Edwin and Van lay in the room together, lying one next to the other. They slept in the lodging house rather than sleeping on the ship because it would have been rude...and conspicuous... to do so after all the effort Wallace and Missus Patterson had put into trying to make them feel at home.

Inviting them out, providing meals, even offering to help them with getting things laundered.

The people in Vignale’s Unicorn Quarter, so named for the distinct Oedheim unicorn horn, were friendly folk. At least for those with relation to the Oddmund clan and their allies. Treating them like kin because with a few separations of relation, whether through blood or marriage, a lot of them “were” kin.

Originating from those who were sent out from the rest of the Oddmund clan and its branch families, that didn’t run to Otmar. Hailing from those Oedheim clansmen who’d some way or the other, escaped having to flee when the old house fell.

As to why the couple were both sleeping on the same bed, rather than each of them lying alone on the two mattresses that made up the bed, with the mattresses pushed to separate halves of the room..

Well, “that” was Van’s idea. One part common expectation, two parts over-compensation.

She’d finally come to accept that she was married, married to her former brother at that. She was even slightly satisfied, because context and circumstances notwithstanding, she was magnanimous enough to admit that Edwin would have made for a more than decent catch for any girl who got him.

Reliable, and capable, with means that she didn’t even have words. He’d also been kind enough, not to laugh at her for her moment of odd-minded foolishness back on the ship. Mostly just asking if she was okay, and quietly keeping an eye on her, for the rest of their flight over to Vignale.

Still, She knew that saying that one accepted something, was an entirely different matter when it came to actually accepting it. So she’d started making small steps towards the goal of getting them to act like a real married couple.

She hadn’t quite worked up her nerve to the point of broaching the subject of the two of them eventually getting intimate. But she did think they should at least be able to sleep in the same room without it being, incredibly, awkward.

To her surprise, she’d turned out to be right. Taking things slowly seemed to be working.

Then she remembered that back when they were both kids and still siblings, they used to sleep together all the time. Which made it awkward again. Incredibly so, though even that eventually passed with a few days repetition.

Still, things were progressing over time and she figured eventually all this would stop feeling so strange and  uncomfortable, especially since it already felt vaguely, “right” or rather, since it already felt vaguely inevitable. But inevitable in a good way, mostly..probably.

Like the momentum of a rolling wheel. A wheel that rolled in a not unacceptable or unfortuitous direction.

Rolling down the side of the hill that lead “away” from the tire fire.

*****

Edwin woke, careful not to disturb his wife as he left the bed, the mattress and floorboards creaking as he shifted his weight across them.

With a single thought, and a flash of blue-white light he was in the ship. Edwin willed the ship into motion, a pulse of distant lightning, and a thrum of nearby-thunder, announcing that the vessel had begun to move.

Vaguely recalling that heading out on long trips without warning one’s significant others, was considered rude, Edwin had left a note before leaving so Van wouldn’t worry.

He figured he wouldn’t be gone “too” long. He and Van would have reached Vignale even sooner had they not had to ride out of sight of Rus, land out of sight of Vignale and wait for Van’s condition to stabilize near the middle of all this.

After she’d walked into the nanite pool while in a pique. Her thoughts both distressed and disordered to an extreme.

Without any complications coming to pass, Rus was close enough to Vignale that Edwin could be there within a day. He could perhaps even make the trip within a few hours, if he didn’t mind risking, alerting any powers that be that might be watching the skies, to his ship’s presence.

Edwin reached Rus, sometime in the afternoon of the following day. He used the shipped probes to watch the situation of the town below. Watching as his father listlessly meandered through the town.

******

No matter how much, he enjoyed drink and gambling, Jarek vis-Oddmund’s pride and joy were his wife and his kids.

Thus finding himself alone while his wife was off the defending the lands and his sons and one daughter were all off doing their own. Either working at  developing their adult-lives like Egon and Wallace, or working on the start of their adult lives like Edwin and Van.

He couldn’t even hang out with his usual friends, his saving his adopted daughter, by sending her off with his youngest son, had peeved the main clan, their McBriar contacts and several others.

While they were all behaving themselves in the face of Olivia, Jarek’s wife’s position in the County Guard, that didn’t mean that Jarek wasn’t getting the cold shoulder.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Just because they couldn’t kill the vis-Oddmund curs that had escaped out of their reach and ruined the opportunity for them, didn’t mean that faction that had wanted to sell Van off would forgive and forget.

Every day they’d try and get some petty vengeance in. Which Jarek paid no mind to. If all the drinks were filled with spit, then he’d drink less. If no one wanted to play cards with him, then he’d save his coins.

And if anyone made threats against his wife and the one son that still lived in the town, busily trying to make his way up the ranks of the County Militia. Well, in that case, Jarek wasn’t so far gone that he wouldn’t mind biting a few people to death.

Jarek wandered about, saying hi to the few people who’d still openly say hi back. Smiling wryly at the friends who’d proven false, falling in line with the silent order to shun the vis-Oddmund’s for not abiding by their clan’s wishes.

Like with every day in recent times, Jarek usually finished his jaunt around town before noon. Heading home to drink where the glasses were clean. Play a bit of solitaire, or one-man chess and sleep.

He opened the door to his home and his vigilance immediately spiked high as he realized that there was someone sitting in the main hall.

“Might I ask who it is, that’s so confidently daring to make themselves at home in my house?!” said Jarek. Reaching for his pocket knife.

Coldly aware that if the other person had ill-intent and strength above the ordinary level, he, Jarek was probably about to die.

“Mhm? What’d you mean dad? Are you saying I’m not welcome here anymore?”

Jarek recognized the voice and soon quickly recognized the figure that had been sitting there half-hidden in the dark.

He sighed and then chuckled.

“Lad, are you daft?! Sitting in the dark and not not turning on a single lamp. Are you “trying” to give your old man a heart attack.”

Edwin rubbed the back of his neck, expecting the chastisement, and realizing that he’d forgotten that others couldn’t see in perfect darkness like he could,...again.

“Sorry, dad.” said Edwin. Getting up to light a few lamps and lift the dark pall that filled the room.

When the room was no longer as dark as pitch, Jarek sat besides his son on the couch, arms crossed, and his back reclining on the backrest.  

“So...son, what’re you doing back here so soon? And where’s your sist-...er...I mean, where’s your wife? What’s happened?”

Edwin sat, rifling through some bags and books, that he’d brought out of his room while he was waiting for his father to come out. Making sure he’d not left anything important. behind before he was forced to make his mistake.

At some point it occurred to him that with his spatial abilities and the amount of storage space available on his ship there was no reason to fret about a few cartons worth of goods and an extra luggage bag or two.

Phasing the things away and sending them one of the white gate ways he used to put things into stasis.

“Van’s okay right?  S-, son?” said Jarek. Blinking, forgetting the rest of his question as he saw the things disappear.

Edwin remembered where he was and since he’d never put any conscious effort to hide what he could from his family, he just opened another smaller white gate, bringing out a bottle of pills and three metallic, pre-set syringes.

“Swallow this.” said Edwin. His tone unusually commanding for such a happy-go-lucky boy. Startling his father into acquiescing.

*Psht*

Edwin pressed the syringe against his father’s neck. Compressing the trigger at the top, which released both the needle and any excess gases that happened to have made into the device before piercing the man’s skin and injecting its contents into his bloodstream.

“Ow! Dammit, boy?! What in blazes? Boy don’t go thinking yer too old to be put over my knee!”

Edwin ignored his father’s outraged response. [Scan]ning the man, watching that his vitals stayed stable and that the effects of the treatment were progressing as he’d intended.

Satisfied that all had gone as planned, even though the rushed clinical trials, hastened testing and his own continued existence, had definitely confirmed a high likelihood of success, Edwin sighed in relief.

“So, um...hi dad.”

“What? Er, hi...No, wait. What the hell was all that about just now!? That metal thing pinched fiercely!” said Jarek. Still rubbing the side of his neck, which now itched as if from a fierce bug bite.

“Just something to make our family...just a little stronger.” said Edwin. Sitting back. Pulling out a small box to put the remaining syringes and pills within, before pushing the box closer to his father.

“What is it? What was that?” said Jarek.

Feeling slightly nervous, not knowing what exactly his son had put inside him, but also trusting that his son was good enough a child.

A filial, wise and reliable enough, that he’d never purposefully try to harm him, or his mother, or his brother, who he correctly guessed the two other pills and syringes to be for.

“Something I’ve been playing with for quite some time, dad. I never expected to use it for anyone else, but one way or the other, Van made me realize that this was something I could share.”

The pill was filled with young nanites. It literally was just a metal shell, filled with, mostly, dormant nanites. Millions of them, all of them waiting to be introduced to a new biological environment. In which they’d spread and reproduce and spread some more. Doing so benignly and repeatedly.

The syringes were filled with a serum that was made from Edwin’s own personal nanites. Two-thirds of which were distilled from his blood, one third of which was collected from the nanite pool. They were matured nanites.

Programmed to do for whoever took them, what Van and Ed’s nanites did for them. Slowly replacing, invading, and strengthening their organs and tissues. Changing their constitution till they were stronger, smarter, faster, more powerful versions of themselves.

They would be the only such treatments, that Edwin would ever make. If he made similar, there would either be caps on their potential or controls to assure that no one but the intended user could take them. But for now, Edwin was just focused on helping his family and helping his old man, whose war wound had taken both some measure of his confidence as a man, and all his drive as an individual, when it took away his ability to cultivate.

“That’s, uh, that’s awfully vague son.” said Jarek. No longer rubbing his neck. Feeling a very curious itch taking place at his core. From whence, he’d not felt anything, in a very long time.

Edwin, looked at his father, trying to figure out how much to explain and weighing it against the amount of time he felt like spending.

He stretched and yawned because it had been boring waiting here all this time, and risky sneaking into town. Working hard not to get spotted since any who saw him would have known who he was.

Edwin decided he’d definitely spend some time configuring his ships teleporter for quieter, more stealthy, pinpoint drops and pickups.

An inconspicuous means that would allow him to travel to and from the ship without pulling any unwanted attention, so long as he had a private room to do so in.

“Consider it a miracle medicine, dad. One your son has worked on for quite a while, and one my wife, your adopted-daughter, tested personally. You know I’d not see you guys hurt.” said Edwin.

Jarek nodded accepting that last half of the statement without argument, even if the first half still left him with questions.

“Alright, and I take it that the other doses are for your ma and your brother?”

“Yeah.” Edwin nodded.

“And I can assume that you and Van are both okay?” said Jarek. Pushing forward the main concern he’d had on his mind when he saw his son waiting for him in the dark.

“Dad, just who exactly do you think raised me? Would I be back here, if I didn’t think Van was safe where I left her?”

“Ah, and that’s another thing, where did you leave her?” said Jarek.

“She’s in bed sleeping?”

“Sleeping where?”

“Vignale, at Wallace’s place. Wallace says hi, by the way.”

“Wallace’s place?” said Jarek. Brow furrowing.

“By dad. Say hi to mom and Egon for me….Oh, and, Wallace says that this should probably be kept a secret in the family...The vis-Oddmund family, if you catch my drift. Van and I will probably be by later when things have calmed down in this neck of the woods and we’ve gotten settled on our end.”

Jarek might have been a bit of an old fool, but he wasn’t an idiot. Though a man might be innocent, treasuring jade could make him a criminal. Even a child could tell you that.

“Er...sure.” said Jarek. Watching, mouth slightly agape as his son seemed to just disappear before his eyes, fading from view.  

Unaware of his father’s reaction, Edwin activated his personal cloaking field so he could slip out through Rus’ gates and walk till he was out of sight of the town himself. Running till he was far enough away from the town for his ship to pick him up.