Lord Oscar Harris sat swaying in his seat.

The infamous nobleman of Daxaria known for his utterly unserious nature, his problematically passionate relationship with his wife, and also…

His effectiveness in battle.

And yet when faced with the initial clash that was the spark of war and rebellion between two covens and the kingdoms Daxaria and Zinfera, he was busy ensuring a bottle of moonshine didn’t feel lonely.

“You alright, Harris?” Tam asked as he looked down at the nobleman who was squinting to see the last soldier sprinting away from Eli. He had tried to wield a spear at her, and all it had taken was one swat of her giant paw to nullify the danger.

“Yeah. I… I uh… Need some time to think this through.”

Tam lowered himself down into the seat across from the duke. “That is fair. Starting a war was probably not on your list of things to do today.”

“Hm. Yes. I had: Pick up my niece, tell Marigold she’s a cow, enjoy some moonshine and wine… I mean… It was a packed day.” Harris had counted down his list on his fingers, but having reached the end, dropped his hand into his lap and at last looked at Tam. “How did things get to this point?”

“My money is on the first witch and Louise Riddel having something to do with all of this.”

Harris nodded grimly. “Sounds about right.”

Tam watched as Eli loped back having successfully dealt with the last of the armed men, which signaled Jeong and Luca to make their way over to where Harris and Tam sat.

“What happens now?” Jeong wondered, his hand still resting on Luca’s shoulder.

As she approached the table, Eli shifted back to her original shape, prompting the boy to run over to her and wrap his arms around her waist.

“Well, those ships are coming from Bani. Geun and Marigold are going to find it strange when their men don’t return, and the covens will most likely be alerted in short order. This means the army is going to swarm here. Most likely over the next two days,” Harris speculated airily.

“What’re the odds they relay to my sister that I’m here do you think?” Tam wondered while Jeong picked up the bottle of moonshine and gave it a sniff.

“Not very high if they want her to remain… calm,” Harris replied after searching for the right word. “Your sister is practically an army on her own, and everyone knows it. No use getting her riled up.”

Tam lowered his eyes. “Gods. If I were them… No. Well… Maybe…”

“What is it?” Eli asked while gently patting Luca’s back.

“The first witch knows that Witch’s Brew makes Kat’s abilities unstable, and she uses her power up quickly and then becomes weakened. If the first witch is now in control of the covens, in league with Soo Hebin, and she now has my sister in a vulnerable position, she has very little real opposition.”

“It sounds like they’ve already won,” Jeong voiced aloud somberly.

The group fell into a troubled quiet.

“What would happen if we got rid of Soo Hebin and the first witch? Is Soo Hebin’s son as capable and problematic?” Tam looked up at Eli.

She shook her head in response. “He is not a good person, but he is more… placid. He isn’t as conniving as his mother, and is pretty immature. Most likely it’d be Lord Yangban who’d step up to take over manipulating him.”

“Lord Yangban, Captain Woo, Soo Hebin, Louise Riddel, the first witch…”

“Don’t forget the Giong Coven leader, Hei Park,” Eli contributed.

“Hei Park. Got it. Anyone else a problem?” Tam opened the question up to everyone.

Harris sighed.“Probably Elisara’s parents. They’ve been in support of Soo Hebin for a long time,”

“Ah, right. And most likely Yun Shik and his family,” Tam concluded.

No one spoke as the large number of powerful people they just cited as their enemies weighed on them. Jeong reached over and started to inspect the bottle of moonshine with great consideration.

“Now, we can circle back to this discussion, but I would very much like to know what you did to that unpleasant woman, Odette Gilly, Tam.” Harris reached for the bottle of moonshine in Jeong’s hands and the Zineran dutifully returned it.

Tam looked at the sky pensively. “I don’t know that Lord Yangban will still be a problem, we did start drugging him before we left Junya. If Lord Kim is true to his word then the man may even be in shambles as we speak.”

Harris raised his eyebrows, amused. “Did you just ignore me?”

Tam tilted his head innocently. “Will the ships arrive first, or the army do you think?”

Harris scoffed. “Marigold will probably order them to come as soon as they return. So as of dinner time they are already on their way. The army is on foot, so they will take a while.”

Tam nodded then looked up at Eli. “Do you think Captain Woo is with them?”

She regarded him bleakly. “If Soo Hebin had any say in the matter, most likely.”

Tam then turned to Jeong. “Are you going to return to your father?”

Jeong nodded. “He’s most likely being observed. The alliance between our families is well known. I want to check on them and let them know what is going on. We’ll start rallying our allies and hiring any mercenaries to bulk up the number of soldiers serving our house.”

Tam stood, and offered his hand. “Thank you, Jeong. You’ve been… An incredible friend.”

Hearing the events unfolding, realization dawned on Luca, who instantly bolted to Jeong. “You can’t leave yet!”

Jeong smiled down at the young boy who was hugging him tightly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Luca! I’m sure you’ll see me again soon.”

As Luca and Jeong exchanged their farewells, Tam locked eyes with Eli.

They knew where they needed to go, but that didn’t mean it’d be easy.

“Harris, are you going to stay with us, or return to Bani?”

The duke slouched a little. “I guess I have to go with you and help, or your father might kill me.”

“I thought you’d be a lot more excited about the prospect of all the chaos. You could probably even set a fire or two,” Tam mused.

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“That’s only fun if my wife is here,” Harris lamented.

Tam gave the man a sympathetic half smile.

“So how exactly are you going to win?” the duke plundered on.

Tam looked at Eli, then at Luca, still smiling, but allowing his thoughts to venture off on their own. “I’m working on that, but I think we’re going to have to go to Gondol. We have ships kindly provided for us, we might as well use them.”

Harris leaned back in his seat to look up wryly at Tam. “And how do you think you’re going to commandeer a ship? Are you going to take over both of them?”

Tam waved his hand dismissively. “Of course not. I was going to burn the spare one once everyone was off of it, but apparently you aren’t up to that task.”

The duke balked, then rediscovered his smile. “What kind of godfather would I be if I left my godson when he had such a difficult goal to achieve?”

Eli raised an eyebrow. “So we lure them to land and fight them all?”

Tam shook his head. “We lure them, give them a great chase, and then maybe one of their ships happens to drift away on its own with us on it.”

“But then someone is left behind if they are acting as bait,” Harris pointed out.

Tam shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine.”

The duke’s eyes narrowed. “Mhm. I see…”

“Are you just going to leave Odette… As she is…?” Eli asked while carefully avoiding any specific mention of Tam’s void.

Tam looked over to the edge of the water where the woman had last been seen.

“I’ll see about getting some rope and tying her up before… Bringing her… out of… uh…”

Eli nodded in understanding while the duke’s incredulous expression only became more dramatic.

Crossing her arms Eli squared herself to Tam.“Alright. Well, that’s the plan for getting to Gondol. How are we going to deal with all of the other people that are hunting us?”

“Get as many of them in one room and then I’ll just… give them a little nudge,” Tam announced simply.

“Oh, really?” Harris’s voice was starting to take on a subtle hysterical edge. “And what happens when you ‘nudge’ people, Tam?”

Tam stared blankly at the duke. “We should probably talk to Sua and Hajong about us camping out on their lawn for a few more days. Did Marigold mention how they learned about our whereabouts? Was it the couple we were staying with, or the physician?”

“The physician!” Harris snapped. “Now I need a straight answer from you, Tamlin!”

Tam’s eyes drifted toward Jeong after purposefully avoiding eye contact with the duke.“I’ll try to explain it a bit later, but for now, let’s get Jeong on the road. The more of a head start he has the better it’ll be for him.”

The Zinferan bowed in response, though Duke Harris threw his hands in the air in irritated defeat as Tam already started sidling away.

After grabbing Jeong’s travel pack, the two men proceeded to stroll toward the raspberry field behind the cottage that would take Jeong back into the Kaphe Forest.

Birds chirped, the sun shone, and the sound of the gentle waves behind the two men echoed up to them…

“It feels oddly peaceful given we’ve just started a war,” Jeong noted with a faint hint of awe.

“Yeah.”

The two men looked at each other.

And both let out long streams of air at the same time.

Tam gave a slight smile. “Sorry. I never did try just baking cookies.”

Jeong opened his mouth, caught off guard by the reference to a request he had made months ago that felt like an entirely different life.

Then, he burst out laughing.

Doubling over, Jeong gasped, and continued descending into hysterics, which eventually made Tam start laughing.

They knew it was fuelled out of some residual adrenaline, but suddenly the insanity of the entire situation crashed down around them.

Tam barely managed to speak as his eyes watered. “Gods… I just wanted… to stay home… and read! I didn’t even want to get married!”

“And now you’re practically begging a woman to marry you!” was all Jeong could get out.

They continued howling, unable to get a grip on their emotions for a long while.

When the pair eventually did, both of them clutched their aching guts.

“Thank you again, Jeong. You’ve been… I don’t know how I would’ve done it all—especially with Luca—without you.”

The Zinferan smiled. “He’s a wonderful boy. I’m sure you two will be fine. I have learned a great deal from my time with you as well, Tam. As fun as I like life to be, I’ve come to realize my expectations of things were quite naive. I think Bong protected me from a lot of these lessons…”

Tam shifted his feet as he listened. He felt guilty for exposing such harsh situations to Jeong who had been a pillar of sunshine when they’d first met.

Jeong continued speaking, however, without an ounce of resentment in his tone, but rather, appreciation. “I understand now how hard it is for our elders to keep things fun and happy in our lives. It’s much more complicated than I realized.”

An ache seized Tam’s heart as he thought how as time went on Jeong had become quieter and more reserved as they had traveled from Junya. This prompted him to say, “We still have to try though. As hard as it is, I think I should work on being more fun.”

The Zinferan smiled once more. “It would be nice to have fun. I always found it helped with stress.” Jeong gave a small, forlorn chuckle. “Well… I wish you the greatest of luck. We will see each other one day soon, I’m sure.”

Tam shook Jeong’s hand again, but this time, he used the move to pull Jeong into a hug.

The two embraced, and Tam gave him another pat on the back. “Be safe.”

“You as well.”

The two men parted, and gave a final wave.

Tam watched Jeong disappear in the greenery, then turned to make his way back to Eli, Luca, and Harris.

As he walked, he started to think how he could possibly make starting a war and rebellion fun…

If he thought about the prospect of stealing a ship and burning another one down as new experiences he’d learn from, it wasn’t such a bad thing.

But it still wasn’t fun.

Being absurd is how my da got to where he was. And if I’m stuck in an absurd situation, it might just be the best way to go… Everything is so chaotic already, what would happen if we tried fighting chaos with chaos?

Biting on his tongue briefly as he pondered how he might be able to pull off absurdity in an outrageously magnificent manner. As he sifted through his thoughts that ranged from unleashing a flock of ducks for some reason, Tam did concede that approaching the imposing size of his problems from this angle was already doing an impressive job at diminishing his stress.

Well… I guess we’ll find out if my da passed along his talents for inciting madness that bears goodness in short order.