"Vishnu taught me how to use magic." Triya said, sipping at a cup of milk.
"What kind of magic?" Ian asked.
"Hoti vishnu."
There was a long pause as her mother looked at her father.
"Halfs shouldn't be able to learn divine magic." She said.
Tak nodded.
"Why can Triya do it?"
"Vishnu said it's 'cause I got permission from him, and that I believe that gods aren't real anyway, so any magic I use is something that I envision which I subconsciously alter the transcendentals that I got from dad to perform." Triya explained. "I discuss magic theory with him a lot." She added.
"I have a Destruction aspect." Tak said.
"Oh yeah, I know." Triya nodded. "But I don't believe in aspects either, so it's completely malleable when it comes to me. Because destruction is like eradication, or the process in which something ceases to exist. So when I think that the wilted flowers were destroyed, it can mean that the wilted flowers are no longer wilted, so they must be fresh!"
"That's- That's not how magic works, dear." Ian said faintly.
"Tell that to Vishnu. He's the one who helped me come up with an explanation to deceive my own mind."
"Is there a reason why you've been spending so much time teaching me?" Triya asked.
"If I can't see your future, then that means that Kali must not have expected you either."
"The enemy of the enemy is my friend, huh? Or rather, the enemy that my enemy doesn't expect is my student."
Vishnu smirked. "Quite simply, you defy everything possible about magic, because you don't believe in gods or suras."
"Then do you think that it's possible that magic won't work on me?" Triya asked.
Vishnu looked at the ring on her finger pointedly.
"Okay, point taken." Triya said quickly. "Say, all your futures that you see now don't include me, right?"
"The reactions of your parents and your brother to you can be observed. All other traces of you, however, are non-existent."
"So I exist to you only as a reaction?"
"You could put it that way." Vishnu agreed.
"Huh." Triya said, looking at her claws. "That aside, if I say that I'm going to temporarily destroy the fabric of space to create a gateway to another dimension, d'you think it'd work?"
"Try it." Vishnu said simply.
Triya held up a clawed hand in front of her and pulled it down. There was the feeling of something ripping in the air.
She glanced at the portal-gateway thing she had made. There was a river in that supposed other dimension.
She looked at Vishnu, who looked somewhat troubled.
"Woah, what's this?" Someone poked their head through.
Triya looked at the red-haired man, then at Vishnu, and decided that pride could go take a hike. She ducked between Vishnu's legs and hid behind him.
"Vishnu? Who's that behind you?"
"No one!" Triya squeaked.
"This is Triya, Taksaka's daughter." Vishnu said, stepping aside. "Triya, this is Agni, the god of fire."
"Um, nice to meet you?" Triya said carefully.
Agni gave her a smile and a wave. "Why'd you tear a hole to Yama's place?" He asked, turning to Vishnu.
"…" Vishnu stared at Triya.
"He told me to try!" Triya pointed at Vishnu.
Agni turned to Triya, then to Vishnu, his smile fading away. "You weren't expecting me." He said, glancing back at the hole in reality. "You weren't expecting her to tear a hole that would lead to Yama's place."
"Didn't you say that it was supposed to be a secret?" Triya asked Vishnu flatly.
"Shall we go somewhere else?" Vishnu asked, gesturing at the portal.
Triya stared at the portal while the adults talked.
"Learn to close it, Triya. Fix the problem you made, Triya." She grumbled, glaring at the hole from the other side.
"Destroy the hole." Vishnu turned his attention away from the three gods. "You're disrupting time."
Triya huffed and tried touching the top of the portal. There was a ripping sound and the portal disappeared.
"This is the first time someone has entered my dimension by accident." Yama said.
"…Sorry?" Triya offered.
"Vishnu, you intend to use her?" Brahma asked.
"The best possible future has already been lost." Vishnu replied.
"And because of that, you carelessly meddle around?"
"Insight cannot be used on her."
"I never took you for someone so fickle."
"It's interesting, is it not? The concept of a soul from another universe altogether. I certainly did not expect something like that to exist."
"And you think that Kali wouldn't either."
The two of them glanced at Triya who was peering at the stacks of paperwork, despite Yama's complaints.
"I see nothing but a child."
"Triya has a lot of potential. She is unlimited by the constraints of magic. As long as something can be destroyed, even if it is the fabric of space, she can do it."
"Oddly, you have a lot of trust in her." Brahma observed.
"She questions everything about this world. The only thing that I have yet to try is to see if the Taraka's abilities will work on her."
"And if it does?"
"Then she will be another failure." Vishnu replied easily.
"You know that I can hear the two of you, right?" Triya asked. "It's seriously rude, by the way."
The two primeval gods ignored her.
"Does Taksaka know that you're here?" Agni asked abruptly.
"No? Why?" Triya blinked.
"Time flows slowly in my dimension. It should have already been a few months." Yama said.
"Eh?" Triya said dumbly. Then, she panicked. "Oi! Vishnu! Stop complaining about that evil god of yours! I need to get home now now now! Mom's gonna kill me!"
"You went missing for two months." Ian said calmly.
"I'm sorry…" Triya said tearfully.
Kasak just watched, peering from behind the kitchen counter. "Why do you spend all your time with that guy?" He asked after Triya had been sufficiently scolded.
"Who? Vishnu? He's okay, and he teaches me loads of stuff!" Triya said.
"You don't play with me anymore." Kasak scowled.
Triya blinked. "Learning magic is more fun! You should try it too!"
"I don't wanna!" He shouted and ran off. Trisha looked at him go, confused.
"In a future where you didn't exist, Kasak was very possessive of his mother." Vishnu said.
"But I exist. And as his twin, I used to spend most of my time with him. So he wants me to pay more attention to him." Triya concluded. Then, she groaned. "Ahh, this sucks!"
"Do you not have experience with children?"
"I was the youngest, okay?" Triya scowled.
"That's not very surprising." Vishnu said.
"What about you? I heard that you're looking after a kid too? Ka- Kala something."
"Kalavinka." Vishnu corrected.
"Shouldn't you be spending more time with her instead of me?"
"I could bring her over for a visit." Vishnu mused.
"Oi, that's not what I meant."
"She's still trying to develop to her third stage." Vishnu continued.
"You're actually a pretty doting parent, aren't you?" Triya asked.
"I intended to bring her here twelve years later, but with you around, my visions are no longer accurate. Well, it might do her some good to meet you."
"Sometimes you're actually a nice guy." Triya conceded.
"Well, I do hope that she won't learn from your recklessness." Vishnu added.
"I take back what I said." Triya said immediately.
"Mom! Dad! Kasak! I'm going to Yama's place for a while! So don't worry if I disappear for a couple of years!" Triya announced.
"No way." Tak said immediately.
For once, Kasak agreed with him.
"It's just a while. Not even a day!" Triya pouted.
"The last time you spent an hour there, you were gone for two months here." Ian said. Triya winced.
"I'll try not to take over a year!"
"A month away is already bad enough!"
In the end, they managed to reach a compromise.
"Three hours, that's the limit." Ian finally said, and Triya was honestly surprised that she managed to get that much out of her mother.
"Why are you here again?" Yama asked, annoyed.
"To visit!" Triya said cheerily, peering at the paperwork. "If it's just cancellation, why not use a computerised system?"
"And risk something going wrong?"
Triya winced. "Okay, point taken."
She paused, watching the god work. "Do you need help?" She asked, feeling almost sorry for him given the entire towers of papers next to him.
That pity was gone when he gave her a pen and dumped a stack on top of her.
"All these are…"
"The paperwork for humans who've reached their set lifespan or died before their time."
Triya fell silent, scanning through the words.
"Just sort them according to which ones you think should go to hell or paradise."
"You're leaving this up to a kid?" Triya asked, moving her pen.
Yama didn't bother to reply her.
"Why are you really here?" Yama asked later, after the tower of paperwork had halved.
"I guess I just wanted a break. Vishnu keeps hinting to me that I'm messing up the future he's planned, so I thought that the best way to not interfere with anything is to stay out of the way."
"That guy… He's a master of trial and error. After Ananta died, the best possible future ceased to exist, so he's trying for the next best."
"And I'm not included, apparently, except as a countermeasure for when Kali appears."
Yama made a sound of agreement.
"Hey, how long has it been?" Triya asked, putting the pen down and stretching her sore muscles.
"Two hours since you've came." Yama replied, not looking at her.
"Wow. Two hours of reading through people's life stories and how they died. It really makes you value life more, huh?"
For some reason, that made Yama look at her oddly.
"What?" Triya asked defensively.
"Normally, it would make one think of life as trivial."
"Well, there are a lot of deaths." Triya conceded. "But learning how they died, and their last wishes… I think mortality is a wonderful thing. Life is short, and you never know what'll happen, but there's always something that will make it worth living, even until your death."
"Gods don't die." Yama said.
"I think that you need to take a walk around sometime." Triya told him frankly. "You look at all these, and you don't see individual stories, you just see it as a job."
"I've been doing this for millions of years."
"That long? Yikes, no wonder you're so grumpy. You need a break."
Yama rolled his eyes and ignored her.
"I'm serious. If you keep that up, you'll have no more appreciation for life."
"Telling the God of Death to appreciate life is just idealistic."
"The time here flows slower than in other realms, right? So just take a visit to some other realm to relax for a bit, then you can continue shutting yourself up like a hermit."
Yama didn't take her advice. Triya huffed and went back home once the time limit was up.
"Dad, what's the sura realm like?" Triya asked sometime after her return, having missed Kalavinka's short stay with Ian and Tak.
"…Annoying." Tak replied.
The two of them were out in the flower fields, after Kasak had confided to her that he wanted to spend some time alone with Ian.
"Don't you have any friends there?"
"Hm. There's an annoying guy living in my nest."
"…Nest? Dad, I wanna see!"
"It's dangerous."
"But you'll be there, right, dad? Dad's the strongest after all."
"…Fine. But don't leave my side."
"Okay!"
"The air is poisonous and the gravity is too strong for you to handle."
Triya's smile faltered slightly, but Tak continued.
"There are a lot of suras who would want to attack and eat you."
Triya's smile faded.
"And sometimes the nastikas will fight and you might get caught up and die."
"Dad! I get it already! I won't go running off on my own! Can we go?" Triya asked, exasperated.
Tak gave her a small smile and held out a hand. Triya slipped her small clawed hand in his. Then, Tak took off his earrings.
Tak wasn't kidding when he said that the sura realm was dangerous.
Triya stuck close to her father, whose presence alone seemed to deter anyone and everyone. Honestly, Triya was starting to think that her father was actually some sort of big-shot sura.
After a few minutes of walking around in the barren wasteland, Tak stopped. He bent down and picked up Triya.
"Uh, dad?" Triya asked, not that she was complaining about getting a free ride.
Then, Tak ran.
And wow, he was fast.
Triya peered over his shoulder and watched the scenery pass by in a blur.
"Here." Tak said after a while, setting her down. Triya looked up at the tall black pillars. "Wow. This place is huge!" She said, grabbing her father's hand tighter.
"Tak! I knew I felt you! Welcome… back…" Someone walked towards the entrance, their sentence trailing off.
"Dad? Who's that?" Triya asked.
"D-Dad? What the-? You have a kid!" The redheaded woman said incredulously.
"Shut up Huia." Tak said without much heat.
"Dad? Who's that?" Triya repeated.
"That's Vasuki." Tak said shortly, gently tugging her further into his nest.
"…Okay." Triya said, then waited expectantly.
For a moment, she felt confusion emitting from the dragon, then realization. "My best friend who's hiding away from reality in here." He continued.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Vasuki. I'm Triya Rajof." Triya said politely.
Vasuki stared at her, then at Tak.
"You- Ahahaha!" She burst out laughing. "She looks nothing like you!"
"I've been told that I look more like my mom." Triya said. "She's really pretty."
"Prettier than me?" Vasuki teased.
Triya squinted.
"Yes." Tak replied for her.
"Pfft. What happened to 'I'll never have children', huh?"
Triya turned to her father with wide eyes.
"I changed my mind." Tak said, putting a hand on her head. Triya beamed.
"But dad, you need to be nicer to Kasak." Triya scolded.
"Kasak?" Vasuki parroted.
"My twin brother! He's really really cute!" Triya spread out her arms wide.
"Is she really your child?" Vasuki asked.
"Yes. If I'm not dad's child, I wouldn't have these." Triya said, poking the horns on her head.
"I thought the Vritra were supposed to have numbed emotions. Looks like it doesn't affect halfs, huh?" Vasuki said, poking at Triya's horns.
"It does. Kasak doesn't feel as much as I do. Vishnu said that I'm an abnormality." Triya explained without giving away much of what Vishnu actually said.
"Vishnu? Tak, am I the last to know about your lover and your kids?"
"You didn't bother coming out of hiding." Tak said flatly.
"Ahh, enough of that. You have the same invisible fire as your father, right?"
"…Invisible fire? Dad, I can breathe invisible fire?" Triya asked with sparkling eyes.
"…" Tak touched her forehead.
"Vishnu dropped me on the head." Triya reminded him. "Dad! Dad! I wanna learn!"
"You already know." Tak repeated not for the first time.
"I forgot how!" Triya pouted.
"Instead of you, it's your daughter that's suffering from mental damage." Vasuki laughed, and dodged the punch that Tak tried to give her.
"Fine then. If you're so smart, then why don't you reteach me how." Triya huffed.
"Eh?" Vasuki pointed at herself.
Triya nodded.
"But I'm not a dragon, you know." She said humorously.
"Then what are you?"
"I'm a snake."
"…Isn't a snake just a dragon without legs?" Triya asked blankly.
Vasuki glanced quickly at Tak, who apparently didn't care about what insults his daughter had to say about him.
"Alright then. You hold your breath until you feel your throat burn, then you cough it out-!" Vasuki said, then ducked, avoiding another punch.
"Don't give her useless advice!" Tak snapped.
"Dad, you're not actually helping much either." Triya said.
"…" Tak didn't have a reply to that.
"Invisible fire is fire. I'm a dragon so of course I can breathe fire. But how does it work? Is it channelled magic, or a transcendental skill that I'm borrowing or something in my biology?"
"It's a transcendental."
"…I can use transcendentals?" Triya asked, amazed.
"Ripping a portal to another realm is considered a transcendental skill."
"But that's just a subset of the abilities I inherited from you." Triya frowned.
"You use magic in an odd way." Tak said.
"…Thank you? So it's the same feeling I get when destroying stuff?" Triya asked. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to face the outside of the nest, gathered her magic, and breathed.
Nothing.
"It didn't work." Triya sighed, then geared herself up for another shot.
"Wait." Tak said.
Triya turned to her father.
Then, there was a soft, distant crashing sound.
"It's invisible, you know?" Vasuki added cheerfully.
Triya blinked, then smiled. "Awesome! That's the first time I got something right on my first try!"
"…" Tak hesitated, as if uncertain if he should say something. Then, "It could be better."
"Duh, of course it could be better. I had no idea what I was doing." Triya said flippantly.
She fired out another shot.
This time, the time taken before the crash resounded was shorter.
Triya beamed up at her father who indulgently patted her head.
Vasuki watched from a distance away, feeling like her world had just turned upside down.
"I heard that Gandharva's daughter was kidnapped by the gods." Vasuki said abruptly.
"Eh?" Triya stared at the nastika, confused.
"…You think that they would do the same to my family." Tak said.
"Ehh?" Triya turned to her father.
"Well, most of them don't think that you'd care, but…" Vasuki grimaced.
"But I'm technically Yama's assistant. If anyone tries to kidnap me, if dad doesn't fight them first, Brahma probably will." Triya said.
"…Huh? Yama? Brahma? How'd you get to know them?"
"It's Vishnu's fault. I had an idea and he egged me on." Triya complained. "Hey dad, do you have friends who have kids?"
"Hm? No." Tak grunted.
"…Shess—" Vasuki started.
"No." Tak interrupted her.
"…Tak, you're way too protective." Vasuki muttered. "Your daughter's never going to grow up at this rate. She'll become an antisocial hermit like you."
Tak glared at her.
"I wanna meet kids my age! I missed Sha- um, um, her visit!" Triya hurriedly corrected herself. "I wanna spend time with people who aren't ancient!"
"And mom and Kasak don't count!" Triya added.
"…Riagara?" Tak turned to Vasuki.
"She went back to the Ananta clan." Vasuki shrugged.
"Urp… I guess I won't ever know what normal children are like…" Triya sighed.
"You're special enough." Tak said.
"Dad, you suck at compliments." Triya said flatly.
"…"
"Ahh, whatever. Dad, can we go see other places? I wanna see what the territory of the other clans are like!"
"Okay." Tak agreed immediately.
"Tak, you're way too soft when it comes to your daughter." Vasuki said.
"Why? If it's inconvenient, we don't have to go." Triya replied, honestly confused.
"…Never mind. I'll just stay here and laugh at the fallout. Have fun!" Vasuki waved at them.
"Dad, you should bring your best friend home to see mom sometime. I'm sure that they'd get along well." Triya advised once they had returned to Willarv. Tak put on his earrings, not bothering to respond.
"Daddd!" Triya whined.
"I'll consider it." Tak said, even though Triya knew that he was just humouring her.
She huffed and followed her father back home.