I wasn’t running away, nor was I fleeing in shame.

This was just… me trying to help Renn make a few more friends in the Society.

Stepping out of the house and onto the porch, I sighed and felt the faint throb of a headache. The kind that didn’t really exist, but my mind thought it should.

Renn’s voice, alongside the happy shouting of Fizz, could be heard behind me. They were talking about some kind of food they had just eaten recently. Something new they hadn’t tasted before.

They sounded happy. Excited.

The sounds were good. Genuine. It warmed the soul, and healed wounds.

Yet right now I didn’t want to hear any of it.

I took my time stepping off the porch, and took even longer to reach the metal gate.

It was hard to be upset or bothered by Henrietta… since she was actually a very good person. She and her husband were the steady types. The ones I could rely on if I needed to.

Yet Henrietta’s misplaced fascination with me had long grown old. I was tired of having to pretend to ignore her advances, and odd statements. And I was especially tired of having her daughter stare at me with odd eyes, as she watched her mother act the fool.

Fizz at least knew I was no threat. She had once thought me so, and had even attacked me once with the intent to kill me.

Honestly that should have been Henrietta’s wake up call, to stop being so weird… yet after that incident, she only seemed to double down on the efforts…

Opening the gate, I slowly shut it behind me. It clanked loudly, thanks to its weight.

It was heavy. Renn was able to open it. I had seen her do so, but…

Henrietta wasn’t able to. There had been many times I had found her outside the gate waiting for me. And she wasn’t the kind to be doing so just because she thought it improper not to. I had once found her in my bed, asleep. She had no shame when it came to stuff like that.

Which meant it was probably her daughter, Fizz, who had opened it for them earlier.

Interesting.

Tapping the gate, I pondered that fact as I turned away and headed for the nearby hallway. The one that had a few benches littering its halls.

They’d probably sit and talk for hours, so I might as well find somewhere to sit and wait.

I wasn’t going to risk leaving them alone completely. Henrietta shouldn’t do anything too weird… And Renn shouldn’t either… but…

Actually Renn seemed rather gentle with children. That wasn’t the first time I had seen her act like that to the young. She had let Fizz touch her ears and tail. Most of our kind would never let such a thing happen, even to those they deemed family.

It was why Fizz had so happily accepted, and immediately saw her as a friend afterward. In Fizz’s eyes she had just earned her respect and then some, with a single action.

Our people were simple sometimes. But I couldn’t blame them. Odds were Henrietta and John had never let Fizz touch their non-human traits, at least not willingly. It was just…

“Maybe it’s because she’s so calm-natured,” I thought to myself.

Renn had been willing to let me touch them too, without hesitation. At first I had thought that was just because she was simply trying to earn my trust, in any way or shape she could.

Rounding a corner, I was glad to find that the hallway was empty. The half dozen benches were all available, so I went and sat in one.

While I sat down, I groaned at myself.

“This journey will be a hard one,” I admitted.

I had already agreed, at least internally to myself, to start teaching her. To start training her to become something useful for the Society. I wasn’t sure yet what to use her for, or where to eventually place her, but…

If this continued I was going to get a little too comfortable with her. A little too used to her presence.

I needed to put walls up, draw lines in the sand, set boundaries and make rules…

Rubbing my eyes, I sighed as I realized I hadn’t even realized how close I was letting myself get to her.

Why was I letting it happen? Because I was glad that for the first time in decades someone was willing to help? Because I pitied her?

What was there to pity? She was alone. So were most of our people. The few who weren’t always ended up alone, eventually. I also wouldn’t pity her just because she was a woman. Although I felt as if I should protect children and women more carefully then the men, I knew better than to see her as simply what she appeared to be.

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She was strong enough to not need my protection, to a certain degree. Nothing like the others, at least.

Sitting back against the cold stone of the Cathedral walls, I took a small breath and tried to think of something else.

The Cathedral was fine. It was the same as always. I was glad there were no letters here, asking for help. It meant the world was… at least for now, calm.

Or that whoever had needed my help simply hadn’t had the ability to ask for it. But there was nothing I could do about that.

No drama. No chaos. No death.

“There is, I just can’t see it,” I whispered as I thought of the people lost recently.

There was always chaos. There was always danger, always something worse lurking around the corner.

Always more failures to be had.

Hopefully Renn wouldn’t be another.

A footfall echoed down the hallway. It didn’t surprise me, nor shock me. This was the Cathedral. There were always hundreds of people all over. Humans especially.

Yet the footfall turned into footsteps. Hurried ones.

Looking down the hall, away from the hallway I had come from, I waited patiently to see who was running.

The hurried footsteps rounded the corner, and upon seeing Henrietta’s husband I found myself relaxing in relief.

Shame on me.

“Oh!” John perked up at the sight of me… and quickly looked around. Upon not seeing his wife or daughter, he actually got even happier as he hurried to me.

I stayed seated as John slowed his pace. He smiled and bowed once he was in front of me.

“How have you been John?” I asked him as he bowed to me.

“Very well, protector. It’s a pleasure to see you again,” John said with his head lowered.

I no longer tried to tell him, and others, to stop bowing. They wouldn’t stop, and I was tired of repeating myself.

“Your wife and daughter are at the mansio, hanging out with Renn,” I said.

“Oh? Renn… the cat, right?” John stood back up and glanced down the hallway, looking eager to go.

“A forest cat, yes. She’s a good person, you don’t need to worry. Your daughter seems to like her,” I said.

Hopefully Fizz didn’t inherit Henrietta’s penchant for fascination of the unique.

“Oh… good, good. I uh…” John smiled sheepishly as he looked back at me.

I gave him a knowing smile as I nodded. I understood.

He was far more happy to hear that it was someone else than me that they were spending time with.

“How’s the kitchens been?” I asked.

“Wonderful. A lot of work, as usual, but we’ve had more and more helpers lately. Nearly twice as many this festival than the last time,” John said with a quick nod, happy to tell me.

“That’s good,” I said. I’d blame the extra volunteers on the population boom, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. The humans were just becoming more and more ingrained into their faiths.

“It is! It really is…” John glanced again down the hallway, to the garden.

He was getting anxious. He wanted to go to his family.

John was a good man, and one didn’t need to question it. He spent more time cooking food for the poor and destitute than he did not. Most of his, and possibly Henrietta’s, stipend from the Society went to such ventures.

Although not wearing the clothes of the church, nor having allegiance to them… he was the epitome of their beliefs. Of the ones which represented charity and goodwill, at least.

Henrietta was honestly the same. She and John did more for the needy than most churches do… at least…

Until she stood in front of me, at least.

“Oh, uhm…” John looked back at me, and shifted on his feet as he tried to gather his courage.

I patiently waited for him to find his words. It didn’t take him too long, and he coughed as he nodded.

“Are you staying long, Vim?” he finally asked.

“No. We leave tomorrow,” I said.

Looking away from his vast relief, I wondered how he worried so much over me.

By now he should know I’d never take his wife from him. How long has she been acting like that? A hundred years at least.

“How old’s Fizz?” I asked him as I tried to remember.

“Huh? Oh… well, after the new year she’ll be twenty three. She is a little small for her age still, isn’t she? Should I be worried? What if she’s sickly… but she’s so active? She runs around all day long sometimes, you know, and,” John rambled as he misinterpreted my question. He had thought I had asked because she was still so small.

“Her blood is thicker than yours, John. Her still being young isn’t a surprise. Plus her mother is small too,” I said, calming him down.

John hesitated but nodded.

Still… twenty three…?

Then it has been over a hundred years since I’ve known them. Although only fifty or so since Henrietta started acting so strange.

Ever since I had saved her that day, in that swamp.

If I had known she would have gotten so weird, I’d have let that thing eat her.

But if I had…

“Go to your women, John. I’m glad they’re becoming friends, but Renn will need some rest before we leave,” I said, using her as an excuse.

“Oh! Yes. Of course. Thank you so much Vim, I hope your journey is both safe and enlightening,” John gave me one last nod before hurrying away.

Watching him go, I sighed softly.

Good people, but strange.

Maybe I was too, in their eyes.

John’s hurried footsteps filled the hallway. I didn’t have to worry over having to spend time saying goodbye to the two women, since I knew John would lead them home on a different path.

He’d not willingly bring his wife in front of me, unless it was a life or death situation after all.

“Vim!”

My name drew my attention down the hall. John was pointing at the gate.

Oh. Right.

Slowly standing I wondered how Fizz had been born with strength yet both her parents lacked it.

If not for Fizz having John’s hair and features, I’d doubt he was the father.

“The gate,” John shouted lightly, and then hesitated. He looked around quickly, as if he had heard his own echo and it had scared him.

A dog scared of its own shadow.

A wife fascinated by the unnatural.

A daughter of a lost age.

Just a normal family, in our Society.