Chapter 197: Things

"It's alright," Evin told his parents and said to Sasha: "Sorry for waking you up."

Sasha nodded slightly and went to the bathroom. Evin looked at the others' reactions and found his parents frowning, while only Elina had a slightly concerned expression. 

"She's a bit grumpy in the mornings," Lora explained in a hush.

"Don't worry about it," Theor said.

Evin really didn't know why they thought that he would be offended by Sasha.

"Do you brag about me a lot to her?" Evin asked. He really didn't want to leave this problem to fester.

"I really don't think so… Right, Lora?" Theor said after a slight pause.

"Hmm," Lora nodded lightly as well.

"What do you think, Elina?" Evin asked. 

"I'm not so sure," the girl answered shyly.

"You don't have to be shy with us, you know? Even if you feel like you're being rude, I'm sure no one here would mind it," Evin urged.

"Yeah, you know we won't a few harsh words,"

"They don't talk about it a lot, but when they do, Sasha's mood seems to sour greatly," Elina finally answered in a small voice.

The previously shy and silent Elina seemed to be disappearing gradually. Evin was sure that the old one would probably hesitate much longer to speak up like this and he would probably have to talk with her alone to get anything out of her.

"See? Keep it down. Sasha's still young, so obviously she would feel wronged if her parents fawn over the other sibling all the time," Evin reprimanded.

In any case, the problem was as Evin expected. It wasn't often that someone would notice their own mistakes, especially when they didn't feel like they were doing something wrong. On the other hand, a bystander like Elina was much more likely to see these things.

"But I really don't think we treat you two so differently. We properly encourage everything she does, and we try our best to give her the freedom to do what she wants." Lora protested.

"Well, that doesn't mean Sasha would see it in the same light. When I hate someone else, everything they do seem shitty and I can't help but feel like criticizing them. Sasha probably thinks of your encouragement and respect as something pretentious. Something that you do only because you two don't want to look like hypocrites," Evin explained in a hush, making sure that Sasha wasn't eavesdropping.

"Why does she have to think something so complicated? She should know better than that," Theor harrumphed.

"Ah, don't worry about it. I'll talk to her later. In the worst case scenario, she should at least listen to Ssatsko," Evin said and the old man nodded from the side.

…

A day passed as Evin enjoyed his alone time. Rith encouraged him to practice some more before she started to spend time with her kittens and Blackspot, but Evin just wasn't in the mood for that. He would rather lie around doing nothing, instead of practicing anything related to magic. He also wanted to sleep till noon just for the heck of it, but sadly, he couldn't defeat his sleeping routine so easily. He still woke up at seven and diligently practiced his Authority Style. 

But he wasn't the earliest to rise, since Theor and Lora would already be up three hours prior, to prepare the dough for the bakery. Currently, they were taking a break after selling the previous day's orders. Runa was also sleeping in his shadow, making Evin wonder if she was about to split into two, like Karan. 

But Evin didn't want to be completely useless. He reckoned that he should at least do what he could do while he was here, and the problem with Sasha was one of those. He was currently sitting outside Sasha's room, waiting for the girl to wake up. 

The previous day went on without much incident, the family had a little celebratory dinner and everyone had a good time.

He learned that not a lot had happened in this past half a year while he was away. Lora and Theor seemed a bit unwilling to try for a new child, while Elina was still afraid of most men. Evin told her to marry a woman, but everyone seemed a bit unused to the idea and just took it as a joke. Evin guessed that something like that wasn't very orthodox in this day and age, so he didn't push the idea too hard.

Evin then gave them the communication device and explained how to use them. Rith had bought a magical device, which cost about only 20 gold. The device came in two pairs of tablets and whatever was written on one tablet would appear on the other. It was basically just a walkie-talkie but for texting and with unlimited range.

Evin set it up in his house performed a small demonstration for how it worked and gave them some lodestones so the device didn't stop working. 

During all this, Evin would occasionally look at Sasha to see how she reacted to things, and managed to conclude some things. He also noticed that Lora and Theor were much more observant after the conversations as well.

At any rate, the girl obviously knew that Evin was a Child of the Empress and what it meant to be one. She would look at Evin with wariness and when she saw Lora or Theor being intimate with him, a clear hint of disgust would briefly become apparent on her face. She tried her best to not use any of the things that Evin bought as well. This made Evin realize that Sasha didn't know that Evin told his parents about his past and that he was just pretending to be some kind of miracle child.

Evin didn't know where she learned about it all, but that really wasn't important. And it wasn't like Evin wanted to keep it a secret, so it actually saved him the bother of explaining it to Sasha.

And besides, Sasha was old and keen enough for Evin to be direct. Even though she wasn't a mage, who was naturally smarter and mature than non-mages, she had a silver horn. This fact made it so that she was unable to be dumb, even if she wanted to.

As Evin was thinking about what to say to Sasha, some noise came from her room and Evin hurriedly fixed his appearance. A second later, Sasha came out of the room, still groggy and grouchy.

"Good morning," Evin greeted with an awfully polite tone.

"Hello," Sasha replied back, similarly dispassionate.

"Do you mind talking with me a bit afterwards?" Evin asked.

Sasha looked back at him with some wariness, before reluctantly nodding.

"Is it alright if I eat something first?"

"Sure, I'll be waiting in my room," Evin smiled and went to his room.

Twenty minutes later, Evin heard the door open and Sasha walking in with a barely noticeable scowl.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked.