Izo met with his family in what should be deemed Sister's presence chamber, but where Father usually worked in her stead. Mother, Sister, Takashi, and Father were there with him, in a private meeting. Brother was was with a nanny as the impending conversation was deemed inappropriate for his hearing.
Kotone and her son, finally named by her, Koji, had returned to Alaric after resting and recovering in the Spirit World hospital for three days. Kotone had to be healed repeated in order to help her recover physically from the birth, while Koji needed to be checked over and feed often in hopes he would gain weight.
When both mother and son returned to Alaric, they both had to be cared for and were told to be fed a lot and often. Ten days had past since they had returned. Koji thrived, hungry nearly every hour on the hour. He stayed in the nursery with Brother, cared for by the same nannies, as well as Izo and his family members. It made it easier to care for him with everyone taking turns and shifts.
Kotone, though physically healthy except for being underweight, was not thriving. She ate little and wept often now. She barely left her bed and never left her rooms. It took lots of coaxing from Mother to get her to shower. She was more stressful to deal with than Koji.
Still, she had stayed, morose and all. Izo had been frightened that she would flee, and possibly not with Koji when they had gotten back to the Demon World. Izo felt like her doing that would make him crumble like she was now.
"So what are we going to do with the ice maiden?" Sister voice said, snapping Izo back into the conversation.
"She's hardly a maiden anymore," Takashi said. Father gave him a scowl. "What? She just had a child. She's not a maiden if she has a child."
Father grunted, already annoyed with Takashi and when the conversation had barely started. "She stays here, heals up and rest up. She's opened herself to feeling emotions where it's normal for the ice maidens to shut down and freeze away their emotions, rather than feel them. It's why they only shed one tear when they have a child. It's the only time they are allowed to express themselves and their love for their children."
"But Aunt Yukina cries like all the time," Sister interjected. "I've seen it."
Mother spoke next, "Yukina embraced her emotions a long time ago. She is free to feel joy as well as sorrow. And when I talked to her yesterday about Kotone, she did warn me that beginning to express rather than surpress emotions is overwhelming at the beginning. Not to mention her emotions after having a child and being severally homesick."
"She's hardly taking care of her child," Takashi griped. "The lot of us are doing it instead."
Father cut him a look, saying, "once a day caring for a child must be hard for you. Being one of the seven who are helping. Imagine if it was you by yourself. Or her by herself."
Takashi flustered. Sister stepped near him, as if trying to calm him down. "Eight would be better," he grumbled. "Besides, why is she homesick? Those other ice demons ripped out her tongue, starved her, and imprisoned her. They were going to kill her, her child, and kill Izo to when she falsely claimed he was the father of her child."
Mother spoke soothingly, "it was the only home she's ever known. Only family she's ever known. And they turned on her, for no fault of her own. For an attack she didn't even remember happened."
"How did she not remember what- what happened?" Sister asked in an almost disbelieving tone.
"She blocked it out," Father explained. "She had no clue what had happened to her when she awoke the next day. When she found out she was pregnant, she told one of the older ice maidens, worried about being pregnant too young-"
"Pregnant too young?" Takashi asked, perplexed.
Mother stepped in. "Ice maidens have a child immaculately at age 100. Always a girl and always an ice maiden."
Takashi's face scrunched up as if he thought the idea absurd. "Great Mother," he muttered.
"Anyway," Father continued. "That's how she was caught. She didn't remember anything, so when questioned, she didn't know what to tell them. They thought she was lying, so her tongue was cut out." Father's nose twitched in displeasure. "After that, she remember about ten percent of what happened, but could not communicate that with her sister. Now, she remembers about a fourth of what happened, with gaps in her memory that could span minutes or hours. She hopes she never recalls the whole thing."
The room took on a somber atmosphere with a heavy silence hanging over them for a few moments.
"And she wants to go back there?" Takashi asked, breaking the silence.
Father hissed, "she doesn't want to go back there, she misses what her life was like there before she was attacked."
"She grieves for it," Izo realized out loud. Mother nodded over to Izo.
Takashi looked ruffled. "Those ice maidens had no right to mistreat her, nor Izo, especially with impunity."
"What are you saying, now?" Father asked him in an irked tone.
Takashi looked around the room, handing out open. "They can't get away with that. We shouldn't let them get away with that. My father has allowed the ice maidens their own right to act independent of the his rule, but only so long as they never harmed a subject of the Demon World. They harmed Izo. They've forfeited their right to independence when they tortured and imprisoned Izo and should be punished for it."
"No," Father said firmly.
Takashi stared at him in disbelief. "You can't possibly be considering letting them go unpunished?"
"They're cold, emotionless, and frigid. They've been set apart from the Demon World in self exile for so long that they don't have any emotions beyond numbness. Their ways were harsh, but they don't understand why. Without emotions, they lack morality. They're better of left alone," Father finished, voice dripping with pity.
Takashi grunted, annoyed. "My Father will hear about this," he threatened limply.
Father rolled his eyes "He already knows. I spoke with him about it two days ago mentally. He would have preferred to attack, too, until we spoke."
"When did you have time to contact him?" Takashi griped.
"When you were feeding Koji," Father retorted with a hint of a smirk.
"Can you stop?" Hikari said to both of them. "So, Kotone's staying?"
"As long as she wants to," Mother said.
Izo silently hoped to himself that it would be forever. "As long as you give her your leave, my lady," he teased Sister.
"Ha ha," she faked laughed at him. Then she added, "yeah, she can stay."
"She doesn't do anything," Takashi butted in.
"She depressed," Sister told him.
"Then heal her of it," Takashi responded.
"You can't heal depression like a leg wound," Father snapped. "Your mother is a healer. What makes you think-"
Mother gasped loudly. Father fell silent at the sound of her. Mother's eye came to rest on Izo, making him feel uncomfortable. "Izo can," she recalled.
Izo blinked up at Mother, confused. Aunt Yukina nor Asa ever trained him how to do that. They did not know how to do that either. He tried to think of a moment where he had ever done such a thing. "I can't..." he breathed.
"Yes, you can," Mother said confidently. "You've done it to me before." She put her hand on the middle of her chest. "After I woke up from miscarrying Ryu." She went silent for a moment, swallowing. "You were so young, but you placed your hand here and healed away the sadness and loss I was feeling. Not completely of course, but enough that I could manage..."
Takashi spoke, "you lost- ow!"
Sister had stomped on her mate's foot. "Shut up. Now," she commanded. Takashi huffed, but kept quiet.
Izo thought back over that time, much of which he remembered. He remember a lot, a lot more than Sister ever did. "I don't remember," he admitted. He was unsure if he should believe it's true if he could not remember it. It was not possible. No healer can do that, none that he knew of anyway. Mother must have mis-remembering.
Mother stepped closer to him, taking his hands in hers. He looked down at her, feeling more like he was the shorter one of the two of them in that moment. "If you've done it before, you can do it again," Mother told him confidently. Izo shook his head, she had to be wrong. Her grip on his hands grew firmer. "You have to try," she said in a tone that was almost scolding. Her hands and tone softened. "We know you love her-"
"What? Since when?" Takashi's voice may has well have bellowed. "Ow! Would you stop that?"
"Stop ruining moments and I'll stop treading on your foot," Sister warned him.
Mother held Izo's attention. "You have to try. It may at the very well least bring her comfort."
Try to do the impossible. "Okay, I'll try," he agreed, all while thinking it would never work.