their heads, rather than ruffling their hair and ruining all of the work he’d put into styling it that morning. “You learn quickly, they are all very easy to identify. Especially your Daddy.” He lifted his hand over his head with his palm flat, referring to how tall Omega was. Omega wrapped an arm around Terzo’s waist and kissed his cheek, his face the picture of blissful adoration. 

The girls continued to look through the book by themselves while their parents sat across the table from them, talking about who knows what and enjoying the company of their spouse. But suddenly, Starlight noticed something, something big. Something that made her heart stop dead in her chest. Her sister noticed it at the same time she did. In a photo of their Papa wearing some kind of suit rather than his robes, Starlight saw Terzo’s neck appearing smooth and unblemished for the first time. How long ago had these photos been taken?

“Papa?” Starlight asked, trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice so as not to raise any suspicions. Drawn out of his conversation with Omega, Terzo looked at her with curious eyes, his brows raised. Starlight swallowed hard; she was already dreading where this conversation was going, even though she had no idea what it was leading to. Still, she had to ask. “How old are these pictures?” Terzo’s brows furrowed then. 

“Mm, a probably over fifteen years ago at this point,” he said slowly, visibly doing the math in his head. “Why do you ask, stellina?” Despite his light tone, his shoulders were stiff, his body language screaming his desire to change the subject. 

“Because you don’t have a scar here, Papa,” Astrid blurted out, shocking even Starlight. She never would’ve just said it outright like that. Their Papa froze, deathly still, and his eyes opened wider as the blood drained from his face, leaving his olive skin a sickly hue. She felt the spikey waves of Terzo’s fear for a moment before he remembered himself enough to shield his daughters from his distress. Their Daddy was tense, too, but he put a hand on Terzo’s shoulder to calm him. Realizing that both of his children were staring intently at him with eyes full of concern, their Papa did his best to compose himself. 

“What happened?” Astrid asked, her voice much quieter and more timid now. Even at six, she was still aware enough to pick up on the emotions of others without her quintessence, and Starlight was willing to bet that her little sister was afraid of getting in trouble. 

“Nothing important, my darlings,” Terzo said with a dismissive hand wave, but his voice was unsteady. “You do not need to concern yourselves with such a thing. Everyone changes over time.” Terzo was right about that part, she’d give her father that much. But a scar going all the way around someone’s neck was a pretty dang big change. “Besides, today is not the day for such stories. Today is for celebrating!” Terzo exclaimed as he idly folded the napkin in front of him. Omega pulled Terzo close to his body and pressed his lips to the top of his head, silently making it clear that he was standing in solidarity with his husband. 

Starlight was frustrated with this answer, but she agreed to let it go. If her parents didn’t want to talk about it, then she wouldn’t force them to. The scar worried her, though… Of course it did. What happened to him? There was nothing in the world she wanted more than for her family to be safe and healthy and happy. Scars only came from getting hurt, right? 

How did Papa get hurt?

But if the only way to find out was to upset her parents, it wasn’t worth it. Or, at least, that’s what she told herself every time the curiosity started to eat away at her again.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, no matter how hard a child tries, they will inevitably upset their parents anyway, many times over. There had been lots of little incidents over the course of Starlight’s childhood, but there wasn’t an upset bigger than when she decided at the age of nineteen that she wanted to join the Ghost project as their rhythm guitarist.

Joining the band meant heading out on the road and traveling the world, away from the rest of her family for an extended period of time. Well, the rest of her family, except for Uncle Copia, who would be going with them as the band’s manager. Astrid had never lived without her big sister, so the prospect of losing Starlight was devastating. Seeing and feeling Astrid’s pain crushed her, but despite her sadness over being left behind, Astrid encouraged her to go anyway. 

Her Daddy was surprisingly supportive, ever her biggest cheerleader, but… She knew her Papa cried for hours on end the week she announced her plans to go on the next tour; he tried to hide it from his children, but Starlight saw right through him. His red, tired eyes and raspy voice gave him away, as did the frequency with which he was shielding his emotions from the quintessence of his family members. 

No matter how much it upset her Papa, though… She didn’t think she could pass up an opportunity like the one Uncle Copia was offering her. Early on, she decided to follow in Omega’s footsteps, declaring at the age of eleven that she wanted to learn guitar just like her Daddy. Omega had played for his children since they were in the womb, and Starlight had always been enamored by the sound—it was like magic, and she knew she needed to learn how to make beautiful music just like her father. 

Even at a young age, she understood how much work it would take to accomplish her dream, so she devoted herself to practicing nearly every day. Of course, her Daddy helped every step of the way, the way he always did with anything she needed. He found great joy in teaching his daughter his craft, proud to pass on his skills to a new generation.

Their lessons doubled as a great bonding exercise between father and daughter; Starlight thought she’d known everything there was to know about Omega, but he continued to surprise her every day as he opened up to her while they played. The more she learned, the more it sank in just how long her Daddy had been around and how much he’d experienced. In comparison, she was still just a baby. It was no wonder her parents sometimes treated her that way—how could they not? She wondered if she would ever truly be able to know him, to know either of her parents, in their entirety. Was that how all children felt? 

In no time, she was able to proficiently play in both her natural ghoul form and, more importantly, in human form under glamor magic. She would need to get used to looking like a human if she had any hopes of playing for thousands of them at a time, no matter how uncomfortable it was. Her Daddy encouraged her to pursue her dreams, but she knew he was sad to see her fly the nest. And although Starlight hated upsetting her parents, she couldn’t resist the urge to spread her wings. She needed space to become her own person and to transition into adulthood, just like every child did. 

“I’m going to practice until I can nail this in my sleep. Tour is gonna be a breeze,” Starlight confidently declared during a practice session shortly before her nineteenth birthday; she was working on mastering the setlist she was given for the upcoming tour, and she felt in her bones that she was almost there. She was almost ready… 

Then her tone softened. “I want to make you proud, Daddy,” she said much more quietly as she pretended to tune her guitar. Just then, she felt Omega reach out to her with his quintessence, enveloping her in the unconditional love that was so familiar to her. She’d spent her whole life immersed in it, and if she were being honest, she was afraid to leave it behind. Afraid, but always up for a challenge. 

“I already am, princess,” Omega assured her with a tender smile. “I always have been.” 

Convincing her Papa was an entirely different story, though. For weeks, he tried to talk her out of joining the band, doing just about anything he could short of begging. He’d even tried out bribery once or twice, to little effect. Terzo had always been the model of an overprotective parent, and Starlight, being as headstrong and stubborn as she was, started to clash with him a bit in her teenage years. They always made amends, but Starlight would be left feeling a strange mix of guilt, heartache, and a tinge of resentment. That resentment only served to make her feel even more guilty, because that was her Papa she was feeling that way about. She had always been a Papa’s girl. He was her comfort and refuge, and yet here she was not even wanting to talk to him or see his face after yet another disagreement. 

The worst part had always been that she got why her Papa was the way he was. He’d been through so much, battled so much adversity, had to wait so long just to be able to live in the open with the person he loved. He’d waited even longer to start their family. Their parents always told them how special and wanted and loved they were. So, having one of the children you’d waited so long and worked so hard for want to leave home? That must be tough to accept. She also wondered if her starting out on her own served as a reminder to her Papa of how soon Astrid would be of the age to do the same. Before he knew it, he would likely have an empty nest. 

Knowing how well-intentioned her Papa was did nothing to ward off the itch she had to run, to breathe the air outside of the ministry walls for more than just a day at a time under glamor magic, limited to exploring only the neighboring city. She wanted to see the world like everyone else had the opportunity to do. Well, everyone else who wasn’t a ghoul, anyway. Most summoned ghouls couldn’t even leave ministry grounds. She was going to change that, though. She knew she would. One day, ghouls wouldn’t be feared and reviled by humans; she would make sure of that. 

One night during a particularly tense dinner, where Terzo was yet again trying his best to talk Starlight out of leaving home, she hit her breaking point. 

“Papa,” Starlight said through clenched teeth. Terzo stopped in his tracks and gave her an exasperated look, but he said nothing and waited for her to continue. “I don’t get it, this isn’t fair! Astrid gets to do what she wants with her life, but I don’t?! She’s the baby, not me!” Astrid made a noise of protest. 

“Hey!” Astrid cried, annoyed. “Leave me out of this!” Starlight rolled her eyes. It took a lot to make Starlight snap and veer from her usually cheery disposition, but she’d had just about enough. She was feeling so stifled. She needed out. 

“Astrid is not trying to go all over the world by herself, Starlight.” Terzo’s voice was calm, but Starlight’s heart stopped anyway—her Papa never called her by her full name unless she was in trouble, and even then, it had to be a lot of trouble. He had a hundred different nicknames and pet names to choose from, but he was upset enough to pull the first name card this time? That was alarming. Her knee-jerk reaction was to lash out in hurt and anger, but she tried to force it back; she was acutely aware of how much she’d regret those actions later. She’d crossed that line before, and some words can’t be taken back. She never wanted to hurt her Papa, no matter how tempting it could be in the heat of the moment. Being genuinely angry at any of her family members was a fairly new phenomenon to her, but ever since she hit puberty, she sometimes felt like a monster. 

“No, but she’s going to be dealing with sickness and suffering every day,” Starlight retorted. “Shouldn’t you be protecting her? I’m just playing guitar, not tending to someone on their deathbed!” She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth—it was unfair to be dragging her little sister into this and using her internship as a chess piece. It was even less fair to risk scaring Astrid out of pursuing her dream. So much for controlling her anger... Starlight had no right to drag her sister down with her. 

She looked beside her at the table, to where Astrid had sat at her side her entire life, and saw that Astrid’s face was flushed, tears welling in her eyes. Some of the fight began to leave her at the sight, but she tried desperately to hold onto her willpower. She had to stick up for herself. 

“Cuoricino mio...” The energy had gone out of the room, and her Papa looked deflated. Starlight knew she’d struck a nerve. 

Their Papa had been grappling for months with the reality of his daughters growing up, with the catalyst being Astrid’s desire to take an internship in the infirmary. She was only fifteen when she’d expressed interest, and by Terzo’s accounting, even now at sixteen, she was far too young to be exposed to the horrors of human mortality. Terzo’s fearsome overprotectiveness had been warranted when they were small and vulnerable and their very existence was novel and controversial, but being so sheltered was increasingly becoming an issue as they got older. For a while, disagreements over Astrid’s internship had even driven a wedge between their parents, something the girls had never seen happen before. It was only when Omega reminded him of all the things a young ghoul would’ve been exposed to at any point in history until now that Terzo caved. 

“I have known that you were destined to play music since you were two years old,” Terzo said with a heavy sigh. “Just like I have known your sister was going to become a healer from the same age.” He held his head in his hands, the picture of defeat. “I am just not ready, stellina…” The way her father’s breathing hitched nearly broke Starlight, and for a harrowing moment, she considered giving up.

“Papa…” Starlight started, but she had no idea what to say. It was her fault this was happening, after all. How could she undo the hurt she’d caused? She would do anything to take this pain away from her Papa. Those thoughts were at war with the urge to fight tooth and nail for her freedom, an urge that she just couldn’t shake. Even though she herself was afraid to leave home, she had to do this. 

“Tesoro,” Omega softly chimed in as he started rubbing Terzo’s back. “They can’t stay babies forever… It’s wrong to hold them back, they need to be allowed to build their own lives.” The practiced, patient way Omega spoke gave the impression that this was a conversation they’d had many times before. “We’ve always known this was coming.” 

With that, Terzo began to sob. Starlight froze up in shock—she’d heard her Papa cry over this plenty of times, but he’d never done it in front of her. He usually tried so hard to protect his children from his negative feelings, choosing to hide himself away to deal with his sorrow in private. But it was easy to tell when he was struggling, even if he shielded his emotions; the only reason he would ever avoid his family was to protect them from his tears. 

“I…” Again she started, and again she faltered. Just when she felt like she might cave under the weight of her Papa’s pain, she felt a warm hand take hers and looked over to see her sister. Her face was tear-streaked, but her eyes were resolute. In an unexpected show of solidarity, Astrid was giving her support, even though Starlight had been unfair to her. They were in this together, the same way they’d been since day one. 

“Papa… Daddy is right.” Starlight’s voice was quiet, almost as though part of her didn’t want it to be heard. “I have to go. I have to be able to find myself...” She reached across the small table and placed a hand on Terzo’s arm, but he didn’t react to her touch. “You know I’d never get into any trouble. Besides,” she said with a weak laugh that was devoid of amusement. “Uncle Copia will be there with me. So will all the other ghouls in the band. Even River is going! It’s going to be fine, nothing will happen.” 

“You do not know that, Star,” her Papa sniffled, his head now on his arms where they rested on the table. “It is so dangerous on the outside, especially for a young ghoul.” Slowly he sat up, drying his face with his sleeve before taking her hand in his.  “I need you safe, mio miracolo.” Starlight swallowed hard. She was so afraid that she was going to have to break his heart to follow her calling. Please, please, don’t let it come to that, she thought. 

“And you don’t know that I won’t be safe, either,” Starlight countered. “Ghouls have been touring for decades, and nothing has happened so far. What are the odds that I’d be the first?” Terzo grimaced, but she kept pushing onward. “Besides,” she continued, softening her tone. Her eyes were fixed on the table, not wanting the distress she knew she’d see in her Papa’s eyes to throw her off. “I’m a ghoul! Nothing permanent can happen to me. Nothing meaningful, anyway. If I did somehow get hurt, I wouldn’t even come home with a cool scar to show for it like yours,” she joked with a tentative smile, trying to lighten the mood. 

Starlight’s smile evaporated when she looked up at her Papa; he’d gone deathly pale, his eyes wide and his whole body stiff. He didn’t even appear to be breathing. She knew she’d fucked up big time when he started to tremble, his hand shaking violently on its way to his mouth as he went to bite his nails. Omega pulled his hand away and instead held it in his own, something that he often did to counter Terzo’s first-line stress response. Her Daddy shot her a pleading look as though begging her to stop, and the fear on his face and the panicked energy emanating from him left her genuinely frightened. What did she say? 

The silence they sat in for an agonizing stretch of time sent Starlight’s heart into overdrive, blood rushing in her ears. Terzo stared off into the distance, looking shell-shocked. Omega weakly tended to him, squeezing his hand and rubbing across his shoulders, but for some reason, he didn’t pull Terzo close to his body the way he usually did in times of distress. He seemed to be dealing with his own internal struggle, just like her Papa was. Starlight wanted to sink into the floor. What had she done? When she looked over as Astrid, she seemed just as confused and concerned as her older sister was. 

“Papa…?” Starlight asked tentatively as she reached out to grab Terzo’s left hand, where it sat lifeless and frozen on the table. His skin felt cold and clammy, alarming her further; the only times her Papa’s hands felt like this were when he was sick. “Papa, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” That was an understatement, considering she had been trying to do the opposite. Terzo closed his eyes tightly, and a tear slipped out. Starlight’s lips parted. She was remorseful for upsetting her Papa, but she couldn’t fathom how what she said could have hurt him this badly. 

“Papa, please,” she implored. When he finally met her eyes, his were teary and full of sorrow. He rubbed his face roughly with both hands, taking in a shuddering breath. He looked so weary as his hands dropped that for a moment, she worried he might collapse. 

“I…” Terzo looked to Omega. They made eye contact for a long minute, displaying the telltale signs that they were communicating through Omega’s quintessence. When Terzo turned to face his daughters again, his movements were slow and reluctant. “I think… it is time we tell you something.” Starlight’s brow furrowed in confusion, and her breath caught in her throat, creeping dread threatening to consume her.

“Before…” Terzo looked to his husband once more, unsure of himself. Omega nodded, taking his hand again. Terzo faced the girls, looking at the ceiling. “Before the two of you were born, something… happened to me.” Starlight hated hearing her father sound like this, his voice nasally and bearing the remnants of tears as he sniffled. “You remember all of the times throughout the years that you have asked before about my scar, yes?” he asked, pointing to his neck. Starlight nodded, and she assumed her sister did the same, because he kept going. “We told you that Papa got hurt, but… perhaps that was wrong of us. That is not the whole truth. Not entirely.” Astrid squeezed Starlight’s hand, catching her off guard as she had completely forgotten about the feeling of their fingers laced together. Starlight squeezed back. 

“You see, my little loves,” Terzo said with a heavy sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Sì, I did get hurt. I got very, very hurt. But… I didn’t get better just like that.” Starlight was confused. Why would it be so hard for her parents to talk about a long recovery? Why would they keep it a secret their whole lives if that’s all it was? Something more was going on. “I did not get better because I…” Terzo’s voice broke. “Because I…” His mouth was open, making strained noises like he was trying his hardest to force the words out, but nothing did. The rest of his body was frozen. Starlight was about to say something, but before she could, her Daddy spoke up. 

“Died,” Omega interjected, his voice resigned and his eyes fixed on the table, a fist clenched in front of him, stepping up to fill in what his husband couldn’t. With that one word, it felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room, and Starlight suddenly felt alone on an island, her Daddy’s voice sounding far away. “Because he got hurt so badly, Papa died. For three agonizing years, Papa was dead, and his soul was trapped in the pit, while I was stuck on Earth.” 

Starlight made a face—that didn’t make any sense. That was impossible. 

Her Papa wasn’t dead, he was sitting right there in front of her! Dead people didn’t continue to live lives and have children and sit at kitchen tables with them. That went against every hard-earned lesson she’d learned about death. She was getting angry again and was just about to give her parents a piece of her mind for lying about death, of all things, when she heard her Papa sob again. Ice shot through Starlight’s veins; everything felt strange and as though witnessed from a distance, but she fought against the way her brain tried to shut down. This was such a shameful way to try to stop her from touring. She wasn’t going to be made a fool of, she was going to give them a piece of her mind, she—

“Papa was trapped in the pit…” The steady, measured rhythm of Omega’s breathing faltered, his throat constricting. “And I couldn’t save him.” When Omega’s voice broke along with the dam that had been holding back his tears, so did Starlight’s grip on reality. She rarely saw her Daddy cry; he always tried so hard to be everyone’s rock, even though he deserved to express his pain the same way his family did. His suffering became more obvious as she grew older, distress made plain as day by the way he hid his emotions from their quintessence. And even though his sclerae were an inky black and couldn’t become reddened, his eyes still gave him away. 

This time, though, he didn’t shield them from anything. Starlight was steamrolled by the onslaught of her father’s emotions: guilt, sorrow, grief, fear, anger. Guilt for not being able to save their Papa and for letting him nearly be lost forever. Sorrow and piercing grief over the loss of his other half. Fear of losing him again, of losing everything. Anger at those who harmed his husband, but above all, anger at himself. Running through everything was an ever-present undercurrent of love for his family, but that love only served to amplify the negative emotions, because it gave him so much more to lose. All of these feelings had never fully faded, haunting him for over two decades now. They were ever-present, always eating away at him in the background and making him worry if his whole world would be ripped away from him again. 

Starlight didn’t understand why her Daddy would let them feel this, although she guessed it was to prove to his daughters that they were serious about this grim revelation. Perhaps he wanted to come clean after all these years, perhaps he needed to clear his conscience of the things he’d hidden from his children. Completely overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions, all Starlight could feel was numb. Numb, and cold. 

This emotional tempest brought back to her the strange combination of emotions she’d felt following the death of Rigatoni when she was a little girl, or the deaths of several rats afterward. She hadn’t had much personal experience with death, and she tried to bury her feelings about those morbid encounters, bury them deeper than she’d buried those she lost. Feeling this way again was scary, and her psyche was trying to shut the storm down before it could begin, but… she couldn’t ignore this one. This wasn’t a rat. This was her Papa. 

Her left hand began to tremble of its own accord, except she soon realized that it wasn’t her hand shaking—it was the hand she held clasped in her own. As she turned to look at her sister, she felt out of body, her movements robotic. She saw Astrid sobbing and wondered why she hadn’t noticed the sound until now. Astrid’s free hand was covering her mouth, as though doing so could hold in her cries. Unable to stand the sight any longer without reaching her own breaking point, she squeezed Astrid’s hand and turned back to her parents. She needed an explanation. 

“I don’t get it. If that’s really true, then tell us what happened,” Starlight demanded, her voice hitting her own ears much more harshly than she intended it to, but her parents didn’t react to her acerbic tone. Instead, Terzo closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. 

“Sì, my darlings,” Terzo said quietly without opening his eyes. His voice was hoarse and scratchy. “You deserve to know, after all this time.” Astrid moved closer to Starlight, clinging onto her big sister’s arm as though her life depended on it. Starlight grimaced; perhaps that was the wrong phrase to use at a time like this. It probably wasn’t a good idea to think about another death in the family, if her parents were indeed telling the truth. In her defence, this was something entirely unprecedented in her world. 

“It is true. About six years before you were born, Star… I died.” He sat up and pulled his hand free from Omega’s, then leaned forward with both elbows resting on the table. Omega moved with him, his hand resuming its path across Terzo’s shoulders. “It happened while I was on tour.” The pointed look her Papa shot her pierced through to her core and planted a seed of fear within her, but she couldn’t let him see her vulnerability. She hadn’t forgotten how this conversation began, and she wasn’t going to allow herself to be swayed. Just because something happened to her Papa didn’t mean something would happen to her.

“Well. I suppose you could say it happened on tour, anyway,” Terzo conceded with a grimace. “The tour, it was supposed to be over… but I was dragged off stage during a show in Sweden, the last show of the tour, and kept in captivity for Satanas knows how long.” He began to shift his weight nervously, and Omega caught Terzo’s hand on its way to his mouth, about to bite his own nails. Terzo didn’t react. “They transported me back home, and I was in a cell within this very ministry branch, day and night, with no window or access to the outside world. It wasn’t just me in there, they had also imprisoned my brothers.” Starlight’s stomach dropped. Her uncles?! She opened her mouth to question the bombshell that had just been dropped on her without explanation, but her Papa kept going. 

“They had no scruples about dragging me away in front of a whole crowd of people. In the middle of a song, no less!” he spat bitterly, but then his mood shifted from anger to anguish. “Your Daddy, and the rest of the band… They were not just my bandmates, but my friends…” Her father’s voice broke at the mention of people he cared about being affected. “And they could do nothing but watch as I was taken right in front of them.” Starlight looked over at Omega and was shocked to see him leaning his face into his steepled hands, subtly rocking back and forth. She’d never seen him this upset.

“Then my father came on stage,” Terzo said with a shaky sigh, one so deep that it almost sounded like his soul was leaving his body. His anger hadn’t faded, Starlight could feel as much with her quintessence, but he just seemed so… defeated, like all of the fight had left him. She couldn’t help but be frightened by the vacant, empty darkness in the eyes of her usually fiery, spirited Papa. Starlight was just about to reach out and touch him to try and snap him out of it when he resumed his train of thought. 

“He had the nerve to proclaim on stage that the party was over, as though any of us ever wanted anything to do with this,” Terzo recalled indignantly, and she was so relieved to see a spark of that fight return to her father. She didn’t realize how tense her muscles had become until she felt them relax. 

“Star, touring wasn’t always just a fun assignment to volunteer for. The Ghost project used to be forced labor, especially for ghouls. For some of us, it verged on torture, for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes it was even used as punishment.” The pain in Terzo’s eyes as he spoke threatened to steal some of her fight, but she couldn’t just surrender. 

“You know that the ministry only recently freed ghouls from servitude…” Terzo added, his voice low. Of course she knew—she had been trying to fight against ghoul discrimination since she was eight years old, when she’d had her first taste of the hatred that some humans harbored in their hearts for ghouls after an attack on her sister. It felt like an unfair card for her Papa to play. “I do not understand why you would want to subject yourself to something that was once a means of oppression! My girls deserve so much better than that.” 

A frustrated tear ran down Starlight’s face, but she wiped it away as quickly as she could, in an attempt to prevent her fathers from seeing. Who was her Papa to decide how she should live her life? She was an adult! 

“Anyway,” Terzo quickly changed the subject, a flush coloring his cheeks like he knew he’d crossed a boundary. “All of us were imprisoned for weeks. All of us, except for your Uncle Copia.” He rolled his eyes, his expression souring even further. “Turns out they had bigger plans for him.” 

“Who is ‘they’?” Starlight asked with trepidation, doing air quotes around the last word. Although she desperately wanted to know who was responsible, a part of her feared the answer. 

“My father, and the bi—” Terzo quickly stopped himself, “the woman pulling his strings, Sister Imperator,” he hissed. “None of us knew it at the time, not even Copia himself, but Sister had always had ulterior motives. You see, Copia was the child of Sister and my father, born in secret and given up to be raised by the ministry.” Astrid gasped beside her, but Starlight was too numb and anxious to do anything but nod for him to keep going. “I do not know if my father even knew Copia to be his child, at first. But Sister, she wanted to seize power for herself through her son. And that is exactly what she did.

“The same night Copia was told he was to be the new singer of the Ghost project, Sister decided to eliminate his competition. Me, Primo, and Secondo were all taken out at the same time, while we were playing a card game in our cell,” Terzo said with a dry laugh. “They injected us with some kind of paralytic, and… well, the rest wasn’t quick,” he muttered, closing his eyes. He didn’t elaborate further on the manner of his death, and Starlight figured that was probably for the best. 

Starlight’s vision began to swim as she was hit with a wave of nausea, and she realized she was crying when she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. When he heard her sniffle, Terzo looked up at the sisters with sad eyes and reached out a hand to each of them. Astrid immediately grabbed the hand extended to her and squeezed it tightly, while Starlight merely let her father rest his palm over her balled fist. 

“Why would your own father do that to you? Why didn’t you tell us?” Starlight rasped, and Terzo’s pained expression spoke for him. 

“Baby girl, please understand… We didn’t want to hurt you. Either of you,” her Daddy spoke into his hands, his elbows now resting on the table. “This isn’t the kind of thing you ever want to tell your children,” he explained, skipping over her first question. Starlight didn’t have it in her to protest being infantilized. She wasn’t done pressing for answers; she couldn’t get distracted. 

“What about the pit?” Starlight prodded, avoiding the part about his actual death. She didn’t think she could handle hearing about her father’s final moments in detail. Terzo blinked at her, looking confused and as though he didn’t expect her question. “How were you trapped? You’ve told us that we can travel to the pit because we’re ghouls, but what is the pit?” she pushed for an answer. “And if you were trapped, how did you get out of it?” All of the color drained from Terzo’s face once more, somehow getting even paler, and his lips parted slightly. 

“The pit…” her Papa started after a few long seconds, sounding feeble and fumbling to find his words. “The pit is the true home of the ghouls… and the place where all human souls go when their bodies die.” Starlight winced; she thought she was ready to hear the truth, she needed to hear the truth. But every new piece of information about the death of her father left a new mark. 

“Ok, but what happens to the souls?” Starlight asked impatiently, wanting to get to the point before she inadvertently learned more than she could handle. Terzo closed his eyes and ran a trembling hand through his hair with a sigh, mussing it into an even worse mess than it had been before. 

“Well,” Terzo said without opening his eyes. “For ghouls, it is a limitless paradise of their own creation, and for a human who is at peace with themselves when they die, it is whatever they want it to be. Their experience is much the same as that of ghouls. They are able to shape the reality around them.

“But for a human that is not at peace when they pass…” Her Papa fought to keep his breathing steady. “For a human who is not at peace, they are forever tormented by their regrets, their fears, all of their negative emotions. Essentially… they are trapped in a hell of their own making.” She felt a spike of panic from Terzo so strong that he couldn’t hide it from her. Her Daddy must have felt it too, because he sat up from where he’d been resting his elbows on the table, abandoning his wallowing in favor of drawing Terzo into his arms.

“And after everything that I had been through… After being wrongfully imprisoned, having my life violently cut short, and worst of all, being ripped away from your Daddy… I most certainly was not at peace,” Terzo said quietly as he leaned heavily against his husband. 

“But Papa, how did you get out?” Starlight was persistent with her line of questioning, not keen on lingering on her father’s suffering. “How are you sitting here with us right now? How are we here?” She didn’t want to upset her parents further, but she needed an explanation. An explanation for everything, everything that had been kept secret from them their whole lives. Terzo gave her a sad little smile. 

“It is a long story, my dears,” Terzo said dismissively. Starlight frowned; she wasn’t going to be brushed off that easily. Before she could protest, Astrid’s head popped up from where it had been resting on Starlight’s shoulder. 

“We deserve to know, Papa,” Astrid said with a wavering, watery voice that still managed to convey a stubborn firmness. Terzo opened his mouth like he was about to protest, but nothing came out. His eyes darted between both of his daughters’ faces for an uncomfortable length of time, analyzing their expressions, before eventually sighing and rubbing his temples, staring down at the table. 

“Ok,” Terzo conceded. “Ok. You win…” When he looked back up at them, he looked so tired that it almost made Starlight want to cry again. “But do not say that I didn’t warn you.” Starlight nodded silently, and Astrid followed her lead. 

“For three earthly years, I remained in the pit. Three long, torturous years. Those years felt like all of eternity, and it didn’t take long before I lost all hope.” Terzo’s eyes looked distant as he stared at a fixed point on the wall behind them, looking almost lost. “I had given up hope. But your Daddy hadn’t.” Omega’s arms tightened around Terzo. “Sister Imperator had made it impossible for your Daddy to travel to the pit to find me, as long as she was alive. But once she was finally dead and Uncle Copia was made Frater, your uncle approached Daddy with a plan.

“Copia had been planning a rescue mission for years, you see. He never forgave himself for the role he unwittingly played in our deaths,” Terzo explained. “He had been secretly combing through the ministry libraries and archives, looking for anything that could be useful in bringing back his brothers. By the time Sister finally died and Copia was the sole head of the ministry, he had a solid working plan. He sought help from the person he knew would stop at nothing to rescue at least one of his brothers,” he gestured behind him at his husband, who was currently sitting with his face buried in Terzo’s hair. 

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Omega chimed in, his voice muffled by Terzo’s thick locks. “But I would’ve done anything to be with Terzo again. I would do it a thousand times over to have your Papa here with me, and to have my girls.” He kissed the crown of Terzo’s head, then tilted the human’s head up so their lips could meet. Starlight’s friends were often grossed out by her parents always being so lovey-dovey, but the sisters were used to it. For as long as Starlight could remember, they’d always seen their fathers be very affectionate with each other. 

“But what about the scar?” Astrid questioned beside her. “That doesn’t explain your scar, Papa. None of our uncles has one.” Listening to her sister, Starlight had a sinking feeling in her gut so bad that she almost considered backtracking on the question. When Terzo looked up at Omega, his scar was on full display, still appearing just as stark against his olive skin as it had her entire life. How had she never pressed him on this issue before now? Thinking logically now as an adult, there were only a handful of things that could’ve happened to her Papa, and none of them were good. 

“I do not think that is an appropriate story to share with my children,” Terzo said, his voice heavy with trepidation. “It is… grisly. I would hate to upset you unnecessarily.” Starlight held back a frustrated growl. 

“But it is necessary, Papa!” Starlight cried, the volume of her voice surprising even herself, but dammit, she had a right to be loud about this! “We’re your children, we deserve to know what happened to our father!” Terzo squeezed his eyes shut and let out a shuddering exhalation, one that gave the impression he’d been holding his breath for far too long. The tear that ran down his cheek filled Starlight with a surge of guilt that made her question herself, but she rebelled against her instinct to apologize. They had a right to know, no matter what horrors the truth held. 

“You are right,” Terzo admitted calmly once he opened his eyes, holding up his hands in a show of peace. “But, please understand, the only reason that we did not tell you is that we wanted to protect you. It was never our intention to hide the truth from you. The truth is just… ugly, and painful. I suppose we just hoped that you would not ask.” He chuckled dryly. “We were foolish to think that our clever girls would not grow up to wonder about what we have been keeping from them.” Terzo made it a point to make eye contact with both of them. 

“Not long after my death, Sister, she… Well, she used us the way she had always used us. As props.” Terzo rubbed his eyes, then stared at the ceiling. He was silent for a minute, and based on how stiff her Daddy was, she guessed that they were silently communicating. Once they were finished, her Papa broke free of Omega’s hold in favor of leaning on the table on his elbows. Omega placed a large hand on Terzo’s back and slowly rubbed. 

“I suppose we should do this quickly, then,” Terzo declared. “Rip the bandaid off, so to speak.” Now, Starlight wasn’t so sure anymore that she wanted to know what was waiting behind the door her Papa was about to open. Here we go, she thought. “In her typical dramatic flair, in order to publicly illustrate the transfer of power to Copia and humiliate me, Sister…” Terzo’s confidence was slipping.“She arranged a photo shoot for a magazine cover where….” He ran his hands through his hair as he began visibly shaking. 

“Where your Uncle Copia had to hold my severed head for a photograph. They… decapitated me. That is the reason I have this scar.”

Wait. Wait. What did he say…? Surely that couldn’t be possible—that couldn’t be true. She must’ve misheard, right? 

No. She knew what she heard. 

No. No.

Terzo’s voice cracking was the last thing she remembered hearing before the world around her went white and the room began to spin. She knew her Papa would never lie about something like that; she had no choice but to believe him. Starlight felt abruptly plunged into a sea of grief, the most horrific image she could imagine plastered behind her eyes. 

And it was real.

When she regained her senses, her face was buried in her palms, hot tears stinging her eyes, not realizing that she was sobbing until she felt her chest heave and her throat burn. A trembling hand rubbed her back, one that was too small to belong to either of her parents. Gradually, she became aware of the sound of Astrid crying and gasping for air beside her, trying to comfort Starlight even when she herself was falling apart. That’s when she decided to sit up and pull her sister into her arms, clutching Astrid’s head to her chest. No matter how much she was suffering, she had to be there for her baby sister. 

Starlight heard the sound of a chair scraping across the hardwood floor, then another. She didn’t pay the sound much mind until her Papa put a hand on both of the sisters from where he was now kneeling on the floor behind them. 

“My little darlings,” Terzo called to them hoarsely. “Mi dispiace,” he sniffled. “I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me for keeping this from you for all of these years.” 

In Starlight’s shell-shocked state, Terzo’s arm around her waist wasn’t enough—she slid out of the chair and flung herself into the arms of her Papa, as though she were a little girl again. She threw herself at Terzo with such force that he nearly toppled over, but he quickly recovered and drew her closer to him, tucking her head underneath his chin. Astrid soon followed, and once Omega sat behind them and wrapped his arms around the trio as best he could, they all sat huddled on the floor together. 

Once the sobbing had quieted down and was replaced by shaky breathing, Starlight came back into her awareness of her body little by little. She pulled away from her Papa to sit up and right herself and perhaps ease her pounding headache, but when she looked back at her family, she couldn’t help the way her eyes zeroed in on Terzo’s scar. Despite having seen it her whole life, seeing it under this new context threatened to shatter her. She felt queasy. 

Her Papa reached out to run a hand up and down her arm while he still held tight to her little sister. His eyes were apologetic, full of guilt and a thousand types of pain that Starlight hoped never to understand. Just looking at him again threatened to bring the tears flooding back, so she turned her head away. Her heart broke when she felt rejection and fear color Terzo’s sorrow, but she needed more time to process the bombshell that had been dropped on her, even if she’d been the one to ask for it.

Pulling out of reach of her Papa and hugging her arms around her knees, she began to rock back and forth slightly. Her mind was racing a million miles a minute: How could that have happened, and her Papa be alive now? Was he fully alive? Surely he must be, for the sisters to have been born—they looked so much like their parents, and she’d seen her Papa carry Astrid, so she knew they weren’t adopted. 

What did being resurrected mean for his lifespan now? How long would it be before she lost her Papa for good? She had always known that he was mortal, but she’d also always avoided thinking about him actually dying. Until today…

But clouding her thinking, simmering nearly as hot as her grief and her fear, was her overwhelming anger and a painful sense of betrayal towards her Uncle Copia. Nineteen years of receiving her unconditional love and trust, when Copia knew he had done that to her Papa? Had he participated in the desecration of his own brother’s body and done nothing to stop it? Had he looked her in the eyes as she learned about grief for the first time, and acted as though he hadn’t played a part in causing immense pain and suffering to someone she loved most? 

Starlight was the first one to haul herself off the floor, bracing herself on a chair and wordlessly leaving to get ready for bed. She felt three sets of eyes on her as she walked away, but she couldn’t even bring herself to look back at her family. At her Papa. At his scar… She needed time.

 It took about half an hour before they retired for the evening themselves; she figured Astrid must have needed more comforting. If she were being honest with herself, she needed more comforting as well, desperately so. But she couldn’t bring herself to be any more vulnerable than she already was right now. It would surely rip her apart.