Our third day of the pilgrimage started with a bang.

And that wasn’t in reference to Kearse’s surprisingly good bacon and eggs. His breakfast had ended up being so good that none of us cared about who was driving the wagon so long as he was the one doing the cooking at least once per day. At least! He had basically traded one responsibility for another. That wasn’t important.

While it would probably have an impact over the duration of our pilgrimage, it didn’t have much of an effect at the moment.

What did have an impact was the bolt of energy he sent through my foot.

The mistake was probably my own. I had wanted to get in a round of target practice with Kearse before we left the road sanctuary that morning, and I had forgotten to remind him of the rules for firearms usage. It really was a complete accident. Nobody could have blamed Kearse for resting his finger a little too tightly on the trigger. He was nervous, after all.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t about to yell at him.

Because he shot me in the foot.

Kearse shot me in the foot!

And it fucking hurt!

I had barely handed him the gun again before there was a flash of light and a searing pain where my toes should have been.

“Argh! What the fucking fuck?!” I screemed, as anyone would when they had been shot in the fucking foot!

“I’m sorry!” Kearse tried to apologize.

“What part of ‘point, click, boom’ do you not understand?!”

“All of it!”

It hurt. It really hurt. There weren’t enough “reallies” to explain the amount of pain that comes with a sudden lack of toes. There are many worse pains than getting shot in the foot, but that doesn’t mean that anyone would volunteer to be shot in the foot.

Because it fucking hurts!

In the grand scheme of things, Kearse was fairly lucky that I had been the one he had managed to injure. I could regenerate. I’d be fine!

But Kearse had still made a very fatal mistake.

“You’ve ruined my boots!” I shouted while hopping around and clutching at my foot. “These were my last pair! Now I’ve got to wear shoes!”

“What?!” Kearse asked, sounding much more confused that guilty.

“Fuck you Kearse! I’ve only got two left!” I yelled, now having fallen to the ground because hopping around on foot wasn’t easy, even when you hadn’t just had three minor appendages blasted out of existence. I hoped it was only three.

“Are you alright?”

Why do people feel compelled to ask that?”

“No, I’m not alright! It’s going to take entire minutes to heal this foot! Minutes! And you killed my last pair of boots, you bastard!”

“What?” Kearse asked again, his guilt now completely replaced by a massive lack of understanding.

I couldn’t really blame him. At this point, I was mostly just yelling to take my mind off of how much it hurt.

“Learn some fucking trigger discipline!”

“I don’t know what that is!”

Haylen and Mayra briefly emerged from the sanctuary to see what the fuss was about, but upon seeing that I was the only injured party, the immediately went back inside to resume their morning coffee. Mayra seemed to be actively ignoring the event that had just proven the point I had hoped to make.

“You’re welcome for that coffee, by the way! No need to worry about me! I’ll be fine!”

I was fine, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t be pissed off about it.

* * * * *

Indigo had, for some reason, stormed back inside and changed into a dress before they finally left the sanctuary that morning. Despite grumbling about “fucking street sweepers” she hadn’t needed any encouragement to sit alongside Kearse and learn how to drive the wagon. If anything all of her previous obstinacy about not wanting to drive had turned into a stubborn desire to do the exact opposite, and she let him handle the ropes as infrequently as possible.

She bickered with him about minor details, making the two sound like an old married couple. Anything happening in the back was beyond their notice.

Mayra stayed out of it. She knew where that conversation would lead. It would probably involve something about Indigo “having proven herself correct” and deceased boots, as if footwear had anything to do with anything.

Haylen ignored it all. The half-elf had offered to drive for a time but, after receiving a warning hiss from the homunculus, had retreated to the back and shown little desire to move from her spot. Passing time by playing cat’s cradle and making various figures from a string, the half-elf was more than content to find ways to occupy herself. If Indigo was feeling stubborn about helping out, Halen was willing to let her.

Mayra though… she had a spell to cast. It would take them the better part of the day to reach her family’s estate, and that was exactly how much time she had to use as much mana as possible from Indigo’s loaned crystals. Half a score sat around her, their light blue glow indicating that they were fully charged.

“Ten crystals and… six hours? Seven? I can do this.”

The exact amount of time it took to reach her home largely depended on how fast Indigo pushed the mules, and Mayra was determined to use it as effectively as possible.

“No breaks. That will only diminish the returns,” she thought to herself. “This will be easy compared to making the space the first time. The spell is preestablished. All I need to do is expand upon it.”

The wagon had barely started moving before Mayra embraced the energies from the bright cylinders surrounding her. She had the better part of a day, and nothing else to do. This really would be simple.

For the first hour, it was easy. Not something easier said than done, but something that was legitimately easy. Take the mana in, then put it into the spell. There was nothing to it! If anything, the hard part was not getting distracted by the breakdown and reconstruction of the spatial barriers that made up her storage space. This wasn’t the first time she had worked at increasing its size, but it was the first time she had had enough mana to take the time to actually analyze what she was doing.

She was altering the fabric of an artificial reality! How could she not find that interesting?

It was unknown who had discovered, or more likely rediscovered how to use the storage spell, but it was truly a phenomenal thing. Mayra felt no small amount of awe as she controlled the magic that condensed, stretched, and connected her storage space to the material plane around her.

There were no real edges to the pocket dimension, she noticed. All of the corners are curved, but the transitions were so fine and smooth that nobody would notice if they weren't looking at them as they formed. And while it was so systematized, it was also entirely individual! Indigo’s storage was a dark grey in coloration, and only had enough light to clearly see what was being looked at. Mayra’s own, however, was bright and lit up everything inside of it. Hers even had markings on the surfaces to show just how much it could keep inside.

Mayra didn’t dare open her space to watch it grow. That… probably wasn’t a good idea. She had a few colleagues who had done so, and they hadn’t had any problems, but they also hadn’t been making changes as large as she was. Making a mobile portal that would move with the wagon also took more mana, and while it was a small amount, Mayra didn’t want to waste any of it.

The second hour was also easy, but the mage felt her attention threatening to slip more and more often. What she was doing wasn’t complicated, not by her standards. If for some reason her concentration lapsed and she dropped the spell, her storage space would still have increased. The only real drawback of taking a break was that the mana cost for starting the spell increased with the overall size, and every second she spent working on the spell only made the cost of failure greater. Mayra would be able to make much larger gains if she was able to do this all in one sitting.

By the third hour, her confidence had renewed itself. She was now fully into the flow of the spell, and no longer felt like she needed to keep it in a death grip of concentration. She could even split her focus enough to occasionally join in on her friends’ conversations. Nobody was saying much that was worth listening to, but she could have if she wanted.

It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t hard either. It was most definitely impressive though. This was an absolutely massive amount of mana she was working with, and she was doing it all on her own. The crystals around her held more magical energy than any single person could generate in a week! Indigo had left the necropolis more than two weeks ago, and even she hadn’t been able to fill up her entire set.

When an archmage wanted to cast a spell of this size, they had to gather apprentices or other mages to help them. Working in concert, one person was able to lead the spell while everyone else only had to direct their own flow of mana. As long as the one in charge didn’t make any horrible mistakes, it reduced the dangers of mana burn to an almost negligible level.

Mayra was now doing all of that on her own. She wasn’t channeling the mana nearly as fast as she could, but any trained mage knew that it was better to leave a decent buffer. She had been burned twice, back in her early years, and the lesson had stuck. And those had only been minor injuries. She’d seen how badly injured Indigo had ended up when the homunculus had tried to use more than she was capable of, and Mayra doubted she could survive something of that level.

Once the fourth hour passed and the fifth mana crystal had lost its light, Mayra came to a grim realization.

“Indigo?” she asked, carefully dividing her attention. “How did you, um… eat, when you cast this spell?”

Indigo handed the reigns off to Kearse, and turned to look back at her.

“I knew it was going to take a while, so I made sure to have some food ready before I started. Don’t worry, we’ll take a break soon, and I’ll bring you your lunch if you don’t think you can get out of the wagon.”

That was mildly reassuring, but it hadn’t been what Mayra was actually concerned with.

“And how did you…” she began before mouthing the last half of the sentence.

“How did I what? I can read a lot of things, but lips aren’t one of them.”

Mayra flushed, not wanting to say it out loud, but Haylen came to her rescue by pulling Indigo over and whispering in the girl’s ear.

“Oh…” Indigo said hesitantly.

Mayra didn’t like the sound of that.

“I… didn’t. I just held it in.”

The mage paled, and cursed her lack of forethought. The rest of this spell would be much more difficult if she had to do it while also concentrating on not wetting herself.

“Do you think you could maintain the spell if Haylen or I were to carry you? We could probably get you behind a bush or something.”

Mayra wanted to cry. This day couldn’t end soon enough.

* * *

It did end up being a long day, and by the time the Mayra was finally able to push aside the last mana crystal she was exhausted. Staying focused on a single task for nearly eight hours had left her mentally drained. When she had started recognizing the scenery around her, she had decided to ignore some of her usual safety measures in order to use the mana faster, and that had left her physically tired as well.

Part of her wanted to stop the wagon and see just how big her storage space had become, but she didn’t even have the energy for that, and so she spent the last leg of that day’s journey laying down, half asleep.

“At least I’ll have a real bed tonight.”

They’d be reaching her home soon. Normally she would have been excited, stuck between wanting to race on ahead to her destination, and a desire to go slowly while she took in the nostalgic sights around her.

Now, she was slightly nervous for some reason. She was looking forward to seeing her brothers, and the staff of the manor house.

But her parents…

There had been something odd about the letter they had sent her. As usual there had been two pages. One from her mother, and one from her father.

“It was like they were written by different people,” she realized.

Mayra recognized the signatures, and general penmanship of her parents, but the wording in each message had been… off. Distant.

They had given her permission to make the pilgrimage though, but only on the condition that she stopped off at home before she left the kingdom, as if their only daughter would do anything but.

“If they try to surprise me with an arranged marriage, I swear to the first that I’ll burn the house down.”

That would be unlike them though. They knew how she felt about that idea, and had never done more than occasionally pester her with questions about her love life.

“No… wait. That’s what was missing from their letters!”

Where there typically would have been a politely worded hint that she try to “find a nice man,” there had been nothing. They would never force her to marry, a fact she was eternally grateful for, but that didn’t mean they didn’t mention every handsome knight or chivalrous youth that passed through their realm.

Mystery solved. Mostly. Typically, nobles went on pilgrimage with their spouse once they were married. Maybe by taking it now, she had finally convinced them that she wouldn’t be rushed. She did hope to get married someday, but only someday. She was still twenty! She had plenty of time.

With one less thing to think about, Mayra felt slightly invigorated and rose to trade places with Kearse and sit beside Indigo. The homunculus had far from mastered her new chore, but was smiling and seemed to be enjoying it more than she had expected.

“I used to like driving,” she said. “I suppose I had forgotten that. Cars in my old life were like the ones in the necropolis. They were so fast and smooth. I could sit behind the wheel for hours and just go. Not a care in the world.”

She paused for a moment, but Mayra didn’t say anything, expecting Indigo to keep talking.

“This wagon… it’s slow. And the ride is bumpy. And I don’t think the mules like me. But at least the company is good, and that makes all the difference.”

Was there a point to this, or did Indigo just want something to talk about.

“So what’s your family like? We didn’t have nobles where I came from, so I’m still wrapping my head around the idea. Is this land really all yours?”

Yes. Definitely something to talk about.

“It isn’t mine. It’s my family’s. We are the largest landowners, but technically it belongs to the kingdom. We just manage it.”

Indigo gave an affirmative grunt, and waited for more.

Tired though she was, Mayra was happy to talk and reminisce.

The Damfeld Barony was located on the eastern side of the country, not quite far enough north to be in the desert, and not quite far enough south to be in the jungle. The summers were hot and wet, while the winters were cold and dry.

Her family had been around since the founding of the kingdom, never really rising or falling in power. The name had changed several times over the many generations, but it was still the same family it had always been.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Most of their money came from date and jujube orchards. The two trees had a wide variety of uses. Besides selling the fruit directly, they could be used for making wine, vinegar, sugar, and a dozen other things. The seeds could be added to animal feed and…

Indigo’s attention had peaked at the word “wine,” but had started going downhill when Mayra started listing the many many other reasons why the two fruit were so amazing.

But there wasn’t just fruit! With every small village or farm they passed, Mayra pointed out fields of wheat, barley cotton and…

“No? Alright fine. I suppose the finer points of agricultural exports aren’t one of Indigo’s interests.”

She couldn’t really blame her. As a child, Mayra had fallen asleep during many of her tutor’s lessons.

When Indigo did ask questions, they were often frustrating. Mostly because Mayra found herself unable to answer them.

“How do you make whitewash?” was one. “How deep do the wells around here need to be?” was another. After, “How many people live in the average village?” and Mayra’s umpteenth, “I don’t know!” Indigo finally shut up and satisfied herself by watching the road go by.

Mayra felt a bit guilty for acting grumpy. She didn’t want to be the one to start another argument. Not after last night. She also didn’t want to be the reason that somebody else started an argument. But still, the mage didn’t like it when Indigo brought to attention all of the things she didn’t know. She had learned quite a bit about the towns and villages that her father ruled, but she didn’t know everything, and she shouldn’t be expected to. It wasn’t like she was the heir. Even her older brother Jeck would have had difficulty answering some of Indigo’s random questions.

The idea of using Indigo as a weapon of mass distraction hadn’t occurred to her before, but it seemed like a good one. Parents trying to start an awkward conversation? Give them a dose of Indigo. Brother’s being brothers? Release the Indigo! Need some alone time? Throw Indigo at the nearest person and run.

“I should let her know in advance though. Otherwise I might be part of the collateral damage.”

Indigo cackled at the idea, and Mayra worried that she might have made a mistake. The last time she had given her an idea that involved distractions and family members, the girl had run naked around a military camp while throwing alcohol at people.

“All I need you to do is keep my family occupied. If I start being the center of attention for too long, go up to one of them and start asking questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Like the ones you were just asking me.”

“What was wrong with my questions?”

“Nothing, but they were difficult to answer, which is why you’ll be perfect for helping me to avoid any topics I don’t want to talk about with my family.”

Indigo seemed surprised at the reason for why her help was needed.

“I would have thought you got along well with your family.”

Mayra groaned and cupped her head in her hands.

“I do. They’re great, but they’re hard to talk to some times. My parents have always been supportive, but even if I became an archmage, they’d still only see me their precious daughter. Jeck and Elber are… well, they’re brothers. That’s part of why I like living with Uncle Meyer so much. He might not understand magic or what my accomplishments mean, but he recognizes that I work for them, and he respects that.”

“Ah. I see.”

There wasn’t much else to be said beyond that. Mayra loved her family, and she didn’t want to give a bad impression of them, but the idea of being able to visit her family was a lot nicer than actually doing it.

A stone wall appeared in the distance, and despite her misgivings, Mayra smiled.

She was home.

“We’re almost there. That’s Rannen up ahead. Turn left at the next fork. The manor is just outside of town and up the hill.”

Rannen was a town of average size with roughly four thousand inhabitants. It sat, nestled on top of a wide slope, while her own home sat on the steeper hill next to it. Mayra felt strange being back. After four years away with only the occasional visit, it looked smaller than she remembered. The stone walls that had once seemed so imposing now seemed unimpressive. Compared to a city like Orlis, Rannen was nothing more than a village that was big enough to be worth marking on a map. Compared to Peninsula, it wasn’t even that.

There was still pride to be found here though, and the simple familiarity brought with it a sense of comfort and safety that she had almost forgotten. While Indigo steered the carriage around the walls, Haylen and Kearse poked their heads out from under the canvas roof to get a look at where they’d be spending the next few days.

“Well, damn,” she heard the man whisper under his breath. “For such a small town, it certainly has some good walls.”

“Yes,” Haylen agreed. “The road sanctuaries are better than nothing, but I still don’t feel very comfortable with only a single layer of wood to protect us. I’ll sleep a lot better knowing that we’re well protected from the mist.”

Indigo only shrugged at their comments.

The walls passed, the land dipped and rose again, and the natural forest at the base of the hill gave way to a high stone wall that matched the Rannen’s. Beyond that was… home.

* * * * *

Rannen seemed interesting. It seemed very interesting. It looked big enough that I could find all sorts of fun stuff inside, but small enough that I wouldn’t have to waste time looking for it. I made a mental note to check it out. Most likely on the day after tomorrow. I didn’t know how long we’d be staying at Mayra’s place, but I figured it would be long enough to do some sightseeing. As far as I could tell, half the reason for the pilgrimage was to do touristy things, so I doubted that we’d be in any hurry to leave our first real stop.

When Mayra had said that we were close to her home, she meant that we were close. I had expected another hour of driving, but it was only another fifteen or so minutes before we pulled up to the gates of the Damfeld… Castle? Mansion? Manor? It had a nice sturdy wall, but the glimpses I had been able to catch of the principal building hadn’t looked too fortified.

“Halt and be… Miss Mayra? Well now, we weren’t expecting you for another week!”

A middle aged guard had stepped forward to see who was approaching, but burst into a smile when he recognized who was sitting next to me. For a second, he seemed to forget that he was a guard, but caught himself in time to call back inside.

“Open the gates! Walt, go in and tell the lordies that their daughter’s back.”

“Lordies? That’s certainly a new word.”

The large wooden doors opened, and I saw a younger guard running off towards the house at the hilltop. I was about to urge the wagon forward, but Mayra put her hand on mine to hold me back.

“There’s no rush, Indigo. We need to give them time to prepare for our entrance.”

“Our entrance? But the gate’s right here.”

Mayra covered her mouth as she gave a quiet laugh.

“My parents will want to meet us at the door. This isn’t a ball, but I’ve been away for quite a while now, and so they will want to greet us formally.

It seemed she was in full noble mode now that she had returned home. I hadn’t seen her like this before, and hoped that it wouldn’t be too different from how she usually acted. Given her previous request for “distracting conversations,” I felt safe in assuming that it would mostly be her manner of speech and a few matters of etiquette that would change.

“Should I wear my sword? Try to look impressive or something?”

Behind me, Haylen was fighting to smooth out any wrinkles in her clothing, and Kearse was donning his breastplate.

“What about my spear?” he asked.

“Yes to the sword, but you can leave the spear in the wagon. If it isn’t part of a dress uniform, don’t worry about it.”

While the three of us tried to make ourselves look presentable, Mayra returned to talking with the guard. It was mostly little local news. Which stores had closed and what had opened to replace them. Someone had had a baby, and another person had recently returned from their own pilgrimage to the neighboring kingdom. Word of a trog raid in the south made me pause in adjusting my hat, and Haylen stopped fidgeting with her sword buckle to stick her head out of the wagon.

“Was it a raid, or a full incursion?” she interrupted.

“Just a raid, as far as we know,” the guardsman answered, “but the news only came in yesterday, so I couldn’t say for sure. It’ll probably be over with by the time you leave, but I’d still recommend avoiding the southern roads when you do.”

I was lucky that I had never seen a trog before. Or anything dangerous for that matter. Since leaving the necropolis, I’d yet to see hide or hair of anything that could be called a monster. The miasma had passed through Orlis once, but the walls had kept us safe and I had been told to stay inside. Every single village, town, and city I had seen so far was fortified though, and they wouldn’t have gone through such great lengths to protect themselves if they didn’t think it necessary.

I shrugged it off, and summoned a handful of water to clean my face. Whatever was going on in the south was going on in the south, and didn’t involve me.

The wagon ride from the gates to the house ended up taking longer than our initial delay. The guardsman waved us through with a smile, and I had plenty of time to overthink how I should act once I was introduced to her family.

The Lunch at Kearse’s had been easy. That was just me stopping by to see if a friend was home, and steal him away for a bit of shopping. The meal had been unexpected, but it was still far from being a situation that required a large amount of social awareness.

Nobles however, were a new experience for me. Only Mayra’s hopes that I keep my oddities to small bursts gave me any hope. She knew that I was in over my head, but she hadn’t felt the need to warn me of anything, so that was probably a good sign.

The house was… huge. Most of the time, buildings tend to look a bit smaller when they’re by themselves, but the Damfeld manor stood like an elegant monolith that needed no comparison to highlight that it was, of, and for the nobility.

The bottom floor was made of stone, but the upper two were of wood. Like every Orlisian building I had seen before, it was all interconnected squares and rectangles, but it was spread out to capture as much natural light as possible. Aside from the mansion itself, nearly half the hill looked like a park. Calling it a lawn with a big garden would have been an understatement.

“Holy shit! I thought barons were supposed to live in houses that were only slightly larger than average. They’re practically at the bottom of the nobility, right? You could fit an entire village inside that thing!”

When I said as much to Mayra, she laughed, and I was happy to see her looking a little calmer than she had before.

“We’re not as rich as it makes us look. It is indeed large, even compared to some counts or foreign dukes, but I come from an old family of an old and stable kingdom. We’ve had centuries to set down our roots, and this house is the result.”

Frankly, I was jealous. I could easily turn myself into a shut-in that was content with one or two small rooms, but a large part of me also wished that it could live in a place like this.

Suddenly, I realized what Mayra had meant when she referred to Orlis as “stable.” Economic security could be a point of pride for the ruling class, and nothing displayed that better than having a fuck-huge house. That a baron could afford a home of this size, showed that his territory was not only stable now, but had been for a long time.

Pride. It was all about the pride.

I was so caught up in staring that I almost drove past the front door. I had forgotten that I was even driving at all, but the mules were better trained than I was, and knew the right place to stop.

A coachwoman… stable hand… person came to take the reins, and assured me that any luggage would be sent up to our rooms. I handed them to her gratefully, while feeling like I was staying at a fancy hotel rather than a friend’s house. She wasn’t alone either, and nearly half a dozen other servants had emerged from the front door.

A butler, distinguished by his age and fine dress, extended a hand to help Mayra to step down from the wagon. He was well endowed with a white and bushy yet well-groomed beard. His suit skirted the line between immaculate and rugged, and gave the impression of a man who preferred a hands on involvement with his subordinate’s work.

“Miss Mayra, on behalf of us all, please allow me to be among the first to welcome you home.”

“Clarence!”

The butler was mid bow when Mayra engulfed him in a hug. From my angle, I could see that while he did roll his eyes slightly, he didn’t hesitate to return the open display of affection.

Friendly relations between her family and the staff was another good sign that I didn’t need to worry about first impressions.

“Although if it meant I got hugs from Mayra, I probably wouldn’t mind working here either.”

After a few friendly words, he led us inside, trailed after by a small team of servants. There were four of them, three maids and a footman, I noted, and I suspected that one of them had already been assigned to me.

Mayra’s family was lined up and waiting for us in the entrance hall, and I didn’t have time to guess before the introductions began. Unlike at the gates or the front door, Mayra stood in front and to the side of of us and didn’t rush to speak.

“Dearest daughter,” her father began. “We are most pleased to see you return safely, and we are also proud of the pilgrimage you are about to undertake. We all have much we would like to speak with you about, but first, I believe introductions are in order.”

Her father was a man of middling height, slightly taller than his wife or daughter, but also bit shorter than his sons. He had only a touch of grey in his short hair, and he was clean shaven. His clothes were of a finer cut than the butler’s, but still looked durable.

“Maybe a man who needs to look nice, but still likes to ride around and inspect his territory.”

He stepped forward, and embraced Mayra’s arm with his own.

“I am Baron Stalard Vican Damfeld,” he said to us, “and I would like to thank all of you for joining my daughter on her pilgrimage.”

“My name is Dona Icoti Haps, daughter of Sir Haps of Mantes. It is a pleasure to meet all of you. I find simple introductions to be too short, but I am sure that you will be here long enough for us all to get to know one another.”

Dona, Mayra’s mother, was a bit on the pudgy side, but nowhere near enough to be called fat. Her dress was fancy, but lacked any unnecessary frills or lace.

“Combined with Mayra’s brief descriptions, I’m guessing that she’s a soccer mom.”

Next up were her brothers, one of whom had a smiling child standing next to him.

“I thought she only had two brothers. Who’s the kid?”

The oldest looked impatient, probably seeing this as a waste of time. He was smiling though, and I guessed that he simply wanted to get this over with so he could give his sister a hug.

“Jeck Demfeld,” he said with a nod, keeping his introduction even briefer than his mother’s. “Welcome home, Mayra.”

He was tall, nicely tanned, and had the same dark brown hair as his siblings, though his was almost as long as his sister’s. Out of everyone, Kearse included, his clothes had the most rugged look to them.

I had been enjoying stereotyping Mayra’s family. All the fiction I had read didn’t help much when it came to actually interacting with people on a long term basis, but it certainly gave me plenty of words to guess their initial personalities with.

“Handsome rake. Mayra had certainly said enough to cement that idea in my head. If he were the main character in a novel, he’d probably be the good-looking yet roguish noble who goes through a late blooming ‘coming of age’ story where he finally falls in love and settles down.”

I was having way too much fun with my descriptions, but my internal ramblings were interrupted, along with everyone else’s, when the child asked a question.

“Daddy, why does that woman have horns?”

The kid had quite literally pointed out the elephant in the room, namely me. He was pointing right at me. Some people might feel uneasy at being the subject of a child’s ignorant yet honest questions, but I loved it.

“Leave it to a kid to ask what everyone else is thinking. I wish more people were that open.”

I had started to become annoyed at all the stares I received. Not by the stares themselves, but by the lack of people willing to follow through on their blatant curiosity. Everyone who saw me could tell that I was different, but this kid was one of the few who had actually been willing to admit it.

“Hush,” the younger brother whispered to him. “It’s impolite to interrupt your uncle. You can ask her once she’s introduced herself.”

He turned to the rest of us and took his turn.

“Sister, welcome home. To everyone else, welcome to our home. My name is Elber Damfeld, and this is my son, Lukas. I hope that your stay here will be as pleasant as we can make it.”

Elber was surprisingly young to be a father. At most, he appeared to be in his late teens. The… man was dressed the most normally of the family, not wearing anything of particularly fine cut, but nothing that seemed rough or worn either.

His son looked to be about three or four years of age. Old enough to be left alone for a minute or two, but young enough to still need almost constant attention.

“I am definitely missing some important information here, because I have no idea what character archetypes these two would fall into. I’ll have to ask about these them when I get a chance.”

I expected Mayra to begin listing our names at that point, but Haylen stepped forward instead.

“My name is Haylen Albidis,” she said with a bow. “Mayra has been my friend for several years now, and I am honored that she has chosen to undertake the pilgrimage with me as I earn my place among the paladins. Lord Damfeld, your brother and daughter are people that I hold in the highest regards, and I am most grateful for the opportunity to finally meet you and your family.”

Haylen might not have caught it, but I did. Mid bow, Stalard’s friendly smile faltered. It wasn’t exactly a frown, but it definitely wasn’t a smile. It was only a flicker of motion, but it had happened. By the time Haylen was back in eye contact with him, the smile had returned, but I knew what I had seen.

Haylen had told me that people of mixed races were sometimes treated differently, particularly by the nobility, but given Mayra’s friendship, I would have expected differently from her parents. A quick glance at her mother provided me with a similar reaction.

“Why don’t they like Haylen? I don’t think it’s because she’s a half-elf, but why else wouldn’t they like her? Haylen’s awesome!”

If her brothers had any misgivings, I was either too slow to notice, or they hadn’t let their masks slip. They had the same happy attitude as they did a minute ago.

Next up was Kearse, and I paid special attention to his own introduction.

“My name is Kearse Elastro,” he said with an even deeper bow. “Although I am not on the path of the paladin, I was lucky enough to serve in the expedition alongside both Haylen and your daughter. It is a great honor to not only make the pilgrimage with her, but to be a guest under your roof. I thank you for your hospitality.”

“Dammit Kearse! That was good! Too good!”

I had arranged myself as last in line so I could hear the other’s introductions and try to copy my own after theirs, but how was I supposed to beat that? Did this call for a distraction event?

“Fuck it! Might as well start early!”

“Indigo. A pleasure to meet you.”

I stepped forward when it was my turn, and rather than bowing or attempting a clumsy curtsey, gave everyone a hearty handshake. Rather than babble randomly or try to say anything overly strange, I made my way down the line to the child, Lukas.

“And it’s nice to meet you too, Lukas. I believe you had a question for me?”

If Mayra’s family was surprised by my actions, the child was even more so. He probably wasn’t used to being the center of attention by anyone but his father. And maybe his grandmother. He handled it well though, for a kid his age, and asked me directly after only a brief glance to his father for approval.

“Why do you have horns?”

“Well,” I answered, as the fake smile I had started plastering on became real, “it’s because I’m a homunculus. I’ve always had horns. Just like you have round ears because you’re human, I look a bit different because I’m not. Orcs have green skin, dwarves are short, and hobs are both. That’s why I have horns.”

I hoped that my dreams about once being a teacher were accurate. I was relying on them quite a bit here.

“Kids like analogies and comparisons. If you can make a new concept feel similar to something they already know, they’ll pick it up a lot faster.”

I ignored anything the others in the room were doing. As much as I was making this moment about them, I was focused on the kid.

“Do you want to touch my horns?” I asked.

Lukas looked up at his father again, and I almost laughed. No, I failed not to laugh when he got a shrug in response.

Lukas nodded, and I leaned forward from my squat to give him a better reach.

“Leaning, by itself, is a bad idea when interacting with kids. We’re taller than them, and from their perspective, leaning is too close to looming. Squatting works much better, since it brings you to their eye level without leaving you towering over them. Gotta treat them as equals, otherwise they’ll have trouble becoming independent.”

Lukas reached forward, and I felt him rub his fingers along my horns. He was careful, but I saw his father looking down at us, nervous of how his son or I might react. When Lukas became bold and grasped my horns with both hands, I laughed, as much to show my amusement as to reassure the other adults around me.

He began to move my horns from side to side, and I moved my head along with them, allowing the child to pull me around as he wished.

“Do you like my horns?” I asked.

The boy nodded, but was having too much fun playing with the things attached to my skull to give a verbal response.

“I like them too,” I said. “Nobody asks about them though. I’m happy that you did. Lots of people want to, but they never do. I don’t know why.”

It was a slight barb at Mayra’s family. Maybe a bit passive aggressive, but I said it anyway. I had seen them glancing my way, and I wanted to express my dissatisfaction at how few people had been willing to simply ask me what I was.

I sat down and allowed Lukas to continue his curious inspection of my body. Emboldened by my ready acceptance of his childish curiosity, he began to inspect the rest of me. I gave a dismissive wave in the others direction, granting them permission to go about the introduction without us.

I saw Stalard and Elber exchange a bit of silent body language, but when they didn’t address me directly, I knew that I had broken away from the formalities of the introduction. I let them continue, as Lukas continued to search for as many differences in my form as he could find.

It was strange, I realized, how little I cared about being poked and prodded by the child. This was the very thing that I had dreaded Verdis doing to me, but Lukas’ innocent inquisitivity brought a smile to my face.

Lukas, I supposed, was exploring himself at the same time he explored me. He held his arm against my own, perhaps comparing our skin colors. When looked into my eyes, he opened his as wide as he could, so that I could see him as well as he could see me. After touching my ears, he would feel at his own, searching for what made them different.

The educational moment was shattered when someone tapped me on the shoulder and I realized that that the introductions were over. If anything, they were long since passed, and everyone was waiting for Lukas and I to wrap things up.

As it turned out, it was time for dinner.