"Sister?"
Stella looked up from her fencing manual, a bit surprised. Her sister usually considered interrupting someone while they were reading the gravest sin. This had to be a matter of great importance. "What is it, Loretta?"
"We...weren't born here, were we?" Loretta's teeth worried at her lip. She looked frightened to even ask the question.
"No, of course not. This is Castle Dracula, which our father has claimed for our own. You know that, you helped with the spells."
"I did?" Loretta's face openly showed surprise, but it was quickly smoothed away. "That's right, I did. I helped set up the hyperspatial split that keeps Dracula contained."
Odd that she forgot that. At the time she hadn't been able to shut up about the cleverness of her spell. Stella had been one the edge of getting one of the Persephones to dress up as her and just nod along with everything her sister said. "Was that all?" Stella asked. "I was in the middle of studying this."
Loretta didn't say a word, but the look on her face spoke volumes. There was still something bothering her, or Stella didn't know her sister. And there was no one who knew Loretta better than Stella. "Come on, out with it. Let your sister help."
"It's just that I remember coming here," Loretta said, slowly. "It was to help Father, wasn't it?"
"That's right. Even though he said it was dangerous and we should stay behind, we came anyway. He was angry at us, and we had to stay in our rooms for a week-" Stella still bristled a little at that, no matter how right Father was to punish them for such disobedience "-but in the end he needed us."
Loretta's face smoothed out again. "And we were born in Hungary, just before the war. I remember."
That made Stella pause. She didn't remember much of their early life, but she felt sure it wasn't in Hungary. She remembered a long, long ocean voyage to get...somewhere. But they had to have been born in Hungary, that was where Father was from. But there wasn't an ocean between Castle Dracula and Hungary, so shouldn't she be remembering a train ride?
All these memories gave her a headache. Of course they were born in Hungary. It was silly to think otherwise, as silly as doubting Father was their father, or Loretta her sister. "It doesn't matter where we were born anyway. We're here now, all safe and sound, and that's what matters. Let the humans wage their little war, we don't need to worry," Stella said. The final word, as far as she was concerned.
Loretta hesitated just a shade too long in agreeing with her, but eventually she nodded. All they needed was each other. That's what being a family meant.