Malin seemed to work harder than necessary. He seemed…out of place. Eisso couldn't quite figure out why; besides the fact that Malin was as old as most of their parents, there wasn't anything obviously disturbing about him.
Everyone took turns making sure Malin wasn't working with the enemy. A month after he joined them, a lot of the others didn't completely trust him. They still weren't even halfway to Plegia—if anything, the suspicion was slowing them down.
Nonetheless, Eisso had offered to watch Malin today. They were walking just ahead of everyone else. And while everyone else stayed relatively silent, Malin decided to do the opposite.
"I wanted to ask you something," Malin said. "It's about your mother."
"We're marching towards war," Eisso replied, hoping that it didn't sound as surprised as he felt by the mention of his mother. "This isn't the time to be asking about me and my family."
"What if I said it was important to me?" Malin asked. "Would you answer my questions then?"
"You're wasting breath, and you could be attracting unwanted attention. Stop prying." Surprise was slowly fading to annoyance as he realized how true his words felt.
"Please?" Malin said, persistent. "I just want to ask a single question! Maybe two! Then I promise I'll stop asking about her."
Eisso sighed. "Fine. What did you want to ask?"
"What was her name?" Malin said. "Was…was it Keira?"
"I was young when she died," Eisso replied, "And therefor I was never told about what her name was. If anyone would know, it would be Kenzie."
"Your father never said it while talking to a friend?"
"I don't know either of my parents' names. Nor do I know my last name."
"Okay. What did she look like?"
"Blonde hair, light skin, brown eyes. Average height for her age, but extremely thin and ill-looking. She might've dyed her hair when it was starting to gray; either that or her hair didn't gray naturally."
"Do you know anything about her life before you were born?"
"No. Like I said earlier, I was young when she died. And Father died before I was deemed old enough to know that sort of stuff. All I know is that she kept it a secret. Before me and Kenzie moved in with Ocielle, I found a lockbox that must've belonged to Mother. I brought it to Ocielle's shop, but I don't know what's inside it since I don't know the combination."
Malin seemed to make mental notes, then said, "One more question: do you know if your mother and father…actually loved each other? Or were you born out of a sort of 'obligation?'"
The question was unexpected, and if they weren't marching to their possible doom, Eisso would've gotten emotional. Instead, he just got frustrated. "I would like to not question why I was born, thank you. What damn project do you have going on that you need that information, anyway?"
"I have theories," Malin replied, sounding overly casual. "Namely, ones that involve your mother and Robin. You see, I—"
"I'm not interested in your conspiracy theories and false information," Eisso said. "You want answers? Feel free to find her damn grave and ask her yourself."
Malin almost looked like he was stunned into silence. One or two of the others overheard the conversation as well; however, they wisely let Eisso backtrack through the small crowd to find Kenzie.
If his sister heard the conversation, she showed no evidence of it. She still looked concerned, though—to be fair, Eisso probably looked like a combination of pathetic and annoyed, so her concern was well-placed at this point.
Eisso, once he got past the initial stage of annoyance, wondered why Malin had questioned how much his parents loved each other, out of all things. Everything else was reasonable. But even if you're making ludicrous theories about people you've never met, that didn't seem important.
While Robin had wanted to learn more about Eisso's mother, she never asked as persistently as Malin. Robin had just…accepted that Eisso didn't know the answers and gave up, whereas Malin was being persistent and annoying. Eisso, however, tried to think of something slightly more cheery.
(A/N: Wow…by now I am shamelessly referencing all of my Ylisse-centered Fire Emblem fics. For context, though, Keira is the name that future Morgan and Robin gave Robin's fictional mother. I may have already explained that, actually XP Anyways, under most circumstances Keira is entirely fictional in-universe. I have no plans to make her an 'actual' character, but it's up to you and your interpretation, honestly. I'm trying to keep details like that vague.)