"Daddyyyyy," Ofelia Valentina Lea Orosco-Neron whined, for perhaps the ten thousandth time that evening. "Daaaaaddy, will you tell me a story? Pleeeease?" Ofelia said, nosing impatiently at her father. It was beginning to be spooky season; the leaves were beginning to change from bright green to dusty orange, matching the colors of Ofelia herself and her father, which made her think that she should get spooky too. It was getting dark so much earlier now, and even though Hipo liked to go to sleep when the sun went away, Ofelia was still wide awake and absolutely unbothered about making that her father's problem.
"Dadddyyy," Ofelia whined again. "I want a story! Tell me a scary story!" She knew she just needed to ask a few more times; her daddy was the best daddy in the world and always gave her what she wanted - sometimes he just took a little convincing.
And other times he took a lot of convincing.
"It's scary story tiiiiiiiiime," Ofelia pointed out. "You can't be that tired... unless... Daddy, are you old?" Ofelia gasped in fake horror as her father's head jerked up at the accusation. She had to fight her smile - that would give the game away, after all. "Cause only old people get tired this early! Is your hair gonna turn gray? Are your scales gonna fall off? Are you--"
"I am not old!" Hipolito blustered, finally stemming the tide from his young daughter's mouth - he'd been trying to see if she would fall asleep on her own, without a story and without him saying anything, because she really needed to learn how to fall asleep by herself sooner than later - preferably sooner, because Hipo was running out of stories.
It was exhausting to be a father, at times, it truly was.
But as he looked at his little filly, her big eyes wide at his raised voice, he immediately relented. "I am not old," he repeated, "and it is later than you may think, little one. But you want a story? Fine, I will tell you a story."
"A scary story," Ofelia emphasized, giving her tail a little victorious wag. She always got her way, one way or another. "It's the time of year where scary things happen, isn't it? I want a scary story! Please, Daddy, tell me a scary story."
"Si, si, a scary story," Hipolito answered, nodding thoughtfully as he pondered. He knew some truly frightening tales, that was certain, but what was appropriate for his sweet princess? If he gave her nightmares, that would do nothing but cause her anguish and keep them both up all night long.
And while Hipolito was not old, he was tired, and he needed his beauty rest. Someday Ofelia would understand that.
But someday was not this day, so wrapped his multi-pronged tail around her little body and pulled her close against him as he began to speak.
"Once upon a time, there was a group of humans. Their bodies had long since passed into the beyond where humans go, but their souls lingered. This was because their souls were angry; you see, they had met their end unjustly, and too early, in a sneaky, traitorous attack by one of their own. Their village burned down." He heard Ofelia give a little gasp, and tried to swallow his smile so he wouldn't lose the tone.
"The ghosts of the humans lingered in the land, which was burnt and destroyed, but the land grew back, as land does. After many years, a herd of our kind moved in, finding it fertile and, they thought, safe. It may have been safe from the outside world, as the herd had no enemies, but what they did not realize, little one, is that the very land was haunted."
"The land was haunted? But how do you make land be..." Ofelia struggled for a moment. "Not haunted? How did they make the ghosts go away?"
Hipolito chuckled lowly. "Why should the ghosts go away? The ghosts were there first, were they not?" Without waiting for an answer, Hipolito continued. "Everything was peaceful for the herd, for a time. But soon, as the seasons changed, a darkness came over them, came through them, from within them. They began to argue, battle for the right to run the herd. They fought. The ghosts began to whisper to the herd, and some of them listened. Some of the herd listened very carefully.
The arguments grew more intense. One young male thought that he should lead the herd, that the elders of the tribe were too old, too stuffy, too tired and worn down and weak to guide them. He began not only to listen to the ghosts, but to ask questions of them - ask them for help, for guidance, instead of his fellow herdmembers. Their souls had been stuck there so long that they had gone mad; they began to whisper of what had been done to them - how a fire had destroyed their home."
Hipolito let that linger a moment; he felt Ofelia give a little shudder next to him.
"He waited, this male. He waited until the falling leaves had dried, and the trees had become barren and broken. He did his best to comply with his herd, to give the impression that he had learned his lesson and changed his mind, when that could not have been further from the truth.
One night, egged on by the mad human spirits, this young male wove traps for his herd. He believed that if they would rather follow the old leaders than himself, then they could all meet the fate that the old ones had earned. He set the fires and waited for the screams of his former herd to reach his ears."
Ofelia was dead silent, eyes wide, ears pricked up like if she just strained hard enough she might be able to hear those screams herself, echoing on the wind. The ones who had been betrayed made that poor innocent young stallion also betray his family...
"Wait," Ofelia said sharply. "Daddy. Daddy, that doesn't make sense. If the ghosts had been betrayed, why would they make the stallion betray his herd? Wouldn't they be extra mad about betrayal?"
His daughter was too smart for her own good. Wasn't she supposed to be falling asleep? Instead she was finding plotholes in his story.
"That is... a good question," Hipolito answered, mostly to stall as he thought up an answer. "Well, you see... they were mad, remember, so their logic is not like our mortal logic. They did not see what they were doing as a betrayal of any kind, because they were... um... so far gone that they did not recognize the Soquili as anything more than interlopers." At Ofelia's confused look, Hipolito corrected himself. She was still so young. "Trespassers who did not belong on the land on which they stood. They were using the young stallion as a tool." Ofelia nodded and Hipolito relaxed, feeling like he'd successfully tap- danced his way around that, at least.
"But it's interesting you ask that question, little one. For you see, the ghosts thought that once the herd had perished in the fires the young stallion set, the land would return to them in peace, or whatever kind of peace a bunch of angry human ghosts can find." This got a chuckle out of Ofelia, and Hipolito smiled.
"Needless to say, this foolish plan did not work. They were wrong. The young stallion they tried to use, in his foolish ambition, was caught and tangled in one of his very own traps as the fire spread. He perished with his herd, the ones he had tried to rule, and then tried to punish.
"But this is not the end of the story. The spirits of the herd rose after death... on the next full moon, in fact," Hipolito added, because it was a full moon that hung above them currently, and because it felt appropriately spooky, "and they sought vengeance upon those that had destroyed them. This vengeance served no one, but they sought it any way - to this day, they chase the spirits of the humans around and away, neither group ever catching and permanently banishing the other, trapped in a mournful dance over a piece of land, twice- burned, that they could have just shared, peacefully, if they could have only gotten over their pain and anger."
Hipolito let that linger for a moment, then continued, voice hushed. "They say that neither group will allow the other to return to the land they both claimed as home. They say that they chase each other infinitely all over the planet, keeping each other away from peace. When you here a hoofbeat but see no hoof, or hear a cry and see no human, you may have just caught a glimpse of this never- ending, miserable chase, which can have no winners, only tormented losers, until one or both of these groups finds peace and fades from this world."
Hipolito thought it was a pretty good story - he even managed to work a message into it, because he was fairly sure that stories for children were supposed to have a 'point' or a 'lesson'. The lesson here was simple: don't be vengeful. And also, don't light your herd on fire, no matter how many angry ghosts try to convince you that you should.
That story was so sad, Ofelia thought. It must be terrible to not be able to return home; it must also be terrible to be a ghost with a grudge. She considered this story silently for a few moments, turning over all the details in her mind.
"Wait. Daddy," Ofelia said, and she did not notice the repressed sigh that moved through her father's body. "Daddy, why didn't the ghosts team up and go get that bad human that betrayed them to beginwith? The one who killed the humans? Isn't that who they should really be venge...ing about? That guy was just bad, he didn't have any ghosts making him crazy, right?"
Where did this girl get her smarts from? It certainly was not from Hipolito, who knew himself to be more blessed in the looks department than the brains department. It must be from her blessed mother.
"Because they were not as smart and clear- sighted as you, my girl," Hipolito finally said, after failing to come up with an in- story reason for why the ghosts wouldn't team up with each other, other than 'they were mad', which he knew Ofelia wouldn't really buy.
"What happened to that guy, though?" Ofelia pressed, entirely caught up in the story - she needed to know more, needed to know every little detail. "The one who betrayed the humans? He didn't just get to... be happy, after everything he did to his herd and the Soquili herd after, right?"
Hipolito made a thoughtful noise. He knew there was an opportunity for a lesson here, too - that sometimes, the bad guys win. Sometimes, they go unpunished. Sometimes, life is truly unfair.
But as he looked into his sweet daughter's eyes, he couldn't quite bring himself to teach that particular lesson - not tonight. When she was older, maybe. But for now, he could give her a little bit of peace, a little bit of reassurance that the world was - or at least that it could be - fair.
"Well, you remember I said that he was a traitor? He was not simply a madman who woke up one day and decided to burn his home to the ground. He worked with an enemy of the human tribe. They promised him riches and power, and if there is one thing humans love above most everything else, it is riches and power." Hipolito snorted. Humans were fools from the day they were born until they day they died. "He was promised these things by an enemy village, and convinced that if he did their evil work for them, he would be rewarded."
"Was he?" Ofelia asked, breath caught in her throat. She almost wanted to cry - imagining hurting her family and then getting a reward for it made her want to throw up, kind of. It was disgusting.
"No," Hipolito said with a small sigh. "No. After he did his terrible deed and returned to the other village, he was killed by that same group. They wanted the whole village dead, you see, and he was, technically, part of that village. He thought he was special, or that he had earned some kind of leeway, but to the enemy village, he was still one of 'them', and that meant that he had to be destroyed as well." Hipolito shook his head. "I don't know that his ghost haunts that village, but I do know that it would never be allowed to rejoin the spirits of his village that perished. Maybe if it could, they could all move into the next life together. But some crimes cannot - should not - be forgiven, even in death."
When Ofelia was quiet for a few moments, he glanced down at her. "Was that a scary enough story for you, little one?"
Ofelia considered, sleepily, against the warmth of her father's side. "It was more sad than scary," she finally decided, "but it was a good story. Thank you, Daddy." After another beat of silence, Ofelia spoke again. "Daddy? Is that just a story or is it real? Not... not the ghosts, but... all the burning? The betrayal part?"
Hipolito wished she hadn't asked that question. It was much safer to leave these stories in the realm of fiction.
But he remembered.
He remembered the smell of the burning grass. He remembered the sounds of his herd dying - their screams in the night. He remembered running as fast and as far as he could.
He remembered coming across the one who had set the fires, caught in his own trap, the whites of his eyes visible in his panic as he tried to escape his fate.
Hipolito remembered running past him. Leaving him behind.
"No," Hipolito finally said. "No, it's not a true story. I just made it up." When he felt Ofelia relax next to him, he knew that he had made the right choice. He wanted to be honest with his child, but...
Sometimes the lie was better. For everyone involved.
Ofelia leaned up to nuzzle her father, then settled down beneath the crook of his wing, rested her head against his shoulder, and dropped off into a peaceful sleep. Hipolito watched her for a few moments, a smile on his face, then shifted to wrap himself more fully around her, careful not to wake her.
No ghosts would hurt them tonight, full moon or not. He would keep his little girl safe, no matter what.
((Total WC: 247 cool )
