Daybreak

Five - Odilia

For Odilia's eighteenth birthday, Erwin prepared her a special gift: a house of her own. The location, however, was within Hikizu village where Odilia had run from four years ago.

    Half-way into the forest of By'lyl, Erin asked Odilia to take his hand and to close her eyes as they trudged up the rest of the path. Odilia clenched her trunk in one fist and settled her other gloved hand into her adoptive father's.

    Odilia almost didn't recognize the location of the house that stood before her when she opened her eyes. Instead of a traditional Kuroban house that used to be her home, a grandiose estate of the western fashion met face. 

    There was a front door; one that swung inwards instead of sliding across panels, wedged between the red, brick wall. Creamy cobblestones littered the path up the door in which a white picket-fence surrounded the perimeter of the house. In floral pastels, the house was surrounded by bushels of hydrangea.

Odilia slowly approached the house where in the glass windows, her own blank expression reflected as a reaction to this new architecture. However she was not looking at herself in the window, or admiring the craftsmanship of her home. What she saw as the glare of sunlight shifted, was the deep lake where seven cranes flocked.

It was the lake which was once a ditch. A ditch where the Torizora mansion used to stand before it fell to rubble. Odilia's vision blurred and her throat constructed as she felt hot claustrophobia wrap tight around her.

"The plot was up for sale this previous summer," Erwin explained as he stepped up next to Odilia. "I had this built thinking out of anyone, you had the right to this land."

The smell of green grass cut crisp like winter frost as Odilia inhaled a shaky breath.

Erwin placed a hand on Odlia's shoulder. "Happy birthday, my little nestling." A documented paper appeared in front of Odilia's vision. The contract for the land. Odilia didn't take it.

The girl's eye remained glued to the house. The glass. The reflection. "Are you leaving me here?"

"It's been four years," Erwin mused. "Don't you want a home to call your own?"

Odilia clenched her teeth. "I like traveling with you."

"I don't suppose you want to be a doctor."

Odilia remained silent.

A soft sigh escaped from Erwin who moved to stand besides Odilia. "If you continue traversing Kuroba with me, the people will talk. They already do."

"So?"

Erwin glanced at Odilia who had yet to move. "They will continue talking, and although it is none of their business, they will wonder who you are and why you have not married."

"I don't care."

"Well I do," said Erwin. "I care about normality. If we don't want to end up burning at the stake as magic users, we must try twice as hard to live a life that society deems acceptable."

Odilia lowered her bag and finally took the contract between fists. "I left this place for a reason." There was a hint of sadness in her voice. "Did I not throw away my previous family when I took yours?"

Erwin looked up at the house thoughtfully. "Is that how you see it?"

Odilia waved her arm in the direction of the cranes in the near distance. "I did this to my sister. My parents are gone and the people never cared about the Hakusei."

"So did you abandon them, or did they abandon you?"

Odilia clenched her jaw. "Doesn't matter. All I know is that I don't belong here." She shoved the contract back at Erwin. "If you want to abandon me like my previous family, at least take me to the Kigoguchi orphanage.