In Which Farilon Does the Impolite Thing

August 2, 1180

"Uncle Far'lon!"

After speeding from the doorway, Farilon's little niece had practically bounced into his arms of her own accord. Of all the children, Yvanette had been the only one to not only recognize him without prompting, but keep on loving him unconditionally as if nothing had changed. He couldn't guess why. He'd thought maybe it had something to do with the strange energy that surrounded her, that clinging aura no one else seemed to notice, but that couldn't have been it, at least not on its own. Her father had it too, and if anything he found the whole thing suspicious.

"Hello, Yvanette." It still hurt to speak. His lack of verbosity had been a point of contention between his usually well-attuned parents--his father had outright stated that Farilon ought to try talking whenever possible, while his mother insisted that his comfort was the utmost priority--but he'd satisfied them both by offering the middle-ground approach of speaking when spoken to, at least if the reply wasn't too elaborate. Unfortunately, some people always seemed to want more.

His sister came to mind right away. "Brother."

"Rona," he muttered, for all the name felt wrong. He still wasn't sure how the frosty woman in front of him could be the doting big sister he remembered from what he'd had of a childhood. Add that to her aloof, skittish husband and it was a miracle Yvanette had any warmth in her at all. Rona's visits were the most arduous of all his siblings' and that said a lot. At least today he was only babysitting. "Mother's just settling something between Riona and Mernolt."

"Of course she is." She spared a quick smile for little Lileina on the rug, but even that was practiced, deliberate. "Thank you for agreeing to watch Yvanette."

"It's no trouble." He shuffled past Rona to place Yvanette on the rug. "Want to play castle with your auntie?" Yvanette giggled, as did Lileina. It seemed even not-quite-two wasn't too young to pick up on the absurdity of having an aunt or a niece of one's own age. Yvanette was even the elder of the two!

"Ashe will pick her up when he gets back from Veldora. He shouldn't be too long."

Farilon nodded. He didn't mind if Ashe took his time--watching Yvanette gave him an excuse not to spend his time with anyone who might have expected more from him--but that was something he could hardly admit to his mother, much less Rona. Not that it couldn't be guessed. "All right."

Rona indulged him with a quick twitch of a smile, but abandoned it and took to the couch. He supposed the polite thing to do would be to entertain her while she waited for their mother, for all he couldn't guess how to go about that. She never seemed to want to talk about much, or at least not with him. There wasn't anything he wanted to discuss with her anyway.

At least--not until he noticed something different.

He'd been focused on Yvanette, but now that she was otherwise occupied, he thought he sensed a trace of that same energy coming from her mother as well. Odd--it had been a while since he'd seen her, but he could have sworn it hadn't been there before. Yet here it was, fainter than Yvanette's, perhaps, and not clinging to her body in that same way, but certainly present...

"Is something wrong?"

Farilon swallowed. She'd noticed him staring and he didn't know what he could tell her. "Are you feeling all right?" It was weak, but it was all he had.

Rona frowned. "I'm fine."

Had she even noticed it? She didn't seem to be aware of Yvanette's condition, or her husband's, or anyone else's lack of it. Had it just rubbed off on her without her ever knowing?

He edged a little nearer. There was definitely something different, for all it didn't feel as he would have expected. It was concentrated at her core, and almost entirely internal...

Then it hit him. It wasn't Rona after all.

Not exactly.

"You're pregnant."

Rona blinked--not out of any genuine surprise, but of shock that he'd said it, or that he could have even known. He guessed that wasn't unjustified. It had been a tactless thing to say, and she had yet to start showing. But the point stood. "How would you know?"

Really tactless. And now he'd wedged himself into a corner and needed more words than he could manage to get himself out. "I... I'm not really sure. But it feels like Yvanette."

That hadn't helped, to hear Rona's eyebrow tell it. "What do you mean?"

How to put it? There wasn't anything wrong with Yvanette--far from it--but surely anything he said would come across as if there were?

"She has... some kind of aura, I guess?" That sounded stupid, even for someone with as pathetic a grasp of conversation as he had. But what else was he supposed to call it? Magic? "I don't think anyone else can really notice it, but she has it, and Ashe has it too. And you don't, but your baby does."

Silence. She didn't believe him. She thought he was making things up, desperate for her attention. She thought he was mad, deluding himself about some extra sense that furthered the distance between him and everyone else. She thought--

"Farilon?"

Her eyes had never looked more like their mother's, brimming with concern, guilty and fearful in spite of having done no wrong. She did believe him. Of course she would. He was here, wasn't he? If she believed that, what could she not believe?

"Is it... do you think it's safe?" She slumped back, her gaze falling off of him and resting instead on her little daughter. "Yvanette, and the new baby--they're not in any danger, are they?"

A lump of something shot up from his lungs and wedged in his throat. What could he say to her? Hell, what had he said to her? He hadn't meant to make her worry. "She seems healthy?"

"Yes, but what if...?" She didn't finish, but she didn't have to. He almost preferred it, if he had any right to prefer anything. She knew he had no answers, but she still had questions, and he couldn't even tell her who to ask, if she could ask anyone.

He hadn't done the polite thing at all. The polite thing would have been to send her along to his mother and never mention a word of this.

NEXT CHAPTER: