Lost Creek Hollow my father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die

held in the edge of his tone was a familiarity -- familial, paternal, instinctively recognizable. she cut him a long stare, untimid and not in the least concerned by the exposed edge of his thin patience. 

she found it strange then, the discovery of this wraith-familiar beneath the growling lip of the storm. stranger still, were the stirrings of snakelike jealousy, though the male was conceived well before the time caiaphas had selected her mate.

"caiaphas." a crack of thunder followed, and she waited for its last snarls to fade before continuing. "your father?" she asked, all her energy hung on that breathless, hopeless question.