Chapter Text
Dara watched his daughter gallop across the lush Gozan plains, standing in the stirrups with her bow aimed at a passing boar. She let loose the arrow only for it to go barreling past the fleeing beast into the wild greenery. He winced as she let out a loud growl of frustration.
Dara was well aware most seventeen-year-olds were irritable, but Tamima was especially sensitive when it came to failure. More specifically, as of late, failure when riding on horseback.
She trotted back to his side, Dara adjusted his position on his own horse as he tried to think of what to say to his dejected daughter. She wore his scowl on her lips, eyes downcast.
“Your form was really very good,” he tried.
Tamima gave him a look informing him she didn’t care to be patronized.
“I don’t know if even I could’ve hit him, Tamima. It’s a small target and there are a lot of trees.”
“Oh, okay,” she said flatly. “Ya, I’m sure Darayavahoush e-Afshin wouldn’t be able to hit a boar in the woods… ”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You are seventeen… I have had centuries of practice.”
“At seventeen you were the best with every weapon, were you not?”
After two years Dara was still not used to his eldest daughter being so well acquainted with his past. And soon he would be forced to tell Irtemiz. It had been Nahri’s suggestion that he take Tamima away for a few days before he sat down with his youngest child and elaborated on the sins of his past. He needed a clear head and perhaps Tamima could help. Of his daughters, Irtemiz was the more sensitive of the two, and if anyone knew how to navigate her emotions better than Dara, it was her older sister that she argued with fairly regularly - but no more often than average for sisters. Irtemiz was always surprising him - some days she was a merciless trickster and other days, as delicate as a rose petal.
Dara fought off a cringe at the thought of confessing to her and pulled the reins so that his horse was positioned to start heading down the Gozan.
“We should head to town,” he said, changing the subject. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“Baba,” she groaned. “I only hit three today! I haven’t even stood on the horse yet.”
“You will get there eventually. Just not today,” Dara said gently.
Tamima’s jaw clenched and Dara had to fight off a snicker. She was very much Nahri when it came to her patience. It was a greater source of amusement than it should have been for him.
“We’ll stay an extra day. Amma won’t mind. We’ll come back tomorrow and try again,” he offered.
Tamima nodded begrudgingly.
“We’ve got a long way to town though. So we should leave now before it gets dark.”
She grinned at him. “Is it a race against the clock then, baba?”
A smile broke out his face. She very much lived up to her namesake. He was grateful for the distraction as well.
“I would say so.”
She did not say a word, only took off at a gallop down the Gozan, Dara just on her heels.
The inn they stayed at was about a two-hour ride from the Gozan. The sun was setting as they climbed the stairs to their room.
“I’m so hungry!” Tamima moaned dramatically.
Dara snorted. “Alright, I’ll go get us some supper then, shall I?”
“Creator, yes, please. Amma will be very upset if we return and I’m malnourished.”
He rolled his eyes and handed her the keys to their room, setting back down the stairs to go into town and grab dinner for them.
Walking through the small town, Dara earned a few glances and murmurs. He’d long been out of the public eye, long been lost to the world, but his past followed him like an ever-present shadow. He would never be able to shed the second skin of tragedy that clung to him. Dara was aware of that. Only in Safater was he treated like your average citizen, and in Zariaspa he had the status of a nobleman. Everywhere else, he was watched warily. As though they were waiting from him to remove his scourge and-
Dara shut his eyes tight, banishing the thought as he handed the money over to the vendor.
Over dinner, Tamima did not disappoint Dara with keeping his spirits up. Nahri and Dara, together, were a witty pair - but all on her own, Tamima was a source of laughter. For all her frustration and how hard she was on herself, his daughter’s sarcasm was a force to be reckoned with. To think that two years ago he was worried he would never see her smile at him again. He shuddered, remembering the months that followed his confession where she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. How he eventually set off on his own for a few months to give her some space.
Their tearful reunion was the only aspect that offered him some comfort.
Tamima dipped her manna in the tahini sauce and cocked a brow at her father. Even in the soft glow of the lanterns that illuminated their humble room, he was evidently troubled. He tried to rearrange his expression, but it was too late.
“What?” she asked simply.
Dara waved an errant hand. “We can discuss it later.”
“Why later?”
“It is unimportant now.”
Tamima froze and dropped her food. “You know don’t you?”
Dara blinked.
“Creator, who told you? Are you mad?”
“What am I to be mad about?” he asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
Tamima suddenly looked very anxious. She chewed her lip and Dara felt that familiar tug at his heart when he worried about his daughter.
“Tamima…”
“Eh… don’t be mad.”
“Alright, alright, I won’t be mad.”
He could never be mad at her no matter how hard he tried.
“I may have… swiped one of your bottles of wine and shared it with Saman and Bita when we were in Safater last week. There,” she said in a rush.
Dara had to repeat the sentence to himself to fully understand what she meant. She had drunk with him on a number of occasions since she was sixteen - never to excess but it wasn’t uncommon. Dara certainly would’ve preferred she would have come to him instead of going behind his back but it was hardly anything to be mad about.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Tamima said hoarsely. “I stole from you. I got drunk with my friends!”
He snickered. “Tamima… you stole a bottle of wine from your parents. You used it to have some entertainment with your friends - both of whom I like,” Dara explained, the corner of his lip hitching up. “This is not a criminal offense.”
“Oh.”
“You are… not in the habit of stealing from others, I presume?”
He tried not to sound too concerned - but Tamima was the daughter of a former thief. He wanted to be careful.
She smirked. “No, no. I only steal from my loved ones, baba.”
“What a relief,” the Afshin deadpanned, fighting off a smile.
Silence enveloped the moment as Dara was reminded of his troubles. This did not escape his daughter’s notice.
“What were you going to say though? If this wasn’t about my criminal inclinations.”
Part of Dara worried that in resurfacing the topic, voicing his concerns, he would lose all the progress he’d made with Tamima. He had to know though. He needed his daughter’s help.
He cleared his throat, stacking the empty containers and clearing the low table separating them. “I will be… speaking with Irtemiz soon,” he said quietly. “She’s the same age as when I spoke with you.”
Tamima instantly took his meaning. “Oh.”
“Yes.”
She chewed slowly, her eyebrows drawing together. Dara waited for her response. Instead, she just looked back at him. Her eyes, so hauntingly familiar to his sister’s, only served to further his guilt. She deserved better than him for a father. It was not her job to help him in disclosing his crimes to her sister. This was his burden to bear alone.
“What are you gonna do?” Tamima asked curiously.
Dara rubbed the back of his neck anxiously and shook his head. “Don’t trouble yourself with-“
“It isn’t any trouble,” she said with a shrug. “Do you want my advice?”
Yes. Help me.
“Only if you are willing. This is my responsibility.”
“We are family,” she replied simply. “We help each other.”
“I am to help you, as the parent. Not the other way around.”
“That’s absurd, baba. I care about Irtemiz. I care about you. I would like to help.”
Dara sighed, surrendering to the good nature of his daughter. “Alright, then. Proceed.”
Tamima brushed the crumbs off her hands, her expression thoughtful as she cleared away her own dishes. “Well, you prepared all of us. You’ve always mentioned that… there were terrible things in your past that you would explain when it was time. But giving us the choice to ask sooner is something I appreciated from you. It’s one of the reasons that I trusted you were telling me the truth. You’ve done the same for Irtemiz.”
“I have.”
“And she’s not inquired further?”
“No.”
“Mmm…” Tamima remarked. She leaned her elbow on the table. “Well, do it privately. Like you did for me. Don’t spare any of the… gory details.”
Dara flinched at the phrasing but nodded.
“I think, how you told me was best for me, but Irtemiz is different, baba. She is… she is very fragile and she tends to feel things harder. She will need more time than I did.”
Dara felt his stomach lurch. Those seven months of not speaking with Tamima had been torture. He couldn’t imagine it going on longer than that.
“Baba, I know you don’t want to hear it, and I certainly don’t relish the thought, but I think it would be best if you left. Just for a little while,” Tamima said softly. “That is when I truly started to… heal. Seeing you every day after all that I learned… it was hard to reconcile.”
Dara nodded, trying to appear indifferent. His heart ached at the suggestion, but it was truly the least he could do. It was a blessing and given the circumstances, it wasn’t the worst outcome. He hoped that Irtemiz would forgive him his past as Nahri had, as Tamima had… but as her sister had said, Irtemiz was a gentle soul. For all her smiles and tricks, she was much like her mother. She felt her emotions hard and strong. She expressed her feelings rawly. Tamima had always been more like Dara, hot-tempered but talented at masking her sorrow with anger.
Dara realized he didn’t really know how Tamima had taken the news. She had been visibly upset but her feelings to this day were a mystery. Would he be prepared for Irtemiz’s reaction?
“May I ask what you were feeling?” Dara asked, unable to meet Tamima’s gaze.
Tamima wasn’t typically one to share her thoughts. She had always been forthright but not when it meant she was vulnerable.
“You do not have-“
“No, no. I want to. I don’t mind,” she said dismissively.
Dara’s eyes flickered to her as she leaned back against the bed behind her from her seat on the floor. She crossed her arms contemplatively. “I knew that I wasn’t going to like what you were going to tell me. I was ready for that. And when you prefaced with your request for me not to mention it to Irtemiz I was even more concerned. I was prepared though. You and amma taught us, from a very young age, that you were a different man. You told us about your days as a… slave…”
Dara winced again.
“How you didn’t recall much but you knew you’d done horrible things by the will of men. I felt sorry for you and told myself that I could love you as my baba, I didn’t have to love you for who you were. So when you told me you’d done equally awful deeds… of your own accord… I felt like a fool. Like I had been tricked.”
He wasn’t sure how, but somehow Dara was able to fight back the tears that pricked his eyes. He did not have a right to be sad about this.
“The hardest part though was when you told me I could ask you questions. And it was hard because I was scared of the answers but I still wanted them.”
He blurted it out before he could think it through. “May I ask what was the worst answer?”
“Um…” Tamima cleared her throat. “When I asked you if there had been children… and you said… you said: yes.”
Dara could hear the quiver in her voice, he could see the gleam of tears in her eyes. He opened his mouth to stop her, but realized that perhaps… Tamima needed this. She needed to confront him. After all, when he had returned to her after all those months they’d never spoken about his past again. To him, she seemed content to live with the knowledge that her father was a monster.
Her dark gaze became angry. “And I was so mad at you - I was so, so mad.”
Dara nodded, urging her to continue. The words stung, but in a way, it was good to hear. He felt a sense of closure.
“And then I had to look at you every day. I had to accept that you were… that you had been…” she swallowed hard. “That you had been a nightmare. The man of horror stories. A monster whose name struck fear in the hearts of people like amma, people like me. That you had once considered someone like me a dirt blood.” The words were spat out like they were bitter on her tongue. “And I just couldn’t… put together that this man, the one who would’ve fourteen hundred years ago… beat me bloody-“ her voice broke.
Dara nearly choked but locked his jaw trying to stay strong. He had no right to weep. This was not his horror story. If Dara wanted to cry - he could do so in private. But he had not earned - no - he did not deserve to seek comfort.
Tamima quickly brushed away the tears that rolled down her cheeks with her palms. She sniffed and continued. “How could that monster be - how could he be the same man that raised me? That adored me? That taught me to shoot and climb and kissed my scrapes before they healed? How could… The Scourge… be that man?”
He allowed her to pause. He allowed a stretch of agony between them, sitting patiently, awaiting her to continue. Hearing her say the words: The Scourge. It made him nauseous. It was not often that Tamima broke down in front of him. Nahri had told him time and time again she took her nickname of “little warrior” very seriously.
“When you left, I told myself I would not miss you - how could I? And when I did I was very upset with myself because… I shouldn’t miss you. I shouldn’t miss a man who tried to eradicate people like me, like amma out of hatred,” she said through gritted teeth. She let out a strangled sob but quickly composed herself. “And then I realized that I didn’t miss that man. I missed the man who picked me up when I fell down, who told me not to mind what people said about my blood, who busted another man’s lip when he called my amma a ‘dirt blood whore,’” she smirked tearfully.
Dara smiled sadly at his daughter, still fighting the battle against his own tears. Against the pain that wracked his shoulders as he threatened to release a stifled cry.
Tamima finally met his gaze, her eyes were red but soft. “Who I missed was my baba.” She was suddenly wrecked with what appeared to be grief. “I hated you and for a while, you terrified me. It was terrifying to see you smile and wonder if it was real. To see you kiss amma and realize that before you would’ve rather she be dead. And two years later… I feel better but I will never lie to you, it is still there. I fear it always will be.”
“I know,” Dara said solemnly. “I expected as much.”
“Creator, sometimes I… I see you in myself… I see you in my love for riding and the bow and I worry… what if I am next? It is absurd, I know this, but what if I become a monster of my own making because of you?”
Dara felt as though he had been struck. Tamima could mitigate his past, she could forgive him and love him despite his sins, but she feared for her own soul because of the things he had done. He could not have imagined a worse outcome. His heart sank and he reached over the table for her hand. Quietly sobbing she took his fingers, squeezing them tightly.
“Tamima, no. You could never.”
“I know it’s foolish, but it nags at me. It comes for me and I can’t shake it, no matter what I say to myself,” she sniffed. “I mean, when it was you, surely you didn’t recognize what you had become.”
“No. No, I did not.” Dara’s pleading eyes sobered and he held his daughter’s gaze intently. “Tamima, I was very young. I was raised from birth with hatred. I was flattered by people who I was taught were exalted. I was a coward. I was naive. I never questioned myself - I was too afraid to.” He could not fathom how his heart ached at the sight of his daughter. Her face streaked with tears, chest heaving. He’d never seen her so distressed. There was an unnerving need to fix this. “All I had in the world were weapons, a family obsessed with duty and the Nahids. There was no one to hold me accountable and no one to guide me. You are not alone, Tamima. And you are brave and you are good.”
“No, Irtemiz is good…”
“You are good too. Goodness is not just measured in kind words. Goodness is more than that. It’s responsibility for your actions. It’s lending an ear. It’s… confessing to your father that you stole a bottle of wine from him.”
Tamima released a noise that was both a cry and a laugh.
An unknown resolve and strength filled Dara. “You are no Scourge. Not even close. You have more than just weapons to keep you company and you are far braver than I ever was, Tamima. You are no monster.”
It took only a fraction of a second for Tamima to scramble to her father’s side of the table and collapse into his arms, crying into his chest. Relieved by the feeling of her in his embrace, Dara held her tighter to him, his fingers gently tucking loose strands of her braid back in. They sat like that for the better half of an hour, in silence. There was a sense of calm that fell over Dara. His daughter feared him, she admittedly hated part of him, but she still needed him. Tamima still loved him. She still saw her father. He would happily accept her fear and her wariness if she still went riding with him or came to him when she needed comfort. It was more than he deserved.
“You should tell Irtemiz all of that, baba,” Tamima said drowsily. “Tell her why you did what you did.”
“I… Tamima, I cannot excuse what I did. I was no victim despite my circumstances. I may not have had a chance but I had a choice… and I was too much a coward to take it.”
“Then do not use it as an excuse,” she replied, with a yawn. “I wondered how you could commit such atrocities. It makes a difference that you know why you did what you did. Especially if you tell her that you recognize it was wrong.”
“Tamima, it still-“
“You wanted my advice, baba. That is it.”
Dara placed a kiss on the top of his daughter’s head, appreciating the feel of her in his arms. He’d not expected her to still need holding at seventeen and he was very glad to do so. Another blessing for him to count.
“Alright, little warrior.”
Eventually, Tamima fell asleep against her father’s chest. He took a few moments to memorize this moment. To hold onto the relief, the content, and the agony that lingered between them.
Then he picked her up and laid her on her bed, just as he had in Daevabad and Zariaspa and in the camp and in their home in the mountains. He pulled off each of her boots and covered her with the wool blanket. He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead and retreated into the hallway of the inn.
Finally, he allowed himself to shed a few tears of his own. Truthfully, he felt much better than he had an hour ago. The catharsis he’d experienced after hearing his daughter’s burdens, after consoling her, had healed the gaping wounds that threatened to tear him apart. A fraction of his soul came back with that confession. He was not eager to speak with Irtemiz, but at the very least, he knew what to expect. He had Tamima’s advice.
Tamima.
The tears flooded his eyes again. He had cursed her. There was nothing that could be done about it. All he could do was promise to be there to assuage her fears. The past couldn’t be erased but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try and fix what damage had been done by it. Redemption was out of his reach but not impossible.
Eventually, Dara returned to their room and found that in true Tamima fashion, she’d kicked off her blanket and was lying half out of the bed. He gently lifted her back onto the mattress and covered her again with the blanket.
Sleep did not come easy - and Dara feared that though it had been many years since he awoke screaming, he would do so again tonight. And Nahri was not here to calm him. He would need to weather the storm himself should the need arise. The idea of Tamima being faced with his terrors head-on with no aid from her mother frightened him. He was not her responsibility.
But the nightmares did not come for him. He was out of their reach.