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Kira knew that her family wasn’t…conventional. She hadn’t always known, of course, as growing up among thieves didn’t allow for many friends her age to look upon as examples. But, here and there, she would have the opportunity to play with the child of a roguish elf who had business with her father, or else ride squashed next to a young druid when they couldn’t afford their own carriage; before she had reached her 9th year, their odd looks had deterred her from trying to explain to others how her family worked. Despite the unconventionality of it all, Kira wouldn’t change her upbringing for anything.
Except that she knew her father was unhappy. He was missing a piece of himself, one he hadn’t known since Zia, her mother (How alien that word seemed! Mother.) was still alive. His eyes would glaze over as he told her stories of his lost love, the curve of his lips a ghost of his younger years’ ease.
While Kira had grown up with a party of friends raising her together, held together by the near magical bonds of platonic love, her father hadn’t. He craved something more, missed his other half. She noticed it clearer after the betrayal of Fitzwilliam, after his last hope of reviving his wife went instead to saving his best friend, but that longing had always been there.
“A hopeless romantic, that one,” Holga had told Kira years prior, looking with a sad smile in the direction of the woods. Kira looked too; Edgin was standing thirty paces or so from the party, watching the soft blue glow of a dragonfly as it darted above his head.
He loved his friends. He loved his daughter. But there were nights when he would come home late, drooping against Holga and smelling of ale, that told Kira how much he missed the romantic aspect of his life. The adults would sit by the fire, talking hushed, the cracked emotion of her father’s tones reaching her bedroom as she lay awake, listening.
Or, in the days leading up to their next big campaign, when the party would crowd into her kitchen to plan and study maps, to drink and laugh and eat potatoes. In all of the heavenly chaos, she would sometimes catch her father looking, with poignant envy, at Simon and Doric, as they brushed hands or shared a joke known only to them. Kira would watch her fathers’ face seamlessly melt back into its usual charming smile as he picked up his lute or tried to rile up Xenk–the newest addition to their party–or whomever happened to be seated next to him.
Kira had watched her father struggle with healing a missing piece of himself for as long as she could remember, ever fueled in his quest to bring back his wife. In the last year, after he chose to let go of that quest, she had watched him flounder for purpose and jump at any opportunity to stay busy; he would fall quiet in the stretches of time between adventures. She had tuned into his patient cycles of frenzied planning, his excitement peaking on the day his devilish plans came to fruition, and crashing the moment he acquired the treasure, or else bested some great beast with his friends at his side. This routine, along with the envious glances at happy couples and the heavy fireside conversations she overheard, showed Kira how desperately he missed having another half.
Which is why his behavior over the past few months was so infuriatingly puzzling. At first, she figured it must be the workload, campaign after campaign allowing him to skip the depressive stages in between. Then the party had hit a dry spell in activity, without a hint of adventure in three weeks, and his odd behavior prevailed.
The first thing Kira noticed was that he had stopped drinking. Edgin had never been dependent on his drinks that she knew of, but none would call his visits to the local tavern infrequent. She hadn’t noticed right away, but by the time she did, she couldn’t remember him stumbling into their house supported by Holga in months.
The next thing she noticed was that he smiled more. Not just at Kira, or anyone else in the party, but far off into the distance, as he ate, when he sang, while washing the dishes. And he hated washing the dishes.
Kira had also noticed a change in tone in her father and Holga’s fireside conversations. While she couldn’t make out most of the words, he seemed excited, practically giddy–Holga’s responses were equally as happy and unintelligible.
Ah, Kira thought, they must be in love. That made sense as they were so close already; romance could surely be kindled from such a strong friendship.
But Simon had guffawed at the very suggestion, when Kira asked him if he knew it to be true, before quickly sobering his expression of disbelief, inquiring: “Wait, you’re serious?” Doric had elicited a similar–though thoroughly kinder–response.
Nevertheless, Kira found it practical to believe that her father would someday remarry, and even more so to believe that it would be to the woman who was already a trusted, guiding figure to his child.
Therefore, it was much to her surprise when a tall, handsome man interrupted her lute practice to ask her blessing for her father’s hand.
“What?” Kira looked up at Xenk blankly. Was he…joking? He couldn’t be. From the moment he had joined their party, nearly a year ago, he had made it clear that he wasn’t the humorous sort. Every word out of his mouth was chosen with painful sincerity. It had been weeks before she even saw him laugh for the first time, at one of her father’s songs of all things. She had filed that memory away; it wasn’t everyday she saw the most serious of her father’s friends light up with such mirth, but now she was over analyzing the moment in her mind. Had he loved her father already? How long had they been keeping it from her?
“I intend to marry your father. I ask only your blessing,” Xenk repeated, seemingly unfazed by her confusion. “I will protect you and your family, I have trained nearly eight decades in multiple factions of the martial arts, my swordwork-”
“I don’t need your resume,” Kira surprised herself with her own commanding tone. “Why do you want to marry my father?”
Xenk paused, and looked faintly puzzled. “Because I love him,” He stated, as if nothing had ever been so obvious.
“I-” Kira blinked, before quickly regaining her authoritarian tone. “Since when? How? Why?”
“I was not expecting so many questions.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to be in love with my father!”
Sensing the true meaning behind her words, Xenk’s face softened slightly from its stoic neutrality. “He wanted to tell you we had been seeing each other, truly. It was I who was struggling with the thought of that commitment. Your father did not want you to be hurt had we not succeeded in our relationship.”
“Why were you worried about committing to my dad?”
Xenk glanced down at his boots. “I was…afraid. When I was young, I lost everyone I cared for to a power I was helpless against. I was–and still am–terrified of that helplessness. For so many years, I refused to let anyone get close. Edgin and the rest of you, you were my first friends. Even that was frightening; I would lay awake hoping that you would still breathe when the sun rose. When I found myself falling for your father…the fear was even worse.” He took a breath, steadying himself.
Kira felt her indignation at being kept in the dark melt away. She grabbed his hand and squeezed tight. He looked back to her, his soul laid bare in his eyes. “I have realized that in my fear to commit, I could lose your father before he is ever even in danger. I want to show him–and you, Kira– that I would rather face what comes, together. That is what I propose, if you’ll allow it.”
Kira nodded, her eyes bright. “I understand. I can see that you truly care for my father. He needs that.” She wiped her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. “And, you don’t have to worry about losing him. What, with your eight centuries of martial arts training? People will be scared to lay a finger on him.”
Xenk looked pleased for a moment before fully taking in her words. “Eight- how old do you think I am?”
Kira grinned. “Can I be the flower girl at the wedding?”
Xenk tilted his head, pretending to consider. “Very well. If he says yes.”
“He will.”
– –
He did.
Not two evenings after Kira gave him her blessing, Xenk proposed to Edgin at the edge of the forest by his house. The party was going over a half-conceived plan on tracking down treasure rumored to be at the bottom of a nearby lake, and since the night was warm, they sat outside.
When Xenk excused himself to stretch his legs, and asked Edgin to accompany him, Kira snapped her eyes away from the crude maps on the table to confirm her suspicions on what was about to happen. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Simon, Doric, and Holga all watching as well.
The pair had made their way to the edge of the forest, and Xenk was speaking, but not loudly enough to discern. Suddenly, he dropped to one knee and pulled something shiny out of his pocket. Her father’s words were also too quiet to make out from the distance, but his gasp of surprise was not.
Xenk slipped the ring onto his finger, and without missing a beat, Edgin pretended to faint. Even from the thirty yard distance, Kira could tell it was an act; her father was sprawled on his back with his feet sticking straight up into the air, but Xenk was oblivious; after checking for a heartbeat, he turned his head to call for help. When he wasn’t looking, Edgin sprang up and tackled him, sending them both into the grass. Kira could hear their laughter echoing as Edgin peppered Xenk’s face in kisses.
“What did I tell you, kid? Hopeless romantic.” Holga said gruffly, swiping at her eyes and draping an arm around Kira’s shoulders.
And as Kira leaned against Holga’s side, watching her father and his fiance (now swordfighting) and listening to Simon and Doric gush about the wedding, she thought once again how unconventional her little family was, and how lucky she was to have them.