Jon felt an immediate loss of energy from his body. He was so tired he slumped in his chair almost instantly.

“That gem drains a lot of mana from the user,” Charlotte explained. “It looks like you aren’t used to it yet, but it also seems like you and Lana have a strong connection.”

Jon looked at the gem with skepticism. He didn’t think he and Lana could be that close.

He then heard a giggle from Charlotte.

“You look so suspicious,” Charlotte exclaimed. “Trust me. Lana is such a lonely soul. Not only does she bear the entirety of the world by herself, but she also isolates herself so that she doesn’t put it on others.”

Jon frowned, but not because he didn’t want to believe Charlotte. He had known Lana for some time now, but he still felt wary of Charlotte’s observations.

Charlotte must have felt this, because she continued to try to convince Jon.

“She doesn’t make very many connections outside of the King’s Guard, and you’re running around with Hector and Mallory a lot. She has a high regard for you, more than maybe even she realizes. She probably trusts you more than she trusts herself.”

Jon shook his head.

Charlotte giggled more. “Oh, okay. Are you telling me that you and Lana’s relationship is purely professional?”

Jon nodded. After the first few nods, he realized that maybe nodding wasn’t the best answer.

“Hmmm… Well, you could be lying, but you don’t seem to be that type of guy.” Charlotte shrugged. “I suppose you and her have a strong mutual respect for each other.”

“Yeah…” Jon could barely think for himself anymore. He felt groggy.

“In any case, you looked drained from that call,” Charlotte told him.

Jon nodded. He didn’t know a call on a gem could do that.

“Come on. I’ll help you out.”

She was already standing up and walking over to him as he pulled himself up. She steadied him onto his feet, and then they walked together into the hallway.

“You’ve been with the family a short while,” Charlotte said as they walked, “but you seem to have done a number on this family already. Hector’s a lot more aware of the world around him. Lana’s actually opening up to someone. Hell, Macy talked to her? You’ve met Macy, right?”

Charlotte laughed before Jon gave a good answer.

“I can tell by the look on your face when I said Macy’s name. You’ve met her.”

“Macy’s nice,” Jon said after some thought. “She taught me fire.”

“Did she?”

They stopped in front of the open room that Jon recognized as his room. He was glad she knew, as he had already forgotten.

“I’ll just tell you this, Jon,” Charlotte said. “This family… we have a mound of problems. Mounds of it. Don’t feel like you have to make all of our problems your problems."

Jon had an answer, but it took him several moments to find the words. He thought really hard on what to think.

“Hector made my problems his problems,” Jon answered. “And I owe him.”

Charlotte made a sad smile and put her hand on Jon’s shoulder.

“How sweet, Jon,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here with us. Good night, Jon.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

Jon felt his face get warm. He tried to tell himself Charlotte was just being incredibly kind and generous.

“Good night,” Jon said. He waddled into the room and fell onto the bed.

Jon had a dream that night. He stood outside of a closed door, nothing but darkness all around him.

He held his blunderbuss at his hip, ready to fire and swiveling from left to right. Just awaiting dangerous things to come forward. He couldn’t see the danger ahead but he knew it was out there, all the same. He was the only thing between the danger and the doorway.

He continued to swivel until there was a tug on his leg.

He pointed down and fired.

He couldn’t make out the outcome of that exchange, or what had even come up to his leg in the first place before his other leg was accosted as well. He shot there as well.

The assault continued, invisible hands and arms grabbing at his body from all sides. Jon resorted to swinging the blunderbuss around his body before he decided that it would be better to protect the door from inside, lest be he dragged away from his position.

Jon pulled away from the unseen assailants, gunning through the door before slamming it shut behind him.

Now, he was in an extended white room. Tiles made up the floor and maybe even the walls, but Jon couldn’t tell if it was the wall he was looking at, or just more white.

Jon thought that it was completely silent at first. His ears then picked up the sprinkle of sound.

Is that… water? Jon held up his blunderbuss in preparedness. He hadn’t known if anything had made its way into the room from the outside. He needed to be vigilant.

He crept forward towards the sound of rushing water until he made it to a white wall that was blocking his vision of whatever was making the noise.

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He stepped around the white wall.

It was indeed a shower that he found, but standing under it was Lana, scrubbing her hair in full armor and unaware of any presence other than her own.

She turned to see Jon staring at her aghast. She covered herself up in shame and screamed.

“Jon!”

Jon sat up from his bed, breathing hard, but not as much as he had imagined in the cryptic dream.

He patted himself down, making sure he was indeed back in the room he had fallen asleep in. He then looked to the side. His blunderbuss sat next to him on the bed.

Normally, keeping the blunderbuss near him helped him feel safe. Now it was a reminder of all of the dangerous things he and his friends had gone through the past several weeks.

Maybe I shouldn’t sleep with the blunderbuss in bed anymore…

Outside of maybe A new burgeoning anxiety he couldn’t pinpoint, Jon didn’t know exactly what the dream meant, but he had trouble parsing between what part of the dream made him embarrassed and which part felt like the acceptance of a new normal. He decided to put it aside for the time being, hoping that it wouldn’t become a regular thing. He barely had enough bandwidth to understand the complexities of interacting with the real world, let alone the dream one.

There was a knock at the door.

“Hello?” It was Mallory.

Jon was hesitant to answer. He was still incredibly tired, and he wasn’t quite ready for the rest of the world yet. Even someone as level headed as Mallory,

Jon figured even as tired as he was, staying in his bed wouldn’t have helped him rest more. His body was aching, it was hard to move, and he didn’t want to accidentally go back to sleep and have another weird dream to parse through.

The thought passed Jon to grab the gun and use it to give him strength with his aching body. Holding the gun would help ease the pain, and otherwise make it so that Jon could move without much discomfort,

As soon as he grabbed it, he let it go. Maybe it was because Mallory was standing behind the door, but Jon was reminded of the idea that he should walk and move without the gun so as to let his body more naturally cope with the injuries so that he recovered properly.

And I’m safe in Hector’s home…

Even if the castle in Resden had been safe, Jon still felt at ease when he wasn’t at least around one of his friends. Here, there was no need for that type of alertness

With all that reasoning and more, Jon stained as he got out of the bed, taking one more look at the gun behind him before departing to the door.

Jon’s brain was working at full speed, but his body was still working to catch up. He limped forward until his hand pressed against the solid wood of the door and owned it.

Mallory was standing right outside with damp hair, a new, homely robe, and a tired, toothy smile.

“Yeah?” Jon didn’t know if he sounded tired or not. Thankfully, Mallory didn’t seem to be the type of person who would mention that without a good point.

“We’re all cooking our own breakfast,” Mallory explained. “Charlotte’s gonna take care of lunch and dinner... if you want it.”

Breakfast. Jon missed having three meals a day. Also, hearing the fact that they were all cooking their own meals made him feel the closest to giddy he could feel at the moment, which was a long way away.

“Yeah,” Jon said again, his voice probably betraying his excitement. He limped out after Mallory who wandered down the hallway to the living area.

Mallory was already sitting on a couch, when Jon caught up, a book open in front of him.

Jon watched Mallory without comment, too tired to think of what to do.

Mallory finally looked over when he noticed that Jon hadn’t moved.

“What’s up, brother?” Mallory asked,

Jon didn’t want to just say that he was tired.

“Are you cooking?” he asked instead.

“Nah. I usually skip breakfast. Eat a little of Hector’s leftovers.” Mallory went back to his reading.

He stopped when he saw that Jon was still waiting.

“Do you cook?” Jon asked. He remembered that Mallory avoided cooking back at the safehouse.

Mallory grimaced, his face still in his book.

“Uh, well, that’s a weird question. I mean, that’s a weird question to answer. Uh… I let Hector do all the cooking if there’s any.”

Jon nodded acceptingly.

“Why?” He added. He couldn't help but be curious.

Mallory frowned.

“Sorry,” Jon amended again.

“No. It’s not an issue. It’s just… well, maybe it’s better you eat first. We’ll talk about it over breakfast.”

Jon nodded. He felt a concern for Mallory that matched the time Mallory talked about his impoverished mana pool. Jon was willing to give Mallory the time he needed to have the conversation.

Jon went back to the kitchen and saw that there were some slabs of meat a couple of eggs, and some uncut vegetables strewn over the counter.

Jon took what was there and prepped himself breakfast, all while pondering all the reasons Mallory didn’t want to make breakfast. All the meanwhile focusing on cooking helped Jon feel reinvigorated from his morning slump.

When his plate of food was finished, he took his breakfast with him back to the mass of couches.

He paused when he saw that Mallory had fallen over on his couch, asleep, and strewn out over the large two-seater.

Jon shrugged his shoulders, sat down, and started eating, using the small table in front of him to set his plate.

When he heard the quick pace of footsteps behind him, he had assumed that it was Hector, impatient for the smell of breakfast and to make contact with the two men.

When Charlotte instead walked around the couch wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her body, Jon yelped.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to cook breakfast this morning, deary.” She took a seat next to him. Her towel smelled of dampness and her hair was wrapped up in a smaller towel, keeping it in a makeshift updo above her head.

Jon wondered how her towel was able to stay wrapped around her body without assistance. He also tried really hard to fight his curiosity, his eyes flickering between the towel and her face before they finally settled on the latter.

“I can definitely cook up a good lunch,” Charlotte continued. “I was thinking of doing breakfast, but I’d figured that everyone else would want to get a good sleep in.”

He tilted her head towards Mallory in acknowledgment.

“I was afraid they would try to wake themselves up early for me,” she explained. “Since I’m not cooking, they feel free to stay in bed longer.”

“Hmm…” Jon tried not to judge. He’d stayed in bed to avoid breakfast, but his mother was aware that Jon could cook for himself and was fine leaving Jon to be by himself. She usually left dinner out for him, for which Jon was always grateful.

Charlotte smiled. “They’ve always been like that. I can only imagine what mess happened after I went away and Lana was left to run things.”

“Hmm.” Jon could only imagine as well.

“Thanks for taking care of yourself.” She pinched Jon’s arm. She moved over on the couch closer to him, he swiftly turned away from her so that he didn’t try to investigate the towel.

The next loud but casual pair of footsteps told Jon that Hector was on his way. Jon turned to his friend in excitement and in need of something to distract him from his predicament.

“Hey, Charlotte. Hey Jon,” Hector said in a tired way. “Is breakfast ready yet?”

“I’m not cooking breakfast today,” Charlotte alerted him. “You should get something started on the oven.”

“Ah. Oh. Okay, I’m going back to bed then..” Hector turned around and started walking back to his room.

He didn’t get too far before he pivoted on his heel and turned back to the couches.

“Go put some clothes on.’ Hector told her. “You’re being ridiculous. You're gonna get the couch wet and it's bothering Jon."

“Jon’s fine!” Charlotte said. “Isn’t that right?”

Jon grunted while staring at Hector.

“Alright.” Hector shrugged and finished his trek into the hallway, turning into the far away room.

When the door was shut, Charlotte made a small giggle. “See?”

Jon nodded. Now it was just him, Charlotte, and a snoring Mallory.