I put the towel right under the water to soak it. The dried blood on my hands immediately clouds the water and dirties the hand towel, but I don't care much. I splash my face with some of the cool water and then carefully start using the hand towel to wipe off the blood on my face. While I'm cleaning off my face, there's a knock at the front door. Khalil–not Aria–moves to get the door while Aria stands directly across the room from Micah, staring at him with her dark eyes and only blinking when he seems to do the same.

Khalil steps back to let inside a woman who is a little elderly but still healthy-looking. I recognize her vaguely, though she's wearing much nicer clothes than the last time I saw her in her village on a trading run. Someone follows her inside, a young-looking guy with nervous-looking eyes. He's still dressed as a guard, so Khalil initially tries to stop him from coming in.

"It's okay, he's with me. He's alright, I promise." Tallulah speaks to Khalil, trying to convince him it's all right.

Khalil isn't convinced, though. Instead, he looks over in my direction. I nod to him to let him know it's okay, and once that's done, he lets them both inside and closes the door behind them. Tallulah's eyes catch on Micah for a moment, and there's something in her expression there, but I can't determine exactly what it is while looking at her reflected in the bathroom mirror. She moves a little further into the room, and I go back to slowly and carefully wiping off my face, not even ready to get started on my side and arm with the amount of blood that was spilled there. Her breath catches as she sees me in the bathroom.

"Oh, you're badly hurt. We have some medical people here, and we can probably get you some help if you want."

"I'm fine. The last thing I need is to get poisoned by what I think is some basic antiseptic cream or something."

"Are you… Orion?"

"That's me. Next to you is Khalil, and you know Aria."

Tallulah shifts her attention to the side, only to see the stock-still Aria standing not far from the door. Aria slowly shifts and looks in Tallulah's direction. She very carefully looks Tallulah over before she looks at me.

"Yes, it is Tallulah from that village." She intones flatly.

"I recognize you three now, and you normally came with a fourth–I hope she's…"

"She didn't come with us this trip, and you're talking about Lani," I answer for her before she finishes.

"Ori, is it cool if I sit down? I'm tired as hell. Actually, well, you think there's any food here in the kitchen?"

"Yeah, it's cool, man. On the food front, I'm guessing probably not since it's a vampire's house, but maybe they stock it for their people or something. Check it out if you want."

Khalil wanders over to check the kitchen refrigerator, and the immediate sounds of plastic crinkling and being opened tell me that there's absolutely food inside.

"Is there meat?" Aria inquires, and it reminds me that, yet again, we didn't have raw meat for Aria after her redcap transformation.

"There's a couple of packages of sandwich meats. Is that good enough?"

Aria walks over–letting me have the floor to talk with Tallulah–and immediately nudges Khalil aside to grab literally anything meat-related out of the fridge. She walks over to a table and drops it on the surface, then tears open the packages and starts absolutely going to town on the slices and cuts of meat.

"Gueeessss so." Khalil laughs a little. He plucks out a few things from the refrigerator and then sits down to eat across from Aria at the table.

Elijah walks over and stands against the door next to Micah, who gives him the slightest nod when he does. Tallulah meanwhile walks closer to me in the bathroom as I wring out the hand towel above the sink before putting it back under the water.

"I can help you."

"No. I'm good." I firmly say, making her stop just outside the bathroom's doorway.

"Okay, just trying to help."

"So, this got all kinds of ways messed up. We didn't intend to be in a fucking battle when we showed up to look for you guys, you know?"

"I'm surprised anyone came to look for us, if I can be honest with you." Tallulah sounds genuine when she says it, too, and I don't have any reason to disbelieve what she's saying.

"I guess most people would have just robbed the empty village and left, but I'm not that kind of a guy."

She's silent for half a minute while she watches me slowly getting rid of all of the blood on my face and trying to wring out its remnants in the sink from the hand towel. I shift my eyes to momentarily look at her in the reflection of the mirror behind me, and I can see she's a little conflicted.

"You supposed to stab me in the back or something?"

"What? No. Not at all; they wanted me to see if I could try and smooth things over. Well, as much as can be done before you talk to them."

"What do you mean by 'them'? They mentioned 'a' liege lord or whatever."

"Yeah, so, about that. Three vampires lead the group here, all referred to as the liege lord. It confused me at first, too."

"Weird."

I grimace at my mostly clean face in the mirror and then finally look more closely at the bruises on my bare chest. I turn so I can sort of see the bruising on my back in the mirror.

"You really should let me get someone to look at your wounds, Orion."

"Is there somebody you trust?"

"Yes, we had a broonie in our village that was excellent at that sort of thing, and there's also Old Keelia's healing ointments that could help your bumps and bruises."

"I don't think a little rubbing oil is going to help a gunshot wound, Tallulah." I gesture up at my shoulder, which I can see needs new gauze and something to keep the pressure on the wound tied down again.

"Goodness. Okay. Fey to fey. Please let me get you some medical attention."

"I'm not going anywhere without Khalil, Aria, and that Christina vampire, sorry. And I know the sun is out, so she's not going anywhere. So there you have it."

"What if I can convince them to send someone here with medical supplies to help you? Would you allow that?"

"If you blood oath that they're not going to poison or infect me or do something stupid and vampire-y."

"I'll swear that now with no blood oath needed. They promised you hospitality, and it makes sense that they wouldn't want more harm to come to you under their umbrella, so to speak."

"You sound pretty fond of these bloodsuckers."

"They've treated me right and put up my entire village with bedding, food, and drinks this whole time."

"I guess that's not so bad sounding…" I pause, looking over at Aria and Khalil as they continue to stuff their faces on foodstuffs. If they had poisoned the food before we got here, those two are dead for sure.

I smirk, which draws a questioning glance from Tallulah.

"Sorry, I just had a thought that was funny." I raise my voice just a hair so Aria and Khalil can hear it. "If they had poisoned the food before we got here, you two idiots would be dead." I laugh a bit but then stop when my ribs threaten to riot at the action.

Khalil stops mid-bite, with his mouth wide open. Aria pauses, too, realizing I'm totally right.

"Obviously, they didn't, guys. Chill."

That's all it takes for the pair to return to scarfing down the relatively fresh food and drinks on the table in front of them. I take a glance at Micah and Elijah as they hold up the door leading to the room Christina went into to hide from the sun. Both are standing there like they're used to this sort of position. My eyes finally settle back on Tallulah.

"Alright, I'll trust you on this. Just one person."

"Okay Orion, I'm glad. I really hate that you were hurt just investigating what happened to us."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"They lost two vampires, so I'm sure they're a little bit more bent out of shape about it than we are, if I'm honest."

"I won't lie to you, they aren't thrilled about it. I'll be right back."

Tallulah moves over to Micah and Elijah and then softly murmurs to both of them. Micah gives her a look like she'd just asked if she could cut his dick off with a pair of scissors, but the younger guard, who doesn't appear offended at all, seems to be the one who responds. He pulls out a small radio, and I hear him call in to ask for a single medical person to come to the cottage on the grounds where we are. She returns to me but stops at the same spot just out of the doorway on the opposite side.

"They're sending someone."

"Cool."

"Unlike most fey, especially elven-kin, you don't seem very afraid of vampires."

"I respect their abilities and strength, and I'm certainly not going to pretend I didn't come here without a backup plan for dealing with them."

"I have a little question, if you don't mind me asking."

"Not promising that I'll answer."

"Sure, Orion, I understand that. So, you came here looking for our village, but you also seem to have known you very well might encounter vampires here. What's that about?"

"Don't worry about it. I did some investigation before we came through a seam to get here."

"I saw the mark of the traveler on the back of your neck, yes."

"I'll be honest with you, Tallulah. I have had an absolutely wild few weeks since we came across your empty village. You don't even know how much stupidity and nonsense happened. At one point, I was fighting off night terrors and two basiliscu at the same time."

Her eyebrows raise, looking at me more intently now. She clearly didn't think I was capable as a fighter. I did fib a little bit and said that I fought those things simultaneously, and I neglected to mention Cassandra was there, but those are just unimportant details.

"There's more to the story, like how in the hell that happened in the first place, but I'm pretty sure smarter fey than me will have to take up that investigation. I wanted to find you guys and get you back safely. That's the truth."

"Why?" She pauses, then adds. "I mean, why did you want to help? You said it yourself: most people would rob an empty village and be on their way."

"Why do people act so fucking shocked when someone just wants to do the right thing? The right thing was to try and find you folks. If something happened to me and my village of Wilder, I'd hope there would be someone like me who feels the same way."

Tallulah hesitates for a long time, and the front door is knocked on just when she is about to say something. Khalil belches and then gets up to walk over to it once again. Aria seems to have eaten every trace of meat on the table in front of her and is leaning back in her seat, sedately staring again across the room at Micah and now Elijah, too. Khalil opens the door, and a small woman carrying a small black bag is let inside.

"Over here."

Tallulah gestures to the relatively short-statured Hispanic woman with kind eyes, who quickly crosses the distance and looks at me through the bathroom doorway next to Tallulah. I can tell that she's certainly got some medical training because she immediately seems to visually catalog my various bruises and ailments and rank them from most to least concerning.

"Hello, my name is Erica. I'm a trained nurse, and I work for the house."

"Orion."

"Okay, Mister Orion. It would be easier if you stripped down and got into the shower so we could wash away the blood and I could get a proper look at your wounds."

"Just Orion, I don't like all this mister shit."

A wolf whistle comes from somewhere in the other room, Khalil's handiwork, for sure.

"Yeah, Ori! Take it allll off!"

I blurt out a laugh, which immediately makes me grab at my ribcage where the pain is.

"Ow, you prick, don't make me laugh."

Khalil makes a noise that sounds a lot like "heh-heh-heh-heh" from the other room and then sits on one of the plush seats in the living room before reclining on the chair. The nurse, Erica, clears her throat a little bit.

"Alright, fine, but I'm a taken man, so don't get any ideas."

"Not to worry, Mister–Uh, Orion. I'll be a consummate professional."

I grunt a little bit and start to take off my boots, wincing with the effort of bending over and crouching down to do so.

"Let me help?" Erica murmurs again.

Tallulah steps back and out of the way but doesn't stop overseeing the whole process. She leans in the bathroom doorway to watch. I grunt a little bit at Erica.

"Lady, I'm injured, not dying."

"Do you want to take the chance that those ribs break further?"

"Well, no…"

"Then please, let me help you."

"Alright, fine then."

After I grudgingly consent, Erica moves in, setting her little black bag on the countertop near the overly opulent–and immense–standing shower. She's indeed the professional she claimed to be. She helped me strip off my blood-covered clothing with barely any pain, so long as I just listened to what she told me to do to minimize my body's movements. The sudden removal of the tightened shirt from my shoulder hurt the worst. That done, she carefully unwraps the gauze that was placed over the wound and takes a good look.

"Ah, they just grazed you, and it went through cleanly. That's good. There are a lot of bad things they could have hit right there. It's also probably why you can still use your arm somewhat."

"Could have fooled me; it hurt so bad at the time I didn't know how injured it was, especially because I was bleeding like a stuck hog. This isn't anything like it was. I thought I was about to die at first. I won't lie to you."

I gesture at the blood seeping down now that the wound's pressure has been removed.

"Yes, generally, movies and the like downplay the amount of pain and blood considerably. I suspect it was also your first time being shot, so the pain, adrenaline, and shock mix was probably a bit much for your system. Okay, let's get you washed off so we can fix you up."

A relatively lukewarm shower commences, where she instructs me where to spray off the blood until I'm pretty much clean. Before I step out of the shower, she offers me a towel to wipe off my face, which I think is odd at first.

"Before you step out of there, Orion, let's go ahead and set your nose. I'll count to–and go on–three. Ready?"

She reaches her hands up to my nose, prodding my face until she seems ready to go. I grimace before answering her in the affirmative. She counts one off but jerks my nose back into place on the second. Pain shoots along my sinuses and down my back. I close my eyes with a grunt of pain and still see stars behind my eyelids.

"Ugh, you said three."

"I did, sorry!"

Erica places a towel on a seat in the bathroom so that my dignity can be returned, and after my nose stops leaking blood and I get myself once more rinsed off, I step over and take a seat carefully in front of the woman. She opens up her bag and pulls out some cleaning and disinfecting ointments, and once my graze wound on my shoulder is tidied to her approval, she next uses a suture kit to close up my shoulder wound on both sides. Once it's carefully covered with proper gauze padding with medical tape to hold it into place, she has a look over my ribs.

"Well, this is about as much as I can do for you unless you want me to wrap your ribs tightly. I don't recommend it in general, but I didn't want to assume since I know that your arrival and the house is not necessarily on, um, great terms."

"Thanks, Erica, I'm good."

She looks momentarily at one of my ears, and it's the first time I have caught her actively looking. I offer her a smile, and she smiles back a hair in return but quickly moves out when she realizes that Tallulah has been standing there silently and watching the entire time.

"Thank you," Tallulah says as Erica makes her way out of the guest cottage.

"I gotta get my spare clothes out of my pack, so if you don't mind."

With that, I go and retrieve fresh clothes from my backpack and carefully tug them on before going to snag my boots. Everything else on the floor, except the knitted cap, which I reclaim from my pants back pocket, I pick up and instantly trash–it's too blood-covered to be worth the hassle, and the shirt is torn up pretty well, too.

"Alright, well, thanks for getting someone Tallulah."

"Sure." She still sounds a little withdrawn or conflicted in some way.

Casually talking in fey-speech, I make it seem like nothing is being asked out of the ordinary, in case the two guards are paying attention.

"Fey to fey, Tallulah, is something on your mind? Need to warn or tell me something about the lord or multiple lords I'm going to meet tomorrow–well, tonight now, I guess–or anything like that?"

"I've found that honesty is the best plan when dealing with them. They are vampires, of course, and certainly like to play little games, but they're sharp Orion. You have to be careful if you aim to play games here."

"I don't. I just want to help get you people back to your village."

She offered me a smile but didn't immediately respond, so I cleared my throat and returned to talking normally. Khalil, meanwhile, has started lightly snoring on the couch, while Aria is simply staring straight ahead at the two guards. It takes me a moment to remember, but then I recall her mentioning the fruit she was eating at the market–the Hogsvine fruit–and its effects. No wonder she doesn't even look tired, no matter what we did last night or today. I suddenly bolt upright and look over at Aria in alarm.

"Oh wait! Aria! I saw you got shot! But what? How are you not even hurt?!"

"They did not penetrate my skin; I was transformed, and my skin was already as tough as a boar. It still stung at the time. It just did not do what it did to you."

"Oh." I exhale, then grab at the sharp little pain in my side again. "I'm sorry it took so long to remember I saw that."

"I was fine. You were not. You are fine now, yes?"

"I'm good now, yeah. Thank you for earlier. I know I didn't say it, but you drug me down the hill a little, and it probably saved my life."

"Yes."

I shake my head with a little laugh as Aria returns to her average amount of talking once again. My pale eyes look back at Tallulah, who has been exceptionally quiet since the nurse showed up and tended my wounds. She seems to sense our conversation is likely at its natural conclusion, so she walks over and takes my right hand in both of hers.

"Orion, I'm glad to have met you. I wish more of us had a moral compass and sense of honor like you do. I'm thankful you came to help us return to our village. I'm not sure that all of the fey will want to return, but for those that will, I'll make sure they're ready when you and yours are ready to lead them."

"Thanks, Tallulah."

She gives me a faint smile before walking towards the door. The young guard who followed her inside immediately breaks away from the door he was helping Micah hold up and follows Tallulah out of the cottage. I spy the sides of the two guards still posted outside the cottage and shake my head.

"She is feeling guilty over something."

I nod and walk over to Aria, planning to sit at the table next to her.

"Yep. And now we wait."

"No. Now I am waiting. You should go and rest in the free bed. I will not be sleeping. This makes sense for you."

I halt my progression of sitting down with a little grunt. Choosing not to argue with Aria's sound logic, I grab my bow backpack, and afterward, I head into the spare bedroom, pulling the door mostly closed–I leave it cracked just in case of drama. As soon as I lay down with my boots already on across the bed, the soft and luxurious bed feels like it swallows me up, and my eyes almost immediately close for sleep.