Hello my dearest MacGuffin, it is I —the anon that wrote to you a Team Transmigrators x Peripeteia— come once again!
As a rule of thumb, Tristan often tried to ignore the strange things that happened around both him and his daughter. As well as the friend group of fellow transmigrators who ended up with demigod children through no fault of their own. It’s not easy sometimes, what with his daughter attracting strange people that seem to want to just take her from her cradle like a demented baby-stealing witch from those old creepy fairytales.
And then there were the doves. The damn doves that are always outside his lawn or in his trees or perched outside the windows of his house. Piper likes them, at least. His sweet, precious little girl would coo enthusiastically at the birds, making little grabby gestures at the, admittedly, pretty white birds.
But Tristan managed to do it.
He will admit, it takes a good few pills of denial and swimming in a river in Egypt to deal with all of the strange stuff (aka, The Plot [tm]) going on around him. And his group of weird friends don’t really help in minimizing the supernatural stuff from going on.
Frederick got baby-trapped for a second time by the owl lady, this time with twins.
Priyanka had two stalkers after her, the milkman and his schizophrenic murderous Roman alter ego.
Beryl has the horniest god to ever exist, the most evil stepmother to ever be an evil stepmother, and the horny not-as-crazy-with-the-vibes schizophrenic alter ego all after her.
Ash lived in blissful ignorance in knowing if the animals that he interacted with were actually sent by his godly stalker.
And Violet’s baby daddy is actually in her twin’s lives, even if it’s a bit limited.
Sometimes he’s thankful that Aphrodite stays mostly away, bird stalking aside. It’s hard to ignore The Plot if the love goddess is right there, reminding Tristan of the dangerous world that his little girl will have to enter eventually.
But she’s only a child, Tristan thinks. That’s still so far away, it’ll be years before Piper has to go to Camp Half-Blood.
Still, it gives him anxiety to think of his daughter going on dangerous monster slaying quests. His daughter with her little hands, warm touch, baby smell, and happy laughs. His daughter with her sweet smiles and changing eye color.
At least she is not a prophecy child the same way that Sally’s boy and Beryl’s girl are. His daughter is a child of a love goddess, one among several. A daughter of Aphrodite among many similar little girls.
His daughter is not burdened with being the child of a super powerful deity with a prophecy looming over her.
She’s just Piper. A demigod, yes. But not one whose birth was foretold in a great prophecy.
So feeling reassured about his daughter’s future, Tristan happily opens her bedroom door to wake her up from her afternoon nap for dinner. He had made broccoli and cheese soup for the two of them, and hopefully he wouldn’t get a call from his agent trying to convince him to take a certain acting role.
“Piper sweetie, I made some soup,” Tristan begins as he opens the door. “And I put no chicken or animal meat in it, just like how you like it—”
Tristan freezes when he sees a woman dressed in what looks to be a Greek dress, those seen on half-broken statues, holding his daughter in her arms. She’s cooing, making little bird noises that has Tristan thinking about the doves that Aphrodite sends.
This strange woman, with a changing appearance that settles into that of beautiful Cherokee woman the more Tristan looks at her, is crying as she holds his daughter.
(Distantly, he’s reminded of the beautiful woman that he met during a Saint Valentine’s Day parade that he had gone to with his friends from community college. She had been lovely, and she had loved roses. Tristan had fallen in love and she had loved him back. A few months later and there’s a beautiful baby girl crying and the woman that he loved is leaving him with a broken heart on the worn wooden doorsteps of his childhood home.)
Tristan’s heart is going to explode. And who is going to take care of his little girl if that happens and when he’s gone? He doesn’t trust anyone he knows in Hollywood to do that. And his friends are too occupied with their own demigod children and godly stalkers.
So with a heavy, anxious feeling Tristan demands, “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”
The woman stops and Tristan feels like dying from the anxiety. “Get away from my daughter away, I don’t know who you are,”
Tristan is going to die and get killed just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But what is a father worth if he can’t protect his own child? Tristan thinks as he swallows back bile. What’s a father worth if he can’t even fight for his child?
The woman stared at him, her eyes too intense. Tristan squirms under her gaze, but he doesn’t back down. He steps forward and keeps his gaze on the woman. “Will answer my questions?” He demands. “Who are you, what are you doing here, and why are you holding my daughter?”
Eventually the woman finally speaks, “You are the child’s father?” Her voice is low and gentle, but it still echoes in the room.
“Yes,” Tristan answers evenly. “I’m the child’s father, and that is why I demand to know who you are and why you’re holding my daughter,”
The woman simply hums, soft and low. “I am the child’s mother,” she says. Tristan’s heart practically stops. What?
“No, that can’t be right,” Tristan murmurs. “That can’t be right, my daughter’s mother left her with me on my father’s doorstep and left,”
The woman’s eyes narrow, they shift from a beautiful black color to a furious hot pink shade. Tristan almost backs away from her on pure instinct.
But Piper makes a little noise, it’s nothing more than the sleeping whines of a child. But it’s enough for Tristan to ignore how every cell in his body is screaming at him to get the hell away from the strange woman.
“I see,” the woman says, her voice is dangerously calm. Tristan is reminded of the agents who looked at him (Cherokee, motherless, from a reservation, hair longer than any of the boys in class, on a scholarship and with financial aid) and expressed disappointment in him yet again turning down a Native American role in a movie.
It’s not a pleasant feeling.
“My daughter,” he says, voice shaking. “Give me back my daughter, I don’t know you and I don’t want you anywhere near her,”
“I’m afraid that I can’t do that,” the woman replies. Her voice shifts, and Tristan can hear several others voices speaking her words.
“And why— why not?” Tristan tries to ignore how his voice breaks.
The woman smiles, and Tristan’s mind becomes blank. “Because I am her mother,” She sings, her smoke growing. Her teeth are pearly white, too white. Inhumanly white. “And since you are her father, that means that you must come with me,”
Her smile is sharp. Too sharp.
Tristan frowns. That…that doesn’t seem—
“Come with me,” the woman tells him.
“Come with you…?” He whispers.
“Yes,” The woman (Aphrodite) replies sweetly. “Come with me,” She holds up one of her hands and offers it to him. “Take my hand Tristan, take it. We will be happy together, the three of us. So take my hand,”
Tristan raises one hand and hesitantly gives it to her. She smiles triumphantly, her teeth turning sharp. “Good,” she coos. “Very good Tristan. Now, let’s go home,”
Woah I love love love this! Tristan is so, so good, and doing his best, and the details you've added about his backstory are beautiful! Of course Love is the first to win over this foreign world. Charmspeak is just too OP.
Thank you anon, you've given me more brainworms.
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