The midday sun was… a little cold. Maybe Renn was right, I should have dressed a little warmer.

But I knew the cold would pass. It always did. It got cold, then wet, then warm, then hot. It always did, and always would.

Until it didn’t.

“So he’s a duck?” Renn asked.

She was walking on my left, instead of my right. An unusual change. I had never said anything, but she always walked on my right when we walked together. Especially on the open roads out here in the wild. I’d blame the lake we were walking along, but it was next to me on my right. Maybe she didn’t want to walk near it.

“A waterfowl yes. I don’t know the exact species but…” I shrugged. There was no point to know.

“Why does he like the lake he’s at so much?” she asked. She stared at the lake we were walking along, most likely thinking the one he lived upon would be as big as this one were.

“I don’t know his whole story. Something to do with his family,” I said.

“You don’t know his story?” Renn asked, and I could tell she found that ridiculous.

“I’m not all knowing. And unlike you, I don’t pry. In fact I prefer it when people keep their secrets,” I said.

Renn’s cheeks puffed a little as she frowned at me. “I don’t pry! I just… inquire,” she said as she tried to find the right word.

“Inquire lightly with him. If he’ll even talk to you, he usually doesn’t,” I said.

“Oh… will he hate me because of what I am?” Renn asked.

“No… he’s just a quiet man,” I said. That made him one of the good ones in my opinion.

“You like that. Maybe you’d like me more if I was more quiet,” she said with a smirk.

“I might,” I said as a fish jumped out of the lake. It, like most of them, was trying to eat the little bugs floating on the top of the water’s surface.

Renn watched it as it plunked back into the lake. Its splashing caused most of the water-bugs to dance away, most headed deeper out into the lake.

“These lakes are pretty. This place is… flatter than I’m used to. Usually you can’t see the whole lake like this, at least not from the ground,” Renn said as she studied the large lake.

“Enjoy it while you can. We’ll be entering rather large mountains soon,” I said.

“Hm,” she nodded.

“And you’ll find not everyone has a wonderful reason for staying, Renn. Remember Kaley? Her home is nothing but a former shell of itself. A hamlet at best. Yet she’ll never leave it,” I reminded her.

“Hm… but I understand her reason. Her family had been there,” she said softly.

“So to end your short career as a society’s protector, I must only have you get a family and then lose them?” I asked her.

Renn’s ears beneath her hat shifted harshly as she turned her head to glare at me. “That’s a rather rude statement.”

“But a real one. If that is all it would take to put you out of commission, I suggest you hang your hat up now,” I told her.

A part of me hoped she’d actually get upset. Real anger from her might just convince her to change her mind and…

But no. She ended up smiling after a few moments of glaring at me.

“How about you, Vim?” she then asked.

“What about me?”

“Do you not long for somewhere? An old home maybe? Surely there’s somewhere you like to go, or wish you could go back to?” she asked.

For a few minutes I walked in silence. Not just to ponder her question, but to find somewhere I could pretend to use as an answer.

I failed to do so.

“No. There’s not,” I said.

Renn’s smile didn’t disappear thanks to my answer, but it sure did become small. “I see,” was all she said.

“Most of our kind is bound to somewhere. Land. An idea. A person. It’s a little melancholic to admit, but it’s the truth. Either our members are stuck where they are because of their loved ones, or the idea of them. The few who don’t live in the same location their whole lives still always return to a certain location. Like the twins, who bought a boat to be merchants? They’ll always return to the Cathedral, no matter what happens,” I explained.

“Hm… Lughes would paint the mountaintops of his home. Why did he leave them?” Renn asked.

I blinked a few times, and not because of a fly buzzing around my face. “That place was his home, but it became his hell. He not only ran from it, it ran from his mind,” I said. I hadn’t thought of Lughes’s home in a long time.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Where is it?” she asked softly.

I waved the fly away, and tried to think which direction it would be from here. After a moment I pointed over the lake, to the other side. “To the north that way. It would take us months at our pace on foot. Maybe even years,” I said.

“Oh… so that’s why you said I’d never see him again, if he lived,” she said.

I nodded. “If he went back there, well…” He probably wouldn’t be worth meeting again anyway. Odds are if he went back to his home, he was no longer the man either of us knew. But I didn’t want to say that. Not aloud anyway. Just in case.

“You said he had a daughter, before,” Renn whispered.

“I don’t want to talk about that, Renn. Pick something else,” I said.

The fly returned. This time I grabbed it out of the air.

Tossing it aside into the lake, I sighed and wondered why it had bothered me. I was usually never bothered by bugs. It landed in the lake with a plunk. It slowly floated back to the surface, but was still. I had killed it either with the grab or the toss into the water.

It also hadn’t been a fly, but some kind of hornet.

“Back to the duck then. What’s his name?” she asked smoothly, completely unbothered.

“Trek. It’s a shortened name for something else, but I don’t know his full name,” I said, thankful for her willing to not only allow the change of topics but to not grow angry or sad over it.

“Trek…” she said the name slowly, as if to memorize it.

We walked in silence for a moment, and I wondered if she actually had gotten a little upset over me forcing the change in topics. It didn’t show, not even on her ears, but…

“Our kind live a long time, Renn. If you consider our long lifetimes… it’s not a surprise that our kind put value into emotions in such a way. It’s not the land itself, it’s what happened there. Who lived there. The memories, and such,” I said.

Renn nodded quickly, obviously agreeing. “I get it completely Vim. When Nory had died I was going to leave the very next day… I ended up staying weeks after. Maybe even months now that I think about it. Who knows how long I could have stayed,” she said.

Nory. The human woman she had lived with before finding the Sleepy Artist. She seemed to have loved her… and based a lot of her thoughts around her, even still to this day.

Maybe that was her anchor. Maybe this Nory was what kept her sane, or at least the memory of her.

“But I also wanted to leave. The place made me feel sick, since it was… lifeless, without her. So I honestly don’t think I would have stayed there forever like some of the rest of us do,” Renn added as she pointed at me, as if I was somehow in trouble.

“Death does that,” I said.

“Hm… The witch, the first human I ever met… She was bound to a single place too. Humans do it too, don’t they?” Renn asked.

“Of course they do. Most humans don’t even leave the town they're born in their whole lives.”

“Are the reasons the same though?” she asked.

“Do the reasons matter?” I asked back.

“Well…” another fish jumped out from the lake. It splashed loudly after flailing in the air a moment. “I think they do,” she finished as she watched the ripples and droplets scatter the lake’s surface.

“This Nory, you lived with her a long time?” I asked.

“Decades. She was a young woman when we met, and she died… She was weathered and old, unable to even get out of bed,” Renn answered, but had done so a little softly. Her voice became low, and weak.

“Did you two live at the same place the whole time?” I asked.

“Oh… no. We traveled for a few years, and ended up in the mountains near Ruvindale. Once we made the cabin we stayed there though, yes. We only went to the town a few times, and only for short periods. For instance one time Nory got very sick, I had carried her there to get help,” she said. She sounded a little happier now, as if happy to remember that memory.

“I see,” I said.

Did she know the kind of face she wore when she spoke about this Nory? She looked her age, for once. She looked as if she had gone through countless years of grief and loss, and had accepted it all and endured.

It made her look good.

“She had her reasons to stay there, didn’t she? Humans and our kind aren’t so different,” I said, getting back to my point.

Renn slowly nodded. “I suppose.”

Granted I didn’t know what reasons this Nory had to live secluded, but it was obvious they had history. A story. Something had happened, that made her precious to Renn.

Which meant if she compared those emotions to what those of our kind felt… like Trixalla or Kaley, she’d be more understanding. Or at least, she’d be able to accept it.

“Nory was… my friend. I miss her,” Renn then said softly.

We were starting to leave the lake behind. The path we were on met at a crossroads, and I guided Renn to take the one that went deeper into the forest instead of around the lake.

“Want to tell me about her?” I asked her. It would tell me a lot of Renn, to hear about this Nory.

Renn paused a moment, and stood next to me with an odd stance… as if afraid all of a sudden.

Waiting for her answer, I held her strong gaze. She was staring into my eyes, but wasn’t looking at me.

After a few moments… I opened my mouth, to ask a different question. To give her an easy way to deny me, without actually doing so. Yet before I could say anything she spoke up.

“She was a knight. She had been raised to be one, from an orphanage and,” Renn quickly went to talking about this Nory. Someone who she very obviously cherished. Someone who, even after all this time, she could talk about with full confidence and with a smile.

Renn told me how Nory had struggled in the church. How she had been abused. How she ran away, or at least tried to.

She told me how they met. How they became fast friends. And then how Nory got captured and tortured, because of Renn.

How she saved her.

How they escaped.

How they spent their years after, in hiding.

Renn told me how her friend’s mind slowly went because of age.

And near the end, as she told me how Nory had died… Renn reached out and grabbed my hand.

I allowed it, since her sad yet happy face was wrought with tears… as she told me of her dear Nory’s last moments, and all the thoughts and emotions Renn had at the time.

This was also something a protector had to do, sometimes.

Plus…

“She was a wonderful person. You would have liked her,” Renn whispered softly as her tears slowly stopped falling.

“I’m sure I would have,” I told the woman who just proved that she too could become a protector.

After all you have to love and care for what you protected.

Even when it hurts.