“Six weeks!?”

Nadia, hands at her hips and unbudging, broke into a scowl.

“Minimum. A month and a half is lucky considering how many bones you’ve broken.” She settled back down onto her chair and took up her sewing needles once again.

“If you hate being bedridden so much, you shouldn’t have gotten into such a fight in the first place.”

Her face displayed expressions of frustration and disdain, yet at closer inspection, one could see the worry shining in her eyes. It took a few weeks, but Malt was slowly beginning to learn that this was just the way that she expressed herself.

He eased back onto his pillow, careful not to disturb Misha, who was half kneeling - half sleeping at the side of the bed.

He’d been fortunate enough to receive a multitude of visitors, all of whom had sat on that very chair, taken from the dining table.

It was quite comforting, how the ma’am came by to intermittently drop off various medicinal concoctions as well as porridge, which seemed to be the only thing he ate these days (not that he was complaining). He felt bad initially, but she’d always insist that it was no problem, almost excessively at times.

After a while, he realized that she was most likely guilty about the whole incident, given that she was the one who had asked him to follow Nadia in the first place. This notion was unwarranted of course, he would’ve had to fight Pavel at some point regardless of whether it happened sooner or later.

Kirk would come in oftenly as well, mostly in the morning when he seemed to be the most energetic. He’d blabber in that endearing way that only children did, and Malt listened intently, regardless of whether he could decipher what the boy was saying.

Misha came nearly every evening to keep him company - or not, maybe this was just her favourite napping spot. She was great company nonetheless, and he’d grown accustomed to the amount of conversation, or lack of, that transpired when they were alone. Comfortable silence allowed him time for thought, after all. And considering the ever looming threat that hung over all of their heads, such times were likely to be scarce in the times to come.

Sometimes Mari would come over with her sisters, which was always helpful because one, all the damaged clothes and fabrics in the household were bound to be mended by the time they left, and two, Misha and Kirk would have people their age to socialize with.

Whilst the younger siblings played outside, Malt would do what he did best, and tried to melt into the background as Nadia and Mari went about gossipping to each other at the side of his bed.

The times were good, and although many of his visitors acted a little forced at times, but knowing the nature of his sorry state, he was glad to see that there were people who cared for his well-being.

There was one exception, of course.

Malt furrowed his brows as he stared intently into the low wooden ceiling, a sight which he had become all too familiar with as of late.

“By the way, any updates on the whole Niko situation?”

Her expression twisted in frustration and disdain once again. Only this time, no hint of warmness was present in her eyes.

“That idiot, he’s still out in the woods ‘training’, or whatever.”

She looked as if she’d just caught scent of something vile.

From what he’d heard, Niko was hit pretty hard by the fact that he wasn’t there to stand up for his sister when it mattered. He’d apparently gone off to train, presumably so that he could give Pavel a piece of his mind. A naive, half-baked idea, but it fit his brash sense of responsibility to a tee.

Nadia went on with her rant, it was clear from her expression and the intensity of her voice that she was genuinely angry.

“Who does he think he is? Spouting crap like ‘I need to protect the family, as the eldest son.’” She thought back, looking as if she’d just seen a turd on the side of the road.

“How does he expect to ‘protect’ us if he’s always fucking off into the forest every morning? What kind of moron thinks like that?”

Malt raised his hands in an attempt to calm her, “Alright alright, let’s chill for a sec.” He looked worriedly at Misha, who was starting to shift around from the sudden increase in volume.

“I’m sure his intent is to help you all, his execution is just a little…”

“Stupid. Stupid is the word you’re looking for.”

“Ah...well, …”

After a bit of trying to find a way to defend Niko, to place him in a better light, he gave up and nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I’d say that’s fair.”

Her knuckles, which still held the sewing needles, turned white. Her face sunk and the frustration melded away from her expression. All that remained now was a profound sense of concern on her features.

“Doesn’t he realize that the best way to help us, is to actually be here?”

Malt simply sat there. There weren’t many times where Nadia openly shared her worries, he supposed that it was a skill that came with taking care of the younger siblings for so long. But in the rare times that she did, there was no form of emotional support he could offer her. This wasn’t his specialty, not by a long shot.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He hesitantly raised his hand to her shoulder, wondering whether a shoulder pat would be comforting or creepy.

Just before his hand made contact, she perked up, shaking away any hint of worry from her face.

“Y’know what, screw him.”

Malt blinked multiple times, slightly stunned.

“If he wants to go off and be useless somewhere else, that just means I’ve got to put in double the work back here. There’s so much to be done, I’ve got no time to be off trying to start fights like a certain idiot.”

As she stared into space with eyes renewed with determination, Malt smirked inwardly. Thinking that she of all people would need someone to pep her up was a pretentious thought in of itself.

“...what’s with that creepy face?”

“...creepy face? I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”

She looked at him with wry eyes.

“Real slick dude. Real slick.”

It was impressive how she could go from vulnerable to quippy within just a few seconds.

After that, there was a lull in the conversation. They engaged in a little small talk here and exchanged a little banter there, but for the most part, neither party had anything to bring up. Nothing comfortable at least.

As the vibe slowly shifted into awkwardness, she launched the question that he’d been expecting for quite some time now.

“So Malt, I’ve been thinking but…” He could physically see the turmoil within her mind as she scrambled to find the most respectful way to bring up the subject.

“You...you used to be a soldier, right?”

He nodded without a second thought. It’d probably be rude to keep it from her any longer, as she wasn’t a dumb person in any sense. She’d likely already worked out at least roughly what he’d done in the past.

“Yep. I spent a couple months in the fortress a long ways...what, southwest of here? Yeah I think that sounds about right.”

A twang of guilt flashed across her features. Perhaps she wasn’t actually expecting him to answer so truthfully.

Her personality, or at least the part of it that Malt could understand, wasn’t fit to tiptoe around a subject like she was attempting to now. He’d actually be more comfortable if she outright asked him, like her blunt self would usually do.

“Are you...alright now?”

“Mhm, what makes you think otherwise?”

Her eyes fluttered all over the place, hesitant to make contact with his, which was a justifiable reaction to be fair.

“Well...I dunno how to describe it, but you get this...shady face sometimes.”

He mentally slapped himself, because he knew exactly what she was talking about. With all this time to think, he’d been planning some...less than savoury things.

He opened his mouth, but found it more difficult to talk than expected. There was no way that he could simply tell her that his mind was filled with plans to kill this and that.

On the other hand, if he couldn’t defend himself, she’d definitely be suspicious of him from now on.

“Well, I mean, right now I-”

A certain man’s voice called out from downstairs, accompanied with some knocking.

“Oh for fucksa - I was just getting to the important bits.”

Two pairs of footsteps made their way up the staircase, stopping just before the door to his room. It was almost funny, he could tell exactly who they were just by the light, and elegantly timed rhythm of their footsteps.

As soon the door opened, his premonition was proved correct.

Nasir and Anna stood at the doorframe, dressed regally as they always were.

They exchanged obligatory greetings, but it was clear by Nasir’s more excited, or sinister might be the better way to put it, mannerisms that there was an urgent matter at hand.

He stepped into the room and gave Anna a quick glance, which she seemed to understand immediately.

Anna gestured to Nadia, “Let’s go talk downstairs, Nadi. Looks like these two are going to talk about something dangerous. And, probably, reckless.”

Nasir looked at his granddaughter and smiled wryly. This obviously wasn’t the way that they’d rehearsed it.

A little confused, but seeming to get the memo (not that it was presented very delicately), Nadia stood from her chair and made her way to the doorframe.

“Yeah we should probably do that.”

She took one last backwards glance at Malt, and with that the door shut.

As soon as their footsteps faded into nothingness, the floodgates seemed to have opened.

Nasir stepped to the center of the room with his swagger in his step and a slightly eager expression on his face.

“I’ve stripped the weapons and armor off the two bodies and placed the stuff in your little forest stash.”

He closed the window, but took out his pipe anyway, lighting it with a simple tap.

“I’ve got to say, you’ve amassed quite a hoard of gear. Won’t ask where you got it though.”

He took a long puff, filling the small room with the smell of potent medicinal herb.

Malt’s lips curled into a little smirk, “Like you don’t already know where I got them.”

“It was rhetoric, son. On that matter, don’t you think you can clean up a bit after your kills? The other boys are getting upset that they go into the forest to search for boar and find a murder scene instead.”

“Don’t got the time to. I’m barely scraping by as is.”

“Or you could, y’know, just not go for so many targets every night? Well I guess you aren’t going out much now are you?” He gestured to the bed, to which Malt had no answer.

“Well that’s enough of that.”

He took another puff as he sat down on the chair Nadia had previously occupied, making sure to iron out the wrinkles in his clothing as he did.

“I’m sure you’ve gathered quite a lot of information so far right? Out with it then, we can’t get to the fun bits otherwise.”

Malt smiled wryly. This man was getting way too excited over such a morbid matter. He got the sense that this dilemma had sparked something within the silver fox. Something that he’d evidently kept suppressed for a while now.

“You’re way too excited about this old man.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? We’ve more or less sorted everything out. I snuck the bodies away before the girls could see, the big brat is half dead, and we’ve got enough weapons to arm the village twice over.”

He leaned closer to Malt.

“Now all that’s left is to act.”