Parisa tilted her chin in acknowledgement, then asked, "Why even do this? Stay here when you could be safer outside?"

"I could ask the exact same of you." He leveled the question back at her.

"My cousin arrested me for regicide so I tried to marry a king, but then he imprisoned me, so now I'm laying low." she replied flatly. "I don't think we have the same story."

"Not the same story, but it goes to show that everyone has their reasons." He pointed out, seemingly unfazed by her narrative. "Though I'll admit mine are not as dramatic."

She shrugged one shoulder and said, "Maybe not. But the Lumanliscs are all drama. Good luck." right as Roo came back with her bowl. She was too intent on her task list to have noticed them, and turned to the princess with an expression of determination. "I don't think you'll want to be here for this part, Princess Tyrneamitore."
"You can just call me Parisa." Pari said. "And don't worry. I'll get out of your hair. Although, those kids..."
"Oh," Roo said. "Right. Their names, do you remember them? Or what they looked like?"
"I don't know their names but there were three of them -- two little boys and a little girl."
"What were they wearing? What color was their hair?"

Pari's brow furrowed as thought back to the events of the night, to the hot chocolate and the snowy doorstep. There had been two boys and one girl, and they had... been small. As all kids were. They'd... maybe one of them had been wearing a hat? But hair color, eye color... even just their faces, she couldn't seem to summon up any recollection of the three. "I don't remember."
"Nothing at all?" Roo asked. "Think very hard."

Giovanni took the bowl from Roo's hands while she conversed and dipped behind one of the walls to get to work.

But Parisa shook her head and, with exhausted unease filtering through her voice, admitted, "I don't remember anything about them."
Roo's gaze softened sympathetically. "Then they were ghosts."
"Oh. Ghosts. Of course there would be ghosts here."
"Well, they're not really... ghosts." Roo said. "They're like, hmm. They're inconsequential. They can't harm you, and most don't want to. The forest children are common... a lot of kids died out here."
"Feo said they were from the next village over."
"Yes, there used to be one, about a decade before I was born. It was razed to the ground overnight." Roo flexed her fingers, then sighed. "They're mostly looking for a warm home and some kindness. A memory of what they used to know, maybe. Or maybe a last wish, something they asked the gods for when their lives were taken from them."
Pari's throat clenched but she didn't say anything as Roo turned away. "I should help Giovanni."
"Right." she muttered. "I'll go out to Feo."

Feofil had sat down on the stoop, head tucked nearly between his knees. A couple crimson spatters had gathered in the trodden snow between his shoes, the drip from his nose no longer a continuous stream but not fully stemmed. He inhaled and exhaled in measured breaths, feeling a little bit better out in the open air.

When she stepped outside, the breeze lifting her hair and smattering snow across her throat, she realized just how stifling the house had been. It was getting darker outside - and everyone knew the dark was unsafe in Altair - but it felt better than the inside of the manor, right now.
She glanced down at Feofil, then brushed some snow off the stoop and perched beside him, hoping that when she got up, she wouldn't have a damp ass. "Hey."

"Hey," he brought his head up a little to glance in her direction, pushing his bangs out of his face. "So we made it."