Dowser Series: like daughter, like father

While putting together Yazi’s character bio this afternoon, I stumbled upon this scene from Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic (Dowser 6) where newly-discovered father/daughter finally get to exchange more than a few words, only to discover that they fight – frustratingly – exactly alike.

We strolled out of Notte’s Bon Ton, laughing and laden with bakery boxes filled with more pastries, along with a seven-inch Diplomat cake for Gran. The betrothal rings were tucked safely in my moss-green Peg and Awl satchel, though I swore I could still taste their magic despite the containment spell that sealed the bag. Granted, that spell was mostly to stop things from falling out of the satchel and not necessarily to dampen magic.

Warner went abruptly still.

My father Yazi — the warrior of the guardian nine — was sauntering toward us from the corner of Trutch and West Broadway.

My laughter died on my lips. I simply stared at my demigod father as he closed the space between us.

Other shoppers brushed past us. West Broadway was a busy street even on a Thursday afternoon, but the pedestrians skirted my father as they passed. The overly intense gaze of his light-brown eyes didn’t break from me. Except for that eye color, he was my exact twin … well, a brawny, better-tanned, masculine twin.

I hadn’t seen my father since he’d saved the rabid koala from a killing blow from my knife, at the site in Peru that I’d come to think of as the temple of the centipede. He’d stopped me from becoming a murderer that day. Yet I’d responded by shoving his Christmas present, unopened, underneath my bed. I was holding onto my grudge, hard and tight. It was unlike me.

My father smiled as he stopped beside us. I fought the instinct to smile back. He wore a hand-knit scarf of blue and green looped around his neck, a sky-blue T-shirt, and a pair of well-worn jeans. The scarf looked suspiciously like my Gran’s knitting.

“A jacket might have been a good idea,” I said.

Yazi cast his gaze over my somewhat-cold-weather-appropriate attire, then shrugged. So much for being careful to not stand out.

“Sentinel,” he said, addressing Warner without looking at him.

“Warrior.”

“You are dismissed.”

Wait, what? No freaking way.

Warner immediately stepped to the side, but then he seemed to fight off the impulse to leave with a jerk of his shoulders.

Yazi glowered at him.

“We’re on a date.” I ground the words out between clenched teeth. “How dare you —”

“I dare,” my father said. “We have things to discuss.”

It was certainly obvious — even to me — where my penchant for childish retorts had been inherited from.

“I’m not remotely interested —”

“I have some errands to run.” Warner interrupted the rant I’d been gearing up on. “I’ll meet you back at the bakery.”

“Your courtesy is noted, Jiaotuson,” Yazi said.

In response to the formality of his last name, Warner bowed — though stiffly and shallowly — in my father’s direction. Then he tugged the boxes of pastries out of my hands. He squeezed my wrist lightly while doing so, and the comforting taste of his black-forest-cake magic tickled my taste buds.

I just nodded, worried about making things worse if I opened my mouth.

Warner turned away, and I quickly lost sight of him on the busy sidewalk. His disappearance was due to his chameleonlike magic more than anything else. Physically, he towered over everyone, even my father.

“The boy dares too much for you,” Yazi said.

It was an observation, not a critique, but I still bristled at it. “His name is Warner. Calling him Jiaotuson is just a cheap way to remind him —”

“Of his lineage? His duty? His bow was at least five inches shy of acceptable, yet I let him walk away without reprimand —”

I pivoted on my heel, turning my back on my father and following Warner’s path back to the bakery.

Yazi effortlessly fell into step beside me.

Catching a break between the slow-moving cars circling the block for parking, I jaywalked across West Broadway. Then I cut north along Balaclava until I hit the sidewalks of West Sixth Avenue, where the traffic was almost nonexistent. The street was lined with refurbished Craftsman-style and Cape Cod-inspired family homes, as was the norm for the area. Most of the houses in Kitsilano had been renovated and redesigned into duplexes and triplexes in an attempt to combat the ever-rising price of real estate in Vancouver. The bid for density wasn’t really working, though. Gran’s house on the water in Point Grey was considered a mansion these days and was worth an ungodly amount of money.

Turning east, I wrapped my cashmere hoodie tightly around me, stuffed my chilled hands in the pockets, and tucked my chin into my scarf against the cold.

The warrior didn’t leave my side, and neither did his muted but still potent spicy dark-chocolate magic. No matter how much dim sum I ate, I still couldn’t place the spice that imbued my father’s power. My own magic must be similarly flavored, since all the shapeshifters I knew insisted that I smelled of Chinese food.

“It’s not raining,” Yazi mused. “Doesn’t it always rain in Vancouver?”

I stopped in my tracks, rounding on him. “I will not discuss the weather with you!”

“I understand that you are mad —”

“I’m freaking livid. I see Warner maybe once a week, because all the other times, you have him off doing hell knows what —”

“There are territories to walk,” Yazi said mildly. “If you —”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I will not unlock your sweet little girl’s magic for her.”

Yazi frowned as if he had no idea what I was talking about.

“And yeah, I get why you don’t want Warner and me together.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you think I’m not … enough.”

“Enough? Enough what?”

I clamped my mouth shut. The conversation was veering off in unexpected directions. I was actually managing to confuse myself in the process of venting.

I began walking toward the bakery again. Sections of the sidewalks were becoming slick as the afternoon cooled, and I wasn’t wearing great shoes for long-distance urban walking.

We’d crossed Trafalgar, then Larch, before my father spoke again.

“I would have thought …” he said, then corrected himself. “It was my understanding that the sentinel intended to propose … with my blessing.”

“He hasn’t.”

“Because you wouldn’t accept him?”

“Listen, just because you slept with my mother once and accidentally made me, that doesn’t make you my father.”

“It most certainly does.”

“Biologically, maybe.”

“In every way.”

“You can’t be my dad if I won’t let you.”

“Watch me.”

Jesus, it was like arguing with myself. Except with an Australian accent.

– excerpt from Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic (Dowser 6)