TEMPORARY INSANITY

He'd managed to get a fair ways in, the soil a lot looser than he'd expected once he'd scratched out the first thick sod layer, when a voice he really, really didn't want to hear made him freeze in place and groan. Iskra. He also heard Ares' excited voice questioning the visitor, but... alarmingly, no Lyra. She must have escaped him while hewas distracted. Chaos slumped, grumped, and finally backed out of the hole that he was up to his shoulders in, to face Iskra and to find his erstwhile daughter.

He sent Iskra a sickly grin. "Heyyy there, Iskra. How's it going? I don't suppose you saw a little girl on your way here? About yay big," he gestured to vaguely Lyra's height, "kind of looks like me but has claws like a cat? Kind of mouthy? Ares," he added, echoing Leto's words to him not long ago, "meet your Aunt Iskra."