Eight Intertwined

79 - Emil

Since finishing her conversation with Alfyn, Ophilia had spent about five more minutes searching for the brooch. She brushed her hands carefully through the bushes, taking caution so as to not accidentally rip the fabric of her gloves. Unfortunately, she hadn't come close to finding anything out of the ordinary. She had curled her fingers around a few loose leaves that travelers in the city must have dropped, and Ophilia chose to not pocket them only for Therion to do the honors when he thought Ophilia wasn't looking. She knew what he was up to, and he knew that she knew. Of course he did.

Emil frowned and let out a sigh when he rose to his feet after searching through two massive bushes. "Maybe it really is gone..." he murmured, sounding so disheartened and sad that Ophilia could feel her heart breaking. When she glanced over at him, Ophilia could see that he was staring down at his feet again, no doubt desperately trying to convince himself to not cry. 

Ophilia pushed herself up as well before walking in his direction. "You're sure this is where you last saw it?"

Emil nodded. "Yeah... Derryl bumped into me, and I guess that's when he dropped it," he explained. He continued to scan the area with a frown on his face, almost as if he was willing the brooch to come out of hiding and end his conflicts then and there. 

Ophilia hummed at his words, a light frown on her features. "Is that so...?" It was sounding as if Emil wasn't the one to blame for this at all. She didn't want to level accusations against Derryl since he was only a child, but at the same time, if he had been the one to drop it, then that meant he shouldn't have been pointing fingers at Emil to begin with. 

Once again, Emil nodded, and he swallowed dryly while continuing to stare down at the ground. "The brooch belonged to Derryl's mum," he told her softly. "She died just the other week... That brooch is more important to him than anything. I have to find it!"

Ophilia did her best to hide the fact that Emil's words made her feel as if she had been punched. She nodded slowly once she was finished processing everything that he had said. That was why Derryl had been so defensive when he thought the brooch was gone. He was grieving, and he was taking out that negativity on others. "That's very kind of you, Emil," Ophilia told the young boy, unable to say what was racing through her mind rapidly. All of a sudden, she was left thinking of Creek again and how much she had grieved after losing her birth parents so many years ago. She didn't think that she had ever felt more alone, and even though Lianna and Josef were there to help her through it, she had still wanted nothing more than to hide from the world. After all, how was someone so young supposed to understand how to face overpowering emotions like grief?

Emil shuffled one foot against the stones below, guilt still clear as could be across his features. "Derryl can be rough sometimes, but we're all friends," he went on. "It's just that... Well, after his mum died like that, he's been so angry about everything..." 

For a long moment, the air over the both of them was silent, and Ophilia did her best to seem composed. She knew all too well what it was like to be caught up in grief and lose sight of much else aside from the misery that came with loss. It wasn't Emil's fault nor was it Derryl's burden to bear, but all of this reminded Ophilia of how she had been so many years ago when she first moved to Flamesgrace from Creek. She knew that she had been miserable and isolated back then, and all she wanted to do was lash out at the world with rage in her heart. At the time, she hadn't understood why other people had killed her parents, and in a way, she still didn't understand beyond the vague blanket statement that people could be terrible and awful. There was little that had consoled her back then, and in a time when she was being forced to confront her history with Creek once more, she had no idea how to face the return of all those awful emotions after spending so many years without them.