"What did I tell you about dark magic and how you should respect the law about it? Casting a spell so strong it changed history isn't respecting any laws, or any people, or anything!" Ricken was most definitely angry, but he had somehow managed to keep his anger in check until after Lucina had been sent to her room (which hadn't even existed that morning, but certainly existed, just like she was certainly their child). "Do you know how jarring it was? On the news, they were talking about the ruling family and how the younger boy's birthday is coming up, and then, as if his sister had been erased from history, they suddenly started referring to him as their only child! Chrom doesn't just have one kid, he has two! You stole one of his kids!"

"Hey, let's not get so accusatory," Henry said, raising both hands in a defensive position as he tried not to laugh. "It could have been anyone who cast the curse, but I ended up being the beneficiary from it. Don't act like I'd do something so wrong as to try and use dark magic to get myself a child. Do I look like a criminal?"

"Yeah, actually, you do look like one!" Grabbing his hair and tugging at it a bit, Ricken paced around the room a few times to try and calm himself, to no avail. "I can't believe you stole Chrom's daughter and made her your own. That's going to get us banished from Ylisse forever when this is all sorted out! My family will disown me for being associated with someone who breaks the law!"

"Calm down, you're acting like anyone's going to find out that she ever belonged to anyone who isn't us." Henry waved his hand around, pretending to brush away the concern, but Ricken wasn't having any of it. "The only people in the world who know she ever belonged to Chrom are me and you, and that means that as long as we keep our lips shut about it, the secret's safe with us! Lucina's ours, and trust me, that's a good thing!" Under his breath, and mostly to himself, he added, "It wasn't what I intended, but it's still a good thing."

Ricken, still pacing around and frantically trying to come up with a mental solution that didn't result in one or both of them being banished for breaking one of the sacred laws, paid no attention to Henry's whispered addendum. "It's only a good thing because it means you get a child, but it's such a bad thing because of literally everything else! Even still, now we have a kid who's closer to being a teenager than a baby to raise! Didn't you want a small kid to raise, not someone like her?"

"I could always curse her to be a baby again, if that's really what you want me to do." Taking his own suggestion into consideration, Henry broke into a huge grin and clasped his hands together. "But no, that would actually be better! Who'd suspect that our little baby is actually someone else's child entirely? I'll get right on looking for the perfect spell for the situation!"

"The only spell you're casting after this is one to reverse what you've done!" Like every time he got stern, Ricken hoped that Henry would follow his demands, but he was greeted with nothing but silence. No laughter and comments of understanding. No regretful apologies and promises to fix what had gone wrong. Nothing. "Henry, you listen to me right now, you've got to change things back to normal! Lucina's not our child, she's Chrom's, and she needs to go back where she belongs!"

"She's exactly where she belongs, as far as anyone else knows. You could try telling her to go 'home' I suppose, but she'll just tell you she is home…" A challenge from Henry normally was presented as a joke, but there was something about this particular one that compelled Ricken to go through with it. Without a word, he left to go speak with the child in the house, leaving Henry standing there, trying his hardest to take the situation seriously. "Come on, Ricken, you know I didn't mean for you to actually do it!" he called, not honestly caring all that much if his boyfriend came back or not, but knowing that he'd have to follow him to watch what was going to transpire.

Still being silent, Ricken went to the door to the room that, until a few hours ago, had just been used for storage of unnecessary junk they hadn't wanted to throw out, and grabbed the handle. "Uh, Lucina?" he asked, turning the handle and pushing the door open to find the girl sitting on the floor, smiling at him. "What are you doing, being okay with being here? Shouldn't you, I don't know, go home?"

"But Daddy, I am home," she replied, not breaking her smile even slightly, "and I'm so glad that you and Father are here to spend time with me! We're going to read tonight, aren't we?"

She was completely unaware that she was in the wrong house, referring to the wrong people as her parents, and it was the most bizarre thing in the world to Ricken. Coupling it with Henry coming up behind him, having overheard what she'd said, and getting a kick out of her names for them both, and it was an almost surreal experience. One that was ruined long beforehand, and was ruined even more when Henry said, "Oh man, why's she allowed to call you Daddy? That's some clear favoritism there!"

"It's not favoritism when I didn't ask her to do it, and I definitely didn't raise her that way," Ricken replied, very much not amused at Henry's enjoyment with what he'd heard. "I think Chrom will be furious when he finds out that you've done this to his princess, and I don't want to get in trouble too just because she's been brainwashed to call me Daddy!"

"Father, why is he freaking out about this?" Lucina was standing up, approaching the two in her doorway like she had done that every day of her life. "Is me calling him that weird? Should I call him something else? I guess, if it makes him feel better about things, I could always refer to him as my mother. After all, most children do have a father and a mother, not two of one and none of the other."

Henry was now trying his hardest to not die of laughter, while Ricken looked positively mortified at what he'd just heard. "No, no, call me Daddy if you feel that's what best suits me," he eventually forced out through gritted teeth, before adding, "because if it makes…my little girl…happy, then it makes me happy."

"That's what I love hearing you say! Come on now, let's get to reading stories before bed. I do have a bedtime that I'm sure you'd love to keep me following." Reaching out to grab one hand of each of her "dads", Lucina seemed to be super excited to be spending time with them. Ricken was having to force himself to play along, knowing in his heart that what he was taking part in was completely wrong, but Henry (after getting over his laughing fit) had no problems with getting right into his role.

He was so convincing at being Lucina's dad that he told her all the stories that she could ever have imagined, and when her eyes started fluttering closed he covered her in light kisses and tucked her into bed without even a moment's hesitation. Once her light was off and they were back outside her room, he dropped his happy demeanor for a moment, sighing contently. "All of that was stuff I'd never imagined I'd get to do in my life, and doing that right there, with her, it was the kind of stuff dreams are made of. Ricken, doing this was the best idea I've ever had, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise."

"I'll admit, spending time with her was a lot more fun than I thought it would be," Ricken conceded, resting his head on Henry's arm. "It still doesn't make stealing her from her family right, but it was nice while it lasted. You're fixing this the first chance you get, though, or else I'm finding a way to do it myself."

"Ha, as if you are! Do you know what sorts of crazy dark magic I put into this thing? You'll be breaking the law so many times over if you try fixing anything!" There was the laughter that Henry always seemed to be exuding, as he leaned over so that his head was on top of Ricken's, red hairs finding their way into his face as he breathed. "You're stuck with this as our happy little family, forever and for always. It's not that bad and you'll get used to it, I swear! This isn't a joke, and you know how much I love jokes!"

"I do know how much you love them, but I also know how much you love kids, and…" On the inside, Ricken was wanting to pull away from his current position, because showing this sort of physical affection to Henry was the last thing he wanted right then. But he didn't resist the impromptu cuddling, even with how much he disapproved of what had happened to change their lives that day. He wasn't going to dive into the world of dark magic to fix things himself and he knew that Henry wasn't ever going to be made to want to fix things either. This was their new normal, a sad reality but one that had to be accepted nonetheless.

Henry had said something while Ricken was thinking, which had been accompanied with a wayward hand finding itself trailing down the smaller man's side. While the cuddles could be accepted, Ricken most definitely was not in the mood for anything more, which brought him back to speaking to his boyfriend. "We aren't doing anything right now, not after everything you've already done," he said, eliciting a loud, playful groan from Henry. Knowing that he was wanting something, Ricken had to bite the metaphorical bullet and come up with a good, non-blaming reason for why they weren't going to move past their embrace: "What if we managed to wake Lucina up? We would be the worst parents in the world, exposing our child to that."

"She would never be able to look at her daddy the same way again," Henry solemnly said, emphasizing the one word in the sentence that made Ricken cringe to hear. "Oh come on, you've got to get over the weirdness of that phrase. Lucina's not just going to accept having to change that to something else, unless you want to make it weirder. And trust me, we can make it a lot weirder."

"I would rather us not, thank you." Ricken finally moved away, heading towards their bedroom without worrying if he was being followed or not. Naturally Henry was a couple of steps behind, throwing out suggestions of other slightly-strange names that Lucina could use for him, laughing heavily at some of the more cringe-inducing ones. Having been so used to living alone with his boyfriend, he was quite confused when, in the morning, Lucina proceeded to talk about what she'd heard of that conversation, remarking on some of the name choices while both of her "dads" looked at each other in embarrassment.

"Even with some of the better ideas you might have had, Father, I think I am going to keep things the same and not make any changes," Lucina concluded, having watched both of the men turn bright red, neither of them sure how to address what she'd been talking about. "I happen to really like what I use, and I think that's what matters."

Coughing for a few moments to clear his throat and his mind, Ricken tried to give a reassuring smile to the girl, but he knew deep within that it looked incredibly forced. "It sure is what matters, and as long as you're happy with what you call me, you can call me it."

"Unless someday you find out that you like calling your boyfriend that too. Then you've gotta change the name, I'd say." Never a stranger to fighting through embarrassment with jokes, Henry caused Ricken to simply choke on air at the comment, while Lucina looked at him with confusion in her young eyes. "But that's another story for another day. Just like the life cycle! Man, I can't wait to get to tell you that one!"

"I guess I will wait for the day you tell these stories as patiently as possible." Lucina put her hands to her cheeks and gave a happy sigh as she looked at the two men. "Father, Daddy, you two are so great to me! You always give me attention and love and take care of me now just how you think is best, but with my suggestions as well. I don't think there is a single other child out there that has it as great as me!"

"I might not have known her while she was Chrom's kid," Ricken whispered to Henry, blocking his mouth from Lucina's view, "but I really doubt that she was like this. What else did you put in that curse?"

Henry shrugged, also blocking his mouth but not lowering his voice quite as much when he replied, "Since she wasn't the target, I found some wicked cool curses that were for making people happier with fake memories and all that. Figured the kid I was originally going to take would appreciate it a lot. I'm sure Lucina does too, but who knows!"

"I heard my name just then. Father, did I do something wrong that requires hushed conversations about me?" The happiness in the girl's face was beginning to drain, as she now looked at Henry while beating back tears every time she blinked. "I promise, I didn't do a single thing wrong! Was it one of those stories we read last night? There might have been one or two that was a bit more…mature than something a girl my age should be reading, but I meant no harm by it! I really didn't!"

Despite her beginning to freak out, the whispering didn't stop. "Is this another thing you caused her to do, or is this really how she is?" When Henry gave another shrug as his answer, Ricken pulled his hand closer to his mouth, worried that this behavior wasn't just something that came with the situation. "Lucina, why would we care if something was mature or not? You're a smart girl, we know you want to read and learn, and we aren't going to stop you from doing just that!"

She gave a small sniffle, nodding at the reassurance she'd just heard. "Thank you so much, Daddy. It really means a lot to know you support me and what I enjoy." How she was acting seemed too strange to be something that Henry had sparked in her when he cursed her, so did she act like this behind closed doors with her actual family? Were Chrom and his wife strict parents towards their little girl, to the point that she felt scared to pursue her own interests? If that were the case, was her now having new parents a good thing?

"Hey, why don't we stop this crying nonsense and go do something fun today?" Henry suggested, trying to steer the conversation in a new direction. "Maybe we could go out for a nice family breakfast, and then spend time together doing whatever we want, like real families always do!"

Ricken raised his eyebrows, wondering what had given Henry the idea that any sort of family did that on the regular, but Lucina seemed thrilled to hear the suggestion. She didn't look as distraught as she had moments before, although there were still tears in the corners of her eyes, but her smile had come back in full force. "That sounds lovely, Father! I must be so lucky to have two fathers who love me as much as you both do!"

"Then it's settled and off we'll go!" Almost as excited about what he'd said as Lucina was, Henry looked over at Ricken's expression and tilted his head to the side, wordlessly asking what the problem was. "Say, are you going to rain on our parade and ruin this good morning for Lucina and me? You've already made her cry with your silly whispering and all that."

"My whispering?" Ricken spat out, honestly a bit shocked to hear Henry push all the blame onto him. "You were just as involved! And no, I don't want to ruin her day, I'm just kind of interested on where you got the idea to go out. Some parent friend of yours tell you it was a good idea?"

"Nope, came up with it all on my own." Henry beamed as he spoke, watching Ricken look back at him with complete disbelief, causing him to backpedal a bit. "…Or I might have overheard someone one time saying it was something fun to do. Why does it matter? You think I'm stealing other people's parenting tips?"

If Lucina hadn't been right there with him, Ricken would have told him that he did indeed think exactly that. But with the girl present, he felt throwing Henry under the bus for lying would have been wrong, so he lied and instead said, "No, why would I think that? You're a good parent because you know what to do, not because you steal from others."

"That's what I like to hear." It took a second before the other meaning of Ricken's words really sunk in, but when Henry realized that a dig at how he'd become a "parent" had just been made, his lips formed a straight line as Ricken smirked at him. "Very funny, but this isn't the time for your jokes. We've got a breakfast to attend!"

"Maybe if Daddy eats a good breakfast, he'll grow up to be big and strong!" Lucina said with a soft laugh, causing Henry to break into his normal guffaws and chuckles, all at Ricken's expense. "Or maybe he's too old for that. Maybe eating good meals only works for kids. Which means that I need to eat especially well so that I can be strong like Father!"

Henry pretended to flex one of his arms, acting as if he'd have any muscles to show off. "Oh yeah, you want to be nice and strong just like me," he laughed, before dropping his arm and moving past the somewhat oddly placed compliment. He definitely wasn't the kind of guy that would be considered muscular or strong, although he was fit, so why would she see him in that way? Was it her idolizing her parent, or was it her remembering at least one thing about her actual father? If it was the second, some more curse work was going to be needed to make sure it didn't happen again.

It wasn't the time for those sorts of thoughts, though, as they did need to get going before their breakfast turned into a lunch. Thankfully, there was a café not that far from the house, one that Ricken and Henry spent quite a bit of their time at, and with the three of them going there it was going to raise the question of how well the curses worked on the world. Would they actually be able to dine in the café without anyone recognizing Lucina as the princess of Ylisse, a tall order in a country that idolized their leader and his family, or would the whole child-thievery thing be discovered within moments of entering?

The wait staff at the café was the same as it was every morning, filled with college students just trying to make ends meet. They greeted Ricken as they always did, asking about how he spent his time without having to worry about school. Not a single mention of Lucina was made to him, giving him hope that maybe the magic didn't affect them there; a hope that was quickly dashed when someone saw Henry and the girl taking their table and then proceeded to ask Ricken how life was with them.

"It's...fine," he managed to spit out, not wanting to sound upset with the speaker but at the same time being very upset indeed. "I never would have thought that someone like that would come into my life and change it like they have."

He was being vague while talking about Lucina, but the worker took it as him speaking about Henry instead. "Sometimes that's just how love works, kid. You find someone, fall head over heels for them, and then things happen that you would never expect." Their voice then dropped low, so that Ricken would be the only one to hear what they had to say. "And for you two to be out and okay with everyone knowing, you're an inspiration for others who aren't so proud of their feelings. Good on you, being a shining example of what being out can do for you."

Not sure how he was even supposed to take that, Ricken merely smiled and nodded, knowing he must have been turning red at how awkward things were. The worker pat him on the shoulder a few times before going back to work, leaving Ricken to shuffle over to his table, where Henry was waiting with a huge grin. "You missed Lucina telling a crazy story by being gone," he said, as Ricken pulled out his chair and sat in it, burying his face in his hands once seated. "But I guess that doesn't matter, since you don't look to be down for some laughter. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, don't mind me." Ricken wanted to tell Henry what had just happened, but he couldn't find the words or the willingness to do it. "Why doesn't Lucina just tell me the story, since I missed it the first time?"

"Anything for you, Daddy," the girl said, while Henry tried his hardest not to laugh at the sincere way she spoke. "So as I just told Father, I had the strangest dream last night that I just remembered when we got here. I dreamt that I was the sister of the prince of Ylisse, and that he and I were playing together somewhere incredibly fancy! But he's a prince and I'm just the daughter of two incredibly fathers, so it really was just a dream." She let out a shaky sigh. "What if I meet the prince someday though? Or, maybe, what if I've already met him? What if my dream's come true before and I never realized it?"

"Our little girl aspires to be friends with the young prince," Henry summed up, snorting from laughter as he did, "and that's the craziest thing I've ever heard! We've got to make it happen for her, right Ricken?"

Having expected to hear him bash the idea, it took Ricken by surprise to hear Henry condoning a meeting between the actual siblings. "Er, yeah, we've got to do that." He was only agreeing with hopes that causing the hypothetical meeting would in turn remind Lucina that she was, in fact, the princess and that the prince wasn't just a stranger but instead her younger brother. "It'll make Lucina's life that much better if we do."

"My thoughts exactly! She can get to be friends with royalty, while the little prince gets an older friend to teach him everything he needs to know about being amazing!" Henry wasn't thinking in terms of what kinds of disasters could take place if the two were to meet, and it showed. It took Ricken looking up from his hands with an expression that simply asked if he was serious to get him to rethink what he'd said. "Or maybe it would be best if it didn't happen. I don't know. I just try to be a good parent. Can't say I know what's right all the time!"

"Even if I don't get to meet Prince Morgan at any point, knowing there's a chance that I already did in passing is good enough for me!" Sighing happily once more, Lucina turned to look out the window at people walking down the street past the café. "Maybe he'll walk by while we're in here! Wouldn't that be cool?"

Since him walking by would require one or both of his parents being present, the young prince only being six years old, him being out there would not be good for them at all. "It would be cool, but a kid like him's gotta stay where he's protected and safe and all that," Henry said with a shrug, deflating Lucina's spirits a bit. "But maybe he'll come by, or better yet, maybe one of your other friends will walk by instead! You do have friends, don't you?"

"I...don't think I do." Her happiness completely gone, Lucina turned back to face Henry, her eyes downcast. "I spend all my time and love on you both that I guess I never thought about actually having friends! Ooh, after we're done here, can we go somewhere kids my age might be so I can try my hand at making friends?"

Henry nodded, wanting to do what he could to cheer her back up. "Maybe not right after we finish here, but we sure can go somewhere later sometime!" He glanced over at Ricken, who was still giving him a look of needing to rethink what he was saying. "Okay, I don't get what the problem is this time, Ricken! Taking Lucina out is a good thing!"

"It is, sure, but she wants to go out after this, not just at any old time. Where are we going to take her after this? It's the middle of the week and-" He abruptly stopped speaking when something dawned on him that simply hadn't occurred to him before. "-Henry, she needs to be at school today! We can't be out and about with her!"

"...Daddy, have you forgotten that you take me out all the time during the week, because you two school me yourselves?" When Henry did the curse, he must have come up with this workaround to whatever Lucina's education status was to keep her with them as much as possible. Either that, or she was homeschooled in her real life as well, and it was just her transferring her memories of that to her new life. "That's got to be why I don't have any friends, because I never see kids my own age."

"I think I've got an idea for what we can do," Henry said, trying to return to the original topic of conversation, "but there's one teensy-tiny problem with it."

"Oh, I don't mind if there's any problems at all, as long as we're spending time together." Lucina smiled at Henry, as he chuckled at her response. "Father, what's so funny?"

He covered his mouth to try calming himself, to no avail. "Your eagerness is so adorable, I can't help but giggle at it. The problem with my idea is that we can't do it until next week, but if you're fine with that then there's no cause for concern." A pause, in which another idea came to him. "Speaking of caws, how about we take a trip to the zoo today? That's a place that's always swarming with kids!"

"Only you would make the jump from a parenting class to the zoo," Ricken muttered, watching how enthusiastically Henry and Lucina were now chattering about going to see the animals. "But I don't think ever showing our faces in that library when Maribelle's around is a good idea. She smells dark magic like it's got an actual smell to it! She'll rat us out before we even get a chance to set things right!"

"As if she'll know anything's different," Henry said right back, his voice low so Lucina didn't hear him speak about such serious matters. He perked right back up to his normal volume when he returned to talking to her about their plans for a zoo trip, while Ricken shook his head at how not-seriously Henry was taking things. They had stolen a child and he really wanted to risk being caught? That was not an adult thing to do, although when did Henry do anything in an adult manner?

Once going to the zoo was fully decided on and the plans for it were made, they seemed to rush through their meal just to get going. Lucina was completely ecstatic to get to go somewhere with her dads, and Henry was pleased to be able to do something with his "child", but Ricken wasn't quite on board, and that sentiment didn't change even as they made their way out to the zoo later that day. He still wasn't going on with their carefree conversation about what fun they were going to have, because he was focused on how flaunting their stolen child out in public was their current agenda. Of all the places they were going to stumble upon some stranger who knew Lucina didn't belong to them, the zoo was going to have to be it.

It wasn't a stranger that found them, and they weren't completely outed on their scheme, but someone who knew that something was amiss did see them while they were at the zoo that afternoon. It all started not long after they walked into the leafy garden that was the entrance area to the zoo, as that was when Ricken, anxiously looking around for anyone staring back at them with disapproval, noticed a pair of black-haired heads he'd seen at the library a time or two before. "Uh, Henry, don't mean to cut this short already, but I think a certain person's around," he whispered into his boyfriend's ear, but his warning was ignored as Henry was too busy already being engrossed in the animals they were walking past.

At the same time he was trying to give the warning, a young boy who wanted to be anywhere but where he was saw the girl that was with the men, his face turning from one of complete distress to one with a bit of happiness to it. "She's not who I'd love to see on the one day I'm not stuck with Ma, but seein' Lucy anywhere's always a good sign," Brady said to himself, before looking at his father, who was uninterestedly reading one of the information posts about an exhibit. "I'll just sneak away and hopefully he won't notice a thing. Just can't help but wonder what she's doin' with those guys though…"

After making absolute sure that his father wouldn't immediately come looking for him, Brady took a few slow steps before breaking into a close to as run as he ever would, trying to catch up with Lucina and her parents. As he got closer to them, he realized that one of the men, the redheaded one, was looking back at him quite frequently, always looking distressed when he did. Something about that man seemed familiar to him, as if he'd spent some time with him when he was a younger kid, but he shrugged the familiarity off and kept up his chase until he was mere footsteps behind them.

He could hear some of the conversation that Lucina was having with the white-haired man she was with, and something about it was striking him as odd. Honestly, in his mind, everything going on at that moment seemed a bit strange, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was. "Father," he heard her say in a loving tone, "coming here today was a wonderful idea! I'm so glad we worked together to come up with it!"

"Oh yeah, it's just the best," the man replied, to which Brady frowned without realizing it. "You're one smart cookie and I'm the great baker who helped make you so smart!" They both laughed, while he slowed down his pace behind them, trying to make sense of things. That man, she'd referred to him as her father, but he definitely wasn't her father, was he? The last time he'd seen Lucina, which had been the day before, her father had been a tall guy with a friendly smile and a head of blue hair that matched his daughter's. This guy might have been someone's father, maybe, but he sure wasn't Lucina's.

And since he was alone, having left his own father to chase after her, maybe this guy was going to do whatever he'd done to her and take him too. "Lucy, stop for a second!" he called, hoping she'd hear him, but her and Henry didn't stop walking, nor did they look back to see what was going on. The other guy did hesitantly look over his shoulder once more, but before he made eye contact with Brady he was already stumbling to catch back up to the others. "No, please, Lucy come back! Something's not right with what's goin' on here!"

"That something might just be your lack of obedience." Shivers went down Brady's spine as he felt his father's hand on his shoulder, pulling him backwards until he was standing against him. "This behavior is why your mother always insists on chaperoning our outings. Troublesome woman, but she keeps you in line."

"Something's not right, though," he tried explaining, but he was silenced by the absolute lack of response his father gave him, prompting him to meekly apologize. "Sorry for runnin' off like that. I just saw Lucy and got excited about seein' her out here. She doesn't get out much, livin' the life that she does."

"I have no recollection of anyone named 'Lucy' that you know, which leads me to believe that this is a cover for you chasing down someone else." Lon'qu sighed, wishing he was anywhere but at the zoo for this conversation. "Listen, your mother might not approve of your…tastes, saying you're too young and too immature to make those decisions, but you do not have to lie to me about wanting to chase down what you really want. Of course, I was under the impression that your little friend was currently with his mother and your mother, but plans do change, I'm aware."

Hearing his father's somewhat approval of his romantic interest was fine and all, but the way he was acting like he'd never heard of Lucina before struck a nerve within Brady, to the point that he just had to say something about it. "But you know Lucy! She's come over many times, because me and her are friends and—" He heard his father exhale deeply, wanting to speak over his child but being polite enough not to, and he knew that he needed to wrap up his explanation. "—you've met her before, promise!"

"The only child I've ever allowed in our home that was labeled your friend is no longer allowed in the house per your mother's wishes." Lon'qu narrowed his eyes down at Brady, who was now looking up at him like the words coming out of his mouth were completely unbelievable. "It is true, though. Don't give me that look."

"No, it's not true, because you've really met Lucy before! She's the one with the long blue hair and the pretty smile and that crown she wears all the time." He was demonstrating with his hands what he meant by hair length and crown, actions that Lon'qu simply ignored. "Listen to me, you've met her before, and somethin' is up with her! We've gotta go find her again, and if you won't come with me, I'm gonna do it myself!"

He got maybe half a step before he was being pulled back to his original position, his father not wanting him disappearing in such a public place on his own. "No, young man, you are staying with me. We will resume our exploration of the zoo, and if we just happen to come across this so-called friend of yours again, then you can show me her and I will tell you if I know her or not."

The battle was lost, and there wasn't anything Brady could do about it aside from silently ask Naga to put Lucina on the path in front of him again. He already knew he'd get an earful for this from his mother when he got home, if she even remembered who his friend was, at any rate. Why did it seem like he was the only one who remembered her? "That sounds good, I guess. Let's get back to lookin' at animals and stuff," he said, defeat in his voice, although his hopes were still high that something good would come of this.

At the same time, somewhere halfway across the zoo, Lucina was plastered to the glass of one of the exhibits, trying her hardest to get close to the animals within. "You know, she acts like she's never been out like this before," Henry remarked, nudging Ricken in the arm. "Maybe me taking her like I did was the best thing I could have done for her. Poor girl, never knowing what it's like to see animals like this!"

"She's probably been here a million times, all for educational purposes." Ignoring the nudging, Ricken rolled his eyes as it only persisted. "Stop hitting me, by the way, but seriously, whatever you did to her to make her yours really did a number on her. She's acting like a small kid, not the princess she's supposed to be."

"Who said a princess can't act like a little kid?" Henry snorted, continuing with pestering Ricken despite being told to do otherwise. "I think it makes her more fun. Can't have us raising a child who's super stuffy and stuck-up, you know. I want a kid who's like me, not like you!"

"Oh yes, because someone who actually thinks about the consequences of their actions is such a bad standard to have for a kid." Finally breaking and grabbing Henry's arm so that he couldn't hit him anymore, there was a moment where Ricken considered just walking away and leaving Henry and Lucina there just so that he didn't have to deal with them anymore. But he couldn't bring himself to do it, not when he looked at Henry and was reminded of why he loved this man despite his very obvious shortcomings: his soft white hair that flew every which way, his eyes that crinkled closed whenever he laughed (which was almost always), the smile that looked simultaneously so deserving of a punch and a kiss…

"I love when you start daydreaming about me when we're in public," Henry said, simply to interrupt what Ricken was thinking about. "It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Kind of like if I was a bear, but the bear's what makes up my insides, not my outsides." His statement was finished with a loud laugh, having found nothing but humor in the situation, while Ricken, his face lighting up in shame of being called out in such a way, dropped the arm he was holding to bury his face in his hands. "Oh come on, Ricken, it wasn't that bad. It was actually cute to see you drooling over me like that."

"I was not drooling!" he snapped, his voice muffled by his hands. "And you weren't supposed to be watching me, anyway! Eyes on the kid you stole to keep others from stealing her!"

Despite knowing he wasn't going to be seen, Henry waved a hand at the idea. "No one's going to try stealing her, because to everyone around here, she's a nobody! She's just our kid now, not anyone else's. We've gone over this."

"Except somebody knows she's not ours, somebody who isn't me or you." His hands dropped from his face, the color in his cheeks back to normal, and as Henry looked at him with a questioning expression, Ricken realized that he must not have heard a single thing from earlier in the trip. "Maribelle's son saw us when we got here, and he was chasing us down, as if he recognized that she didn't belong with us. He knows something's wrong."

"Oh, sure he does. He's just a boy, he won't actually know a thing. Stop being such a downer on the fun, Ricken." Politely putting his hand on Ricken's shoulder, Henry went back to being happy as always as he quickly moved past the topic. "Now let's get to looking at other animals, shall we? I think we're almost at the bird enclosure, and that's my favorite part. That and the wolves. Always wanted to know what it's like for one of them to rip my arm off. Maybe today's the day we'll find out!"

"I'd rather it not be. I rather like you in one whole piece." He accepted that his warnings weren't going to be acknowledged, so the only thing left for Ricken to do was to continue playing along. "And I'm sure Lucina likes you this way too."

"I like who what way?" the girl asked, having pried herself off the glass to approach her dads. "And what was that about birds? I like birds quite a bit." Lucina's face lit up as she thought of some bird species in particular that she felt she liked, one that mentioning to her dad was enough to get them ready to keep moving on. "Especially cute little robins! They're simply the—hey, why are you both walking away?" She had to abruptly stop her explanation of why the birds were her favorite to catch up to her fathers, one of whom was realizing that maybe some of her real-life memories were seeping through in strange ways, while the other just really wanted to get to show his child the birds she liked.

As she was leaving the exhibit, that was when Brady and his father came walking in, the young boy positive he'd just heard his friend's voice inside the room. When he got there and saw no signs of her or those men she'd been with, he walked over to the wall and leaned against it, panting as he'd been moving quickly to try and catch her. "You're ruining your own zoo experience," Lon'qu told him, looking around at the completely empty room. "This girl you're chasing, she doesn't exist. I was unaware you had an imaginary friend, but it seems that might be the case."

"She's real, and I heard her in here, but they must have been leavin' as we came in." Taking a few moments to catch his breath, Brady did as his father was doing and looked around, seeing a familiar golden hairpiece sitting against the glass of the exhibit. "And she's gotta come back, because that's her crown right there," he said, pointing towards the trinket. "I know Lucy won't go far without that."

For several minutes, they stood there waiting for the girl to come back for what she'd left, but she simply didn't. As they watched the animals behind the glass do their normal daily activities, no people came into the room to join them, leaving Lon'qu to believe that his son really was making things up. But as he started to make another comment about the possibility of an imaginary friend, Henry came into the room, looking around for something. "She said she left it here? But I didn't even know she still had the crown! What kind of child thief…" His voice trailed off when he realized he wasn't the only person in the room, seeing the father and son up against the wall and freezing when he saw they were both staring at him. "Er, hello there, gentlemen! Anyone seen a little fake crown in here?"

"It's right over there, sir," Lon'qu replied, pointing towards where it was resting. "If that's what you are looking for, anyway."

Henry followed the finger's direction to the crown that was still sitting against the glass, and he clasped his hands together happily when he saw it. "Oh sweet, thanks! My daughter left it there on accident and she wanted me to come check for it! Glad to see you two were keeping tabs on it!" He smiled at the two, before realizing who exactly they were, and once it dawned on him that one of them was the person Ricken had been warning him about, he made quick work of grabbing the crown and leaving the room. "Well, this has been a blast, but I've got to get back to my family! Thanks for not stealing this thing!"

"Why would we steal a child's plastic crown?" There was no reason for Lon'qu to have suspected that the crown was one belonging to real royalty, but Brady knew that it was an actual crown, not a plastic one, and he also knew that following that guy out of the room would take him back to Lucina. Like before, though, he made it barely a step before he was stopped. "Brady, do not chase that man down. He merely came back for his child's belonging, something a good parent does."

"But that's the guy that Lucy was with!" he retorted, before swallowing down hard and blatantly disobeying his father by heading towards the exit that man had just gone through. A few feet outside of the doorway, the man and his smaller companion were both standing, the crown being waved around in the air as they talked. He couldn't hear every word of what they were saying, but "stealing a child" was said multiple times by both of them, only cementing Brady's knowledge that something was off about them and their relationship with his friend.

As he kept watching, he saw the two of them kiss for quite some time, a sight that brought hope to his little heart, only to break apart abruptly. "You really need to work on being more careful about keeping this secret, Henry," the other man said, the name sticking in Brady's mind as something he needed to remember. "Why, someone could be watching us right now, and who knows if they might know what's going on."

"I told you, do not chase that man down." Two firm hands grabbing him and pulling him back into the room, Brady knew that he couldn't fight against his father's wishes any longer. "What do you think you're doing, trying to follow strangers and hunt down imaginary people who only exist in your mind? You could be kidnapped."

Under his breath, Brady mentioned how that's what had happened to Lucina, but out loud to his father he instead said, "I know I could, and I guess I shouldn't be actin' so bad today. Just, uh, please don't tell Ma about any of this. I don't want her gettin' mad when she wasn't even here to see it."

"Real cheeky, thinking to ask not to let your mother know of your behavior. However, I would much rather not involve her in this, as she'll find a way to blame me for what you did, so this shall remain our little secret." There was a pause in which Brady sighed in relief, his father gruffly chuckling at the sound. "If she wasn't such a bothersome woman, there would be no hope for keeping this from her, but I prefer to not have her meddling in affairs she will take the wrong way."

"Keepin' this between us is good enough for me," Brady replied, thankful that his father's disdain of women was easy to manipulate. "As long as Ma never finds out about me bein' bad and givin' her another thing to be protective of me about, we're good." In reality, he just didn't want his mother finding out that he had suspicions about his friend's parents not being who they were supposed to be, not until he could explain himself beyond "because that's not how I remember it being." If he was going to bring this up to her, he was going to need to think hard, do some reading, and come up with evidence.

He was going to need some time, and time wasn't exactly a good thing.

A/N: Happy birthday to my friend Chase, for whom this fic was written! The third part of the fic is posted next week~