The backpack on the bed had been half-emptied before it had ever been set down, something that had happened only because some of the clothes that had been inside it had already been slammed down onto the floor, visible dust coming off of them. Shaking her head at what mess she'd caused in her bedroom already, Kjelle told herself that she'd take care of that at a later point before going back to digging through the backpack, looking for something in particular she knew she'd brought home with her. More dirty clothes from being in close quarters with animals? Not exactly what she was looking for. Some of her childhood belongings that she'd snuck out with her? They were great, but they weren't needed at the moment. What she wanted was something more important than anything she'd have been able to grab for herself, and she needed to know where it was.
When the door to the room was pushed open, she didn't bother to turn to see who it was coming in to say hello, as she was elbow-deep in the backpack with no interest in giving up until she had what she was looking for. "I can't believe my mother went and picked you up without telling me you were coming home today," the voice of the person who'd come into the room said, closing the door behind her to give them some privacy in case there was anyone listening in. "She didn't even tell me where she was going when she left, just that she would be back at some point. How stupid, am I right?"
"I guess that's a little stupid, but I'm sure she had her reasons for why she didn't want to tell you." She still hadn't looked to see who was there, but from the moment the door had opened Kjelle had known who was stopping in, so their identity wasn't much of a surprise at all. "Like, maybe she wanted me to be able to get back for a few minutes before we were back to the same old stuff we're always up to. That'd be nice. But it's not what I'm getting, clearly, because you're in here already, Severa."
"Are you telling me that you don't want me in here with you?" Gasping in faked surprise at what she'd just heard, Severa brought her hands together in front of her face, before giving a couple fake sobs. "I thought we were best friends, yet here you are, telling me you don't want me coming in to see you after you get home from being gone for—"
"A week. I was gone for a week." Cutting her off before she could give some ridiculous amount of time that was definitely far from the truth, Kjelle finally turned to look at Severa, standing there over top of the pile of dirty clothes in the middle of the room, her eyes wide and trying to produce tears as she looked like she was attempting to cry. "Which I'm sure you'd have known that if you ever paid attention to a word your mother said. I know poor Cordelia was trying to tell you for almost a month that I'd be gone for the week, so I could see my parents for a little bit before what we're doing soon."
"—I mean, I know that you were only gone for a week, jeez, what kind of person do you think I am?" Severa immediately dropped the act she'd been putting on, going from attempting to cry to being nonchalant about everything in an instant. "I'm just saying, it's really rude that you don't want me coming to say hi once you're home. We live together, it only makes sense that I'd come see you."
"Or it makes sense that you'd at least wait until I'm done unpacking to come see me, since we do live together. Not like I'm going anywhere else today." Shrugging as she went back to focusing on digging through her bag, Kjelle didn't care that she heard the distinct sound of Severa kicking at the clothes on the floor, nor did she mind hearing her friend's sputtering as she tried to make some rebuttal. "It's all good though, again I'm not going anywhere else so you being here isn't much of a distraction."
The sounds of shuffling on the floor stopped at once, as Severa decided it wasn't worth making more of a fuss than she already had and instead chose to sit down on Kjelle's bed, right beside where her bag was. "Obviously I'm not a distraction, you're really going to town on finding something in there. What's so important that you haven't stopped looking for it the whole time? Normally you just throw everything from your bag on the floor and make dear Mother take care of it."
"I only did that once, and that wasn't how it actually happened. She offered to wash my clothes for me and I said that was cool, I didn't make her do anything. And I am going to clean this room up once I find…what I'm…looking for!" Her fingers had gripped something in the bag that didn't feel like the surrounding clothes, and as she pulled it out she recognized the pattern on the patch with a grin. "Here it is! Look at what my mother gave me for coming to spend a week with her!"
Severa narrowed her eyes as she looked at what Kjelle was holding on to, finding nothing interesting about it. "Looks like something dumb. Mind telling me what it is?"
"It's a patch to put on my bag, from the Feroxi police. Mom told me she told some of them that I'd be interested in having one and they made sure to get me one for while I was there." She turned her hand so that she could see the front of the patch for herself, the dull red color reminding her of many days spent hanging around one of the small police stations up in the mountains, where they all had that insignia mounted on the wall. While she'd never been interested in the workings of the police, she'd grown up appreciating what they did and thankful that her family hadn't ever needed to worry about calling them, due to their remote location as well as her parents' affiliation with the force. "They don't just hand these out to people, they're usually already sewn onto uniforms before the officer gets theirs, and they're next to impossible to get off without ripping."
"Why do you care so much about a little piece of fabric you'll lose in a day?" Severa asked, hearing Kjelle's almost breathless what? that she gave in response. "Come on, you know it's true, you're going to misplace that just as fast as you misplace everything else in here."
Shaking her head, Kjelle explained how, exactly, that wasn't going to be the case: "I won't lose it, because I told my parents I'd get it sewn onto my backpack after getting home. I might not be asking your mother to clean my room this time, but I am asking her to put this in place for me."
"Good, she deserves to have to do some kind of work around here after forgetting to tell me you were coming home today." This was typical Severa, going right back to remembering her newest reason for having a grudge against her mother, but it was something that Kjelle didn't mind about her friend. At least, it was something she'd grown to accept about her, and she didn't allow it to bother her too much; that was just what happened after living with someone for the better part of four years, with very little time spent back at the camp that she'd grown up calling home.
It was kind of a strange situation that she'd found herself in, and she hated having to explain how she'd ended up in it to people who weren't already aware, but the important piece of the story was that she had only chosen to move to her friend's house in Ylisstol because she wanted to get a normal teenage experience. Living at a camp a fair drive outside of the nearest town meant that she'd never really had the chance to do extracurricular activities growing up, and all of her after school time was spent sitting at the police station waiting to be able to go home with whichever parent had been on shift that day. She knew she'd spent more of her time there at that station than she ever had at home, but the secluded life was the life her parents wanted to live, and she wasn't meant to question it.
The opportunity to move in with Severa and her parents came after a visit to Ylisstol for the holidays, when they stayed at the house with their family and the girls, who'd spent time together several times a year ever since Severa was born, grew closer than they had been able to before. It wasn't an idea that either of them had come up with, and it wasn't one that anyone wanted to accept right away, but after an incident a few months later that changed their lives in the Feroxi mountains forever, Kjelle was ready to take that leap, leave her parents' care, and start a life as a fairly normal teenager.
Closing her hand tightly around the patch for a moment, Kjelle sighed before setting it carefully on part of her bed and dumping the rest of her bag's contents on the floor on top of everything already there. "I hope she's not too busy to do it now, I'd rather not prove you right by losing it right away," she said, picking the patch back up once she knew the bag was empty. "Come on, let's go see what she's doing, I wonder if she already knows that I'm going to ask her about this."
"Why would she? That would require one of your parents telling one of mine what they gave you, and I doubt they did that." Jumping off the bed and narrowly missing slipping on a rogue shirt from the pile, Severa still managed to get to the door and open it before Kjelle had the chance. "You know how your parents are, super separated from everything and all that. If they weren't, don't you think they'd live around here? Face it, they just don't like talking with anyone else."
"That's not the case and you know it, Severa. They have their reasons for living so far away, and those reasons aren't to ignore people they like. Half the time I was there they kept asking about how everyone here was doing, anyway." That was the truth, as Kjelle knew she'd spent more time giving updates on everyone than she had talking about herself. "Besides, if they did hate talking with anyone, why would they have stayed here when they came for my graduation? Wouldn't that, you know, make things worse?"
Swinging the door back and forth as she waited for her friend to leave the room, Severa didn't hesitate on giving an answer. "I guess you're right, they would've stayed somewhere by themselves if they really didn't like anyone. Sucks that they only were here for, what, a day back then? I like your parents, they tell some great stories if you let them."
"Oh trust me, I know all about the stories they tell." Having had to hear a lot of those stories many times as they drove from place to place without any sort of music available to them, Kjelle didn't really want to think much about them. She got to the doorway and had Severa nearly slam the door in her face, her younger friend giggling once she realized that she hadn't ever had a chance to make that happen. Together they went down the hall to the main part of the house, hearing no one and seeing nothing but darkened rooms, an odd thing to encounter in the late afternoon there.
"If Mother left again without telling me, I'll fight her," Severa said, cracking her knuckles on one hand. "She's not allowed to keep doing that, I'm supposed to know where she's going so I can go with her. It's the rules."
As they entered the dining room to find it empty, but with plates set up on the table for an early dinner—six settings, unusual but not unexpected given how often they had company for meals—it became clear that the lack of people being present must have had something to do with the extra dishes. "You don't think your mom decided she's going to invite people over to interrogate me about anything I saw up in Ferox, do you?" Kjelle asked after taking in the full sight of the table, setting her backpack down on the edge of the table but not letting go of the patch still in her hand. "I mean, I wouldn't put it past her, but…usually I get at least a warning that it's going to happen."
"Who knows with her, honestly. It would make just as much sense for her to do that and forget to tell you as it would for her and Daddy to have gone to dinner with friends and forgotten about us." Her lower lip poking out in a forced pout, Severa did what any self-respecting teenager would do and grabbed one of the chairs and pulled it out, moving the one next to it as well before laying down across them. "Wake me up when they get home or whenever you decide you're ordering pizza for us to share, I'm taking a nap right here."
"Why am I not surprised you're going to do that?" There wasn't much else to do right there at the moment, unless sitting in a room with someone who wasn't going to respond to anything as she faked sleeping was considered worth someone's time. Kjelle definitely didn't think she needed to do that, so she left her bag where she'd put it and went back to her bedroom, closing the door and making sure it was locked so her friend didn't somehow manage to get inside once more. She set the patch down on top of her dresser, making sure it was out in the open, before turning her attention to the pile of dirty clothes in the middle of the floor.
With a sigh she bent down and began sorting everything she had, separating it by color as well as by dirtiness, not wanting to wash something caked in dirt with everything that wasn't. Even though she loved the little chunks of time she spent up at the camp with her parents, being there was a nightmare in terms of cleanliness, and that was being said as someone who'd never even ridden on one of the horses the camp was known for. Somehow she'd always ended up covered in dirt and dust without getting anywhere close to the horses, and it was something she'd accepted even as a child. All it meant was a bit of extra laundry to do if she didn't want her clothes to be permanently discolored from the messes.
It was while she was sorting the clothes she'd first thrown out of the bag after getting home that she stopped completely, one shirt in particular setting off warning bells in her head. Without knocking too much of the grass and dried mud off of it, she turned it around so that she was looking at its front side, reading over the faded text on it with quickly-widening eyes. "Well, looks like I ended up with something that isn't mine," she said, balling it up and throwing it into her clothes basket, not wanting to deal with it. "If someone ends up missing it, I'll send it back, but I doubt they'll notice that one little shirt's come back with me."
That was the only disruption from her task, and soon she was carrying the first load of laundry out into the hall, expecting to find the house just as empty as it had been when she'd gone back into her bedroom. The sound of loud laughter from the dining room made her drop the pile of clothes onto the floor once more, not even caring that she'd created more of a mess than there'd originally been as she ran down the hall and back to where she'd last left Severa. The laughter ended as she entered the room—not in a negative sense, but because the person who'd been laughing saw her and fell into a silence that not even a wave from her could break them from. "I guess they really were bringing company over to interrogate you," Severa remarked, watching as the person who'd been laughing walked across the room and grabbed Kjelle in a big hug, picking her up off her feet as they carried her back towards the table. "What a surprise, we managed to figure something out for once."
"They'd never do that," Kjelle said, partially out of breath from the excitement of being carried by someone she hadn't been expecting to see. "Really, what kind of benefit would there be to that? You wouldn't start playing twenty questions with me about what I did on my trip, would you, O'wain?"
"And waste the glorious time of day learning about places I'd rather not hear of? That would be pointless!" Setting her down now that they were at the table's side, O'wain placed a hand on the top of Kjelle's head, ruffling her hair a bit. "Now, if you were to tell me about your parents, I'd be fine with that, but Ferox itself? No thank you."
This was a relatively common exchange between the two, something that they'd shared over and over again ever since they'd first really gotten to know each other. Kjelle knew the reasons for him wanting to distance himself from talking about the place she considered her home country, and it wasn't any sort of secret so everyone else in the room knew as well. That never once stopped someone from making the joke that he was going to "interrogate" her when he saw her next, to the point that "interrogate" was the codeword she regularly used for O'wain coming over after any of her trips to see her parents. "Okay, well, I'd appreciate it if you weren't messing up my hair," she said, lifting his hand off of her so that he couldn't continue what he was doing. "You're just going to make me have to leave to fix that if you keep it up."
"I'm sure there was something you were in the middle of doing that you abandoned when you heard I was here," he replied, calling her out exactly as he intended to. The way she froze, only to quietly slink away back towards the hall, proved to him that he was right, and for the next couple minutes she could hear him laughing again about the fact that she had to go back to what she'd been doing. Upon her return, the scene had changed slightly and now everyone was sitting at the table, only two chairs open but the chair between Severa and O'wain being meant for her. He offered it to her with a wave of his hand, which was accompanied with a look from Severa that told her that he was up to something.
Either that, or that they were up to something, and it was never a good thing when the two of them were working on the same thing. Figuring out which one of those was the case wasn't going to be easy, but Kjelle was going to do it one way or another, and if she was lucky it would happen while sitting at dinner with her two best friends and their parents, all of whom were more or less family to her, no matter how awkward it was to think of them in such a manner.
That wasn't so much about Severa's parents (who were basically her aunt and uncle, and had been in a role of that sort for a lot longer than she'd been living in Ylisstol), but rather it was about O'wain's mother. Now, Kjelle wasn't ignorant to things that had happened in the past, and she'd heard plenty of stories that involved her parents and O'wain's, but it still struck her as odd that she would spend a lot of time with this woman and she'd get treated like she wasn't really wanted around. O'wain had always noticed that treatment as well and had called it out a few times, but nothing was going to change how his mother treated his friend, even if she was meant to be in a guardian-like role with her.
She shook her head, trying to clear those thoughts from her mind without making it obvious she wasn't focused on whatever was happening there in the room. Even though it was be perfectly acceptable for her to mention that she was thinking about things related to her family, given that she'd just been with them earlier that day, it wasn't proper behavior to admit to thinking about why someone's mom was always giving her the cold shoulder. "You didn't miss too much while you were out of town, really," O'wain said, leaning into Kjelle so he could be whispering into her ear. "The big thing that you could've missed isn't until next week, so go you for planning this when you did."
She wasn't sure what he was referring to, but she knew she needed to take a stab at it to not seem like she was ignoring him. "I planned it for this past week because I know that we're going on that overseas trip soon and I wanted to see my parents before we left for that. Did I tell them that we're doing that? No, but I didn't want them worrying about me. I don't think they'd do anything, but they're just—"
"Dumb enough to distrust me in taking you on a trip?" Cordelia suggested, winking at Kjelle to let her know that she'd been able to hear every word she had said. "I don't think they'd be concerned out of stupidity, but rather love and care for their only child. Besides, they would be justified in being somewhat concerned for your safety, given that we are going quite a bit further than anywhere in Ylisse or Ferox." She tilted her head slightly to one side as she saw the girl's reaction to what she was saying, her small nod and the tiny bite she made on her lip. "You can say whatever you want about your parents here, it isn't like anyone will be reporting back to them."
"Mother, you'd do it without even thinking about it, don't lie." Severa's retort came without giving anyone else a chance to speak, because she felt the need to call her mother out for what she'd said before anyone could pretend like she was telling the truth. "I know that you're constantly sending them everything Kjelle does, and you'll be the one to tell them that you're taking her to Hoshido without their permission."
"H-hey now, who said I need my parents' permission to go on a trip? I'm an adult, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it." The concept of not needing clearance to do something wasn't new to Kjelle, but it was something that Severa typically ignored with her own parents, so hearing her call attention to that was strange. It wasn't until O'wain nudged her and told her to rethink what she'd said that she caught onto the fact that she'd made an incorrect claim. "I mean, I'm almost an adult, I guess. But I haven't had to ask my parents to do anything for years now."
That fact lingered over everyone's heads like a cloud, a reminder that this girl had separated herself from her family to have a more normal life. When the next person spoke, it was the other adult currently at the table, her eyes focused on the plate sitting in front of her rather than the person she was speaking to. "How do you think your parents would feel, hearing that they've raised such an independent woman? I think your mother would be amused at your behavior, and your father would…I don't know, but he'd be proud of you."
"My parents know what kind of person I am, they knew it when I told them I wanted to live here with Severa and her family so I could have a better life." Kjelle paused, realizing the implied meaning of what she said and feeling the need to correct that right away. "Not that my life with them was bad, it was just hard living in the middle of nowhere. Do you know how long of a drive it was from there to, uh, anywhere?"
Without hesitation, the woman looked up and locked eyes directly with Kjelle, a coldness in her expression as she answered, "Yes, actually, I know pretty well how far that camp is from anywhere. I've had to make the trip from there in the snow." As soon as she was finished speaking, her eyes were back on the plate, almost as if she'd only wanted to acknowledge Kjelle's physical presence for that one moment. "That's a day I'll never forget."
"There's no need for this hostility, Lissa," Cordelia told her, having watched the exchange and wanting to move past what her daughter had said to her before by getting the whole conversation and all its offshoots over with. "I know things here get a bit hard sometimes, but Kjelle hasn't done a single thing wrong to you and you need to remember that. She isn't either of her parents and doesn't need to be treated like she is."
"My apologies, but I only spoke like that because of what we were talking about, not who it involved. She knows that I'm on good terms with her parents." Lissa was looking up once again, although now she was focused on O'wain rather than anyone she was talking to. "I just have some bad memories about being up at the camp, which the only time I've ever been there was not by choice and had horrible consequences."
That was another story that all of the kids present had heard at some point, whether it be because it was the lead-up to their birth (in O'wain's case), because one of their parents was involved as the savior (in Severa's case), or because it was just a bad situation that never needed repeating, which was why Kjelle knew about it. "Okay, but you're really going to speak to a young woman like she's responsible for something stupid you did close to twenty years ago?" Cordelia had raised a hand, reaching out towards Lissa with mangled fingers that once had been perfect in appearance, based on how scarred they looked. "That would be like me speaking to you or your son with hatred because of this. You had nothing to do with it, of course, but someone you were close with did."
"Miss Cordelia, as much as I love when you're putting Mom into her place, can you, uh, maybe not do that about this?" His legs bouncing as he watched her showing off her damaged hand to his mother, O'wain knew he couldn't just sit by and let her make her point. "We don't like talking about that stuff, remember?"
"No, she's fine, she's making a point I forget sometimes." Lissa laughed, although it sounded more like it was her trying to clear the air rather than make a joke of what she'd said. "I know that me getting uppity about things from before she was born isn't needed, but I guess it just slips out every once in a while."
Watching everything that was happening like it was the most exciting show she'd ever seen, Severa clapped her hands together loudly now that the drama seemed to be over to interject her personal question. "Oh-kay, now that we're done arguing about things way older than I am, when's dinner happening? We're all sitting here, are we getting food any time soon or what? I'm starving, it's not right to not feed your kid for this long!"
Everyone's attention turned to her, their faces saying it all: she had chosen to break up what could've become a bit of a dispute between two longtime friends at the exact moment before any real arguing began. "I agree with Severa, on the 'are we getting food' point. I haven't really eaten anything at all today," Kjelle said, rubbing at her arm as she pulled her eyes off of her friend to look at the older women at the table. "I'm guessing that we are getting food, and that it's being cooked or picked up right now, huh?"
"Why would we be gathered here if we weren't?" Bringing her hand back to her side underneath the table, Cordelia smiled at both of the girls who'd spoken about food. "It should be here any moment now, we made sure to coordinate everyone's arrival for the evening with the delivery of the meal, and naturally we had someone volunteer to be the one waiting for that delivery."
Nothing needed to be said in response to that last part, as everyone present knew who was missing from the sixth chair at the table. Taking the opportunity to make every second count, Lissa jumped into a new topic of conversation, addressing Cordelia with, "Well, since he's still not here, can we go through another rundown of your Hoshido trip with these children? I'm not trying to be a hovering mother, but I want to make sure that I know what you're planning on doing while you're all gone."
It was an innocent request, one that was easily fulfilled, especially since the planning of the trip had been on all of their minds for the longest time. But when Kjelle tried to listen in on what was being said, O'wain knocked his elbow into her ribs, getting her attention away from the adults and onto him. "Don't get too excited about what she says we're going to be doing," he told her under his breath, making sure to be as quiet as possible as he spoke. "We're going to be doing our own things the whole time, which'll be a lot more fun than any guided history tours or whatever could be."
Getting excited about something she couldn't hear wasn't exactly possible, but Kjelle heeded O'wain's advice anyway and tuned out what they were saying. She sat there, getting lost in her own thoughts, for the longest time, until a loud greeting rang through the room, causing everyone to stop talking and look for the source of the sound. It signaled the delivery of the food they'd been waiting for, and from there on the night was spent eating, then playing catch-up from the past week, with the adults getting more into what was going to be happening on that trip outside of the country as the night got later. When it came time for the guests to go home, O'wain gave his reminder to Kjelle once more, this time adding that he'd explain more in the future, before hugging her good night.
"Do you know what he's talking about with all that?" she asked Severa, who put on an innocent face and shrugged in response. "Huh, okay, I don't know if I trust this idea of doing our own things while we're gone, but I guess I need to hear him out on it before I really decide what to do."
"Trust him, I know that he knows what's going on," Severa replied after a moment, making sure that neither of her parents were within earshot. "And I know that Mother knows what's going on as well, but don't bring it up with her. At all. Can't trust her not to tell Daddy or Lissa or even your parents."
As her parents didn't even know she was going to Hoshido in the first place, it was best that Kjelle stay far away from the possibility of them finding out from someone that wasn't herself. If all went according to her plan, they'd never know she left the country, and therefore they'd never be left worrying if their daughter had been safe and okay at every moment. But that required it going according to her plan, and as she was figuring out, it seemed everyone else had plans she needed to follow as well.
True to what O'wain had said, there was something big happening the following week, just days before their trip to Hoshido was to begin. The issue was that Kjelle didn't exactly understand what this big thing was, even as she was climbing into the car with Severa and her parents, all of them dressed in some of the nicest clothes they owned. "Aren't any of you going to tell me where we're going?" she asked, once they were all seated and ready to go. "I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy this more if I knew what was happening."
"We're going to a birthday party, haven't you heard us talking about it before this?" From the front seat, Cordelia was looking at her reflection in the mirror, using it to touch up her makeup before they started moving. "Usually we don't bring you two along when we go to this particular party, but this year we were specifically asked for you both to attend."
"Great, I think that means we're going to an old person party," Severa grumbled, tugging at one of the sleeves of the dress she was wearing in an attempt to loosen it on her arm. "Why do old people even have birthday parties, all it means is that they're a year closer to dying."
"Don't talk like that, sweetie. This isn't a party for someone our age, if that's what you're implying with that." Starting the car once he'd seen that Cordelia had finished with her makeup and both the girls were properly seated, Severa's father shook his head at what he'd heard his daughter say. "It's also not a party for someone either of your ages either, but you'll understand why we have to go soon enough."
The girls shared a look of surprise, hearing that this party was for someone who fell between the two generations. "There's so many people it could be, now that I think about it." Counting on her fingers as she thought of everyone she knew that fit that category, Kjelle looked at Severa right as her friend managed to pop the seam in her sleeve, nearing ripping it off in the process. "Uh, should you be doing that when we're going somewhere important? Don't you think your mom's going to notice that you're destroying your dress?"
"Do you think I care that she's going to notice? She can't be scolding me in front of all her friends, if they're there. None of them would be scolding their kids, she can't do something they wouldn't be doing as well." It was as if she'd managed to figure out a workaround to some of her mother's behaviors, and Severa seemed pretty pleased with herself for it. "Anyway, continue with what you were saying, you think there's a lot of people it could be?"
"If it wasn't a birthday party, I'd be sure I knew who it was for, but all of the people I can think of have their birthdays, well, not anytime near now." Kjelle was sure that she was right about that, given that they typically ended up going to the same parties every year because of the adults of the house dragging them along. "Maybe the birthday thing is a lie, and we're going for something else. Maybe someone is dying, and they want to have one last party."
"No one's dying," Severa's father called back to them, showing that he was listening to what they were still talking about. "As I said, you'll understand why we're going soon enough."
That wasn't the kind of answer the girls had been looking for, but that was as much as they were going to get, especially after Cordelia chimed in with, "It's not polite for girls your ages to be questioning what the adults are doing. When your father says that you'll understand, you do not keep talking further, am I clear, Severa?"
"I wasn't the one questioning it!" Severa snapped back, tugging at her other sleeve much like she'd done with the first one. "That was all Kjelle, I know you heard her loud voice saying everything, it wasn't me I swear!"
Sinking into her seat at hearing her name be dragged into the argument, Kjelle wished that she wasn't having to put up with what was happening around her. While she usually liked living with this family, there were times like this that it became more trouble than it was worth to be a second child under their roof. If anything, she wished that the arguments she had to listen to would be more like the ones she used to have with her own mom, which involved a lot of yelling but also a lot of laughing, once they realized they were being dumb about things. That never happened between Cordelia and Severa, and it typically turned into someone feeling upset and the other insisting they won the battle, while anyone who bore witness to it had to accept that their time had been wasted watching their squabble.
There was someone else who felt the same way about the arguing, and he happened to be the one driving. But even he was unable to get in between them, with Cordelia insisting that her daughter was being rude and Severa insisting her mother was being ignorant, to the point that he tried getting a word in and was promptly hushed. "Listen, Stahl, I know you want to help, but defending her when she's being disrespectful isn't appropriate right now! If we hadn't promised we'd be attending today I'd insist we turn around and spend the day at home, but it seems Severa gets to escape punishment today."
"I know I'll be having to deal with it when we're on our trip anyway, so what's even the point of acting like you'd punish me right now?" Grumbling as she put her hands on her cheeks, feeling like she wasn't ever going to clear her name in the spat, Severa muttered a few disjointed thoughts that didn't make much sense in their verbalized version, but it was always good for her to let her anger and frustration out rather than dwelling on it.
That set the tone for the rest of the car ride, which had the adults in the front talking about how they'd handled the argument, Severa lost in her own hurt feelings, and Kjelle looking out the window wishing she was anywhere but there at the moment. It wasn't usual for her to want to be back with her parents, especially after she'd just been there so recently, but part of her was longing to be back with them, in their joke-filled and loving camp environment, rather than in this slightly heated place. She'd grown up in such a different world than the one she currently lived in, and it was hard for her to always keep herself rooted in the life she'd chosen for herself. She wanted so badly to find something more like what she'd once had, but without the isolation, and as much as she loved her current home she knew it wasn't exactly where she was meant to be.
Soon she realized that she recognized the roads they were going down, streets that she'd traveled many times back when she'd come into Ylisstol with her parents. "I don't mean to interrupt any of you," she said, her eyes focused on what was outside the window, "but why are we headed towards the police station? Do we have to pick someone up? Did…did my parents come into town and this is their way of surprising me?"
"We're going there for ourselves," Cordelia answered, attempting to reach back behind her seat to pat Kjelle's leg but missing her completely. "Did you think that this party would be at someone's house? Gods, that would be crowded and impossible to have any control over! At least at this, we'll be able to see everyone and be in the same general area, plus they have the recording booth so they can do this professionally."
Hearing her idea get shot down stung a bit, but Kjelle let it roll off her shoulders without too much thought given to it. After all, it was silly to think that her parents would've come back into town for the second time that year, when they were so happy living their lives where they were. "Why do we need a recording booth for a birthday party? Is that what the birthday person wanted as a gift?"
"It makes sense that she's confused, she's never been to this before," Stahl said, before Cordelia got any more words out. "Here, let's put it this way, we're gathering where we are because we have to do something to try and find a missing person. Does that make things any clearer?" It didn't, but she didn't want to tell him that when he was trying to be helpful so she gave a small nod and thanked him for his help.
Immediately after he wasn't paying attention to her anymore she was looking over at Severa with raised eyebrows, hoping that her confusion was coming across clearly. If it was, she wasn't told so, because all she got was a drawn-out sigh as a response. Instead of asking more questions she decided she'd wait until someone gave her answers on accident once they were there, because the last thing she wanted right then was to look like a burden on everyone she was currently with.
The station was crowded when they got there, almost as if they were the last to show up, and while Cordelia was freaking out about appearances and how bad it would look that they'd taken so long to get there, Kjelle wasn't going to wait to go inside with her "family". She could have waited for Severa, but she was still in a bad mood and dealing with her wasn't going to be fun until she got over herself. That meant going to the front doors on her own, looking rather underdressed compared to the heels-and-dresses the two ladies that would be following her were wearing, and when she opened one of the doors she saw that inside was more people dressed the same. Her heart sank a little when she saw that there were so many older folks, all of whom were people she'd gotten to meet over the years, and it didn't seem like there were too many people closer in age to her.
In fact, the only one she saw was a familiar dark-haired boy sitting rather close to the door, in the middle of a conversation with someone that she couldn't see from her angle. When she did enter the station, no one really looked to see who'd come in, which allowed for her to sneak up on where O'wain was sitting and tackle his chair from behind without him catching on to what she was doing until her arms were wrapped around him. "Wow, you got here late," he remarked, brushing her off so he could stand up and greet her with a proper hug. "Like, late enough that I think my uncle wrote you guys off as not showing up. Let me guess, Cordelia held you all up?"
"Between her and Severa, it was a pretty rough time getting here, yeah." She wanted to keep talking to O'wain, but the person he'd been speaking with before she'd gotten there was still present, watching them both with zero expression on his face. Noticing that she didn't recognize who they were, she got out of her hug and went to greet the man, holding out a hand for a quick shake. "Hey there, my name's Kjelle, I don't think we've met before and if you're a friend of O'wain's, you'll probably become a friend of mine."
"Kjelle, huh? As in, horse camp kid?" The man took her hand into his own and shook it eagerly, before kissing the top of it as he let his grasp go. "We have met before, but the last time I saw you, you were just a baby! My parents had you sitting next to my little sister, because you were both so close in age!" She was at a loss as to what to say to this guy, but it didn't surprise her even slightly that he knew who she was because of her background. "Anyway, the name's Bud, it's great to properly meet you."
His name struck a chord in her heart, almost as if she'd heard of him before without ever seeing his face. "His family used to go up and ride horses at the camp when they were all younger," O'wain told her, offering her his chair so that she could be part of the conversation now that she knew the other person involved. "If we go walk around, I'm sure we'll find his brother and sisters, but none of them are as cool as he is. Trust me on that one, Kay." She knew that him referring to her with that nickname in conjunction with a playful tone meant that he was only moderately serious, but she wasn't going to question him on why that was.
"Thanks for that vote of confidence there, O'wain, I really appreciate it, even if I, uh, think Yarne would have your head if he knew you were calling me coolest." Bud seemed like the kind of chill guy that someone could talk to for hours, but Kjelle wasn't sure if she wanted to commit to that. She recognized his name and his story from somewhere, and she was sure it was from something her parents had once said to her, but she didn't want to think too much about it. There was so much going on there at the station that she couldn't let herself get mentally hung up on one person, and that was when she decided to reject O'wain's offer of his seat so she could go see who else was around.
O'wain seemed bothered that his offer went unaccepted, but he took his chair back without saying anything in her direction, and quickly he and Bud were back to their conversation. "I wish I could get right back to things as fast as that," she said to herself as she moved on, walking past various groups of people in the middle of their own talks. Many of the groups were made up of older people, who she knew to be current and former members of the Ylissean police force, people who'd worked alongside her parents when they'd lived in Ylisstol. However, there were children of those officers standing around as well, and her biggest fear was that one of them would call attention to her sneaking around and ruin what she was trying to do.
Her adventure came to an end when she approached a pair in the corner, a woman with blue hair facing away from her talking to who she knew to be Lissa based on the occasional words she could hear coming from her. Those were few and far between, especially when drowned out by statements such as, "I don't know why you think sending O'wain to Hoshido, even if it's with Cordelia, is going to be a good idea. You know what happened the last time someone from the family went there with her, aren't you scared that it'll happen again?"
"I know my son better than anyone in this world, Lucina. I appreciate that you're concerned for your cousin's safety, but he'll be fine. Besides, wouldn't it be nice if he ends up having a trip like you did? He could meet a nice Hoshidan girl, bring her home, have a happy ending that way…" Her voice trailing off as she noticed that someone was spying on their conversation, Lissa took a second to make sure it was Kjelle she was seeing before waving her over to invite her into what was being said. "Why, here's the other reason I know everything'll be okay on this trip! Do you think anything bad would happen to O'wain when this girl's with him?"
"Would you have thought anything bad would have happened to my brother with me there with him?" Lucina's response came without even blinking when Kjelle had appeared next to Lissa, unsurprised by the fact that she was there. "I'm sure we're all just overreacting, but it's been so long since he disappeared that I'm worried someone else will make that same choice." In listening to what she was saying, it hit Kjelle that she knew exactly what this party was about, and that it might've been a birthday party in name but it was actually a gathering to reminisce about someone who'd been gone for a long time.
A very, very long time.
So long that she couldn't actually remember having met him before, because she was still years from moving to Ylisstol when he'd disappeared. She'd heard stories about him, because he was someone that everyone had known, but at the end of the day he was only someone she'd heard about, never someone she'd known. Why did it matter that she was at this party for him, then? She didn't know the guy, she wasn't going to be very helpful in anything that anyone intended on doing that day. "Can you believe that it's been eleven whole years since the last birthday we got to celebrate with him?" Lissa asked, going back to talking to Lucina because she knew that talking about things with Kjelle would go nowhere. That didn't mean she couldn't use her as an example, however. "The last time we saw him, some of these kids were half their size!"
"And some of us were exactly the same, since we were already grown." Lucina pursed her lips together, fidgeting with her hands as she kept making eye contact with her aunt, ignoring the girl she'd dragged over with her. "You're probably right though, O'wain is smart enough to not make stupid choices while out of the country, especially not with friends around. Inigo didn't honestly have me there to keep his head in the right place, given that I was, ahem, wrapped up in other things."
Poking out from behind Lucina's back was Severa's face, her having somehow targeted where her friend had gone in the room and making a beeline towards her. She was rolling her eyes at what she was hearing, and it took all of Kjelle's strength not to laugh at what she was seeing. "Just who else we needed over here!" Lissa smiled when she realized that Severa was there, catching the girl by surprise as she was expecting more of a scolding than anything. "You'll do your job at keeping my son focused on coming home from your trip, won't you?" she asked, reaching out and grabbing Severa's arm to get her out from where she was hiding.
"Yeah, of course," Severa replied, not knowing the full extent of what was going on but being just aware enough to know that was probably the right answer. "What else would I do, abandon him at the airport? Make him stay with my mom's cousin forever? Please, I like O'wain enough to at least let him come home with us."
"There, now we have someone who won't let him get left behind, I think I can sleep better knowing my son will be coming home." Letting go of Severa's arm now that she had the answer she was looking for, Lissa turned back to Lucina, who was shaking her head at what had just happened. "Please, don't make me start getting all worried about my little boy and if he'll be coming home to me. I know this is a sensitive topic for you but still!"
It was clear that they weren't going to be finishing talking anytime soon, and so Kjelle, with Severa there to help her, found a way out of the corner and back to walking through the party without any real direction of where to go. "Sucks that I just had to lie to miss Lissa like that, but them's the breaks, I guess." Speaking with her head close to Kjelle's so she didn't have to be too loud to be heard, Severa's words came as a bit of a surprise to her friend. "He's not coming home with me once we're there, and that's his choice, not mine."
"What do you mean, he's not coming home with us?" Kjelle stopped dead in her tracks, pulling Severa to a stop as well. "What's he going to do in Hoshido without us around?"
"Ri-i-ight, you haven't been told about all this yet." Playfully smacking her own forehead, Severa turned to look towards where O'wain was still in deep conversation with now two identical-looking guys by the door. "He'll get around to it soon enough, either today or when we're on the plane out there, it's kind of important that you know before it's too late."
"I don't think I want to know what this is about." Replying with a sour taste in her mouth, Kjelle's mind had already jumped to rather negative conclusions, the top one being that one of her best friends was so done with the life that he had that he was looking to start over in a brand-new country. "If he tells me, he tells me, if he doesn't, oh well. If I find out he's staying behind I'm dragging him home with us, he can't abandon his family."
"Abandoning family might just be something that runs in his blood," Severa mumbled, still watching his animated conversation with those older guys. She took a moment to think about what she was going to say next, and when she spoke again her attitude had gone back to normal. "Come on, let's go see if we can spy on people or something, until they get to the good parts of the party. Even though I don't think this is much of a party, I don't see any presents or even any fun hats!"
Realizing that Severa would have shown up in that conversation at a point that was past when Kjelle had been able to make sense of what was going on, she knew that she needed to explain why this wasn't really a party in the fun sense. "That'd be because the person whose birthday it is isn't here," she explained, hoping that was enough to make things clear. "It would be weird to have normal birthday stuff when the birthday guy isn't around."
"Here I was, thinking that there had to be a different birthday today that we were celebrating, but I guess not!" Severa started walking back towards the entrance to the area, Kjelle following right behind her. They didn't say anything to each other until they were outside, no one minding that they were stepping out, not even the people right by the door. "I kinda figured it might've been something to do with Inigo but I wasn't positive, I didn't know they did this for him every year. Years ago I got dragged to a 'come home' message-sending thing, but it's not like I really knew the guy before he left."
"That's more than I can say about him, I don't think I ever met him." A feeling of not belonging where they were began to take hold in Kjelle's chest, because what help was she going to be there if she didn't know the guy, and Severa must have known not much more about him than she did. They were thrown into the mix for no apparent reason and they were just going to be underfoot if anyone was intending on doing something important there inside the station. "Severa, why are we here? Why did your parents make us come to this when we don't really know the person it's all about?"
"That's something you'd have to talk to O'wain about, he was the one who told my mother that we had to come. I'm sure it's something to do with what he needs to tell you about going to Hoshido, so I didn't question it, but dang it I really wanted to." Leaning back against the outer wall of the building, Severa was fiddling with her sleeve again, almost as if it still wasn't loose enough on her. "I'd much rather be spending this time doing something fun, not looking like we're going to a funeral."
Glancing down at herself and how she was wearing a pair of nice pants and a plain shirt that didn't scream "dressy" or "funeral" at all, Kjelle took a moment to think about everything she'd experienced since getting to the station before she said anything else. There was the fact that this was for a guy who'd been missing for over ten years, and it was apparently something that his family had been doing for a long time. Add in the part that he'd gone missing in Hoshido, and his sister was worried that their cousin was going to disappear as well, and it seemed almost like they had to be there because they were going to Hoshido in the coming days. "You don't think O'wain wanted us here because he wants us to know that he's planning on doing what his cousin did, do you?" she asked abruptly, her thought coming to words faster than expected.
In response, Severa could only laugh, having to take an extended amount of time to collect herself before she could say anything. "I mean, that's exactly what he's going to do, but I don't think it makes sense to bring that here, you know?"
"I wish you would stop saying that he's doing that, I haven't heard it come from him so until that happens, I'm not listening to a word of it." Glancing towards the door to see if anyone had noticed they were outside and had come to join them, Kjelle's mind was racing with the possibility that Severa wasn't making jokes, and that the fear that she'd been hearing someone express was actually a reality. The only person whose word she was going to take on the matter was O'wain's, though, and as far as she knew he was still inside talking to the same two guys he had been before. "Let's just go back in, I'm not talking to you any longer about what's going on around here."
"Sure, sure, but when you find out I'm right I'm gonna give you the biggest 'I told you so' look that you'll never forget it." Sticking her tongue out to assert her dominance was something that Severa excelled in doing, so it was no surprise that she did it right then, jumping off the wall to go to the door and open it for her friend. If she was expecting Kjelle to walk in and let her tag along once more, she was dead wrong, as the moment her friend was through the doors she was weaving back through people, wanting to take a look at everyone else that was there.
She found herself nestled in a little sitting area, secluded enough that no one was around to talk to her but close enough to the action that seeing all the faces of everyone who was in attendance was possible. There were a lot of people that she recognized, but a lot of others that she didn't, and it was hard to tell if any of them would recognize her if they were paying attention. Maybe they wouldn't, or maybe they'd do what Bud had done and equate her with her parents—a common thing for people to do, given that they'd all known her parents long before any of them knew her. So many of the people she saw were on the older side, meaning that they were former coworkers of her parents', and that their children were also around somewhere, and she had a better chance of being recognized by anyone's child rather than their parents.
It almost happened when a girl that looked to be about her age spotted her and waved in her direction, but then she was dragged away by the two guys that O'wain had been talking to. It took a few moments after their eye contact had ended for her to realize that she knew who that girl was, that they'd done some school-related events together after she'd moved to Ylisstol, that she'd spent some of their time together just comparing family backstories and how they both ended up doing something far from their homes. She was struggling to remember her name, though, and she wished that she'd stayed talking with Bud long enough to get him to name-drop any of his siblings as a refresher, but there was no changing what had happened earlier.
The second time someone definitely recognized Kjelle came barely a minute later, after the girl and her brothers had left her sight. It was another set of girls, much older than she was but nowhere near the age of the parents that were present, and they were standing side-by-side, clearly on a mission to find someone in particular. If it wasn't for differing hairstyles, the girls would've been nearly identical, and that was how Kjelle knew who they were, only knowing of one pair of twins off the top of her head. As they came close, she did her best to look like she was distracted by someone behind them, but they still gave her greetings by name as they passed her by. "Hello to you both," she said, trying not to give into conversation with either of them. She knew she could be strong and keep watching everyone else, the last thing she needed was to get into the throes of gossiping with two ladies who loved telling her about when she was very young.
Soon after they'd walked back towards everyone else, once again saying hello to Kjelle as they passed, O'wain came charging over towards her, leaping over a chair to come to rest in it with his legs kicked up. "I heard Severa decided to start telling you things before I had the chance to," he started, slightly out of breath from his rapid approach. "Listen, whatever she said, she was probably right, but we don't listen to teenage girls about important adult matters, right?"
"Seeing as I'm also a teenage girl, I don't get your point."
"Just forget everything she told you and let me tell it to you again. We're not coming home from Hoshido, Kay, not until we've found my cousin." He was watching her for any kind of reaction, but all he was getting was a blank stare as she was mentally processing what she'd heard. "Come on, it's a genius idea! Neither of us are in school, we don't have anything better to do, we're going to help my family out and bring Inigo home!"
"Why have you decided that I'm going to help you with this?" Things were starting to make sense, specifically the part where it had always been strongly suggested that she not tell her parents that she was going. While it had been presented to her that telling them would make them worry for her safety, she hadn't once considered that the people telling her to keep this secret were planning something more for her. "I like my life here in Ylisstol, O'wain, I don't want to give it up to help you out."
"No one said you were giving it up permanently, it's just until we find Inigo and convince him to come home. You know that doing that would make everyone in my family love you forever, no matter what, don't you?" O'wain was flashing her a grin, so goofy and almost impossible to say no to.
But Kjelle couldn't just decide right then to change her life in such a major way, and he needed to respect that. "If you really want me to help you out, you've got to give me time to actually think about this," she said after a moment of considering what the pros and cons to what he was asking her to do were. "I guess you and Severa have been talking about this while I was gone, and that's great, but why not ask her if she can do it? Why does it have to be me?"
"Because she's fifteen, that's why," he bluntly replied, "and her mother's the one making this possible. I'm not going to thank Cordelia by keeping her daughter behind without her. You know what she'd do, she'd decide she's staying in Hoshido as well, and where does that leave her husband and her work? It's much easier when the other person helping me out is a responsible adult in control of her own life."
"Funny how I've gone from being a teenager to an adult in this conversation, but I guess I see your point. Don't take that as a 'yes', though, because I'm not sure what I'm doing with you. I'm going to Hoshido as a late graduation gift, just like you are, and I'm planning on coming home unless something convinces me otherwise." Kjelle loved being able to put her foot down about something, especially when it was something this bizarre. She'd never expected to be asked if she could stay behind in a foreign country with a friend, even before setting foot in the country for the first time! "Now can we not talk more about this today, this is all just really stupid and I—"
"Dealing with my missing cousin is not stupid, Kjelle, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't say that." Cutting her off was usually a mistake, but in this instance she understood that she might have crossed a line with how she'd worded that statement, so O'wain was right to stop her where he had. "I have an idea, why don't we go see what everyone else is doing and see if it gets our minds off all this for a little bit?"
She shook her head, wanting to roll her eyes but knowing that she was probably already on thin ice with him given what she'd already done. "So we're going to go talk to people who are definitely going to talk to us more about your cousin, or ask us about our upcoming trip?" she asked, watching him sit up properly in the chair so he could rise to his feet, pulling her up to hers once he was able to. He didn't answer her, a sure sign that she'd called him out on what he intended to do, but she didn't expect that he'd be so obvious about doing that.
In the time they'd been talking, the setting had changed a bit and the way people were speaking with each other looked a lot different. As O'wain led her through the crowds towards somewhere in particular, Kjelle could see that some of the groups had gotten bigger, with what looked like whole families standing talking to each other. They were getting waves and shout-outs as they passed some people, the twins from before saying hi to them both very loudly and almost stopping O'wain in his tracks, but he remained resilient in getting to where he intended to go without too much delay.
She immediately recognized one of the people they were coming up on as someone she'd already been conversing with that day, but before she could tell him that he was reaching out to the group with a loud greeting. "I wasn't sure if coming with a friend was allowed or not, but as Kjelle is a harmless friend who could do no wrong, I assumed it would be forgiven!" he called, coming right up to a gap in the little group and sticking his head into it, her hanging back to stay out of what might happen. "What is the plan for the rest of the gathering time, are we going to send out the messages soon?"
"Always so impatient, O'wain," Lucina chided, before looking behind him to see Kjelle really was back in her presence. "As for you bringing her along, she can't really be part of the messages because the only time she met Inigo was when she was months old, he wouldn't really care if she had anything to say."
"Then we can leave her out of that part, but…if you don't mind me asking, why is someone he has met before not allowed to be part of the events, yet someone you didn't even know until after his disappearance can be?" Letting go of his friend's arm so he could use both hands to point fingers at a gray-haired man standing at Lucina's side, O'wain shook those finger guns in an accusing manner towards the man while his cousin sighed. "I smell someone playing favorites, if you don't mind the accusation."
"O'wain, I'll have you know that I'm the last person out of everyone here who saw Inigo before he disappeared," the man replied, crossing his arms over his chest for a moment, until he decided to drop them in favor of wrapping one around Lucina, who seemed uncomfortable with the contact for a moment before visibly loosening up. "Why else did you think Lucy and I met in the first place?"
Clearing her throat, Lucina interjected with, "We continued meeting because of Inigo's unknown whereabouts and your willingness to help with finding him. We originally met because you happened to be outside the home we were staying in when we were getting ready to leave Hoshido and I quite literally ran into you." She forced a laugh, while the man took in a sharp breath and tried his best to look like this wasn't the truth. "Then I found out you were a prince, and that your guards lived next door to where we were, and I figured that would have been the end of it, until it wasn't."
"Yeah, yeah, listenin' to some kind of happily-ever-after story in this place doesn't exactly seem right," the other man present, a tall, sturdily-built guy that towered over everyone he was around with ease, added, looking at Lucina with an unimpressed expression. "When your brother decided he was gonna just up and disappear, he ruined a lot 'a plans he'd made with me for after I got done with school. He still owes me for some things, and I hope he knows that he's not livin' that down."
"Between you, Cynthia, and Morgan, you really want to make him pay for things when he comes home," Lucina told him, being as neutral in how she responded as possible. "I know that he made some promises, but when something happened to him that forced him to go back on his word, you can't hold that against him for ten years, Brady, you just can't."
There was some stammering as Brady tried to figure out what he could say to defend his idea of holding promises against someone for so long, but it was the other guy who spoke first, gathering everyone's attention with his words. "I've said this many times, nothing forced him to go back on his word. He got in with some of our royal guard and things spiraled out of control from there, but where he went to settle those issues I have no idea."
"I really appreciate that you're trying to fix things here, Takumi, but you can let Brady and I bicker, it's fine by us both. He grew up around me, I know him better than anyone else would." That was met with a retort that was then replied to with a mocking tone, and it was clear that the two of them had been lost to their own kind of argument, leaving Brady awkwardly standing beside them listening to what they were saying, while O'wain turned to Kjelle and motioned for her to follow him once more.
When they were back towards where they had been sitting before, he broke out a heavy sigh, shoulders being thrown forward as he delivered the long breath. "I never know how to act around those two when they're together, sucks that we couldn't get much out of Takumi to help us with Hoshidan stuff but I guess we got something, right?"
"Hold on, you intentionally walked us into that hoping that you'd get news to help you with your plan to find your cousin, and instead got us stuck watching that fighting?" Kjelle asked, sounding surprised because she was, not having expected O'wain to be so devious with his actions. "I'm impressed, but at the same time I'm also bothered that you really want to convince me to help you with this."
"Look, I know Lucina would do anything to get her brother back, she even ended up hooking up with a prince in her attempts to bring him home, I'm going to do what I can to make sure she doesn't have to get more desperate." Underneath his immature exterior, there had always been a real gentleman inside of O'wain, and it was shining through right in that moment. "I just want to be helpful to my family, even if it's only once. You know how much of a problem I've been to my family, so you get why this matters to me."
Sitting back down in the chair she'd been using before, Kjelle didn't want to verbally agree with him but she knew she didn't need to. It was common knowledge, once someone met O'wain's entire family or had someone who knew them, that he was quite literally the black sheep of the family. He didn't have any sort of relationship with his father, and hadn't wanted to have one for at least as long as Kjelle had known him (in fact, the first time they'd properly met had been the last time he'd seen his father), and while he tried to pretend like that didn't bother him everyone knew it did. His mother had worked so hard to make sure he grew up happy and loved, but when he unmistakably took after his father instead of her, she was left in an uncomfortable spot.
That was so different than Kjelle's own situation, where she'd always been appreciated by her parents for who she was and what she'd become. They didn't mind that she'd grown up to be more independent than either of them could handle given their living situation, and had chosen to relinquish control over when she wanted to go somewhere else. That wasn't something that was really possible for O'wain, because of his mother's overbearing need to be part of his life and have her one little piece of happiness around at all times. That was the fact that made Kjelle gasp, realizing that if she helped him with what he intended on doing, she was going to be treading a dangerous path, something she addressed with, "Wait, won't doing this break your mom's heart?"
"It'll hurt her a bit at first, but she knows I'm growing up and won't be her little boy forever, she can just learn it faster than I'm sure she was expecting." O'wain spoke his words with a tinge of sadness in his voice, almost as if he hadn't considered what Kjelle had brought up before she'd said it. "She's already beside herself because I'm going on this trip without her, and the last time I left the country on my own was the last time I saw my father, so it's not going to be easy for this to happen to her."
"You're really okay with doing this, huh?" Hearing him say that almost made her sad, but Kjelle wasn't one to wear her emotions out in the open for everyone to see, not even one of her best friends. "Not like I'm surprised, seeing how much thought you've put into this, but since you overlooked how your mom will feel, maybe you haven't put enough thought into it after all."
"I'd think you, of all people, would remember that thinking isn't exactly my strong suit all the time," he said with a chuckle, the sadness having left his body without a trace. "I guess I just got focused on how happy everyone will be once Inigo's back that—"
"O'wain, are you joining us for the message this year or not?" Breaking through what he was saying came a loud, rough voice that Kjelle immediately recognized as belonging to her friend's uncle, and he scrambled to get an answer to the man without even caring that he'd been interrupted in the first place. She shook her head in his wake, not knowing what to do because talking to him had been what she'd been planning on doing for that bit of time, but when she saw Severa looking around for her, she realized that she could always just go back to her other best friend and pretend like nothing had happened.
No matter how much anyone wanted to talk to her about it, she wasn't going to bring up the concept of her staying behind in Hoshido again, not until she'd really taken the time to think about the possible consequences. It was at times like those that she wished she could curl up with a thick blanket in her parents' bedroom and talk to them both about what she should do, but that wasn't possible without them knowing she was leaving Ylisse in the first place. She could perfectly envision their reactions to her saying she was going to be gone, with one of them telling her they were proud of her for going new places and having fun, while the other would remind her not to get to into too much trouble.
Her, in trouble, while on a trip where she needed to be on her best behavior? She'd certainly hope they'd raised her better than that—and the idea of staying behind in a foreign country to help find a missing person was striking her as immediate trouble. How would she manage to behave if she was already breaking rules by being there? She needed more time to think about the decision, and she knew she didn't have much time at all.
A/N: OH BOY OH BOY here we go with my NaNo 2k18 project! I did not want to let go of the potential dynamic between some of these kids after the conclusion of Season's Snowflakes so I just kind of...decided this was going to happen. let me know what you think okay xoxo