[Halloween 2019] Full House

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It was a nice house. It really was. It was big, but not too spacious. Each room had its defining feature, such as a stove for the kitchen, a fire place for the living room, and doors into everyone's rooms. The wooden flooring didn't have some annoying creak, the walls looked sturdy and none of the windows were shattered or broken. It was a nice pleasant little house in the suburbs of Grassveil, if you could call it a suburb given that Grassveil was a small yet busy town.

She woke up in the mornings on a comfortable bed, had access to food to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner with, and had all the time in the world to spend with...kids who weren't really all that interested in sticking around it seemed. Chance liked to wander off, resulting her needing to chase him down if he didn't come back at a certain time, and Emmelyn either was dragged off with him or at the library.

Which meant Mirage was left home. Alone. To do...well, that question bothered her every day for the past two weeks. At first she waited for Sova. After she told him about the kids, she kind of expected him to show up. As each day passed, however, she began to lose hope. Instead, it began to anger her. It started to feel like she was more of some pet waiting for their master to come home. After the first week, she decided that perhaps it wouldn't hurt to wander Grassveil a little. She kept up disguises, of course, but every time she went out she worried about Sova coming back to find nobody home. She couldn't bring herself to have the courage to speak to any pokemon either.

What was the point of it? She was just going to be someone else tomorrow. There would be trouble if she tried to establish an identity. She'd have to upkeep it, maintain it, and if the disguise ever broke, she's done for, Sova's done for, and even the kids. She had no choice but to resign herself to the house and...do nothing. What could she even do? She was a wanted outlaw who didn't do outlaw-y things anymore. She was a fugitive who had no choice but to stay in the same bland empty looking house she didn't really know how to go about decorating.

In a way, it felt almost like a prison to her. A prison that held the door open, but every time she left it was a roll of the dice whether she'd be thrown into an even worse one. It was demeaning.

At the very least, each day brightened up a little when the kids came home. Emmelyn would have something new she learned while Chance would have some wild tale of adventure to tell everyone. It was nice to hear from them, but whenever they asked her about the world and what to do...she was lost. She gave the best answer she could, but she knew it wasn't enough. She didn't know anything about the world. Everything she did know was a lie, that was made very apparent to her.

Now, she was stuck with two kids at dinner on a Friday night pretending everything was absolutely okay.

Sova's little declaration that he liked him for who he was...calmed him down a little. He didn't sit up or get overexcited again as he thought about it more, but he wasn't give much time to think as the subject of the conversation moved on. Emmelyn was now the target. She...didn't exactly get the same treatment he did. Instead of being accepted, she was questioned. This was enough to bring some life back into his movements.

He popped up from the bedding, "It's normal!" he butted right into the conversation. "She's just special-and in a good way!" He hopped out of his bed to step into the glaceon's line of sight yet again, effectively blocking his sister.

"Like-she found out that she was this reincarnation of this thing called a "Saint" from waaaaaaaaaay back who died a long time ago-and she's gonna get to do a lot of super cool things when she grows up and stuff-like a chosen one or something." His complete misunderstanding of the situation was completely and factually inaccurate, but at the very least he didn't put Emmelyn on the spot by looking to her for confirmation. He was far too focused on twisting the conversation away from where Sova just decided to try to take it.

Sova's brow raised as the zorua piped up, almost seeming defensive over his sister. It was good to see; Sova could think of no greater relief than to know they would look out for each other. However, he couldn't help but think it was a bit of an overreaction here, as he was only concerned for the eevee's health and meant no harm with his comment. He considered trying to clarify this, but he was given something much more prominent to react to in the form of Chance's claim that his sister was... a reincarnation of a saint. Sova had to stop himself from laughing, reminded that these were children and they would probably both have a lot of silly ideas. "Really?" he questioned rhetorically with no intention of trying to argue.

Emmelyn grew visibly flustered as Chance suddenly started talking about her personal research. She appreciated the initial defense, but she wasn't super comfortable talking to just anyone about the whole saint thing, especially with how he almost seemed to be trying to make it sound like a brag! "I, um... probably not..." she responded, hanging her head toward the ground to hide the embarrassment on her face. She knew how unrealistic it sounded and how not-real it probably was, and that was exactly why she didn't go around telling everyone about it. The thought was nice, though...

Sova shook his head idly. Both of these two seemed to have some insecurities, something he supposed they were doomed to inherit with Mirage and himself as their parents. Just another reason he shouldn't have been a father, but since he now was, the only thing he could do was try to help. "You know, you don't have to be special to be important, both of you. I'm not," he gave his best effort to encourage the two to feel better about themselves for who they were, to not be defined by labels. The last thing he wanted was for them to end up anything like their parents.

The zorua's rump fell into a seated position. His ears pointed forward towards the glaceon attentively as he delivered his words of wisdom to the children. It was a good lesson to teach, but unfortunately, Chance saw quite the flaw in what the glaceon said.

"...That's a big fat lie," he pouted, "You're like-all kinds of special and important!" His eyes narrowed at the glaceon accusingly. The zorua's fur bristled, but not with any true anger or hostility. He could have gone on about all the different ideas he had about the glaceon's importance, but he figured that his father was smart enough to know about it...which meant he was just lied to. His mind seemed to focus on that rather than the idea the glaceon tried to convey, finding it to be far more important than the lesson.