Adders whistled, "Damn that's awesome. I just move metal around." He took a metal kitchen knife out of his bag to show Lin. He moved it in his hand and the blade bent sideways before snapping back to its original position. "Must've been pretty harding hiding them from your family."
"Ooh, cool!" Lin curiously watched Adders bending the metal. "And yeah, it was pretty hard… I had to keep training myself on my own time as well. I've had a lot of time to train lately as well. I think that living out alone in the woods is starting to get to me, though… I feel weaker. I'm losing weight, and I get fatigued a lot more quickly. I'm not sure how to fix it, though…"
"It's not as cool as fire and lightning." Adders said putting the knife away. "I stole extra food. You're welcome to take any of it." He said pushing the bag towards Lin.
"Oh, thanks!" Lin hesitated before taking a small amount of food out of the bag to start eating. "And I guess it's cool… part of my training was like, getting shocked with electricity and being exposed to intense heat and burns, so I'm pretty resilient to those now."
"Take as much as you want." Adders said, taking a slice of bread for himself and letting it flop over in his hand. "That's crazy, why would parents do that to their kids? To anyone?"
Lin took a bite of the bread and shrugged a bit. "I dunno… that's why I ran away though. I'm worried about my siblings… I've got six siblings. My youngest brother, Rem, is only six years old, and he's going through the same training as me."
"Oh dear. It was always just me and my father, I don't know what it's like to have any siblings or anything like that." Adders eyes lit up as he got what could be considered one of the dumbest ideas of his life. "We should rescue your siblings! We could be like, vigi- vigilantes!" He said, struggling with pronouncing the unfamiliar word.
"Vigilantes?" Lin repeated, seeming a bit confused. "But we're just kids. We have no qualifications to uphold any laws. I mean, I guess we could, but… I'm sure we're breaking a lot of laws ourselves."
"Vigilantes, by definition, work outside the law." Adders said, feeling smart. "And I've broken plenty of laws anyway. Probably. I don't actually know them."
"Ah… I don't really know the laws all that well either, but I presume they're not all that different from British laws." Lin watched Adders curiously and took another bite of bread.
"I'm sure they're similar enough." Adder said, shrugging and finally eating some bread. He stared at nothing and let himself zone out.
"Probably, yeah… I-I dunno how we could rescue my siblings anyway. I haven't any money to get back to England, and I dunno if they'd be willing to fight back against my parents."
Adders snapped back into reality. "I'm sure we can convince at least one of them. And we can earn money, or steal it, or-" You could ask your dad. A voice in the back of his mind said, making him trail off. His face went blank and he froze, debating with himself.
"Mm… maybe. My older brother Friese might be willing. He's the most… eager to fight of my siblings. I dunno if the rest of them would be willing to gang up against my parents…" Lin sighed softly.
I can't ask my dad, it's been six months, and he hates me.
"We can at least try." Adders said, accidentally throwing his bread slice across the fort and having to go get it. "Between your awesome fire and lightning powers and my-" He paused, "-metal manipulation, we can conquer anything!"
Lin flushed a bit and nodded. "Yeah, I guess… and my family wouldn't expect me to be coming back home with powerful magic or anything." He laughed weakly. "My older siblings are all really strong, so… it's more a question of if they'd be willing to fight."
"If you impress them with your power, I'm sure they'd follow your lead." Adders said, shaking the bread and eating some without hesitation. "I'll help where ever I can, I have a backup plan for getting to England but it has to be our very VERY backup plan."
"I guess so…" Lin looked down at his hands with a contemplative hum, glancing up again at Adders' proposition. "Hmm? A backup plan?" He asked to clarify. "Alright, what have you got? It might very well work…"
"Like I said, very very backup but-" Adders groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm, "-my father could probably get us flown over. And that removes the added complication of me going through border control as a 'missing child'" He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers for the last two words.
"Huh. I guess you… still have contact with your dad, then?" Lin asked curiously. "Enough that he'd be willing to fly us to England in the first place?" Why would he be living alone, then?
"Not really, I haven't seen, or spoken to him for about six months. I remember where he lives, it's not close." He sighed and tapped his fingers on his wrist repeatedly. "My father is- interesting. And we had a complicated relationship to say the least."
"Interesting… my relationship with my parents wasn't good, of course, but at least I knew exactly what they thought of me and what they expected of me. They never held that kinda thing back. It sound like you and your father are a bit more complicated."
"Very much so." Adders said, losing his appetite and putting his bread down. "We fell out a lot. I was planning to leave a long time before I did. Probably should have gone earlier." He tucked his knees up and hugging them in to his chest.
"Huh." Lin paused before taking another bite of his bread, watching Adders curiously. "What exactly is your dad like, then? Is he nice, but you just fought on everything? Or is he mean and hurtful?"
"He was more focused on his job than me but when he was, I don't think he knew he was being mean." He looked down. When he glanced up again, he started directly at Lin. "Not sure I want to share it all now."