The second floor of the library always seemed less like a quiet reading place and more like a meeting area for various groups with wildly differing agendas. This loud and crowded room, even at its quietest, still sounded like a busy street café than a library, which made it simply the most perfect place to practice outlawed dark magic on unsuspecting bystanders. After all, how would someone who's been lightly cursed be able to figure out who did it to them in such a bustling room?

That was the logic Henry used every single time he ended up needing to kill time in the library, and with his large stack of disguised dark tomes, everyone around would assume he was just some college kid studying for classes. They wouldn't give him a second glance once they saw the science course titles on the spines of the books, never suspecting that each and every one of those books contained information on curses and dark spells. Why would they, after things of the sort had been banned from being practiced within Ylisse's borders decades before? Magic itself wasn't the problem—in fact, magic was widely used by anyone capable of it—but the dark and harmful variety was looked down upon. Strong punishments were doled out to anyone caught practicing dark magic, including but not limited to being banished from the country.

It certainly made Henry's days of fun at the library risky, but he loved the thrill of living on the edge. However, just because he did didn't mean that his significant other approved of the behavior. Like always, coming to the corner table with his arms filled with actual textbooks of his own, Ricken looked almost ashamed to be sitting himself beside someone who had just been cackling as he watched a small child develop the tiniest of twitches through magical intervention. "One of these days, you're going to get caught doing that," he said, curbing Henry's laughter. "And I can't get banished with you. They'll eat me alive, wherever we end up because of you."

"Aw, stop being so worried about this," Henry replied, closing his open book and looking to Ricken with a huge grin. "It's just a kid. They get twitchy all the time. No one'll suspect I cursed him, so it's all good. Just, uh, don't come running in here next time, will ya? Can't go drawing attention to my operation when I don't draw it myself."

True to what he said, a few people in the room were looking at the two, eyebrows raised but no questions asked. Once everything returned to normal, like it always did, the duo at the table found themselves being ignored once more, and Ricken sighed. "I really wish you'd just stop doing this stuff all the time. I can't imagine having to explain to Chrom that my boyfriend has been using illegal magic all this time…"

"I'm not gonna get caught, Ricken, so just calm down!" Raising one finger, Henry reopened his book with his other hand and flipped to a random page, looking over at it to read: "'A dark variant of simple magic. Impossible to trace, impossible to determine as dark.' It's all for fun and not for stuffy healer stuff. Don't really see what the problem with using it is."

"The problem with using it is that it's not allowed! Do you think Chrom enforces the rule just because he thinks it's fun?" Ricken answered his own question before Henry got to it, simply because he knew Henry wouldn't answer it seriously: "No, he doesn't do it because it's fun, he does it because it's the law! And we are good citizens, not lawbreakers!"

"Says you, anyway. I'm more fond of living my life like there aren't any stupid rules like that." He paused for a moment, hearing Ricken groan at him, before adding, "I also live my life like puns aren't frowned upon. And since those are and I still use them, can you really blame me for my dark magic habits?"

Shushing his boyfriend to make sure no one heard him admit his guilt on the matter, Ricken shook his head. "I guess not, but I really wish you wouldn't practice your magic in public. At least when you do it at home, the only person you hit with anyone is the old lady upstairs. She doesn't mind it, or at least, if she does she hasn't told anyone…" He sighed as Henry snorted in laughter. "It's not funny, okay? What if she does mind it and hasn't told anyone because she doesn't think anyone will believe her?"

"She's an old lady! She doesn't mind anything that isn't killing her!" Now laughing harder than he could contain, Henry had to take some time to collect himself, time during which many people came and went around their table, paying them no mind aside from the chuckles and laughs that the white-haired man was choking out. When he finished laughing, he laid his head down on one of his books, wiping tears from one of his eyes. "Oh man, that was a good one. Wasn't it?"

"It was a joke about our nice neighbor dying. I don't get how it could be funny at all, but whatever." Also resting his head on a book, Ricken rolled his eyes when Henry tried to start explaining the humor behind his morbid joke. "Listen, don't want to hear it. Let's just go home, forget about how you could have gotten us both in serious trouble here today, and act like nothing ever happened here."

"I don't know if I want to do that," Henry bluntly replied, a chuckle escaping him once more. "Besides, don't you know what's happening in here in, like, two minutes? It's the one thing that's going to make all of this worth it to the both of us, I swear!"

"Is it someone repealing the dark magic ban? Because if not, I don't see how it'll make you doing illegal things worth anything." Ricken lifted his head a bit to look around, noticing that the room was starting to clear a bit, but not too much. "But okay, it's got to be something important if people are actually moving out of here."

Henry's laughter started up once more. "Oh, they're not moving out. It's always a blast to make miss 'I'm in charge here' squirm when there's people up here when she comes in. Just you wait and watch, I promise it's worth it."

He chose not to answer, but Ricken highly doubted that what Henry was saying had even an ounce of truth to it. They were in a public library, one that he knew was almost always crowded and overflowing with loud people—what kind of disillusioned person would think they could have any control over such a place? But when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a blonde woman and two dark-haired men walking up to the chaos that was the room, he shrugged it off as it just being more people there to watch the craziness and enjoy the cacophony of multiple people.

And Maribelle, grumbling as she finished ascending the stairs at the fact that her reserved space was currently filled with people who weren't there for her free etiquette class, looked over at the corner table upon reaching the upper floor, relieved to see familiar faces. The relief turned straight to disgust when she reminded herself that they, like most of the people present, had no reason to attend her class, but at least they were people she knew. "You two work on clearing everyone out," she told her husband and son, both of whom did not seem thrilled to be present, "and I'll go see what brings some childless friends of mine out for the evening instead."

"Or you could not," her husband replied, only to be whacked by the parasol she was holding. "Ugh, women. What a shame I had to go and marry one."

While he and his son started doing as they were told (rather reluctantly, but still getting it done), Maribelle casually strolled over to the table where Henry and Ricken were still sitting. "And what, in Naga's name, do you two think you're doing here today?" she asked, slamming her hands down on the table and startling them both. "Aren't you aware of my reservation of this area?"

"Does anyone really respect reservations here?" Henry laughed, watching how Maribelle pursed her lips together in disapproval at him. "Okay, okay, yes we know, but that doesn't mean we're leaving. Why, imagine all the fun targets you're going to be attracting here!"

Her lips came open in shock, a finger being raised and pointed straight into Henry's gleeful face. "Targets of what, you law-breaking man? Don't tell me that my dearest friend Ricken has fallen so low as to be dating a mere criminal!" The smile Henry shot her in return was enough to answer her fear, and her finger-pointing turned to her friend's face instead. "I thought you were better than this, knowing the difference between right and wrong, between criminals and good people!"

"I do know the difference, I swear," Ricken replied, trying not to be intimidated by his friend's anger as he came up with a lie to try and save themselves with. "Henry here isn't talking about using anyone as illegal target practice, if that's what you're thinking he's going to do. He's a real jokester, you see, and he's been looking for some new people to tell his jokes to that won't have already heard them."

She pulled her hand back, contemplating accepting his answer, while Henry followed up with, "Oh yeah, real big on the jokes! Like that outfit you're wearing. Kinda hard to beat a joke as big as that one!" He gave her a cheesy grin as she looked at the pastel pink dress she was wearing for a moment, before tossing her head back and storming off, leaving the two of them there alone once more. "Boy, that was close," Henry said, dropping his grin to sigh dramatically. "I've heard a lot about miss Maribelle's keen nose for illegal magic, but I didn't think she'd actually ever catch on to me. Maybe you're right about us needing to go."

"I was right about it before Maribelle even got involved, but her being here makes it that much worse." Ricken watched as his friend walked back over to her husband, talking to him about something he couldn't hear, all while gesturing in their general direction a time or two. "What's she even doing, reserving this floor? I thought she was 'too good' for public places like this."

Henry was also watching what Maribelle was doing, but out of the corner of his eye he was checking something in one of his dark magic tomes. "She's got some sort of kid obedience class that she holds up here every few weeks. Great place for kids to come by and be cursed. She's never suspected a thing of me before today, so maybe it's not me being bad at doing bad things—maybe it's you being here that's throwing everything off." He playfully pushed Ricken's arm, the redhead unamused at the antics. "Okay, okay, hearing you loud and clear. Getting out of here before anything else happens."

They were barely standing up out of their seats before something new caught Henry's attention and made him sit right back down, something Ricken was not impressed with. "Oh no you don't," he said, tugging at his boyfriend to try and get him back up. "We're leaving, which means both of us need to be going, not just me."

"But she's starting her class," Henry replied, his eyes focused on Maribelle once more, "and I don't know about you, but I'd like to know how to raise a kid to behave in case, uh, someday we're given that chance by Naga." Ricken sighed, letting go of Henry's arm and sitting back down because he knew there was no winning the battle, not when Henry was in the mindset of having children. "If she can be a total bitch and have a kid, why can't two cool guys like us do the same?"

"There are so many reasons why, I'm not even going to start listing them off." Propping his head up with his arm, Ricken sighed once more. "No, wait, I am listing one. Because we're clearly not capable of raising a kid, not when one of us thinks that illegal activities are a fun way to spend the day!"

Henry waved a hand, brushing off the comment like it was nothing. "Just because I don't always follow stupid laws doesn't mean I don't know how to be a good parent. Why, I'm pretty sure I'd be a better parent than most of the people who come here with their kids for this class! Can you imagine how bad it must be, having to go to a grade-A rude woman for lessons on how to make your kid obey you?" He laughed, leaning forward so that he was almost laying on the table, but his eyes were focused on one of the tomes still before him. "Why, I'm sure that no one with any sense would dare come in here and actually listen to her yap about proper parenting techniques!"

"Then why are we here again?" Still unamused, Ricken heard how Henry was trying so hard not to laugh any louder than he already was, and immediately assumed that the original statement of him wanting to watch her for the learning experience was nothing but a lie. "No, please don't tell me you're keeping us here because you're still set on cursing kids. Anything but that, seriously." The nonexistent break in the laughter confirmed that fear, and Ricken went to stand back up, but Henry shook his head at the motion. "I'm not sitting here if you're going to actively break the law in front of someone who can catch you."

"But Ricken, you've got to stay here with me. You know if you're gone, she's only going to suspect me harder," Henry whined in return, reaching for his boyfriend with a wildly-waving arm. "If you're here, I can sit here and not be caught because why would I do anything if my moral compass is beside me? I'd be stupid to do anything stupid!"

Knowing entirely too well that Henry was lying through his teeth, Ricken wanted to go through with leaving, but something inside of him told him that leaving would just result in Henry causing more trouble than anything else. "You know what, you've won me over," he said, defeated. "I won't leave, but you're not cursing anyone either! We're just going to sit and watch and that's all we're doing here. If I catch you using any magic, good or bad, I am making us leave, end of story."

"That's the kind of submissive stuff I like hearing come from your mouth!" His grin once again plastered on his face, Henry cackled for a few moments, only going back to his normal giddy laughter when he heard Ricken mutter something he couldn't make out. "Oh, what's the matter there, Ricken? Don't like it when I get my way? But that's not how you act when we're alone together and you know it."

All Ricken could think to do was loudly shush his boyfriend before he said anything else that could be taken remotely inappropriately, and the noise was heard across the room, where Maribelle was watching the two intently, a disapproving frown on her face. "Just what do they think they're doing, staying in here for this class?" she loudly asked, catching the attention of her husband, who grumbled some answer in return. Clearly it wasn't the answer she had wanted to hear, because she swung her parasol at him, hitting him across the chest. "When I asked that, I expected helpful responses, not someone being rude about having to be here! If you so badly wanted to be elsewhere, why show up after all?"

"Because," he replied, not batting an eye as she whacked him again, "it was either show up today or starve, and the last time you refused to cook for me you proceeded to get angry that my dinner was better than yours."

She was close to seething in anger as she reared her arm back to hit him for a third time, but the sound of her son clearing his throat to get her attention caused her to forget about the violence. "Yes, Brady dearest? Is there something you need from me?" She completely dropped any hint of being unhappy while talking to her son, something that made her behavior come off forced.

"Uh, yeah, sure is, Ma. Mind if I take your parasol for a minute? Wanna show it to a friend. She don't believe it could survive bein' a weapon." Ignoring that his mother had cringed several times as he spoke, he held his hand out, waiting for her to hand over what he'd requested. When she didn't, he tilted his head to one side and looked at her, as if expecting an explanation for why she wasn't passing over the parasol. "C'mon Ma, it's just for a minute or two, tops. Lucy just wants to see it to believe it."

"I was unaware you had any friends by that name," she finally said, handing over her parasol as she spoke. "And if you're referring to sweet princess Lucina by such a disgusting nickname, you better just hand my parasol back right now." He looked down at the pink and white frilly thing he was now holding, and then to his mom's outstretched hand, before ducking away without another word. This, naturally, displeased Maribelle more than he must have figured it would. "Brady, you naughty child, how dare you disrespect me like that!" She turned to her husband, pointing in the direction their son had scurried off in. "Go get him to bring me my parasol back right this instant, Lon'qu! I demand it!"

"And I demand that you leave me out of your problems." Crossing his arms over his chest, Lon'qu looked down at Maribelle, shaking his head as he did. "Some class you must teach here, if you can't even keep your own child in check."

She could feel her face turning red from how angered she was, but there was a lot of embarrassment mixed in. Surely other parents who were in attendance were watching this take place, and they were judging her and her lack of parenting skills. How was she going to be able to keep her position as teacher of the class? "I can too keep him in check," she snapped, "but only when he's behaving like how I've taught him to! It's not my fault that a ruffian like you is his father, therefore making him predisposed to bad behavior!"

"Hm, I don't feel like listening to you speak anymore." Squinting his eyes a bit to get a good glare in at his wife, Lon'qu took a few steps away and sat down in the nearest chair he could find, never once taking his eyes off of her once he was seated. "Have fun being insufferable as always, you vile woman."

Her mouth opened to speak, but no words came out for quite some time, during which she stood in her spot shaking with anger. The first sound she managed to make was a low scream, which she muffled by covering her mouth, but still catching the attention of everyone who was gathered for her class. Once she noticed they were all watching her, as if they were expecting her to begin instructing, she shook her head and motioned towards the clock, which thankfully read that there were still a few minutes before the advertised start time. "I need to find Brady and get my parasol back before class begins, at any rate," she told herself once she was calm enough to speak at a whisper. "That boy should know by now that taking what is mine is not allowed, no matter who he wants to show it to!"

Finding him didn't take much effort, as he'd gone to one of the tables in the room, the parasol being held carefully in his hands. "Can't accidentally break this and have Ma kill me for it, so just look with your eyes and not with your hands, okay Lucy?" he said, dropping the parasol on the table in front of a blue-haired girl with an unimpressed expression on her face. "Sure, it takes a beatin' or twenty every day when Ma's feelin' feisty, but she'd murder her favorite child, that bein' me, if anythin' happened to this."

"It…just looks like an umbrella, Brady," Lucina replied, putting her finger to her lips as she investigated the item. "A really fancy umbrella. I'm sure Mother has a few of these in the closet at home, and yes, they do take quite a beating. Why, Morgan and I will pretend to be at war with some of the older umbrellas in the house when left unattended!"

"But I bet'cha you two don't do anythin' quite like this with your umbrellas!" Picking it back up, Brady positioned himself as if he was about to hit a ball being pitched at him with the parasol, only to find someone grabbing it when he went to swing. This time, it was his mother clearing her throat to get his attention, and he grimaced when he realized it was her standing there. "Ma, I promise I wasn't about to break your parasol! Sorry for even havin' it anywhere it could've gotten broken!" he apologized, tears welling up in his eyes. "Just don't make a fool outta me in front of the class again, please!"

"I can agree, he wasn't going to break it, I don't think," Lucina chimed in, watching how her friend was scared of his mother being involved in their conversation. "In fact, I was just saying how nice of an umbrella it is."

Maribelle's eye twitched at the word incorrectly describing her most prized possession. "I'm sorry, but as the child of the highest-ranking official in our country, I would have assumed that you would have been taught the difference between an umbrella and a parasol. Someone, somewhere in your minimal education thus far, has really failed you."

"Ma, there ain't that much of a difference between them, but leave Lucy and how smart she is alone, will ya?" Brady was sniffling, letting go of the parasol to wipe tears off of his face. "She doesn't know the difference and that's okay, right? I mean, I don't even really know the difference, 'side from you sayin' that's a parasol and not an umbrella."

If she'd been hurt before at Lucina incorrectly identifying her parasol, to hear her own child doing it was a million times more painful. After whacking him with it a couple times, Maribelle grabbed Brady's arm and dragged him away from the table, going back to her position in the middle of the room to begin the class and publicly scold him. This left Lucina at the table, slowly getting up to follow them to do what she'd shown up for.

And once the class was started, Henry was once again flipping through his dark magic tomes, wondering to himself what kinds of havoc he could cause in a place that was already clearly tumultuous. There was a quality to the humming and the gentle sighs he was making, something just noticeable enough that it was making Ricken uneasy. "Hey, remember what I said about no magic in this place," he said as a reminder, hoping Henry would listen to him again. "We're not here to cause trouble, remember?"

"Is it causing trouble when I'm just looking at spells, not thinking about using them?" Henry mouthed the word "today" after he finished speaking, something Ricken couldn't catch him doing, and he chuckled when he got nothing in response. "That's right, I'm definitely not going against your word and using any of this silly magic in here. I'm just looking a spell or two up, which is no big deal at all, not if I'm not intending on using it."

"Minus the part where it's still illegal just because it's dark magic, but I guess I can't complain. At least you're not going to be using it." Ricken glanced at the currently open page in the book, making a mental note that it was about a body swapping spell. If anywhere in the near future Henry decided to test out one of those, at least he'd know where it had come from. "What happened to watching the class for parenting tips, anyway?"

That was when Henry looked from his book and over to the group in the center of the room, shrugging as he examined what was going on. "Looks like they're just going over basics today. A polite child is a proper child, whatever that means, and I think that cow running things is doing her class on manners today." He paused, stifling a loud laugh. "As if she's a good person to be learning those from! Do you see how nasty she is to her kid?"

"In public she might be a bit mean to him, but I've known Maribelle for a long time and I'm sure she's nothing but loving to him at home." Right as Ricken looked for himself, Maribelle began hitting her son with her parasol, screeching something about his ignorance, which made Ricken sink back into his seat. "Or maybe she's completely rude to him there too, I don't know! Henry, if we're sitting here, we're going to do something about her behavior towards her own kid!"

"Something like a curse?" he asked, hope in his voice, only to be shot down by Ricken's repeated reminder that they weren't causing trouble. "Now you're sending mixed signals here and I don't think I like it. You want to do something, but we're both good at magic, not face-to-face confrontation. Do I look like I want to be a punching bag, or rather, a smacking bag with that stupid umbrella of hers?"

Ricken cringed as he thought hard about what he'd just heard, because it was entirely true, and it wasn't like he knew of any safe legal magic that could be used in a library. The last thing he wanted either of them to do was to cast an elemental spell that ruined the building they were in, and that was just what most legal spells were. "No, and I don't think I want to be one either," he meekly replied, accepting that he wasn't going to get anything done and that Henry only would be if he were allowed to do his dark magic. "Forget that I said anything about doing something. I just thought stopping my friend would be the right thing to do here."

Although Henry acted like he had forgotten about the suggestion, he had a new goal in mind as he read through his tomes: what if he could curse her to be nicer to her child, as Ricken would like it to be? Dark magic wasn't just for nasty things, as a fair amount of what made it up had good intentions, so there had to be something in existence for this particular purpose. For the rest of their day in the library, he dedicated his time to the search for the exact spell he needed, but found nothing by the time the class was dismissed and everyone was leaving. The same failure happened over the next several weeks, time he always spent sitting in that same spot there in the library. Sometimes Ricken came to join him, other times he was there alone, but regardless of if his boyfriend was present, there were no fun spells cast at unaware children. There was too much hinging on Henry finding what he was looking for.

And then, before the class began one day, he found something even better.

Coming up the stairs to the second floor of the library, Maribelle could hear the heavy footsteps behind her, two set of them. While she was definitely accustomed to hearing her husband dread coming to her class, she had never heard her son come upstairs with such reluctance. "I thought you were always thrilled to come to class, Brady, to see your disobedient friends and their parents," she commented, not turning her head to see his reaction, "and to hear you be so hesitant today is quite worrisome."

"Trust me Ma, if ya knew what's got me not wantin' to be here, you'd wanna turn tail and run just as fast," Brady said in return, making his mother so curious about what he meant that she forgot to cringe at his horrible grasp of language. "Bet I should tell ya now before it comes as a secret, but—"

Cutting her son off before he could finish, Maribelle guessed, "You got yourself a girlfriend? Oh, but you're a little young, don't you think?" She stopped almost at the top of the stairwell, turning around right as Lon'qu, not caring enough to stop walking, ran straight into her, quickly changing her focus from her assumption on her son's life (which he ignored) and to her grumbling husband. "Excuse me, watch where you're walking next time! I clearly stopped to speak with Brady, yet you were so unobservant to notice the stop!"

"Because no one in their right mind stops walking on the stairs." Lon'qu waited a moment, to see Maribelle start to get angry, then he shrugged. "Must have forgotten you aren't in your right mind. My apologies." With that, he brushed past her as she stood there sputtering for words, and Brady followed him, not looking at his mother for even a second.

She had to quickly collect herself and move out of the way, as other people were also trying to come up the stairs at the same time, and she was doing nothing but impeding their progress. When she made it up to the upper floor, her first act was to find the same chair as always that Lon'qu had retreated to, wordlessly hitting him a few times with her parasol before moving on to the next order of business. Finding Brady was a bit harder, as always, but because they were the first people upstairs for the class, she couldn't just look for his friends and find him with them. She really had to search.

Or, she could just turn around and see him standing there, looking ashamed about something. "Ma, before they get here, I've gotta say who's comin' to your class today," he blurted out, trying to keep his shame in check as he spoke. "Lucy got tired of comin' to class by herself so she invited her parents and they're actually comin' today. You're gonna be instructin' Chrom on how to parent Lucy better."

Maribelle's eyes widened and she could feel her jaw dropping at the news. "The man in charge of all of us thinks that I should instruct him on parenting skills? Why, that's the greatest news ever! If he's impressed, which he should be, perhaps he'll make this class of mine a for-profit thing at a higher level!" She wrapped her arms around Brady and squeezed him tightly, bouncing up and down as he stood there like a rock. "Dear, thank you so much for telling your mother this lovely news! Why, this is infinitely more exciting than finding out about you getting a girlfriend!"

"Uh, you're welcome, Ma, but I never said anythin' 'bout gettin' a girlfriend." His words were forced out, something Maribelle didn't notice in her newfound excitement about what she was going to get to do. "Girls aren't even interestin' to me, so why would I wanna have a girlfriend? Unless you mean like a friend that's a girl, but you already knew 'bout Lucy so that's nothin' new to you."

"Hush now, Brady, you're babbling like a lovesick fool and I won't hear a word of it," Maribelle told him, breaking away from hugging him. "You run off and entertain any of those little friends of yours—and especially your girlfriend, if you get the chance—and I'll begin preparing what lesson I'm going to teach today's session!" She watched as he rolled his eyes and grumbled something, at which a new idea came to her. Her parasol, which had been carefully held in her hand even through the hug, was then shoved into Brady's chest, so that he could grab it and look at it with equal parts disgust and confusion. "Do me a favor and remind everyone what this is, if you will."

He rolled his eyes once more, glaring at the parasol as if it were the more-loved child in the family. "Ma, that's gotta be one of the most stupid things you've ever told me to do, and you've told me to do a whole lot of stupid things. No one cares about your umb—parasol."

"I heard that!" she snapped, waggling her finger at him in disapproval. "An umbrella is used to shield from rain, while a parasol is used for shielding from the sun. I would never take my silk and bow parasol out in a spring storm, but if you put it in the hands of any of your little ingrate friends, they would do just that. Inform them of the difference."

There was nothing more Brady could do aside from actually do what he was being told, so he put on the straightest face he could manage and told his mother that he would tell all his friends about the parasol. The moment he knew she wasn't going to hear him, he let out a whine and hung his head in shame. "No one around here cares about the difference, and Ma knows it, but why would she listen if I told her that? She wouldn't listen if anyone tried tellin' her that!" Looking at the parasol and its frills and bows, he frowned. "Well, I can think of someone who would convince her, but she wouldn't come around here 'cause her and Ma see each other enough everywhere that isn't here."

"Brady, what are you doing?" he heard Lucina ask, and he stopped his thoughtful mumbling to look up and see his friend beaming before him. "Oh, does it matter? I can't believe my parents are actually here for this! Mother is so excited to hear your mother speak, and Father, well, he's happy to be out of the office for an afternoon! They knew just how much I'd picked up from this class, and they're really here to pick more up themselves!"

"You seem a lot more excited about this than I thought you'd be." Just seeing his friend was enough to turn his spirits around a small bit, and Brady watched as she eagerly nodded and broke into a long explanation of why she was so excited; the biggest and most important factor of it all was that it meant her family was going to be together for something, a feat that was rarely ever accomplished. "Man, wish I could be excited 'bout me and my parents bein' in the same place, but we're always together. Ma wouldn't have it any other way."

"Well today's the day where that's the way my family is too!" She looked around the room, as if she was checking to see if her parents had shown up yet, and she gasped when she saw at least one of them. "Come on, Brady, let's go talk to them! You've met my dad before a million times, so this isn't a big deal at all, right?"

He shook his head. "Nope, not a big deal. He might be the big leader guy to everyone else, but he's just your dad to me." The smile on Lucina's face let him know that he'd said something she really appreciated, and soon she was leading him across the room to where the tall, blue-haired man and his light-haired wife were standing, another child with hair just like Lucina's (although shorter) before them. They had been in the middle of some conversation, complete with laughter and hair-ruffling from the older man to the young boy, but when Lucina and Brady walked up, they fell silent.

"Mother, Father, I've brought Brady over for a quick chat, since I'm sure his mother is busy making her plans for the afternoon," Lucina said as introduction, beaming at her friend and her family. "He can tell you all about what kind of lovely class she provides everyone here, although there might not be much he can say that I already haven't!"

Her father looked down at Brady and gave a friendly laugh, pointing at the parasol he was still holding. "Why am I not surprised Maribelle's taught her son to tote around something like that? It's always been a wonder how Lissa's managed to survive her friendship with that woman without picking up that skill, and here's the proof why." He laughed once more, making Brady feel a bit awkward as he stood there. "Oh, it's just a joke. Besides, it's clear that's your mother's umbrella."

Of all the people in the world to make the mistake of calling the parasol an umbrella, Brady hadn't expected Chrom to do it, but he'd just been witness to the error and he knew that if he didn't correct it, his mother would somehow find out and chide him for it. "Actually, it's not an umbrella," he started, turning around to do something he'd thought of in the moments since having the difference explained to him for the umpteenth time, "but instead it's a parasol. And do you know how you can tell what it is?"

Directly across the room from them, Henry was sitting in his normal spot, one of his tomes open in front of him as he watched the beginning of their conversation take place. How bad he felt for that boy, stuck doing his mother's bidding while she prepared to make a fool out of herself! A child like that deserved a parent much better than the one he had, and Henry was ready to do something about it. The boy wasn't within sight of his mother, so she wouldn't notice anything was going on and put a stop to it, and Ricken wasn't around to keep things from happening how they were meant to. The weeks had gone by and it was about damn time that Henry got to curse someone again.

There was just one tiny problem with his plan, and that was that he had no idea that the parasol that Brady had been given to hold was capable of deflecting curses. Since it belonged to Maribelle, and Maribelle was queen of sniffing out dark magic, it should have been assumed that she had a tool around to help her out with what she did best, but Henry didn't think about that. And he certainly didn't think that Brady would open the parasol while explaining how it was different from an umbrella at the exact moment that the curse Henry had cast should have been hitting him.

The curse didn't bounce back at its caster as it should have, however, as someone that had been listening to the explanation of what made the parasol what it was jumped to see it in its opened state, taking the brunt of the curse into her own body instead. Time seemed to stand still at the moment Lucina doubled over from being struck by dark magic, but before Henry could process that his target had been missed completely, everything in the room, and the world around them, had changed in more ways than he'd ever expected it could due to one little curse.

He headed home that evening with a talkative daughter of his own, one who had been thrilled that he'd been there for the parenting class, while lamenting that her other father hadn't been in attendance. No one in the world, aside from himself, knew that he'd stolen this child from her rightful parents, and no one ever would. At least, that's what he thought, but that all changed when he opened the front door to the little apartment he and Ricken shared and saw the redheaded man standing there, waiting for him, with disgust in his eyes and a need to talk about what nonsense had occurred written all over his face.

A/N: okay I started writing this like a month ago, I didn't even think that my plan was to post chapter 1 on father's day but here we are and here it is.