When Roland walked in with Milena's uncle, the king, he lit the chandeliers as well as the fireplace with magic. He then turned and glared at me. What did I do now?

Milena stood up and curtsied, "Good evening, uncle."

Oh, right... formal stuff.

I stood up, bowed and said, "Good evening."

"That's 'Good evening, Your Majesty!'" Roland yelled at me. Hey, shut it, jerk. This is a first for me.

"That's quite alright, Roland," the king said. "He's just a child after all. He's had no one to teach him, either. Now how about we all sit down and have a nice chat, hmm?"

Milena and I sat back down on the couch. Roland and the king took a set of armchairs on the other side of the coffee table. The royal guards that had entered earlier stayed standing at the door. Finally, someone who does their job.

Now that the king had sat down I got a much better look at him. Like I said before, he was a big man in both body and presence. Just something about him seemed to demand your attention. He was wearing an expensive looking coat made of fur with a red vest and black pants. And of course there was that shining gold crown on his head. He had blonde hair like Milena and had a long beard extending about half a hand's length from his chin.

"Well, let's get started then, shall we?" the king started. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Not a clue," I said.

"Watch it..." Roland growled at me. What? Does my breathing piss you off, too?

The king waved a hand at him to shut him up and continued, "Well, you should know how people react to seeing you, right?"

"With my ears and tail visible? Yeah, they freak out. This probably has something to do with that war three hundred years ago. With old stories about trained wulvari warriors attacking viciously (which are probably exaggerated) as their only reference, they get the wrong idea and are afraid of me. This is in spite of the fact that I'm only around ten years old and couldn't care less about them one way or the other," I said with a shrug.

The king just kind of sat there and stared at me for a second then quickly turned to Roland and said, "You didn't tell me he was smart."

"Yeah... about that. He even rather accurately estimated the damage he caused when he crashed through the market in that dumpster," Roland replied with a hand on his forehead.

"Maybe I can have him estimate the damage you caused when you chased him through the East Gate," the king said with a scowl.

"Please don't remind me..." Roland said with both of his hands now on his face. Ha! Serves you right, jerk. You must've done at least five times the damage I did.

I grinned at him in victory. But the second he saw that and he flared up faster than one of his fireballs.

He stood up and started yelling, "Don't you dare smirk at me you little beast! I ought to-"

"Roland!" the king interrupted, "I know you're still torn up about Celeste and I miss her, too. But this boy clearly had nothing to do with it! You have no right taking it out on him."

Celeste? Who's Celeste? I looked at Milena and she was staring at the floor with a sad expression on her face. Roland was pacing around the room trying to cool off. As for the king he just looked at Roland with pity in his eyes and shook his head. I continued to look at the king and hoped he might tell me. I wasn't disappointed.

"It happened eight years ago. Celeste was my younger sister and Milena's mother," he began. "When she married Roland they moved out to the countryside in one of the western provinces. Not long after, they had Milena. You couldn't find a happier family. But, there was a problem. You may not know this, but just beyond our western borders lie the lands where wulvari like yourself reside."

I wasn't all that surprised. They had to be somewhere, after all. I nodded and urged him to go on.

"While it's never gotten as bad as the war, it wasn't uncommon for large wulvari raiding parties to pop up every few years. There was a fort and a regiment of soldiers in the area to protect them, but I still advised them against living there. But, you see, Celeste actually wanted to improve relations between the kingdom and the wulvari tribes. Roland wanted to support her as much as possible and believed he could protect her if anything went wrong. But, it seemed... that wasn't the case. After the incident, he was devastated. He came back and trained like a madman, unable to focus on anything else, eventually becoming the Captain of the Royal Guard."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

That explained quite a lot actually. It explained why he was so overprotective of Milena. He'd already lost his wife to a wulvari, he sure as hell wasn't going to lose his daughter, too.

"So, it's not that you hate me. You just hate wulvari in general," I said.

"Oh, trust me. You're plenty infuriating on your own," Roland growled as he sat back down in the chair with a thump. "But... You opened my eyes today. Not all wulvari are mindless beasts. I was certain you were going to leave us to die, but you didn't. You came and put your life on the line to help Milena and I. And for that, I guess I owe you."

He looked like he wanted to cough up blood rather than say that last part. Still, I did consider leaving them. I wasn't going to tell him that, though. I looked at Milena and she seemed far happier about all this than Roland.

She smiled at me and said, "I'm glad you and Daddy are finally getting along. You saved my life, too. Thank you, Fen."

For some reason I felt my face heating up and quickly turned away. What the heck was that? I'm not getting sick am I?

The king grinned and said, "She really does take after her mother. The fact that he's a wulvari really doesn't seem to bother her at all."

"And that's precisely what scares me," Roland replied.

The king then snapped us out of that weird fuzzy mood by clapping his hands once. "Well! That's enough of that. We need to get back to the main point. What to do with Fen," he said.

"It sounds like you've already decided," Roland said. "And something tells me I'm not going to like it."

"You do know me well," the king replied while stroking his beard. "How about he just stays here?"

""...HUH!?"" both Roland and I said at the same time. Finally, we agree on something.

"Hear me out for a moment," the king said. "Milena doesn't seem to mind, so there's no problems there. As far as safety is concerned if he does actually try anything, the only person I can expect to keep up with him is you anyway, Roland. Besides, you won't actually do anything, will you, Fen?"

It sounded like he was defending me. But there was just something in his tone and the way he looked at me that said, "If you do anything, you're dead."

"R-right, I'll be a good boy," I said.

"I still don't like it," Roland said with his arms crossed.

"Just think of it as punishment for smashing up my city. Or would you rather I have you pay for all those damages, too?" the king threatened.

"N-no, this is fine. Thank you for your mercy," Roland gave in. Wow, I'm liking this king more and more by the second.

"Ah, but we can't just have him freeloading around," the king said like he just now noticed. "Why not send him to the academy as well?"

"Really? Fen can go to the academy with me!?" Milena said excitedly.

I thought it was suspicious, though. "Why send me to the academy?" I asked.

"You are pretty smart for a child your age, wulvari or not. It'd be a shame to waste that intellect," the king said with grin. There's something he's not telling me. But I let it pass. I wanted to learn magic from the beginning and the academy is the best place for that.

"But what about the other students and the faculty? They'll surely object," Roland interjected.

"Let me handle that," the king said with a smile. "It'll be a couple years until they can go anyway. So, with that this discussion is over. I'm heading back to the castle. I've got a lot of paperwork to finish before I get to bed."

He said 'discussion' but really all that happened was that he came, decided everything himself, then left! Not that I care, though. Everything he said turned out good for me and bad for Roland. So far this has turned out to be the best day of my life!

After the king left, Roland had a servant show me where my room was going to be. I get my own room, too!? It kind of sucks that I have to live with Roland, but everything else seems to be going my way!