Sunset came with a visitor. A barrel-chested man with a firm expression appeared at their doorstep.
"Lixy!" he roared, yanking her into a bear hug that crushed her against his solid shoulders and muscular arms until she coughed. When he caught the eyeing children, he released her with sudden formality and took two stiff steps backward.
"My apologies," he grunted, knuckling his throat. "Old habits die hard. You're looking...well-fed, Lix. No complaints, I hope?"
"Surviving. Thank you for coming, Joe." Pink bloomed across her cheekbones.
He shifted his focus to the children, the corners of his mouth twitching into a reluctant grin. "These are the ankle-biters?" Without waiting for a response, he crouched, rough hands reaching out to ruffle Alan's hair.
Lix's eyes widened, her lips parting in protest, but no words escaped. The last time someone touched Alan without permission, their barn lost its roof. This time, however, the roof belonged to Lix.
Alan blinked, flabbergasted. He studied the stranger's marble-smooth scalp. Thick brow ridges cast shadows over his eyes, dark as burnt umber pits. A knife scar bisected his flattened nose, disappearing into a bushy beard that twitched with each attempt at a smile.
Alan blinked again; Joe's awkward grin stretched wider; his meaty hand lingered, rubbing as if he expected Alan to react—perhaps give him a bark?
Alan did not bark. He bit. Whoosh—BOOM! A gust hurled the man through the doorway.
"Hack! Hrrrk! Khhhaff!" The man's hacking cough rattled the porch boards as he stood. "Ha!" He faked a laugh to mask the coughing. "This one's got vinegar!" Gravel clung to him as he brushed it off awkwardly, moving as if his bulk had solidified and shortened his limbs. "Just like your ma, eh?"
Lix darted toward him, her face flustered. Whether it was Joe's remark or Alan's action that unsettled her was unclear. She batted gravel from Joe's sleeves with heavy swats and turned her scolding to Alan. "Mind your manners, or I'll make your dinner come with a side of chores!"
Alan didn't respond. He had learned to tune out Lix's routine scolding like the crickets' song before a dream.
Joe waved her off with a booming laugh, oblivious to her strained tone. "Let the cub flex his claws," he said, winking at Alan. "Guild brats are all spitfire at his age. Still..." He fixed Lix with a sharp stare. "I've got to ask—what have you been feeding this one?"
Lix stiffened. Her hands stayed on Joe's sleeve a moment longer than necessary before darting her eyes to the boy, then back. "He's been lucky to have proper meals lately."
When the scolding and apologies settled, Lix gripped both children's shoulders. "Alan. Emma. This is Joe—an old friend." She pressed her thumb into Alan's collarbone until he winced. "He's offered to shelter you in Nedel. You'll treat his home with more respect than you've shown my garden shed. Is that clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Emma whispered, while Alan gave only a curt nod, his gaze locked on Joe's chiseled torso, his expression caught between admiration and disgust.
Joe handed each child a honey candy from his pocket, a small gesture to soften the abrupt arrival. "Pack light," he told them. "We'll leave at sunrise. My girl's already setting up your bunks."
The gifts did not impress the children, though Emma finished hers in two bites. Alan gave her his as they trudged into their room; he suspected dinner wouldn't be on time tonight.
Joe settled at the kitchen table, where Lix poured him a cider that smelled like autumn's rot.
"We were unstoppable," Joe said, clinking his mug against hers. "The 106th Party—a five-piece puzzle. My iron shield, your hurricane gales, Von's piercing arrows, Bralt's skull-shattering hammer, and Mira patching us up when the dust settled..."
Lix's eyes dropped to her hands, and she traced the scar slicing through her palm with her thumb. "Until we became three."
They drank and reminisced over their battle-forged memories. Joe's iron shield shattered in the jaws of the serpent. Lix's wind barriers carved through the dense swamp fog. Von's flaming arrows lit their desperate retreat. But when Joe spoke Mira's name—the healer who'd vanished in mid-battle—Lix's knuckles whitened around her mug. They drank until their tongues clung to their teeth.
The next day, Alan's thighs fused to the splintered bench in the wagon as the three journeyed to Nedel, leaving behind Lix in a home that suddenly grew too large. He could have flown a round trip before the mule even plodded halfway, but Lix's words hissed in his mind: Be normal!
Alan offered no protest, even as his backside ached. He knew she meant well. Yet Joe's endless tales felt like nails digging into his seat, making him want to rip through the roof and scream.
"—and the dire boar charged, tusks red with globin blood—" Joe's voice sawed through the day's oppressive heat. Alan counted the crows circling above, trying in vain to block out Joe's grating tone—something that came far more easily with Lix. But this? Alan exhaled heavily, longing to take flight with the crows overhead. His frustration only grew when Emma, nibbling on journey bread, asked, "Did the hammer really get stuck in a troll's skull?"
Joe puffed his chest. "Darn right, it did. Bralt would sooner abandon his breeches than that hammer, I'll tell you. Stuck so firm, the troll stumbled off a cliff and took the hammer with it!" He laughed.
Alan groaned inwardly. Joe could've called the serpent a dragon and left the story none the worse. Truth, Alan thought sourly, never sat at the man's table.
The days crawled by. The wagon reeked of manure and Joe's onion-sweat stench. When Nedel's marble walls stabbed the horizon on the fifth day, Alan nearly wept.
The city stood timeless. The marble stones bleed faintly under the setting sun, their pale surface etched with intricate patterns that tell of centuries-old craftsmanship. Battlements crowned the walls, their spires piercing the sky like spearheads.
The guard glanced at Joe's seal and waved them through, but not before the mule relieved itself one final time. The guard's lips twitched, and Alan suppressed a laugh; he could only guess what Joe had been feeding the poor thing. It was a miracle she hadn't abandoned them halfway.
"Clean up your waste!" the guard barked. Joe ignored his shout, whistling with an air of presumed privilege.
Inside stood a girl carved from the same stubborn stone as the city's walls. Her boots sank into the earth as though staking a claim. Her stance mirrored Joe's—broad, rooted, an iron wall unto herself—but her eyes betrayed her. Honey-colored, Alan noted, though there was nothing sweet in them. They glinted like the dagger Lix kept sheathed beneath her pillow: polished, purposeful, and faintly resentful of its unused edge.
Her braids coiled loosely around her head, their blonde strands slipping free like prisoners escaping a poorly barred cell. Joe's stormcloud scowl found new life in her furrowed brows. Still, her lips carried an even sharper tension as if every unspoken word had turned sour on her tongue. When Joe's shadow stretched beside her, her jaw tightened—not in greeting, but in defiance.
"Took you long enough," she said, voice rasping like a whetstone drawn over steel.
"Firefly!" Joe's palm engulfed her shoulder. "These are your new nestmates."
He turned to the two children. "Alan, Emma. Meet Milla—my daughter."
Milla stomped, causing a vibration that nearly toppled Emma. "So you're the village brats," she announced, louder than necessary. A chipped tooth flashed when she grinned, adding a comical touch to her fierce demeanor. She thrust out her hand toward Alan, issuing a challenge. "First one to cry in a wrestling match mops the floor!"
Alan leaned against the water trough—too tired to bother with a greeting. He noted how her braids hung through half-lidded eyes—not just loose, but frayed from constant re-tightening as if she'd yanked them in frustration.
Emma lingered half a step behind him. "Hello…"
Milla's foot snapped out, a pebble cracking against Alan's shin. "Cat got your sister's tongue?" Before Emma could retreat, Milla seized her wrist and flipped her palm upward. Milla's hands, though young, were mapped with calluses, the skin around her thumbs cracked and raw.
"Huh." Milla's grip tightened, firm but not cruel. "Joe said you had a witcher hand, but I didn't think it'd be this soft."
The word "witcher" rang out like a struck bell. Alan's spine stiffened—they weren't supposed to know, unless—but Emma simply blinked, her wrist slack in Milla's grasp.
"I… I don't practice combat," Emma said.
Milla released her with a derisive snort. "Quiet's dull." She flicked a braid over her shoulder. "Don't worry—I'll fix that."