Family

"Essence Stones?"

Taro scratched his head and looked to Lucinda who shook her head. So much for a lead.

"I've never heard of such a thing. Most don't venture into the mountains, though…" Lucinda hesitated before letting out a weary sigh. "There was one person who might have known."

"Come on, Ma. We haven't seen her in over a decade. She probably just forgot to stop back before she left like you said."

"Maybe…"

Feeling a little left out, I raised my hand. "Um, who exactly are you talking about?"

"Her name is Lady Hanabi. She's a wanderer who has been aiding the Exiled since our ancestors were forced from the empire. She came to pay us a visit around a decade ago and wandered off into the mountains after a night of drinking. We haven't heard from her since."

"Haven't heard from her since?!" I didn't even try to hide my confusion. How could they just take that in stride? "Shouldn't you have looked for her? What if something happened?"

Lucinda and Taro looked at one another and then back to me before bursting out laughing.

"You don't have to worry about that," Taro said, standing up from the table and heading to the door. "That's just how Lady Hanabi is. Mother likes to bring up the Lady's glory days, but in truth, nowadays most people simply see her as a vagabond."

"Hush! And where do you think you're going so late?"

"Did having company make you forget? We still have a wall to guard and Rikki is looking after Hachiko. Poor pup caught another cold."

"That boy is always sick," Lucinda grumbled. "It's because that girl babies him."

"Mother…"

"I know, I know. Just be safe out there and don't stand too close to the edge or a torch. Last thing I want to do is have to bury you next to your Pa."

Taro frowned as he threw on his coat and walked back over to his mother. Then, to my surprise, he threw his arms over her shoulders and hugged her.

"I'll be fine. You just stay warm and take care of our guests. It's bad enough you had to be out there to talk to those mongrels."

Lucinda rested her cheek against Taro's arm and squeezed it before pushing him away. A weary smile painted her lips as the man left, like decades of exhaustion had piled on top of her.

"He's a sweet boy," she said quietly. "But sweet doesn't keep one alive in Stonewood."

"It's amazing you and the villagers manage at all in this cold."

"One of the many benefits to being beastfolk," she laughed. "It's a miracle a human like you can last ten minutes! To think you wandered for over a week trying to get here from Edgeton…"

The subject of Edgeton quieted us. Beyond recanting the events, discussing them was the same as accepting what had happened. Accepting that an entire generation of their children had been betrayed and butchered simply for wanting a better life. I decided to change the subject.

"So do you really think this Lady Hanabi just wandered off into the night?"

"Ha! Knowing her, she'll wander back on my deathbed thinking it's only been a few days. Much as I want to say he's wrong, my boy is right; most people see Lady Hanabi as a vagabond and a drunkard. Not that I can blame her."

"Have you known her a long time?"

"Damn near my whole life," Lucinda said. She stood up and started to clear the table. "Without her, I wouldn't be here today."

Lucinda's tale made me question what the developers of Royal Hearts were thinking when they created the lore for the game. That was the only way I could justify her suffering —by pretending it was preordained by a higher power— because no one should be forced from their home as a child.

She'd grown up on the southern peninsula of the continent in a tropical fishing town on the coast. Back then, hundreds of kilometers of wilderness had isolated her people from the rest of the Goldsplain Empire, and though they were aware of the fate of the Exiled, they'd never paid it much mind. If the empire was going to come for them, they would have done it centuries ago with the others, right?

That naive thinking had led to the expected outcome and Lucinda's family only survived thanks to Lady Hanabi's protection. She was a stranger then, but as Lucinda described her, "she was a divine beast of snow and flame, devouring the empire's soldiers and guiding them to safety". By safety, she meant Stonewood.

"She stayed with us for around a decade, until just after my seventeenth birthday. Oh how I cried when she told me! I begged her and begged her to take me with her, but she wouldn't have it."

"Why didn't you just follow her?" I asked.

"I suppose I could have. I doubt she would have stopped me. But I had my folks to think of and I'd already fallen sick for a boy in the village. As much as I hated it at the time, my place was here and I knew it. I think she did, too."

I guess life takes you in different directions no matter what world you're in. What if I had listened to my parents and focused on finding a partner instead of going to university? I can't even imagine it.

"I see that look. The look of someone who listened to an old woman's story and is worried about her own life."

"I-It's not like that. I just… I just wondered what could have been if I had made different choices."

Would I still be alive in Japan?

"Well don't fret." Lucinda rested her hand on my shoulder with a smile. "You're still young. You've got your whole life ahead of you. Though you might find it a bit difficult if you decide to stay in Purga."

"Yeah," I laughed.

We talked a bit longer before Lucinda guided me to her room for the night. I'd tried to decline, but she'd insisted, closing me and Yahime in before we could stop her from shuffling into Taro's room. The room itself was rather unremarkable and rather tight, but after camping in the cold, it was a luxurious suite I would have paid a years salary for.

"What'd you think of them?" I asked Yahime while I laid down. "You didn't say anything that whole time."

"…what is family?"

I choked on my saliva and sat up coughing. Where was that coming from?

"Um, it's people who are close to you, normally related by blood."

I had to squint in the dim candle light coming from the flickering flame on the night stand beside me. She was in her human form so that she could fit into the house without hitting the dried meats and herbs that were hanging in the main area. Somehow that form was more off putting.

"Why do you ask?"

She didn't answer. I waited. Then waited some more. After what felt like an hour, she finally spoke.

"do I… have family?"

Did she? I wondered. She was a Dusk, one out of who knew how many daughters of Vide, the Goddess of Souls. She had sisters and a mother. But were they really family? I didn't think so. If they were, Yahime's family would have come for her.

Am I her family? We are connected by our pact and I do feel protective of her. Being with her is like being with a child, especially recently. Even now. This is the type of question I would have asked my parents. I just hope she doesn't ask where Dusks come from.

"What do you think?"

"don't… know…"

My insides twisted at her answer, giving me my own.

"You do," I said, standing from the bed and walking to her. "You and I are family. And just like Lucinda and Taro, we'll take care of one another, and protect one another. Understand?"

She didn't answer.