#rivervale_lodge

"No!"

"No?"

"Just... just... ignorant, maybe."

"Yeah, okay. And he just works at a convenience store, like a nobody."

"What? You take that back." A growl.

"Why? It's true, isn't it?"

"You don't get to insult him."

"Why not?"

"He's not a nobody."

"Hey, if he's got a nowhere job, and isn't a big hero, and apparently got fooled by you...then what's not to insult?"

Sylvi doesn't get much warning before Dagmar's freshly-healed fist aims for the other troll's pretty jaw.

And she's flat on her back in the dirt.

"OW!!"

She glares up at Dagmar. "Why'd you do that?!"

"I told you not to insult him!"

"Yeah! You know why? Because you love him! Because he's just as imperfect as you are, and you love him hard! So how dare you think he'd love you any less?!"

"Because... because... because that's what happens."

She gets up, wary of another fist. "If you think he'd love you any less, then you're the one who's insulting him."

Her jaw juts out and she folds her arms.

"Dammit, Dagmar, you're not a foster with him. You're his for-real daughter, blood or not. Anybody who spends five minutes with you two knows it! And is that gonna change? Of course it is. My relationship with my Dad has changed, too, and I am blood with him. That's just the way things are, and sometimes it sucks, but if it sucks for you it's not going to be because you're not 'real' or whatever."

Narrator looks up from the story It should be noted at this moment, that Dagmar's own House Boon would have read this as the truth.

"Easy for you to say! Easy for you to think. You don't understand."

"This is what happens. It always happens!"

"Oh, don't I? I don't know anything about a mom who has to...." Sylvi stops, clamping her mouth shut for a moment.

"Whose mom what?"

"Look...it's what happened to you, maybe, when you were with mortal foster families. That's not what this is. And...."

She stops, blinks.

"Whoa....wait... Dagmar, your birth-mom...there wasn't another kid in your family, was there?"

"No..."

"Okay. Cuz I thought maybe that was...you sound like it happened to you before, not just in general."

"I've been replaced by real kids."

Sniff. "And I wasn't even a good enough real kid... not enough for her to try to keep me..."

"Pretty sure that wasn't about you. I mean...if she was as screwed up as you say...she probably figured she wasn't good enough to raise you right."

"Like....maybe she was trying to save you."

"Kinda sucks, but...might have been because she was trying to love you."

"I don't want to talk about her."

"No."

"You know...I don't get that. Sometimes you mock her, and then sometimes you get all defensive about her and get down on yourself, and it's really hard to know which way you're going to talk about her at any given moment." Sylvi rubs her jaw, frowning.

"Well, then we don't have to talk about her."

"I wasn't enough for her to give up the drugs, was I? And I wasn't worth risking whatever guy was around."

"I didn't start it."

"Yeah, but that's on her, not on you. If she wasn't doing it to try to protect you, then she was just...." A pause. "She made some really bad choices, because seriously Dagmar, you might think I'm saying this because you've fooled me, but I've known you since before you started trying to be 'perfect' and even then were weren't as bad as you think you are."

She rubs at her eyes. Shrug.

"You're not the one who did wrong, there. You didn't make her do drugs, and you didn't make her sleep around. You were a baby, and it wasn't your job to be 'good enough'...it was hers, and she didn't do her damn job. That's not your fault."

"It's not fair."

"Nope."

"Never was."

"I don't know why she's that way, but chances are stuff wasn't fair to her, either. At least, that's my guess."

"Doesn't make it any better."