This short story was published on Thursday, 19 February 2026 and is part of the Kakantiga Ultra or Cantos of the Beyond: a daily new short story or play dreamfishing and celebrating past, present, possible and future Kristang culture. This short story features the anticipated future 63rd Ka-Kabesa dyad and is set in Perth in June 2985.
“You told him I was manipulative.”
Joseph Marcus Vanderbeck did not sit.
The winter wind outside scraped along the eaves of the Fremantle house like a restless animal. June 2985, Perth stripped of spectacle. Just salt air, timber, breath.
Joseph stood in the middle of the living room and looked at Chiron de Vries, 63rd Ka-Kabesa Kriolu.
Then at Odin Amadeus Bodestyne, 63rd Ka-Kabesa Nasentarera.
“You told him that,” Joseph repeated, jaw tight. “Didn’t you?”
Chiron’s hands were folded loosely in his lap. He had chosen the older armchair, the one that creaked when you shifted your weight. Odin stood by the window, watching Joseph’s reflection more than his face.
“We told him you were afraid,” Odin said.
Joseph flinched as if that were worse.
“That’s not what he heard,” Joseph shot back. “He heard that I’m unsafe.”
“What did you say to him?” Chiron asked.
Joseph laughed once, too sharp. “I apologised.”
“For what.”
“For… pushing. For asking questions. For not letting things sit.”
Odin’s voice was mild. “Did he ask you to apologise?”
Joseph hesitated.
“No. But I could tell he was withdrawing.”
“So you filled the space,” Chiron said.
“I tried to fix it.”
“With words.”
“With honesty.”
“With insistence,” Odin corrected gently.
Joseph’s face flushed. “I was trying to Reconcile.”
Chiron leaned forward slightly. “Reconciliation is not a siege.”
The words landed heavier than Joseph expected.
“He won’t talk to me,” Joseph said. “He shuts down. He says he needs space, and then when I give him space, he says I’m distant. When I move closer, he says I’m overwhelming. What exactly am I supposed to do.”
Odin crossed his arms loosely, not closed, not open. Thinking.
“When he says he needs space,” Odin asked, “what do you feel?”
“Abandoned.”
“And when he says you’re overwhelming?”
“Accused.”
“And when you feel abandoned,” Chiron continued, “what do you do?”
Joseph stared at the floor. “I… intensify. I explain more clearly. I make sure he understands my intention.”
“And when you feel accused?”
“I defend.”
Explain more clearly, Odin murmured through sarikeli.
Joseph looked up sharply. So I’m not allowed to explain myself? he sent back.
“You are,” Chiron said calmly. “But you keep explaining his reaction back to him.”
Silence.
Joseph’s brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”
“You tell him,” Odin said, “that he’s misinterpreting you. That he’s projecting. That he’s reacting from old patterns.”
Joseph’s mouth opened, then closed.
“I’m trying to help him see.”
“You’re trying to win the interpretation,” Chiron said.
The heater ticked softly. Outside, a gull cried.
Joseph ran a hand through his hair. “He keeps thinking I’m trying to control him. I’m not.”
“Are you trying to influence him?” Odin asked.
“Yes.”
“To move him closer?”
“Yes.”
“To reassure you?”
Joseph froze.
“That’s not—” he started, then stopped.
Chiron’s gaze did not waver. “When he pulls away, you experience it as threat. When you experience threat, you move toward. He experiences that movement as pressure. When he feels pressure, he pulls further away.”
Joseph swallowed.
“That’s a loop,” Odin said quietly. “Not betrayal.”
Joseph’s voice dropped. “I keep telling him I’m safe.”
“Safety is not declared,” Chiron said. “It is felt.”
“I am safe.”
“For you,” Odin replied. “Maybe not for him in those moments.”
Joseph’s chest rose and fell too fast. “So what. I just… do nothing? Let him spiral?”
“No,” Chiron said. “You tolerate the discomfort of not being able to immediately fix it.”
“That feels like abandonment.”
“For you.”
Joseph’s eyes flicked between them, something desperate flickering there.
“I love him.”
Odin nodded. “We know.”
“Then why does it keep getting worse every time I try to Reconcile?”
Chiron’s voice softened by a fraction. “Because you keep trying to Reconcile the feeling, not the person.”
Joseph blinked.
“You want the anxiety to stop,” Odin said. “You want the distance to close. So you push for resolution. He wants the intensity to lower. So he retreats.”
Joseph’s shoulders sagged.
So what do I do? he sent via sarikeli.
Chiron did not answer immediately. He watched Joseph breathe.
“When he says he needs space,” Chiron said finally, “you say: ‘Okay.’ Not with a subtext of ‘but remember I’m right.’ Not with a follow-up paragraph. Just okay.”
Joseph winced as if that were physically painful.
“And when he comes back,” Odin added, “you don’t debrief the absence. You stay in the present moment. You let him choose the pace.”
Joseph stared at the floorboards.
That feels like losing.
Chiron’s expression shifted, almost amused, almost sad.
“Reconciliation is not about winning the interpretation,” he said. “It is about staying connected long enough for both interpretations to breathe.”
Joseph closed his eyes briefly.
And if he never comes back?
Odin’s answer was steady.
“Then the Reconciliation you are trying to force would not have held anyway.”
The wind rattled the eaves again.
Joseph opened his eyes.
So I’ve been misunderstanding him.
“Yes,” Chiron said.
Joseph exhaled slowly.
And the only way out is… less.
“Less force,” Chiron said.
“More listening,” Odin added.
Joseph nodded once, small and reluctant.
For the first time since he’d walked in, he sat.
Joseph sat, but he did not relax.
The room felt smaller now. The wind had quieted. The silence did not.
Chiron did not look away from him.
“There is something else,” Chiron said.
Joseph’s jaw tightened again. “Of course there is.”
“You hurt him.”
The words were clean. No cushioning.
Joseph’s eyes flashed. “He hurt me too.”
Odin did not interrupt. He let that hang.
“We are not balancing scales,” Odin said finally. “We are naming impact.”
Joseph shook his head. “I never insulted him. I never shouted. I never threatened. I was trying to work it through.”
“You dismantled him,” Chiron said.
Joseph blinked.
“When he told you he felt pressured,” Chiron continued, “you told him he was projecting. When he said he needed quiet, you told him he was stonewalling. When he said he felt small in those moments, you told him he was misreading your strength.”
Joseph’s mouth opened defensively.
“I was contextualising—”
“You were correcting,” Odin said.
Joseph stopped.
“You kept moving the focus from what he felt,” Odin went on, “to whether his feeling was valid.”
Joseph looked from one to the other, searching for exaggeration.
“I wasn’t saying he’s invalid.”
“You were saying his perception was wrong,” Chiron said.
“Because it was.”
There it was.
The temperature in the room shifted.
Chiron leaned forward, elbows on his knees now mirroring Odin’s earlier posture.
“Joseph,” he said quietly, “when someone says they feel unsafe, and you respond by proving that they shouldn’t feel unsafe, you are not listening. You are arguing with their nervous system.”
Joseph swallowed.
“I’m not unsafe,” he insisted, softer now. “I’m not manipulative.”
“Intent is not the same as impact,” Odin said.
Joseph’s shoulders tensed. “So now I’m just the villain?”
“No,” Chiron said sharply enough to cut through the spiral. “You are a man who keeps assigning the rupture to the other person because it is easier than admitting you frightened him.”
Joseph stared.
“I never meant to frighten him.”
“But you did.”
The statement did not waver.
Joseph’s breath became shallow. “How.”
“You are intense,” Odin said. “When you feel distance, you move in fast. Your voice tightens. Your questions stack. You demand clarity in the moment.”
“That’s communication.”
“That is interrogation under stress,” Chiron replied.
Joseph recoiled slightly. “That’s unfair.”
“Is it,” Chiron asked evenly, “or is it accurate.”
Joseph’s mind raced. He saw flashes: the way he had leaned forward, the way he had followed into the hallway, the way he had said, Tell me exactly what you mean right now.
“I needed to understand,” he said weakly.
“You needed relief,” Odin corrected.
Joseph’s throat tightened.
“And when he couldn’t give you relief,” Chiron continued, “you told him he was withholding.”
Joseph’s face went pale.
“I said he shuts down.”
“You said he abandons you.”
“He does.”
Odin’s voice was steady, almost gentle. “He withdraws when overwhelmed. That is not abandonment. That is self-protection.”
Joseph pressed his palms together hard enough to blanch the skin.
“So it’s all me.”
“No,” Chiron said immediately. “But this part is.”
Joseph looked up slowly.
“You kept telling him,” Chiron said, “that if he would just communicate better, this wouldn’t happen. You placed the responsibility for your anxiety on his behaviour.”
Joseph flinched as if struck.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Meaning,” Odin said, “does not erase pattern.”
Joseph’s eyes burned now, not with anger but something closer to recognition.
“He told you he felt cornered,” Odin continued. “You responded by explaining why cornering was rational.”
Joseph let out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh.
“I was trying to stabilise things.”
“You were trying to control uncertainty,” Chiron said. “Through him.”
Silence.
Joseph stared at the floorboards again, but this time not defensively. Searching.
“I thought if I could get him to see that I wasn’t attacking him, he’d calm down.”
“And when he didn’t,” Odin asked, “what did you assume?”
Joseph closed his eyes.
“That he didn’t want to understand me.”
“And what did you feel?”
“Rejected.”
“And what did you do with that?”
“I… pressed harder.”
Chiron nodded once.
“That pressing,” he said, “is where you hurt him. You didn’t understand his neuroecology. That what he said, he meant. Not like you.”
Joseph’s shoulders began to shake, just barely.
“He told you he felt small,” Odin said. “And you responded by saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
Joseph inhaled sharply.
“That’s when you shifted from reconciliation to self-defence,” Chiron said.
Joseph’s voice cracked for the first time. “I can’t stand being misunderstood.”
“And he can’t stand being overpowered,” Odin replied.
The symmetry settled in the room like dust.
Joseph wiped his face with the heel of his hand.
So what do I do about the hurt?
Chiron’s gaze was unwavering.
“You stop explaining it.”
Odin looked at him in the same way.
You name it.
Joseph swallowed.
“I frightened you,” he said slowly, testing the shape of it.
“Without,” Chiron added, “adding ‘but.’”
Joseph’s chest hitched.
“I frightened you,” he repeated. “I pushed when you said stop. I made your feelings into a debate.”
The words cost him.
Odin’s voice was softer now. “And you stop telling him that if he were stronger, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Joseph nodded, barely.
“I did that,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Chiron said.
The wind outside rose again, then fell.
Joseph looked up at them, eyes red.
“I kept thinking reconciliation meant persuading him that I’m right.”
Chiron’s expression held no condemnation.
“Reconciliation,” he said, “means taking responsibility for the part that is yours even when your intentions were clean.”
“And letting him own his part without dragging it into the light to balance the ledger,” Odin added.
Joseph sat there, smaller now but clearer.
“I don’t know if he’ll forgive me.”
“That,” Chiron said, “is not something you control.”