"Happy birthday!" V shouted as Eika emerged from the tent. L was less enthusiastic, but parroted the words as well. Eika's face was full of shock and confusion. "Since it wasn't a secret, I told them about your birthday! It’s a celebration!" Luna screamed unnecessarily loud from inside the tent. Eika opened and closed her mouth a few times, no sound issuing forth. "Luna told us it was your birthday. We figured you had not celebrated one in a while, so we wanted to throw a party for you. Although, it’s not much since we are on the road in the middle of nowhere, but we made a nice meal for you, and we also have presents for you." A strange feeling washed over V when he said the word present, but the minor distraction was quickly ignored, for after a few moments of silence, Eika suddenly just... ran away. "Eh...EHHH?" Luna looked around in confusion as Eika fled the camp. L also had a look of a non-comprehension on her face "What...?" V nodded and sighed. "I’ll find her. Everyone stay here. She is probably just overwhelmed. It’s likely she did not know how to respond to such a sudden event. She clearly already had complicated feelings about it, I’ll bring her back." As V trudged off in the direction Eika ran, L called out "If you can't find her, I can track her down remember."

After a few minutes of searching, V began to hear soft sniffing noises further ahead. Unless a wild animal was crying, he was fairly sure he found Eika. Dragging his feet to make noise, he walked toward her. No need to make her think something was sneaking up on her in silence. After another minute of searching, he crested a small hill. Near the bottom of the other side Eika had hidden herself inside of a small hole in the ground, well, more of a depression in the grass than a real hole. V walked down the hill toward her, "Eika, are you ok?" V knew the answer was "not really" but he did not have a better way to start the conversation. Eika didn't reply but looked up. Her eyes were wet and her face held a complex expression. Fear maybe? V considered his approach as he neared her. "Eika, can we talk? Please don't run again. I don't want to tell L I failed to find you. She will give me that disapproving look she often provides me with." Eika nodded "Ya... Eika will not get you in trouble..." Well, that was somehow a sadder response than V expected. He approached her "hole" and knelt down. "Would you like to talk about what upset you? We only wanted to make you happy, you know that right?" V knew that she knew, but he had to take the conversation slowly. Eika nodded "Ya... Eika knows..." V set down next to her. "You are not mad at Luna, are you? She just wanted to do something nice for you..." V paused "Well, and she was probably hoping for birthday food." Eika smiled weakly "Ya, ha... she loves eating now that she knows about food."

A short time of silence passed. Intermittent crying noises coming from Eika. "I’m sorry for running away...." V shook his head. "I am sure everyone forgives you, no need to worry about that part." Eika nodded. "I know... I’m still sorry. It’s so stupid. I’m so stupid, I just don't know what to say." V reached over and rubbed her head. "Words are hard sometimes. But if you want to talk about it, we can. We can also just set here if you would like, but we need to go back to camp eventually. I am sure Luna is going to blame herself before long. Eika nodded but did not say anything. V waited patiently as the sun's light crashed over the landscape, turning the sky a shade of orange, darkness creeping over the other side of the sky. "I was so surprised; I did not know how to react. Before I knew it, I was running away. And then when I was running, I realized I was running away from..." Eika sniffed and wiped her eyes. "I was running away from my new family. And then I felt guilty." V looked over toward her. "Guilty? For running away?" Eika hesitated. "Some, but I mostly felt guilty because I thought I might forget my old family. My mommy died to save me... that is what I was told. I can only remember a little of her and dads face's..." Eika sniffed again, tears threatening her eyes again. "The farther we travel together the less I think about them..." This was one of the sadder things V had heard recently, at-least in his mind. "Well..." V took a moment to carefully think about his response. "Don't you think that your mother wants you to move forward? She died so that you could live. Not so that you could stay hidden away." Eika shrugged weakly "But what if I forget her? What if I forget her and dad's face? They certainly don't want me to forget them, right?" V shook his head, "No one wants to be forgotten, but your mother gave her life to save you. She was willing to sacrifice her life, I’m sure she would be willing to be forgotten if it lets you be happy. Although, just because you consider us your new family, does not mean you have to forget your old one."

V pulled the silver chain from his pocket "We were going to give you presents after we ate, but I want to show you this now." He handed her the silver chain. "I thought you could hang your wooden medallion from it. I don't know what your medallion means to you exactly, but I’ve seen you hold it at night sometimes, close to your chest. Tears started to flow from Eika's eyes again, and she started sobbing. "It was found with me..." Eika took a moment before continuing.  "The slavers who found me said it was probably the symbol of our clan. Mommy probably expected me to live in the wilds, maybe to be picked up by another clan..." V nodded, that made enough sense to him. "Well now you can wear it around your neck. You can hang your old family heirloom, from a gift from your new... uh... family." Eika sniffed a few times and nodded. "That would make Eika happy..." she ran the silver chain through her fingers for a time before continuing. "What if you guys die and leave me alone again? The Gods are making you fight. We can't just live a happy life..." V took a deep breath. "Ya... we have to fight, but you can fight with us. It will not be like when you were a child..." He knew that was a nearly meaningless statement, but what was he supposed to say? "Ya we are probably going to die at some point, better prepare yourself for that." He shook his head and stood up; the last rays of sun shone behind him. "Eika, all we can do is keep moving forward. Sometimes things get left behind in life, but if we try to stay behind with them, we dishonor their memory. Memories, friends, lovers, when we leave something behind, it makes room for more things for us carry in the future with us. Let us go back to your party. You can hang your medallion around your neck, you don't have to forget your mother and father, but maybe you can forget the sadness of leaving them behind."

V walked back into camp, Eika following behind him. On the way back she had cried on and off, but she had tried to steady herself before seeing Luna and L. "Sorry about that, we are back." V declared as L looked up from the fire. "YES! Now we can share that soup stuff that I have been sniffing for a while." Eika walked forward and bowed her head "Sorry for interrupting my birthday. I am very thankful for everything you guys have done, and the food does smell nice..." Luna quickly ran over to the pot of stew and bobbed up and down, waiting for L and V to give her a bowl and wooden spoon. As they sat and ate, L spoke quietly to V "Is the girl alright? She looks like she had a rough time." V nodded "She will be. It’s hard, losing your parents, living like a slave. Well, in her case she was a literal slave. I can relate in a certain way. I have had a lot more time that she had though, to overcome my past. She will recover." A strange sense of sorrow and happiness emanated from somewhere inside V. It was a strange feeling, as if it was not quite his own. He watched as Eika tried to convince Luna not to eat so quickly. "Ya, she will be fine, but it will probably not be the last time she cries about her past."

After they were done eating, Luna jumped up. "I have a present for you!!" She ran behind one of the tents, after a moment she came stumbling back, arms full of grass and flowers. "It’s a... b.... bouq... it’s a flower bucket! I saw one of the nobles give this to a close friend of his when she visited. I bet they ate it for dinner. I know we already ate but you can have it for dessert, or maybe save it for breakfast!" Luna dumped the assortment of flowers and grass onto Eika's lap. L looked on with mild disdain and V with mild amusement. Eika however hugged Luna, "Thank you so much! I know you must have wanted to snack on the grass." Luna nodded "It was hard to keep such a big pile so close... especially when we could smell the stew! I wanted to go right over and eat it all..." L stood up and walked over to Eika, looking down at her with a critical eye. Luna scampered away, sensing a strange intensity in L's gaze. Looking up, Eika saw L withdraw a small medallion from her item storage. "I carved this into a piece of wood. Normally it would be bronze, but I lack the skill and material to create a bronze inscribed medallion. I got the idea for this while watching you pack your wooden trinket into your backpack." She handed a wooden medallion to Eika, a strange symbol was carved on the front. "Uh... thanks?" Eika was not ungrateful, just confused. "It’s the symbol of my order. The royal guard. You saved my life, and probably V's when you assisted us with the horrible monster champion thing in the city. I have stood with you in battle, and have traveled with you in the wild. Your resolve and strength of will may not be on par with my own, but you would be one of the most promising recruits to the order, if we were in my old world." V was sort of impressed. That was high praise in L's book. She had essentially made Eika a royal guard recruit.  Eika also seemed to understand the importance of the gift, tears pulled at her eyes again. "What a wonderful present..." Eika cleared her throat "I mean, yes! I will keep doing my best!" Eika stood up, carrying the medallion and "flower bucket." Quickly running off to her tent.

V glanced at L as she sat back down. "Do not speak. I already regret it." L spoke firmly as V began to open his mouth. "Uh... right." He looked up as Eika returned. She had threaded the silver chain through both her original medallion and the one L had given her. She was clearly holding back a tide of emotions as she stood proudly. "You look amazing!" Luna jumped up and down in circles around Eika. V nodded, he was glad that in the end, Eika's birthday had turned out well for her. He looked at the moon, it was getting late, another hour or so and it would be midnight. "We should get to bed, don't want to travel while sleepy." Eika nodded, as they began to clean up and prepare for bed, a strange look came over her. "I... suddenly feel sort of dizzy." V looked over, Eika looked a little pale. "Maybe you should lay down, you did not eat any of those strange flowers, did you?" Eika began to shake her head no, but she fell forward onto the ground. "What's wrong with Eika's status!?" Luna called out worriedly. V quickly checked.

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Name: Eika
Age: 16 17
Race: Rabbitkin | Other Error, reverting to original race, Rabbitkin
Titles: "Friend of the Elgorian Fairies"
"First Among Rabbitkin" Error, title unavailable. 
Occupation: Slave (Dredge) 
Class: Tracker Lv 7 Unknown error in progress. Recalculating. Defaulting to Tracker Class
Skills: "Tracking Lv 4", "Hearing Lv 5", "Smell Lv 5", "ForestCraft Lv 4", "Destiny lv ∞"  Error, suppressing skill gain.
*&%*@)
Curses: Curse of the Rabbitkin (Degraded) (Activation in progress)
└——————┘

Eika fell onto her side, groaning in pain as V tried to figure out what was going on. Her status was actively changing, he watched as her age was replaced with her new one. Her race disappeared, replaced with a new one, but it also vanished before V could read it, replaced with an error message in a different color then normal, when he looked at the errors, his head started to pound. Her hidden title also vanished, her class was gone, and V glimpsed a new skill before it also vanished. Strange error messages were all over her status. Perhaps even more worrying, the curse on Eika claimed to be activating. As V tried to work through his increasingly severe headache, L spoke "Why is she missing parts of her status?" She had gripped her sword hilt, ready for trouble. V wished he could get her opinion, but she clearly could not see the "hidden" information, the errors and title and such. And he did not wish to take the time to explain. As he looked away from her status, trying to get a handle on the increasing pain in his head, he felt a jolt. Starting from his fingertips traveling to his brain. His blessing yearned to activate. It felt like it was pressing against his skull, trying to burst forth. V hesitated, the only time he activated his blessing in regards to Eika, she went berserk, killed something, and he passed out.

As the pressure on V's head continued to mount, he tried to work through the situation. He wanted to save Eika, but his blessing so far normally only turned people into crazy killing machines. If he passed out, Eika transformed into some crazy murderer, and only L and Luna was left, he could only see two possible outcomes, and both resulted in at-least one death. As V tried to suppress the blessing, deciding it was too big of a risk, he heard the faintest of voices, so soft it might have just been the whisper of the wind. "My daughter...please..." The blessing renewed its assault on V's mind, begging to be let free. V fell to his knees, L placed her back to a tree, clearly under the belief they were under some form of attack. "Please, let me save my daughter." V felt like he was losing his mind, the voice was soft, but V could feel the powerful emotions it contained, sadness, hope, desire, anger. He was unsure if he could even survive trying to suppress his blessing for much longer. He willed its activation, if it resulted in Eika killing all of them, then so be it. He was fairly confident his head was about to explode anyway.

"I will not let them take my daughter’s birthright away from her."

┌——————┐
Mother's Sacrifice has been activated!
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V was in the process of passing out as all sorts of status messages starting appearing.

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Legacy rule violation in progress, reporting to cou-
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Mother's Confidant has activated!
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Elevating report status, system err-
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Mother's Secret has been activated!
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Status system failure in progress, urgen-
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Mother's Silence has been activated!
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