Disclaimer: I do not own Drakengard, or the franchise though I wish to my bones I did!

This story was inspired by UnmercyfulDeath's "Not A Part of The Plan" and "Life Is Too Much Of A Miracle" sorry if it seems to be a cheap copy!

Sorry if Angie and Caim seem out of character. Angie is going to be having an emotional break down and Caim thinks he messed up… makes me wonder what Opal's going think of this…

Chapter 6: Father

She felt her senses coming back to her. Slowly but surely her eye's registered light, shapes came into focus, she could make out healers and their helpers: four people in total. Then her hearing returned, and she could hear the two healers arguing about something, she could also make out weeping in the back, along with worried voices and another booming out orders in a rage. Then feeling returned to her in a flash of pure agony. Her mouth opened up to make a cry of pain, but no noise came from her thought. Then memories flooded Opal, of the argument with her mother, taking off to take a short escape from the rigors of daily life, of a town ablaze and loyal men dieing in a losing fight. Of Tinver's betrayal of her love, what she did to him and his friends, of feeling like some other being had taken control, of her massacring soldiers. Then finally one of a soldier with a Red Dragon: of the ensuing battle where she wouldn't listen to reason the man was forced to incapacitate her. But the strongest of those was how the dragon used her mother's voice, and the look of love and horror on the man's face, of a tremendous desire to avoid harming her. Yet that look had vanished once he started fighting back at Angelus's command. Then why she was laying where she was on her back with wounds covering her also dawned on Opal's tattered mind.

The hybrid tried sitting up but succeeded only in renewing a blazing agony in her chest and falling back down. Finally she got out a groan; both healers were instantly startled by the expressions on their faces. It was obvious they thought she had died. Belatedly Opal barely noticed the weeping had stopped also. It took several attempts to do so but she finally spoke, "Some one, help me up please." The healers automatically replied and help her sit up. First thing to register was the massive red dragon that was huddled around a figure on his knees. Opal instantly recognized the warrior who had bested her. Then she noticed how sorry a condition he was in. How could some one who looked starved and defeated best her, who was completely healthy albeit wounded? The thought made her shudder. This warrior would be a fearsome opponent when he was at full strength. She sighed, thinking of fighting in her condition? What was going through her muddled brain? The dragon seemed to start changing somehow… Opal watched as the beast morphed slowly from a dignified creature into a more human shape. The wail shrunk and receded into a human spine, the wings grew smaller and stronger as the membrane withered away into the skin between human fingers, and the long ribs of the wing sails turned into fingers. The young hybrid watched as the massive dragon changed into her mother. Opal could do nothing but stare stupidly. The healer to her left, propping up her scaled arm laughed, "I couldn't quite believe it my self when I seen it the first time either. Doesn't phase you after the first time though."

Opal wasn't listening as she tried to rise to her feet so she could run to her mother. The two healers held her down and motioned for the dragon to come to her. At first angelus tried taking the warrior with her but he didn't budge. Giving an exasperated shout she slapped him so hard even Opal could hear it clearly, then ran to her daughter. Offspring and dame embraced each other in a large hug, and the warrior, who was on his side from the force of the slap slowly got to his feet and reluctantly made his way to the two women. Angelus released Opal and looked like she was about to slap her wayward child before letting out a large breath that sounded like a dragon's hiss. "We thought you were going to die! You know that Caim almost gutted him self because he thought he had killed you? What were you thinking leaving the castle to come here in the first place? And for the love of life how did you get initially wounded?" Opal waiting until the barrage was over before answering. That was always best in these cases.

"To start with I'm sorry about worrying you to death and beyond, second no I did not and I don't even know who Caim is! I left the castle because I wanted- needed- to get away for at least a short time! And I'm wounded the way I am because Tinver and his damn friends were traitors and thought they could kill me!" She was huffing from the exertion of outrage. Taking deep breaths she calmed her self. Then her mother slapped her. Caught off guard she fell over.

"You imbecile!" Angelus's roar seemed deafening. Never had her mother used her full voice to Opal, but then again never had Opal nearly gotten herself killed. "And your father… ARG!" the sudden hiss made Opal look up from self-pity to look at her mother, who was in turn staring daggers at the soldier standing just out side of arm's reach behind her. He nodded to her and turned away, but Angelus stepped forward and snatched his arm to drag him back to Opal, "You, are going to be here!" she turned to Opal, "This man, Caim… he is your father."

Opal could only gape. This warrior was her father? "Where has he been for the fifteen years of my life?" she snapped, then grimaced at her lack of self-control. Her father was missing for fifteen years. Almost sixteen years now that she thought about it. Shaking her self she grimaced, expecting to be reprimanded. She was not expecting her mother's reply.

"Its time you learned what was behind that door you kept trying to sneak up to." He looked to Caim who nodded, then sat on the dirt next the two women, looking frail for some reason. "During the months you were in my womb, your father had that door commissioned. For the longest time no one knew what it was for because the bastard-" she kicked him, earning a low grunt, "wouldn't tell any one. Not even me! Yet, the day you were born it all came together for him. I was unable to make it to him before he turned the lock. That door was to lock your father away to where he was positive he could never hurt you like he did your brother." She suddenly cut off as a haunted look crept into her love's eyes. Opal watched as she kneeled next to him.

"I have a brother?" Opal asked, she felt strange… almost eager to know if there was another like her. Caim turned his head away from her, and Angelus grunted, trying to hold back tears. Opal realized she had touched on a tender subject for the both of them.

Angelus turned to her, "You had a brother." The simple phrase shook Opal to her core. She had a brother? What was that supposed to mean exactly? Before she could ask her mother continued, "When he was born your father and I thought he was a still born. But when he cried out as Caim picked him up we realized he was alive." He voice caught, grief long buried was coming out, seeking comfort for the loss of a child she leaned into Caim's arms, "We agreed that it would be too hard for us to make him live a life of a abomination, rejected by both human and dragon. Caim killed him, to spare him of the pain."

Opal could only stare. They had killed their own child? It was obvious the repercussions were tearing the both of them apart but the very thought of killing her own offspring horrified Opal. Her mother had told her of the meeting between a captured dragon and a fatally wounded soldier. How in a castle bialy being attacked by a monstrous horde had made the decision to live, and how the red dragon and bloodthirsty monster in human guise had laid waste to an empire. Now she knew why Angelus had never told her the names of those two people: because it was her and Opal's father who did it. Now she understood why and how this warrior could of matched a dragon's might, even a half-breed dragon's. It was not because of the magic blade. It was that he was a demon himself. "Why did he lock himself away?" The simple question was all she could ask of the maelstrom raging in her mind.

Angelus sighed, "He did it so he wouldn't be tempted to kill you. To save you the life of a monster: to keep you safe from him. That is why he locked himself behind a door that not even a dragon could pierce. So you could live happily, and I could guide you down the right path. He did not want you to repeat the same mistakes he had made. I did not want you to repeat my mistakes either… but we failed. You inherited your father's bloodlust with a dragon's sense of clarity! How could I of been so blind to it?" She broke down again, maternal instincts overriding pride. Caim looked at his daughter with a detached air: the air of some one who desperately wished to be somewhere else at that exact moment.

Opal decided to put the entire problem out of her mind. She turned to the healer, "How bad off am I?" The man sighed, obviously thinking up on how to answer it to her satisfaction. Opal hissed, "Give me the strait truth fool!"

He nodded, "Your arms I can happily say are going to be fine with rest. The muscles are torn slightly but the damage is not permanent. Most of everything else are just bruises and minor cuts, the wound in your chest will heal at the same rate as your arms, probably faster since you are the first of your kind I have ever worked with. I've never worked with dragons or half-breeds so this entire thing is new to me. So thanks to that handicap of mine I cannot say if you will ever be able to fly again, that I am afraid I'll have to leave to your mother as soon as she calms down. Yet, in my expert opinion your wings are in a very bad shape so I suggest slight stitches and keeping them relaxed for as long as possible so the sails can mend themselves." He shrugged showing how helpless he felt with her unique anatomy. Opal could only just nod, then her mother stood and straitened her dress, Caim following suite.

It had been years since Caim felt like he could trust him self. So it was an oddly foreign feeling. He could never pull off the steel door trick again with Angelus so now he was forced to take his role in Opal's life as her father. This was going to be the hardest, most long-fought battle of his life… and his bloodlust would be of absolutely no use here. This was going to be the most unique challenge he would ever tackle. He turned to Angelus.

Update me please?

"On what?"

Everything I have missed for the last fifteen years.

"I thought you were going to go lock your self away again…"

I have a responsibility now. I've never shirked responsibility unless it jeopardized some one I cared for.

"That explains everything…"

Angelus!

"Fine! Tinver is lord Foerd's son. Foerd is still loyal even after all these years, how is beyond me. The other lords are probably planning uprising since you've been gone far too long. Some think that you had been assassinated… wait." She turned back to her daughter something she had said coming to her, "What did you say about Tinver and his friends?" She knew how her daughter liked the boy but she said something that didn't feel right…

Opal looked directly at her mother, "He and his friends were traitors." Her voice held no emotion what so ever, "He told me that Lord Foerd's entire house are traitors… working right under his nose. Orders he gives out never reach where they're intended, or are conveniently forgotten upon exiting the room he is in. He doesn't know what's going on him self."

Caim and Angelus stared at her. Then remembered how tired the man had looked at the last meeting. He had looked exceedingly tired, and Angelus had thought he was lying when he told her he was doing everything he could to support her and her absent husband. Angelus didn't trust any humans normally, but now she trusted Foerd far more then she did any other human short of Caim. "Where is Tinver and his friends right now?" The question came out in a hiss of vehemence.

Opal grimaced before waving her human hand, "I don't remember sorry. I-" suddenly she cut off. Dawning horror filled her eyes, Caim kneeled next to her to keep his daughter from falling over. Angelus dropped to her knees right in front of her.

"What is wrong? You look like you've stared death in the face…" worry built up in her again, the link with Opal suddenly filled with self-disgust and a overwhelming desire to be wrong.

She traded a look with Caim, as Opal suddenly burst to her feet and sped down the street. The two parents chanced their daughter down the street, taking turns here, backtracking here. Opal was obviously retracing her steppes to their meeting place. She ducked around onto a road that had a busted stand, and a broken human body in the middle of it with a large hunk of wood impaling him. Opal stopped dead at the sight. Angelus pulled up next to her, Caim walking past to inspect the body. "The link just went… numb. She's remembering something that's horrifying her. Something that involved an immense amount of blood…"

Caim frowned kicking the unmoving form away, and drawing his weapon. He heard whimpers coming from Opal as he moved closer and closer to the alley that had two more corpses at the opening. Both impaled with bolts. Caim's frown deepened, something wasn't right here… he stepped into full view of the alley as Opal's voice echoed from the buildings. Caim dropped his weapon in disbelief, "I killed them all! I ate him! How could I? I ate him, Rod, and Jade!" She receded into incoherent screeches and Caim gazed upon a blood bath…

Ever wonder what exactly happened after Opal lost her senses in the alley? Some times I think my perceptive imagination goes too far…

Bloody heck. 'When all else fails: ice block.'