“...And with a shout of defiance, he held his sword aloft before the mass of oncoming monsters, the light glinting off the enchanted steel as the sun rose on the horizon, his hair caught in the breeze for a breathless moment, it danced amidst the endless sunbeams. His beloved’s hand touched his shoulder, her full, radiant lips parted as she said-”

“-Can we have breakfast?” Tuesday asked with a tug on his black robe, and Varus snapped out of his quiet reverie as he whispered his narration. The quill snapped between his bony fingers as he remembered that the rest of the world existed.

A yawn went up behind him, and Varus looked over his shoulder to see Hannah sitting upright, her cat tail undulated and she rolled over to stretch on all fours with another yawn following on the first. Her back arched briefly, then she stood and looked at Varus with wide, expectant eyes. “Breakfast?”

“I suppose. And then you can get back to work on your letters.” Varus replied, and wondered while he spoke, ‘Will I be able to finish that chapter while they do that?’

His quiet hope was dashed to pieces when they asked at the same moment… “Can we go out and play?”

“It’s going to be a purr-fect day out today.” Hannah said and tapped her nose as if to say she could already tell, before she went beside her sister and the pair sat on their heels while they looked up at Varus from as close to him as they could be, giving him no room at all to retreat from the plea.

Tuesday nodded in small, rapid motions, “Yeah! I want to see what’s around here! Just a little time to explore and maybe play some games?” She clasped her hands together as if she were praying to the Dark Mother in the way they used to when Varus still lived.

He cast a longing glance at his unfinished manuscript.

“Pl-e-e-e-e-e-ea-!” The two girls harmonized their voices, and somehow, they also synchronized their dancing tails.

Varus looked back and forth between the two as they held those certain smiles up at him expectantly, they leaned forward, he cast another longing glance at his waiting cup full of quills yet to be broken, and then…

There was the sound of two very deep, very audible intakes of breath, followed by “-E-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease!”

The resistance went out of the ancient lich, his shoulders slumped and he said, “Very well. I suppose I’ll need to get more quills anyway. Somehow I seem to have broken a number of them lately, more than usual, and I don’t like to run short. You can play outside while I get what I need.”

“Yay!” The two flung their arms up in the air as they cheered, their fingers spread out in excitement, their tails bounced around with glee that was only interrupted by the rumbling of their bellies.

“But first, breakfast. Now run out to the cellar and grab a few things.” Varus instructed, and that was enough for both of them to nod a few times in unison before they scrambled to their feet and tore out the door, slamming it behind them.

“I miss being able to roll my eyes.” Varus thought, and began preparing the fire to cook their morning meal.

Somehow… in a way he could not quite explain, he lost that entire day and completely forgot about his need for more quills.

And the next.

And the next.

In the morning he prepared their meals after they fetched their dish of choice, typically some of the long preserved egg yolks that were stored in jars of honey, along with some meat stored in lard, some preserved apples that were quickly mashed into pulp to drain the juice, and then came a little time with their letters, and then time watching them play outside.

‘Shadow Tag’ was their favorite. And for that brief time, Varus allowed himself to forget that he’d sent out another skeleton, and to forget that he was inevitably going to bid the pair farewell. He was able to simply lean against the well, watch, and enjoy the quiet and its break with their little shouts.

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“Got you!” Tuesday shouted as she scrambled across the ground with her fox tail dancing wildly in the breeze. She flopped herself down over the shadow with arms and legs akimbo and her cheek against the warmth of the grass, a smile on her face as she savored the soft caress of the green plants, and Hannah stood stock still.

“You say that, but…do you?” Hannah asked as she froze in place except for a glance at Varus.

[Control Shadow] Varus cast his spell as he stretched out his hand and seized control of Hannah’s shadow, his hand moved away, and her shadow was torn from her feet, moving where he bade it across the grass. It flowed like moonlight over water until it was racing up the wall of the cottage, onto the roof, and then with a snap of his fingers, he released it there to stay and wait to be reclaimed by the one he bound by stealing it.

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Tuesday shouted, though halfheartedly as she seemed quite content on the warm grass.

“It’s more like a reset.” Varus said with casual amusement followed by a little half-hearted shrug.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go get it! Then we can start again.” Hannah chimed with a gleeful expression and began to ‘stalk’ in her catlike fashion low to the ground until she was close to the cottage wall and bounded her way up to the roof to reclaim what was properly hers.

Tuesday just let out a contented yawn and said, “Whatever. The sun is nice right here, take your time.” She then rolled over onto her back and lay still, sunning herself while her sister hunted the shadow Varus had stolen away.

How long those days might have gone on with all his intentions of finding someone to take them away and raise them, forgotten in the face of the simple pleasures of enjoying the moment could never be said. What mattered was that the reminder came on all on its own when he felt his nearly forgotten skeleton’s senses catch his mind and command his focus.

While Hannah and Tuesday lay panting on the grass, both shadows firmly attached beneath them, Varus forced himself to remember what he’d done, and what he was going to do.

‘I probably should have made this one a little faster.’ He told himself, as he noticed the more sluggish pace relative to the first one. That one had not been as durable, therefore it had been quicker, something he could have changed too, if he’d thought of it. ‘Oh well, lesson learned for next time. It’s not like it matters. What was one or two more days now, anyway?’ He asked the rhetorical question and took in the unusual sight.

The figure was clearly a woman, and a young one at that, with the curves of her hips clearly outlined by close fitting armor that was clearly custom made to fit her form. Her armor was outlined to the shape of her breasts, and it glinted in the daylight, being composed of a white and blue metal alloy that Varus recognized at once.

‘It’s just like hers.’ He thought of Hero and the Siltharin, the swordsworn valkyrie who vowed never to marry until the demon lord had been driven from their lands.

He smiled a little inside himself as the slender woman advanced on the skeleton, a long blade with a slight curve to it which was held with a relaxed but ready hand. A blue cloak hung off her shoulders and a white mask emblazoned with glowing runes concealed her face.

It was so easy right then, to just get lost in the memory of his brave companions, but her sharp voice passed through the blank mask and prevented any more indulgence on Varus’s part. “You, skeleton, can you speak? Are you created by the monster of the forest?”

“The. Master. Demands. You. Take. The. Children.” The skeleton’s half muddled version of the message brought Varus up short.

‘What?!’ Varus cried out in his head and cursed the way his words had been muddled. ‘That’s not what I meant! Gah! Why didn’t I just write a letter?! Idiot!’ He groaned as the adventurer replied.

“So, it’s true. There is a monster out this way that is creating undead and threatening children. Not to worry, monster, you want me to come rescue them, rescue them I, Lady Lithia Sygdria shall do it!” She shouted with a melodramatic flourish, swinging her sword arm out in front of her body and stopping with it stretched out in the direction of the summon.

Varus cringed internally. Steel determination in her eyes aside, it was the sort of thing novices with grandiose ideas of heroism did before they became more experienced and pragmatic. ‘Oh by the Dark Mother…’ He thought as secondhand embarrassment swept over him, but then, with a motion so swift that Varus could scarcely follow it through the eyes of his skeletal summon, the blade destroyed the enhanced being as if no modifications had been made at all, and Varus’s vision of the scene was lost.

‘Oh boy… this is… going to get awkward. But at least she didn’t shout the name of her attack or force me to cringe more before she finished it off.’ Varus thought and groaned, dragging his hand down the length of his face in exasperation while the sisters lay snoring on the grass not far from where he stood. He let them rest there for several minutes more before he approached on bare and silent feet, picked them up, and carried them into his home to lay them down for an afternoon nap.

‘At least I’ll have time to write.’ He told himself just a moment before their snoring began to pick up.