"Hey, Talia," I said. "Who's this?"

"C'mon, you remember Faith, right?" Talia asked. "She's my other bestie."

"Talia, the title of 'your other bestie' changes hands more often than a penny," I said dryly. "Tell me, did you even know this woman a month ago?"

"Yeah!" Talia said. "We were both taking the same standardized exam from the Fighter's Guild! We were in line right next to each other, waiting our turn, since our last names are both Jones, and we got to talking. And now we're besties!"

"...Talia, the exams were twenty five days ago," I said. "That's not a month."

"It is close enough, according to this druid," Talia said, folding her arms and huffing.

If I was being honest, I wasn't sure what Talia intended to do with a Novice Certificate in Martial Arts. She had no ambition to join the Guilds, or the Army, or become a security guard. My guess was, she went through the martial arts program entirely because she thought knowing how to fight was a useful life skill for her. Which... okay, yeah, she's an elf woman in a human city, and she's especially attractive. I can see how she'd reach that conclusion. Especially since Napoleon Ironheart the former Mage-Knight was one of her tutors in the ways of the druid, and he certainly had strong opinions about elves knowing how to fight.

Still. She didn't need a Novice Certificate to break someone's knees, just strength and skill. But hey, maybe she thought the point of school was to actually learn things, instead of just proving that you already have. Not everyone could have parents who were already good at teaching their skills to people.

"Whatever," I said, turning my eyes back towards Talia's latest 'bestie.' "Faith, huh?"

Faith was a human woman, with close-cropped rust-red hair, a tall frame, broad shoulders, and coppery freckles scattershot across her otherwise-pale face. More importantly, though, she was wearing the light grey uniform of the Paladin's Guild, clearly designed with the same ideas in mind as the Army's own olive green uniforms; I was a little impressed by how her coat's sleeves were clearly quite filled-out by the powerful bulk of her arms. Usually humans didn't develop that kind of muscle until they were in their 20s, if they developed it at all.

What was probably the more important detail about her sleeves, however, was the dagger-like insignia on each shoulder. Most people didn't have the full chart memorized, but memorizing things was a basic vocational skill for a mage, and both of my parents thought it was important I understood how to read the ranks of the Paladin's Guild at a glance. That little dagger told me that she was a fresh recruit, and given how recent graduation was, chances were she'd been wearing this uniform for less than a week.

It was a little funny, honestly- this redhead was as green as they come. Not that I was gonna say that to her, though; she's likely already sick of hearing it.

"So you're this Joseph fellow I've heard so much about," she said, extending a hand for me to shake. "Gotta say, I was expecting someone... smaller."

"Shock and surprise, elf men are in fact men," I said dryly. "Listen, I know you're a Paladin and all, but there are a lot of attitudes they push that just are not going to fly here in Greenwood Village. For instance, if you try to give anyone a hard time for being gay, we're going to put your head on a spike as a warning to the others."

"...I mean, I am also gay," Faith said, slowly retracting her hand. "The Paladin's Guild is pretty specific about standards of evidence, so as long as I don't kiss girls where they can see it, they can't kick me out for it, but... Well, the Paladins are all about changing the world, and I'm all about changing the Paladins. Proving to them that this is a stupid rule, that gay people can be just as good a Paladin as anyone else."

"Good luck with that," I said dryly. "The stupid rules are the point. There's a particular order to things that the Paladins fight to preserve, and all deviations from that order are crimes. That's the point." I shrugged. "But hey, it's your time you're wasting. Have fun with that."

"Joseph," Talia said, planting her hands on her hips. "Stop being a dick."

"I'm sorry for remembering the stuff the Paladins have done," I said, rolling my eyes. "Anyway, hi Faith, what's up?"

"...As it so happens, I've been handed my first case, and... well, I need some help," Faith admitted. "You heard about Magister Brown's office down at the Mage's Guild getting robbed, right?"

"Yeah," I said, gritting my teeth. It'd been in the newspapers this morning. "Bastards stole the funerary effigy of my fucking grandma."

"They stole more than that, too," Faith said, reaching into her satchel and pulling out a folder full of papers. "According to the report, they also stole an occult reliquary containing a bound Succubus."

"...Why did he even have that?" I asked, frowning.

"Apparently, succubus reliquaries like that one have been circulating through the hands of the rich and powerful for a long time," Faith said. "Lotta dirty old men who like the thought of a hot chick who wouldn't dream of telling 'em no."

I grunted. "Alright, well... what're you gonna do about it?"

Faith stowed her folder back into her satchel, and withdrew a pair of copper badges shaped like swords. "Congratulations, you two have officially been deputized by the Paladin's Guild. You'll be entitled to financial compensation for your time at the end of all this, and if we do recover the stolen goods, I've heard it looks damn good on a resume."

"Yeah, like I'm gonna go back to the fucking Mage's Guild," I muttered. "But... Fine. I don't have anything better to do, anyways."

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"We could blow off the investigation to fuck like rabbits?" Talia suggested.

"Can you chill for ten minutes?" I asked, frowning. "Seriously, girl, what is wrong with you? This is not normal. Faith, back me up on this."

I regretted that instantly, as Faith looked me over with an appraising eye- it wasn't the first time a human girl looked at me like a piece of meat, and it probably wouldn't be the last, either. Not when my father was one of the most powerful and influential people in Greenwood Vill-

"Not yet," Faith said, which stopped me dead in my tracks as she shook her head.

"It'll be a while," Talia said, patting Faith on the shoulder. "Don't hold your breath- elves can be really stubborn. Especially this one."

"...Hang on," I said, frowning. "Is this about that fucking conspiracy theory that I'm secretly a girl? Because if so, both of you can fuck all the way off. I am sick and fucking tired of people acting like 'elven man' is an oxymoron. I'm six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and have hair on my face and my nutsack. I don't know what else you people want me to do to prove I'm every bit a man as a human, but I am sick of it."

"...I see your point," Faith said, turning to address Talia.

"Look, just- get to the point, already," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Do you have any leads whatsoever?" I knew the Guilds tended to be pretty dysfunctional, but 1) the Paladin's Guild was supposedly the least dysfunctional of them all, aside from maybe the Thieves' Guild, and 2) there was no way in hell they'd given a case like this over to a raw recruit who didn't even have any Paladin's Guild training without some reason to think she'd succeed.

"Someone in the Thieves' Guild probably did it," Faith said. "No idea who, but they tend to crack down on unapproved robberies, and since they're not doing anything... well, that means it was probably them."

I grunted. "Fantastic." So she doesn't have any solid leads from the Paladin's Guild.

"Yeah, I'm not exactly looking forward to it either," Faith said, scowling. "Fucking Thieves' Guild. They talk a big fuckin' game about how their role is to humble the mighty, and fight the corruption inherent in the system, while they pretend they aren't the corruption inherent in the system. They're nothing but charlatans and thugs and brigands, preying on whoever they can get away with victimizing in order to line their own pockets, and crying 'oppression!' whenever someone fights back. They're bullies, and the fact that they get to be a major Guild is one of the biggest problems we face as a society."

She ended her little spiel by spitting on the ground, folding her arms, and huffing.

"Well, if we just have to put a few bullies in their place until one of 'em tells us who stole the statue and the reliquary..." Talia said, looking at me with a grin on her face.

"We'll resort to that after we try doing it properly," Faith said dryly. "Joseph, I hear you're a Wizard. Is that true?"

"Yep," I said, nodding. "Good enough to join the Mage's Guild, if it wasn't for the fact I'm an elf with a spine."

"I'm gonna need you to cast some divinations for me," Faith said, pulling the folder out again. "You got anywhere we can sit down and talk about the details?"

---

"Thank you," Faith said, politely taking a sip from her teacup, before her eyes went wide. "...oh, holy shit, if this is tea, what the hell have I been drinking?"

"We have a lot of words for human tea," Mom said politely. "Most of them are scatalogical."

"Urinary, really," Dad said from his armchair, the newspaper in his hands.

"No, no, shilushka means diarrhea or badly-brewed tea," Talia said.

"We call human tea 'pee-pee-poo-poo water' except in a variety of flowery euphemisms," I said, staring straight at Faith. "Let's set that aside for a moment, Faith: you're eighteen years old, and a first-grade Page who only joined the Paladins a week ago at the longest."

"Actually, I got hired a few days before graduation," Faith said. "It's been almost two weeks."

"Faith, do you know how long Paladins typically spend in Guild training before being given jobs to handle on their own?" I asked. "Because I know. I know a few people who joined the Paladins, and still come back here to visit family and friends. And they all say-"

"Four years," Faith said. "A year in boot camp as a Page, to drill the fundamentals. Then three years of low-stakes on-the-job training as a Squire, being directly mentored by a senior Knight as well as receiving intermittent training from other Knights. Only when you become a Knight yourself are you trusted to handle an assignment on your own, and even then, only assignments that the chapter's Castellan thinks you can handle." Faith set her teacup down. "You wanna know why I'm not in boot camp learning how to actually do my job, Joseph? You wanna know why a first-grade Page was picked to do a job like this?" Faith leaned forward, pale yellow eyes piercing into my soul. "So would I."

She leaned back in her chair, and drained her teacup like an alcoholic hitting the whiskey.

"This sounds... messy," Dad said. "Joseph..."

"You know me," I said. "You know how cautious I usually am. For now... For now, I don't think you need to trouble yourself with this. It's summer, anyhow; you're about to have your hands full." The Ranger's Guild was one of the least offensive Guilds to High Elven sensibilities; the Rangers were, as a general rule, very respectful towards elves, even if they hadn't grown up around them, and considered the traditional elven affinity for Primal magic to be something worthy of emulation. As such, while Dad was not a member of the Ranger's Guild, they very much were willing to pay him very good money to help them run their summer camps, and give him a few free slots to hand out as he so pleased; and as it so happened, plenty of kids growing up in Greenwood Village wanted to go to summer camp and one day join the Ranger's Guild.

"Joseph..."

"For now, Dad," I repeated. This wasn't some youthful flight of fancy; his hearth-mother's earthly remains were at stake, here. But... he didn't have the time to deal with this, right now. And... well. Besides.

I'm not a kid anymore. I'm a man, now. And it's time I start acting like it.

"For now."