>Well, there was that incident a thread or two ago...
>Was Orange at the orphanage before us, or did she come to live there after Ichirin took us in?
>"I'll always love you darling...">She'd been there for a few years before you became a youkai, though you'd been close to the same level of mental development at the time you arrived. ...even if part of you still feels sheepish looking back on this fact. Perhaps because of this, Orange took to you quickly and even though your reciprocation was neither as immediate nor as expressive, the two of you soon became good friends.
>Was she another ascended youkai like us?
>No. Orange is the biological descendant of two other youkai, as near as anyone including her can tell. She was found by Unzan on an isolated islet several miles off the edge of Estval, injured, alone, and starving, the sole survivor of an apparent airship crash. She was little more than an infant in youkai terms, too young to fend for herself, too young to even remember her parent's names or where she had come from. Ichirin tried to search for her home or any family she might have left, but was never able to find anything.
>What little wreckage had landed on solid ground proved useless in identifying the vessel or its flight plan, and no ships that had either recently departed Braston or were scheduled to arrive there during that time period ever turned up missing. In fact, in all these years since, no news of the crash has ever reached any of your ears; where the ship came from and where it was going remains a mystery. Orange herself has tried to remember, tried so very hard, but she was simply too young; whatever happened on that day is gone, like a distant nightmare faded in the waking light. All she has left from before the crash are a few scattered images, almost impressions: a house on a grassy hill; the smell of warm pumpkin pie; a woman's face, smiling, her hair red as flame; a sense of home, of love. Nothing that would offer even the barest clue to this riddle.
>Ichirin left notices in Braston for a while, about the crash and Orange's survival, looking for anyone who knew anything about what happened. She even had some sent to Val Razua, but no one ever showed up at the doors of the orphanage with information. No one came looking for Orange. By now, you figure that probably means there's no one out there to look. Not that this ever would dissuade
her from trying....
>That was the reason Orange tried to join the Seekers, in fact: so that she could track down her birthplace. And even when this plan was dashed, she never once changed her mind about leaving for Val Razua and finding where she'd come from. Despite the tragedy of her past, she was always a cheerful child; perhaps this is the blessing of remembering so little. She never strove to find her family out of a sense of abiding loneliness or unbelonging; Ichirin had been as much a mother to her as any biological parent would have been, and you know Orange regards her as such. It was simply about discovering the truth of her own past. If she still has living family out there, then she can meet them and know them and let them know she's still alive. And if not... then she can pay proper respects at last to the people who gave birth to her. And whatever her clumsiness or naivety or lack of cunning, there is not a doubt in your mind that she'll keep trying until she finds what she's looking for.
>Did she and we ever diddle around?
>You did not. While you never
really thought of her as a sister, you wouldn't be surprised if she had sometimes regarded you as such. In either case, you were both part of the closest thing you've had to a 'family'; this just wasn't something that would have occurred to you where she was concerned.
