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“I don’t know what else I could want…” Nithel said softly. Alessio clenched his jaw and glared at Nathair, who just smiled at him. Nathair was good at putting people on their defensive, with his words. Alessio didn’t know if he even consciously did it anymore…

He just wanted to run, as far away as possible. They didn’t need to get in trouble because of him he just had to run, right? It wouldn’t work, he knew that, he wanted to be safe. That’s all.

‘…they’ll never understand…’

That wasn’t, it wasn’t important. But families had to protect themselves, their own, at least for kind people. And if he put anyone in danger, if he was a danger, families had to protect themselves. That was just…that was always more important than him…

No, Nithel said he wouldn’t leave! Willingly. He wasn’t going to abandon him, even if it put not only him but his daughter in danger.

But…

Nithel smiled at him, for a second, before it faded to a sad, loving gaze so full of thoughts. That was different from the way anybody else looked at him. He didn’t feel just noticed he felt seen. And he didn’t know what to do with that.

“I made friends,” Alessio blurted, hoping that would make him happy. He was fidgeting awkwardly. Billions and billions of words flooded his brain. Could he learn about the Star Breather – that would make Nithel happy, right – was he supposed to be talking? “How-“

‘How are you’ seemed like a normal conversation…thing, but what he really meant was how long had it been in his world, how was this happening now, how was he real and still kind to him?

He glanced at Leana, who’d rushed to greet her father and clung to him this whole time so…was it ok if…Alessio grasped Nithel’s arm a moment to reassure himself that he was real but instead he leaned against Nithel, hugging his shoulder as if that would keep him from fading and keep him real.

“You know something, Old Snake,” Arsene skipped over, the look in his eyes just itching for trouble. And he found it with great glee. “Whenever you talk, you sound like a fellow non-human, who’d like nothing more than to watch the world burn.”

“Strange, whenever you talk, you sound like a unadulterated idiocy.” Nathair returned mildly. “Now, it might be a good idea to get moving before some new monstrosity comes to try and kill us, mm?”

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