Kaitlyn had been sleeping much better over the past few months. Despite the bad news from Private Humble and the ensuing argument that had been, Kait and Matt had been closer than they had since their wedding. They had even made some sales since the fight. The tension and stress of the road, Kaitlyn assumed, had just needed to be expressed, was all.

Growing up with her nomadic family, Kaitlyn was always told that outbursts like that were forbidden. Your family and travel companions were too valuable to blow up at or isolate with harsh words. But for Matthew? The regular loss of temper was almost necessary for him.

The furniture sales had been a mixed blessing. Despite Kait’s protests, he turned the profit on obtaining more wood to carve even more products, but at least furniture had been moving. Four different towns and a handful of trades with caravans had raised Matt’s confidence.

On one night however, it was not the clatter or shouting outside the tent that woke Kait, but the pungent, stinging odor of smoke. When she finally registered just what she was smelling, she sat up with a start. Matt was already dashing for the tent’s entrance.

“What’s happening?” Kait whispered after him, but Matt did not slow, his bare feet kicking up dirt as he tripped out into the night. Kait scrambled after him, and still sleepy-eyed, she looked around trying to register what she was seeing, smelling, and hearing.

Outside the tent, the furniture cart was empty. Kait’s horse was missing. The earth was turned up and tossed around in front of the tent, and the furniture was thrown haphazardly into a pile with smoldering embers flickering around different parts of the pile, giving off clouds of smoke as the flames tried to catch. Three men in clean, but dark colored clothes were standing with their backs to the pile, their cruel eyes and sly grins falling on Matt and Kait.

“What are you doing!?” Matt shouted as he tried to comprehend what he was looking at.

“Matt, your dad didn’t have a dime to his name, boy,” the middle man said flatly.

“So you came here to get yourselves paid off!?” Matt shouted, his voice cracking. Something that only happened very rarely, and only when Matt was afraid. As soon as she heard it, Kait became tense.

“Business is business, Matthew.” There was a pop from within the pile as one of the embers caught and flashed to consume a chair. “You know the Church has tabs on you?”

“You are destroying our business,” Kait said. In her mind, she was imagining a capped urn containing her emotions. Her fear, unease, anger, and confusion were sitting beneath a clay seal, rolling over one another and building in pressure so she could unleash them if needed. The complex visualization was a technique her mother had taught her and that she had practiced all her life to better hide her abilities during threatening situations. In a time like this, a shift in ambient temperature could tip one of the attackers off to Kaitlyn’s powers and get her and Matthew both killed.

“Business is business, and orders are orders,” the man to the left said, chuckling at his parallelism.

The cap in Kait’s mind buckled, but held.

“So you just came all the way out here to piss me off!?” Matt was not having as much luck controlling his emotions. His fists trembled, and Kait noticed he was standing on the balls of his feet, his calves quaking.

“Well we could only kill your dad once, you know?” the man on the right said. Kait heard the words and knew immediately that Matt was compromised.

She inhaled and peeled back a corner of her emotional cap, blending those passions with her dedication to protect her husband. The thoughts of stone-like resolve flashed from her, looking for a like-minded aspect of nature, and just as Kait had expected, she discovered sympathy from the flattened, hard ground, so densely packed that grass was hard pressed to take root. The earth was suitably impressed by the woman’s passion and sprung to action, giving off a soft rumble like a far off stampede as the dirt rose up and churned over the feet of two of the thugs, burying them to their ankles.

Matt did not notice his wife’s crowd control tactics as he ran at the thug who had insulted his father, shoving him with two open palms onto the smoldering pile. The disruption flashed another ember, and the thug shouted in surprise as flames, not yet hot enough to do lasting harm, leapt around and onto him. He threw himself to the ground at Matt’s feet and instantly began feeling the consequences of the move in the form of repeated kicks to his lower ribs.

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Meanwhile, Kait still felt the earth trembling. It was ready to drag the attackers to their graves for her if she wished it. Shocked and dazed, the men twisted and tried to lift their feet as the furniture erupted into a full-force blaze behind them. The situation was getting out of control.

“Damn you!” Matt screamed, delivering blow after blow into the crying man’s torso.

“Matt, that’s enough,” Kait said softly, taking care to hold her emotions at just the right level. The dirt around the two men was waiting eagerly for the command to crush their feet completely and it was taking quite a bit for Kait to not acquiesce. Matt looked at his wife, noticing she was holding the other two men at bay, the fear and anger on their faces brought a twisted smile to his. He landed one last kick.

“You’re right,” he said. “They already destroyed everything.” Matt stared daggers at the crying man on the ground, and bit his lip to keep himself from keeping up his assault.

“You have destroyed our livelihood,” Kait said, looking at her captives.

“And your only chance at getting any money back.” Matt added.

The middle thug spat in Kait’s direction. “Only chance? No sir. Now we know what your bitch here is we know what to bring with us when we come back. You’ll come up with something, right?”

At the insult, Kait tightened the earthly grip around the man’s feet. He grimaced, but turned his expression into a wry smile.

“Keep it up, girly. The more you mess me up the sharper the blade the boss will use to cut you down.” He turned his head to look at Matt. “I know you, Matty. You’re a crafty man. You’ll get the geld. I know you will.”

Matt was back in control of himself as he walked beside Kait, reaching out to lightly touch her forearm. Her husband’s fingertips relaxed her, and the men cried out in pain as the earth moved to carry out its own wishes. Kait quickly reached back out to the ground, easing the tension, and Kait barely noticed a huff-like exhale from Matt, almost as though he was disappointed. She urged the earth to back down, releasing the two men, who fell instantly to their knees.

“You’ve done enough now.” Matt walked over to stand immediately over the attackers. Kait watched her husband’s face change. It filled with hate in the firelight. “Get your friend and go.”

“Oh we will,” the man responded. “Like I said, though. We know what you have,” he said nodding in Kait’s direction and he pulled himself up and strolled to his wounded partner who was now beginning to pull himself up. “Stay warm tonight, you two.” The man began laughing loudly as he and his partners began walking up the road, leaving Matthew and Kaitlyn standing in the dark, looking at their life going up in flames. Kait reached out to the fire, felt its anger, and began to empathize, using her frustration at the situation to relate. The flames trembled, physically reacting to Kaitlyn’s emotional connection.

“What are you doing, Kait?”

“I was going to put the fire out.”

“Don’t bother,” Matt said, taking a couple steps away before turning back to look. Something in the broken pile of furniture collapsed, sending a cloud of sparks and embers skyward. “Let it burn. Let’s just sit and watch it.”

“Uh…” Kait looked to Matt, then the flames, then back to Matt before cutting off her communications with the fire. It surged with renewed vigor and she walked to sit beside her husband.

“This is kind of a good bye to dad,” Matt said after a moment of silence.

“Do you think those men will be coming back?”

“Definitely.”

There was another silence as more wood in the flame collapsed, sending a wave of hot air over the couple.

“What are we going to do, Matt?”

“I have no idea.” Matt stared into the fire for a long time, not a single muscle on his face moving. Her red magic taught her so much about reading emotions. The slightest twitch of the lip could communicate excitement. A sudden flex of the forearm could mean you are defensive. A sparkle in the eye, even, could speak volumes about the ideas you were forming. Kaitlyn watched, but saw nothing from her husband. She prodded the environment around him, hoping that the air he was breathing, the dirt he was seated on, anything would speak to what he was thinking. But nothing knew.

“I have a friend in Malthan,” Matt finally said. The fire had died down quite a bit, and Kait had dozed off and on for quite some time. He rose to his feet and held out a hand to help her off the ground. “He may be able to help us.”

Kait smiled up as Matt pulled her to her feet. “Thanks for helping me,” he said, pulling her close. He kissed her softly. “We’re going to be okay.”