You know, considering how Siffrin was almost certainly still a child when the Northern Island got erased- I tend to assume they were around thirteen, but we know that they were "a teenager" so even the oldest they could be is still pretty young- it's interesting that they wound up completely on their own.
Sure, maybe the time period is a little too pre-modern to have Child Protective Services or something- but considering how open and welcoming Vauguardians are to strangers, it's a little surprising to think that they'd look at a clearly-not-okay kid who just washed up on their beach, doesn't speak their language, and looks extremely lost and just go "rough luck, buddy, here's a croissant and some hiking boots, you go do your own thing" instead of like. At least trying to see if there's a House or a household willing to take them in.
It could be that one did for a little while and that they just moved out when they were old enough, but given how attached he gets to the party in like six months when he's a fully-grown adult who had time to process and heal (sort of), if they had a foster family it'd be weird for them to never come up at all.
It's also interesting how Siffrin's memory trauma seems to manifest not just as being frightened of forgetting, but also of being forgotten.
So, here's what I'm thinking: maybe, when Siffrin first arrived in Vauguard, they were easy to forget.
Not because there was anything wrong with them, but because they'd just come from the Northern Island. Everything about them, every single little detail, would remind people of it.
And that place is impossible to remember.
When they first washed up on the northern coastline, of course people took them to the nearest House- that's a shipwrecked child, they need help! And the Housemaidens treated them like any other patient, caring for the heatstroke and dehydration that come from being adrift in a small boat on the wide sea for a day or two.
But once they were recovered enough to do things like talk, they just kept... losing track of them, somehow.
He just didn't stick in the mind very well, leaving a trail of headaches and confused people trailing off in mid-sentence, unable to quite recall what they were talking about.
Because clearly they were busy, they must be! They were doing important work, with no time to care for one lost child. That's very clear to him, otherwise why would they keep forgetting about him so much? If they wanted him here, they would have said something.
And it's hard for a child to support themselves, wandering around alone with nothing but what's in their pockets... but, as it turns out, it's surprisingly easy for someone Very Forgettable to just. Slip quietly into a group, without anyone noticing.
They'd get to a new town or city, look around and find a group of kids their own age- a school trip, a birthday party, a pack of them wandering around the local park- and just sort of fall in line with the rest. If a teacher or parent did a quick headcount, they'd slip easily out of their mind.
And that turned out to be a pretty good way to get a meal, and learn useful things- watching the others, picking up helpful tricks from what they say and do, learning how to speak Vauguardian or act like a local, getting an education in bits and pieces of other people's classes.
After a year or two, it stopped working- people didn't go all glazed over or wander away when they spoke to them (because they learned Vauguardian, could communicate and not leave himself and everyone in earshot nursing a headache). Their gaze didn't just slide over him like it used to.
(They picked up more and more from the land they were travelling in, to fill the empty spaces where the things they couldn't remember used to go. Smoothed out their mannerisms, changed their habits. To a fellow countryman, they would still always be unmistakable- but to people who'd never lived and breathed their homeland, the Island, they were vague enough to be just another traveler, now.)
But by then, they were old enough to work little part time jobs, ways of getting at least a bit of money here and there. They couldn't do their old trick anymore, but they didn't need to, they were strong enough to survive without it. Like a cuckoo chick finally getting its adult plumage and flying out of a stolen nest.
It's fine. They didn't want to take more than they needed, anyway. It wouldn't be fair to keep doing it anymore when they had other options.
...Incidentally, Siffrin would be very surprised to know that, to this day, there's a number of towns and cities on the Vauguardian coastline that all have urban legends about a Child-Ghost.
A little waif of a thing all in white that disguises itself as a playmate for a group of living children and tries to hide among them. If you confront it, the story goes, it wails in grief and disappears, leaving your head and your heart aching terribly.
But they don't mean any harm, and if you just give them a little food and let them rest for a moment, they'll be on their way and not cause any trouble.
(Sometimes, even the people who forget you still remember.)
