Chapter 18 Don’t Ruin It.

Isaac and Lenna had left Thomas to his own devices once he had gotten paid and moved on to the rest of their preparations before they departed for Ben’s End. They deposited most of the ridiculous amount of money they had acquired before stopping by the general store and replacing the blanket and waterskin that they had given away before returning to the Celestial Dawn for dinner. “There’s been a lot of commotion about today.” Celeste commented while filling their mugs. “How much of it was your doing?” She asked with a grin. She knew that most if not all of it was their doing.

“We did not burn down the smithy.” Isaac replied honestly.

“Commotion is his thing.” Lenna commented with a smirk. “He can’t help himself.”

“Okay most of it wasn’t my fault.” Isaac tried to defend himself. “I was a catalyst. The rest just happened naturally.”

Lenna gave him an amused look while Celeste looked at him like a mother who knew her child was blatantly lying and was deciding whether or not to let him get away with it. “Uh huh. Naturally.” Celeste agreed. “I’ll believe that the day Izen puts on a dress.”

Lenna had been taking a drink when Celeste had spoken and she almost inhaled it. Her face was scrunched while she held in the cough until she set her drink down. As soon as the mug was back on the bar she started coughing. Isaac started laughing, more at Lenna than at the image of Izen in a dress. “Someone was going to pick a fight with them eventually. I just helped.” Isaac eventually said.

“Well if you don’t want to tell me I won’t pry.” Celeste motherly replied. “I was just looking for a first hand account instead of just rumors all the time.”

“I’ll tell you when we get back.” Isaac promised.

“You should get half the city together.” Lenna added dryly.

Isaac rolled his eyes so hard Lenna thought they would fall out of his skull. “I’ll tell Celeste and Sera. If I promised to fill in anyone else then I’ve already forgotten.” Isaac replied honestly. “If anyone really wants to know that badly they can come find me. It’s not like I’m going to vanish into the night or anything.”

“It’s basically always night down here.” Celeste interjected. “Every time you vanish it is more or less ‘into the night’.” A thought seemed to dawn on her and her eyes widened slightly. “Just how much trouble can you two get into in a day. You were dueling at this time yesterday.” She said that last part to Lenna.

Isaac shrugged. “I’m pretty sure there are multiple sayings about bad things being grouped together.” He replied. “But today’s fortune was building before we even knew about the duel.”

“Fortune?” Celeste asked. “Usually people call trouble misfortune.”

“It is only misfortune if you come out of it worse than how you entered.” Isaac replied with a grin. “And to that, I think I’m allergic.”

Lenna rolled her eyes. “Or lucky.” She nodded more to herself than to them. “I would bet on lucky but with your luck I’d still end up losing.”

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—

“We’ll be gone for the next week or two.” Isaac told Alice while leaning against her counter. “Did the guard leave anything with you yet?”

Alice nodded slowly. She looked like she was confused but wasn’t sure if she should ask questions or not. She handed Isaac an envelope that had a few papers folded to fit inside it. “A guard dropped by a few minutes ago and left this for you. He didn’t say why, just that I was supposed to only give it to you two.” She replied slowly.

“Perfect.” Isaac said. “That means we can leave whenever.” He looked at Lenna. “You ready?”

She nodded. “Are you sure you want to run the whole way?” She asked him.

Isaac frowned. “No, but it’s our best bet to catch them before they all scatter.”

“Can I ask what’s going on?” Alice asked.

“I’ll fill you in when we get back.” Isaac replied. Lenna rolled her eyes.

“You’d better.” Alice demanded. “You’d better bring back a birthday present for me too while you’re at it.” She added with a smug smile.

Isaac chuckled. “I won’t promise anything but I’ll try.” He assured her. “When is it?”

“The fifteenth.” Alice replied. “So four days, well, three and half at this point.”

“We’ll be in Ben’s End, maybe Outpost Charles by then.” Isaac replied with an apologetic smile. “I’ll try to find you something.” A flash of inspiration hit him and he grinned evilly. “What if I got you two different color ribbons, or necklaces with different stones in them?”

Alice looked at him with pure horror in her eyes. “Never mind, you don’t have to get us anything.” She countered.

“We’ll see.” Isaac said and pushed off her desk. “Bye Alice!” Isaac called over his shoulder with a wave while heading towards the door.

“I’ll try to keep him from doing something like that.” Lenna promised Alice in a whisper. She glanced towards Isaac and then back to Alice. “But if he knows then he’ll just pick things that are different colors but look the same to me so I can’t stop him.”

“You think he’d go that far?” Alice asked.

Lenna nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

Alice gulped. “I think, I made a mistake.”

—

“Can we take our time on our way back?” Lenna asked while the duo were heading towards Ben’s End in a run. Death flames were pouring through them to keep away fatigue and ensure that they could keep up a steady pace even with the occasional monster getting in the way.

“I don’t see why not.” Isaac replied. “Why?”

“I’m level locked.” Lenna confessed. “The only way to break through is to keep my aura active for a full day. Exactly twenty four hours.”

“Your aura is rarely ever active. How have you been training your endurance?” Isaac asked.

“I’ve been using it a lot lately.” Lenna replied. “Probably not enough but I’d like to give it a try. It’s hard to train it in town.”

Isaac nodded. “Yeah. Shouldn’t go around spooking the locals right?” He asked her with a smirk.

“I’m supposed to be telling you that.” Lenna replied with her own grin.

“Maybe when we explore the surface.” Isaac replied.

Lenna looked sidelong at him, trusting her mental image of the path forwards to keep her from tripping, and raised an eyebrow in question. “When are we doing that?” She asked.

“When I’m strong enough to fight demigods.” Isaac replied with a grin. He was excited to fight someone strong enough that they became more than mortal. “That way if any of them start shit about the whole Lord of Darkness thing then I can just hit them until they change their mind.” He chuckled to himself. “The V’Nova way.”

“Hey.” Lenna tried to argue. “I don’t hit people until they agree with me.”

That only made Isaac chuckle harder. “That’s because you’re too nice for that. You can’t tell me that none of your family members haven’t done that at some point.”

“Point taken.” Lenna replied flatly. “And I’m not that nice. They are just unnecessarily mean.”

“Might makes right.” Isaac replied. “That kind of culture tends to feed ‘unnecessary meanness’.”

Lenna sighed. “Yes it does.” They continued on in silence for a long moment. “Is it wrong for me to want to change it?” She asked. “I ran away from it. Do I have the right to wish I could change it?”

Isaac didn’t answer for a while. “I don’t know.” He replied honestly. “But I do know that most people wouldn’t think like that about it. Most people would just try to force their views on others. They wouldn’t stop to think about whether it was right for them to do so or not.” Lenna didn’t reply so Isaac was left with more time to gather his thoughts. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with wishing that the village you fled from wouldn’t starve when you left because of a famine. I think it’s the same thing, more or less.”

Lenna nodded and the pair continued in near silence. The sound of Lenna’s clanking armor and solid footfalls were all that could be heard while she processed what he had said. “Thank you.” She eventually told him. “You can be pretty wise sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Isaac asked with a grin.

Lenna gave him a flat look. “Don’t ruin it.”