"Ahem!" After getting everyone's attention, Illianna looked at Sian. "I know it's an emotional moment and all, but you should stop hugging her so tightly. Taking into consideration her physical condition, surely this must be hurting her. Besides, you're also squeezing that poor child."
Only after moving away from Francionia, Sian noticed Tina between the two. Judging by the way she looked at him, looked like a puppy trying to bite someone who was stealing her food.
Cleaning her tears, Francionia smiled. "I could never have guessed that this person in front of me would be that gentle, crybaby child who depended on Melinda for everything."
"It wasn't just me, everyone liked her, including you." After a brief pause, he continued. "I thought they took you with the other children. How did you escape?"
"When the guards neglected us, many of the children they took escaped from the Duke's mansion." She replied. "Luckily, I also managed to escape and found a caravan of merchants. It turned out they were good people, they helped me and brought me along with the caravan to Solaris."
"It seems like you also went through many difficult moments..."
"Not everything was bad." She murmured. "It was here where I ended up meeting my future husband and gave birth to Christina, but unfortunately, he is no longer with us."
"But he'll still come back one day!" Tina said.
"Yes, dear, he'll be back one day." Francionia comforted her before looking at Sian. "What happened to you and the others after you escaped?"
"To tell you the truth, I don't know what happened to the others, we ended up separating after we escaped." With a gloomy expression on his face, he continued. "When we were being taken by the soldiers under the pretext of being adopted, Melinda discovered the truth and saved us."
"How is she?" She looked at him with an expectant expression.
Feeling an immense sadness to remember that time, he murmured heavily. "She died while helping us escape..."
Seeming to digest Sian's words, Francionia remained silent.
Without noticing the atmosphere that had formed, Emily approached them both as she looked at Francionia. "Was Daddy a crybaby when he was little?"
Outlining a small smile on her face, she replied. "When he was a child, even though he played strong, he would often cry while hugging me."
Sian grabbed Emily and held her in his arms. "That was a long time ago, I don't cry anymore."
"Eeeh? Why?"
"Because now Daddy is a grown man and has a lovely daughter."
"Really?"
"Of course." He squeezed her cheeks.
"Looks like you've managed to achieve part of your dreams." Francionia had a loving expression on her face.
"I was a kid back then, so my dreams don't remain exactly the same, but well, I've accomplished a few."
"What was Daddy's dream?"
"He had a lot of dreams." Francionia replied. "But what he wanted most was to have a family and live a happy life with them."
With her tail wagging energetically, Emily turned to Sian. "Daddy's happy with me?"
Giving her pinky cheeks several kisses, he said. "With such a cute daughter, there's no way I can't be happy."
"How old is she?" Francionia asked.
"Four." Sian replied.
"As expected from your daughter." Francionia said. "Even with that age, she's as short as you were as a child."
Coincidentally, Sian and Emily cracked a huge smile as they looked at each other.
It was as Francionia had said, when he was a child, Sian always had several dreams. But there were two he wanted to accomplish most, finding his parents, and building his own family. Because of this, whenever someone said that Emily looked like him, happiness filled his body.
After they talked some more, Sian formally introduced Fran to Ophilia and invited her to the inn, where he would pay for her stay. But before she could say anything, Tina went against it, she didn't want to leave the house. She was sure her father would be back at some point, and when that happened, and they weren't there, he wouldn't know how to find them. Although Sian kept insisting, Tina seemed on the verge of crying again at any moment, so he gave up.
Even though Sian wanted to spend more time talking with Fran, the moment Illianna finished repairing the house, she urged him to go, saying that they still had a lot to do on the construction site.
After they said goodbye, the sun was already up and since it wasn't a good temperature for children, Sian returned with Illianna while Ophilia took Emily to the inn.
On the way, while Illianna chattered as usual, Sian was lost in thought.
'So Fran was really alive, but now it's as I suspected, things are happening conveniently for me. This makes me believe even more in the possibility that someone is manipulating things around me... But who, why, and for what? Also, would that really be possible?'
After much thought, Sian decided not to care about it anymore, at least for the moment.
'There's no point in dwelling on things I have no clue about. Besides, it might actually end up being a huge coincidence.'
"Ignoring others is rude!" Illianna spoke aloud.
"Oh, of course. What were you saying?"
"The sudden change in the expression of those 3 was very abnormal. You said something to them through telepathy, didn't you?"
"Nothing much, just a little basic threat."
"What did you say to make them scared like that?"
"I just said that if I at least imagined they had any bad thoughts for Ophilia or Emily, or if they even touched a strand of their hair, that would be the day they would die."
"Cruel as always."
"Well, I do not want to deny the kindness of Ophilia, but the violence is really very convenient." Sian said. "Now we got 3 workers for free."
"Not only violence, your fame also played an important role there." Illianna affirmed. "They even ignored the fact that in Poutis, kneeling to someone other than the king is a crime against royalty."
"A crime just for that?"
"Yeah, it might even carry a death penalty."
"Really?" Sian looked at her skeptically.
"I know it sounds absurd, but it's true. The King of Poutis is known to be a haughty and superb person. Because of all his arrogance and self-centeredness, he even tried to ban the faithful from kneeling to pray to their gods."
"Did that really happen?" Sian got surprised.
"Yes, according to him, kneeling expresses submission, obedience, adoration, humility, and penitence. And as a sovereign who rules over people, only he deserved that kind of idolatrous gesture."
"To go against the church, that king really has balls."
"Or at least he thought he did." Illianna said. "It only needed the pope of the holy church to state that they would treat him as a heretic that he went back on his words. Now, if you kneel to anyone other than the gods or him, you will be met with the death penalty."
"I must say I'm surprised, I didn't think there really could be someone more arrogant and self-centered than you, but it seems I was wrong..."
"Don't compare me to him." She retorted. "He is an ignorant person who let power go to his head. Because of this, he sets himself up as a superior being without having the ability to back up all his arrogance. Unlike me, he has always depended on his position as heir to the throne."
"I take back what I said..."
Ignoring Sian's words, Illianna said. "The way you reacted before was very unexpected, I never expected to see such reactions coming from you, your voice even trembled. For a moment, I thought you were going to cry."
"Are you trying to laugh at my face?"
"No, I was just surprised and disbelieving at that scene... So now you've gained another wife and another daughter?"
"No, Fran and I have always been friends."
"Knowing your reputation, I don't believe it will be for long."
"I won't waste my time arguing with you, or that's what I'd like to say, but there's something I'm curious about. When you said before that you were proving something, what did you mean by that?"
"I'd rather not talk about it now." She replied. "But I will certainly tell you in the future."
After that conversation, they both remained silent until they reached the construction site. Wasting no more time, Illianna immediately put the 3 guys to work sorting the stones and trees by type, as she intended to use them to make furniture and some other goods.
Arriving at noon, Sian released the 3 of them to go to lunch and returned to the inn. On the way, he eventually found out that the 3 of them were at the same inn as him, and that's probably where they came to the conclusion that he was close to Tina.