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The living room of the Crowe household wasn’t an ideal place for Seres to do her homework.
Her siblings—all four of them—were in the room. Elaina ten and the triplets eight. Old enough to (sort of) take care of themselves despite their parents’ absence for the night, but young enough that the fifteen year old felt she needed to be in the room regardless.
Juggling homework with babysitting was still a nightmare, though. Because they were children, naturally they got noisy when together. Ava and Briar were the loudest, constantly arguing, and while Elaina was more deadpan in her vitrol she still only contributed to the chaos with every word they said to one another. Seres felt bad for Isaac; he was the middle triplet, but the only well behaved one of the lot. The only one who kept his voice down.
Today, they made the mistake of playing Mario Party.
“Okay, let’s do another round!” Ava yelled. She bounced up and down on the couch, her spirits high again even though just minutes before she was crying at Briar for ‘cheating’. “These short ten turn games were a good idea; now I have time to redeem myself!”
‘Not more Mario Party,’ Seres internally groaned. She could tell, just by looking at Ava and Briar’s tousled hair, blonde and black respectively, that they’d been brawling all night. Seres no longer had the energy to even try to tell the noisiest triplet to shut her trap. Instead, she brushed her own black hair out of her face and once more focused on the homework.
Isaac sighed. “Fine, but... But please, can we not do Pyramid Park this time?” He shook his head. ”I don’t want to get crushed when you jump over me to take Briar’s controller again.”
Just the verbal reminder of all the fights that happened throughout the night was enough for Seres to lose that renewed focus. ‘Yes, please don’t. Dad would scream if he knew just what the Mario people did to ancient Egypt.’ She put her head down in front of her laptop. At least Elaina decided not to play and was instead just reading on a nearby armchair.
“Yeah, don’t crush him,” Briar said. “I’m still gonna kick your butt again, but I’ll beat you on the board that doesn’t have rules based around stealing stars and ruining lives, thank you very much.”
“Awww, but it’s so fun when I’m winning...” Ava pouted. “Okay, let’s dooo... Uh, whatever the board with the regular rules is called. And no picking girls this time, Briar!”
“Hey, if you’re gonna be sexist, call Isaac out too. He’s the one who always picks Peach,” Briar retorted. Isaac groaned again, too tired to add anything and unwilling to have any part of this anyway.
Seres rubbed her temples. ‘If only Celica were still here, she’d know how to help me...’
“Yeah, but you’re a stupid pervert,” Ava retorted. “Don’t think I don’t know about your little crushes at school. Seriously, all the girls in your class?! It’d be a big mistake for the oldest triplet to let the littlest brother keep being a dweeb nincompoop .”
Briar threw down his controller. “YOU’RE a mistake!”
“YOU’RE BOTH MISTAKES!”
All three triplets, as well as Seres, looked over to the armchair where Elaina sat. She had slammed the book she was reading shut, her golden eyes full of fire and targeted directly at the triplets. “All of you, shut UP! You’re so bad even Seres stopped yelling at you! Those jokes Aunt Magilou tells about dad being cursed have to be true, I already knew you ARE mistakes but—!”
“Elaina!” Seres sprung up from her chair. She was so taken aback by Elaina’s crude remark that she was once more in the mood to scold her siblings. Her own blue, fiery eyes met her sister’s. “You’re making everything way worse than it needs to be. And don’t you dare talk to the triplets like that ever again!”
“You tell her, Seres!” Ava yelled.
Isaac stood up and threw his controller down, uncharacteristically angry. “Would you shut up already, Ava?! You’re even worse than usual tonight!”
“You’re ALL awful tonight!” Elaina screamed, her left eye twitching. “I just wanted to finish my book, but it’s already this late and I still have so many pages left, all because YOU three decided to act like monkeys and A CERTAIN SOMEONE who was SUPPOSED to be watching you did nothing to shut them up!”
“Elaina, seriously!” Seres yelled. “If you really wanna keep things quiet—”
“You’re the one being noisy, Seres,” Briar said. “Can we get back to our game now?”
The two glared at each other. Seres opened her mouth to yell back at her youngest brother, but the sound of the front door opening cut her short.
“...They’re back already...?” Seres thought aloud. She’d completely lost track of the time through her frustration, thinking she still had a few hours before her parents came home to relieve her of babysitting duties.
Isaac suddenly darted out of the room to where the stairs were, leaving Seres confused. Seres started to yell for him to come back, but then it hit her why he scurried off:
Her younger siblings were supposed to be in bed long ago.
“Hey! Get back here, Isaac!” Briar jumped off the couch and ran after him. “Don’t leave us in the dust and let us be the ones to—” He promptly bumped right into his father, Eizen: he had just entered the room along with Velvet.
“Moron,” Elaina said, watching Briar scurry away from his father back to Ava’s side. “If you hadn’t screamed like a banshee, you could have slinked away without mom and dad knowing too.”
Her parents’ presence prompted Seres to sit back down at the table and not even look up as she mumbled “Hi mom, hi dad.” She wasn’t loud enough for them to hear her, especially when their full attention was on her three remaining younger siblings.
Velvet raised an eyebrow as she addressed them. “...What are you all still doing up?”
“We’re here ‘cause Seres didn’t send us to bed,” Ava shrugged. Seres’ jaw dropped behind her laptop screen; did she have to rat her out at every first opportunity?
“I don’t care if your sister let you stay up until dawn,” Eizen said. “Her job was to enforce our rules when we weren’t around, so that doesn’t mean you get to pretend we never said anything.” He turned to Elaina and narrowed his eyes. “...What about you though? You’re plenty old enough to know you need to be in bed by now.”
“I’m trying to finish this book,” Elaina said. “I doubt those three would let me sleep even if I wanted to."
Velvet rolled her eyes. “As usual. Come on, all three of you go up to bed with Isaac. I am not going to deal with any if’s or and’s or but’s this late at night, it’s well after midnight.”
Ava groaned and shut the console off. “Awww, we didn’t even get to start the next game... Briar, you’re going down next time. We’ll do teams, and I’ll put Isaac on mine so we can both kick your butt!”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate you deciding that for him when he’s not here to complain,” Elaina said sarcastically. Briar laughed devilishly, and all three left the room for upstairs.
“Scary as ever, Velvet,” Eizen quipped.
Velvet smiled and shook her head. “I’d say you’re the scary one here,” she replied. “You were the one who blew up and grounded them on the spot the last time they tried to pull something this late at night.”
“I’m jealous,” Seres said.
Her parents looked at her, confused. “Jealous of us being scary?” Eizen asked.
“No, dad, it’s... Okay, yeah I wish I was scary, too. I couldn’t get them to do anything at all...”
“They have been especially rowdy lately,” Velvet observed. “Sorry you had to deal with them. Did they let you get any of your homework done?”
“I wish...” Seres replied. “I might’ve written two, three paragraphs? But every few seconds I’d have to break them up. So who knows how good what I wrote is.”
“Good job anyway,” Eizen said. “You should get to bed too; it’s the weekend now anyway, so no reason you can’t put it aside and get some rest.”
Seres mumbled in response, shut her laptop, and slowly rose from the chair. She got as far as shuffling to the doorway and taking her hair out of its ponytail for the night before stopping and turning back to her parents.
“When do you think you’ll have to go out again?”
Velvet shrugged. “Aunt Eleanor invited us out for drinks, so we’ll be gone Sunday night. ...Depending on how Rokurou and Magilou behave, we’ll be gone hopefully just a few hours.”
“Okay...” Seres stood in the doorway for a short while, searching for the words she planned to say. Her parents waited for her to say whatever she had in mind.
“So I guess...” she continued. “So I guess that means I’ve gotta take care of everyone here again?”
“Aye,” Eizen said. “Hopefully they’ll be better then. Make sure you get your homework done beforehand though; they’ll probably make you help them with theirs.”
Seres nodded. “...Okay...”
“And make sure they actually do their homework,” Velvet added.
“I’ll... I’ll try,” Seres replied. She turned to walk out of the room again. But before she left she was stopped by her father’s voice.
“Hey.” Eizen walked up to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Are you doing alright, Seres?”
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Seres shrugged off her father’s hand. “I’m the big sister. It’s my job to take care of all the younger siblings. I’ll just have to try harder on Sunday.” She started to walk off again.
“I’m not buying that,” Velvet said. “If there’s something bothering you that might rear its head the next time you babysit, we’d like to hear about it beforehand.”
“Even if I tell you, it’s not like it’s gonna change anything.”
Velvet and Eizen looked at each other. But Seres wasn’t done.
“I miss Celica,” she continued. Her voice was cracking and raising in volume as she got more and more upset. “I’m... I’m nothing compared to her. SHE always knew what to do with everyone. SHE was the one who did all the work, and that was good because she actually knew what she was doing, a-and was actually good at it... a-and ENJOYED it!”
Her parents let her rant without once saying a word.
“We’d have fun playing with everyone, instead of me just sitting in the corner trying to hide from everyone... Now if I even try to say anything, Elaina or Ava bait me right into arguing too, and then -I- turn into one of the kids...
“WHY DID SHE HAVE TO DIE?!” Seres couldn’t stop the tears prickling from her eyes. She braced herself against the wall and sobbed, “God, I’m still a wreck! You’d think I would’ve learned something from her!”
She dissolved into incoherent sobbing after that. She could hear her parents’ approach, but she didn’t have the presence of mind to stop them as her mother’s arms wrapped around her.
“Seres...” Velvet hugged her daughter. “Seres, it’s okay. You don’t get over a loved one’s death in just a few months. We’re all still dealing with losing her in our own ways, your siblings included, so don’t think you’re alone.”
“Mom, you don’t get it—”
“Losses cut deep, Seres,” Eizen said. “None of us expect you to be unaffected by Celica’s death. It’s hit the rest of us hard too. Give yourself a break.”
“But—”
“Why don’t we all sit down and talk about this for a minute?” Velvet asked. “I think we could use a good heart-to-heart.”
Seres stared at her mother for a few seconds, then nodded. All three of them went back into the living room and sat on the couch, each parent on either side of their daughter.
“...Speaking as someone who lost three other family members long before Celica,” Velvet started, “I can’t tell you how proud I am you held yourself together for two whole months. That’s much longer than you realize.”
“But I was only pretending! I had to, or else...”
“You faked it and you made it,” Velvet cut her off. “...I suppose you’re old enough that it’s all right I tell you all this now. So listen carefully: I know you’re handling Celica’s death well because I know first hand what it’s like to handle loss horribly.”
Seres froze. Only with those words did she fully realize she had no room to complain.
“You know about my younger brother Laphicet, right? Your late uncle?” Seres nodded, letting Velvet continue. “He died in a house fire when I was sixteen. We lost him along with our entire house that day. ...That’s where all those scars on my left arm come from, by the way.” Before Velvet continued, Seres glanced at the left arm in question; it was covered with long sleeves, as usual, but she knew exactly what she was referring to.
“Celica survived, but was hospitalized in critical condition and stayed there for a few days after I was discharged. ...Leaving me with the one person who escaped unscathed, as well as the man I chose to blame for the fire: your uncle Artorius.”
“...Chose to blame him? But why?”
“That’s my point,” Velvet explained. “Laphi- your late uncle Laphicet, was extremely important to me. Kind of like how close you were with Celica. I’d lost my parents before, but I was too young to remember how it affected me. I had no one to turn to, so I took everything out on the man who left the stove on.” She paused to sigh deeply, and slung an arm around Seres’ shoulders before continuing.
“It was all I knew how to do, but it wasn’t helpful. It would have been another story if he killed Laphi on purpose, but instead I took out my anger on him. I said and did things that I one day came to regret... At the time I didn’t care about being ‘okay’ or trying to ‘be strong for my family.’”
Finally finished, Velvet squeezed her daughter harder. “...I won’t go into any more detail there, but what I’m saying is... I’m proud of you, Seres.”
Seres took a long moment to process what she was told. Eizen, who stayed silent that whole time to let Velvet tell her story, put an arm around his daughter as well. She stopped crying long ago, and figured by this point her parents must have a point, but she had just one question left to ask.
“Why did you name me Seres?”
“Huh?” Velvet responded.
“That’s quite the subject change,” Eizen said. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s the name of one of the comic book superheroes Celica used to like, right? Sometimes I wondered if you named me after her, but I figured you didn’t ‘cause you two aren’t mean enough for that, right?” Eizen smiled, and Seres chuckled. “Did you? Or was it just a coincidence?”
Velvet blushed. “I’m... I’m afraid it’s not a coincidence. But it was Celica’s idea. Eizen and I, we weren’t... The best at names back then. We aren’t really now either, but anyway. Magilou made a bet that if we didn’t think of anything good by then, we had to let Celica name my firstborn. And, well... She named you Seres.”
“You’re still embarrassed about that? Our daughter’s right here, you know,” Eizen laughed. “At least Celica picked a name that’s otherwise normal. There’s a reason we didn’t let Magilou do it herself. ...But why bring that up now, Seres?”
“You know I’m not really into comics type stuff, but isn’t her whole thing about protecting her little brother and sister from afar?” Seres furrowed her brow in thought. “I always wondered if that was why Celica liked her, if she saw herself in Seres of the Butterflies . You always talked pretty fondly about taking care of Uncle Laphi too, mom. ...So after Celica died, I started thinking: Did you guys name me that because you wanted me to be a good big sister? Am I not living up to what she’d want me to be?”
Eizen smiled, and pat Seres’ shoulder. “It’s funny you say that, because we asked Celica the same thing. That was one thing she thought of, but that wasn’t why she chose that name for you.”
Seres looked over to him, questioning. “Why did she pick it?”
“She said she ‘wanted you to grow up strong like a hero.’ She had many, many reasons to love the superhero Seres, and she wanted you to be happy the way Celica wanted that Seres to be happy,” Eizen said. “Other than that, she didn’t have any paths of life in mind for you; none of us even knew if we’d be having more kids than you or not. ...Elaina was supposed to be the last, as you know.” Velvet frowned at his last quip.
“Anyway,” he continued, “Celica wouldn’t want you to be upset over what you can’t control. She wouldn’t want you feeling guilty for being stressed, or worrying about not living up to her. If you’re a little more quick to anger, so what? Your fire is what makes you who you are, and we all love you no matter what.”
“My fire is... what makes me who I am?”
“Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to watch out for your siblings,” Velvet quickly added. “We understand you have a harder time than Celica did, but we still want you to do your best. We’ll just... Try to keep that in mind in the future.”
“Sure... Thanks, mom. Thanks, dad.”
“If you’d like,” Velvet suggested, “We can take some of the pressure off you too and call Aunt Edna some nights, Aunt Eleanor some others, and... Magilou or Rokurou if we absolutely have to.” She paused. “And... I’m sorry, Seres. We had no idea you were this bothered by how much you’re struggling.”
“Aye,” Eizen said. “We underestimated how much Celica’s death must be still weighing on you, and... we apologize for that.”
“It’s fine,” Seres said. “I’m just sorry I was so dumb. Even when you’re strict, you’re the last sort of people who’d get mad at me for failing so long as I tried.”
“Let’s not worry about that anymore.” Velvet pat Seres’ shoulder, and stood up. “Right now, just go to bed. You’ll have a clearer head in the morning, trust me.”
“Since we’re free tomorrow,” Eizen added, standing up as well. “Is there anything you wanted to do together? It’s true we haven’t been around as often lately, so if we can do anything to make you feel better—”
“Take me to the archery range!” Seres sprung up and chirped, suddenly in high spirits again. “We haven’t been there in ages!”
Velvet shook her head and laughed. “I thought that might be on your mind. Okay, that’s fine with me. How about you, Eizen?”
“I see no problem with that,” Eizen said. He smiled, and pat his daughter on the head. “Now go to bed like your mother asked, okay? We’re not going anywhere if you don’t get the rest you need."
“Sure thing!” Seres smiled wide and bright, and hugged both her parents at once. “I love you, mom and dad!”
“We love you too, Seres.”