After Lord Kellain left, Arvel, Fidget, and Lunette went back inside. Rain was still sitting at the kitchen table, her back to the door, her hands folded on her lap, looking down at the empty space where the scroll had once laid.

“You alright?” Arvel asked, softly.

Rain lifted her head, and took a deep breath, before saying, “I am fine.”

Fidget ran to Rain’s side, still holding an apron-sling full of vegetables, looking up at her excitedly and asking, “Did you do it? Did you sign it?”

Rain looked down at Fidget, who grew still under the lady’s melancholy gaze. Still, Rain managed a small smile, before petting Fidget’s head and telling her, “I did.”

“My lady,” said Lunette, “Are you certain?”

“It’s what I wanted, isn’t it?” Rain asked, shifting in the chair to look back at Lunette and Arvel by the door, “My people will be well taken care of, with a leader who is present and watchful, and experienced to boot. It frees me up to stay here, at Elediah’s Trail, for as long as need be.”

Arvel walked toward her, wordlessly, and grabbed her in a tight hug, holding her head against her chest.

“Ah?” she asked softly.

Fidget chewed her lower lip, before asking, “Then why do you look so sad?”

Finding no words to answer her, Rain just wrapped her arms around Arvel’s waist and hugged him back, burying her face against his chest as her shoulders trembled.

“Like I said,” Lunette echoed, petting Fidget’s hair, “There are... complicated feelings.”

Suddenly, the bedroom door swung open. Rain yelped in surprise at the bang of the door smacking against the wall, and clung to Arvel as she looked to the doorway, staring at Melodia standing there.

“You could’ve told me he was gone!” Melodia shouted.

“What in the world are you doing here?” Rain asked.

Melodia’s eye twitched, and she replied, “Hiding!”

“He’s gone!” Arvel grumbled, “Now get out of my house!”

They discussed many things over dinner that night, after they’d run off their demonic visitor. Rain explained the nature of her relationship with her uncle; he was her mother’s younger brother, and thus, it was his family as well that had always ruled over Nathulan. As her regent, he would have full authority to act in her stead, until she chose to return to Fairvale and reclaim her seat. And, of course, as long as she remained at Elediah’s Trail, Ser Lunette would be obligated to remain at her side.

As they were cleaning up dishes and putting them away, Arvel brought up the discussion he’d had with Lord Kellain on the porch. Not in great detail; he left out the story of the toll that being the ‘Immortal Knight’ had taken on his father. Only that his father was a changed man by the time he moved to the wasteland, and that Lord Kellain had no idea what he might’ve done with the artifacts.

“Which means he likely brought them to the wastes,” Lunette said, “rather leaving them in the care of someone else. Otherwise, surely a compeer like Lord Kellain would’ve known.”

“Seems like the focus search just got narrower,” said Arvel, “But still feels like I got no idea where to start.”

The thoughts kept Arvel up late into the night. Even after all of the girls had fallen asleep around him, snuggled or sprawled in their usual fashions, he laid awake, staring at the ceiling. He had died several times in recent months. It was always disorienting, frightening even, to lose track of time. He seldom knew how long it had been, either a matter of hours or a matter of mere minutes. But the idea of waking up to see someone who mattered to him was hurt or killed while he could do nothing to try to protect them was enough to make him feel sick.

When he woke in the morning, he could hear a strange combination of squeaking and creaking from the living room. The sun was barely up, casting its first rays through the bedroom window, dancing across the bodies of Rain and Lunette on either side of Arvel. He sat up slowly and looked around, to see that Fidget was gone, and so was her dress that she’d left crumpled at the foot of the bedding.

“Fidge?” he whispered.

Rain groaned a soft reply as she rolled over, turning her back to Arvel and the encroaching daylight.

Arvel carefully extricated his arm from under Lunette’s head and crawled out of bed. In the newly emptied void amidst the blankets, Lunette rolled into the warmth he left behind, and wrapped her arm around Rain, snuggling close at her back. Arvel smirked at the two of them, before going to open the door to the living room, peeking out.

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In the living room, Fidget was sitting on the floor with a claw hammer and a couple of rusty nails beside her. She wedged her claw-tipped fingers under the edges of a now loosened board and began to pull it back, lifting the end of the plank, but beginning to bend it as the other end remained secured to the subfloor.

“No no no NO!” Arvel shouted as he bolted from the doorway, grabbing Fidget up and scooping her off the floor. She lost her grip on the plank and it snapped back down onto the floor with a loud bang.

“I was helping!” Fidget said, reaching down toward the warped plank even as Arvel held her off the ground with both his arms wrapped around her waist.

“Destroying my house is not helping!” Arvel yelled.

Rain and Lunette both appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed and confused.

“What’s going on?” Rain asked.

Lunette asked, “Are we under attack?”

“Yes!” Arvel replied, holding Fidget out at arms’ length, “This goblin is tryin’ t’rip my house apart!”

Fidget snarled and began to kick and flail at the end of his reach, shouting, “Rude! This goblin is gonna rip your face apart!”

Though Arvel had first held Fidget out to present the offender to the other girls, now he was holding her out as far as he could to avoid her swiping claws and kicking feet.

“No!” he snapped, “You ain’t gonna make me the villain here! You were rude first!”

Arvel leaned his face back, narrowly avoiding a dirty foot in his face.

“Damn!” he shouted, “She’s gone feral!”

Lunette sighed, running a hand through her curls, and said, “Fidget, I wouldn’t blame you at all if you bit him.”

“Who’s side are you on?!” Arvel asked, looking at Lunette. The moment he looked away was all it took for Fidget to sink her teeth into his forearm. Arvel let out a howl of pain and dropped her, pulling his arm back to look at the rows of red indentations along both sides of his forearm.

“What in the world are you doing?” Rain asked, looking down at the warped floorboard as she shuffled into the living room.

“Looking for Arvel’s dad’s stuff!” Fidget replied, huffing and planting her hands on her hips.

“Under the house?” Rain asked, “I suppose that’s not a terrible idea.”

“How is it not a terrible idea?’ Arvel asked, rubbing his forearm, “Pa wasn’t exactly no master craftsman. The house is sturdy but it ain’t gonna live up to gettin’ the floor ripped apart and put back down.”

“Oh stop worrying so much,” Lunette replied, “The subfloor seems quite sturdy and we can replace any planks that get damaged. Lord Kellain’s caravan even brought fresh nails, and I’m sure we could lay claim to some of them to replace the rusty ones here.”

“Those are for the settlement,” he grumbled, “Don’t feel right takin’ em.”

“Why are you being so defensive?” Rain asked, tilting her head.

“I ain’t defensive!” Arvel snapped, “I just... I just don’t want to go diggin’ around ‘n rippin’ up floorboards without a plan, is all.”

Arvel maintained his sour mood through breakfast, and so did Fidget. She ladeled batter from her large wooden bowl into the skillet on the hearth, cooking up griddle cakes and then flipping them out onto plates, but even as she put an extra-large griddle cake on Arvel’s dish, she had no words for him. Before he could take the plate away, however, she grabbed it and plopped a pad of butter on top.

“Even when you’re giving him the silent treatment, you can’t help but spoil him,” Lunette said with a small smile.

“Can’t have him getting skinny like writer man!” Fidget replied, “Too much work to do.”

“Oh of course,” said Lunette, “I’m sure that’s it.”

Arvel flopped into his chair at the table, and glanced over at the warped floorboard. The nails would no longer hold the bent plank in place, so Rain put a basket of laundry on top of it to keep it mostly held down, though the sight of the crooked seams in the floor still irked Arvel deeply.

“You said you wanted a plan,” Rain said, in her best attempt to distract him, “So we had best start there. Frederik may still choose to travel to Fairvale with my uncle to do research, but we have no idea how long it might be until he could return. So, if we’re going to look for your father’s artifacts, we’ll need to make a plan of our own.”

Lunette took her seat at the table with her own fresh griddle cake and said, “For some knights, it is tradition that they are buried with their most important items.”

“Nope,” said Arvel, “Melodia suggested the same thing. I know exactly what was in my pa’s coffin ‘cause I’m the only one who was around to bury him. I laid him to rest with his locket with a curl of ma’s hair in it, the cup he always had his mornin’ tea in, and his whetstone. That ‘n his best set of clothes ‘n boots. That’s all.”

“I see,” Lunette said quietly, “I’m sorry...”

Rain looked down at the plate that Fidget slid in front of her, before asking, “What about your mother?”

“Ma?” Arvel asked, pausing in drizzling honey over his griddle cake and raising an eyebrow, “Well she ain’t buried with nothin’. She died when I was too lil to remember much, but I know she got real sick with somethin’ and pa burned the body to make sure we didn’t catch it too. Pa put what was left in a jar, then put that in a box with some of her things, ‘n buried it out under the old oak tree. That’s why I put him out there too, so they’d be together.”

“Do you remember what some of those things might be?” Rain asked.

“My lady...” Lunette said softly, trying to gently interrupt the thread of conversation.

Arvel looked down at his plate, his brow crinkling as he tried to remember, before shaking his head and saying, “I was too lil back then. I don’t remember much of it at all. I might not even remember where he buried her, if it weren’t for the fact pa took me out there sometimes to make sure I didn’t forget.”

“I mean no disrespect to your mother,” Rain said quietly, “But you said that my uncle spoke of her as if she were your father’s reason for leaving behind his life as a knight. If we’re going to begin digging anywhere, perhaps we should start there.”