"Oh, come on, Kallian. It's her fifteenth birthday, you could at least pretend to care."

Kallian continued to sulk away from the Second Consort, leaning against the side of the hallway. "Fifteen is not a very important number. Ten or twenty, maybe."

Clara's face grew stern. "Don't you start that. You said almost the exact same thing five years ago, that ten was no big deal. And I let you off the hook because it didn't matter as much to me then. But she's your sister, and-"

"Step-sister." He was insistent on the term, and not afraid of interrupting anyone to enforce it - except his father.

"She's your sister, and you can't just ignore her forever. Some day you're going to need her help, and if you don't shape up your relationship, she won't be giving it to you."

Kallian stared at the wall and clenched his jaw. He wouldn't be needing anyone's help upon becoming emperor, much less a little step-sister's.

Clara gently pushed Melia in Kallian's general direction. "Now, go on Melia, go on and play with your big brother Kallian."

Melia stood rooted between her two relatives. Kallian was both inviting and frightening to her, with his dark blue outfit and closed-off stance. Feeling another slight push, she carefully tottered towards him in a very much not straight line, eventually coming to rest at arm's length from his foot.

Kallian looked down at the purple bundle. He didn't dislike her - he accepted the tradition of having two consorts and two heirs, and saw no true fault in the princess herself. He just did not care about her in the least, seeing her as nothing more than a distraction and a nuisance. He had quite enjoyed being the only child of the family, and while he knew she was no threat to his eventual ascension to the throne, he did not appreciate her being able to pull the focus off him.

With a deep sigh, he initiated conversation. "All right, fine. So, what are we doing?"

Having done his best to simply ignore her at all times, he had pretty much no idea what kind of grasp she had on language, other than repeating the phrase "I don't like this" on a regular basis. She did seem to comprehend his question, as she began to look around slowly and questioningly.

After what felt like several minutes, she finally responded. "Go to new place."

Kallian understood quickly. Aside from the Villa of the Second Consort, Melia was not allowed anywhere aside from the palace's main hall, dining room, and washrooms (and the hallways leading there), and seemed to want to go somewhere new, assuming that a new person can provide new rules or something of the sort.

"You want to go somewhere new? Instead of, I don't know, playing a game?"

She wasn't quite sure if she understood the phrasing, but it seemed to be questioning her decision, so she affirmed it with a slow, deliberate nod.

Kallian shrugged. "Well, that suits me just fine." He considered where a good place to take her would be and quickly hit upon something that was probably both safe and captivating, enough so that no one could fault him for choosing it. "Follow me."

He started walking off towards a distant transporter. Melia excitedly chased him, nowhere near capable of catching up but easily following his tall shape. Clara slowly followed along, remaining distant enough to be effectively invisible to her yet close enough to keep an eye on her.

Kallian waited for Melia to get pretty close before sending himself through the transporter; one thing he did know was that she was more than able to utilise them alone, several years ahead of the average. He honestly found it a bit scary that a toddler could gather the mental focus necessary to activate a transporter, and chalked it up to a general strong ether affinity, which could be seen in her ability to pick rank II gems out of a pile without even glancing at all the rank I ones.

After a little bit, Melia appeared out of the transporter and immediately started looking around, recognising that this was indeed a new area of the palace. There didn't seem to be anything too interesting, so she located Kallian and started chasing him again. It didn't take too long before the ceiling and walls disappeared, and she stopped moving to look around some more.

Kallian had lead her up to the Sky Terrace. She had technically been here before, but had no memory of it, as it was just a few days after her birth. It was a clear afternoon, allowing one to look out and see the majority of Alcamoth and much of Eryth Sea, an undeniably spectacular view. Melia slowly wandered closer to the edge in wonder before coming up against the safety field, and from there pressed herself against the invisible wall to get the best possible view of everything.

Clara quietly stepped up behind Kallian. "Took the scenic route, I see. Very good choice. She must be overjoyed to see something new for a change."

Kallian shrugged. "I just picked somewh-"

"I don't need to know. I think you did the right thing." She watched as Melia squeezed herself along the safety field, shifting her vantage point. "I do worry about her safety here though. How easy would it be for her to fall off?"

"It's all mental. As long as you don't want to fall off, you can't."

"So..." Clara lowered her voice. "So if she wanted to fall off, she could?"

"I suppose that is true. But...but I would find it hard to believe she is foolish enough to do that."

"Ohhhh." Clara happily captured Kallian in a hug. "I knew you had something for her stashed in that feathered heart of yours."

Kallian simply stood still and waited for the hug to end. It wasn't the first time the Second Consort had hugged him, but it was never a comfortable feeling. It occurred to him that he had probably never given Melia a compliment before, which is what prompted this one.

"Good fly spot."

The two adults looked over to see Melia standing back a slight distance from the edge and looking up into the sky.

"Hmm?" Kallian guessed the meaning of the sentence. "No, this balcony is not for vehicles to take flight from."

Melia tilted her head sideways, still not turning around. "Yes. Good fly spot. Time to fly now."

Clara could see where this was going and started dashing forward. "MELIA, NO!"

She was too late. Melia had already made a clumsy dash towards the edge and leapt off, using her hands to flap her downy wings. Unsurprisingly, she fell like a rock.

Without thinking, Kallian leapt into action, diving off the balcony headfirst after her. Keeping himself as slim as possible, he caught up to her about halfway down, where she was now flailing and screaming. Passing just below her, he flipped upright and grabbed her around the waist before opening his wings, planning to halt his momentum and glide safely downwards.

The plan was not flawless. He had never tried to glide out of such a high-speed plunge before, and the force of the rushing air caused his wings to flip up like an umbrella in a windstorm, slowing his momentum but not stopping it. He continued to try and spread them out as much as possible before his feet hit the ground, followed by a terrible snapping noise and the world suddenly going dark.

"...three fragments. Frankly, he came out pretty good for what happened."

Kallian's eyes shot open. He was in the hospital wing with a terrible headache, and he couldn't feel his legs. The clock showed two-thirty - he was out for less than an hour.

"Ah, you are awake." Sorean was there, alongside the rest of the family.

"...what happened?" Kallian thought on it for a moment. "Wait, let me guess. I broke both my legs on impact, then hit my head on the ground for a concussion. And my wing muscles are all strained."

"That sums it up," the doctor said. "The concussion is rather mild, all things considered. It'll take a few days to put your legs back together, but you can have a hoverchair if you wish."

"Please do. I can't miss the birthday feast, can I?"

"Of course." The doctor left.

Kallian turned his head to see that Melia was clinging to Clara's leg, eyes closed and silently repeating a few syllables to herself. "And what of Melia? She seems all right."

Still trembling slightly, Clara looked down at Melia. "She just got bruised up a bit, got healed in minutes. She's in a right state though, repeating "no more fly" the whole time, and refusing to get off me. I hope she's okay mentally."

"Mmm." Kallian didn't know how to respond. He had to admit he felt quite guilty for allowing the fall to happen by his choice of destination, and started second-guessing himself - perhaps one of the palace gardens would have been a better choice, but then again her final allergy test was yet to come in a week's time.

"This incident is no one's fault," Sorean declared. "It is impossible to completely sanitise the world against a young child's unpredictable mind, and we are lucky the right person was present to intervene. In any event, I have no doubt that Melia will not seek to repeat these events."

"Too true." Clara began shuffling away, having difficulty lifting the leg that the princess was attached to. "Come on, Melia, it's time for a nap."

Melia opened her eyes for a few seconds to look at Kallian, with a mix of fear and admiration, before shutting them again and returning to her silent chanting.

The rest of the family also left, but Yumea remained behind. She was actually showing emotion for once; it seemed to be mostly relief that Kallian was not too badly injured, but once everyone else was gone and she was alone with her son, she made it clear that she was also quite upset.

"Why did you do it?" she hissed. "Why did you save her? You could have just stood your ground, let her plummet to her doom with no blame to yourself, yet you risked your own life instead?!"

Kallian wasn't sure what to think. He could understand the sentiment somewhat - why should the crown prince, already mostly trained for his future job as emperor, risk his life for a sibling too young for comparison that could be replaced in a mere decade and a half? He tried to fight through the headache to get to an answer.

After a few minutes of rationalising himself with Yumea's angry face hovering over him, he finally arrived at a conclusion. "I would have done the same for anyone, whether they be a sister of mine or not."

Yumea scoffed. "So you are motivated by selfish heroism?"

"I am motivated to save lives, if the cost is anything less than an equal number of lives. And I'd say I did a bang-up job."

Miffed at the usage of a distinctly Homs phrase, Yumea turned and left without a further word, leaving Kallian alone with his thoughts.

The Second Consort is right. There may very well be a time in the future where Melia is an asset to me and therefore the empire, and simply ignoring her until then isn't going to help anyone. For all we know, she may grow up to be the finest diplomat ever born, or the strongest ether warrior the world has ever seen. Like any friendship, I need to forge bonds early and often so that we can work together in the future - just like how Father and his sister joined forces to fix a broken law.

Well, there's no time like the present to start. She's going to be a nervous wreck at the feast with what happened today; I need to do what I can to defuse that feeling. Maybe I can arrange to sit next to her, instead of either Father or the Second Consort - the latter will probably better understand what I'm trying to do. She likes fruit, right? Perhaps I can exchange my fruit for some of her vegetables...