aurelianheir

This world has strange hunting rituals. Cordelia asked if I wished to accompany her to a place called the mall so that we could shop for Christmas. My father seemed to fear the mall. He was quite happy to allow us to leave during the day, using the sunlight as his reason not to come with us.

I should have realized it was a trap.

There were people crowded together, fighting over material things, each attempting to find the best price for senseless items. Cordelia must have trained from an early age to compete. There was no one who could reach an item before she did. We spent hours walking into various shops. Each place we visited was more feral and chaotic than the last.

By the time we finished I felt as if we were both lucky to survive. She informs me that next year I may accompany her on Black Friday. She says they have even more shoppers out on that day, and that the competition is even more fierce.

I believe I will use the sun as my excuse not to join her then.

I want to visit Ireland. Dad talked about it all the time when we were in Quortoth. Gunn and Fred say it would be a lot different now than back when Dad was there. I think they were making fun of his age, but Gunn says I have no sense of humor. Maybe he's just not that funny.

Ireland is very green, and it's where my father grew up. I want to visit and see what it is like now. I want to see how much still matches the pictures in my mind from the stories he told me. Mostly I want him to show me the places he told me about.

Cordelia says I should want to go to amusement parks, and maybe one day I will want too. Right now I really want to visit Ireland. It's part of who I am. Dad said he would take me one day. Maybe he will take me to London too. That is part of my heritage as well, but those are stories that Gunn doesn't find entertaining.

Maybe he's the one without a sense of humor.

I can't stop growling at strangers. Gunn said I sound like a guard dog, but I do not think he meant it as a compliment. This world is still so different from where I spent most of my time. I am adjusting, but I do not think I will ever be comfortable with strangers. Dad says I shouldn't be. That sometimes strangers will hurt kids. I would like to see one of these human strangers attempt to hurt me. They would be in for a big surprise.

I do not understand why humans would prey upon their own kind. In my world demons were demons, and they needed to be destroyed. Humans were...well I suppose I was the only human. If I am human. No one seems to be able to tell me for sure if I am or not. I suppose it it unlikely considering my parents were both vampires. Dad believes that I am though.

Now that I am here I am told that not all humans are good. That some of them hurt other humans, and even prey upon their young and the young of others of their kind. I am told not all demons are bad. That some try to help others. It is very confusing.

I will continued to growl at those I do not know to warn them to not try anything with me and mine.

He can't remember when he stopped calling Angel daddy and started using Dad instead. It was sometime in Quortoth. Sometime after he was so small that he would reach for his hand in the dark even though he told himself he was very brave. Age was hard to keep track of in Quortoth. He had been a baby, and quickly grew into a teenager. Sometime in-between, when he was a small child, he had used the term, Daddy. Then he grew up and it sounded silly to his own ears. So he settled on Dad.

If Angel was upset by the change he never let Connor see it. Things changed all the time in Quortoth. It wasn't just time passing by fast. It was the need to survive. The need to find a way out. Then one day there was a way out. One day there was an entirely new world to learn and discover. A world that seemed, in it's own way, as frightening and intimidating as the world that Connor first grew up in.

Which is why, one night, not long after they found their way back to Los Angeles, there was a scream of a familiar name. Connor was lost in sleep. He was tossing and turning on his new bed in his new room in his new home. He was dreaming of things that looked like demons, but really were machines. He was dreaming of a world that didn't make sense to him at all. In his sleep he cried out loudly, "Daddy."

And when he opened his eyes, Angel was there, holding him close, promising it was just a dream. And the boy of fourteen didn't push him away or tell him he was fine. They both new this would be a rare occurrence now that Connor was growing up.

There is only one person in the world that Connor can and will trust with his life. He knows the story of his mother's sacrifice so that he could live. He knows that there were many who loved him before he and his father ended up in the hell dimension. They are just names. Names that are slowly getting faces attached to them as he keeps a bit of a distance at the hotel. They are scared of him, and he is wary of them. No longer is he the little baby that they had loved and cared for. In that baby's place is a fourteen year old boy who doesn't trust anyone but his dad.

It's been Angel who has been with him every day of his life. Angel who raised him in a world not meant for children. Angel who sacrificed his own happiness to protect his son from the lawyers who wanted to treat him as an experiment. Angel who saved his life on too many occasions for Connor to truly be able to count.

His dad is the only person he trusts to watch him while he sleeps. The only person he trusts when he says things will be okay. It's his dad's trust in the others that keeps Connor from attacking even though their fear makes them smell like prey.

He wonders if it's their trust in Angel that stops them from attacking him as well.

I have learned to never give up hope. My father never gave up hope that one day we would return to his world. Because of that I never gave up trying to make that true for him. I found the slugs and I tortured them until they revealed their secrets to me. It was then that I could show my dad how to leave this world, and come back to his.

I'm not sure what I think about it yet. It is very different from the only place I ever called home. I learned that it didn't matter where I lived though because home would always be with my dad. He told me that so many times when I told him I was sorry he had to leave his world for Quortoth. He'd smile and say that home was with me. It didn't matter where we were. He would always rather be with me.

There is many things to discover in this new world. Many lessons I still need to learn from my dad. His friends are surprised I have aged, but I think they will eventually adjust. I am no longer the baby they knew, but I am still his son. I am still Connor.