@gildinglillies
Years had passed since Gladion had first taken over as president of the Aether Foundation, and finally, he was somewhat getting used to it. As much as he’d hated the place for most of his life, he had to admit that when things weren’t completely corrupt, it wasn’t actually terrible. There were some things he wasn’t fond of, but they didn’t hurt anything, and he didn’t want to change things that didn’t need changing. He wasn’t the true president, after all, even if he knew that when the time came, he’d hesitate to hand things back to Lusamine.
That was one thing that changed, though, Gladion didn’t think of his family too much anymore. He worried about Lillie from time to time, yes, as he didn’t trust that she was very safe with Lusamine, or journeying wherever she was, but even she started to slip from the front of his thoughts until she was almost gone due to other concerns that he actually could work on being in the front of his mind.
The day had been dragging by from lack of work to be done, which left Gladion’s mind to wander. He hated when it did that. Most of his thoughts crossed into negative territory, after all. From worries, to bad memories. Sometimes he could bring a good thought along, but it was rare and typically fled rather quickly. The thoughts he was having just before an employee entered his office, saying that someone was there to see him. It took him a minute, but with a sigh he got up to go see the person. Might as well, since the day was so slow.
When he saw, however, Gladion froze for several seconds. He wasn’t expecting the surprise visitor to be Lillie. He hadn’t seen her for years, and now she’s back. But for what reason? “I assume Lusamine is ready to take back presidency?” His first thought slipped almost without him telling it to, and it came out cold, his arms crossing over his chest and his eyes narrowing, though not at his sister, just at the prospect of his mother taking and destroying what he’d worked so hard to build back up.
Gladion drew a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes, as if to try and settle himself, because he felt tense, and he had to keep himself collected. However, upon opening them back up and glancing around for his mother, he noticed that he didn’t actually see any hint of her being there, but he couldn’t think of any other reason why Lillie would be here. He always assumed that she was upset at him for abandoning her. Unless she was here just to see what the place was like now? It had gone through some changes, after all, but if that was the case, she wouldn’t need to ask to see him, and even then, the changes weren’t that great, mostly just upgrades on outdated things and some equipment changes in the labs to deal with the change of focus, which visitors weren’t allowed to see in the first place.
