(3rd person PoV)
(At 7 years old)
"One! Two!..." Nephelont was counting up to ten while Ais, Aria and Aeolus went to hide somewhere nearby. This game of hide n' seek was rigged to no end, and all participants knew that.
The three grown women were hiding from both Nephelont and his senses. His sense of smell proved notorious, so they manipulated the wind to hide their odors. His sense of hearing was enhanced, so they needed to guide the winds to hide their smaller noises that are usually unnoticeable.
"Ten! Mommy! Grannies! Nephelont's coming!" Nephelont said before bolting around the manor. With his golden eye blending in behind his long hair, his red eye glinted even more noticeably.
While running around, he tried applying what he was taught by his mother and grandmother. They tried teaching him how to sense them even behind their elaborate covers. The better he was, the faster he caught them, and the better he was at controlling his winds in return.
Nephelont searched the manor high and low before seeing Eucleia in the kitchen. She was taking cooking lessons from Meteria. He asked her for the reason when she started the day before but got little to no answer. All Eucleia said was that she wanted to learn how to cook.
"Now, where could they be?" Nephelont asked himself while pointing a finger at his small chin. "Should I stretch the searching radius?"
Between Nephelont and Ais, they felt their surroundings differently. While Ais left it to catch onto things passively and without specifying a shape for the area she feels, leaving it ever-changing, Nephelont made his area into a dome. Though, if he was in the air, it would have been a complete sphere.
Since he controlled the shape, he also had to control its size. he usually kept it just around his body to avoid invading others' privacy. He did not understand the concept of privacy completely yet, but he wanted to fulfill the respect part of it. As such, he kept his air dome small.
Also, stretching the area would expend mind, which he did not like very much. The dizzy feeling of low mind reserves bothered him. He ignored his discomfort, however, as "desperate times call for desperate measures", or so Henryk says sometimes.
As he stretched the area of winds he controls, the amount of information he got also increased. He needed to process it all to minute levels to find Ais and Aria. As for Aeolus, he never found her even once before.
Sensing something that might be Aria, he sprinted towards reception hall. He scrambled to find her before she sneaked away. For his efforts, he discovered that Aria, being a spirit of the wind, manipulated some winds around the area without being present in it to trick him.
"I'm gonna find you! Grandma Aria!" Nephelont furiously ran around the manor in search of this specific person and no other.
Since he had so much information to process, he failed to notice Aria floating by the high ceiling of the reception hall, which was open on the second floor. It helped her that she stopped her lungs from moving and instead moved the air in and out very slowly to avoid him catching onto her.
'You have much to learn! My precious sun bunny!' Aria looked upon him fondly as he promised her to catch her so loudly.
When Nephelont reached the training grounds, he saw Lionheart, his paternal grandfather, training with his magic. Lionheart was ghost-sparring with his memory of how Albert fought. He wanted a proper spar with the man, but either one of them was required to be present with the blacky gecko at all times to allow Bell, Ais and Welf to stay with the kids without worries. After all, across the ages, only Albert and Lionheart could restrain it single-handedly in any meaningful way. They could only visit when they switch places every now and then.
"Gramps! Did you see mommy or grandmas?" Nephelont said while running towards Lionheart.
"Oh! Little bunny!" Lionheart knelt to welcome Nephelont with open arms. He hugged him then stood up with Nephelont in his arms. "How are you today, Nephelont?"
"Neph- I feel well today!" Nephelont corrected himself. He wanted to seem like a grown-up by referring to himself in first person. That only made him look more like a cute child than he already is. "I'm playing hide and seek with mommy and grandmas Aria and Aeolus! Do you know where they are?" Nephelont said while tilting his head. His hair covered his golden left eye.
"I saw Aeolus passing by" Lionheart said. "Remember? I can't be helping you now" He said with an apologetic smile.
"Why though?!" Nephelont pouted. "Nephelont really wants to catch Grandma Aeolus!" He threw his arms in the air with his eyes closed.
Lionheart's heart could hardly handle the sight before him. He debated whether he should tell him or not but decided against it. 'If he puts in the effort now, it's gonna save his life later, when it really matters'
"Sorry, Nephelont, I can't help you with this one. I promised them not to" Lionheart said as he put Nephelont down. "But between us, Aeolus went that way" He said while pointing in a direction.
He failed to notice Aeolus, who was doing the same as Aria while hiding above one side of the slanted ceilings above the stands.
'It is a true loss, not being present for my son's childhood...' Remembering how non-existent that childhood may have been without the sacrifice of the two familias, Lionheart shook the grim thoughts off. 'At least, we are here for our grandson. We can glimpse some of what Bell could have been as a child from him' Looking at Nephelont's departing little back, Lionheart's heart ached. 'Zeus made sure Bell was happy for a child. I'm thankful for that, even if it's the only thing I'm thankful to that old perv for!'
'Good call, Lionheart' Aeolus could vaguely guess Lionheart's reason for not telling Nephelont where exactly she was hiding. Nephelont went through one of the exits instead of looking for her above the training grounds. He passed right under her. Lionheart shook his head at the sight of his clueless grandson running right under his target without noticing her. He wiped his goofy smile before resuming his training. He was trying to create yet another way to use his {Everyday Magic}.
Nephelont ran to the gardens, where the moths and papilioes were enjoying some sunbathing.
"Has anyone seen mommy or grandmas Aria and Aeolus?" Nephelont asked them, forgetting that these specific children of Henryk could not speak. Instead, one of them came closer and wrote it in the dirt, "No, we didn't see any of them. We were busy basking in the sun's warmth".
"Thanks for telling me!" Nephelont said cheerfully while running to the trees. He remembered Ais taking a nap on a branch before. Searching all the trees with both sight and wind, he did not find her. As he walked past it, his attention was directed towards the high branches of the tallest tree in the garden, the one a certain eagle nested on.
"Could mommy be up there?" He looked up. He sent a gust of wind up there to help him get a feel. While he found a humanoid body, and was preparing to go see who it was, he was taken by surprise.
"Little bunny!!" He was carried by the head by said certain eagle. Fey felt joyful playing with kids like Nephelont, and she saw this chance and took it.
"Let Nephelont go!" Nephelont flailed like usual, a futile attempt to escape from Fey, an impossible feat.
"No~!" Fey decided that she wanted to play with him now. She flew high in the sky with Nephelont tightly in her grasp. Aside from some of her monster siblings, he was one of the few who could fly with her all on his own.
"Fey'll let go now~!" Fey said as she slowly released Nephelont from her talons.
As he was released, Nephelont harnessed all of his focus and power to keep himself afloat, leaving him with none to keep asking the wind to help him search for anyone. A good outcome of this, if any at all, is that he now spotted Ais. He confirmed that she was the only one on the tree, making her the person he sensed up here.
"Nephelont found mommy!" Nephelont cheerfully pointed at Ais, who was clapping for him on his success. She then proceeded to fly closer to him and help him move a little in the air. By the time they were done, Nephelont was too tired after consuming so much mind and took a nap.
Nephelont was later told to not only ask the wind for information on what moved, but also on the shapes of things that do not. Someone, or something, might be able to conceal themselves by simply not moving otherwise.