The fire crackled softly in the fireplace, the light leaving golden shades on the bundle of blankets in front of it. Onni stared into the flames, his arms wrapped around his little sister and his cousin's shoulders, all three of them packed into a military felt blanket. The two young children were sleeping and Onni hoped that it at least brought them some rest because after what they had seen, there could be no peaceful sleeping for a while. He knew he ought to be glad that they made it, that they had managed to reach the neighbouring village to find shelter but he just couldn't. He didn't want to think about the looks full of pity that they had gotten when the military had taken his statement, the whispers of the villagers behind their back as they were told to stay in one the small emergency housings for the military until morning. He didn't want to remember what had happened in the village so he stared into the flames and the embers as if to burn their glow into the back of his eyes. It was only beginning to dawn on him that they were on their own now, that Tuuri and Lalli had nobody but him to look after them and in that moment, pain spread in his chest as he missed his parents intensely. Then, startling him a little, Tuuri stirred with a mumble and Onni turned his head to look at her. She was curled up by his side, snuggled over his thigh, mirroring their cousin on his other side. Her eyes opened and she whispered:
"Onni?"
"Yes?"
"You're hurting my shoulder."
Onni realised he had been clutching her shoulder a bit too strongly and immediately softened his grip./p
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you."
She nodded and curled up against him again. Onni looked over to Lalli, noticing that he was watching them quietly, and he sighed.
"You two, try to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."
The military had finished checking things in their village and were going back to Keuruu the next day. Onni had recieved the offer to go along with them to be employed as a mage by the army so he could provide for Lalli and Tuuri. As he would turn 18 in just a few months, they had been assigned to be his wards instead of sending them to relatives living far away. Onni had only agreed to the military's proposition on the condition that he could take both of them with him behind the safe walls of Keuruu. They accepted right away, as Lalli was also a precious recruit, even with his unfinished training as a mage, and so the three of them waited to board the ship that would take them to one of Keuruu's quarantine facilities in the morning. Tuuri shifted her weight and it was pretty obvious that neither of the two children would be sleeping any time soon. The dancing light of the fire was glittering in their eyes as they too stared at the embers, their expressions weary with the memories of the past few days. Onni resigned himself to his first failure at enforcing bedtime on his own and petted their heads gently, tousling their hair. For a while, neither of the three said anything until Tuuri mumured:
"Onni… can you sing us Mom's song? Please?"
Onni looked at her and in the dark of the military house, with his voice in a knot of memories, he sang the family's lullaby in a low voice as the three orphans waited for the night to pass.