Chapter Two

Second Chances

"You have a place in my heart no one could ever have."

~The Ice Palace; F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dustfinger stood still for a moment longer, still cautious that Basta would change his mind about his silence and return. When he was sure they were alone except for the guards posted at the entrance to the dungeons, he slowly turned around so that he wouldn't startle the small child that his eyes settled on. There she was; his daughter, finally in front of him, the one person he truly thought he would never see again in this life. He knelt down a few feet away from her, not sure if she would know who he was or not. She still stood with her back pressed up against the wall of the cell, as far from the entrance as possible, her eyes staring at him questioningly as if she too wasn't quite sure if she knew him. She was most likely searching for the scars that had once lined his face, though she would find no trace of them now. Not after the events that seemed so long ago since they'd taken place, even if it had only been two years.

"You most likely don't recognize me, little one," he said softly, giving her a small smile as their eyes met.

Suddenly, a memory formed in his mind, one of Roxane holding a very small Rosanna with Brianna seated beside them while he made flowers out of the flames. He always put on a show for his girls after supper the day he returned from performing with the Motley Folk. Rosanna had always smiled the brightest of the three of them as she watched the blooming buds of orange and red. She may not be able to remember his face, but it was just possible that she would remember this.

He held his hand out in front of him and whispered softly, watching as a flame slowly formed in his palm, shaping into a flower before his eyes. As the flower slowly grew, he glanced back up to see Rosanna's eyes widen at the sight of the flames. Her gaze slowly moved up to look at his face, studying it for a moment before a wide smile broke out on her own as recognition lit up her eyes. A smile grew on his own face as relief flooded through him. It had worked; she remembered him. He made sure the flower had completely faded away before reaching his hands out to her, wanting so badly to finally hold her in his arms for the first time in so, so long.

In an instant, Rosanna was running towards him, her small steps still clumsy as she reached him, throwing her arms around his neck and holding on tightly. He wrapped his arms around her, holding his little girl close as he leaned his head against hers. As he ran his fingers gently through her dark curls, her small voice whispered into his ear, a voice so soft and sweet that he couldn't believe he'd forgotten the sound of it.

"You came back," she whispered happily. "I knew you would."

She said it so confidently. As if she had never believed otherwise even though Roxane and even Brianna had had doubts about him coming home. He knew they'd both wondered, if for only a moment, whether he had left them on purpose. But the innocence in his youngest daughter's beliefs nearly brought tears to his eyes.

"Of course I came back, little one," he said just as softly. "I would never leave you forever."

He loosened his grip slightly as he felt Rosanna pull away for a moment, just enough to look up at him, her dark eyes sparkling with pure joy as she reached up to touch his face, something she had done so often as a baby. She giggled, a bright smile still on her face, before hugging him tightly once more, her earlier fear of the dungeons and the guards seemingly vanished.

Another smile graced his lips at the sound of her sweet laughter. Closing his eyes as he wrapped his arms tighter around her once more, he vowed in that instant that no harm would come to her. Not if he could help it.

He opened his eyes again as her fingers moved to rest against his cheek, almost the exact spot one of his scars had once been. Even though her bright smile still lit up her whole face, she'd tilted her head curiously to one side as she looked him over.

"Where did they go?" she asked him. "Momma said you had scars on your face."

Of course she would know about the scars. They were one of the main things that told anybody who he was, in either Lombrica or Argenta. Roxane would have made sure to include them if she'd told their youngest daughter about him.

"Some kind people I knew once helped take them away," he said softly, images of Death's daughters appearing in his mind.

He'd been lucky enough to have no reason of seeing them these past two years, and he hated even having to think of them after the amount of encounters he'd had with them. They'd finally started to fade away from his dreams, though they still occasionally visited him. They still loved him too much to leave him alone entirely.

"Is that why you went away?" Rosanna interrupted his thoughts as her small fingers continued to run across his face as if tracing the scars that had faded away the day Death had allowed him a second chance. "To get the nice people to help?"

Dustfinger shook his head as he moved to a sitting position, gently pulling her onto his lap.

"No," he said, voice still so soft it was almost a whisper. "I didn't want to go away. I had to stay for a very long time. But I'm back now, and now that we're together we can go back to your momma and Brianna and Jehan soon."

"You saw Momma and Papa and Bianna and Baby Jehan?" the little girl tilted her head up to smile excitedly at her father. It was quite obvious that she missed her family, even the man her mother had married after her own father had disappeared.

Dustfinger tried to disguise the stab of pain that he felt at the term for Roxane's second husband, though he wasn't sure just how successful he was.

"Your momma and Jehan are home at the farm," he said, trying to avoid the news of her step-father's death if he could. "And Brianna works at the castle now. But we'll take you to visit her very soon."

"Bianna works at the castle?" Rosanna tilted her head to the side once more, confusion obvious in her expression. Thankfully she hadn't noticed that he'd left out her step-father in the explanation of where everyone was now, the news of her sister distracting her from anything else. Her confusion was justified of course; the last image of Brianna that she would remember would be a small, eight-year-old little girl, nowhere near the age one usually is when they leave home, especially for work.

That little girl now ran through Dustfinger's memories as he thought back on all of the time he had missed because of one man choosing to read aloud to his own family. He'd missed so much time with all of them. Even though he would've been taken from them in Fenoglio's original version of this world, at least he would have had more time with his girls than he'd had.

"Brianna is very grown up now," he said after a moment, the image in his mind changing to his eldest daughter as she was now - seventeen and more beautiful than anyone except her own parents could have imagined; still working for Violante of course, though she visited the farm more often now that her hurt had finally faded enough to allow him back into her life. "She's much bigger than you now."

The small girl's confusion only seemed to grow as she looked up at him. "Bianna is bigger?" she asked, not a bit of understanding in her dark eyes.

Dustfinger closed his eyes against the confusion in his daughter's gaze. How was he supposed to explain something like this to such a young child? Most adults wouldn't be able to comprehend returning from Death's realm, much less a child that hadn't yet reached her third year. He had to say something though; perhaps just enough to satisfy her until he could figure a better way to explain. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked into her own, wide and pleading for him to explain something he had no way of explaining.

"You were asleep for a very long time, little one," he said so softly that Rosanna wouldn't have been able to hear had she not been sitting so close. "Brianna and Jehan are big now. But they'll be so happy to see you now that you're awake. And you'll still be able to run and play with them, just like you used to."

Rosanna stared up at him for a long moment in silence before leaning against him, drawing her feet up into his lap as she nestled her head under his chin. It was obvious that she was trying to make sense of what he'd just said, but even the words he'd chosen had to be hard for such a young mind to comprehend.

Dustfinger could think of nothing else to say as he kissed the top of her head before hugging her tightly once more. The child seemed to shrink even smaller in his arms, the quickening of her breaths signifying her confusion transforming into fear.

"I want Momma," she said quietly, her fear even more obvious as she spoke.

"I know little one," he replied, stroking her hair. "You'll see her soon, I promise."

As Rosanna looked up at him, visibly relaxing at his words, it became even more clear that he had to get her out of this accursed place as soon as he could. No one so small and innocent should have to face such terrors as this castle held, nor anyone else for that matter. While his mind raced with possible escape plans, Rosanna reached down to hold one of his hands in both of hers, running her fingers over it before turning it over and pressing her tiny hand against his.

Dustfinger smiled down at the sight of such a small hand in his, something he never thought he would see again, as Rosanna's gaze moved back up to meet his, love still filling every bit of her expression.

"Momma told me lots and lots of stories about you," she said, her hand still resting in his as if it hadn't been twelve long years since they'd seen each other. "I asked her to tell me stories every single night. Bianna sometimes told me I was being silly. She said you wouldn't come back, but I knew you would. I always knew."

"Oh did you?" he replied with a soft chuckle at her unwavering belief. "I'm happy someone believed in me while I was away."

"Mm-hmm," she nodded. "I think Bianna did too. But she was trying to act all grown up like her friends. They said you wouldn't come back too. Sometimes I saw her looking at all the gifts you gave her. She'd always get so mad if I tried to look too. She said I wasn't allowed to touch them. Never, ever, ever."

Dustfinger smiled at the memories of bringing small gifts back to Brianna and Rosanna. A ribbon, cloth flowers, always something to show that he hadn't forgotten them while he was away. Brianna would always act as if she hated them, and him, at first, and would throw the gifts onto the ground as if she cared nothing for them. But after a small show of the fire flowers for his girls only, she would always forgive him. And he knew that she would secretly retrieve her gifts later that night when she thought everyone was asleep. He even knew that she kept them in a bag that she kept everything she considered important hidden in.

"Where did you go?" Rosanna asked, jolting him out of his thoughts. Her sweet face was void of any anger or judgment, only pure curiosity fueling her words, nothing else.

Dustfinger sighed as he tucked a short curl behind her ear. "Very far away. That's why it took me so long to get back home."

"Oh. What was it like? Was it a fun place?" Rosanna leaned back against him once more as if settling in for a story like Roxane used to tell her and Brianna before bed.

"Well, not for me. It's very loud and everything moves very fast… and I wasn't with my girls."

Rosanna's happiness seemed to dim slightly at his words, obviously realizing that he had truly hated the place he'd been stuck in for so long. She turned around in his lap to face him completely, a serious expression on her face now.

"You're back with us now, though," she told him, obviously trying to comfort him from the way she said the words, though there was also so much happiness as if she could hardly believe she got to say them, even as young as she was.

"Yes, I am," Dustfinger agreed with a smile. "And I'm never going to leave you again."

At the end of his words, he lightly poked her in the stomach with one finger, causing her to giggle loudly and throw her arms tightly around his neck as she hugged him. He was only able to enjoy the sweet sound of her laughter for the first time in twelve years for a moment, however, before a loud clang sounded from outside the cell, causing them both to jump.

"Keep it down in there!" a guard yelled, tone gruff as he walked back to his usual post. He must have hit the bars of another cell, or something just as hard, to make such a sound.

In response to his voice and the loud noise, Rosanna recoiled against her father like she'd just been struck as she stared towards the dimly lit corridor beyond their cell with wide eyes. Her fingers clung tightly to the fabric of Dustfinger's shirt as he held her closer, stroking her hair gently and speaking softly to her in attempt to calm her as best he could. He turned his head to look cautiously towards the cell entrance as he spoke, waiting to see if the guard would change his mind and come back, but everything was silent.

After a moment, Dustfinger carefully stood and walked to the back of the cell, Rosanna still clinging to him as he sat back down and leaned against the wall. He immediately started running his fingers through her short curls again, though he kept his gaze on the cell's entrance, cautious of anyone showing up in front of it. He and Rosanna wouldn't be sitting in this accursed place if there weren't plans for them.

Rosanna looked up at him for a moment, relaxing against him as she saw the calm expression he'd forced himself to have in order not to upset her anymore. She pulled her feet up into his lap, trying to tuck her feet under the fabric of her dress, though it surely didn't keep out the cool air very well. She slowly raised her hand, putting her thumb in her mouth and beginning to suck on it as she blinked slowly. After only a few moments, a yawn escaped from around her thumb, her eyelids fluttering lower and lower until she could no longer keep them open.

"Hey Daddy," she said sleepily, another yawn interrupting her before she continued, "I love you."

Dustfinger quickly looked down at the small child in his arms, but she'd already fallen sound asleep, still sucking lightly on her thumb as she laid against him. His eyes widened slightly as her soft words repeated again and again in his head. He hadn't heard those words in a long time, so long that he'd nearly forgotten what they sounded like. Though he'd been back with Roxane for two years now, and they, of course, loved each other - more than anything else in this world, they rarely announced their love out loud, both preferring to show it with actions rather than words. But the sound of that little voice, one he hadn't heard in so long, saying them sent an unexpected jolt through him. He began to realize that he'd missed hearing those words from his family, even if it was rare.

"I love you too, little one," he whispered, bending down to kiss her head before leaning back against the wall and setting his gaze on the cell door once more with a sigh. "So much."