The event was drawing long into the night, everyone deep in their cups and plates covered in numerous stains from the mix of different foods, each layering over one another, woven together like a rug, when everyone started to pull themselves away from the table, bellies round, pregnant with enough food to spawn a food baby.

Strause, who looked at the world with heavy-lidded eyes, helped up Joan, who had been mopey and stroking something unseen and quite possibly imaginary with her hands for the better part of an hour. Gunther, real name unknown and unspoken, grumbly about talking, waddled her 5-foot form towards the door like some variety of flightless bird.

The Sprites, swollen like ticks, buzzed, using all the strength in their bodies to lift off. They looked like the rest of us, even though they had eaten only a comparable crumb. They buzzed, the queen thanking Anna, which required some translation for Anna to understand.

And then, like a whirlwind to my buzzy, overused mind, they were heading out the door. Me and Anna saw them off as they walked out into the night, the bright moon overhead, though not full, would give them enough light to walk by back to moarn, where they could rest their heads and fall into a blissful food coma

They stumbled out and away from the cottage, then out of the grove, and beyond to town. I reached out and picked up the bundle of cloths, ragged, wet, and still smelling of blood, and decided that I would leave the cloths laid out to dry and only take the blade inside.

Anna walked back in and started picking up dishes, and I went and put the sword away in the closet where my clothes lay before I had rendered them all to strands of fabric.

It was an unnerving thing to feel in my hand. The blade felt too heavy by far for what it was, Like the magic held within the blade, the palpable malignant force ebbing to be unleashed like the dam I had ridden upon, pressed against its boundary, and caused fine glyphs on the blade to shimmer in unholy spectral light purple lilac and vitriolic green, and the foe light of the room with the pit.

There was no soul in the blade, it was only a potent, oversized ritual knife, it looked like it was made to bleed things, along with a thin blade made to create fine cuts. It was the type of knife that could be thrust between the ribs.

I put the forearm-length blade down and headed over to help out Anna.

Anna, incidentally, had decided that doing dishes the normal way was boring and was using a buttload of water and magic to suck everything off the plates. There was a bit of a splash zone, but with how fast she was going through it, I decided that it was a great idea to stay out of her way and get the plates drying, plucking the plates out of the water when they were clean and placing them on the counter and any pottery near the fire to dry. The home was still as warm as when I had come in, perfectly warm.

I went and got a little wood and placed it in the hearth. Kindly had always told me it was his job to keep the hearth lit, though even without Anna adding any, it seemed like it stood lit for far longer than it probably should have, maybe it was because it was blessed, whatever that did.

It was probably magical in some sense of the word, but I couldn’t feel anything special about the mana in the stone, the fireplace, or the warmth it gave off.

It was, to my eye, a normal fireplace. Anna deposited the gunk she pulled from the plates into the fireplace, and I decided to make a sacrifice of it, letting out a little prayer to the Hearthkeeper.

It went through, and I was reminded of the feeling of prayer, a sensation of acknowledgement that my prayer had been heard and accepted. I had no idea if a prayer once heard was not accepted, that was something more in Skip's wheelhouse, one of the things he didn’t tell us. A [Priest] secret, not given to layfolk.

I bet it was in his library… gods so much to do, but so little time to do it in. I’m still learning magic, I still need to practice fighting more, today taught me that much, though there's not much I can do by repeating the same motions over and over again, is there? I should probably do them anyway to keep it up… And I want to go someplace nice with Anna, and save the valley, and get Skip’s library moved, and have space for skips library, and… Is there another and?

They were tiny ands. Like hugging Anna, who looked very huggable, my head was still fuzzy, though I was regaining some use of it. Whatever I had done down in that lair had taken a chunk out of my already lacking smarts. I was finding it hard not to act impulsively, which was only spurred on by the beer.

Anna was tapping her feet and moving a little, though I didn’t know if it was part of casting whatever spell she was casting or if it was her dancing a little bit, swaying her hips to a beat in her head.

Wait a moment.

“Your casting?” I asked, quite stupidly.

“Hmm? Yes, I’m casting. Why are you surprised?” she asked, turning to face me, not interrupting her jig.

“But you already cast the spell… and you're still casting? You’re casting, but not casting, a spell that’s already been cast. There’s no spell pattern thingy.” I said, flexing my charisma.

Eloquence, that was me.

My face must have been something to look at because a look of amusement passed her face, though it was a bit tired and more drawn around the eyes. She cleared her thoughts and straightened up with a breath.

“Well, [Apprentice],” she said in her teacher's voice, “What I am doing is called [Concentration], it’s a skill common for classes that refer to another power, like [Druids] and [Clerics]. It lets us use the mana we save and put it right back into the spells.”

That was something I had not thought about.

Anna had given me two important pieces of information right there, two things I should have probably thought about. A [Cleric] was a [Mage] and a [Priest]; they could already cast spells, and it was the same with Anna, she could cast magic before she became a [Druid]. So, if someone could already cast magic, why would they bind themselves to something else? Casting other spells? Getting given spells? They should be able to learn them, there was nothing I understood that would encourage them to specialize for that reason alone. Anna had already told me before that spells should get less expensive to cast the more I learned to cast them. The first time was sloppy, but then you refined it from there.

But if you could cast a spell through another being… Like, a god… why would the spell be sloppy at all?

Anna hadn’t cast spells through nature all that much. Apparently, she had caused a storm to form, which, compared to what I could do, was crazy. The kind of thing that would be mana-intensive.

But the sky knew storms well, it knew them and mana on a level I couldn’t even comprehend, I learned that the hard way by asking it.

The second was a natural result of the first, I hadn’t expected a skill to let you cast a spell and extend it. Why would you do that with the spells I had? Extending the [Status] page was a waste, what was I going to do? Read it for longer? And [Inspect] was just fire and forget.

But with a big spell that kept doing stuff the longer it was active, with a super low mana cost, casting the spell again might be less mana efficient than just… keeping it going. Like maintenance, fix it once in a while, and you don’t need to replace it, which costs more money overall.

“That is… So smart,” I told her.

My amazement took some of the weariness out of Anna then. Leave it to Anna to tell it like it was, gosh, but she was smart, way smarter than me.

Honestly, I didn’t see what she saw in me.

“It’s not so amazing, its only water manipulation, er [Manipulate Water], I only have to do this little dance because, well, I drank a little too much… I’m not here enough to hold the spell perfectly without any somatics.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She said the last part, with a little embarrassment, like relying on the movements, was something to be embarrassed about.

“Hehe, you're still doing way more than I could, and you're doing it while tipsy-hehe. The sow- Som- the wiggle, its cute and amazing that you barely need any aid, so don’t go getting embarrassed for pulling off a feat of genius here.”

That got her blushing, and she missed a beat and made the water flutter for a moment before she caught up with it. She focused on the dishes while I planned my method of attack.

I decided to wait for her to be done before I hugged her. Wait for the plates to get stacked up and the gunk tossed as a sacrifice to Hearth for the warmth of our home and good food.

I waited for the wiggle to end, for the water to get put down. Anna tossed it out the window for the plants. It had taken on a bit of a colour, so hopefully, they liked the food too.

The wiggle stopped, and Anna turned.

A better moment I couldn’t have asked for, I took it, seizing the moment and leaned in for a hug.

I could rest my head on hers when we hugged, standing up and nestling her head into my chest. It was a bit awkward, but I wasn’t pushing it, I wasn’t trying to make a move on her after all, it was a platonic hug, a platonic hug didn’t change just because we were courting.

She hugged back, holding on a moment before releasing a bunch of tension.

I focused on the moment, on the warmth and presence of Anna, until she loosened the hug. I pulled back and gave her a peck on the forehead before talking to her.

“Sorry about coming in like that, It was, well, gross would be an understatement. And sorry for running off earlier. I was looking forward to spending time with you, and then I went and ran away and left you hanging.”

She gave my back a pat and a bit of worry was on her face. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, then again, my instinct was off its rocker right now, it didn’t know what the hell to expect any more than I did without it.

“Don’t apologize, not for coming in like that or for running off. I’ll admit that I was disappointed and missed you, but I agree with what you did. Going out to help… I think its important, just… Just make sure you come back… I… I know that your hard to kill, possibly even impossible to kill, but… God's Saphine, there was so much blood… I can smell it on you.”

I could hear the fear as sure as I could smell it, this close without the other around. Anna had been afraid for me or of me, but even with my intuition in a not, I doubted it was the latter over the former.

“I can smell it on me too… I won't lie and tell you I didn’t get hurt, that it was their blood, and I’m not still hurt. I, gods, I’m bad at reassuring you, huh? I… Well, I fought them, and got hurt, and kept going. I didn’t die this time! How's that? I got through it, even with the big bad monster at the end. I got the queen out and a few Humans… And a whole lot of souls. I-”

Anna cut off my poor assurance before it started to get into a half-apology, half-not-apology amalgam that I could tell I would want to take back. She didn’t cut me off as a rule, waiting for me to finish more often than not. It was rare enough that it shut me up.

“I’m not asking for an explanation, there's time for that later. I’m just asking, no, no, I’m telling you to come back safe, if you go out there one day and you don’t come back, I’m going to come looking for you, and Gods help you when I find you. I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll be very cross with you, you hear that!”

She started at a softer volume, but with each syllable, each exhale of breath, her volume increased. It wasn’t just in volume but in emotion, each vowel more pained than the next, and each word brought her closer to squeezing the life out of me. By the end, she was yelling into my chest, head pressed into my cleavage like an axe head.

I could feel her tremble, tucked into me like she was, I could feel it from her hands around my ribs to her belly to her head, pressed flat to me as she was.

My chest felt wet.

“I promise I will come back. I’ll always come back, even if it takes me a week or a month. I will walk a thousand miles and more back home. And I’ll make sure to try and get hurt less next time, it will be their blood, not mine.”

She snorted a really gross snort and muffled by her apparent desired place to cry uninhibited into me.

“Better, you scared me really bad, I thought you were going to fall over like last time. Or die, or I don’t know. But- But- you, scare- scared me-”

She became more unhinged from there, venting her emotions and fears to me. I held her close and heard her out, listening to her sadness, and fear, and joy. It was a full-spectrum cry. Not a good cry or a bad cry, but one that was necessary for her.

So, I listened and accepted her emotion. I became her rock and let her cry herself out into me until there were no more tears.

She was weak on her feet, and I would need to wash my one wearable dress, but that was a small price to pay to give Anna what reassurance I could.

And then, to make it known to her, I lifted her up in a princess carry, bringing her up to face level. Anna ugly cried, she was snotty and red-eyed, splotches of dampness where my clothes had failed to wick away her tears.

“You know, they say that guys who make girls cry are the worst. I ought to say, I feel like that goes doubly for me,” I told her, “I can't whip away your tears right now on account of holding you, but if its any consolation, I’ll live up to my promise, and next time I’ll make sure to come home without making you cry.”

She sniffled and looked at me. She was probably surprised at me picking her up, but she wasn’t fidgeting to get out. Her eyes were big black holes, and it made the instinct of my cave bold ancestors act up. The deer part wanted to protect her, and the fox part wanted to eat her up. both were off the mark, and I focused externally instead of internally, all focused on Anna.

Holding her brought calm to her, she pressed into me. Her mousiness was cute and distracting. The calm wared with confusion in her eyes. Her cheeks took on a flush before she pulled back from it and scowled.

“What the hell is going on with me...”

She whispered it, quiet as could be.

“It’s the mouse in you, I think. It’s the mousey-ness I keep seeing expressing itself,” I said, rocking her a little, “You’ve been isolated for a long time, it's normal when you get close to people and see them hurt to be a little distraught, being a mouse only makes that more extreme. As a Kobold, instinct is a part of us, like it is with everyone, being aware of it is important. Knowing yourself is important.”

“I don’t like it, the other stuff is ok, but I don’t like this. I feel like a teenager all over again. This sucks, I keep my cool all day, and now I’m… Crying like a baby. It's not fair.”

She said it poutily. I was an all too Human reaction, calling something other people had to deal with unfair when it happened to her. I had no stones to throw, though, seeing as I had fought a monster just earlier and called its return from death unfair, all the same.

“I know how it feels, my instinct made itself well heard today, too, and caused me no little grief. But a little advice: think of it like this. Those feelings are normal, just heightened. The bad is worse, the good is better, and, importantly for you, the release is more relieving. You’ve probably had to deal with them all your life, tucking them away. I’m not going to judge you for crying anymore than I expect you would judge me for crying, even as rare as it is. Crying is good for you, so don’t try to scrunch it up and pack it away.”

“I… Thank you. I, just don’t know if I like it. It makes me feel so… womanly…”

She said womanly in a way that implied context like it was poison.

“I’m guessing you don’t mean in the normal way?”

“No, not the normal way,” She sighed, “Womanly in the sense that plenty of men talk about women. Women are unstable, you can't trust them to make important decisions, Women use their emotions, not their heads, Women aren’t logical, they can’t think for themselves… That’s what I mean.”

“They sound like… whats the word… not evil but…”

“Like they hate women? Like misogynists?”

“No… But those are good enough, they like to see people suffer. Most people aren’t that way, just the ones with too much power.”

“I’ll say, the lords of the valley uphold good old fashioned values, like hating their wives and desperately wanting as many illegitimate children as possible.”

“Don’t knock illegitimate children, Ayme was illegitimate, and you’re her descendent.”

“Gasp, scandal, I must bring this to the court of… whoever was emperor at the time.”

“King, this was a kingdom.”

“Yes, Yes, don’t wheedle me.”

I smirked, the fox within abating, leaving me with only the protectiveness. The still vigil of the great stag, watching over the other animals of the forest.

“Think of it like this, at least your not a squirrel, they had it rougher than most.”

She looked at me with amusement.

“A squirrel, right, and I supposed they buried things?”

She looked at my face and realized I wasn’t kidding.

“Oh gods, that would be, were they… My goodness, being squirrely would be worse.”

“Yep, by far worse. Twas said in times of yore, you could tell the time of year and whether it would be good by how many complaints the lords made about squirrels. Imagine burying like twenty pounds of flour in a jar in some random field, or when they started to get twitchy, and you needed to avoid them, or they might freak out. They were the most high-strung people I knew of. Good merchants, though, for what that’s worth.”

“Ridiculous, truly ridiculous.”

“I never said it made sense, just like instincts don’t, just like men don’t. The world doesn’t make sense, we were not made to make sense of it, just to live within it, what was it skip said… To make sense of nonsense is nonsense, only by accepting nonsense can we make sense of our senses. The world we see is a lie, reality is not what it appears; it is all nonsense, and our minds order it to make some sense so we can get by. We put things in boxes because it makes it easier. Men are pigs, instincts are bad, and squirrels are totally normal, functioning members of society. Each is a lie, and each is true, depending on who asks who. Or something like that anyway.”

“He sounds like a [know-it-all].”

“Close, he was a [Lore Master].”

“Close enough, can I… Can I ask you something?” she asked.

I nodded to her.

“Is it really ok… for me to be so… So… Emotional? I hate to reiterate myself, but even you have to agree, my crying is a little gross.”

I looked down at her face, covered in the fading signs of her crying, and I came to a decision.

“If I promise you I’m fine with it, will you take me at my word?” I asked her. She nodded, craning her head to be closer to me.

“Well then, I promise I will always come home…”

“I promise I will always be better here, and while I fight…”

“And I promise that your crying is not going to chase me away, when you need to cry, you need to cry, no matter how many boggers you get on my clothes.”

And between each line, I kissed her, not a tiny chaste peck, but a kiss.