Knock knock.

Susan flinched, her eyes darting over to the decrepit wooden door. Are they back already? She wanted to believe that Lucien had solved her problems, but her experience and her fear both told her that it was unlikely.

It was more likely that things would only get worse once he was gone. She was tempted to ask them to stay, but knew that wasn’t fair on them. They barely knew each other, and she had already received more than enough help from them.

“Is Susan home?” a woman’s voice came from the other side of the door as the knocking continued.

She put Sam behind her, wary that this was some kind of trick to lower her guard. She clutched at her walking stick, the only thing she could use as a weapon. “Who’s there?”

“My name is Marilla. I’m here to talk to you about your loan.”

Susan paled and her hands trembled. She tried to push everything down as she stood up. Using the walking stick, she slowly reached the door.

She looked through a small gap in the door to see who was waiting for her out there, and as far as she could see, it was only a single person.

It was an unfamiliar-looking middle-aged woman. The woman tried to put on a kind smile, but when combined with the large scar on her face, it made her look scary.

Susan hesitated, but ultimately opened the door. “Please come in.”

“There’s no need for that. I won’t be here for long.” Marilla stayed at the threshold, both to ease Susan’s mind and so that she could leave as soon as she was done. She was a busy woman, especially after what those fools had done.

She pulled out the coin purse and gave it to a confused Susan. “I must apologise to you. Some of my men have been breaking the rules under my nose, and that has affected many of you.”

Seeing that she was still confused, Marilla pointed at the coin purse. “I’m returning all of the money that has been stolen from you. You’re debt was already repaid a long time ago, so you don’t have to worry about anyone coming for you anymore.”

Susan was trembling, looking at the woman in disbelief. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that Lucien had done it. She was stunned.

The coin purse felt heavy in her hand. She had never felt something so heavy in her life.

“I’ll be going now.” Having handed over the money, Marilla turned around and started walking back to the tavern.

“Thank you!” Susan yelled out at Marilla as she walked away. She clutched the coin purse and closed the door. Reaching her son, she crumbled to the floor and hugged him tightly.

“We’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.” Tears of joy streamed down her face as she squeezed him tightly.

“Mum?” Little Sam was scared, and tried to help his mother to her feet.

She smiled at him, softly stroking his head. “I’m okay. Things will get better.”

~

Sundown. A small fire crackling by the side of the road.

As Lucien had guessed, they weren’t able to make it to the next village before the sun had set.

Luckily, they were able to gather enough wood from the surrounding area to start a fire, so they didn’t need to take from their supply of wood already.

Their horses were now weighed down by the supplies they would need to cross the wasteland. The horses were bred for this kind of stuff, and were strong, so it wasn’t a problem for them to carry it.

Though it did slow them down a little. And it meant that they would need to rest a bit more often than before.

But Lucien had made sure not to buy so much that it would affect the horses long term. They weren’t pack mules after all.

If Lucien had a wagon he wouldn’t have to worry about it so much, but that would cost more than they had at the moment, and Lucien didn’t feel good about asking anyone for one. He had already been given more than enough.

Having taken the supplies off the horses so that they could rest easy, Lucien and Lynn were now sitting around the fire.

“Is there anything that we need to get from the village?” Lynn asked.

Lucien looked over at their supplies, thinking for a moment. “We should be fine. We don’t want to weigh the horses down too much, otherwise we’ll be stuck in that place longer than we should.”

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Lynn used her teeth to rip off a bit of jerky, nodding slightly while she listened. Lucien also took out a bit of meat and the two sat there in silence for a while as they ate.

“How did it turn into a wasteland?” Lynn asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not that old. I just know the stories like everyone else,” Lucien shook his head.

“Can you tell me? My father never liked telling me stories.”

Lucien eyed her for a second before sighing. “Sure, why not.

Long ago, there used to be a mountain range between here and Whitmore Castle. There were even a few villages at the foot of those mountains. I heard that there was even a temple to Matron Stellara at the highest peak of one of those mountains.

People thought that by being closer to the stars they would have a better chance of being blessed by her presence.”

“I didn’t know about this. What happened next?” She leant forward, fully engrossed in the story.

“Then the dark ages happened, and the mountain range stood up. Ripped itself out of the ground. All that time, the mountains and the surrounding area were just clumps on the back of a giant beast.”

Lucien reached into his satchel and pulled out a slightly scorched leather-bound book. “My family have kept this book for generations. It was one of the few things I managed to save from Locham. Those bandits weren’t bothered to steal suck a worthless book,” Lucien said with a self-deprecating smile.

“It was Earnest’s journal. It’s filled with his thoughts, ramblings, and even some sketches. I have to say, he was quite a talented artist.” He sat the book down on his lap and started flipping through the pages carefully.

Lynn moved over and sat next to him as he stopped on one of the pages.

“Here it is. Look at this.” He turned the book over to her, and on it was a sketch of a giant monster.

It was like a mix between a boar and a parrot beaked tortoise.

Sharp bumps were scattered along its head leading down to its hooked beak. The beak was open in the drawing, as if the monster was roaring when Earnest drew it.

The inside of its mouth was terrifying. It was a hellscape of razor-sharp spikes that had no rhyme or reasoning to where they sat and which way they faced.

Two large tusks hooked out from beside its face, and were covered in dirt, mud, and moss.

It’s body was covered in hair and scales that were cloaked in mud and bits of earth.

It’s shell was a wide slope that curved inward. With the mountain range in the centre going from the front to the back.

“It was said that it was a living piece of the earth itself and that magma ran through its veins. When it shook off the snow, it was revealed that the mountains were inactive volcanoes. And when it roared, the magma spewed out, quickly bringing destruction to the villages atop its shell.

It all happened so suddenly that they couldn’t evacuate anyone. Countless people died the moment it woke up, and it brought untold destruction onto the land for a long while.”

Lynn couldn’t help but feel a wave of dread and fear wash over her. She couldn’t imagine facing off against something like that. She was trembling just looking at the drawing. It looked too realistic.

Like it was going to jump out of the page and attack her.

“What happened to it?”

“I’m not sure. From my guess, it was probably taken down by Earnest since it’s in his journal. Him and probably a whole army before that. Let me see what it says here.” Lucien trailed off as he scanned through the pages.

“What do you mean by an army?”

“Well I don’t think Earnest was the only one to try fighting it. There were just too many powerful monsters during that time, and even more people that wanted to hunt them down. Some of those people were strong, maybe just as strong as Earnest, but many were just too brave and too stupid for their own good.”

Lucien stopped and looked off into the distance towards the wasteland. “Too many people would have died before that thing was killed. That place is a graveyard,” he muttered.

They were silent for a while, unsure of how to continue.

Lucien closed the book. “It’s getting late, you should get some rest. I’ll take first watch.”

“Okay. Wake me up when its my turn.” Lynn crawled into her bedroll and drifted off to sleep.

With her asleep, Lucien was left alone with his thoughts, with only the sounds of the wilderness to comfort and ground him.

Thinking about what that ancient monster had done reminded him of what happened to Locham, although there were a lot of differences.

Even though that monster had no doubt killed even more people than the amount that died at Locham, he felt that what had happened to him was far crueller. After all one was caused by a monster, and the other was done by humans.

The monster, no matter how powerful and potentially intelligent it was, it wasn’t human. It wasn’t slaughtering its own.

The bandits however, were killing their own kind. Adam especially, who was so monstrous that he killed his own wife.

Sometimes, humans can be far worse than monsters.

He sat there, quietly observing his surroundings for anything dangerous. He knew this area was pretty safe, it had to be, otherwise people would find it difficult to travel between the village and the town/

But there was always a chance that something dangerous would jump out. Nowhere was completely safe. So it always paid to be cautious.

His eyes scanning the horizon, he thought he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Stopping, his eyes shot back to try and look for whatever was moving, and not too far from him stood a white rabbit.

The same rabbit he had seen in Locham. The one that spoke with his daughter’s voice.

His fists clenched, his nails digging into his palms as he looked at the rabbit with difficulty.

The rabbit returned his gaze calmly, and approached him. Its movements looked normal, but it crossed the distance in an instant, and appeared less than an arms length away from Lucien,

He was prepared for it, so he didn’t flinch, but he was still afraid of the thing. It still went against everything he knew about magical beasts.

And the fact that it had followed him all the way here was also concerning.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered, his voice choking.

The rabbit tilted its head quizzically, its big eyes staring into his soul. It hopped forward, resting itself in his lap and nuzzling up against the journal that he had yet to put away.

“Do you want me to read this to you?” he asked, incredibly confused.

The rabbit nodded, looking at the journal with a strange emotion that Lucien couldn’t quite decipher.

“Alright, I can do that,” his voice was quiet and gentle, as if talking to a child.

He opened the book, and a wave of emotions rushed over him. Somehow, it felt like he was reading a bedtime story to his children once again.

He looked around before he started reading, just in case something wanted to sneak up on them. But he had the feeling that nothing would be able to get close with the rabbit here.

He opened the book.