Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her little bedroom, the smell of fresh air and harvested grains wafting in through her opened window, Ophelia smiled as she flipped through the crisp new pages of the tome she'd received as a birthday gift the day before. With every page turned, words on how to cast spells darker than any ones she'd casted up to that point met her eyes, a soothing sight to her as she had grown bored with simple elemental magic over the past few months. As she tried to start wrapping her head around how she, just a small and simple mage girl, would soon be able to do basic curses, she could feel herself taking part in one of her nervous tics, licking one of her pointed front teeth as she read.
It was that position, tome on her lap, tongue moving all over her tooth, that she was discovered to be in when her mother pushed open the door nearly an hour later, most likely to see what was keeping her from joining the rest of the family. "Oh, hello there, Mother," she softly said, not looking up from her reading but still knowing who had come in to see her. "If you don't mind, I would like to spend some time in here alone getting familiar with this new tome, so that I can bestow a name upon its pages."
"I figured that's what you were in here doing, which is why I'm not asking you to come out. I know how your father gets when he gets a new sword, no surprise that you've ended up the same way." Taking a seat right next to her daughter, Nah couldn't help but have the corners of her mouth perk up as she looked at the girl beside her, noting that they looked more like young sisters than a mother and child. "Say, Ophelia, has it hit you yet that you're another year older? Not that age really matters to either of us, but…"
"It won't hit me until after I've given this gift the name it deserves. How can I dwell on silly things like getting older when my tome is still sitting here nameless?" She shifted how she was sitting so that the book's binding was resting on the floor, her legs now kicked to the side, and she was propping her head up with one hand. Her other hand now switched between flipping pages and brushing her hair out of her face to behind her pointed ears, where it would sit for a moment before falling back into the way. "Ugh, and my hair is making this reading and understanding so much harder!"
Covering her mouth to stifle a laugh, Nah gave the two suggestions she could think of, first glancing at her own hair, the same purple in color as her daughter's, before she said anything. "You could always braid it out of the way, it does work wonders if you let it," she said, before her eyes moved back to her daughter, noting that the girl was lounging there in her nightclothes. "Or you could ready yourself for the day, that would mean putting something in your hair to keep it out of your face."
"Neither of those ideas works right now, Mother, not when doing either would mean my poor gift would go longer without its rightful name!" Still not looking away from the words on the page, Ophelia tugged at her ear in thought, trying to come up with a name for the book so that she could move on with her day. But, like many other things in life, naming a weapon didn't ever come easily, and she knew that if she tried to force a name on the tome, it wouldn't fit—that was something she'd been taught by her father.
"You keep thinking that hard, you're going to rip your ear off. What would everyone think of you then, a girl with one ear because she pulled the other one clean off! It would certainly make your friends consider you more unique than they already do, that's for sure." Still stifling her laughter, Nah reached over to stop Ophelia from what she was doing, but when her hand touched her daughter's, she noticed that the girl had gone completely still. "Oh dear, did I strike a nerve with that one? Always knew I wasn't one for joking."
"I know I can't help being unique, but maybe losing an ear would do wonders for making people like me more," Ophelia mumbled, leaning forward to get a closer reading of her tome. "Instead of being just the 'weird spacey dragon girl' I could be something more! Do you think that would make me legendary amongst my friends, being with only one ear?" Based on how she didn't get a response, it was clear to her that her mother didn't find the question amusing at all, and she sighed when she realized no answer was coming. "Okay, but it would create many stories that would be forever passed down."
"You existing's already going to do that, don't you worry." Hoping that she wouldn't be asked to clarify, Nah had to quickly jump to cutting off Ophelia when she did exactly what she hadn't wanted her to do. "No, I'm not going to explain what I mean about that to you. That can absolutely be a story for your father to tell you the next time he's home, because I guarantee he will get an hour into it before he gets anywhere, and you will be bored long before that point."
Giving a drawn-out sigh, Ophelia finally looked up from her tome to see her mother still watching her, that half-smile on her lips. "You think I can actually get bored from listening to his stories? I've dreamed of the day when I learn how to tell stories just like his, but you think I'll get bored hearing him tell a long one? Mother, you have no faith in me!"
"You're right, I forgot that you're just like him and enjoy a long, drawn-out, boring story to brighten your day. How did I end up with a daughter more like her father than myself, aside from the Manakete parts?" Nah paused, thinking about her own words, before shrugging. "Must be how my own mother felt when she met me, I suppose, on the 'not being like her mother' front, at any rate."
"There's always the future for me to become more like you, so don't worry about me being so much like Father right now! I am only freshly fourteen years old, there's a lot of life left for me to grow into being someone new." Ophelia sighed happily, flipping the back cover of her tome to close it tight. "However, there is no more time for me to come up with a name for my most precious birthday gift, and even after reading every page in it I don't have the slightest clue on what to pick!"
"You could always choose to not name it and put it aside for something more befitting someone of your upbringing," her mother told her, standing up as she spoke, "like maybe a dragonstone? The world could always use more Manaketes that know what they're doing in battle, there's already enough mages to go around."
The girl, also jumping up but bringing her tome into her arms as she stood, shook her head at the idea. Taking one arm off the book to motion around her room, where shelves holding books of all sorts of colors, each one with a lovingly-created name affixed to its spine, surrounded the two. "I happen to think that magic is more of my calling than anything physical, although the freedom that comes with transforming into a mighty dragon is tempting at times. But I was given a tome for my birthday, not a dragonstone, and so I'll keep with pursuing being a dark mage for the time being, if that's okay."
"It's your own decision and I'll let you make it however you want to." Nodding solemnly at her own words, Nah hesitated a moment as she decided if she wanted to say anything else, choosing not to and instead gearing up to leave the room. "You come out and become part of the family whenever you decide you're ready, I'm sure everyone will love to hear about how you spent the morning."
"You can tell them I spent the morning naming my gift, if you want." Hearing her mother sigh at the idea, Ophelia couldn't help but grin at having caused so much distress just by wanting to do what she did with every weapon she'd ever been given. But once her mother was out of the room and definitely out of earshot, she flopped onto her bed, her tome clutched tightly to her chest. "Now how do I name this most lovely gift? If only I had half the creativity Father has, I would have been done with this without opening its cover!"
She lay there for a few minutes, bringing the book to her face so that she could breathe in its new-page smell. "Hm, it smells like something that was fated to be gifted to me, like the cosmos had some say in me getting this tome. I do enjoy myself a nice starry evening, but I cannot name yet another thing after the stars, can I?" As she dwelled on that dilemma, a fleeting thought came to her, one that had her shooting straight up into a sitting position. "There's no such thing as relying too much on one naming device! And what else would be fitting to couple with the cosmos than a relic of the conversation Mother and I had while I was reading the pages contained within this book!"
With that decision made, she got up and grabbed her item-naming tools, which consisted of tape and a pen to write on it with, and in her almost illegible writing she printed the words Cosmic Sucker Punch on a piece of the tape, ripping it away from the rest with her pointed teeth and then sticking it on the book's spine. "What a lovely name for the lovely gift I was given! If Father were here, he would be impressed!" Just like that, her excitement and confidence from naming the tome deflated, her shoulders slumping forward. "If only he were here. Why does he always choose to leave right when I need him most?"
There wasn't going to be an answer given to that question, not then and not ever, something she had slowly started to accept over the years of waking up to her father being gone for various amounts of time. This time he promised it wouldn't be more than a few days, which was odd for him and his travels, but she had high hopes that he was going to keep to his promise on that one. But if he wasn't around to praise her naming skills, was there anyone in the little farmhouse that would? There was only one way to find out, and that involved joining the rest of the family for the first time all day.
Before she could do that, though, she had to get out of her nightclothes like her mother had previously suggested. The last thing she needed was to go out into the rest of the house looking like she'd just rolled out of bed, even though she hadn't done much besides doing that. Picking an outfit from the ones approved by her mother (and therefore either too old-lady like in taste or appearance) was always a challenge, especially when Ophelia had so many cute things that had been given to her by relatives and somewhat-relatives, but she knew that if she dared go against her mother's wishes on what she wore she would never hear the end of it. Most people weren't too terrified of having to face their parents in an argument, but then again, most people didn't have shapeshifting dragons as their mothers.
Once she'd finally stopped sulking over the outfit she put together and how plain it was, she moved on to actually doing something with her hair. She had a decorative piece she normally wore in it to keep her bangs from falling into her face, and while putting it on earlier when she was reading would have been logical, she still hadn't done just that. When it was in place, the fabric portion of it draping the back of her head and the small sliver of a dragonstone resting perfectly in the middle of her forehead, she felt she was finally ready to get out to see her family. Grabbing her tome and smiling at the name she'd given it, she left her room and was immediately faced with her mother's beckoning hand, expecting to be given something right away.
"Come on, can't keep the name of it away from me forever," Nah said, waggling her fingers a bit until Ophelia sighed and handed the tome to her mother. "There we go, now what's the damage…? 'Cosmic Sucker Punch'? That's certainly unique, don't you think? Couldn't you have gone with something more nor—" Cutting herself off at the sight of Ophelia's head falling forward in shame of the words of disapproval, she quickly changed the entire sentence she was trying to say. "—er, forget I said that. It's a name just like one your father would give one of his weapons, and if he was here he would be so proud of you."
"I try to be like him as often as I can." Her smile still present, although the blow to her excitement that her mother had caused was evident in how much smaller it was, Ophelia's head perked back up as she snatched her tome back. "He said he would only be gone for a few days this time, he will get to know the name I decided on soon enough."
"That's true." Nodding at the statement, Nah glanced around the room for a quick second before uncharacteristically grabbing her daughter, pulling her in for a quick, surprising hug. "Just…don't ever decide that a life of travel is what you want, especially if no one you love is interested in the same. All the time your father has spent out patrolling the world, he could have been spending with us, and I would hate for you to make that same choice."
Ophelia attempted to wriggle free of her mother's grasp, but she stayed put when she heard the deep sigh that was released right in her ear. "I understand, don't worry, Mother! I love my father just as much as I should, and I do mean it when I say I try to be like him, but to travel like he does for no reason? It's simply not in the stars for me!"
"Not until you're much, much older, anyway." When the hug broke apart not long after that was said, Nah flicked her daughter's ear, earning a groan from the girl. "I'm only reminding you that you and I both have a lot of life ahead of us, who knows how much of that we'll spend searching for the next place we belong."
"You'll spend a lot of time doing that, don't you worry!" The voice that gave its input wasn't one that Ophelia had expected to hear right then, having not looked around to see who else was present, so the girl gasped when she heard it, nearly bolting from where her mother had approached her to meet with the other woman in the room. Just like the mother/daughter pair, this woman looked younger than her age, although her looks were infinitely more deceiving than either of theirs. "Oh, hey there Ophelia! What's got you so excited to see me like that?"
"I didn't know you were out here, Nana Nowi," the girl explained, wrapping the other woman up in her arms for a moment, before realizing it wasn't the best of ideas with a big tome in one of her hands. "I thought you were somewhere else for the day, or going somewhere else, or something! This is quite the surprise!"
Nowi laughed, dodging the book as it got swung around her face for a few seconds. "Where would I have gone? To Ylisstol? We're going to all be there soon enough, don't you think? Besides, I live here, just like you do! It shouldn't be so surprising to see me in my own house, you know!" She paused for a moment while Ophelia awkwardly laughed, to allow for the girl to make sense of how silly her surprise really was. "Did your stars and all that tell you I was going to be gone?"
"They might have, which made me worried it was really going to happen! First Father, then my dearest Nana? I could never ask for anything like that to happen to our family!" Where she was standing, Nah muttered something about that, about how that happening to their family wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, but Ophelia ignored it. "I know that everything here is weird and not-normal, but we all love and care for one another and that's all this small dragon here could ask for from her life!"
"Don't say that, I'm sure there's something else you'll want in your life as much as you want me in it!" There wasn't anything in particular that Nowi was referring to by her statement, but Ophelia wasn't aware of that, and so she spent quite a bit of the day dwelling on what her sort of-grandmother had meant by saying that. That was okay, because it offered a nice break from the dull events of the day-to-day life there on the farm, and because everyone else present either had given up weapons for their farming tools, or relied only on their dragonstones for fighting, there was no way that she could have practiced with her new dark magic tome. It was lamentable, but she knew the chance would come eventually.
The days of that week passed a lot faster than typical weeks did, in Ophelia's mind, because she knew there was something to be looking forward to in her life. She hadn't really looked forward to her birthday, although it had ended up being a good day overall, but she was now eagerly waiting for the moment where her father came back into the house after not being gone for very long at all. Had she known the reason for his decision to make his next trip a short one, she might have held her excitement back a tad, but by the time she was aware of what was bringing him home so quickly it was far too late to no longer be excited.
It was the middle of the night when she was awoken by the sound of rowdy people outside her window, the sound of mounts making their animal noises drowning out any specific voices that she could have heard. Shooting up out of bed faster than she thought possible, Ophelia carefully lit her bedside lamp and snuck to her window and, standing up on her tiptoes, looked out to see if she could catch a glimpse of anyone on the other side. No one was looking in her direction, therefore not seeing the top of her purple head of hair poking out the window, but she was able to make out quite a few people standing outside, the most prominent of which was her loudly-talking father.
"It certainly was an excellent idea to invite me to spend time with you in your corner of existence," she heard him say, his joy almost tangible even at the distance she was listening from. "However, I must ask, why did you choose to live so far out from the city? Don't you ever have dreams of going and visiting with your parents, either of you?"
"There's no reason for me to visit them, it gets confusing enough for the common folk that there's two of each of us alive that I try to keep my appearances in Ylisstol to a bare minimum." That was her father's cousin Lucina speaking, and while Ophelia had been told the correct term of her relationship to her on several occasions, referring to her in that way was the one she found easiest. "However, with what's coming up the day after tomorrow, I suppose my yearly visits home will be doubled this year." She sighed, and the girl in the window tilted her head, confused about what that meant. Thankfully, Lucina proceeded to give a veiled explanation of it: "Of all the things to feel compelled to go 'home' for, I never would have expected a run-of-the-mill birthday would do it."
"It's not a run-of-the-mill birthday, it's the other version of your sister's birthday, and they're having a parade in her honor." Speaking now was her father's other cousin Kjelle, sounding agitated as she talked, but that agitation made sense as she continued. "My birthday? Even though it's not about this me? I don't know, and I don't really at this point care. You had me riding horseback with your daughter to come all this way, we're going to the parade and that's the end of it."
Even though she couldn't see them, Ophelia was sure Lucina was nodding at her stern sister's reply. "Of course, Kjelle. It would probably do us good to speak with our parents while we're there, seeing as the last time I recall talking to either of them was last year at the holidays, and even then it was an awkward affair."
"Ladies, can we move this conversation inside, before we wake the farm animals up? I'm sure Nah's father would just love to know we're the ones responsible for his animals not getting their sleep." Ophelia internally screamed at the prospect of not just her father but her father and his cousins coming inside to talk, because if they were all inside she could spy on them without being in such an uncomfortable position. Being on tiptoes for more than a moment was mighty hard to do, and her tiny little feet were not handling doing it very well at all.
Before she had the chance to duck away to greet them in the main room as they entered, a pair of eyes creeped up in her line of sight, someone looking into her window just like she was looking out of it. The appearance of this new person nearly made her heart skip a few beats in fear, but when the person raised their hand and gave a friendly wave, she knew it was nothing to be concerned with. "Hey there, Ophelia! Long time no see! Sorry I couldn't make it for your birthday, my mom said that I was going to be seeing you this week so there was no point in us coming this way twice. What a bore, am I right?"
"A bore, sure," Ophelia whispered in response, not wanting to talk too loudly in case her father was able to hear her being awake. "Your mother is quite nice, she knows a lot and has a lot of stories to tell, so I'm not convinced calling her a bore is right. Why are you at my window, Soleil?"
The other girl, her face lighting up at the sound of her name, seemed excited to say exactly why she was there. "Well you see, my parents thought it would be fun to take us all on this trip out here to your family's farm before we go to the parade in Ylisstol, which is great and all, I guess. And then we got here and they started talking and I came looking for your room. You, uh, know I'm staying in there with you tonight, right?" Everything Soleil said came out rushed, like she was talking against the clock, and it was a lot for Ophelia to take in.
It wasn't helped when, before she could answer, her bedroom door came open, causing her to scream and stumble from where she was perched. Soleil, on the other side of the window, openly asked if she was okay, while the person responsible for the startling merely chuckled. "She certainly inherited that from my side of the family, that's for sure," her father said, covering his mouth to tone down the laughter. "You've got to be impressed with her though, Inigo, because she's juggling being a mage and being a dragon and that's cool, right?"
"You show me her every time I come around and she's the same every time. I'm impressed that she's lived this long, but that's the only point I will ever give you on this matter, Owain." The man he was talking to looked down at Ophelia in the dark, while she lay squirming on the floor as she tried to right herself, before he looked up and saw the silhouette in the window. "And it seems I should get the point on having a daughter just like myself, as Soleil is more like me than your daughter could ever be like you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" both Owain and Soleil asked, sounding equally offended as the words came through their mouths, and not realizing that they weren't the only ones to say anything.
"It means that you have a habit of trying to spy on the lovely ladies, my darling," Inigo clarified, also ignoring that his child hadn't been the only one to question him. "Although I'm sure you weren't here to spy on Ophelia, not this time. You were merely scouting out your bedroom for the next few nights, weren't you?"
In the window, Soleil nodded, smiling as she did. "Sure thing! I figured the one with the open window had to be Ophelia's, the glass on this thing is bound to be horrible for her to do her star-watching or whatever it is that she likes doing."
"It's tracking the cosmos to read what messages they have," the muffled voice of Ophelia clarified, as she continued trying to get herself back up. If only her room wasn't such a mess of tomes and charts, maybe she would have been able to get a good hand and foot placement to get up on her own. But with how things were, it wasn't until one of her father's cousins (she was pretty sure it was Lucina, judging by how displeased the voice that came with was to see Soleil in the window) came in with a mobile candle that someone bothered coming to help her up. Even then, the person who decided to help was her father, and just having to look at him after having been so excited to see him again only to make a giant fool of herself the first moment she got was making her face light up in embarrassment.
At least, in his own excitement of being back home, he wrapped her up in the biggest hug he could manage, lifting her off the floor and cradling her in his arms as if she was a much younger child. "You don't have to worry about me leaving again for a while, and that's a fact. It's good to see you again, even if it hasn't been a week since last time."
The embarrassment bubbling up through tears, Ophelia tried to express her own happiness for being back with her father but all she could manage was a choking sob that sounded so distraught. "Er, maybe we should let him calm her down, not intruding on their family moment or whatever?" Shifting how he was standing in the doorway, audible as the doorframe creaked as he ceased leaning on it, Inigo must have waited to get visual agreements from everyone else—except one. "No, Soleil, out of the window and come inside like a normal person."
"No, no, I got this." There was a split second of silence, followed quickly by both of Soleil's parents calling for her to not do whatever she was doing; Ophelia pulled her face out of her father's shoulder, where she was crying in her combined shame and happiness, to see the entirety of Soleil's bottom half sliding in through the window, the rest of her quickly following. Once her feet were flat on as much floor as she could find, she gave a dramatic flourish with her hands. "See, got this. It's not like I haven't come in through windows before. Apparently some people's parents aren't down with a girl like me interacting with their children."
"Or maybe it's that you don't ask for entrance into houses and are therefore not given it." Punctuating his sentence with a sigh, Inigo shifted his stance once more. "But what can I say, you learned that from the best and that's all I can ask for."
"What happened to 'not intruding on their family moment', hm?" Turning where he stood, so that he wasn't craning his neck to give the congregation there at the room's entrance a displeased look, Owain motioned with his head for them to get out. "I'll be out there soon to speak with you all some more, don't worry. We've got a full day out here tomorrow, best plan to make use of it in whatever ways we can."
Of the three people that had been standing there, two of them left, but the third lingered for a bit as she clearly waited for Soleil to come with. "Nope, not happening, Mom! My room while we're here, I'm going to start making myself mighty comfortable in here," the girl said, taking a few steps around where she could to look at the collection of pictures and pages Ophelia had decorated her walls with. "You go on ahead and go, I don't think they'll even mind I'm in here with them."
"That's not any way to act when you've been invited into a house, but your father is right. You learned that from him. Just do not interrupt them if they're talking, no matter what your reason is." Not feeling like fighting over the situation was worth it, especially not with Soleil already at least pretending to be interested in what she was looking at, Lucina sighed and gave one last look at her daughter before she went to join her sister and husband in waiting for Owain to come join them.
He knew that every moment he spent in that room consoling his child was going to be one more spent out there listening to his traveling party complain at him. "Ophelia, listen, there's no reason for you to cry over anything that's happened tonight," he started, laying her down on her bed, where she rolled over and buried her face in her blankets. "No, don't do that. You've got to sleep there, you don't want sopping wet blankets to sleep with."
"I got surprised by someone coming into my room, which wouldn't have happened if I had been in bed like I was supposed to have been. If I had been a good kid like you deserve, none of this would have happened." Her words were completely garbled due to her covering her face, but she was reaching for her newest tome as she spoke, knowing that had she been where she was supposed to have been, she would have been able to grab the book and cast a spell at anyone who startled her. "I'm just a disappointment of a child, aren't I, Father?"
"You spend too much time around your mother if you think you're even a bit of a disappointment. She's always ragging on you for not wanting to be a dragon all the time, isn't she?" The girl gave a sniffle and a small nod, something that made Owain choose to stroke her hair in comfort. "Well, you're not a disappointment for that, trust me. You're even better for being drawn to a weapon no one else in the house uses, and if you ever want to doubt yourself, just remember that you're the best mage around here."
Sniffling again, Ophelia rolled onto her side, allowing her father to continue running his fingers through her hair. "I know I am, but it all just…oh, never mind. I won't doubt myself any longer." That wasn't the truth, she knew she would always doubt herself and what she did simply because she should, by all means, have been relying on the ability she'd inherited by birth, not one she'd been working to better. "You go on and be with everyone else, I will go back to sleep like I'm supposed to be."
"I won't leave you if you're unhappy, that's not what a good father does by any means." She repeated her statement for him to leave, and he sighed, drawing his hand back from her hair. "I hear you, Ophelia. I love you, my sweet daughter. Don't stay up too late talking to Soleil, we're going to do some training tomorrow. You have to show me your skills with that new tome, you know."
The idea of getting to do that reversed any of the hard feelings she'd been dwelling on, and she happily bid her father a good night, which he returned her wishes by kissing her on the forehead and taking his leave, closing her door behind him. "So, sounds like you've got yourself an interesting family life," Soleil commented, sitting down on the bed next to Ophelia while the other girl sat herself back up. "Must be something that runs through our blood, don't you think?" As she mentioned blood, she reached up and motioned towards one of her eyes, where a faint mark establishing her as part of the Ylissean royal family was visible, and Ophelia knew that if she pulled up one of her sleeves, sitting on her arm was the same exact mark.
"It must be, certainly! Why else would we all be such strange individuals bound together in the names of fate and family?" She wasn't going to expose her own mark, but Ophelia did rub at her arm a bit. "Of course, my strangeness comes more from my mother's side than my father's, whilst yours seems to be from both sides…?"
"Something like that, I'd say." Shrugging, Soleil leaned back, falling into a laying position there on the bed and stretching. "Now, how are we doing this 'sharing a room' thing? I've never been allowed to have a sleepover with anyone like this before."
"I wasn't even aware we were having a sleepover until you brought it up, so I haven't thought about how we could make it work." Looking around her room and how disorganized it was, Ophelia's eyes ultimately landed on Soleil and how she looked so comfortable laying on the bed like she was. "I guess we can share my bed, if you're fine with that." Judging by how Soleil's cheeks began lighting up at that suggestion, it wasn't a good one, but there weren't any others that Ophelia could come up with. "If you don't want to share, I'll work on cleaning my floor so I can sleep there."
"Oh, no don't do that!" Her voice was catching as she spoke, Soleil becoming surprisingly caught off-guard at what she'd just been told. "I said I've never had a sleepover before, right? It's because I, uh, can't be trusted around others? I guess? Gods I don't know, everyone's scared I'll hit on their kid in their sleep or something, which I wouldn't do!" By now, her face was turning redder by the second, something that Ophelia wasn't quite understanding the reason for. She'd just suggested they share the bed, was that really that bad?
"You're getting red in the face, do I need to get some water or something for you?" Ophelia offered, trying to make sense of what was happening.
In response, Soleil grabbed the closest pillow she could and covered her bright red face with it. "I don't need anything, nope not at all! Sleeping in the bed together is fine, we're family and that makes it completely fine!"
"Okay then, are you sleeping in what you're wearing right now or did you bring some nightclothes with you?" Moving past her confusion, Ophelia attempted to get things to the point where they could go to sleep, but Soleil had other ideas, ones that involved not answering the question. After waiting a few minutes, she asked again, with the same amount of kindness in her voice, but tacking on the reminder of, "Nothing of mine will fit you, you're much too big for my kiddie clothes."
"I'll just sleep exactly as I am right now, don't worry." Soleil put the pillow she'd taken back where she'd gotten it from, which happened to be right where Ophelia needed it to lay down for herself. "I'm not going out there and facing my parents after I came in through your window. Sorry about doing that, by the way."
"It's fine, I've heard plenty of your adventures about trying to get into places without permission, I should have expected it. Thank you for not doing it while I was still standing there, though. My life is perfectly odd enough without adding you knocking me over and out by climbing through my window onto me." As Ophelia turned out her lamp and laid down, she could hear Soleil awkwardly laughing at the suggestion she'd made. "Did I misspeak? I'm sorry if I did, I don't exactly interact with a lot of people my age regularly."
The awkward laughter continued for a moment before Soleil collected herself well enough to talk. "No, don't worry about it! I just got the mental image of coming in on someone like that and it cracked me up, no big deal. Would hate to have broken my delicate little cousin-figure by doing that."
"I am not delicate," Ophelia replied, giving a "hmph" as she rolled to be facing away from where Soleil was. "I just look young for my age, that's all."
"Looking young, delicate, same thing. You talk like you're some soft-spoken weakling, but I can't wait until someone challenges you and you rip their head off with your dragon mouth. Or with your dark magic. Can't forget you use that too." Soleil then readjusted how she was laying, yawning as she did. "Boy am I tired from the trip over here. Can you believe it was before sundown when we left? Took us hours to get here! I sure am ready to sleep."
In her head, Ophelia was scolding whoever had said it was acceptable for Soleil to share her room for the night, her not being used to having someone so informal and talkative anywhere near her. But out loud, all she said was, "Then go ahead and sleep, Soleil. I'm about to doze off myself, as I was sleeping before you all arrived here tonight."
She didn't even get an answer, Soleil already having fallen asleep before she was prompted to say anything. That left Ophelia laying there with this other girl taking up half her bed, trying to reclaim the sleep she'd been having before she'd been woken up. Seeing her father and his cousins and everyone had been nice, but maybe she should have waited until morning's light to see them, knowing now that she was going to have the hardest time falling back asleep. The problem only intensified when Soleil started rolling over, trying to find herself a new position while she was sleeping, and that meant arms and legs occasionally finding themselves sprawled out onto Ophelia as she lay there.
By the time she did manage to get some sleep, she'd tried every trick she knew of how to force herself to close her eyes and keep them closed, but the only thing that seemed to work was counting the light snores that she heard next to her. It wasn't until she was getting to some impossibly high number that sleep overtook her, causing her to forget where she was in her count to tell Soleil in the morning. That was ultimately for the best, because when she woke up to find Soleil flipped around in the bed, her feet resting on the pillow beside Ophelia's head, she wasn't going to be able to address anything but the strange sleeping position once the other girl was awake.
That event didn't happen until Ophelia was already up, working on reorganizing her room so that her unexpected guest wasn't tripping over her collections of tomes. It started with a loud yawn that accompanied some stretching, followed by Soleil loudly asking what the younger girl was doing. "I don't want you to get hurt in my mess of a room, so I'm cleaning it. I had enough space in here yesterday to do some reading but that was it, and now I'll have enough room for the two of us to sit and talk tonight before we go to bed."
"Sounds like a boring waste of time," Soleil said, honesty in her voice. "Why don't you do something fun, like go outside and destroy things with one of the weapons you have under your control. Don't you, like, fly around the countryside and attack things as a dragon? If I was a dragon I would so do that."
"Yes, well, Mother would kill me before I got the chance, although Nana might allow it under the condition that she came with." Pausing for a second at the odd nature of that question, Ophelia shook her head and sighed. "Soleil, why do you care if I'm doing something boring or not? Not everyone has such a colorful life as you do."
"Define 'colorful', because I'm pretty sure it's not as great as you think it is." Ophelia tried to explain what she meant: the strange interactions with other people, the reputation of being flirty that followed her everywhere, the fact that she broke into people's homes through their windows on occasion. "Oh, all of that isn't even fun. Have you ever tried talking to someone you've been interested in after you've been turned down by them for being a total fool when it comes to being in love? It's not great, it's actually pretty horrible."
"I've never loved anyone who isn't family so I cannot say I've experienced that feeling before. I'll take your word for it that it's not great, though." Stacking a few of her tomes against the wall, Ophelia tilted her head back to see Soleil sitting on the bed, fiddling with her shirt a bit. "Is something wrong with what you're wearing? Should you have gone and gotten your change of clothes last night after all?"
Dropping her hands from where she held them, Soleil shook her head, tossing her long blue hair over her shoulders as she did. "No way, Ophelia! I just, er, must've slept weird or something because my shirt doesn't normally leave marks on my skin like this when I sleep in it, and those things itch."
"You did sleep weird, when I woke up you were face-down on my legs, your entire body flipped around from how it was when you went to sleep. Why did you do that?" Going back to her cleaning, Ophelia expected some explanation to follow her question, but the only thing that came was some sort of fabric hitting the back of her head. Turning this time, she realized it was the shirt Soleil had been wearing, and she only knew this because she was now sitting on the bed in just an undershirt, scratching at clearly reddened skin. "And why are you undressing without something to change into?"
"I told you, the marks itch. The shirt was just in the way so I lost it." She shrugged, not seeing anything wrong with what she'd done at all, although the confused look Ophelia was giving her was making her think twice on the matter. "Is it okay that I stripped down a bit? I mean, we're related, it should be all good."
Ophelia nodded, turning back to her cleaning once again. "It's fine, you just hit me with your shirt and—"
"Okay cool, then if you don't mind, I'll take my pants off too." The resulting command to not do that came out a bit louder than Ophelia had intended for it to, but she felt like stopping Soleil from getting undressed any further was more important than respecting volume levels in the house. But she had forgotten to consider any yelling coming from her room would worry her parents if they heard it, due to her being such a soft-spoken girl, and so the door came open moments later, the person checking in on them being greeted with the sight of a half-shirtless girl on the bed and the other girl, a shirt that wasn't her own draped on her back, sitting on the floor.
"I was going to ask if you two were okay in here, or maybe if you'd found a bug or something, but I can tell just looking in here that it's nothing like that." The voice at the door was unimpressed, and whoever it was standing there was making Soleil give small apologies just by being present. "It shouldn't be a surprise to me, finding out you're making people scream by just being yourself, Soleil. You really need to work on that."
"I know I do, Mom, but it's not every day that I'm somewhere like this." Although she wasn't looking at them, preferring not to see a mother scolding her child if she could help it, Ophelia did hear Soleil get up off the bed and take something from her mother, the door closing once the exchange was finished. "Ugh, mothers, am I right? Mine's always breathing down my neck like she's scared I'm going to do something. What could I do? I get cold feet whenever I interact with basically anyone."
"You seem to be interacting with me just fine," Ophelia pointed out, "and maybe she's scared that you're going to make me into someone like you. Which I wouldn't be upset about, don't worry, but my mother certainly would be."
"Funny you mention being like me, because boy do I have a present for you!" At the mention of a present, Ophelia got up from her spot on the floor to see what Soleil could be talking about, to find the girl rummaging through a bag, the thing her mother must have come to bring her. "Just, ugh, let me find it in here. Damn mom of mine, always making sure I have everything and then some, I only needed some cute clothes for the parade tomorrow, not an entire disguise in case someone came hunting for me." As she ranted, she pulled out masks and smaller bags that she didn't even bother going through, tossing them aside into the mess of Ophelia's room. Eventually, at the very bottom of her bag (and after finding a clean shirt to put on herself), she found what she was looking for: easily the skimpiest outfit Ophelia had seen in her relatively sheltered life.
"I don't think I like where this is going, Soleil…" Covering her mouth with one hand and shaking the other hand to deny the gift, Ophelia physically shrunk away as Soleil pushed the article of clothing at her. "No, I can't! Mother doesn't let Nana wear that sort of thing around, why would she ever allow for me to do it?"
"Because you're trying to be a dark mage and that's what dark mages do?" Surprised that she even knew that part about her, Ophelia was about to ask Soleil where she'd heard that, but she was given her answer before she was able to get a single word out. "How do you think you got your tome for your birthday? My mom had to find somewhere that would sell one to the not-actual-princess of Ylisse, and then she had to send it here to your parents so they could give it to you. And now I'm giving you your cool costume for when you use it."
The idea of having a costume, and therefore a stage presence, for when she was using her new tome sat well inside of Ophelia, and so, despite her reservations with taking the clothing, she grabbed it and pulled it in close to her. "I accept this gift. Thanks, Soleil. You're too kind to me."
"Aw, I'm just being a good friend and cousin, no big deal." Waving the thanks away, she turned to face away from Ophelia and bent down to grab one of the things she'd tossed out of her bag, which turned out to be a headband that she put on, it immediately doing the job of keeping her blue hair out of her face while she picked up her mess. "Now I'm going to go out to see what the plan for today is, you keep that outfit for when you're ready to make your first appearance as a dark mage."
Ophelia nodded, still holding the clothes close to her chest. "I'll treasure this just like I treasure my tomes, each and every one. It needs a name, though." Soleil groaned at the prospect of sitting through a naming session, something Ophelia found odd, as they'd never been around one another when she'd had one. The reasoning for that came out before the older girl left the room, as she said that she didn't care for naming things because of some of the stories she'd heard of certain others naming everything they owned. "Oh, that makes sense. You go on and do whatever, I'll stay in here until I've thought of a good name."
This time, she wasn't going to allow her mother to intrude on her naming process, nor was she going to let anyone else have a hand in it. The name for this costume was going to come straight from Ophelia's heart, and she needed to really think of what it should be—or, as she came to realize, what it needed to represent. "Maybe it's not the clothing itself that needs a name, but rather it's me that needs one for the moment! But what's a good name for myself to go by when I am in the 'character' of…" Her voice trailed off as a thought overtook her mind, one unrelated to her situation yet inspiring nonetheless. It was of her father and one of his many stories, and how he told the story as if he was a witness to the very deeds he was talking about having done. The name he would use would change depending on the circumstances: in stories of dramatic natures, he would use dramatic names, and ones that ended in tragedy had him with a name that elicited thoughts of revenge. But in this particular story she was remembering him telling her, it wasn't drama or tragedy that marked the tale. Instead it was the simple aspect of adventure and how he craved it. What was the name he had used for himself in that one, though?
"If my father is the chosen hero he always claims himself to be, that must mean I'm fated for the same greatness he is," she whispered to herself, smacking her forehead as she spoke. "I shall become a chosen heroine, with the name of…" Once again her voice trailed, but when it picked back up it was louder in volume, even if it was soft like normal. "Ophelia Dusk! That's a perfect name for a young maiden training in dark magic!"
On the other side of her door, she could hear someone laughing, followed by Soleil calling out, "She came up with a name already, so stop placing bets or whatever it was you were doing! We've got to get to training so she can impress us all, right?"
From further into the house, Ophelia could hear her father reply, "Is there any other choice? My little girl, grown up enough to need a battle name! I'm so proud of her!" That was, naturally, followed by more laughter from close by, accompanied by something, most likely Soleil's hand, hitting the door to catch the girl in the room's attention. She must not have known that the door would creak open at the force, because she screeched in shock on the other side, bolting away before Ophelia could get out to see what was going on.
This was most definitely a strange bunch living under the bonds of being a family, and she was pretty sure she didn't want or need it any other way.
Getting permission to actually go out and train alongside everyone else was a struggle that Ophelia wished she hadn't had to go through. Her mother was so particular about her doing everything as she was told to, from making sure to eat a good breakfast to getting all the housework done, that it was nearly time for everyone to come back in for lunch before she was given permission to join them outside. "I suppose there's nothing else for me to keep you in here with," Nah admitted, ruffling Ophelia's hair as she spoke, while the girl stood impatiently, holding her dark magic tome behind her. "Minus not having given your new clothes my stamp of approval, that is."
Shivers coursed down Ophelia's spine as she looked down at herself, knowing her skimpy little dark mage outfit, ill-fitting over her tiny frame with its lack of curves to hold anything in place, was under the baggy clothes she'd dug out of her belongings. "I'm sure you'll love them when you see them, Mother," she finally said, trying to break away from Nah before she could say anything else to stop her from going out. "Besides, it's only a costume, not anything for casual wear."
Without blinking or hesitating, Nah called the exact problem that her daughter was trying to skirt around. "Soleil got you something for some older and more mature-looking than you, didn't she? Go change out of it, it's nothing you need to be wearing as a girl with your upbringing. And I'll be making sure to talk to her parents to let them know that—Ophelia get back here!" She had gotten so absorbed in her mothering duties that she let her hand draw back from her daughter, therefore letting her sneak out of the room and outside, the sound of the door slamming shut alerting her to what had happened. "Ugh, just like her father, always ready to sneak out and get to her adventures."
"Your mother keeping you inside to stop you from practicing your magic? I don't know why she's so against you doing anything but using your dragon powers, but whatever." Shrugging the whole situation off, and ignoring the fact that he could see Nah poking her head out the door to see what her daughter was planning to do, Owain clasped his hands together, a giddy expression appearing on his face. "I'm so thrilled you're actually going with this magic thing! And dark magic, at that! Not everyone can do that. I wish I could do that."
"It's okay, Father. I'll do it for the both of us." Ophelia pulled her tome from behind her and pushed it at him, spine facing up. "Here, you hold Cosmic Sucker Punch while I prepare for my big reveal as the heroic mage I was destined to be!" He shook with excitement as he took the book, admiring the name for it that was taped to its spine, while she could feel herself beginning to tremble as she slowly, carefully, took off the clothes covering the costume she was wearing underneath.
The sounds of everyone getting their first glimpse of her in her gifted outfit were catching her by surprise. Soleil was cheering, thrilled to see her gift being used already, while both of her parents were asking each other which one had allowed their child to buy something that revealing for someone. Owain was still engrossed in looking at the name his daughter had given her tome, but when he looked up and saw her standing in front of him with very little yellow and black fabric covering her body, his jaw dropped, eyes going wide and all excitement leaving his face. "Ophelia, that's, uh, a unique outfit you've got for this. You realize battle wear needs to be practical, right?"
"It's perfectly practical for what I aim to do as the chosen heroine Ophelia Dusk, thank you very much!" Tossing her clothes that she'd been using to cover her costume aside, she took the tome back from her father's hands, flipping open to the first page. "Now let's get to the practicing of my magic, shall we? Oh I cannot wait to get to cast my first dark spell!"
She was stopped by small hands grabbing her shoulders, trying to pull her back into the house. "Not so fast, miss. You don't get to duck out on your mother giving you instructions and then proceed to prove her right." Nah sounded angry as she spoke, attempting to get Ophelia back into the house before she could do anything at all. The girl was sputtering reasons for why she shouldn't have to, every single one being silenced by her mother simply telling her, "You're too young for this, no arguing."
"Hey, why don't you just let her do it this one time?" Without thinking about consequences of her actions, Soleil tossed her dulled blade aside and bounded to be at Ophelia's side, grabbing her shoulders over Nah's hands and trying to pull the girl back forward. "It's not like it's going to harm anyone! She looks cute and…oh gods Ophelia have I gotten to tell you that you look cute in that outfit?"
"Your opinion is nice to hear, Soleil, but this is my daughter and I am going to make her follow my rules. That means no wearing something this revealing." As Soleil let go, giving up the battle, Nah also stopped trying to drag Ophelia, sighing as she did. "But, at the same time, who is it really hurting? Aside from myself, of course. Spend fourteen years trying to keep the girl from doing this thing just for a visitor to enable it."
Ophelia refrained from saying anything about her mother's defeat then until Nah was back inside, watching their practicing from in the house like she normally did. Even then, when she did talk, she spoke only to Soleil, who had gone back and picked up her sword once more to at least look like she was practicing with it while standing by the younger girl's side. "I just can't believe you got Mother to back down about me wearing this!" she gushed, bouncing around a bit with her tome in hand, preparing herself to start firing spells at any moment. "I just needed a strong cousin-figure in my life to get some loosening of rules, it seems!"
Her eyes following Ophelia's every movement, Soleil knew her face was starting to turn pink judging by how warm it was starting to feel, so she looked away and waved her sword in the direction of their fathers, whom were fighting with their own blades. "No, you just needed to have a big group out here trying to get a practice fight going to get her to back off a bit. There's no need to thank me for it, nope no way."
"Why do you sound like you're embarrassed by me giving you credit?" Stopping her spinning, Ophelia crept closer to Soleil, getting up on her tiptoes and noticing the older girl's rapidly-reddening face. "And you look like you are too! What's going on?"
"S-stop staring at me, will you?" Soleil stammered, instinctively swinging out with her sword and knocking Ophelia to the ground with her arm (and thankfully not her blade). The moment she realized what she'd done, she drew in a sharp breath and dropped to her knees, covering her mouth with one hand as she looked at Ophelia. "Gods damn it, I didn't mean to knock you over…"
"I deserved it, I got in your face and I deserved to be hit like that." Glancing around, Ophelia noticed that, in her fall, she had thrown her tome from her hands to somewhere a few steps away, and it was now sitting half-submerged in a puddle along the freshly-watered farmland they were practicing on. "Oh no, my tome! Cosmic Sucker Punch!"
"Your tome?" Soleil followed Ophelia's line of sight and saw the same sight that she was, the book's pages quickly becoming ruined by the muddy water. She jumped up and ran to get it, picking it up and finding the water just dripping off of it. Her heart was sinking as she came back to Ophelia's side, handing her the destroyed book. "I, uh, didn't mean for this to happen. You were so excited about this and I ruined it, didn't I?"
The girl, taking her book back and seeing how it was damaged beyond use without her casting a single spell out of it, gave a small nod. "You did, but it's okay. This is the way fate wanted my debut as Ophelia Dusk to go, and I won't question it." Soleil helped her back up to her feet, and after giving a broken sigh, the younger girl turned to head back to the house. "I'll grab one of my other tomes and change into something age-appropriate, I don't want us to not practice our battle skills just because I don't have my dark tome."
Soleil's words of rebuttal were lost to a gaping mouth, as she sputtered trying to get anything out but was too entranced by watching Ophelia walk away, her long hair swaying in time with what little hips she had. Her face was flushing once more, a feeling she didn't like taking over her body, and she had to turn and cover her face in the crook of her arm to try collecting herself. By the time Ophelia came back, the episode was over and Soleil had moved past it, but for the rest of the day, she would catch herself looking in the direction of the once-again-modestly dressed girl, a smile forming on her lips until she saw how despondent the girl looked due to what she'd lost.
Things between them had just gotten a bit complicated, hadn't they?
A/N: oh boy, this is arguably one of the strangest stories I've written, if only because there's some sort of...romantic interest one-way between second cousins? Don't worry, we're not going to make this weird in the following chapters, nope. c: