Odilia’s favorite town to visit was the Kigoguchi village. She and Erwin would pass through it every autumn and if Erwin allowed it, they would remain throughout the cold winter. 

Unlike the smaller Hikizu village where everyone knew of each other through fast gossip, Kigoguchi was more urbanized with people focused on their roles in society. The villagers especially didn’t seem to care how different Odilia looked as a Kurobanese albino. She soon understood why this was so, when at the break of dawn, the main streets of Kigoguchi village filled with a mixture of Kurobanese and foreigners. Doors and windows flew open despite the chill and people went about their business while chattering with neighbors in various languages: some in Kurobanese, others in the common Gardeinian tongue, and the other native languages. 

At the introduction of Kigoguchi village, Erwin set up his office in the town hospital and sent Odilia out to explore on her own. The result was discovering a cheery western-styled house the color of the sun which stood next to a school where children were playing tag. Even with her strange yellow eyes and white  hair, the Odilia was pulled into the game by invitation. There, she made her first friends: Emiko, Lancelot, and little Arthur. The yellow house had been an orphanage where her three new friends lived.

Every year when Odilia returned to Kigoguchi, she reunited with her friends.

“My parents didn’t abandon me. I ran away.” Lancelot huffed proudly at Odilia’s sixteenth birthday party which was held inside the decorated orphanage. The children sat around a table with tiny plates and forks waiting for cake. 

“It isn’t much of a lie.” Emiko shrugged at Lancelot's haughty statement. “He doesn’t have parents as far as we know, and the adults looked everywhere...”

Lancelot smirked.

“...they even looked outside of Kuroba to see if anyone was missing a child.” Emiko added. She returned Lancelot’s stare snobbishly. “That’s how eager they were to get rid of him.”

“Hey!” Lancelot pouted. 

A small boy with chestnut hair wrapped his arms around his waist and giggled in his seat. 

“Arthur!” cried Lancelot, looking at the chestnut haired boy in mock betrayal. “That wasn’t even funny.”

“You want to know something funny?” Emiko whispered into Odilia’s ear, but loud enough so that everyone else could hear. “Lance gave himself a foreign name so that he could marry a foreign princess. As if that’s how it’s supposed to work! HA!” Giggles erupted among spectators like hiccuping rockets in unison to Emiko’s own boisterous laugh. 

“Quit it!” Lancelot grumbled. But the corners of his mouth were tugging upwards. Odilia knew now after only knowing him for two years, that Lancelot loved attention.

Odilia was laughing too. She was happy with these people who’d been her first friends since leaving Hikizu village. Emiko was sweet with a contagiously positive energy. Lancelot was a jokester and always up for laughs, even if it were targeted towards him. And Aurthur, although a mute at twelve years old, was treasured by the group.

“Cake!” Lancelot pounced as Erwin entered the room with Miss Wörter, the head caretaker of the orphanage, who was pushing a cart with a strawberry-shortcake topped with vanilla whipped cream. 

No candles were lit because Erwin Kennedy understood Odilia’s fear of flames and had previously instructed the orphanage to never do so when the pair visited. The party of orphans went straight to the singing and wishing Odilia a happy year. 

“Even if you don’t blow on candles, you still need to make a wish!” Emiko insisted after the last note was sung.

Odilia nodded her head and closed her eyes. She imagined a life with Ai. She opened her eyes and the cake was cut and delivered. The children ate and then it was time for gifts. Emiko and Lancelot had saved up money together to buy her a book on fairy tales. Odilia was grateful. Odilia opened Arthur's gift next, which caused the young boy to burst into tears because the flower crown that he’d made the past summer had withered from its original strength and color. Odilia placed it carefully on her crown and thanked the little boy. Then came time to open the doctor’s gifts. A new dress, a pair of shoes, some jewelry and a hat. These were all western clothes, not the same kimono style dresses Odilia used to wear. Odilia tried on the new shoes before opening the last gift. Odilia unearthed a stick. 

“I’ll teach you how to wield it later,” said the doctor. 

Odilia quietly forgot the stick and went out to play. Hours later when Erwin and Odilia were alone in her bedroom, the doctor explained to her that the stick was from the heart of By’lyl. 

“The forest behind Hikizu village?” questioned Odilia.

Erwin nodded. “Yes, but it's more than that.”

“Okay…” Odilia fingered the dark, wooden stick which looked more like a small branch that was torn from a tree. 

“Odilia, do you remember when you asked me if I could teach you how to do magic?”

“Magic?”

“That’s what I did when I put on the glove without touching it.”

The night in which the girl met the doctor was blurry in her mind. “Oh.”

Erwin pointed at the stick in Odilia’s hand. “That, my nestling, will help you do what I did.”

“Clothe myself without lifting a finger?”

“Do magic,” he smiled.

Odilia yawned and fell back into her bed. “I’m tired.” 

Erwin got up, tucked Odilia into bed, kissed her forehead, and left. He took the glow of the lamplight with him. 

Odilia turned beneath the covers. She fingered the stick which she still held in her hand. 

Magic. Her parents and Ai wouldn’t allow it. Odilia clenched her fist. But Erwin was her father now. Her real parents were gone and Ai was a crane. But Odilia also didn’t know if she wanted to play with magic either. The first time she actually did magic, her sister and her friends were cursed  into birds. Odilia felt her chest tighten. 

She kicked the covers off of herself and stumbled onto the direction of the window. Fingering the wooden panels, she slid them open. Cold air pushed against her pale cheeks and white fluffs swirled into her room. It was snowing.

Still holding the stick, Odilia brought her arm to the window so that the moon and stars would shine their light onto the wood gone warm in her hand.

If she learned magic, could she learn to reverse the spell she cast on her sister?