**

Sometimes it’s hard. Ash sometimes remembers the good thingsabout him and the pain of him being gone is almost too much.

But the thing about remembering the good is that she alsoremembers the bad and…there’s a lot of it. She remembers how her mother’s skinlooked when he was here, in the low morning light as she winced making Ash’slunch for school. She remembers him sitting on the couch, his big hands wrappedaround a glass bottle. She remembers the shatter of that glass bottle againstthe wall of their old apartment and then it’s not so hard.

It’s even easier when she draws the marks into the large dryerase board she saved up for. It’s easier when Melarue shows up, smiling ather. Their hands are smaller, their nails longer and sharper, and there aresnakes that twine around their head. They’re a demon but they never hurt her.There’s no discoloration, no shattering of glass, just smiles and softinstruction on how to do her homework.

The hard parts are when she wakes up at night, thinking onlyof shattering glass and harsh words. Sometimes they’re not even his words butthe words of a Mother.

Her horns are just a reminder of how far away she is fromthe Maker, a constant reminder of how she had to go to dark places just to belistened to. But that’s okay in the end, because she says their name threetimes in the mirror and she tells them about the dreams and about her horns.They say her horns are beautiful and that children are without sin, that the Motheris wrong. She is…perfect, just as she is.

Kiski doesn’t have a dad either. Her mama says that sheprayed really hard and the Maker gave her a baby but Ash knows that she got asperm donor or something, she saw a movie about it. Kiski doesn’t have a dad tomiss, and Ash guesses she doesn’t either. She didn’t have a dad, but she didhave a father, and he did enough.

For the most part, she’s glad he’s gone, but it’s hardsometimes. And Melarue can’t be there all the time. She still goes to theChantry with Kiski. They sit in the pews and sing along with the Chant. Shewonders if her father’s soul is with the Maker or if he’s somewhere else. DidMelarue just…move him somewhere?

She thinks he’s dead.

“Beware, for consorting with demons and listening to theirpoison will lead you astray. Trust in Him and all will be revealed in time.Patience in waiting, trust in your Maker,” the Mother is saying when a glassfalls.

It shatters, echoing through the large space that isdesigned to amplify sounds.

Her body freezes and the world sharpens to a point. She hasto become small, the tiniest thing in existence.

Don’t let him see me,please don’t see me!

She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to not remember, to notfeel his hands digging into her arms. She tries to think about the newapartment and the snakes writhing on Melarue’s head. Slinky is the longest one,they like to hand out by Melarue’s left ear. Locks is the nicest snake, the onethat lets Ash touch them sometimes. Clippy almost always has their tongue out,tasting the air. Greenie hisses a lot but their hiss is worse than their bite,because they’ve never bitten her.

She goes through all their names twice before opening hereyes again to see the Chantry, unchanged. She excuses herself from Kiski andKiski’s mama, saying she has to use the bathroom. Once inside the smaller room,away from the singing and the shattered glass, she takes a few breaths. Itsmells too much like air freshener, and the stone on the counter is shining toobrightly under the light, but it’s better.

It’s only when she looks in the mirror when she realizes she’scrying. No, she doesn’t have a dad to miss, but she has a father to haunt her.

Kiski’s mom is an Andrastian. Like, really devote. Kiski is a believer too and that’s okay with Ash. Mama doesn’t really believe in much outside of a ‘you get what you deserve’ kinda thing. But Ash wanted to believe in the Maker. She thought he sounded nice once upon a time, a father better than the one she had. In her many excuses to get out of the house, she asked if she could go to the Chantry on Sundays with Kiski and her mom. It was miraculously allowed.

The sisters and brothers at the Chantry were kind and the songs were nice. She learned them well and eventually she was able to sing along to some of the simpler ones. The sisters said she had a nice voice. And for a while, she really believed in Him. In Andraste. In the angels.

She prayed every day. Begged the angels – make her father kind. Make him stop hurting Mama. Please oh great Maker, please oh great angels, help.

But apparently the pleas of a small Vashoth girl were not enough to move the heavens.

The Chant said that elves and dwarves and qunari were farther from the Maker, that they were the way they were because they had turned their backs on the Maker. The elves had their Creators and the dwarves the ancestors, the qunari the Qun. The Maker saw this and he shook his head in displeasure.

When she read that, she felt all the hope leave her. The heavens would not, could not help. The Maker and His angels didn’t care about a little Vashoth girl.

“He works in mysterious ways,” they said.

“Or He doesn’t work at all,” she hissed under breath, growing spiteful.

Going to the Chantry did have a benefit in the end though. Because at the Chantry, she learned about the counterparts to the angels – the demons. The demons who would strike a deal with anyone. They didn’t care about who was turned farthest from the Maker.

The demons who were summoned had to listen, and they were always inclined to strike a deal. She started watching movies about angels and demons, reading about demons when she could. And eventually she saw a sigil and thought to herself ‘it could be prettier.’

And then she met Melarue and they cared. They listened to her and they helped. The angels never bothered to answer her, but Melarue did even when all she wanted was help on her math homework. They were nice and she knew they were a demon but…they were nice.