“You know.”

She picked at her bowl of rice with a pensive expression. As far as meals went, it was undoubtedly and unashamedly bland… but that was all it was.

Bland, simple, and wholly without surprise.

In itself, this was a surprising thing.

“For the kind of person that lays traps on the road to their home, you’re being awfully accommodating.”

Across the firepit, her measured onyx eyes were met with plainly confused grey ones, as her host regarded her with an earnestly nonplussed frown.

“I already apologized for that… How do you figure?”

“I nearly cut your head off.” she stated bluntly, inclining her own in a small bow. “Again, by all rights I do not deserve the hospitality.”

With a huff, he handed over a small, steaming cup of faintly green liquid, took a sip of his own, and folded his arms.

“And again, you apologized for that already as well. Rough days happen on this mountain. I get it.” he replied, with just as much blunt diplomacy as her. “Moreover, you’re a guest who came to seek me out, right? I’d be a pretty terrible host to not welcome you and hear you out, at the very least.”

It certainly was a salient argument, but the problem came from the fact that this boy had turned each and every single expectation of hers on its fucking ear. Instead of some misanthropic and weathered middle-aged shithead, he was young, not an eyesore, polite, and tolerant all the way up to laughing off her threatening him at swordpoint. Apparently, as he wanly explained once she put the sword away, he’d been having good luck with mountain hares along the trail, and was also the only person who had used it in years.

So, just as fate would have it, not a week after setting it up there he had caught her ankle.

What in the goddamn shit was going on around here? The moment she’d stepped onto this edge of the continent, everything had gone sideways on her! Did her ancestor have to deal with this bullshit from his, too?

“Not exactly.” came her correction. “I was actually expecting to meet your father, Yuri Sch--”

He snorted his mouthful of rice, before offering her a correction.

“It was Uriel.”

“Ah. The town records must have misheard it.”

“Er, well, you know, Mom did call him ‘Uri’ a lot…”

“Huhm. Anyways.”

Hell, he even liked talking. Every other sentence nearly convinced her to veer off course, but if she was a Mindaro then she knew how to have some fucking discipline and re-rail things before they got out of hand. It was in the family character to get to the point.

“I was expecting to find Uriel Schwarz, but it seems that possibility…”

She searched for a delicate way to put it.

“Died a year ago, yeah.” he finished plainly, a brief flash of a frown crossing his features.

“I apologize for my insensitivity, Schwarz. Again, you have my condolences.”

It felt like a whole damn lot of apologizing lately, didn’t it? A fuckton of apologies and bowed heads, like she had never left the prim and proper circles of her family.

“Again, don’t worry. I’ve had a whole year to come to terms with it.” he replied genially, offering her a friendly smile.

Alright, enough with the “disarming” bullshit. We both know I’m not here just to chat.

She took a large gulp of her drink, having deemed it safe with how readily and casually he himself was sipping from the same batch—

And nearly choked, immediately regretting and re-evaluating her deduction. Forcing it down, she immediately chased the concoction with two heaping clumps of the blessedly plain and acceptable white rice, before affixing the cup with an angry glare.

“What the fuck is that? It’s so bitter I’d have thought it was grass.”

“Ah, you don’t like tea?”

“I’m fine with tea, but it has to be tea, not some random leaves you pick up off the fucking ground!”

“Hey, it is tea! It’s green tea! Matcha! This is the only kind that grows up here!”

“Then get some fucking honey for it!”

“Have you seen a single bee on this mountain?”

The family character had been forgotten. She had veered off course and been disarmed in the span of thirty seconds. Somewhere, that noble and righteous woman was spinning, even if she had no proper grave to do it in…

Fine. She would accept the challenge and regain control.

With a white-knuckled grip on the mug, she kicked it back, downing the rest of the contents in one go—

Saw green for a moment—

Swallowed—

And levelled a steely, if a little shaken gaze upon the once more perplexed boy. It was plainly obvious that he hadn’t expected her to drink the rest of the sad excuse for a beverage in such a quick reversal—and from that place of “wait, what?” he was wide open to her counterattack.

The opening moves had gone to Schwarz and his banter, but now she was in command of every piece on the board. No more distractions.  

Just the way she liked it.

“So then, Lucian.” she began, in the very same tone that had always gotten her to shut up to listen to somebody. “You are the only remaining member of the family, I understand?”

He nodded with a frown.

“I am. Mom died when I was a boy, and Dad last year. Never had any siblings.”

“And you don’t know of any extended family?”

He shook his head. “None.”

“I see. So it really is just you…”

That made things difficult. In fact, it was more than likely a worst-case scenario— it could only further degrade if the young man she was speaking to was also six feet under. Therefore, the path ahead was obvious.

No matter how much of a stretch it could have been, she would have to foist everything she had intended for Uriel onto Lucian and hope he would know something.

“No helping it then. It’s time I introduced myself.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but apparently thought better of it and nodded, waving her on with his chopsticks.

“My name is Gratia Mindaro.”

Now it was his turn to choke.

“I take it you’re familiar with my namesake, then?”

“Yeah, a bit!” he sputtered once all of the grain had been cleared from his windpipe. “Made me think I was talking to a ghost for half a second, yeesh…” 

Gratia’s frown was rather flat as she watched him wipe his mouth, before continuing with a raised eyebrow. 

“While she was a legendary hero, one even a mountain boy like you has heard of, the dead stay dead, Schwarz. That’s what I've dragged myself all the way to the edge of the damned world for. Because me and the dead specifically have business with you and yours. Do you know why?”

“Our ancestors, right?” 

Well, you couldn't help a mountain bumpkin having a shitty education.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It's because apparently, despite never showing up as more than a footnote in legend, your ancestor Lucas was a close comrade of--”

She blinked. 

“Wait, since when the hell do you know something about this that I didn't?!”

Her demands, like so many of them that day, were met with an easygoing chuckle. Hey, fuckface, this wasn't a laughing matter to her! She'd been making this her life’s mission for over a year, and this random yokel just already knew everything?

Irritating. So enormously irritating. A whole year of hard work was good for less than twenty minutes of this.

“Well, uh, hey,” he said, raising his hands diplomatically as her jaw tightened in annoyance. “In fairness, our family does have direct access to Lucas’s memoirs. I take it Gratia… the First left nothing of the sort behind?”

He looked very uncomfortable making that amendment. Not surprising, since most people didn't know what to think of someone from the Mindaro clan having the chutzpah to declare themselves to be The Legendary Heroine’s Second Coming.

But no matter. That chutzpah was hard at work all the damn time, and on full display as Gratia the Second switched gears.

“You do? Let me see them.”

“H-Hey, I asked first--” He responded, almost uneased by the transition.

“I asked more important.” She shot back bluntly. Her head swiveling and eyes flirting around the very spartan room, she asked another More Important Question Than His. “Where do you keep them, Schwarz?”

“I'll tell you things when you finish telling me things.”

More adamant this time. Perhaps roughing it out on your own for a year gave you a spine after all. Admirable.

But also obstructive. A mistake.

Gratia fixed him with a look.

“Don't be that guy. I swear on my family name I'm only looking to read through them.”

And she had to credit him. He looked right back, plain and steadfast.

“I'll be that guy all day. I've already invited you into my home-- after you tried to lop my head off. If you were so dead-set on owning that, then you can sit there and finish telling me what's going on.” 

She glared at him, into him and through the wall behind him. If that was the cheeky bastard’s game, then he could take back the fucking act of being Mister Hospitality…

He held his gaze, eyes as grey and unwavering as the mountain upon which they sat.

...God dammit, fine.

And like the mountain, she would get nowhere by trying to budge him.

 “...Yes.” She began again after a deep breath. “You are correct. Gratia Mindaro only left behind her legacy when she went missing. No records of her life of her own creation exist in the Mindaro vaults. Only tales from those around her that mention her survive.” 

Such as Elder Galla, the younger sister of her namesake. And as the closest thing to a primary source one could get…

Well it wasn't easy to get an audience with the Crone and Matriarch of the family, but it would have been way smarter to do it first rather than last.

Stupid.

“After having had her name bestowed upon me, I decided that it should not be left at a simple disappearance. Forgive my language, but that's a real shitty way for her legend to end.”

“We’re way past the point of worrying about your language.” Lucian pointed out, but she ignored it and continued on. He wanted words, he would get words.

“So for the past year and a half, once I became of age to truly act for myself, I have been scouring all of civilization for some trace of her resting place, but have come up short. Over and over again, I have found nothing. Neither within the archives of my home, nor those abroad, has anything of significance come to light. I have read every saga from cover to cover, traversed so many locales… nothing.”

With every fiber of her being, she had given it all and gotten nothing in return. To have no result to your name after every effort was expended was, simple put, fucking pathetic. It was enough to make any person wonder if they should just give up. Why bother, if it all amounted to zero?

“You are my last hope, Lucian.”

Because it only amounts to zero if you fucking stop at zero. That is how her predecessor must have seen it. It may have been a pain in the ass to grovel to a stranger...

“I didn’t believe I would ever be able to track you down, but I did, and I cannot stop here. If you have the firsthand documents of Lucas as you claim, I will meet any price or condition you set.”

But it was necessary. And if it was necessary to give the First a real, proper burial at a real, proper final resting place, then the Second would do what was necessary by bearing that pain.

“Favor with one of the oldest and most powerful families in the world. Access to the riches of everything my inheritance will bring. A home in the heart of the most beautiful countryside in the world, far away from no man’s land and with all the food, wine, and comfort you desire. We would be heroes, Schwarz.”

She didn’t have the access or authority to any of this just yet, but returning with the remains of her predecessor would easily change that. Not something he needed to know, because she would find them and earn the right to reward him.

She’d bet her life upon it.

“Heroes…”

There was an odd, unplaceable color to his voice as he repeated the word, and she saw his eyes shift from looking at her to looking through her, and off to the horizon. Something that seemed… sad.

Another starry-eyed dreamer, huh?

“That’s right. Heroes, with grand tales of our own. If that’s your ambition, I’ll gladly repay you by doing whatever I can to get you there, if you’ll offer me the kindness now. And besides,”

She smirked.

“You’ll sure as hell be a hero to me.”

He froze immediately, and she knew that she’d definitely gotten his attention. A sneaky move, but...

“Well?” she asked, folding her arms and sensing her victory. “What do you think?”

He paused for a long moment, frowning in contemplation as he studied the floor with folded arms of his own.

Come on, you simple mountain boy, haven’t you ever wanted something more?

Dare to fucking dream!

Even if he was living this monkish life of asceticism out of some pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, she knew that the offer had to be tempting him. It wasn’t as though anyone could honestly say “no” to it without a second thought…

Right?

“Even if you will not hand them to me,” she quickly amended, unclasping her sheathed sabre from her hip, “I beg you to please allow me to read them, at the very least. You have my word that they won’t be tampered with.”

“Gh—!”

He recoiled in shock as he looked up to see her pushing the weapon into his arms, numbly holding the blade as her bow deepened to an almost full prostration.

“My solemn vow.” her words grew heavy, but did not waver. “If I should betray you at any point, you may use that sword to take my hand. My arm. Even my head.”

“Gratia—”

“I don’t deserve to live if I cannot keep a promise this important.”

She was not bluffing.

Another silence, this time strained and uncomfortable, followed. Gratia had nothing left to fill it, and could only pray that Lucian’s decision came quickly and favorably.

She needed this, more than anything. If this gamble didn’t come to fruition, she was done. She would have no chance left.

Her very reason for being would have finally eluded her after nearly seventeen years.

She was not once lying about being willing to reward him however she could for his cooperation if she should succeed.

Couldn’t he see that?

Please. This is my whole life in your fucking hands.

"..........."

After what must have been an eternity, he placed the sword at his side, and began to speak.

“I ca—”

And then the room was flooded with wood, sound, and pain as the door behind her exploded.