"You have been with Lith every moment of his life, becoming closer to him than any member of this family could. You are the closest thing to a twin he has and the daughter that I was never allowed to know."
Elina cupped Solus's face, caressing it with so much love and tenderness that Solus cried again, but this time out of joy.
"I'm so sorry for never being a part of your life and I know there's no way I can make up for the lost time, but I would like to try anyway, if you'll allow me to. Would you give me the privilege of calling you my daughter?"
"Yes." Solus said amid tears.
"Then you can call me Mom if you want to." Elina hugged Solus, keeping her as close as she could.
Solus's knees buckled as the emotion from her life-long dream coming true overwhelmed her. Elina didn't let her go, helping her to sit on the tower's floor while one after the other the members of their family joined them in the embrace.
Words had become meaningless, just noise that would have tainted that moment.
Lith joined them last, happy that one of the most important people of his life didn't have to hide anymore. From that night onward, Solus would be able to share with him every single important moment of his life.
***
A few days later, Faluel called her apprentices to resume their lessons. The Hydra had enough of grieving and stress eating. She needed a distraction, a connection with the world of the living that would keep her mind off the death of her son.
Morok and Nalrond were there as well. They noticed that Faluel was now a few centimeters thicker in every direction. She had enjoyed too much alcohol and too much ice cream for too long.
In the last few days, the Ernas girls had called Lith and Solus often, but they didn't visit them because they knew all too well that Lith didn't take huge breakups well. He and Solus needed some time on their own.
Contact amulets allowed the Ernas sisters to keep in touch with them and also to leave them alone the moment they had overstayed their welcome due to the mood swings of their hosts.
"What did I miss, exactly?" Morok asked at the sight of the raggedy group. "You have gained some weight, you look like a hobo, and the rest of you looks like you just returned from the front lines."
He said to Faluel, Lith, and the girls in this order, obtaining a right cross from the Hydra as a sign of appreciation.
"Rude. I don't look like a hobo." Lith's clothes were clean due to their spells, but he had a thick beard and looked like someone who drank too much and didn't bathe often.
Staying in the tower to avoid suitors and bores also meant too much time alone to think while Solus let her new family know her as well as she knew them. Lith had become quite addicted to the Red Dragon and he didn't give a damn about appearances anymore.
"I took several huge blows recently, but I'm soldiering up like usual." He said.
"Yeah, right." Solus said with a sneer. "If by soldiering up you mean listening in a loop to two depressing songs and then punch the walls until you bleed, then you're doing one heck of a job."
Lith listened to Cerin Drion's Ashen whenever he thought about how Kamila must have felt after the break-up and to Johnny Payload's Wounded whenever he wallowed in self-pity, drinking himself to sleep.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Phloria asked. She had never seen Lith look so shabby because, after Protector's alleged death, she had taken care of him and because back then the scarce facial hair he had could hardly be called a beard.
"Believe me, I tried, Elina tried, everyone tried. We only ended up arguing and making him Warp away. Lith is just too strong, no one can help him unless he lets them." Solus replied.
"I can see that most of you didn't slack off during this forced break." Faluel said while kicking Morok to the ground to burn a few extra calories and examining the girls.
They had all done their best to overcome the gap between them and Lith, training until exhaustion just to bathe, sleep, and start over again. Only Faluel's ban on breathing techniques did keep them from working non-stop.
"Can you please check my body now?" Tista asked.
Ever since Lith had left for Lightkeep, she had done everything she could to achieve a body with the perfect level of muscles and impurities that the Hydra had shown her.
After learning about the risks of losing her humanity once her mana core reached the blue, Tista's determination had faltered, but seeing Solus's and Lith's past had strengthened it once again.
'Compared to what the two of them have gone through, my life is a fairy tale. I'm tired of attending to the funerals of our friends while doing nothing but sitting on the sidelines.' She thought.
"You've made some significant progress, but that's not enough." After checking Tista with Lifestream, Faluel shook her head. "Yet if you intend to keep up like this, I allow you to start using Invigoration again.
"Your core is starting to fall behind your body, and to achieve your true potential they must be kept balanced."
Then she examined Phloria, Quylla, and Friya in this order.
Phloria had Tista's opposite problem and some of her impurities had to be removed before they clogged her mana flow. Phloria wasn't the type to shy away from hard work and even though her Awakening was recent, her body had almost reached the peak of the deep blue.
"Start using Accumulation as well and use it to forcefully remove the following impurities." Faluel showed Phloria her body and how she had to alter it.
Quylla had an amazing body for a fake mage, but between her overloaded core and the lack of fusion magic, she was on the brink of collapsing.
"You need to rest more. You're only human, never forget that." Faluel said.
As for Friya, being already at the peak of deep blue due to the Hydra's Awakening technique, Faluel needed a short spar to assess her apprentice's progress in getting accustomed to her Awakened body.
"Very good but you're still lacking and so am I. I need to get back in shape and you've come here to help me with that." Faluel said while looking at them one at a time.
"I thought you called me here to learn Gravity Fusion." Lith scratched his beard in confusion.
"Please do! He uses his inhuman mass as an excuse to avoid his family. If the kids were allowed to see him, Lith would never stoop so low!" Solus said.
"Don't worry, that's exactly why you all are here." Faluel nodded.
"Wait, what?" Quylla said. "We all have a normal weight and I can't even use Fusion Magic. What's the point of us being here?"
"Gravity Fusion is useful to non-Emperor Beasts as well because it can be used as a movement technique." Faluel said.
"As for you, Quylla, I'm aware of your efforts to learn Fusion Magic so you can listen to both learn how to defend against it and deepen your understanding of the differences between fake and true mages."
