[This post is from Matt Astoris’s point of view.]
Lin stared at the forge for a few seconds, his brow furrowing slightly. “Aunt Caro could only give me a direction that they left in. Did you…?”
“Know where they were going?” Matt sighed and scrubbed his free hand over his face, suddenly not caring if he left a smudge of soot behind in its wake. “Not in any kind of precise way. No one that we have contact with has ever said anything about seeing them, though, so either they avoided all of the usual places Cameron stops, no one recognized them for who they were, or they somehow swore everyone to secrecy.”
Lin seemed to slump, his frown deepening. “That’s…”
“Not helpful,” Matt said. “I know, Lin. But it tells you where you don’t have to start, right?”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Lin, my life hasn’t made sense since before you were born.” He cracked a smile even as his nephew shot him a deeply skeptical look. “All kidding aside, if you’re going with our visitors off on their quest for…well…for whatever comes after finding their once and future king, don’t you think you should support them rather than focusing on your personal quest here?”
“You make them sound mutually exclusive.”
“Neither of us know at this point if they are or not, Lin. But I think if anyone’s going to be able to find your parents, it’s going to be you, but it’s only going to be if they want to be found.” He sighed quietly. “And unless they’ve reached the goal they set for themselves already, they’re not going to want to be found.”
And if they’ve reached that goal, have they found another? Or have they simply resigned themselves to never, ever coming home?
