A Gift

Kyria gave Jack a bit of a strange look.

"Your mother? What was she like?"

Jack scratched the side of his head before raising his finger.

"I haven't ever seen her before, but Dad tells me that she was a really nice person and that I should try to be like her! She had a way of making everybody happy and going along with her all the time, a favorite among favorites Dad would say."

Ben let out a soft hum before giving a small nod.

"That does sound an awful lot like her. I imagine they would've got along if they ever met each other."

Jack nodded rapidly with his hands raised.

"Yeah! Dad said that nobody ever wanted to hurt her because of how amazing she was!"

Ben let out a soft but deep chuckle.

"My master was as well. Though there were people that wished to attack her, nobody could lay a finger on her in the end."

Kyria pouted slightly, hugging her knees closely to her chest.

"I miss her..."

After letting out a whimper, she turned to Ben while on the verge of tears.

"Will she ever come back?"

Ben remained silent for a few moments. He turned his head away, looking up at the sun in the sky. Unlike a real sun, it didn't have the harsh glare that came from looking directly at it. Somehow, despite illuminating everything, it still had a soft glow while staring at it.

He took a deep breath, taking his time to respond.

"I'm sure that even if she never returns, she will be thinking of us."

His tone implied that she wouldn't be coming back. Kyria bit her lip, not because this was news to her, but because it simply wasn't something she wished to believe.

"I... just want to see her once more. Just one time."

After a short moment of silence, she turned to Jack, sheepishly muttering a question.

"How is it for you? You said that you never saw your mother before. Do you ever want to see her?"

Jack let out a hum, scratching his face a little while he thought about his answer.

"I don't know, even if I haven't seen her before, it doesn't feel like she's been gone. I heard many stories about her, and it feels like she's with me that way. But... I guess when I think about how Dad is gone, I do want to see him."

He tilted his head to the side before letting out a goofy smile.

"Maybe I do want to see her and don't know it."

Kyria smiled ever so slightly, looking away slightly.

"I guess I can't consider myself too unfortunate if I had been able to see her in the first place. As you said before, better for the happy times to have happened than not at all. In fact, since she was the one that saved my life, I should consider myself very fortunate."

Jack let out a small gasp, showing a bit of interest.

"She saved your life? Wow! That must be a really good person."

Kyria giggled rather brightly.

"Yeah! I was... dying because of the mistakes I made in trusting people and ended up abandoned. There was a lot of blood coming out of my body and it was also really cold. But while everything turned dark, soon something warm held me. She had put flowers on my back, and I think they were supposed to replace my blood vesses, or something like that."

She blinked a few times before letting out a confused hum.

"Well, whatever she did, let me live on like this."

Kyria did a little pose while holding out her arms, showing all of the flowers growing out of her. It appeared that despite looking like a parasitization, it was actually the other way around, keeping her alive.

Jack observed for a little while before his eyes lit up.

"Ah, that reminds me! I think Seedy would like to join us as well!"

He opened his black deck, and with a flash of light and a roar, Seedy appeared in front of them. It looked around warily with both of its heads, quickly scanning the scenario. After realizing that there wasn't much of a fight going on, it calmed down and curiously looked at the new sight.

Ben showed a hint of surprise and used all three of his heads to inspect the new visitor.

Although Seedy had fallen short in terms of heads, it looked back, alternating its gaze between them. It let out a confused and soft roar with both heads. Ben let out a long hum before turning to look at Jack.

"This is a flower hydra. Although our species are quite far separated from one another, there are surprisingly similar functions. Such as the ability to grow new heads with the consumption of blood, though the thresholds are much lower for it than me."

Hearing that, Jack scratched the side of his head. It was unclear how much of that actually came through to him.

"His name is Seedy! He's been one of my friends for a long time and always plays with me. We have so much fun together."

Seedy appeared to understand what Jack was saying, bringing both heads over to rub against him affectionately. In turn, Jack hugged it as well with a big smile on his face.

Watching all of this, Ben couldn't help but mutter with interest.

"There truly is so much of my master present in you as well."

Kyria slowly nodded as well.

"Yeah, you really do..."

Jack looked between the two of them who both had nostalgic looks on their faces. He chuckled, eyes narrowing as he did so.

"Dad did say that I should try to be like Mom. If mom is similar to your master, then maybe I'm doing a good job!"

Seedy picked him up, lifting Jack up and down excitedly, seemingly because while the reason for excitement wasn't clear, it was simply happy that he was. Jack exclaimed with enthusiasm as he went up and down.

"Woah! Hey, do you guys wanna play a game? Seedy and me against Ben and Kyria!"

Ben blinked a few times, before letting out a hum.

"What game is it?"

Kyria's eyes widened slightly as she looked on with curiosity. Seedy wrapped its vines around Jack and propped him up high, which he used to hold up a finger.

"We can play any game! Maybe tag?"

Kyria looked over at Ben with her hands clasped together, who looked back and let out a sigh. He lowered his head close to the floor, letting her climb on top. Ben wasn't looking forward to it much, since he didn't really want to run around.

Still, just the way she had looked at him upturned made it clear to him that Kyria really did want to play. And so, he accepted.

Jack then pointed forth valiantly with Seedy in tow.

"Forward! Go, go, go!"

Seedy let out a courageous roar before going at his top speed. Which was about the speed of a person walking. It was a rather strange sight to see how excited the two of them were as though they were in an action movie, yet moving at a crawl.

For a moment, Ben was baffled by the strange scene, just looking on for a while. It was at that point that Kyria cried out rather excitedly, pointing at the two.

"Come on, we gotta go catch them!"

After being assigned 'it' like that, Ben let out an awkward smile, raising his head up and slowly going after Jack and Seedy. Like that, the four of them played tag for hours, just going after each other and tagging each other. Seedy would hold Jack out to tag them, while Ben would hold out its head so that Kyria could do the same.

Despite both being on mounts, they would've been far faster should it have been Jack and Kyria chasing after each other.

But that nuance was lost on them. Because they didn't care about optimizing things or how the rules worked. Instead, they were focused on what really mattered, just having fun, even if it didn't really make sense.

They continued to play random games together, and after a good while, Jack ended up taking out one of his rewards he had gotten before. The duck-bill shaped whistle.

It was an item that would simply play a quacking sound to everything nearby and would simply disappear after that. It realistically had no use, but Jack offered it up to the two of them.

"I have statues that help me remember Dad, so I thought that I should give you something if you want it!"

Kyria was blushing slightly, but nodded rather fervently.

"Y-Yes!"

As Jack handed it over, he then let out a small hum.

"I remember there was something about it going away if you use it, but that's just like how the time we spent together, right?"

Kyria became rather shocked as she held onto it, making sure to more gingerly hold it so as to not make it disappear. Seedy saw what he was doing and after a bit of thought, ripped off a small section of its vine using its teeth and handed it over to Ben, who let out a chortle before accepting it.

Kyria smiled as she held onto the whistle, gingerly holding onto it.

She then looked a little sheepishly at Jack.

"I-I guess if you've given me something, it's only right I give something back as well."

Ben gave a small nod.

"I suppose I should as well."