On speakerphone, the audio played aloud in the room, so Tavras could plainly hear her mother's desire to speak with him. Val still relayed her request. "My mom would like to talk to you."

"Give me a minute." Tavras must have decided to buy food while he was out, since he had an array of grocery bags in his arms. "At least let me put away the fish that I just bought."

"Ugh." A groan came out of Val at once. She should have known. Even once they had arrived in civilization—any and all food options available to them—Tavras would still want to eat nothing but fish.

"Are you eating a lot of fish with the god of water?" her mother asked.

"Yeah. I swear that I might develop mercury poisoning."

"You will be fine," Tavras snapped. "Maybe if the mortals did not pollute the environment so much, my fish would not have excessive amounts of mercury in them."

"A nature god is ever the environmentalist, I see," her mother sang.

Whatever foodstuffs that he had bought which required refrigeration, Tavras put away. The rest of the groceries he left on the counter. He gave a quick glare to Foofy as if to warn him against trying anything. At last, Tavras joined Val by her phone.

"Uh. Hello Mrs.—I mean Ms…." Tavras tried to say. In the end, he settled for addressing her mother in a different way all together. "Hello Val's mother."

"My name is Kaitlin Johnston," her mother said with that warm smile, the one that she always wore when trying to put people at ease. "Feel free to call me Kate or Ms. Johnston, whichever suits you better."

"Wow," Tavras said. "I don't think that my ears have ever heard of a more original name."

"Tavras," Val said shortly, voice low in warning. Was he trying to be rude to her mother? Also, it was her last name that Tavras was making fun of, too.

He just smiled and cocked his eyes to one side. "Let me guess, Ms. Kaitlin Johnston. Do you spell 'Kaitlin' with a 'K'?"

Val could feel her brow scrunch up in confusion. This time she hissed, "Come on." While she knew that Tavras was a self-professed hermit, he must be striving to set a new record for social awkwardness.

"Yes, that was a good guess," her mother said. Her smile seemed oddly large. After a pause, she continued. "Now, I do believe that there was something that I wanted to say to you. Ah, yes." The demeanor of her mother changed in an instant, and her furious facial expression had its full effect on them thanks to the video call. "Tavras!" her mother belted out, loud enough that her voice sounded slightly garbled over the phone.

Tavras flinched. It was funny, watching him be startled by a mortal woman yelling at him via phone call.

Never, would Val have expected her mother to have the gall to yell at a god. She tried to conceal her snicker as she witnessed her mother's fury unfold. At the same time, this was awful. The behavior of both Tavras and her mother mortified her. Maybe this was why Tavras thought that there would be screaming when he left, because he would be the one getting yelled at by an angry mother.

"My daughter left for the Summit of Ascension. She said that she would call me in three days when she made it there—three days! Can you tell me how long it has been since I have been expecting to hear from her?"

"It has been a lot more than three days." Tavras avoided making eye contact with the phone screen.

"The Summit of Ascension is a dangerous place!" her mother continued to rage. "I had every right to be worried about her. What if something had happened to her on the way there?"

"I am sure that with the proper preparation and guidance, you would not have needed to worry about your daughter at all, Ms. Johnston."

"How could a mortal woman like me possibly prepare my immortal daughter properly? I thought that she was completely on her own this entire time. You should have let her contact me!"

Tavras shook his head and looked with pity to Val. "I see that your mother seems to be as overbearing as ever. And here, I had thought that detaching yourself from her would have helped out a bit in that area."

This sure had turned out to be quite the hostile conversation on both sides. "Uh, Tavras, if you are not able to speak to my mother politely, you cannot talk to her at all." Val twisted away to pull him out of the camera's view. "Mom, do you think that is any way to talk to a god?"

It was as if Val had not even said anything to try and diffuse the situation.

"I have every right to be mad at anybody, god or not, who thinks that he can isolate my daughter from me!"

At the same time, Tavras also decided to yell at Val. "Stop trying to mediate this conversation. Your mother said that she wanted to talk to me, and I am willing to talk to her. Let me talk to her." Tavras snatched the phone from her and forcibly kept her from grabbing it back.

Since when was Tavras allowed to touch her phone? While struggling against one of his arms, Val spit a mindless curse. "What in the nether?"

Now, her mother's wrath fell upon Val. "Watch your language, young lady." Immediately after the scolding, her mother laid into Tavras twice as hard as before. "You have better not been allowing her to swear since you started training her, mister god of water!"

Tavras opened up one of his arms, as if her mother would be able to see the full gesture. She would have been furious if she had witnessed the way that he tossed Val to the side in that motion.

Completely unprepared for that, Val fell down as if she had never done any combat training with Tavras. "Ugh," she grunted, both from hitting the ground and also from annoyance with herself.

The shove was not lost on Foofy, because he placed himself between Val on the floor and Tavras standing up. His body hunkered into a crouch and he growled.

Quietly, Val whispered, "Good hold." Whenever Foofy exhibited the behavior of keeping an aggressor at bay, she wanted to try to associate that with the hold command.

The fight between Tavras and her mother continued. In regards to letting Val cuss, he said, "What can I say? I am guilty as charged."

"You have not the slightest idea of how to raise children—" her mother began. Given Tavras's shortcomings in the way that he had raised Iharu and Fang, her mother was treading dangerously close to a sensitive topic.

"Seriously, that is enough from both of you!" Divine Judgement roared to life within her. Ironically, it was Val who needed to be the adult between her own mother and the thousand-some-year-old god who thought himself too mature for her.

The white light of Divine Judgement rushed towards her cell phone and yanked it out of Tavras's hand. The energy returned to Val and floated her phone down into her own hands. "There. We are done with this, now."

Her mother spoke louder to make sure that the audio would carry over to Tavras. "I swear. One of these days, someone should teach that god how to use a toaster and tell him to put a fork in it!"

"Mom," Val whined, having to keep herself from laughing at that insult. It was a good one, but this petty fight needed to stop. Her words rushed out so that she could hang up quickly. "It was super nice talking to you and getting to see you again. I will call you again tonight when just the two of us can talk. Bye, Mom." A broad smile peeled to her lips, and she waved fervently.

"Oh, do you have to go so soon? Bye, Val."

They lingered in the call for a few seconds, then Val was the one who ended it with a beep.

Off to the side, Tavras muttered, "I know how to use a toaster."

Carefully, Val analyzed the sulking demeanor of Tavras. That conversation between him and her mother could not have been more awkward and strange. For talking to a random woman in the mortal world, she would have expected him to act more professional. Instead, he had decided to act even goofier than his usual self. The interaction aroused her suspicions. Had their dynamic seemed almost familiar?

At some point, her mother had been close enough with her father to have not one but two kids. It would not be too far from the realm of possibility if her mother had been introduced to Tavras at some point.

Val was left with this question begging at the forefront of her mind. Did her mother and Tavras already know each other?