#lordakai

A small tailor's shop on the south end of Joi proudly flew a flag stolen off an old naval ship. The lord who approached the doors flanked by zer attendants and tailed by guards had been disappointed to learn the owner of this strange little establishment had long since left the pirate life to his past. With this shop being it's tombstone.

Still, as ze entered ze felt zer nerves light up with a quiet sense of things being just to the left of what they should be. A man, larger than any other Toi'uhla had ever met stood behind his counter. His grey streaked hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and his pitch black eyes glinting from behind the curved lenses of his glasses. His broad reptilian face looked far too gentle and warm as he smiled and welcomed them in with a deep and warm voice.

"Toi'uhla, it's an honor to have a client as prestigious as you in my shop," he stepped out from behind the counter, his clothes plain but decorated with lace trims and well polished buttons, "Come, come, Let's get your measurements taken so we can chat about what you will want for your wedding attire,"

"Its a pleasure to be here," Toi'uhla followed him, gesturing to zer accompaniment to stay in the waiting room, "How long have you been a tailor Mr.Lordakai?"

"Just Lordakai is fine enough if you do not mind. But, if you count the years of yore when I was working the backrooms of my nan's shop as a boy, just about 80 cycles. So, I can assure you, you are in good hands," he leads zer into a small round room with a circle of mirrors set up around a perch with a ladder leading up to it, "There's a changing room through that door if you'd rather undress alone,"

"This is fine," Toi'uhla shrugged, "You're going to be seeing it all anyways,"

The one time she did get a response it was when she threatened to drag Lordakai down there to make her siblings actually meet their father. They... were less than welcoming of the idea. Five years of knowing he has long grown cubs, and Lordakai's yet to meet three of them.

But after Eri is hatched and after a version of the story of how Lordakai and Toi'uhla met and fell for each other has soread, Lordakai's cubs and their mother finally agree to meet him. On the terms that he comes as Erifolda Lordakai, not Captain Lordakai, and that he bring Eri too.

He agrees and has his response posted before he's even thought to ask Toi'uhla if he can take their cub to a distant island to meet their siblings who have never shown interest in letting Lordakai be part of their family before they knew about Eri.

(Toi'uhla does end up agreeing on the one condition ze goes too. And that confused Lordakai for a minute bc he never stopped for a second to consider Toi'uhla might not be there. Ze's the love of his life and this is the first proper gathering of his whole family, no way would it have ever been complete without zer)

And they go, Lordakai, Toi'uhla, Eri, Yandoli, and Laz (who insists she's just tagging along to keep them out of trouble and not at all because she nearly cried when her best friend and captain invited her because her kinda sorta girlfriend was too nervous to do it herself) and like, it's awkward at first, the five of them sitting across from Yandoli's mother and siblings in the same house they grew up in.

But Lordakai's long since become a master at negotiating through bad air like this. He apologizes for being absent all these years, for not doing more for them once he knew they existed, for never even thinking to check back in on Cailoan after there one week together. He promises to do better, to do whatever he can to make them having to be burdened by his reputation worth it. and then he apologizes again for bring the mood down so low.

he's meeting his kids for the first time! this should be a celebration! and besides he's brought gifts. Mostly trinkets based on what Yandoli has told him about them, and which he notes that if they don't like their gift, he made certain they'd all sell well if they'd rather have the money.

And speaking of money, he hands Cailoan a necklace box with the most god awful, Gaudy and Expensive looking necklace she's every seen. He calls it a down payment on the back log of all the child support payments he Definitely owes her.

After that, the airs a lot looser, there's joking and laughter and Lordakai finds an easy place in the banter like he does everywhere he goes. but it just feels so right to see him there in the dimly lit room with one arm over his son's shoulder and the other holding a happily cooing and trilling Eri against his chest

Laz and Toi'uhla are trying to keep out of the way of things, but they both have the same feeling.

This could have been Lordakai's life. There's another lifetime where someone stopped him on the streets of Joi years and years ago to let him know he had cubs still young enough to not resent his past absence. Where he never became captain of the bane and retired from the life to find sounder work to support them. To be a better father for them.

And there's some selfish thing in both of them thats so glad this family is as broken as it is.

That perfect lifetime where Lordakai is an honorable man is the same lifetime where Toi'uhla marries for convenience and spends zer whole life bored and itching for a more ze doesn't know exists.

Laz would have probably found her way into the grave by now without a captain who could temper her aggression and without a partner who makes keeping herself in check worth it.

but Lordakai ropes them into the conversation, trying to get Them to tell the story of that one time Laz tried to kill and eat Toi'uhla.

And like, when she was little that worked just fine. Pirates were scary, and her father had enough of a reputation that she and her siblings weren't the only children in their town scared of him. Hell, once word got out that Yandoli and her siblings were his kids suddenly everyone was a lot more scared of them than they used to be.

It was a curse and a blessing in one. They didn't have many friends because of it, but no one messed with them either lest they incurred the wrath of a man none of the siblings had ever met.

But as Yandoli got older, the concept of being taken away by Lordakai became less and less of a threat. She was from a small island, money was tight and she could see the life that was set out in front of her.

It was drab and boring. It was nothing like the promise of a place on a pirate ship where riches could be taken and adventure was always around the corner. Even when she eventually learned the realities of pirate life were a lot less glamorous, they still shone compared to what she would be stuck with otherwise.

She didn't mesh with her siblings anymore. She was always the problem child. Her want of something More no matter who she had to step over to get it reminded them all too much of that man aboard the Harbor's Bane.

One fight too many with her mother got Yandoli kicked out. She was smart and strong. She would have had an easy time finding sound work.

Instead she cought the first ship she could to the trade port her father was supposedly king of.

It took a month of patience, of working shifts carting goods off the pirate ships that brought them to sell.

until Finally the Harbor's Bane docked and she saw her father for the first time.

He was everything the stories made him out to be. Massive and snarling and comanding of the entire dock. He was the monster from all of those bed time stories and more.

It took her a while day to gather her confidence enough to go make her demand. Keeping and eye on him every time he passes her on the docks, so completely unaware she was there.

Her mother could have been lying, he might not give a shit that he had children he probably didn't even know existed. Hell, she and her siblings probably arn't his only bastards.

Her supervisor assigned her to help load the Bane, something about the first mate saying she looked right for the job.

She was the last of the loading crew aboard. The first mate having stopped her to inspect a bag of rations for a truly absurd length of time until everything else was done and set.

And then it was now or never. The Captain, her father, the scourge of the void was looking over her shoulder to see why the first mate was counting out individual beans.

The first mate just shrugged and hauled the pack away, strange eyes glinting from beneath their hood as they seemingly winked at her.

She turned to him, and told him who she was, and that she wanted a place on his crew. She told him she was a hard worker, that she'd do and learn Anything he needed her to.

He just blinked at her, his snarl having dropped from his face. Asked one question, ifJio was where she is from, and when she confirmed he pulled her into a tight hug.

Warmer and firmer and more full of love than anything she'd had I'm years.

He seemed in shock, but when they parted he shouted to his crew that his Daughter would be joining them on this voyage. The pride and joy in his voice unmistakable.

and those first few months were a rough bit of adapting, but by the end of the year she felt more at home, more part of a family than she had ever had before.