2 | Unexpected Visitors

Eli blinks and wonders if perhaps he has gone insane. It’s taken longer than expected, certainly. His son is long grown and remains in the city Eli fled—at least, if there is still a city to be had.

With a start, he glances about himself, as if Abner will make a sudden appearance from around one of the dilapidating buildings along with his child. Of course, he does not, and Eli thinks himself foolish a moment later. His son would not want to see him. And just because this child reminds him of his own boy means nothing.

He looks a tad like Lyra, too, just as Abner did. Definitely, one of his parents has blood from the Farbane Isles. Eli takes a long breath. Lyra would know what to do about a child showing up out of nowhere. She was certainly Eli’s better half, and always knew better what to do with children.

Stop staring and ask the child something, old man.

“Who are you?” he tries, and the question elicits no answer.

The boy is looking him over. Everything from his mangled ear to his hands to his clothes. The child’s own clothing is less than ideal. His feet are bare, and a dingy tunic and pants have evidently been through some sort of struggle, scuffed with dirt and torn in choice places. Now Eli gets a better look at him, he couldn’t expect him to be older than thirteen at best. Short in stature, he is all bones and angles. Eli recalls that Abner was also a small child, and shakes himself of the thought.

Glancing into the ruins, at the slither of the leaves upon the ground and the uncanny sensation he is being watched, perhaps by something worse than a rather small mountain goat, he juts his head toward the door. “Go inside.”

The boy glances at it but does no such thing. Well, he’s stubborn enough to be Abner, at least.

Then, another shape steps out from the same corner.

Eli starts, already jumpy and not helped by the unexpected second child. It’s a girl, considerably younger, similarly barefoot, and wearing nothing more than a shift of a dress, gray and likewise damaged.

“Are…there more of you?” Eli asks, not holding out hope for an answer this time.

The boy glances back, touching the girl’s arm carefully, moving her slightly behind his body. It’s good he’s untrusting, but Eli thinks it a bit sad. She has the same face and eyes, though her skin and hair are fairer. In fact, were they the same age, Eli would think them twins.

A brother and sister, then.

Finally, the boy shakes his head. There is a distinct sharpness to his gaze, a low-lidded glare that makes Eli twitch. The girl, in quite the opposite fashion, only gazes at him in open curiosity, mostly hidden by her brother. The differences made by age, Eli supposes.

“Just the two of you then,” Eli mutters. “Get in the house.”

Still, neither moves, though the girl shuffles her feet as if she intends to before realizing her brother is not.

Eli has about had enough of this. He was about to enjoy cooking his meal just fine before two dirty children scrambled onto his front porch and one of them attempted to sneak into his house as if he wouldn’t notice. Getting slammed by goat horns was quite enough for one day. Starved for company for many years has turned to a distinct distaste for interacting with anyone. These children throw him off-kilter more than any monster. Monster are common, strange children that look like his son…are impossible.

He shrugs, making a show of heading for the door. “If you’d prefer to be eaten, stay out here.”

Finally, the boy’s eyes dart into the lightening shadows of the ruins. “I believed it to be safe during the daylight.”

He has a highborn way of speaking, the accent Eli has—or at least once had—from spending many years in Monsetyra.

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“Who told you such? Someone who wished you dead?”

The boy’s eyes narrow. Again, he glances into the ruins. Puffing his chest a bit too much for such a waifish stature, he says, “My father.”

Probably just a fool of a man, then. Abner was not so mindless. “And is he the reason why you’re on my front porch?”

“Yes.”

“Is he here?”

“No.”

“Then how did he manage such a thing?”

Squinting, the young man folds his arms. “He sent us here.”

“How then? You’d be dead if you walked up the mountain through the forest.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Eli withholds a sigh, tired of the argument. However the children got here, it wasn’t through walking. He picks up a stone and sends it scattering across the cobblestones and packed dirt. Something in the shadows of where the cleared area meets the trees titters and slides away. A hiss crawls across the ground, rattling the air. Not the same sound as the goat, and considerably larger. A chill crawls down the back of Eli’s spine.

The girl looks as if she may cry.

“What’s your name, then? And who is your father? Your mother?” Eli asks, shoulders tensing more than he wishes they would.

The boy folds his arms, overly-thin fingers fisting in his shirt. “Thistle. This is Klia.”

When no further answer is provided, Eli ask, “Yes?”

With a look of misery, the boy tells him, “You’re our grandfather.”

Eli stares. Perhaps the hearing in his right ear is worse than he thought. He tugs at the scarred skin offhandedly. Certainly, he’s been considering the similarities. The familiarity. But that was only the child’s eyes and the similarities in his bronze skin, the certain way his face is shaped. How the girl, though slightly different, looks almost like a feminine version of Abner. But he wasn’t expecting the words to actually leave the boy’s mouth.

How old is he? Eli doesn’t recall the number of years since he last saw the walls of Monsetyra, but it doesn’t seem as if it could be so long. He knows it has been, back in his mind and under his ribcage, particularly when he considers the frailness of his own body for too long. Until now, he hadn’t been particularly preoccupied with counting the years, knowing that in fact, he was avoiding it. Now, he wishes he’d counted.

“How old are you?”

The girl is certainly young enough, but depending on this boy’s age…Eli can’t imagine his son would not have told him if he was having a child.

The boy squints and Eli is already anticipating a lie when he says, “Eighteen.”

“That’s very nice. How old are you in actuality?”

Thistle wrinkles his nose, glancing into the ruins the direction Eli tossed his stone, and droops a bit. “Fifteen.”

The girl makes a gesture as if to say not quite, and Eli struggles not to be amused at the way the boy’s expression twists. Siblings, certainly.

More likely younger than he says. Thirteen, then. Old enough to be a pain in Eli’s side but not old enough to know better about a single thing—or be able to protect himself very well, if the scant nature of him is any indication. Eli in the height of his prime would barely be able to protect himself out here. He barely did.

Others…did not.

This mountaintop is a bit safer; at least, it was safer until bigger monsters began crawling up this morning.

Which brings him to, “And you’re here on my porch because?”

“Not because I wanna be,” the kid mutters. He doesn’t quite have the polished way of speaking Eli first anticipated, despite the accent. A gold ring sits on the littlest finger of his right hand. If he’d come across anyone on the road between here and Monsetyra, it would have been stolen.

Eli’s been hoping that staying out on the porch would be a decent way to get some information from the children—less cozy and safe than inside, after all—but he’s only getting more and more anxious himself.

I’m probably more concerned than the kids. Thistle must not have any experience with being outside the city walls. Klia is likely too young to understand. Scowling to himself, Eli opens the door and gestures inside. The kid just stares at the entrance.

“Sneaking through the window is all fair and good, but walking through the front door when invited is too much for your pride?”

Folding his arms tighter, Thistle sits on the closest rock against the wall of the house, glaring into the ruins. Eli sighs. He’d merely been hoping for a nice, quiet morning, and a breakfast to match. Any sort of quiet is a gift.

He’s gotten neither.

Before he can think of something else to say, the girl sits beside her brother. Well, Eli supposes she won’t be of any assistance. He considers taking them both by the scruffs of their necks and depositing them inside. Plenty of strength still sits in his limbs despite the years and too long without grasping a proper sword.

“Very well,” he says, and steps inside, shutting the door. Let the children sulk, they’ll be scared inside within the hour if Eli were still a betting man.

Despite this, he eases the front window open. Dawn is still early, and he needs to keep an eye on those kids, whether or not they are who they claim to be.

Abner’s children.

Eli presses his hands to his face in the sudden quiet. My son’s children. He wonders who their mother is. Eli remembers a woman Abner fancied those years ago, but had only met her the once and for a few moments. He cannot recall her face.

Truthfully, he struggles to recall Abner’s own face. It will be much changed, by now, as Eli’s is.

Carefully, he claps, but the Order gives him the same message as always.

Scowling and barely managing not to stomp, Eli mumbles to himself and returns to stare out the window. The children are where he left them, heads together, the girl gazing up at the boy in a way he doesn’t seem to be acknowledging.

Eli glances out deeper into the ruins of the monastery and sees another set of eyes staring in return.