“I don’t like sweets!” Archelaos’s smile promptly turned into a frown. He stopped, scrunching his face for a moment before calling out in a confused shout “Why pancakes?!”

Disembodied voices were something that Archelaos had grown used to over the years. Magical brands, parasites within his body, enchanted coins or stones, blood jewelry, all of them had adjusted him to unexpected voices in his ear, and this was not even to account for the shadow users that so rudely try to invade his thoughts. At times, the voices belonged to rogues with passing messages, and this was one of those occasions. It was one that he recognized, a voice that brought out thrill, familiarity, respect, and an odd sense of fondness he never thought he would feel for the rogue. It was Blank’s voice.

Ever since the man had been pointed out to Archelaos many years ago during a service at the Cathedral, it had been a game of sorts to pick him out of a crowd. By now the Inquisitor liked to think he was pretty good at it: spotting him from his history during a memorial, for his sense of humor at an execution, and sometimes for the simpler things, such as a reassuring message in a sea of well meaning but misguided support.

Of course he was a monster.

Pride bubbled from the heart of Archelaos. He was a monster, it was a title he had earned. He was a creature of the night, one who created vicious highlords and ruthless hunters. The inquisitor had more blood on his hands than he would ever be able to wash off. 

This was a message he received with a broad, almost maddened smile.

“Damn right I am.”

Archelaos was used to Lyanna climbing all over him. A curious little tyke, one who needed to touch, smell, climb, and sometimes taste just about everything in order to believe it. As she settled into his lap, he ran a hand through her fiery red hair.

The topic of his personhood was one that he hadn’t brought up around his younger grandchildren. They didn’t need to know about those struggles, and that she was aware of them, enough to assure him that he was in fact a person and not a creature as he saw himself, lead him to believe either he had grown sloppy while visiting, or she had overheard her fathers speaking on the subject. He knew well that Zaderick didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand the dilemma, often correcting his father when Archelaos referred to himself as anything less than a human being.

“Of course I can, firefly.” He planted a doting kiss to Lyanna’s chubby cheek, his prickly beard causing her to giggle and squeal, doing well in distracting her from the initial matter at hand. “Why is this one your favorite?” A delighted gasp followed by a slew of dog-loving reasons burst from the girl’s mouth. For now, the topic went unaddressed, as it should be.

Archelaos had been spending the evening with his daughter, deep in the Redridge mountains. The two sat on logs, enjoying the warmth of the fire as he cooked their dinner – Rabbit that Olivia had caught in her traps. She was growing more and more talented in the art of the hunt, to the point that he barely needed to worry about her in the way of survival.

“You’re not a monster, Kelly.”

“Now that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one,” Archelaos responded immediately, a barking laugh coloring his words as he cooked, “What on Azeroth would possess you to say that to me, sunshine?”

He glanced over to the blonde, who puffed out her cheeks in child-like irritation. “I’ve been reading,” she told him, ignoring the pained look to his eyes as she spoke. “Monsters are things like the green-skinned orcs and the demons that are invading. They are stupid things and they are not human. You are human. You are not a monster.” She had it all figured out.

“That’s a very human way of looking at it,” he mused, not looking at her as the rabbit began to burn without him noticing. Truly, letting him be the chef for the evening hadn’t been the best decision either of them could have made.

Olivia’s brows knit together and her eyes narrowed. “I am human.” She reminded him. “Is there another way that I should be looking at the world?”

“I didn’t train you to be human,” Archelaos’s gaze snapped to her, his voice holding an authority that she was both familiar with and welcoming to, “My father didn’t train you to be human. You were human before, and you were a weak little thing, crying at every little thing, needing to be rescued, falling into rabbit holes without a hope of climbing out on your own, locking yourself away for months on end and hurting yourself.” He didn’t look to the scars on her wrists, delicate and intentional stripes that she was no longer ashamed of. “I trained you to be a monster. Never try to say that you or I are human ever again, that’s not what we are, and it’s not what we should ever aspire to be.”

“So you are not human?” Her frown deepened, not yet absorbing the lesson that he was trying to teach her. To her credit, she did start to notice the rabbit burning, and picked up a wooden spoon, turning the meat and only lightly scrunching her nose at the sight of the charred blackness of its skin.

“Nope,” he shook his head, “And by proxy, neither are you. Remember that.”

Her confused stare did not elude him. This was not yet a lesson she could learn by herself, alone in the mountains. Only when his daughter rejoined society, when she committed atrocities to more than simply prey animals such as rabbits… When she turned her attention to hunting humans, to making humans her dinner, perhaps then she would understand. But not tonight. Tonight he sat a monster with one in training, and the nagging notion pulled at his mind that sooner or later, that would need to change.