Sam bit the tip of his tongue, holding back his excitement as he gripped the velvet rope that ran up through a brass pipe into the manor. He pulled down on it, the resistance much less than he remembered from only a couple years ago and somewhere in the house, a series of bells chimed an eight note tune. Sam turned to look out at the manor’s lawn, perfectly manicured grass banked across gently rolling hills to either side of a single, continuous marble slab that acted as a footpath to the cobblestone street of the neighborhood named “East Rest.”
It and it’s western twin were the wealthiest neighborhoods on the Throne. Located on the mountain’s face just outside of the former Avatar’s arms, it was also the closest you could get to the colossus without being a member of the church.
The East Rest also happened to be Sam’s home. This was his first visit since leaving for the Abbey and he had not told his parents at all of his arrival, looking forward to surprising them and his sisters.
From inside the massive door to his family’s manor, he heard a voice approaching. The sound of the doorknob rattling inside was muffled through the thick door and eventually it swung inward to reveal a young lady of sixteen or seventeen. She looked at Sam curiously before looking back over her shoulder.
“I don’t know,” she called. “I think he’s here for you dad. It’s some guy-” Suddenly, the girl stopped and looked back at her older brother in shock. “Samson!” she shrieked, running forward and throwing her arms around her older sibling, tears of joy already flowing.
“Hey, Diane, I just bought this shirt, Sam said, playfully pushing her head away from his chest, leaving behind a large wet spot on the light blue fabric.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she cried, her tears of joy pulling her face into a kind of pained grimace.
“Oh, you certainly look it,” Sam said, laughing.
“What is all of the shouting about?” boomed a baritone voice from just inside the manor’s front door. “Some stranger bothering my youngest?” A tall man, well-dressed and well-groomed, appeared, satisfied by his joke. His gleaming smile was projecting from under a thick, blond mustache and curling up till his eyes were pushed into a squint. “Welcome home, son!”
He pulled in his son and daughter for a tight hug before ushering them all inside. “Jane!” Diane wailed. “Samson’s here! Samson’s here!” She walked speedily through the manor’s foyer, crying out as she went. The calls echoed slightly under the high ceilings.
“So, an official paladin now? Do I call you ‘His Eminence’ or something?” Sam’s father joked as they stepped out into the large welcoming hall. There the house opened into its full three-story grandeur with a sweeping staircase going up to a windowed landing on the second floor filling Sam with a sudden nostalgia and a bit of shame.
“I uh,” Sam looked around, shocked that he had forgotten just how large his home was while he was away for those eight years. His father’s joke and the cavernous room suddenly had him feeling like a stranger, out of place in the mansion. “I think Sam will be okay, dad.”
“Oh, Dreamer,” cooed a soft voice from above. Walking along the railing of the landing was a middle-aged woman with platinum hair in a tight ponytail and a modest, but still elegant dress. “Samson, it’s so wonderful to see you, dear.”
“It’s nice to see you, too, mom,” Sam called up. Her soft smile was all that was needed to evaporate that strange feeling of being an outsider for the moment. Sam was a little sad to see that she had grown older during his decade away, but she seemed to stand a bit taller, smile wider, as though she was under less stress. “You look great, mom.”
“Well now that you’re gone she’s finally got time to relax,” snapped a mature, female voice from down the hallway toward the manor’s dining room. Sam turned his head toward the petite, skinny woman who had made the remark, her hazelnut colored hair was cut into a bob and hands rest on her hips, right where he remembered her leaving them when he left all those years ago.
“Jane,” Sam said warmly, holding his arms open to his older sister.
“Oh, you just come home and expect hugs from everyone?” she snapped back.
“Jane,” Sam repeated, drawing the vowel out a few beats.
She snorted. “Sure didn’t teach you how to sing in the Abbey, did they?”
Sam repeated her name, giving his voice an exaggerated vibrato. Jane rolled her eyes with mock disgust and ran to her brother, embracing him tightly.
“I’m glad to see you, bud.”
“Yeah, I’m glad to be here,” Sam replied.
“You have to see what mom and I did to your room,” Diane urged, tugging on Sam’s shirt. Sam looked up to his mother in shock to see her looking betrayed at her youngest daughter.
“Diane! Don’t tell him that!”
“What? What happened?” Sam asked. “Did you get rid of my stuff?”
“You’ve not been living here since you were twelve, son,” Sam’s father replied.
“I came to visit a year and a half ago, though, and everything was fine!” he said, exasperated.
“Guess they didn’t teach you how to be grown man, either,” Jane said with a wicked, but playful grin.
Sam looked distraught on the outside, but on the inside, he was relieved. He was certain his father realized something was wrong with his training. Sam had written home nearly a month ago when he was preparing for his final duty as a vanguard and they were preparing a surprise for his mother and sisters. The change of plans had been disappointing, but Sam never explained why it was happening.
But his father was fronting well enough this afternoon, and his mother and sisters were acting as though he had never left. And the tricks were working for Sam, too. Despite the shaking first steps into the manor, he felt as though he were once again a piece of the house.
As Diane pulled Sam up the stairs to show him the redecorating that had been done recently he passed a marble bust of his paternal grandfather. The family name, Estin, carved into the base, stood out. Sam felt a pang of sorrow when he remembered that name was no longer part of who he was.
“What?” Sam groaned from his doorway, peering into what had once been his bedroom.
“Your sister wanted a studio, Samson,” his mother said softly.
Despite the house having two guest bedrooms, it was Sam’s that Diane had invaded, and then apparently gutted to make way for an arsenal of painting supplies. Many of them seemed to be staining the floor, as well as the tables scattered about his former bedroom.
“But why my room?” Sam protested.
“The windows,” Diane urged, squeezing past her brother and into the open space, delicately stepping over a brush, still wet with a deep purple paint, that had been left on a shirt.
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“That’s my shirt,” Sam said, looking down at the ruined cloth.
“From when you were twelve, Sam. Don’t be ridiculous,” his mother added.
Sam paused, his face curling reflexively into a pout. “Still,” was all he could say.
“But look!” Diane interjected, spinning an easel halfway, then stopping to study the way the sunlight was falling on it. Ultimately, she shrugged and spun it so the painted face was toward her family.
The picture was atrocious. The canvas was split horizontally. The upper half was a field of solid, uninterrupted blue. The lower half, the green of something long-dead. Where the colors met, but slightly off to the right, was a colossal brown stain. It struck out in every direction at once, never even hinting at what shape it was originally dreamed up to represent. For someone who chose her studio based on lighting, it was clear Diane had no clue how to replicate it in her art, as cream color streaks dripped almost randomly across the brown puddle. A tree? Maybe a bear? Samson had no clue.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Sam’s mother said slowly and measuredly.
“Sam? What do you think?” Diane asked, smiling with expectation.
Sam froze. Opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “Speechless, really,” he said, deciding to not lie to his sister.
“I had one of the housekeepers take me out on the March to get a good look at it. We sat watching the light fall on the Throne all day until I knew just what I wanted to create.” Diane looked up and off, her mind’s eye painting a picture that was hopefully more detailed and clear than what she had produced.
Sam stared a bit harder at the painting now that he knew it was supposed to be the Throne. He still could not quite find it.
“Look at this one,” Diane said, skipping between paint stains to a second easel further in the room. “It’s not quite done yet, but-”
“Oh!” their mother said suddenly. “If it is not done yet, you can’t show us! It’s bad luck, you know.”
Diane furrowed her brow. “Really? Oh, well, I don’t want to ruin it before it even has a chance.”
“Mom! Sam! Diane! Dad has some lunch out on the table!” Jane’s cry from the stairwell down the hall could not have come earlier.
“Oh, you heard that, Diane,” Sam’s mother said, pushing her son out of the “studio.” “We don’t want to keep your father waiting.”
At risk of sounding gluttonous, the dining room was Sam’s favorite place in the house. The ceiling was shorter than the corridors and welcoming halls, and the windows were high on the walls. His grandfather’s father had specifically designed the room so that when the family sat down together to eat, they would have no choice but to be present with each other. Sam had a moment of panic before entering the dining room where he half-expected to see his chair missing from the table, or see the dining table turned into an art project of some sort. But that would, after all, defeat the purpose of the room.
His chair was right where he left it, on the long side of the table with his father at the head to his left, and mother at his right, while his sisters sat side by side across from him.
Cold meats, cheese, and bread were delicately arranged on a gleaming platter in the center of the table as the family took their seats. Every place setting was an overly fancy ceramic plate with a crystal glass, filled almost to the brim with iced sun tea, Mrs. Estin’s specialty. Sam’s father was already manipulating an open faced sandwich to find the best angle of attack.
“Couldn’t you have waited a second, dad?” Jane asked, a snap to her voice.
“I was hungry! I skipped breakfast walking your fiance to the lifts!”
“Oh? Henry and Jane are engaged?” Sam asked with a playful grin. “I mean, it is still Henry, right?”
“Stop it, Sam,” Jane retorted, reaching for a slice of dense, dark bread. “Yes, Henry and I are engaged.”
“To be married!” Diane added helpfully as she chewed the edge of a piece of yellow cheese.
“Well, congratulations,” Sam said genuinely. “He’s a good guy from what I remember.”
“Oh he is,” the father said, his mouth full. “He just can’t remember how to get back down the damn mountain.”
“Swallow your food first, James,” Sam’s mother chided as she daintily prepared her food.
“So how was training at the Abbey?” Diane asked and there was a pause around the table. Jane, Diane, and their mother all waited for Sam’s answer. Their father halted his chewing to see how his son would react. Sam, on the other hand, seized up. He knew he would have to breach the subject at some point. He figured he could just prepare for it later. Jane, though, could see he was uncomfortable.
“You okay, bud?” she asked after a moment.
“Yeah,” Sam said, her question stirring the air enough to get him moving. He took a deep breath. “Training was great,” he half-lied. “So good, actually, I wanted to do it twice.” Sam looked around the table with a wide, forced smile.
“I’m sorry, Samson,” his mother asked. “What do you mean?”
“I, uh,” Sam looked down at his empty plate. “I got hurt during my final duty as a Vanguard. The Abbey was pretty upset with me and they put me through a crash course as a Confidant.”
“You got hurt?” Diane asked.
“How badly?” Jane prodded, almost as though she had a fight to pick with the person that caused the pain.
“I was bedridden for about two weeks.”
“Oh, Dreamer,” Sam’s mother said, covering her mouth with her napkin.
“But you’re okay now?” Diane asked, her eyes big. Worried.
“Yeah,” Sam half-lied again. He wanted to tell them about the chest plate. About how the Abbey thought he needed to be punished for nearly dying. About how he spent eight years to get something he never wanted. “I’m okay now.” He reached to the center of the table and began grabbing at some of the food.
His father, who had continued eating again, looked up curiously. “So what’d they name you, son?”
“Bleedingheart,” Sam said, confident it sounded impressive enough without the background.
“How romantic!” his mother said, nodding approvingly.
“Yes,” Jane added playfully. “Women are gonna be spilling over themselves to take that name, Sam. Beatrice Bleedingheart. Brianna Bleedingheart. Babs Bleedingheart.” With every name Jane would pantomime a swooning floozy. “Such a powerful name for a powerful paladin.” The family laughed. Even Sam’s mom chuckled.
“I think it’s very nice, Sam,” Diane added. “It sounds like someone who does things for the right reasons.”
“I’ll toast to that,” Sam’s dad said suddenly, smiling to his son. He lifted his glass, and as he did said “To Samson Bleedingheart, who does the right things for the right reasons.”
Bashful from the attention, but grateful and relieved for the support, Sam raised his glass to meet his parents’ and sisters’. The sun tea was sweet and cool, and a comfortable chill crept across the scar on his chest, reminding him that it was still there, but clearly manageable.
After the meal, the rest of the day was without incident. Sam finally found his transplanted bedroom where he would spend the night before heading back to work the next afternoon, and he spent a majority of the day sitting with his parents in the family’s massive study, catching up on the neighborhood gossip and telling more stories of his times in the Abbey. Though they asked for a detailed retelling of the Naming, they never once asked about the duties out of respect. They asked what he would be up to in the Back City and, of course, how often he would be up to visit them. Sam answered as conservatively as he could, knowing how eagerly his mom would remember every syllable for later use.
The evening, however, was a little more exciting. As their parents prepared for dinner and Sam stood on a parlor balcony looking out over his mother’s prize-winning garden, Jane approached him.
“So, tell me what happened, Sam,” she demanded. She was wearing her no-funny-business big sister look.
Sam inhaled deeply and then told her. He told her everything from threatening to kill the teenaged robber to when he woke up days later in terrible pain. She listened with tightly pursed lips as he explained the Church found him at fault, and laughed with incredulity at the gift presented during his Naming.
“So,” she said. “How bad is the scar?”
“Bad,” Sam said, pulling on the collar of his shirt, just barely revealing the top splashes of the gnarled skin. He gestured across his torso to communicate the size of the rest and Jane winced.
“Sam, you can never tell mom,” she chuckled. “You need a hug.”
“I think I’ll be okay,” Sam managed to say before realizing she had not asked. His older sister threw her arms around him and suddenly he was twelve again, crying about a skinned knee or a dog bite. Jane was quick witted and sharp tongued, but she had the presence of a healer when it was needed, and Sam had been gone for so long, he had lost track of just how much he had needed his sister and the rest of his family.
“Don’t let them walk all over you, Sammy,” she said, using the diminutive she reserved for the closest moments and snappiest insults. “There’s not a lot of justice in the world. Sometimes you have to bring it yourself”