Raigh's 'Date'

Raigh took a deep breath and tried his best to compose himself. This wasn't anything too embarrassing. All he wanted to do was see if she wanted to go on a walk, o-or maybe have a conversation over tea. This wasn't even as bad as some of his experiences with his own Dark Magic.

So why couldn't he bring himself to knock on the damned door?! Sharena had told him all he needed to do was have faith!

Hand! Move, you insolent cur! It was just a door, and inside was just a girl that was beautiful and amazing in every way and made him feel like he was floating when she smiled at him! He could handle this!

Nino was full of bright smiles and cheery atmospheres. Every time she was around, or even when she wasn't, Raigh found himself drawn to her presence. So yes, he wanted to experience that sensation more! As Kiran had said during the excursion to the World of Mystery, "Bite me."

His clenched hand shook like he had a thunder spell caught in his fist, and the green haired boy bit down on his pride and rapped his knuckles against the wooden door, almost screaming when the door whipped open to reveal the very person he wanted to see.

Nino.

"Hey Raigh! What's up?"

Her dialect was different than usual? She'd spent too much time with Kiran; that was something the cloaked man would say. No matter. He could work around this!

"I… uh… was… wondering."

His mouth wasn't working.

"Cool!" The girl responded happily, and thankfulness flushed through Raigh's body. He just needed to not mess this up like he did cooking, and he'd be free like an untamed horse. Then, it would be up to her to decide his future.

"I was wondering if… uh… how do I say this…" he trailed off, his conviction withering and dying like Zephiel had.

"Say what?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to ask someone if they wanted to head out to the market," he said, then realizing his mistake and babbling quietly to himself, hoping the ground would eat him alive. Nino either didn't notice or didn't care, and that just made his impression of her skyrocket.

"Hm… that is a good question. How do you ask someone that?"

That's what he neededto know. He told her as such.

"Okay, how about… you… ask? That would probably work," she said, grinning. Would it? He'd never thought of that as a possibility. Truthfully, he had no clue how to bridge the topic with her. His plan had only gone until he started talking to her.

"Would you like to go to the market with me?"

Nino nodded.

"Yeah, just like that! Wow, you handled that really well!"

"I.. Uh… thank you?"

"No problem! Now you go out there and you say that sentence, nice and good!"

Raigh jumped at the excitement in her voice, stammering over his words as her pure joy coated him.

"Y-Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"YEAH!"

"YEAH!"

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO THE MARKET WITH ME?!"

Realization dawned in her eyes, and her face gained a light red glow to it.

"Oh. Okay!"

"It was that easy?!" Raigh shouted, completely dumbfounded. Nino didn't dignify such with an answer, she just grabbed his hand and smiled.

"Alright! It's a date then!"

A D-DATE?!

He glanced to the corner, where Sharena was giving him thumbs up, smiling proudly to him.

She pulled him to the Askr market, holding his hand the entire way!

No! No, calm down! Don't think too much about how nice her hand felt, all smooth and dainty in his own. Think about what you wanted to do with her! Okay, markets, what did they have? Food. Girls liked food. He watched Fae eat an entire cow once.

"Let's get biscuits," Nino glowed, and his heart squeezed at the bright smile on her face. He paid for two biscuits and was entrapped watching Nino snack on it, taking a chance to wipe a few crumbs off of her cheek in the midst of it.

"A fountain! Make a wish," she grinned, flicking a copper coin into the fountain. She turned on her heel with a bright smile, ignorant to him pouring as much money as he could into the small body of water, wishing that the date would go perfectly.

"Ohmygosh, Raigh, a petting zoo!" She yanked him over with unprecedented strength and he was petting a loud and annoying goat before he knew what was happening.

"You bleat, I delete," he told the animal as he watched Nino absolutely adore a happy, tiny Pegasus. The goat just bleated in his face in response.

Raigh and Nino left the petting zoo while the animal's caretakers wondered how to get the goat out of a very large and gnarled tree. The process of Nino dragging him about lasted for hours, yet he could say with full confidence that he enjoyed every last minute of it. They found themselves sitting at the fountain he dumped all of his money into, Nino's hand in his. Raigh sat beside her, watching her smile and her bright eyes with a pink blush adorning his cheeks. He just couldn't get over how familiar this sensation was.

"Raigh, look," she whispered, pointing to a child playing around the fountain and his mother's kind presence just meters away. He was hit with a sense of deja vu so intense that he wondered for a split second if he was dreaming, but Nino's fingers intertwined with his own grounded him to reality, and the two of them watched the mother beckon her child over with a warm smile that made his heart melt.

"Come now, honey. We have to be home to greet your father, don't we?"

"Okay mommy!"

Raigh watched the child run to his mother's side, wondering if he'd ever been like that, and watched them walk away holding hands. Nino instantly brightened, the most precious smile in the world spreading across her face.

"She's like, the perfect mother," Nino gushed, looking at them with a sense of melancholy in her gaze. The family moved slowly away, but her eyes remained on the tall woman; her glowing smile. "Was your mom like that, Raigh?"

"I… have no memories of my mother," he mumbled, looking to the ground. He and Lugh had long forgotten what she and their father looked like, the memories of growing up in the orphanage replacing those precious thoughts. Lugh remembered how she thought and acted better, but without the knowledge of a face to pin that to, they had to imagine it themselves. Somewhere along that line, Raigh came up with a happy, preppy woman that had no problem making friends or asking for help, even if it demeaned her. In that same image, he imagined her reading to him, teaching him about magic, and holding him in a hug, too desperate to let go.

Nino looked at him, and Raigh looked back, a tingle in his brain when he compared that image of his mother to Nino. He found the two so similar...

"Kiran said he'd be like a big brother for me because mine weren't around, so I'll do the same for you," she said, hands wrapping around his own as a huge smile bloomed across her face, "so I'll do the same! Raigh, I'll be your mom!"

He could've cried. Nino seemed to notice, because her bright and happy expression feel and she looked at him with eyes so similar to Lugh's.

"Is… that okay…?"

Was it…? Raigh didn't know; would his mother approve of Nino being his surrogate mother? She likely would, with them looking so alike, as Lugh had claimed. Both had green hair, both were users of the mystical arts, both were… perfect. Nino was perfect.

"Y-yes. Yes! I- YES!"

Nino grinned even wider, and in a show of what Raigh could call motherly affection, placed a warm kiss right onto his cheek. His face lit up at the act as a horrible plan came to mind. Maybe… he could get her to see him as more than just a son-slash-friend figure. They'd be spending a lot of time together after all, and the books at the orphanage said that prolonged presence in the other's surrounding built trust and the key workings of a relationship.

He'd have to ask Lugh when Kiran eventually summoned him what mother would say regarding Nino.

Kiran wondered whether or not he had the ability to open Outrealm portals with Breidablik and jump back home to get supplies that Askr was desperately needing when a green haired Dark Mage kicked open his door with no hesitation, leaving a thick, black boot mark on the oak wood, and marched right up to him with a giant smile on his face.

"Kiran," Raigh said, throwing his arms around his white cloaked elder in an uncharacteristic show of passion, "thank you! You've given me what I've always wanted!"

"What in the hell," the cloaked boy thought as the Dark Mage disconnected himself and sped back through the doorway, and his suspicion got the better of him. Kiran dumped the volatile gun relic of summoning doom, as Odin had called it, onto his nightstand and yeeted - yote - himself right after the Mage. His boots echoed after the sound of Raigh's footsteps, walking after him like some depressing Scooby-Doo villain would stalk the characters with a bedsheet over their head.

First thing the made him worry: Raigh led him straight through a fairly populated area of heroes. Kiran had gotten a bunch of Orbs for Japan's Golden Week celebration, Feh vomiting them into his hands because he could no longer hide them in his feathers, not that Robin really minded. He'd gotten some normal units, like Donnel and that Klein nerd, then some rarer ones, like Chrom, so Frederick wouldn't slaughter him. Raigh had always made it known that he'd avoid as many heroes as possible, mainly to maintain his persona of a standoffish brat, and now he was walking past them.

Second thing: his head of green hair rubber-banded Kiran to see the Mage talking to Nino - his mother.

Okay… not good. What would happen if they realized they were related? He knew that when he summoned Olivia, Laslow had made every effort possible to not be nearby, mainly because the dancer was a momma's boy and would spill hundreds of secrets if she asked. If Raigh told Nino that she dies in canon, how would that make her react?

He needed and expert on the situation. Said expert was in the middle of an exchange between Nohrians, sipping tea with a loli.

"Laslow, come with me. I need a reason to be suspiciously looking at two children without getting arrested," he said, grabbing the duelist by the collar and dragging him away from his little tea party, Elise just smiling and waving him away. The dark grey haired man sputtered a bit when Kiran shoved him down to a secluded corner so they could see the two Pious Mages, looking at them with cold eyes.

"Kiran," he sighed, knowing of the strange sibling bond the Earthling had with the… Berning…? "I know I'm a flirt, but I think I draw the line at… what age might they be, six?"

"They're eleven… I think… I have no clue, they're just young. Too young to talk to one another. Ever."

Laslow just rolled his eyes, and Kiran disregarded it, swearing to each Fire Emblem gods and Shouzou Kaga that the fact that they were blushing wasn't because of a strange, blossoming relationship that was progressing wildly off track. No, no no no. It was fine. It was fine, not weird at all. Just… f-family bonding. Nothing weird going on here! Nope. No damn Oedipus Complexes in his castle courtyard.

Kiran's eyes widened with horror at the sight of the two children blushing brighter than hell and embracing. He collapsed to his knees and wondered if killing himself was going to be socially acceptable as well after this.

"Aren't they nice together?"

Laslow sat patiently beside him, looking to the mages with a smile on his face. The poor idiot didn't know. Kiran couldn't blame him for not knowing. Despite introducing him, Odin, and Selena to reality and the truth behind the Fire Emblem worlds, he didn't know everything. If Kiran was going to be forced to explain the family trees in regards to something like Thracia 776, the Summoner was going to sprint straight into an Iron Maiden. The trap, not the band.

"No. Not at all," Kiran ground out through his clenched teeth, wondering how to apply weed killer to the blossoming, accidentally incestual, romance before him.

"What's wrong?"

The man's expression said plainly enough that he thought Kiran rude and spiteful over the romance. Kiran couldn't care less.

"Okay, Las, think of it like this. Imagine for one stark moment that Nino is your mother, Olivia."

"Okay…?"

"Now imagine Raigh as yourself."

For one second, the man's face beheld no emotion. Then realization set in, and his eyes became horrified plates.

"You mean…?!"

"Yeah. Yeah. That's- they're- noooooooooooooooooooo."

"What do we do?"

Cry? Murder someone? Boot Raigh into the sky because he'd never think of doing the same to Nino?

"I know who's probably the catalyst for this… let's kill Sharena."

Laslow blinked. A thousand yard stare set in on the dark grey haired mercenary, probing the options in his mind. The expression returned with a sharpness fit for someone ready to take another life.

"Deal."