Chapter Text
It started something like this: The main forces of the Etrurian army, seated around a campfire at night. Most slept, but a few kept watch, including Roy and Lilina, still discussing tomorrow's plans, as well as Bartre, Noah, and Fir. The last of which held her head in her hands, red to the tips of her ears.
"And when she was born, she was so small! This small!" Bartre gestured with the arm not slung around Noah's shoulder. His cheeks were tinted as red as his daughter's, albeit with alcohol.
"She was the.. the smallest thing I've ever seen! Screaming right out the womb! What a set of lungs!"
Instead of responding, Noah sipped on his own beer. Bartre, he had discovered, was a lightweight.
Lilina folded up her map and stowed it in her bag. It wasn't as though she could read it in the dead of night anyway. And, she had to admit, Bartre's love for his daughter made her nostalgic.
Despite Fir's valiant attempts at interruption, Bartre continued the tale of her birth without a care in the world. As he progressed, astounded at how long babies took to open their eyes, Roy grew more and more confused.
Finally, he said, "Fir was born without teeth?"
Bartre stopped dead in his tracks. Noah spoke for him. "Lord Roy, all babies are born without teeth."
"But.. I hatched with teeth. How else would you break the shell?"
For the first time that evening, Fir exited her self-imposed cocoon of shame to stare blankly at the boy leading a multi-national army. "Excuse me? You hatched? Like a bird?"
Bartre laughed. "That's a good one! Would've been a lot easier if Karla laid an egg! Birds have it too easy."
"What, she didn't?"
Now it was Lilina's turn to be flabbergasted by the one she was somehow in love with. She gently placed her hand on his thigh, and said, sweet as can be, "Humans are mammals, Roy. We don't lay eggs."
He stared back as if she'd grown a second head. Noah, once again, said nothing, but failed to hide a smile in his mug. Fir took the opportunity to stand up and leave, with a final farewell of, "I'm going to bed! See ya!"
"I'd remember if I was born," Roy said. "Do you?"
At that, Lilina admitted she did not. She also did not remember ever having a mother. Or her father ever having a girlfriend. But that was something to unpack another time.
"Do you believe in a stork delivering children, too?" Bartre laughed in uproar at his own remark, too far gone to care for propriety.
Roy blushed as red as his hair. "Of course not! I'm not a child!" At this point in time, Roy was fifteen, and generally considered a child by most of his subordinates. "If you ask my father, he'll show you the shell!"
"The what." said Lilina.
"The shell I hatched from! Mother wanted to keep it. It was blue, like her hair, and the scales on her arms."
"And you suppose scales are regular too, then," said Lilina.
"Ah." said Roy.
"Bwahaha!" said Bartre.
"Let's go to bed, father-in-law," said Noah, which successfully directed Bartre's attention toward him. The future father-in-law yelled something about an arena, and about Zeiss. Regardless, Noah led the man away to a sleeping tent, leaving Roy, Lilina, and the crackling of a campfire.
"Is it odd, Lilina?" Roy asked more to the heavens than to her, "Am I odd?"
He slumped.
"You're not... odd." She very much felt like she'd kicked a puppy. Roy just had those big, soulfull eyes, that reflected too much light in the darkness. And above average tooth sharpness.
"Don't lie to me."
"Okay, it's odd. I was certainly born from a womb, and not an egg. Like most people. It's something that makes you unique. Don't let it get to you, Roy."
He continued to blubber, and she rubbed circles into his back, and he did not cry, because he was not a child. Just like Lilina was also not not a child. Most of the army considered their choice of leadership irresponsible, but the two had a dedicated cult following. Opposing that openly was a little scary.
"Oh look," Lilina pointed to the position of the moon, "our watch is over. How about we wake the next shift and go to sleep?"
"Sleep sounds heavenly right now," responded Roy, just about ready to crawl back into the egg he hatched from.