#heehees.

"So, you've been learning magic with Enki?"

Henry's head pops up behind Daud's shoulder when he's seated, hovering a bit until he can tell he has Daud's attention and he can dance around in front of him.

He had discarded his cape for the time being, swaying back and forth a bit as he seems to consider what he wants to say.

His Pokemon fuss. He feels Meganium's head press against his cheek as he tries to rest, her body shifting in an exhale.

He's lived a long life, comparatively. There were such large gaps in the people who were his age in his homeland, taken far before their times by war, famine and disease.

(He had made the smart decision to abandon Kanto long before it became an issue, and he had only returned in the last year or so. He still remembers the first newspaper he found abroad with the news.)

The mirror shines smartly, so wonderfully cared for by those who held it in great esteem, and he's almost nervous to peer into it.

The face looking back at him holds a dangling water balloon in one hand and is wearing a Dratini mask (because of course it is.) It can't be more than eleven or twelve, judging by the way the yukata is tucked around the knees to show the shorts beneath it.

It just looks at him quietly, considering, before it sways the balloon in place to show the Horsea on the side of it.

It reminds him, quietly, of leaving home - and it draws his eye away from the mirror and to the mountains beyond Mahogany Town, where his father sits and waits.