#as well as the fact that kallian seemed to know about the connection between telethia and high entia

[eaglefairy]

I just had the thought for a little fic about Kallian going to Melia after the events at Prison Island but before she leaves with the party and formally apologizing for Yumea's actions; not because either of them actually believe he holds any responsibility or guilt for it, but because he knows that Melia approaches all of her relationships very formally and he figures this is the best way he can connect with his sister while they're both grieving

Which lead into more general thoughts about Melia and the way she interacts with people. Overall, I don't think she had any (canonical) casual, unstructured relationships before meeting the party. Her cadre is a group of bodyguards meant to protect her, all her interactions with Sorean are very formal up until he dies (at which point Melia herself notes that she was distant from him), and I'm trying to remember if she and Kallian ever interact privately just the two of them before he dies but if they did, I'm guessing it followed the same pattern. Even when she meets the party, she makes their initial relationship transactional: help me defeat the Telethia and I will get you to Alcamoth. Of course it isn't unthinkable that she had friends that were never important enough to mention on-screen, but I think this idea of Melia wrapping all her relationships in layers of formality for the sake of familiarity is an interesting one. Being the spare princess in Alcamoth's court can't have been easy for her, and falling back on protocols and codes of conduct could be a way for her to make sure she does everything "right".

Obviously befriending the rest of the party helped with this, but it surely keeps cropping up. Sharla was probably quite thrown when she saw what she thought was hers, Fiora's, and Melia's "girl time" penciled into the calendar as "meeting the representatives from colonies 6 and 9", but everyone gets used to it eventually