It was only now that Nova truly understood something he had never stopped to think about before. Aresdra was not entirely alone in the world. Somewhere far away, in the distant Asgardian Alliance, she had people who were family.
Sharif Aleushenko was a well-known adventurer and scholar from the Asgardian Alliance, and had once been a close friend of Dimitri Kotav — Aresdra's late father.
Mataja Aleushenko, now Sharif's wife, had been born Mataja Kotana. She was Dimitri's younger sister, which made her Aresdra's aunt by blood.
In Asgardian custom, women take their husband's surname after marriage. The naming convention was something Nova struggled to follow — male relatives carried a "–kov" or "–fu" ending, while female relatives took a "–na" or "–va" form. His mind spun trying to sort it all out, but he managed to pick out the one piece of information that mattered most.
This blue-eyed, blonde Asgardian woman was Aresdra's aunt.
By the customs of the Norlandia Alliance, that made the two of them Aresdra's aunt and uncle.
Nova felt a sudden, instinctive unease settle over him.
He quietly stepped back behind Aresdra, doing his best to look small and unimportant, while straining to follow the Asgardian conversation with what little of the language he had picked up over the years.
Then Mataja said it.
"We came here looking for you. Come back to Asgard with us — we will take good care of you."
Nova had heard enough. Before Aresdra could even open her mouth to respond, he stepped forward, putting himself between her and the two Asgardians.
"Now you want to take her back?" he said, his tone sharp. "When Aresdra's parents were confirmed missing and she was sent to an orphanage in Harmony City — where were you then? Where was this family of yours when she needed someone to take responsibility?"
There was a brief, confused silence.
Mataja blinked. "What is he saying?"
Sharif asked the more pressing question. "Who is he?"
Both of them looked to Aresdra for a translation.
Aresdra, however, let out a small laugh. She glanced back at Nova, then turned to her aunt and uncle with a perfectly straight face.
"His name is Nova. He's my — well, my friend. He was just saying that Mataja looks very beautiful, and that Sharif is tall and handsome."
Nova caught just enough of that to feel his eye twitch.
He couldn't speak Asgardian, but he could understand a fair amount of it by now. He stared at Aresdra in disbelief. She had looked those two right in the eye and delivered that translation without even flinching.
Your translator has absolutely no shame.
Mataja tilted her head, looking uncertain. "I want to thank him for saying so, but... he looked so worked up just now. Like a Psyduck that had been smacked on the head. That did not sound like flattery."
Sharif, cutting straight to the point, added, "Are you really just friends?"
Aresdra opened her mouth to brush it off with something light. Before she could get a word out, a hand reached around from behind her. Nova pressed his index finger and thumb gently against her upper and lower lips and pinched them shut.
Don't you dare.
I don't need your translation for this part.
Nova took a slow breath. Then, in the most broken Asgardian he had ever attempted — piecing words together with gestures and sheer stubbornness — he pushed out the following:
"She... my... girlfriend. We... grow up... together. You... take her away... not possible. You... understand?"
Mataja turned to her husband with an expression that was somewhere between amused and exasperated. Sharif held her gaze for a moment, then finally gave up all pretense of confusion and replied to Nova in perfectly fluent Norlandian:
"We heard every word of that, Mr. Psyduck."
Nova stiffened. You're the Psyduck. Both of you are.
Aresdra looked at Sharif with wide eyes. "Sharif — you speak Norlandian?"
"Yes, Aresdra." Sharif's voice became quieter, more measured. "I am a scholar of ancient studies. Norlandian is one of the oldest living languages in the world. Of course I learned it." He paused. "It was my insistence on coming to the Norlandia Alliance for research that brought Dimitri here with me. I have never stopped thinking about that. I still feel, even now, that I played a part in what happened to him."
Aresdra went still. With the language barrier gone, there was nothing more for her to smooth over. Her earlier attempt at mediating had been pointless from the start.
Nova was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke again, his tone less heated this time.
"Mr. Aleushenko, I don't think you should blame yourself for what happened to Aresdra's parents. The Western Plateau was always going to call to someone like Mr. Kotav. He was a climber, a dreamer — with or without your friendship bringing him here, he would have eventually stood at this same valley and looked up at those peaks. The path was always going to lead him here."
Sharif lowered his head slightly. "Thank you for saying that..."
"But." Nova did not let the moment pass. "I cannot forgive either of you. Not yet. When Aresdra's parents were gone and she had no one, she was placed in an orphanage in Harmony City — a city in a region she barely knew, surrounded by people she had never met. You were her family. You knew where she was. And you left her there. Did that feel like looking after your friend's child? Did that feel like family?"
Aresdra quietly reached over and tugged at Nova's sleeve.
Mataja looked stricken. She pressed her lips together, eyes glistening.
Sharif looked at Aresdra for a long moment before speaking softly. "Regarding what your friend asked — Mataja and I have wondered the same thing for years. All this time, we wanted to know why you were so insistent on staying. Why you refused to come back with us."
Aresdra let out a short, tired laugh. She turned to Nova with a look that was equal parts fond and irritated.
"I never wanted to say this out loud." Her voice was quiet but firm. "You've forced my hand. Don't you dare use it to tease me later."
She didn't wait for his response. She turned back to Sharif and Mataja, and when she spoke again, her voice was steady.
"Sharif. Mataja. Please try to understand.
The truth is... I'm a coward. I still am, even now. I still haven't fully accepted that Mom and Dad are never coming back. So I told myself I had to stay — here in Norlandia, in Harmony City, as close to Dragon's Fang Valley as I could get. I thought that if I stayed, and if they ever found their way back, they would be able to find me.
I was afraid that if I went back to Asgard with you, the last thread connecting them to this world would be cut. I was afraid it would make everything final and real and impossible to ignore.
That was why I refused you when I was eight years old. I know it was selfish. I know it wasn't fair to you. But I still hope you can understand why."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Nova said nothing. He hadn't known. He had never once imagined that was the reason she had chosen to stay. She had called herself a coward, but the choice she had made as an eight-year-old — to remain alone in a foreign place just to hold on to a small, stubborn hope — was anything but.
Mataja was crying quietly. Sharif stood very still, his expression unreadable. But there was something in the way he looked at Aresdra — something distant and aching, as though he were seeing not just her, but the faces of Dimitri and his wife reflected in her.
"And now?" Sharif asked at last, his voice gentle. "After all this time — will you still refuse us for the same reason?"
Aresdra shook her head.
"I've grown up, Sharif." Her voice was calm, though not without weight. "You might still see me as the little girl who turned you away at the door. But I've changed. Those feelings haven't disappeared — but I've had years to sit with them. I think... I think I've changed enough."