Private Of Steel

[Ishida Ashina]

I AM THE PRIZE DAUGHTER
I AM THE PRIZE DAUGHTER,
THE FREEDOM FIGHTER,
THE SHAPER OF DEATH MASKS
Inosuke Ashina

I WAS KILLING FOR YOU, SWAP PLACES WITH YOU
​

Ishida was equal parts furious, insulted and ashamed. All those emotions boiled through her bloodstream, whitened her knuckles, and ground her molars together. It was all silence, though. Hostile silence.

She’d gone through the entire food preparation in that violent, simmering quiet state, only finding some level of calm in the mundane performance of the task her mother and nanny had shown her a few times over. Then she’d gotten angry all over again when she finally tasted the final output. It wasn’t bad, far from it, but it didn’t taste anything like home.

Maybe though, for someone who hadn’t been there in twenty years, it might.

But even then, had he the same nanny as her? Had their mother made the same dishes? Or would it have been too painful for her –– to remake the same sort of comforts for her second child as she had her first? Her exiled son? The one that nobody was supposed to know existed.

Taut with irritation, Ishida plunked the bowl down in front of her brother and sat across from him.

Pushing her fish in silence, she made a small noise at the back of her throat. Like the start of a sentence trapped somewhere in her larynx, it sounded scratching and more like a growl than anything more nonchalant.

“I had everything under control.” She finally snapped, stabbing her chopsticks into the bed of noodles in the bowl and picking out a dried herb. On Atrisia, that greenery would have been fresh. But here, in space, the rations were different. The supply chains were different.

Everything was different.

“You didn't have to, and you shouldn't have gotten involved. He was challenging me.” The younger Ashina continued, dropping the herb back into the swirl of noodles and stabbing it down to the bottom of the bowl. “Again. Last time I––” she stopped short, and snapped her chopsticks together to frown deeply across the table.

It was strange to have this sort of tone, this sort of emotion, with someone who she’d hardly met but was related to. She felt connected to him in an intangible and undefinable way, but part of her wondered if that was only because she wanted that connection in her otherwise isolated life. He’d at least understand everything she’d been through.

Everything her father had done to Inosuke, he’d done to Ishida. But worse. The room for rebellion and insolence he’d given his heir was not afforded for the second child.

Which made her sorting through the reality of emotions and implications sound more aggressive, sort of like accusations each time: “I’m the one who came to find you, remember?”

​

​

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

I AM NOT YOUR FATHER'S SON,
AND YOU'LL FIND ME AT THE END,
COME DIG ME UP,
WIPE THE EARTH FROM MY BONES
Ishida Ashina

WITH ALL THE HATE, MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE FLAMES WILL ONLY GET WORSE
​

A small nod of gratitude bobbed toward Ishida once the basin was delivered. Almost as soon as it hit the table, the bowl was scooped into his hand, his opposite manus manipulating twin utensils. Chopsticks pinched a generous swill of noodles and heralded them to a silent slurp. One quick glance drifted from food to sibling. There might have been some kind of reception hiding behind austere blues, or perhaps some kind of commendation. It nearly tasted of home. Closer than any self-proclaimed 'Atrisian Food' establishment had ever come.

“I had everything under control.”

Eyes reopened, drifted back up to Ishida. Inosuke nodded slowly as he finished the current stream of noodles he's shoveled into his mouth. "You did," came his brief affirmation. No disagreement. No expansion. That plain directness was one of the biggest tells that he was his Father's son. One often noticed by everyone other than himself. Consumption resumed only a moment later. Very little time was spent lingering on that tension, nor did he make any play to coax out the thorn he could sense pained her side.

“You didn't have to, and you shouldn't have gotten involved. He was challenging me. Again. Last time I––”

There it is. No using digging what someone else will unearth themselves. Once again, the older Ashina waited for a break in the dough-strands to speak. "I sensed you were displeased," Inosuke remarked. "There are no honorable challenges in war, Ishida. Even if there were, Sith would not uphold them." Sticks swirled idly into the basin's contents as he considered, not taking his eyes from her this time. "I was not saving you, I was aiding you. There is no shame in succor," he added knowingly.

Even with nigh accusative grievances thrown toward him by kin, Inosuke remained almost inhumanly serene. His calm austerity could have rivaled even the most measured among the Ashina elders. At the very least, his steady reaction showed he didn't inherit their father's notoriously short fuse and maleficent temper. That, or over a decade serving as a Jedi had wrung it out of him. There were certainly furtive, whispered stories to suggest it had been there once.

“I’m the one who came to find you, remember?”

"I remember," he replied. Again, no disagreement or expansion. Returning to his food at once, he left his contribution on their back and forth there. If she had a point to be made with the reminder, she'd have to dig for it herself. It may have seemed cold, or unempathetic, though in truth Inosuke hadn't gotten close to many since his departure. Social navigation was suffering from a noticeable atrophy. On the other hand, it force his sister to challenge what she felt with her own words, rather than relying on someone to coax it for themselves.

Though, that wasn't to say he didn't have notion of what she meant.

​

 

[Ishida Ashina]

He didn't disagree with her. Didn't argue his space, give himself an excuse for the behaviour.

He just said yes, saw it for what it was.

So calm. He was so calm.

What had Sardun called her tendency to lash out? The excitement of youth? Maybe her flare of temper was born from her age as much as it was her heritage. The way her brother responded was as laconic as their father but as demure as their mother. With an additional twist of his own, adding a lesson with his reproval.

Instead of replying straight away, she twirled a grouping of noodles around her chopsticks and shoved them in the space between her frown. Chewing, she breathed out a huffing sound through her nose, giving a small shake of her head.

"I remember,"

"Good." She mumbled tightly around her noodles. She'd meant it in an I-don't-need-your-help sort of expression, but, if she reflected long enough, it was kind of cool to be fighting alongside him. Like an emptiness that had always existed, an ongoing question, had marginally started to receive an answer.

For several bites she matched his silence, recognizing it for a typical Ashina trait. For someone who'd been so long gone, he seemed to maintain the resemblance uncannily.

Either way, this was weird. The person across from her was old enough to maybe be her dad, and in a topsy-turvy way, he was the reason she'd been born. If Inosuke hadn't been exiled, if he and their father hadn't––– she suddenly lost interest in the fish's sauce, and started to eat a little slower. More thoughtfully.

Whatever he had done, he'd deserved the full wrath of their father. Genichiro wasn't a good man persay, but he wasn't a bad man either. Cruel, focused, intentional, protective –– whatever he'd done would have been for the protection of his legacy, of his family, right?

"Why did you keep the Ashina name." She asked finally, breaking the silence with a tone that was equal parts challenging and curious.

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

Why? Inosuke hadn't once considered not using the name. It was his name, his birthright, it wouldn't simply abscond. Exile didn't change what he was. Words began where and when food disappeared. "Why would I not?" he asked. It seemed clear as day to him, but perhaps his sister didn't share his insight on the matter.

There were a few seconds allowed to pass before he elaborated, letting the question cure in the silence before adding, "In absence, do I become any less an Ashina?"

Inosuke's eyes intensified, training their regard over Ishida. They could have been mistaken for their Mother's blue eyes bearing down with maternal admonishment. The rest of his features being starkly paternally inherited likely made the look jarring in and of itself.

"Do you?" he added, challenging her question with yet another question.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

But he'd been exiled. In her father's eyes, he was no longer an heir. No longer an option. No longer a person. No longer an Ashina.

"My absence is my choice." Ishida countered with a shrug and picked at a piece of fish. She regarded it briefly and looked over the meat at her brother.

Did she become less of an Ashina with distance? Maybe. If she were in Atrisia now, she'd be under the patriarch's influence and watchful eye. Continuing to be sharpened into the weapon of his choice. Here, with the Jedi, she was starting to diverge from that path. Explore meanings, fail, grow a little gentler. Or, at least that was what she was trying to. Old habits of harshness were hard to break. She didn't respond, but her mouth pulled upward toward her nose, and her brows dropped to meet them. A face that seemed to express she was being thoughtful, considering the implications of Inosuke Ashina 's suggestion.

Ashina was more than a place, it was a family and a legacy.

"You have been gone so long, do you remember what it means to be an Ashina?" She didn't mean it to be hostile, but as she rested her chopsticks against the edge of her bowl, and they clicked to disrupt the silence, she realized she might have sounded a bit more punctuated than intended.

"Or are you working to redefine it to suit your means?"

Folding her arms on the table, she gave another shrug. "You seem to be keeping some traditions anyways, Manslayer.

That's what they call you, right? Why?"

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

In a way, Inosuke's absence was also a choice. Challenging their Father had been his choice, and he was well aware of the consequences that came with it. Young Inosuke had no illusions of grandeur, never believed he would best the patriarch Ashina. All of it accepted just to prove that Ashina the Invincible was in no sense of the word. The very blade that still hung on Inosuke's belt had proven it, to Hebo, to Ashina, to the world. There was always too much individuality in him, too much regard for their revered ancestors to never go his own way.

Blood was the price for that freedom, and Inosuke was still in debt.

He addressed her title inquiry first, "It is an exaggerated honor, like many Ashina titles." A claim which had implications that rippled through generations of grandiose names and revered forefathers. "Ashina the Manslayer, who bested one-hundred men," Inosuke quoted those who often gave him reverence in the old days. "Yet it was more like twenty." He would go on with an exaple. "Our Grandfather, Ashina the Undefeated, yet he had been bested twice in formal kettō, and then by our father for the seat of Hebo. They staged his death an illness to uphold the title."

"Even our Father's reverence, Ashina the Invincible, means very little." Inosuke did not offer the same explanation as he had with their grandfather. If she really wanted to know, she'd ask. Although he was not eager to enlighten her with potentially perspective shattering revelation, he would not dare lie if she pressed him on it. It was her choice, not his.

"What do you think it means to be an Ashina?" he asked. "Is your interpretation of the old wisdoms and our tenants an absolute truth, or is it just that, an interpretation?"

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Slaying twenty men.

Exaggeration or not, that title meant he'd been the last one standing out of twenty. Those odds might have felt insurmountable to others –– and something competitive shifted in her gut. Her eyes bulged slightly and she felt herself thinking back to the numbers she’d had the opportunity to rack up. The pity was, amidst The Alliance and Jedi Order, she’d rarely been solo. Attached to Sardun for the most part.

They staged his death an illness to uphold the title."

“They did?” Ishida asked, brows furrowing at the suggestion that her grandfather’s passing hadn’t been as mild and natural as she might have been lead to believe. When she was born so late after these affairs, it was all just history for her to learn.

Grandeur and legacy were what she’d been raised on. And she’d believed every word — and when she hadn’t, when she’d had questions, she’d been dismissed. Now as she heard it, it was because their father was defending his father’s honour. The learner chose to say as much, defending what she'd been told to know: "Surely father did that to preserve his honour."

"Even our Father's reverence, Ashina the Invincible, means very little."

"Careful.

I have never heard a tale where he was defeated. As far as every battle or negotiation has gone, father has been documented as victorious." She challenged back, though her conviction was waning in the light of her grandfather's news. She was still processing this, poking at her food and watching the steam rise into the space between them.

"What do you think it means to be an Ashina?"
"Is your interpretation of the old wisdoms and our tenants an absolute truth, or is it just that, an interpretation?"

Irritatingly, he parried her rhetoric with another question. Trying to provoke thoughtfulness from the conditioned.

"What happens to a family that continually redefines itself? Lends itself to new perspectives? Don't you think the consistency of the tenets is part of what preserves and defines the truth of Ashina?"

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

"Surely father did that to preserve his honour."

"A lie by any other name is still a lie," Inosuke asserted. Did preservation justify fabrication? That the question he hoped she'd post to herself. A question he still found himself dwelling on from time to time. The preservation of his own eyesight was held up by fabrication, atechnological mockery of a natural organ. Technology mixing with the natural, a taboo still rooted in Hebo to this day.

Eyes that could crucify the soul fired a sharp look at the younger Ashina when she admonished them over his defiance of their patriarch's title. One more prolonged slurp of his noodles occupied him between statements. "The victor writes history, and overwrites his own shortcomings." Just like he'd overwritten Inosuke's entire existence, no doubt.

"Undefeated? There is no doubt. Undefeated is a status, though inevitably temporary. Invincible...? Invincible is just a word. A fabrication."

Inosuke sat up straight, let the back of his chair support him as a full stomach leeched energy from his bones.

"Our tenants and virtues have their merits, but the truth of Ashina is itself, a lie."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

“What are you saying.” The words were sharp, hot, and they snapped off her tongue before she’d even finished thinking them.

Hands curled into tight fists on either side of her bowl and each molar found a mate, making her jaw tight. Angry air whooshed out of her lungs and she hastened to suck it back in with a sharp breath.

Inosuke Ashina never broke his calm, placid position. He was entirely unbothered by the slander he painted on the Ashina name and Ishida had to wonder if this is what he’d spent doing while he was in exile. Never trying to come back, never trying to win their father’s favour once more. Never stepping into his birthright and forcing her to take the mantle. His insolence was the very reason for her existence, and here he was touting it like a blade into an open wound.

“Father's decision was wise.” Ishida sneered, shifting the chopsticks between her fingers and letting the wooden sticks grind against one another with such friction they could have started a fire.

“You don’t deserve what would have been your birthright.

Is that why you never even tried to come back? Because you think the legacy father built is just a lie and you are doing something better?”

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

“You don’t deserve what would have been your birthright."

"Do you?"

Ishida's resentment rammed fruitlessly against Inosuke's unmoved composure. An acceptance born long before she had long since hardened, given him a near invulnerability to her impugning. Little of what she said wasn't something he hadn't heard before in different syntax of phrase. The points that broke that mold were criticisms and rebukes he'd played over in his head on the nights of the earliest days of exile, preparing himself for what back then seemed the impossibility of revivified contact with an Ashina.

"I am the biggest foil to Ashina's deception. I have been an obstruction since long before your very conception was ever considered a possibility. Any pretenses that I would one day be welcomed back are little more than counterfeits." Subjects and enemies would ask less questions and sense less weakness if a disgraced seemed correctable. The cruelest part of the banishment was the living with the lie that he would see Hebo again.

"That artifice died long ago, and I do not wish to inherit a lie. If I am undeserving, it is due only to a lack of want and wont." Monotone wavered, inflected an ephemeral conviction toward that view. "What about you?" he asked, coming full circle to his opening inquiry. "You speak of birthrights, yet you sit before me, far away from the duties of a little Lord-Incumbent. You have still yet to tell me why you have come all this way in the footsteps of a revered ancestor. For the honor of it?"

Barely a degree above neutral, Inosuke grinned sardonically. "No, of course not. You are here despite, or perhaps in spite of his wishes, aren't you?" They were more alike than she realized.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Ishida sat and listened, hating every second of it, and tried to look present and thoughtful. But the truth was, her mind was bounding around like a tiny animal trying to escape a predator. Annoyance and fear curled in her throat and hardened there, blocking free speech and the desire to consume any of the noodles in front of her.

There was still contact between herself and Genichiro. They both pretended that this adventure of hers, beyond Atrisia, was to benefit the family in the long run. Her growing connection with Hayata Corp at the fore, but even as Ishida ran over that rationale in her mind, she wondered how much of Aiko's commentary was being influenced by her father from a distance.

~Don't waste your life pursuing some fairy tale crusade across the galaxy fighting the horrors of the night, when it's time, come home and expand upon your father's dreams and take it to new heights.~

~Honour him, it is our way.~

She felt her nostrils flare, and she forced herself not to break eye contact with the elder Ashina. For some reason, when Inosuke Ashina mentioned her conception and that gap of years between them, that blockage in her throat dropped to her stomach.

How long had he known she existed?

As soon as she'd discovered she had a brother, she'd made plans to come find him. To understand why he had been exiled. Why he wasn't around. Why she'd been created in his stead.

He tossed the word spite around, and that block in her stomach spiked. Her fingers flexed against the table, trying to keep her centre of calm. He was far more steadfast in the listless department, and she could feel the growing pull of a reaction within herself.

So many questions lay at her feet. She could kick them over, answer them, but he seemed to already project her responses based on her being across the table from him.

"I wanted to find you. Meet the man that made father so hateful." She answered, her voice smaller than it had been moments ago.

"And he hates that." She stared down at the cooling meat in her dish, seeing it become less and less appetizing. That spike within started to spread, and her hands felt numb.

"I want...to know if you even knew about me. Why you never tried to come back, or what you did to make him take everything away from you? For him to choose to break our family apart like this?"

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

"Until Ilum the extent of my knowledge of you was that I suspected, at some point, that another heir had been born," he confessed. "A presentiment from Ashla, or a mundane inference, I will never be certain which."

Slow, steady wind hissed out of Ashina's nose. "You do not know?" he asked somewhat rhetorically. If they kept his very existence from her, it shouldn't have been a surprise she didn't know why. For her to know the truth would threaten the path they wanted very clearly to keep her from. The very same that Inosuke continued to walk to this day. She had come this far for answers, might as well call it a crossroads.

"I will illuminate the why of it all, if you truly wish. If you have never been informed, then it is surely as I expected, that it is treated in a fashion akin to Ashina's deepest secrets."

A look of severity contorted across his face, seized Ishida like a containment field emitter. "Before I recount this tale, I will give you the chance to reconsider. Knowing this truth, if Genechiro were to find out, may very well disqualify you from the birthright you believe so important. We come from a line of liars and usurpers glamoured by unfathomable layers of fabrications."

"Truth is Ashina's only weakness, even the smallest sincerities can wound it. They are deadly weapons."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Ishida felt herself deflate. At least it wasn’t a situation where he did know who she was, or that she’d been born, and chose not to try to connect.

She closed her eyes, imagining what his attempts might have been like. Perhaps then her fathers cruelty would have lessened. Perhaps then, her own may have been less natural or conditioned than it was.

When she opened them again, he’d acquiesced to sharing the information she’d been driven by. Instantly, she leaned forward as if the tale itself was magnetic. A force of truth and secret that beckoned her ear, and what was scarier, her heart.

But it would come at a price, he threatened. Her heirdom.

Her curiosity for a kingdom.

“He won’t find out.” She murmured. “Another Ashina secret.

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

"Do not illusion yourself into thinking our Father is incapable of discovering your omission simply because you omit," Inosuke implored. "Living a lie is poison to the soul. This may not sound important to you, but it is the most crucial thing I have yet to say."

Ashina didn't need more secrets.

Where to begin? "If you could believe it, there was a time where Father and I were very close. A time where he was magnitudes warmer, though not without his callous edge entirely. I was his drive, and he was my hero." Inosuke was never one to dwell on the past, he recounted the better days without a tone for reminiscence. Only factual recollection. "But I was as veracious as I was curious. I asked questions, and was habitually honest, two qualities not befitting of an young Lord Ashina-to-be. I saw through many glamours, caused many... problems. By the time I was becoming a man, Father felt I could be Ashina's final detriment. He hardened, wanted to sculpt me before it was too late."

The Eldest Ashina took the final drink of his beverage to punctuate the transition. "This went poorly," he stated with a bluntly. "I challenged his claims, his title, Invincible. I was about your age at this time. He accepted, struck first. My retaliation painted a wound across his chest with this very blade." Inosuke placed his Ashina Steel wakizashi, scabbard and all, between them onto the table. "Yet, his strike was unhindered. Firm. Absolute. I was defeated, but my goal had been achieved. Dozens saw blood expunge from the the man they thought an infallible protector and invincible warlord."

"Their collective faith bled with him. So, he took this very same blade and cut recompense from my face. He could have slain me, but to make his own son a Martyr in front of all those people would have been Ashina's end."

Inosuke pulled his eyelid down, looked up and to the left, revealing the barcode and serial on his cybernetic eye. Credence to back up his story.

"I know you are skeptical. Not only because he is family, but because you are wiser than you know. We come from a bloodline of liars, so you are right to doubt me, but I am their Shadow. Their Pariah."

Gracefully, he reached forward and nudged the blade closer.

"See for yourself," he encouraged knowingly.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

She didn't realize it at first, but she was holding her breath. And she had been since her brother reminded her of their father's power. How could she guarantee this secret remained safe? Since they'd last spoken over holo, Ishida hadn't connected with Inosuke like this. If he was right, and he was about to unfold a nightmare, how could she think she had the strength to lie? To conceal?

It was hubris.

Silence befell the little Ashina as he regaled the story. His expression, solemn as ever, was heavier than the narrative. She felt a chill, like a physical sensation, as if her blood had actually congealed. Ishida was fast coming distraught. It was terribly disturbing what Inosuke was saying, what he was revealing, and the echoes of the past he lived with.

The idea that Genichiro and Inosuke could ever share the same space, let alone be close was nigh incomprehensible. She allowed herself, for a moment, to try and imagine it. A little owl-faced boy, and the stone-faced Ashina on the shoreline, practicing blade work with silhouettes that were comically opposite. The drive and the hero, a dynamic she knew well. Or, sought to know. By the time she'd come around, she'd upheld her part of the bargain and idolized him to an extent but his pride was hard to come by.

"I challenged his claims, his title, Invincible.

Ishida straightened in her seat, leaning back and squaring her shoulders to feel more solid across from the Jedi Knight on the other side of the table. The whole scene suddenly took on a vaguely dreamlike feel. The room felt bigger than it was, or else Ishida had shrunk.

She'd thought about it sometimes, once or twice, what it would take to do such a thing, but she never dared. Never questioned her father's honour. Inosuke had not only questioned it, but he'd also challenged it. He challenged the Invincible and had won.

Air slipped out in a gasp, and the stare she'd had fixed on him transferred to the short sword in the space between them. The concept of her father bleeding was baffling. Her head throbbed, and the beat of her heart thundered behind her breastbone so loudly she nearly didn't hear the continuation of his story.

Beneath the table now, her hands in her lap felt numb. Her mind was burning, immense pressure building behind her eyes and when she looked up from the weapon between them back to his face. His eye moved unnaturally, displaying another clue to the truth with a series of numbers and technology. A fist clenched around her heart, softening the sound of the boom.

His eye.

Her own screwed shut involuntarily, closing out the sight. She could almost imagine it, her father choosing his target and acting without hesitation with a comment about how unseeing Inosuke really was. Lacking the vision necessary for what needed to be done.

All the colour drained from her already pallid expression.

"See for yourself,"

Within the scabbard, the Ashina-made metal hummed. She could practically see its vibrations through the empty space between them. Its rhythms moved between empty spaces, touching and entrancing, vying for her to soothe it and listen to the story contained within its steel.

For the longest time, seconds stretching into minutes, she managed to ignore the blade's appeal. In silence, she watched her brother. Her expression was as untelling as she could manage, and met with an equally stoic façade. There were no lies in the lines of his face, in the wretchedness of his words. None that her observation could discern, anyhow.

But if she unsheathed that blade, let the story reach her blood, there could be no going back. At this juncture, she could deny the words of the Jedi Knight. Deny the blasphemy done to her father's name, his honour, his invincibility. She could deny its truth, relegate the honesty of the story to only the fable of a desperate exile.

Hesitation is defeat.

If she hesitated any longer, she would allow the doubt of a falsehood to fester and poison her soul. Its venom would spread and mutate her perception.

Eventually, her despair outstepped the patience of her soul.

Silently, her fingers moved to unsheath the wakizashi.

Although she felt it in her hands, the movements felt as though they belonged to someone else. The steel's song grew louder, the rhythm and the lure almost as tangible as the cool metal itself.

When she pressed the edge of the blade against the side of her palm and felt its sharp, stinging kiss, she looked to her brother to read whatever his reaction might be. As if there would be any vestige of triumph written in his eyes that he'd seeded the doubt necessary to unearth the dedication of the prized Ashina, the heir. The blade's edge broke skin.

As soon as Ashina blood touched the steel, the truth of the bloodline rushed to be shared. Ishida's mind began to race; overtaken by visions of the past. A history that had forged her future. The noodles in front of her, the table, they all melted away to dust and dirt. To a place she knew far better. A sparring arena within Ashina Estate. The perspective was imperfect, disoriented from the blade's perception.

The images came in fractured intervals, retelling the story as the blade saw it. Blood from the invincible, thumps of Inosuke to the floor, silent sneers, gasps from the crowd. It was deafening, blinding, all-consuming.

heh, foolish boy
​

​

Ishida recoiled her hand, snapping it back to her and covering her face. The flesh of her palms consumed the horrified gasp that involuntarily slipped from her lungs. That horrified air took shape, denial sliding out in a low whisper: "No."

Immobilized, she sunk into her seat, shoving the blade away from herself and back toward him as if it were contaminated with something that would mutate her on touch.

As if? It was. It was. It was contaminated with the truth of all her father's deceit.