Koe set the ocarina aside with a sigh. It was like talking to Minaht, the tenacity and the dedication to getting the answer she wanted. Koe only wished his daughter understood what she was asking. The things that he owed her, that he would have owed any child, he gave her without question. Always. The rest of the things he gave her were given out of love, but how much of himself did she expect to understand and know? He had never known his parents. It was one of the great mysteries of life, he'd decided after enough time, the lives of one's parents. To know them was to suggest that you had a deeper understanding. But they dominated your life and asked things of you that were never spoken aloud, so that you never quite knew where you stood with them.
Understanding.
Koe wasn't sure she understood Minaht any better than his daughter did. That didn't keep him from loving his wife with all of his heart, but the understanding was not there.
He wished that someday, perhaps, it would be there.
Someday.
"You know everything you need to know about me, Onainat. I've never lied to you. And every time I've told you a story, I was telling you about myself. You don't understand me? You do, but that isn't the point. What makes you think I owe you an explanation? What makes you think I even have an explanation?"
He'd never told her of his encounter with Minaht, of punishing her for invading his home at the head of an army. He'd never suspected for an instant that his daughter could have defeated her mother in battle if Koe had not weakened her first, but he didn't want to say that for more reasons that he could name. And in the end it came down to the fact that Koe held a great many things close to his heart. Things he could never say, events he could never name, but he could put them in song. She would have been a fantastic bard, but for the lack of a simple question. What does the song say? Not how does it sound, how can I repeat it, but what does it say? He'd recited that to her often as a child.
But she'd never listened.
If she had, they would not be here and now.
"Your mother was the bravest soul I ever knew. She was also the most ambitious. When bravery and ambition mix in the wrong proportion, a person tends to forget why they're doing something and focus instead simply on doing it. You know all of that, without me saying it. What more do you think you need to know, to understand?"
Now he was avoiding the question in a different way, but that did not - Koe felt - make him wrong.