#dad!titus danforth

“Do it” the words rang out in the cold forest. The moon shining through the gaps of leaves down onto the small opening. Reflecting the light on the metal currently pressed against your father’s neck.

An eerie feeling settled over the quiet woods. Blood stained the sharp edge. The blade had nicked his skin when the “victim” pressed it harder against him. The metallic smell got picked up in the air. Blowing with soft gusts towards you. Hidden in the bushes behind the man that had dared to comment lewdly about you in front of Titus.

You were his… his child, his daughter. His heritage. His to teach and mold into the person he’d watch you become today. The person who didn’t hesitate to protect the power your family deserved. He wanted to create a beast out of the delicate flower that had yet to crumble and be reborn into ugly weed that snared its veins around the insects that tried to eat it alive. He wanted your nails to turn into poisonous thorns that didn’t hesitate to claw their way out of any situation. Didn’t hesitate to draw blood when all means of escape seemed lost. When weapons were out of reach and your limbs were the only weapon you had left.

He wanted a monster but what he’d gotten was a flower, delicate and soft as it rose in the light, rather than the cold dark corners of the stone walls and the blood that sprayed the stained stone floors from the knife that cut the throats of all their sacrifices to Mr. Le Bail.

Your mother had been anything but delicate. Yet the way she raised you had done irreparable damage. She’d let you into the softest corners of the world. Let you glide along the clouds believing they were made of cotton and that rain was just the way the world mourned over lost souls. Lost souls like your father, she’d always say.

You hadn’t understood it then. But now in the moonlit clearing. The knife in your hand glinting in your grip as you took a silent step towards the back of the old man who’d wronged you. You thought maybe, just maybe you’d finally understood her.

The man who just a few hours earlier had told Titus he’d liked to marry you as soon as you turned nineteen in a month. The very descriptive and precise way he’d told your father how he’d give him a grandchild to continue on the family line was not something he liked hearing. It was as if the man had forgotten Titus was your father, whose eyes had squinted, head tilting in a glare as the man talked about defiling you like plucking the petals of a flower one by one.

It’s what landed him here. At this time of night. Where his life would be righteously drawn out of him. Titus didn’t take lightly to threats against what was his. Or to creepy old men who wanted to feast on his daughter like it was the first course meal of a five star restaurant for cannibals.

If it was anything Titus hated more than people trying to control him. It was people who thought just because he was the head of the high council, he’d be just as wicked and sick in the head as those in the lower class that sought any means to reach Mr. Le Bail’s approval for a council seat.

Titus hadn’t even shifted his gaze from the man when he said “Do it”. Words clear, unwavering as the corners of his lips twisted up in a disturbing smile towards the man. Who Titus would have liked to do nothing more than to crack his skull open with the stone he could feel digging into the side of his boot.

The sword's pressure had faltered. Disturbed by Titus's words and smile, the man had momentarily forgotten he was dealing with the Danforth’s and not some mere council member. The family that had kept the powers of the high council since as far as anyone could remember. Titus Danforth who’d killed for far less. Who — known widely amongst Mr. Le Bail’s followers — had tortured a man in front of his family for giving you the wrong flavour of ice cream.

You’d been five when that happened. Despite the violence, the blood and gore that lived in the walls of your home. Despite the screams your mother said was for the better good that resided just below the stairs to the basement you’d come out unscathed. Innocent. Fragile. Weak.

While Titus might have despised the frilly dresses and pastel colors your mother dressed you in. While he preferred you to wear black like the rest of them and not pastel pink and white like some sort of fairy princess — despite you definitely being his little princess — he did like the fact that in ignoring to educate you on Mr. Le Bail, he’d gotten someone who didn’t see him as a monster. Someone who saw him for just the father that he was to you.

But then of course the facade had to wither away piece by piece. Like watching a house get striped from its paint ever so slowly. Or to watch a flower wilt as the sun got hidden behind the dark towering shadow of the devil who snuffed the light out of his worshippers one sacrifice at a time.

Your mother had tried to keep you away from it. Keyword tried. Marrying someone like Titus had made that almost impossible. But the ignorance you kept towards their nightly sacrificial activities. To the hunts you excused as just hunting deer in favor of feeling some sort of normalcy in your life. The white lies you accepted blindly without second thoughts had gone a long way. Until your mother died.

Titus loved your mother, until her very last breath. She’d been the only one who didn’t try to control him. Didn’t try to force him into a mold of gracefulness he’d never fit. He’d married her with a game of chess. Fitting since their relationship had started out just as strategic as the game chess was itself. Love based on lies and torture. Both wanted power, and both families uniting gave that, but the real power came at your birth. You changed the rules. The lawyer had told them that “The sought out heir whether woman or man would get them the power they sought for generations to come”.

Of course it came by Mr. Le Bail’s hand during the ritual to give you your name. When the goat's blood had splattered over your chubby face. Innocent eyes getting customed to the horrors that happened deep down in the basement of your parents home, Mr. Le Bail had flickered into place on the throne. Everyone had sworn they saw him reach with a hand towards your forehead before he disappeared once more. A memory you couldn’t recall even if you tried to.

Perhaps that’s why your mother and father clashed in your upbringing. One side of the coin wanted to teach you like he’d been taught by his father while the other side wanted to give you the freedom and love neither had ever gotten. Both argued that Mr. Le Bail had smiled upon you so no matter what you’d always come out on top, so Titus, albeit begrudgingly so, let your mother raise you the way she wanted. It wasn’t like any other families actually dared to take the seat after your birth. In fear of angering the demon that had given them everything they had.

When your mother died the truth had slipped through her fingers like sand. Her last words she’d told you was to not let your father change you. But that proved to be harder than you’d thought.

Titus never meant to disrespect your mother or disregard everything she’d done to raise you. But as soon as she died he’d started to raise you his way. Today was just another lesson. He’d never taken it this far before. But somebody had to be your first victim and there had to be a place and day for such a thing. For such a ritual as your first kill. That day just so happened to be today. Because what it all came down to was him needing to prepare you for the inevitable. The day the ring would be at play once more. Which could happen at any moment. Or at least that was his excuse.

He’d started to train you with weapons. Your favourite so far was the knife in your hand. Thumb tracing over the fancy D engraved in the handle. The blade was sharp and clean. Rust didn’t even come near the weapons of the Danforth estate.

Taking a silent deep breath you took another step forward. Then another. Three. The sixty-one year old man’s head snapped to the side at the sound of the rotten branch crunching beneath your boot. Eyes widening your body froze. Your boot halfway onto the ground in fear of making a bigger sound. You weren’t built for this. The sneaking, the weapons, the hunting. The killing. It was all an overwhelming big cluster of new things you never wanted to experience. But you didn’t choose your family, couldn’t run away from it. The Danforth’s owned everything. You were stuck in this fate and whether you liked it or not the best thing to do was make your father proud.

So with deliberate steps. More careful than before, you managed to sneak up on the man currently threatening your dad. His head was turned back to Titus again, his third mistake of the night. The first had been the way he’d talked about you. The second, the fact he thought he could even win against Titus to begin with.

Titus lips curled up in another smile. Eyes unchanging as they stared coldly ahead. Warming for just a millisecond as they made contact with yours.

The old man’s breath caught as he felt the cold edge of your knife press against his own throat. His grip on his sword wavering enough to make Titus get free of the pressure that drew blood from his throat. He barely even felt the sting it left behind. The dull throb of pain nothing against the way his eyes darkened at the sight of you. The monster within him hummed with joy at seeing you press the knife against the old man.

Your eyes locked onto each other. Whilst yours held fear, his held approval, encouragement. Pride. “That’s it little dove just press the edge a bit closer to his neck” his lips curled up, almost in a growl as he saw you hesitate. The way he watched your breath hitch, eyes zoning out, the pressure against the old man’s neck not even drawing a single drop of blood. The monster in him wanted to claw free. Tear out of his chest and force your hand to drive the knife into the man’s throat. To plunge a pain writhing scream from the man who’d said such vile things about you. But he did no such thing. Titus held it inside. He knew you had to be the one to do it. The one to make blood splatter in the sticks and stones on the darkened grass from the lack of sun. The one to let the body fall into the river, mixing red with the clear water that went downstream towards the grave of many before him.

All you needed was a little push. You were of his blood after all. He knew you had it in you. If you didn’t he’d make sure you’d rot eventually. He needed you strong, not weak. He couldn’t let the fate of the family hang on a loose thread.

Sometimes you wished back to the times Titus hadn’t cared about such things. To the time he’d grant you anything you wanted. The time you had him wrapped around your little finger. When he’d do anything for you. Instead of now, when he wanted to carve darkness into your soul.

He took a deliberate step towards you. His sleeve swiped against his neck. Leaving a red stain on his dark sleeve. He came up in front of the man. Easily overpowering him and taking the sword from his grip. Manhandling him into a tight grip he wouldn’t break free from. Turning him to face you. So you could see what you were about to do. Could see the way his face would twist when you became the executioner. No holding your hand to ease you into it like he’d done when he taught you how to cut the throat of a goat correctly.

Titus knew by all means that you were a delicate flower. Your mother had made you that. And he was trying to undo it one ritual at a time. He wanted to watch you wilt, crumble and be reborn like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

“Please Miss Danforth I meant nothing by it- please I’ll make up for it-“ Titus’s hand covered the man’s lips. Causing his begging whimpered words to get muffled by a rough hardened hand. The ones so different from your soft ones who’d never done any hard work in their entire life.

A hum left him, far from soft. He was losing his patience. You could see it in the way his fingers twitched. “It’s easy just come closer” you did, how could you not when the pressure he was putting on you was so immense it made a haze fall over you.

“Put the edge against his throat” you did, not daring to do otherwise, in fear he’d retaliate against you.

“Press the knife forward and across his neck like you did with the goat last week” he hummed in content this time as you drove the edge across the man’s throat. Blood splattering over your face. Tainting you in red liquid. Licking your lips you could taste the metal before it overwhelmed your senses completely. Lips curling in a grimace as you heard the gurgled screams trying to break free from the old man’s lungs as Titus let his body fall to the ground. Red pouring out in waves that painted the grass in the color of horror.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it little dove?” His hand caressed the back of your skull. Despite the gentle action you knew it was him holding you in place to watch what you’d just done. What you were capable of if you just let go of the fear and let yourself follow the darkness you’d inherited by him. Your fate had been sealed. Inside the monster’s cage. Trapped like a bird who lost its wings. Being held up by the person who clipped them.

You swallowed the bile that rose in your throat at his words. Because when it came down to it. Written across your face clear as day. You didn’t hate it. You didn’t feel bad for killing him. He’d deserved it for what he’d wanted, voiced of doing to you.

It made the beast Titus had been searching for claw itself out from its prison inside you. The way your eyes darkened under your eyebrows at the sight of the man trying desperately to press his hand against his throat before you kicked his hand away made Titus smirk. His own beast roared in content, feeding off of the way your fingers twitched around the now stained knife.