Maleficent

I tell him about the contract. Charon and I had agreed not to tell anyone else, until I found someone that met his requirements, should the contract need to be…transferred. We intended to tell him later – but my impending death changes things. Life is what happens when you have plans. I suppose death happens, too. "He'll be yours after I pass, Virgil."

He sits in silence, stunned.

"You'll have to take care of him. He won't take it well." The last time I left, he unraveled. This time, I won't be coming back.

Now for practical things.

"You'll have to order him to eat and sleep, because he probably won't do it on his own." His head jerks toward me, meets my eyes.

"Order…Dad?" he asks.

"Yes. It'll be hard at first, but you'll get the hang of it." It was easy for me at first, but then again – I was very different. "He is… incapable of suicide. But he will be reckless; put himself in harm's way in hopes of being killed." I glance at Virgil, who stares off into the darkness.

A tear rolls down my cheek. Oh, how I wish things were different.

Virgil

I don't know what to say. I've never questioned their relationship, but now my mind is working overdrive.

I realize that I'd never seen him make a pivotal decision on his own. Mom always handled the finances, the business transactions. Her suggestions to him had new meaning – thickly veiled orders, from someone who loves him too much to be direct.

Now I'll have to do that. Inherit him, like a piece of property. "Have you tried to free him?" I ask.

"It's impossible," She says. "Either way, he told me he doesn't want to be freed."

I shake my head. "I don't understand."

She explains, "He's long since accepted what he is. If you offer to try to free him, he'll probably refuse."

I'll have to talk with him about it later, when we're on our hunt tomorrow. If there's still a hunt tomorrow.

She pushes herself up, with a grunt of pain. "Go to bed. We'll talk in the morning."

Charon

My worst nightmare come true…I'm losing her.

It was only a matter of time – both of us knew. But I had no idea it would be this soon.

I still love her – as much as I did on that morning on the balcony at Tenpenny. She may be older and frailer, but she is still mine, and I am still hers.

I rise from the couch, and go for a walk before they wake. The sun is rising; I let our Brahmin out a little early, watch them wander around their enclosure.

After a while, I hear a door close, gently. He's on the porch, waiting for me. He's strong, sure, brave – and my chest fills with pride for my son.

I remember when we first saw him. His little face smudged with dirt, deep brown eyes, darting from face to face nervously, clinging to his mother's neck. Mallie was in her early forties – forty-three or forty-four maybe. A bit long in the tooth for a caravan guard; we'd talked about retiring soon the night before. We were guarding a caravan, and a woman with a small child – not much older than a year – stopped, and begged the caravan for food, for a ride to the next settlement, anything.

The merchant had been assaulted with requests before – and he'd heard of bandits using women and children as bait in ambushes. We were on high alert, as he refused her any assistance.

But she followed us, almost obscured by the dust in our wake, carrying her child.

Mallie turned when the woman fell. She broke away from the caravan, toward the prostrate woman and her screaming boy. As always, I followed.

She reached down, touched the woman's neck, searching for a pulse. She looked up at me. "She's gone." We both looked at the child. Without someone to care for him, he'd die out here. Animals would get him, or he could starve to death or die of dehydration. The next town was miles away, and he could barely toddle.

Tears streamed down his dirty cheeks. His face was red, from sunburn and fear. He was probably hungry, too – with the desperate way his mother bartered, it had implied that she would sell her body too, if necessary. It would have been a hard sell – it was obvious she'd been going without food for some time.

The merchant was irate. "Let's go!"

"Just a minute!" Mallie yelled back at him. She looked at me. "What do we do? We can't just leave him out here." I took a deep breath. The decision that she made would change our lives forever.

"Leave the kid, and let's GO!" yelled the merchant.

"No!" she yelled back, defiantly. She picked up the baby, and said, "He's with me."

The merchant, of course, fired us as soon as we made it to the next settlement. At least he was generous enough to pay us what he owed us.

We found a room in a nearby inn. When she dug in her pack to pay, she handed the boy to me. He was warm, soft, restless – and a more than a little smelly. I cradled him in my arm, and he squirmed, reached up, clung to my neck, and hugged me. "Dada!" he said. Dada? I looked at Mallie, helplessly. She smiled back at me, touched my arm, and led us to our room.

"What should we call him?" she asked. There was nothing on him or his mother – not even a first name written on their clothing. "He needs a name."

I sat on the bed to think, and then dig in my pack. I pull out Dante's Inferno, the only book I kept from Tenpenny. "Virgil." I suggested. She smiled. "Like the poet. He'll lead us through Hell, and out again." She liked that.

She grinned at the child. "Hi, Virgil. We'll take care of you now. Don't worry."

Finding the town tolerant of our relationship, she inquired about property. She bought a small ranch outside town, where we farmed, hunted, and raised a small amount of Brahmin, with the help of our generous neighbors. We still had plenty of money left over – enough to live on for a long time.

I taught him how to hunt, how to fight, at Mallie's insistence.

I remember his delighted, gap-toothed smile after he shot his first mole rat, and how proud he was when we ate it for dinner.

I remember his shouts of frustration every time I tossed him to the ground during hand-to-hand practice.

I remember him prattling on about Wendy – a girl in a large family who lived on a farm down the road.

I remember punishing him, making him do some of my chores, for sneaking out at night to see her. Mallie told me that fathers were supposed to discipline their children. I suspect that she couldn't discipline him herself – he had her wound around his little finger pretty tight. So she ordered me to do it, subtly.

"Are you ready?" I call out.

"As ready as I'll ever be." He picks up his pack, and starts walking with me to the hills, north. We're hoping to catch an unwary bighorner. It's about that time of year.

"Mom told me about the contract." He blurts.

"I figured she did."

"So…she owns you." She bought me, so…

"In a way."

"But you love her?" He asks.

"Yes." More than anything in the world, save you. I feel my throat swell, I take a deep breath.

"I'm sorry for not telling you, Dad. She told me she wanted to tell you herself." She would have.

"It's okay, Virge. It's okay."

But it's not.