rowyn

Apart from the staircase leading up to the attic, the storeroom held mostly empty boxes; Jim poked through them while waiting for the rest of the kids to catch up, and found an old journal. "Hey, it has more of Mr. Vernon's notes about his experiments." Jim flipped through to the final page as the last kid entered the room. "He wrote 'They're coming for me tomorrow. I won't have time to perfect my work. I'll have to complete the process on my wife tonight, so she can join the children. She won't be the same afterward, of course. But then they'll all be mine. Forever.'"

"Want to know how it works, do you?" a sepulchral voice said. The kids all turned to watch as the skull with burning eyes floated through the wall into the room. It drew closer to Jim. "Perhaps I'll give you a personal demonstration."

Adelaide brought down the fireplace tongs and grabbed the skull with it, bringing the skull to the ground. Bobby yelled "BAD SKULL!" and stomped on it with all the might of one small shinguard-clad leg. It was a very solid stomp, grinding the skull against the floor. Even so, the skull was unharmed, laughing hollowly and not even trying to get out of the grip of the tongs. Bobby drew his foot back, and Jim drew out the ceremonial knife to impale the skull.

The knife thrust didn't seem to hurt it either, but the skull stopped laughing. "So that's how you're going to be, is it?" It flew to the ceiling and disappeared through it.

Mark stared at the spot where it had gone. "We have to go up there, don't we?"

"Yeah," Matt said. Wayne was already starting up the final stairwell. The other kids followed suit. Tears of stark terror poured down Mark's cheeks, but he went with the rest into the attic. Watching him, Kristi thought she had never seen anything so brave.

*

The attic was dominated by five giant bell jars of green glass, each one holding a pitiful human figure curled up and suspended in liquid inside of it, the people varying in size from a tiny baby to an adult woman. A massive antique machine beside the jars connected to them via hoses and wires. The jars were lit from within by tortured spirits, their faces locked in expressions of horror. The adult spirit's expression changed from agonized to fearful as she saw the children entering. "Get out, children," she said, urgently. "You have to leave. He'll get you too. Run!"

"We can't leave you," Matt said, the kids staring at the jars and trying to figure out what to do.

"You must!" the mother's spirit urged.

The skull rematerialized in the attic then, now larger than a grown man, pits of fire in its eyes. "You cannot take them from me! They are MINE!" it screamed. "Get out! You can leave now!" The bars melted away from the attic windows. Far below, they heard the bang of the front door flying open.

For the last hour, Kristi had wanted nothing more than to leave, but neither she nor any of the kids moved to depart now. Even if it's not just another trick, we can't leave those poor souls like this. I'm in a ghost story. If I were writing this, how would we stop him?

Bobby stared at the sinister horror and the family it had been torturing for over a century. His young mind came to a quick decision. "NattiecanIattackthemonster?okaythanksbye." Pulling free of Natalie's hand, he charged it with an incoherent yell. Wayne charged with him, but the preschooler was going after the nearest of the jars, not the skull itself.

"The machine!" Kristi yelled with sudden insight. "Jim, if you can figure out how to make the machine let them go, his family can stop the skull!"

Jim ran to the machine, Kristi and Mark with him, helping him trace the connections, while Natalie, Matt and Bobby worked to attack and distract the gigantic skull, which was diving down to engulf Wayne. In a moment, Jim shouted, "That lever!" He pointed to a switch in a central pipe between the machine and the bell jars, some eight feet above the floor. "Pull it and it'll release all of them!" Jim scooped up Wayne with the intent of holding him up to the lever. Instead, Jim was just in time to keep the skull from catching the toddler up in its now-massive jaws. Matt knocked both of them further out of range of the undead creature, while Bobby's headlong charge passed right through the skull.

Adelaide scrambled up the machine with the same ease that she climbed trees, and yanked the lever down. There was a mechanical a hiss and a ka-clunk, then the liquid filling the bell jars began to bubble and the souls bound inside rushed out through the glass walls. The five previously-bound ghosts fell upon the giant skull in a phosphorescent swirl of soul-stuff, crying out for vengeance. All six forms fell screaming through the attic floor.

The kids seized this opportunity to flee, pelting out of the attic and back to the third floor. The house seemed more unstable than ever, walls and floorboards shuddering from the struggle of supernatural forces. Matt and Mark picked up Scotty and carried him with them, while Bobby scouted the second floor for hostiles. The toy soldiers had vanished, so the kids continued their headlong flight, skirting around a hole in the floor from part of the ceiling falling through it.

*

When they'd escaped to the yard, they saw that part of the attic had collapsed inwards too. Mark and Matt lay Scotty down as gently as they could on the unkempt grass.

"Now can we call 911?" Kristi asked.

Jim checked his phone. It had signal now, so he punched the buttons. "What am I going to tell them?"

"We are going to be in such trouble," Natalie lamented.

Wayne got onto this pedalcar and took off for home.

Kristi held out her hand for the phone. "Here, let me do the talking." After the 911 dispatcher got the details of the emergency and their location, the inevitable questions of 'why are you out by an abandoned house in the middle of the night in the first place?' began to arise. Kristi explained that they'd been having a sleepover, and Bobby had thought that he'd seen Wayne outside and headed this way, so the kids had gone to investigate. Of course, they'd been mistaken -- Wayne was home safe in bed -- but Scotty had gotten hurt searching the mansion with them.

While Kristi was on the phone, Natalie scolded Bobby for breaking away from her in the attic and going after the monster. Bobby looked at her with big mournful eyes. "But I asked Nattie sorry."

"You didn't wait for an answer!"

"You din't say I had to wait for an answer!"

During a pause while the dispatcher handled something on the other end, Kristi put the phone on mute and suggested Adelaide and Mark go home: "The adults already know about everyone else, but there's no need for any more of us to get in trouble."

In the end, though, Kristi was able to convince the grown-ups that they'd had good reason for worrying and being out there, and no one got very much trouble from their parents as they came out to pick up the kids.

It was very late when Natalie and Matt got home and crawled into their respective beds. As Natalie dropped off to sleep, little blue hands drew the covers up over her and tucked her into bed, before the beersoul slipped back downstairs to his newly-adopted cellar.

Kristi convinced Adelaide's mom as well as her own parents to let Adelaide sleep over. Kristi's own father worked the night shift, and her mother went to bed around nine. At about eleven, they prepared to sneak out: Kristi dressed up like a ninja, all in black. Adelaide was as quiet in sneaking as she was in class: she went out the window and climbed down the adjoining tree with perfect balance, helping Kristi along as she went. As they walked to the rendezvous, Adelaide munched nervously from a box of Wheat Thins.

Natalie and Matt had an even easier time getting out. Their parents mostly ignored them, leaving them to the care of their crazy-cat-lady nanny. She cooked for them: sometimes magnificent meals like grilled salmon and risotto. And sometimes ... more inexplicable dishes. Like tonight's macaroni with liver, and Cheez-it loaf.

They were too anxious to have eaten much anyway.

The four of them met on the street leading to the abandoned mansion, and were surprised to find Jim and Mark there too. "I figured it'd be like an adventure," Jim said. "I brought everything we'd need in my backpack -- rope, my phone, flashlight, lantern, kerosene, lighter, canteen .... "

"Bobby!" Natalie cried out, as the little boy came running up too, wearing his soccer shinguards like armor. "What are you doing out this late? You shouldn't be out by yourself!"

"But I had to make sure you were okay Nattie!" Bobby insisted. Natalie bent down to rig a tether for him, tsking. It was too late to send him home. And besides, it's not like any of us should be here, Kristi thought to herself, clutching Adelaide's hand. Adelaide crunched on another Wheat Thin.

As the seven continued up the hill, a movement from the side caught their eye, and they turned to see a lone figure emerge from the shadows at the wheel of a vehicle.

It was Wayne, wearing Batman footie pajamas, in his pedal-powered batcar. A cape made from a blanket tied around his neck fluttered in the breeze, then fell around his shoulders as he pedaled to a stop beside the group.

"... okay, who brought Batman?" Kristi asked.

"I think he brought himself," Mark said.

Natalie made a tether for Wayne, too, and passed the handle for it to Kristi. Together, the eight of them made their way to the yard of the abandoned house.

Kristi looked around nervously. "Did Scotty say to meet outside or inside?"

"Outside," Matt said.

"Okay well we're here and he's not so I guess he chickened out let's go," Kristi said.

"I'm here." Scotty stepped out from the woods surrounding the property, with five of his friends at his back. "I see you were too cowardly to come alone."

Kristi eyed Scotty's friends, all 5th-graders like him. "So were you."

Matt glanced over his own collection of friends, all younger and some of them less than half Scotty's size. "Well, if you're afraid to face Batman in the dark ... "

Scotty crossed his arms with a sour look. "I'm not the one who's a chicken. So here's what you're going to do, if you wanna prove you're not a coward. You're going to go into that house, go to the basement, flash your light through the window so we know you're there, then go to the attic and do the same."

Adelaine and Mark both looked terrified at the very mention of this.

"What we're gonna do?" Matt repeated. "What about you?"

"I'm not the one with anything to prove," Scotty said.

"So you admit you're too scared to do it yourself?"

Scotty started to say something, then snorted. "Fine. I'm not scared. I'll go in first."

Adelaine clutched at Kristi's hand, looking like she wanted to stop the other boy even if he was a mean bully. But no one did. The kids stood on the grounds outside the house, watching as the red-haired kid disappeared inside. A minute later, a light flashed through the basement window. Adelaide squeaked a little.

Mark muttered to himself, "He shouldn't go in the attic, it's not safe in the attic."

"It's fine," Kristi said, patting Mark's back in reassurance. "He's gonna be fine. We'll be fine. It's just a house. Here, hug Cthulhu." She took her stuffed toy out of her backpack and passed him to Mark, who clutched at it and did not look comforted.

Minutes passed. No light shone out of the attic window. Scotty did not come back out. Wayne started cutting away at his tether gradually, with a pair of fingernail clippers. "Stop that," Kristi said. "Batman doesn't break things."

Jim checked his smartphone. "It's been twenty minutes," he said finally.

"This is crazy," Matt said. "He should have been back by now. I'm going in after him."

"No," one of Scotty's friends said. "It's cool. I'm sure he's fine. Give him another ten minutes."

Not entirely persuaded, the kids waited.

Five minutes later, a terrible scream pierced the night, like the wailing of a woman in agony.

Scotty's friends took off in a panic.

"Call 911!" Kristi yelled at Jim.

"We can't call 911!" Mark said. "None of us are supposed to be here!"

Matt said, "And they'll just think we're pranking them, if we tell them we heard a scream at night by the haunted house."

"It doesn't matter if they think it's a prank, they still have to send someone!" Kristi said.

"Maybe Scotty is pranking us," Jim said.

Wayne gave up on waiting for the others and charged for the front door, snapping his weakened tether. Kristi tried to intercept him, but the little kid easily evaded her lunge.

Bobby followed in Wayne's wake, pulling Natalie stumbling along behind him. As Wayne vanished through the mansion's front door, Bobby reached the porch. It caved way beneath him and he fell into the basement below.

"Bobby!" Natalie fought to keep her balance at the edge of the hole. Jim and Matt tried to tackle her to keep her from falling, and instead sent all three of them tumbling in after Bobby.

Through good luck, though they suffered a few bruises, no one was seriously hurt. They got out their flashlights and called up "We're okay!" as the kids above yelled down at them.

Adelaide, Kristi, and Mark advanced more cautiously on the porch, skirting the gaping hole. "Jim, throw me your rope," Kristi yelled. He tossed it up, and Kristi tested the posts of the porch and railing for something sturdy enough to tie it to. Everything felt rotted and weak. "This is a death trap ... I can't believe it hasn't fallen down already. I can't find anything safe to secure it to."

"We'll find the door up," Matt said. "Don't worry!"

Kristi threw the rope back down. Wayne had vanished into the house. "Okay, we'll go in and look for the entrance from the first floor."

Jim and Matt shone their flashlights around the basement. The basement was full of wine racks -- row after row of them -- but no bottles. There was no door visible, but stacks of wooden crates were piled against one wall. Detritus and cobwebs littered the dusty floor. An old moosehead was mounted on the wall, something metallic glinting in its mouth. Natalie checked Bobby over to make sure he was all right, scolding him for running ahead of them.

A flash of something blue by the crates caught the attention of the older boys. "What was that?" Matt whispered.

"I don't know," Jim said. "One of the websites said that this house used to have a beersoul."

"A beersoul? What's that?"

"It's like a brownie for wine cellars. They'll take care of your stuff, keep it in order and clean and make sure nothing happens to it. But you have to give them a pint of beer a day, or ... "

"Or what?" Natalie asked.

"Or else." Jim gave them a meaningful look.

Matt gave the moosehead a closer inspection, putting his hand into its mouth. He retrieved a metal flask, like the one Mr.Jacobs carried, but much older. Its cap was rusted shut, but something was sloshing inside it.

A blue face appeared behind the crates, yellow eyes glinting ferally at the kids. Natalie hugged Bobby to her chest so he wouldn't see. Jim swung his flashlight to catch it in the full beam, but it darted out of sight again. "Something's there."

Matt tried to open the flask, but it was stuck fast. He got out the plier attachment on his swiss army knife and wrenched at it, but only scored the metal around the lid.

"I'll help you with that Mattie!" Bobby broke free of Natalie's grip and took the flask, wrenching it open. Alcohol fumes wafted out. "There you go!"

"I loosened it first," Matt mumbled.

A plaintive, drawn-out whimper came from the crates. Matt handed Bobby back to Natalie and advanced on the boxes, holding out the flask. He put it down where they'd seen the face, and stepped back.

A blue furry creature, looking a bit like a cross between a chimp and a dog, snatched up the flask in both paw-hands and drank it down, making tiny slurping contented noises. The children stared with a mixture of terror and fascination.

Natalie broke the silence first. "It's so cute!"

Bobby squirmed about in her arms. "Ahhh MONSTER!" He broke from her grasp and charged it.

Matt tackled him to the ground. "No, Bobby, don't!"

"Are you a beersoul?" Jim asked. The furry blue creature nodded. "How long have you been here?"

"Man many years," the creature said. "All dry, so dry, so very dry. Now at last! Drink again." He waved the flask happily. "Thank you."

"It's not a monster, Bobby," Natalie said, as Matt let Bobby up. "It"s a magical talking puppy."

"Puppy?" Bobby said. He peered at the beersoul, then ran over to it and began patting its head. The creature's mobile ears splayed out to either side. "Can you do magic?"

The beersoul nodded, and spread its arms. Candles in sconces the children had not noticed earlier lit up, flooding the room with a soft golden glow. The dust and debris in the room swept from the room, billowing from the hole in the porch in a mass of cobwebs. Planks flew upwards to nail themselves neatly into place, repairing the hole like a master carpenter.

*

From the front hall, Kristi, Adelaide, Mark and Wayne could see through the open front door as the cobwebs billowed up for no apparent reason, and heard the sound of wood hammering into place under its own power.

They freaked out.

"They shouldn't have gone into the basement!" Adelaide wailed. "There are always monsters in the basement!" Kristi stared in stunned disbelief, clutching her stuffed Cthulhu. Wayne shrieked. Mark worked to calm them down, and after some moments he got them to stop panicking.

"We have to get them out of the basement," Kristi said once she'd calmed down, starting for the stairs leading down.

"No!" Adelaide grabbed her arm. "You can't go in the basement! You don't know what might be down there!"

*

In the basement, the beersoul was moving the crates for the kids. At their request, it showed them the contents as well, ripping crates open with three-fingered taloned hands. One box was full of old books: an antique family bible with a family tree in it, an ancient picture book of fairy tales that Bobby seized on, and several other old and valuable-looking volumes.

Another crate held alchemical supplies. Jim dug through them while the beersoul opened another crate. He couldn't tell what must of the supplies did, but he found a ceremonial-looking knife, with the groove down its center streaked by rusty brown. Jim pocketed the knife, and next found some notes. "It says Mr. Vernon was using these for scientific experiments based on practices by ... African slaves in the Caribbean," Jim said. "... the last page says that his first subject was going to be 'to save my unfortunate daughter, Claire.'" Jim turned to the Bible and flipped to the family tree. "It says Claire died at four months."

The next crate held a tiny coffin.

The kids didn't open the coffin.

Kristi and Mark came down through the now-cleared doorway, having left Adelaide upstairs to protect Wayne, or possibly the other way around. They watched the beersoul in wide-eyed amazement.

"What was Mr. Vernon doing?" Natalie asked the beersoul in a hushed voice.

"Bad things. Very bad things." The beersoul shook its head. "Putting souls into inanimate things."

"Is this all of his experiments?"

"No. Others in the attic."

"... what's in the attic?" Matt asked.

"Things I not let him keep here," the beersoul said.

"We are NOT going to the attic," Mark interjected.

"He was bad man," the beersoul said. "Very bad. They took Master Vernon away. But then they brought him back."

Kristi swallowed hard. "... how many pieces was he in when they brought him back?"

The beersoul counted, slowly, using both hands. "Six."

"... Scotty's on his own let's go home," Kristi said.

"Have you seen another kid tonight?" Matt asked. "A red-haired boy, few inches taller than me?"

The beersoul said, "Boy appeared at top of steps, shone light through, went back up."

"That cheater!" Kristi exclaimed. "He didn't even come down here."

"We still have to find him," Matt said. The kids started trooping up the stairs, the beersoul following them. Adelaide stared at the strange creature as it reached the top, then offered it a Wheat Thin.

The beersoul took the Wheat thin and turned it over, perplexed. "Thank you?" Adelaide demonstrated by eating one herself.The beersoul ohhhed and put it in his mouth. He gave a big artificial smile, turned around and walked past the other kids, and spit it out as soon as he was out of Adelaide's sight. He put the cracker in a pocket with an expression between confused and appalled.

But before they left the basement, Natalie turned to Matt. "What about him?" She pointed to the beersoul. "We can't just leave him here."

"He does need a can of beer every day," Jim said.

"That's less than Bobby's uncle," Matt pointed out.

"We have a wine cellar," Natalie said. "He could stay there. Our parents order more liquor after every party anyway. They'd never notice one drink a day."

The beersoul brightened at this prospect, long ears pricking.

"Well ... all right."

After Natalie gave him the address, the little blue furry creature put a blessing on Matt's swiss army knife in thanks. Then it hurried away, speeding out into the night.

It was Monday morning, and eight kids -- ranging in age from four to eleven -- waited at the street corner for the school bus to arrive. Kristi, in fifth grade, was the oldest, wearing a black skirt and jacket with a neckcloth and a white blouse -- like a school uniform, even though they all went to public school and didn't have a uniform. She was talking to her best friend, a shy seven-year old named Adelaide, because Kristi was weird and most of the kids her own age avoided her.

"I was working on my new book all weekend!" Kristi told her little friend, who listened with quiet attentiveness. "It's got a dragon and a knight and a princess. The princess and the dragon are trying to rescue the knight -- "

Next to them, Jim looked up from the game he was playing on his smartphone. "What kind of dragon? Western, eastern, winged, not winged?" Jim was the wizkid, the one who knew everything, especially about computers and video games.

"Western! Green and scaly and HUGE and he shoots fire from the vanes of his wings, like a jet plane. That's how he flies," Kristi said.

Jim pushed up his glasses. "Actually, dragons breathe fire. It doesn't shoot from their wings. And they're too big to fly."

Kristi made a face at him, crossing her arms. "It's my story and he can fly in it if I want him to."

"Dragons?" Bobby piped up. He was only six. "I like dragons! Are they scary dragons?"

"No, the dragon is the good guy," Kristi said.

"Yay!" Bobby bounced up and down, while nine year-old Natalie clung grimly to his hand to keep him from running into the street in his enthusiasm. Bobby's mother paid Natalie five dollars a week to make sure Bobby got to school each day. Natalie and her twin brother Matt were with four year-old Wayne, too, because the twins were the sort of people parents trusted to be responsible. Wayne was wearing his Batman hoodie, as always, and wouldn't walk to the bus stop with his foster parents because 'Batman don't need help'.

Wayne had ... issues.

Nine year-old Mark stood a little apart from the other kids; he was the outcast, and even in groups like this where he didn't get picked on, kids rarely paid attention to him. He peered at them over the edge of his book, listening.

The bus rolled up to the corner and stopped, the door opening with a pneumatic hiss and a ka-chunk. Mr. Jacobs, the bus driver, gave the children a surly look. "No running," he started to say. Wayne dashed headlong up the steps, evading Matt's attempt to slow him. Mr. Jacob's arm swung down and caught Wayne by the throat like the hand of God. He turned the little boy's head towards him. "It's Monday, I'm tired, I'm hungover, and they don't pay me enough. So walk to your seat, sit down, and keep your mouth shut. Got it, Batman?"

Wayne blinked at him, and nodded. In silence, the rest of the kids filed into seats: Bobby near the front between Matt and Natalie, Wayne opposite them, Kristi and Adelaide in the middle, Jim across the aisle, and Mark near the back of the bus.

As the bus started up, Jim slouched down in his seat, playing with his Gameboy. "Hey, did someone see the Joker on the bus?" he asked loudly, without looking up.

Wayne jumped atop his seat and spun about. "Where?"

Mr. Jacobs slammed on the brakes. The bus jerked to a halt, causing Wayne to bang his head against the seat back. Without a glance to the toddler, Mr. Jacobs stumped back to Jim's seat. Jim slouched lower still, continuing to play his game. Mr. Jacobs hit the power button on it.

"Dammit!" Jim swore, then blanched as he realized what he'd said. "Sorry," he added, looking up at last.

"I don't care if you swear," Mr. Jacobs began.

From the front of the bus, Wayne's little voice piped up, "What does 'dammit' mean?"

"Now I care if you swear."

Jim said, "It means 'thank you'."

"It's a bad word. Don't repeat it." Mr. Jacobs glowered down at Jim. "And I care if you lie to little kids about what words mean. Or say things you know are going to provoke them into jumping around and getting themselves hurt on the bus." His pen scrawled across a detention slip. He handed it to Jim. "I'm giving the other half of this to the principal's office. Report there as soon as we get to school." Mr. Jacobs stumped back to the driver's seat. His fingers tapped longingly against the bulge of a flask in his pocket. The bus started up again.

In his seat between Natalie and Matt, Bobby was kicking his feet back and forth and humming to himself until he felt something wet and gooey dripping into his hair. "Hey!" Next to him, the older Matt turned around to see what was happening.

Scotty, the ginger-haired fifth-grade bully, was blowing his nose messily against the back of Bobby's head. "Cut that out!" Matt yelled.

"Make me," Scotty sneered.

Matt shoved the older boy back, hard enough to knock Scotty's retainer out. The mouth gear skittered down the aisle of the bus. Bobby jumped out of his seat and chased after it as it neared Kristi's seat. Kristi extended one foot and very deliberately stomped on the retainer. Then twisted. The device snapped with a satisfying crack.

Bobby picked up the two pieces and helpfully returned them to Scotty. "You dropped this!"

The older boy -- the biggest on the bus -- snatched up the pieces. "Who broke it? Did you break it, you little freak? I oughta break you -- "

Kristi jumped to her feet. "I broke it," she yelled. "What are you gonna do about it?"

"Just wait 'til we're out of school, you weirdo -- " Scotty balled one hand into a fist.

The bus driver slammed on the brakes again. Kristi swallowed, reconsidering the wisdom of taking credit for breaking the retainer.

But Mr. Jacobs went straight for Scotty and Bobby instead. "What's going on back here?"

"He dripped boogers in my hair!" Bobby piped, pointing at Scotty. "He's a big meaniehead!"

"You whiny little brat -- " Scotty started.

Mr. Jacobs cut him off. "Look, kid. You're being a dick -- " the bus driver paused, suddenly aware of the littlest boys staring at him, wide-eyed and attentive. He cleared his throat. "He's being a Richard. Richard was a kid I always hated. Scotty, you may think you can get away with anything, but not on my bus you don't." He handed Scotty a detention slip and stumped back to the driver's seat.

The bully glared alternately at Kristi and Matt. "I'll get you two for this." Matt bore the threat stoically, but Kristi was worried. Boys didn't usually fight girls ... but Kristi didn't stand a chance if Scotty decided he was going to make an exception.

*

[This story is adapted from the tabletop RP Little Fears game that Randy Milholland ran Saturday night. I played Kristi. All other characters and the game itself are copyright their respective creators. Most of the events are directly from the game, but in cases where I can't recall what led from one event to the next, or where I felt that a literal translation of in-character events didn't properly capture the feel of the game, I've invented additional material.]

"Come play a game with me, Limit." A video window opened, showing a brown-and-beige space otter at a computer.

"Hello, Arc. Sorry, I have work to do." Limit was a space otter as well: a genetically modified human adapted to life in space, whose exterior appearance mimicked a Terran otter's. Unlike Arc, Limit looked the 'space' part of his species name, with a coat of midnight blue dusted with white dots like stars.

"So do I, but I'm not doing it either. C'mon, you've been staring at the same file without doing anything with it for half an hour."

"I'm thinking."

"Then you can think while playing. Seriously, Limit, you need a break," Arc said. "And I need some help with Kingdom of Death."

Limit chuckled. "Are you still playing that?"

"Yes. And I really need a partner for this section. Plus it'd be more fun with company. The NPC AIs don't count."

The midnight-blue space otter gazed at a window full of diagrams, charts strategic options, available resources, supply lines, and probable outcomes. Maybe pondering a scenario where no one I knew was actually going to die would be a nice change of pace. He sighed. "All right."

*

An hour later, they were pinned down on the wall of a crumbling fort, besieged by slavering hellhounds and fire-breathing demons. They'd lost the NPC spellbinder and rogue, Arc's archer avatar was nearly out of arrows, and the only components Limit had left were for his avatar's weakest heals and some esoteric spells to which their enemies were generally immune. Limit tossed another heal on the NPC warrior that was holding the smashed gate, while Arc took aim at a demon tearing apart the wall, brick by brick. "You know," Limit said, reviewing his spell list to see if he'd overlooked anything that was still available for casting, "if you want a constant struggle to maintain a bare minimum of necessary supplies in a war against hopeless odds, near-friendless, and facing almost certain death, we could go back to reality."

"Shut up." Arc loosed the arrow at point-blank range, spearing the demon through its eye and taking it out. "I'm sure we can do this." Another monster moved up to take its place.

Limit tried casting Create Water on the demon that was barbecuing their warrior. With a sploosh, water filled the demon's mouth, extinguishing the blast of fire breath and sending the enemy into a choking fit. Their NPC warrior closed with the monster and beheaded it, then backed up to avoid a counterattack by a hellhound. "That worked?" Limit said, surprised.

"That's terrific! How many more times can you do that?" Arc asked, aiming another arrow.

"As often as I can make the gestures, really. It's a cantrip, no components and not much mana." Limit put out another fire-breather. "This will not be enough to turn the tide, however.."

"Yeeeaah ... not at this point. But I bet we can get through this if I reload from an earlier save and we use that trick from the start."

*

On the second attempt, they kept the computer party members alive and fended off enough of the horde of monsters to escape the fort. They were still perilously low on everything: neither the hellhounds nor the demons had carried any supplies of note. "Didn't the developers ever hear of loot?" Arc complained.

"We just have to get to the Light Isle," said Misty, the NPC spellbinder. She was a beautiful elf with black skin and long black hair. Nearly all the PC and ally avatars in Kingdom of Death were elves, half-elves, or humans, with the exception of a couple of demons that the player could recruit to his team under certain circumstances. Their warrior, Asmodel, was one of the ally demons; his backstory was that he wanted to learn to be good. The rogue was Kitty, a human street urchin. Arc's archer was a brown elf, and Limit's healer-mage was a blue-skinned human.

"You keep saying that." Kitty didn't get along well with Misty. "'Everything will be sunshine and rainbows and unicorns as soon as we get to the Light Isle'. I'm starting to wonder if it even exists. Or maybe you just don't know how to get there?"

"I do!" Misty insisted. "The ferry to the Light Isle is east along this road, down by the sea."

"And the ferry still runs?" Limit asked skeptically. "What's it ferrying between here and the Light Isle? Demons? Skeletons?"

"It's only a game, Limit. The economy doesn't have to make sense," Arc said.

"It'll be there," Misty said, earnestly.

*

The ferry was docked where Misty had said it would be. The docks were in disrepair, demon-clawed and scorched, and the surrounding grounds had the same blighted look as the rest of the Kingdom of Death. The water around the ferry was brackish and choked with weeds. No one was visible on the boat, but it appeared unharmed.

"Well, that doesn't look like a trap at all," Limit said, looking down on the dock from the top of the adjoining bluff. Hellhounds howled in the near distance behind them. The NPC party members whooped in triumph and ran towards the deserted dock. "Do they have to charge in like that?"

Another baying behind them, closer. "Might as well," Arc said, running after them, "or we're just going to get caught here."

"Or we could get caught in the trap and by the enemies behind us," Limit said, but Arc was already gone. Resigned, Limit cast a few Create Water spells on the dirt road behind them, turning it to mud to slow the pursuit down, then followed suit. By the time he caught up to them, the NPCs were already on the boat and surrounded by an army of skeletons. The skeletons were fragile, but there were a lot of them and Arc's arrows were ineffective against skeletons, forcing him to use his flail. When the pursuing monsters finally caught up with them, the NPC party members started dropping.

"All right, new plan," Arc said, bashing skeletons with his flail. "We'll reload from save, then take the pursuit on top of the bluff. Then we can take the ferry ambush separately."

"Why are we taking the ferry ambush at all?" Limit cast a weak heal on Asmodel.

"To get to the Light Isle?"

"How? The crew's dead. Does your avatar have sailing skill? What makes you think the boat's even seaworthy?"

"I can sail," Asmodel said, stabbing a hellhound through the heart, while skeletons clawed at his back.

"See? It's got to be this way," Arc said.

"Very well, but later. I've got to get back to work."

"C'mon, Limit! We're almost there. Just one more fight." Arc reloaded the game, putting them back on the road to the bluff.

Limit sighed. "This is the last fight, though."

*

Somewhat to Limit's surprise, once they had cleared the pursuers and the ambush, the ferry was salvagable. It needed minor repairs, but a few minigames were sufficient to cover that. ("It's not a fight, Limit, it's a puzzle game. That doesn't count.") Misty and Asmodel were able to crew the boat, and soon they were at the Light Isle.

It was as beautiful as Misty had promised.

Blue waves and white sea foam slapped against beaches of golden sand. Tall green trees covered in white and orange blossoms waved in the gentle breeze. Inviting green meadows full of flowers peeped out of the forest. The party docked their boat at a city of white marble, where an impromptu audience of elves and men gathered to welcome the war-weary strangers with cheers, eager for news of the mainland. The Queen of the Light Isle herself came to offer them sanctuary, and ask for their help in the continuing struggle to protect the Light Isle against invasion.

While Arc started on the tutorial for the resource-gathering-and-building game that followed from the Queen's request, Limit took his leave and logged out of the sim.

*

Three days later, Limit returned to his quarters after running some errands, and found a message from Arc on his computer: "Can you take a break for a while and join me in KoD? There's something I need help with."

With a shrug, Limit logged into the fully-immersive sim. He asked one of the city guards where Arc was, and was directed to a hostel. There, he found Arc's elven archer avatar in a small spartan room. Making out with Misty on the room's single bed.

Limit cleared his throat. "I'm pretty sure you can manage that minigame on your own."

Misty leapt apart from Arc, embarrassed. Arc gave Limit a sheepish grin. "Eheheheheh. Noooo, it's that the main game has gotten really annoying."

"How's that?"

"'Taxes'. The building game lists all kinds of cool stuff you can make -- siege weapons, armor, enchantments, even non-combat stuff like buildings and furniture. The building game is sort of annoying in itself -- if you do the puzzle just wrong, you can get a 'catastrophic failure', which for enchanted items means 'will explode on equipping', so you have to recycle those immediately. Because of course there's no warning tag on it or obvious defect, if you don't notice the problem while you're making it. But the worst part is that I can't get to any of the good stuff, because it all requires gathering sufficient resources and crafting tools and building intermediary stuff. And before I can get half the stuff I'd want for something awesome, the Queen sends her guards around and they take everything."

Limit raised one of his human avatar's eyebrows. "Everything?"

"Yes! And I have to start over from scratch with gathering. They say it's for 'the defense of the Isle'. I'm wondering if it's a bug, although the documentation does say she's supposed to collect what we make. But everything? I'm still stuck in the equipment I arrived in."

"I didn't expect her to be so ... greedy," Misty said, reluctantly. She was perched at the foot of the narrow bed. "I know the Light Isle needs materials for its defense, but we're part of that defense. Why does she want us under-equipped?"

"Maybe I need to build faster, somehow?" Arc said. "So I can finish the good stuff before the guards come to take it?"

"But we still wouldn't be able to keep it," Misty said.

"At least I'd feel like I was getting somewhere. Sort of. Contributing to the defense."

Limit was thoughtful. "What's Kitty doing?"

"She's on a resource-gathering mission."

"She's got spying skills. Send her out to find out if the guards 'tax' everyone like this. And maybe what the Queen's actually doing with your goods," Limit said. "Let me know what she comes up with. I'm going to log out."

Arc wrinkled his nose as Limit's avatar winked out, then glanced to Misty. "We've still got some time before Kitty returns. So ... where were we?"

Misty grinned, and crawled up the bed to kiss him.

*

A couple hours later, Arc called Limit, fuming. "She's completely corrupt! She's just plain stealing from us!"

Limit ran through his mental list of untrustworthy singletons. It wasn't a short list. "Who's this?"

"The queen!"

"... you're talking about that game again, aren't you?"

"Yes! I can't believe I've been wasting my time building things for her! She's not using it to 'defend' the Isle! She gives the best stuff to her favorites or keeps it for herself, and sells the rest! To -- and this is the best part -- the frigging Kingdom of Death. To demons! Argh!"

"Ahh."

"I sent Kitty on like eight different missions to figure it all out. The queen confiscates almost everything anyone makes. Practically everyone in the city is stuck in tiny rooms like the one I'm in. All the mansions and grand carriages and tall ships, they're just for her and her cronies. And if the Kingdom ever does turn on her, the defenses are in shambles. Everyone resents her, but they're scared because she sics demons on dissenters, to 'disappear' them. Gah! It's almost as bad as the KoD itself."

"If you're tired of playing in a crapsack universe, you could go back to the one we live in," Limit suggested.

Arc glowered. "It's a game. There must be some way to win."

This was more than Limit could say for the universe he lived in. "I'm not getting a lot done right now anyway. I'll log in and look at it in a few minutes."

*

Kitty's unmasking of the Queen's corrupt regime had triggered scripts in all the NPCs. "Is this what good is supposed to be like?" Asmodel asked. "It's an awful lot like the side I left."

"No," Limit answered.

"Just let me steal it back!" Kitty begged. "We made it and she's got no right to use it for her own selfish ends."

"Not when you can use it for your selfish ends?" Misty said. "Sorry. ... It's not that I wasn't expecting better. A lot better. But I don't want to be on the run from demons again. No offense, Asmodel."

"It's all right," Asmodel said. "I don't like running from demons either. Or getting caught by them."

Arc said, "There must be a way to cheat her. Keep her guards from getting what we make while we stockpile it."

"But she'll still be defrauding the rest of her city," Limit pointed out. "You said she kept the 'best' stuff for herself. How does she determine what's best, anyway?"

"She keeps anything that uses one of the three rarest resources ... " Arc trailed off, his eyes lighting up. "That's it! Limit, help me look through these recipes." He passed over a set of files: in the game's UI, it looked like a fat tome of blueprints.

"All right. What are we looking for?"

"The perfect failure. We're going to give that queen exactly what she wants." Arc cackled, rubbing his hands together.

*

They had to plan the creation carefully, distributing tools and resources evenly among the party to make sure no one of them had enough items to trigger the 'tax' routine that would take it all. When they had enough between them to make the Golden Crown of Storm Summoning -- an enchanted item requiring all three of the rarest resources -- they handed everything over to Arc at once, and he immediately started the construction puzzle for the item. The tax routine initiated at almost the same time, but it couldn't finish while Arc was in the construction puzzle. So the guards waited while Arc botched the minigame in exactly the way he wanted, creating a normal-looking Golden Crown of Storm Summoning while getting the 'catastrophic failure' message.

The tax-collecting guards took possession of the crown, oblivious. The party waved cheerily to them. "Enjoy!"

"Do you think the game actually has her use it?" Limit asked, after the tax collectors were gone. They were on one of the public balconies that overlooked the city.

Arc shrugged. "Hope so? Kitty did say she used the best stuff."

"Have you ever actually seen one of the catastrophic failures explode?"

"No. The tutorial said it depended on how powerful the enchanment was, but that it was always ... " In the distance, the queen's palace exploded. A giant plume of smoke and dust rose into the air. Rubble rained down for blocks. "... bad."

*

With the queen and the best of her guards dead, her AI-run people revolted against her remaining cronies. Limit and Arc were appointed by general acclaim as the Isle's new leaders. A great festival was held in their honor, for their cleverness in tricking the queen to her downfall. It was quite lovely. Arc spent part of it figuring out what resources he needed in order to build a new palace for himself.

"Enjoy," Limit told him.

"You're not leaving in the middle of the victory cutscene, are you? Really?"

"Really. Good night, Arc."

But Limit didn't go to bed after logging out from the sim. Instead, he found himself studying his strategic problems in the real universe. Pity there isn't any way to use the greed of my real enemies to lure them to their destruction, Limit thought. He reached for the 'sleep' button on the computer, then paused. He rested his chin against one paw. Though, given their typical motives, perhaps that idea could use further consideration.

[From a prompt by terrycloth, using his characters Arc and Limit from the Space Otters stories. I think this is the first time I've ever written fanfic that wasn't using an RPG setting. This story would take place around the second half of Familiar. ]

( Cards behind the cut-tag: )

[This is from a prompt by argonel. I drew the King of Cups, the Five of Cups (reversed), and the Nine of Cups (reversed) for it (photo of the cards at the bottom of the post). I had some trouble deciding what to write, until I remembered Crow-Woman, who to me is a very Five-of-Cups-reversed character. This ended up a lot more like a sequel to the previous stories than I'd intended. The first is here, and the second here.]

Crow-Woman moved like a tree walking, in long, slow, rusty strides, as if her muscles did not exactly remember what they were supposed to do. She was twelve feet tall, with a head like a crow's and great dark wings obscured by molted grey down. Her body was human in shape, save for her scaled lower legs and taloned feet. Dead vines and brambles dangled from her torso, shedding bits of leaves and falling away as she walked down Highway 50 in the light of pre-dawn. She held a digital camera in her left hand, its strap around her broad wrist. Though clumsy, her progress was patient and inexorable.

It was dawn when she reached the town of Renwood.The few people up and about stopped to watch her progress, staring and whispering to one another. One old man out walking his dog stopped to wave at her, and scold his dog as it strained at the leash to reach her. Crow-Woman returned the wave with her empty right hand, and continued on her way.

At length, she reached a small strip of shops, including a camera sales and repair store. She bent to try the door: locked. Her crow's head cocked and turned, one grey eye studying the posted hours. The store opened at ten. Crow-Woman turned and stood before the shop window to wait. Her eye fell on the wisps of grey fluff her wings had shed in her wake. Her head rotated to inspect the disarray forty-two years of unpreened molts had made of the feathers on her wings. One wing curled before her, and her beak dipped to preen it.

The sun was high in the summer sky and Crow-Woman was mostly done with the right wing when a car pulled in and parked at the back of the lot. A middle-aged man with dark skin and graying hair got out and stared at her. "Crow-Woman?"

She dropped her wing. "Yes."

He seemed surprised that she answered. "What are you doing here?" he asked, walking gingerly to the door of the camera store, his eyes on the monster.

"I wish to have a camera fixed." She raised the camera in her right hand.

The shopkeeper blinked a few times, digging out keys from his pocket. "... really? You have a camera?"

"It is not my camera."

He unlocked the door. "Oh. Uh. I didn't think you ever left that one spot in the nature preserve, along Highway 50."

"I have left it now. Will you fix this camera?"

"Um. Bring it in, I'll have a look." A bell tied to the door jingled as the man opened the door and stepped inside.

Crow-Woman turned her head sideways and eyed the entrance. She dropped to her knees and one hand to crawl through, wings folded close to her back. At the front counter, she set the camera down and sat back on her heels. Her bird's head was scarcely lower than the human's. An orange tabby cat was at the man's feet, ignoring her and meowing impatiently at him. "Uh, just a minute." He went into the back room. Two more cats followed him, darting suspicious looks at the monster. After he put down fresh food and cat milk for them, he returned to the front. "Right. Camera."

The glass of the LCD display on the back was spiderwebbed with cracks. He tsked and powered it on. It lit, screen distorted. He clicked a few pictures, then powered it down and fiddled with it. "Looks like it's just the display. I can replace that for you, be about $80."

Her crow's eye looked at him.

"... you don't have money, do you?"

"I do not. May I barter for it?"

"Huh." He leaned back. "You know, back when I was young, I took some pictures of you. Where you used to stand."

"Yes. Near sunset, every week for a year, from the start of one summer to the next, thirty-one years ago."

The middle-aged man swallowed. "You remember."

"You said your name was Quentin Longfellow. The worst thing you had ever done was break your brother's arm when you pushed him out of your treehouse." The blank birdlike stare did not waver. "I do not forget."

"Did you mind?"

"No."

"I remember I asked if it was all right, but you never said. Yes or no. Just asked what the worst thing I'd ever done was."

"Yes."

Quentin swallowed again. "Are you going back there, to your spot? After the camera's fixed."

"No. I am done with that."

"What are you going to do now?" the human asked, curiously.

Crow-Woman considered that question. "I do not know."

"Well." He looked down at the broken LCD screen on the camera. "How's this. If you'll do some shoots with me -- you know, you let me take more pictures of you -- at different spots, not at the preserve -- I'll fix your camera for you. Say ... three shoots. Hour or two each."

"It is not my camera," Crow-Woman said. "But that is acceptable. Will you fix it now?"

"I don't know if I've got the parts. Let me see." Quentin checked his inventory, then disappeared in back. He returned brandishing a small cardboard box. "You're in luck." While she waited, legs folded beneath her and wings cramped to her back in the human-sized store, he removed the broken screen and replaced it. A few times, customers came in to interrupt him. Crow-Woman simply waited until it was done, then left.

---

It was after dusk when Crow-Woman approached the small house near the nature preserve. She bent almost double to knock on the human-sized door. A minute later, a pale human man answered, and gaped at her.

"This is yours." She handed him the camera.

"Uh ... what?" By reflex, he took it, staring. "But -- how -- where did you find it? I left it in my study -- "

"I took it from your study."

"What? Why?"

"I needed to." She turned and left.

"Hey! Hey, wait!" The man dashed down the steps after her. "You can't just go into people's houses and take their stuff!"

Crow-Woman did not answer. She kept walking.

"There are laws against that, you know! I ought to call the police!" He yelled.

A fair-skinned woman came out of the house, asking, "Honey, what's going -- oh! That's the monster from Highway 50!"

"She took my camera!"

"... the one you're holding?"

"Well, she just brought it back. Hey! Don't you walk away from me!" the man yelled.

Crow-Woman walked away. The woman calmed her husband down, leading him back into the house. From an upstairs window, a little boy watched, wide-eyed.

---

Three days later, at two hours before sunset, Crow-Woman met Quentin on the shores of a lake for their first photo shoot. She had finished preening both wings by then, and they gleamed black in the late afternoon light. She'd also cleaned off the remnants of the vines and plant life that had grown attached to her during her long vigil, and replaced the tattered remnants of her clothing with a simple toga-like garment.

Quentin was nervous when he saw her. "You, uh, sure look different when you're not, um. Rooted. Can I see what your wings look like outstretched?" She swept them out to either side, pinions spread to maximum extension. The brown-skinned man gave a low whistle, forgetting his nervousness as he started snapping photos. "Can you fly?"

"No. Too disused."

"But you used to?"

"Yes. Perhaps someday they will be strong enough again." She shifted her wings in uneven flaps, flexing the muscles.

Quentin spent the rest of the afternoon taking pictures. He did not so much pose her as ask her to do things -- walk down the lake shore, look over the water, stretch her wings back -- and then photograph her while she did them. "You're a very patient model," he told her, setting up his tripod for some final long-exposure shots while the sun set. "But I guess you would be." She cocked her head, and he added, embarrassed. "Lot of practice just standing there."

"Yes."

"How long were you there?"

"Forty-two years, three months, seven days, and twenty-three hours."

Another low whistle. "Lady, you are overdue for a new hobby."

Crow-Woman considered that. "Yes."

He clicked the next photo and waited a moment. "Figured out what you're going to do next yet?"

The twelve-foot tall monster stood silhouetted against the lake and the setting sun, wings outstretched and raised at her back. She thought about his question, then asked, "What is the best thing you could ever do?"

"What? Uh. I don't know. Save someone's life, I guess. Wait, do you mean 'best' like 'most heroic' or more like, the best occupation I could do?" Quentin smiled wryly. "I guess either way, it's not going to be 'running a camera shop in Renwood'."

"I don't know," Crow-Woman tilted her head. "I think I will make finding out my new hobby."
( Photo of the cards from the drawing behind the cut )

Before his rounds the next day, Aunbrel stopped by the captain's office. Captain Tasker was a tall stocky woman of middle years, hunched at her desk as she went over the day's assignments. He tapped at her open door. "Ma'am? May I have a word?"

Captain Tasker waved him in. "Yes?"

"I've noticed there's something of a chronic backlog in the matter of filing reports and logging case notes in this peacehouse."

"Are you offering to fix this?" the captain asked, dryly.

"After a fashion, yes," Aunbrel said. Captain Tasker raised her eyebrows, surprised. "My nest-partner has an -- "

"Wait," Captain Tasker interrupted. "Did you just say 'nest-partner'?"

Kinsley had found out two days ago and been teasing Aunbrel about Ember ever since, along with half the peacehouse, it seemed. Aunbrel had assumed everyone knew by now. "Ember. The viper-dragon who lives with me. Yes."

"'Nest-partner'?" Tasker repeated.

"If I may continue?"

Tasker shook her head to clear it. "Go ahead."

"Ember has a knack for organization, excellent penmanship, and an eye for detail. If you are amenable, I'd like to invite her to help with the peacehouse's paperwork."

"Huh. You want me to offer her a job? I don't know that we've the budget for more clerical staff, though you're right that we could use some. Never had a viper-dragon working here before. They can write?" The captain looked skeptical.

"And sort, shelve, file, and pretty much anything you would assume one would need hands for. So far as I can discern," Aunbrel said. "If Ember's willing to do it at all, I suspect she'll be amenable to part-time volunteer work to start." It's not as though I'm paying her to index my books as it is. "If you're happy with her after a few weeks, you could see about finding room in the budget for another clerk. It might be cheaper in the long run than the mad scrambles to produce needed documents at the last moment."

Tasker snorted. "There's that. I'll talk to the Bright Lady about it. It's the sort of thing she likes to be kept abreast of."

Of course. "Thank you, captain."

When Aunbrel finished his rounds several hours later, a message from the captain was waiting for him on his desk: Bright Lady gave it her stamp of approval, send Miss Ember to see me if she's interested.

---

When Aunbrel returned home, Ember was working on the book project on the kitchen table again. Dinner was in the oven. "Why are you samassas?" Aunbrel asked.

Ember raised her head to give an open-mouthed smile in greeting. "Because I'm tiny," she answered, returning to her writing. "I can't take care of myself."

"You can't really believe that." Aunbrel scrounged about the kitchen drawers for another pen.

"I can't?"

"You can cook, clean, and scribe. There's plenty of humans, and elves for that matter, living independently with fewer marketable skills." Aunbrel returned to the table with pen in hand, and took a seat.

"But I can't do that outside the nest."

"Because you're samassas. You do realize that's circular reasoning?" The elf took one of the books from the waiting pile, and one of the blank cards.

"I ... yes. But it's not safe for me, going outside alone. Any larger viper-dragon could ... what are you doing?" Ember asked, a note of horror creeping into her voice.

Aunbrel paused in writing out the author of the volume on the card. "Helping with your project?"

The viper-dragon shrank back. "I'm sorry it's just there's so many and it's slow going I am trying I didn't realize -- " she gabbled, trembling.

The elf blinked at her. "Er? I'm not upset, Ember."

"butyou'rdoingmywork!"

"Yes? I can do it while we talk and I don't have anything else to do with my hands." A flash of inspiration struck him. "It's an elf thing. We don't divide up work, so there's no worries about who does what."

Nicitating membranes flicked over orange eyes. "Ohhh." She digested that, and relaxed. "All right."

They returned to their respective cards and wrote for a moment in silence, before Aunbrel returned to the previous topic. "I understand that you're small, Ember, but it's hardly as though I am invulnerable. Any large viper-dragon could eat me for breakfast and be hungry again by dinner. Any large group of any people could kill me, for that matter if they were so inclined. I am not protected by my physical strength: I am protected by the rule of law. By civilization. Those protections may have ... certain exceptions, as regards nest matters among viper-dragons." Aunbrel made an effort to keep his tone neutral. "But those exceptions only apply to internal nest matters. I checked. You are my nest-partner now. No viper-dragon may assault, detain, abduct, or even harass you without violating that law. And I daresay they know that." Ember nodded, but didn't speak. Aunbrel forged on. "I don't know if that makes a difference. My profession is to keep this city and all its inhabitants safe, and the Air knows we don't always succeed. At protecting people in their own homes, for that matter. But it is a good system, and it works well enough that I do not think you should feel a prisoner here, Ember. I don't want you to be afraid to live in the world outside these walls."

Ember shifted her coil, pensive. At length, she said, "It's ... sort of like the whole city is your nest, isn't it? This is just a little part of it. You're protecting the whole city."

Aunbrel nodded. "I am."

"And the other guardians are your nest-partners in it. They keep the city safe too."

Aunbrel involuntarily tried to envision Kinsley or Captain Tasker in the role of nest-partner. "... I ... that might be stretching the analogy somewhat. After a fashion, perhaps." He gave her a curious look. "Does it help to think of it that way?"

Ember bobbed her head, nodding. "It makes sense. And it explains why you're not here during the day."

"I was wondering about that, after you were talking about samassas not working outside the nest," Aunbrel admitted. "Because ifisith don't either, do they? They stay to protect the nest. It's only the -- the mid-sized ones that work outsized."

"The mashisith. Yes. And you're not mashisith. But you're not really leaving, you're just protecting another part of the nest. And this part is being kept safe by the other guardians. Nest-partners." Ember gave an all-over happy wriggle. "So there's no reason I can't do nest-work at the peacehouse. It's just another part of the nest!"

Aunbrel smiled. "Does that make sense? To your hindbrain, that is."

"I think so? It's ... awfully large, as a nest. And encompasses other nests in a way, which doesn't make sense. But still. I think I can do it."

"Good. Because the Air knows we could surely use your help."

---

It took a few days to arrive at a good routine. Ember had to be introduced to every member of the peacehouse ("It doesn't feel right if I don't even know them"), although Aunbrel cautioned her against calling them 'nest-partners'. "Especially Kinsley."

After trying a few variations, they settled on going to the peacehouse together in the morning. Ember would work half a shift on filing, deciphering and transcribing notes, and organizing documents. Then she'd return to the flat to tend to home-chores or read, and cook dinner. Aunbrel had once or twice attempted to persuade Ember that he was, in fact, capable of feeding himself. "When I got here, your larder consisted of two tins of chicken, a half-packet of stale flatbread, and the remains of a bottle of wine turned to vinegar," she'd answered.

"I like chicken."

"You didn't have salt."

His heart wasn't really in it.

With her spending part of the day out of the apartment, the place was no longer obsessively immaculate, which was something of a relief to Aunbrel. The elf was inclined by nature to be tidy, but there was something vaguely unnerving about having freshly-scrubbed ceilings. Tonight, she was making a casserole of mushrooms, spinach, crabmeat, and rice when Aunbrel returned home. He sat at the kitchen table while she assembled the ingredients, and took up one of the blank cards and a book. They were still working in desultory fashion on the index project, because it was a terribly beguiling idea once conceived.

While dinner was baking, they talked about the day's incidents; Ember took notes to write up when she was at the peacehouse the next day. When the casserole was ready, they cleared the table to eat; Ember had grown used to Aunbrel's help and no longer took it as implied criticism.

During a pause in the dinner conversation, Aunbrel sipped at a mug of warm spiced cider, watching Ember snap up bites of food from her plate with quick and oddly dainty motions. "When I first invited you to stay, I had no idea what I was getting into. I daresay if I'd had the least notion what it would be like," he paused for breath, and Ember looked up nervously before he finished, "I'd have invited you weeks earlier."

Ember's tailtip wriggled in shy pleasure. "Truly?"

"Absolutely."

Ember dipped her head back to her plate. "I feel like an awful bother sometimes, with all my irrational impulses that don't make sense to you."

The elf shook his head. "I don't know that all my habits are based in strict rationality either. Not that it's not an adjustment. And more than a bit peculiar at times. I rather feel like I'm taking advantage of you, to be honest." She looked puzzled, and he gestured vaguely around the room. "You don't need to do all of this. Cooking and cleaning and whatnot. You're not my servant."

"But I like doing it." She glanced away. "Maybe because you don't expect me to."

"If you ever change your mind, I promise not to complain if you stop. But I think I am done trying to talk you out of it." Aunbrel smiled. "In any case ... thank you for accepting the offer."

The little dragon ducked her head again. "I think I should be thanking you. This is a very strange sort of nest -- and I love it. All my life, I've been told so many rules, so many codes of behavior, all designed to keep me safe. And it seems like none of those rules matter now. And you know ... for the first time ... I actually feel safe."

Aunbrel raised his mug in salute. "To our very strange sort of nest, then."

Somber, Ember curled her tail around her glass and clinked. "May it never be normal."

After they finished their rounds the next day, Aunbrel was in even more of a rush to leave the peacehouse than Kinsley. The elf dumped the day's notes in his drawer and headed for the door. "What's gotten into you, elf boy?" the old officer asked, shrugging out of his uniform jacket.

Aunbrel had spent the day not explaining the situation to Kinsley, and wasn't about to ruin his record now. "I am taking the admonishment that I not work so hard seriously. You should be pleased."

"Hey, did I complain you worked too hard?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Don't know what I was thinking." Kinsley walked with Aunbrel down the steps to the main floor. "Want to get a drink?"

"No, thank you." Aunbrel crossed the big main room, headed for the door. "I just want to get ho -- "

"Commander on floor!" a senior guardian's voice barked. By reflex, every person in the large room, including prisoners, complainants, Kinsley (somewhat creakily) and Aunbrel, turned to the door and dropped to one knee, ducking their heads as Commander Lisia entered the peacehouse.

"As you were," the Commander said, her leopard pacing beside her. Everyone rose and returned to their purposes, stealing covert glances to the Bright Lady's fur robes and gold headdress. She carried a leather folder tucked beneath one arm. Aunbrel and Kinsley kept their eyes respectfully averted as they moved to the door.

"Guardian Aunbrel?" Commander Lisia touched his arm.

Aunbrel reflected that twenty-foot viper-dragons had nothing on the Bright Lady when it came to intimidation. And she's not even trying. "Yes, Bright Lady?"

"I'm glad to find you here. Might I have a word with you?"

Aunbrel wondered what he'd done wrong now. "Yes, Bright Lady." He trailed obediantly behind her as she entered the guard captain's office. The captain rose and started to kneel at her entrance, but stopped when she waved off the formality.

"Thank you for bringing the Coalstone nest matter to my attention, Captain Tasker," the Commander said. "You were quite correct; it's exactly the sort of thing I need to be informed about." The captain acknowledged this with a nod.

Ah, that. Naturally.

Commander Lisia turned back to the tall elf. "You've been causing quite a stir with the viper-dragon populace, Guardian Aunbrel. They're not used to interference in nest affairs."

"Yes, Bright Lady." Aunbrel held himself formally, hands clasped at his back. You did say I should get a hobby.

The commander leafed through the folder in her hands, saying absently, "Some of them did not appreciate it much, although Mistress River ... I'm sorry, Guardian, were you in a hurry this evening?"

'No' was untrue and 'Yes' was impossible. "Bright Lady?"

"No matter." She closed the folder. "I appreciate your efforts. Well done, Guardian. You may go. Have a good evening." The commander turned back to Tasker, taking a seat opposite her at the desk and putting the folder on the desk. "There's a few things I'd like to discuss with you, captain."

Aunbrel stood near the door, blinking, as his superiors fell into discussion. Need warred with prudence. He opened the door, and started to step outside, before need overthrew caution and prudence both. He cleared his throat.

His superiors looked to him. "Yes, Guardian?" Commander Lisia said.

"Permission to ask a question, Bright Lady?"

A graceful nod. "Speak."

"... do you know what's going on? That is, does any of this viper-dragon business make any sense at all to you? Because if you could explain it to me, I would be forever in your debt, Bright Lady."

A small smile formed on the commander's face. "I do believe, at this point, that you understand as much of it as any other person in Hopestart, Guardian Aunbrel."

"... that is not the reassurance I had hoped for, Bright Lady."

"Now you know what my job's like. Go home, Guardian."

---

When he got home, Aunbrel opened the door to an apartment he barely recognized.

It gleamed.

The hardwood floor in the front room had been polished and the tile in the kitchen waxed. The rugs had been aired and beaten, making them two shades brighter, and the threadbare patches in them mended so faultlessly they looked new. The tattered sofa had been patched artfully over the top and arms. The books stacked two-deep in the row of cases against one wall had been pulled out, dusted, alphabetized, and returned with the back rows stacked atop small empty boxes so that the spines were visible above the front rows. An appetizing smell of spiced beef and vegetables wafted in from the equally-pristine kitchen.

Ember called out from the kitchen, "Good evening! I know you weren't sure when you'd be home but I thought I'd try cooking something -- I remembered you saying that the izkawa beef from A Hope in War sounded good, so I found a recipe in one of your cookbooks ...." She slithered into the front room and trailed off. Aunbrel was standing open-mouthed by the entranceway. "Is something wrong?" she asked in a small voice.

"What happened here?"

Ember coiled up on herself. "I'm sorry I just thought I should straighten up a bit and I didn't think you'd mind you said it was all right to go to the grocer's if I needed anything and well I didn't mean to mess up your books I can put them back the way they were if you don't like it -- "

The elf threw his arms out. "I don't -- " He took a deep breath. "I'm not angry, Miss Ember. Surprised. Yes. Surprised. I thought you'd spend the day reading or somesuch. Did you do all this yourself?"

"... mostly? Glasscale, you remember him, he stopped by with Mistress River to bring some of my things and they helped with getting the boxes to prop the books on. But mostly me."

"... what happened to 'I'm lazy and hate all my work'?"

"Well. It's much easier to get things done when there's no one around to interrupt me. And I couldn't spend the whole day reading. And I thought I should try to start things off right. I'm sorry."

"Miss Ember," Aunbrel said, with a straight face but a smile in his voice, "You are as bad an overachiever as I am. Is that food ready? Because I am ravenous."

Ember uncoiled, her tail giving a tentative pleased wiggle. "Yes."

The viper-dragon insisted on transfering the meal from pan to serving dish before serving. Aunbrel hadn't even known he had a serving dish. The table was already set with plates and napkins; Ember looked chagrined when Aunbrel retrieved flatware for himself. Aunbrel was somewhat relieved to see that though the scuffed kitchen table had been scrubbed and polished, it had not been stripped and revarnished. Yet. He sat in one chair while Ember coiled atop the other. They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, until Ember spoke. "Guardian ... do you think you could call me Ember instead of 'Miss Ember'? Since we're nest-partners?"

"Only if you'll call me Aunbrel," the elf replied.

Ember's eyes widened. "Oh, no, I couldn't do that."

"Miss Ember it is, then."

Her tail tip gave a nervous wiggle. "But you're ifisith! I ought to call you Master Aunbrel."

Aunbrel set his fork down and favored her with a look. "Don't you dare." She tilted her head to one side, puzzled. The elf sighed. "I understand this is all different from what you're used to, but I did not invite you here to be my servant. Or samassas, for that matter. I invited you as my friend. I should like us to still be friends. Ember."

She ducked her head, then opened her mouth in an imitation smile. "Me too ... Aunbrel."

Three days later, Aunbrel returned with a pack half-full of books: Ember's to return to her, and a few new ones to lend. A turquoise viper-dragon answered the door, eyed him suspiciously, and left him waiting on the stoop for several minutes. At length, the same midnight-blue dragon Aunbrel had met at Mistfield Park opened the door, upper body raised to fill the entrance. Ember was just visible beyond the dark dragon's body. The scales of both dragons were raised and ruffled. "Have you found some new false charge to place upon my nest-partner's coil, Guardian?" the midnight-blue dragon hissed.

"Not at all. I am quite convinced of her innocence in all things." More than I can say for you. "I lent her a few books by way of apology for my error. I'd like to speak with her, if she's so inclined."

"She is not. Go away, Guardian."

Aunbrel looked past the large dragon to meet Ember's worried eyes. "Is she a minor?" The midnight-blue dragon stared at him, and Aunbrel continued, "I was given to understand that minor viper-dragons had very fine scales, and that the large thick ones denoted majority, but perhaps I am mistaken. Is Miss Ember a minor?"

"You know she is not."

"Then by the laws of Hopestart, she's a right to determine for herself with whom she chooses to associate. As she is not three yards away, I should like to hear her answer from her own mouth. Miss Ember?" Aunbrel met her eyes. The large wedge-shaped head of the midnight-blue dragon turned to Ember as well.

Ember lifted her head as high as she could. "I am busy this afternoon, Guardian," she said, quietly. "Would you be able to come back tomorrow?" The big dragon hissed in evident irritation at this answer.

"Certainly," Aunbrel replied. "What time would be most convenient?"

"5 o'clock?" Orange eyes darted to the midnight-blue dragon. "Please, Mistress River. I'll be done with everything by then. And I want to."

River's hissing reply did not sound convinced. Aunbrel ignored the large dragon and bowed to the small. "5 o'clock. I shall see you then."

---

When Aunbrel returned at the appointed hour, Ember had the door open even before he knocked. "You came back!"

"Of course." Aunbrel shrugged off his pack, pulling out Ember's books. "I still had to return these." A dragon slithered into the hall behind Ember, glanced their way, then slithered off. "Did you have a chance to finish the other Hope novels?"

She nodded eagerly, taking her books back on her tail and stowing them atop a cabinet in the wall, then offering his own back.

"How did you like them?"

"I loved them! I think the second one is still my favorite, though. I miss Rielle."

"Do you? I always thought them well rid of her and her foul temper."

"Oh, but she had such wit! No one else gets half her good lines."

"If you call sarcasm wit." Aunbrel was dubious.

"I do! I think I could forgive all her misplaced anger, to have a travelling companion who provided so much entertainment." As Ember spoke, River loomed up behind her in the entranceway. Aunbrel noticed other viper-dragons were watching them through the round windows of the nest.

Aunbrel disregarded the audience and focused on Ember. They conversed for a quarter of an hour on the stoop. At length, Aunbrel massaged at the back of his neck. "I passed a little park about two blocks from here, with a few benches. Might we go there to talk? It would be nice to speak more on a level."

River hissed. Ember glanced back to the other dragon and sunk down. Aunbrel cleared his throat. "Is something wrong?"

"She is samassas," River hissed, slithering past Ember to interpose between her and the elf. The midnight-blue dragon rose up on her coils to loom over Aunbrel. "She cannot leave the nest without a protector."

"She will not be without a protector. I will be with her."

"You? An elf?" River circled around Aunbrel, looping coil on top of coil in a wide circle around the guardian's feet, head several feet above his, looking down. "What would you do if someone menaced my nest-partner?"

"I am Guardian Aunbrel of Hopestart, an official protector of this city." Aunbrel caught River's eye. "And, Mistress River, if I felt Miss Ember were being threatened, I would ask the individual, politely, to cease in such behavior."

"You would ask. I could swallow you whole, Guardian Aunbrel, and leave neither bones nor body for your fellows to find." The midnight coils drew in closer, not quite touching his legs. At the nest's round windows, the faces of other viper-dragons watched them. "So what would you do if asking were not enough?"

"Do you truly want to know, Mistress River?" Aunbrel's voice was low and dangerous.

"Yesss," she hissed.

"Then move just one inch closer."

The susurration of shifting coils stopped as the dark viper-dragon froze. She stared at him for a long moment. Aunbrel met those near-black eyes unblinking, and waited. After a very long pause, River uncoiled, widening the circle she formed around him as she withdrew, her head lowering until it was of a level with his. "You have leave to go with this one, Ember. He will keep you safe."

Ember watched open-mouthed, small pointed teeth white against her gums, as River slithered back inside. Orange eyes turned back to the guardian. Aunbrel extended his arm, and Ember climbed up to encircle his shoulders. He'd walked halfway down the block before Ember spoke. "That was amazing! I've never seen Mistress River back down from anyone, not even another dragon! What would you do if asking didn't work?"

Aunbrel shrugged. "Get swallowed whole, I suppose." Ember gaped at him. "That's a lot of extra weight for a viper-dragon to carry, even a big one. It would have to slow one down. Might give you enough time to escape. I suggest you use the opportunity wisely in the event."

---

After that, Aunbrel returned every few days, to exchange new books and to talk about the ones they'd already read. On the third or fourth visit, Ember asked if she could invite other viper-dragons to join them. It struck Aunbrel as the sort of thing she shouldn't need his permission to do, and he said as much.

"But may I?" she asked anxiously.

"Of course? Yes."

Then on some days it would be four or five little viper-dragons with him, some of them chattering about books and some of them just wandering around the park and enjoying the day. Sometimes Ember asked to go elsewhere: a museum, a café, a local landmark, and Aunbrel would escort her and her nest-partners around Hopestart. She lent him one of her favorite books in her native language, and a translation dictionary to go with it: Aunbrel puzzled through it slowly with her and on his own, gradually making sense of it.

On making sense of the dragons themselves, his progress was more uncertain. The large ones no longer threatened or postured at him. The small ones deferred to him. Ember, whom he saw the most, seemed to think him a friend.

That was nice.

The rest of it was as confusing as a burning labyrinth, but not all bad. If he had been sure the nest wasn't still try to 'amend' Ember via physical trauma, he might have been content.

If he had been sure.

Then, during one of his still-frequent late nights at the peacehouse, River's head appeared at his office window. "Guardian," she hissed.

"Fire and Air!" Aunbrel jumped to his feet and went to the window. River had risen two stories on her coil to stare at him through it. "What are you doing there?"

"You must come."

"What? Where?"

"To the nest." River started to slide back down the wall.

"Er. Why?"

The giant serpentine body stopped. "You said you would protect Ember. Did you mean it?"

"Yes."

"Then come."

Smoke and blazes. "I'll come. Let me assemble a squad. What's going on?"

River hissed in fury. "No! It is not their business. It is ours. You must come. Only you."

And if that doesn't sound like a trap.... "On my way. Wait for me out front."

Aunbrel stopped at the front post to tell the guardian on duty, "I'm going to the viper-dragon nest at 101st and Coalstone to investigate a disturbance. No, I don't want backup now. But if I'm not back in three hours, send a squad to find me, or what's left of me. Blazes, send a platoon."

[Did I say this story would have three or four parts? I'm thinking ... maybe seven. ]

Kinsley was nowhere close to forgiving Aunbrel by the time they had finished booking their 'prisoner' and were en route to the Drunken Scarab. Aunbrel attempted to beg off from his earlier promise, but his partner would have none of it. "After that? After that? You owe me a drink, elf boy. You owe me a week's worth of drinks. By smoke and blaze, what do you think you're playing at, sticking our necks in the midst of dragon business?"

"Ember needed our help." They'd learned the viper-dragon's name when they incarcerated her.

"Hah! If she'd truly needed our help, she'd've asked for it. 'No trouble', she said."

Aunbrel shook her head. "She was lying then. You saw how she was once she was away from them."

"Yes, I saw how she didn't want to tell us a blazing thing about what was going on there. Dragon business, boy. Don't imagine you've made anything better for her with that little stunt of yours." Kinsley pushed open the door to the Scarab, spilling warmth and firelight from the pub into the evening chill of the narrow street. "Hullo everybody! Drinks are on him!" Kinsley jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Aunbrel. Resigned, the elf forced a smile and followed his partner inside.

*

Elves were just as capable of intoxication by alcohol as men, and enjoyed liquor just as much, though elves favored wine and cider where men preferred beer and ale.

Aunbrel cared for none of it. He disliked the bitterness and pungent aftertaste lurking beneath even sweet wines. The substance made him sleepy, morose, and faintly nauseated. Every now and then, he would try drinking again to see if it had improved any from his last experience, and it never had.

He was nursing his second mug of mulled spiced cider, which was the least objectionable drink he'd ever tried. If he ignored the aftertaste and the effects of inebriation, it was quite tolerable. He couldn't help feeling he was missing the whole point, though.

Kinsley was on at least his seventh or eighth drink by now, roaring drunk and regaling the pub with a preposterous account of how he'd single-handedly put down a riot in the Iron District twelve years ago. Aunbrel couldn't help feeling that sobriety, if not honesty, would have improved the tale. Kinsley kept losing his place in it, starting over or going back to add forgotten details. No one else seemed to mind, laughing and toasting and drinking themselves further into a stupor. Surrounded by giddy cheerful drunks that kept smiling at him and encouraging him to "Drink up, Guardian!", Aunbrel felt more alone than he did at night in his peacehouse office.

After buying another round for the house, Aunbrel offered the pretext of going to relieve his bladder and made his escape during the crush to place orders. He turned up the collar of his brown rabbit hide jacket against the chill of the night, hoping the wind would clear the morbid weary alcohol-induced fog from his mind. His feet turned toward the peacehouse of their own accord, his mind unwilling to face the loneliness of his sparsely-furnished flat. I might as well get some of the blazing paperwork done. Then he remembered the Commander, observing the light of his office every night, and couldn't bear to disappoint her by turning the flame up again. Well, what is it all for?

He stepped into the peacehouse, hands stuffed in his pockets, and strode to the west wing, where the jail cells were.

*

Ember had a cell to herself -- more a cage, in truth, five feet on a side, built to hold belligerent felis. It was set at the end of a hall, far enough from the rows of iron-barred, stone-walled cells that a felis paw would not be able to claw out at another prisoner -- nor another prisoner poke into the cage. The small red dragon was curled atop a blanket, a book propped on her tail, turning the pages with her tailtip as she read. Aunbrel paced down the hall to her, ignoring the taunts and pleas from the drunks and petty thieves in the cells he passed. She stirred at his approach, body tensing at first, then relaxing when she recognized him. "Good evening, Guardian." Ember shifted to a narrower coil to raise her head as high as she could, which was about the level of Aunbrel's waist. Her head tilted back to meet his eyes.

"Good evening, miss." Aunbrel crouched next to her cage. "Thought I'd stop by to see how you were doing."

The dragon's chin dipped in a nod. "I am well, thank you. Thank you for the books, too."

The elf rubbed the back of his neck. "You're welcome. I'm sorry about the lack of selection."

"No, don't be. A Hope in War is much better than the procedure manual I thought I'd get when I asked for something to read. It's very engrossing." Ember lowered her voice and added, "I had to skip ahead to the epilogue just to make sure Guisonel would be all right in the end."

Aunbrel chuckled. "I thought I was the only one who did that." He shifted his crouched legs, then sat on the floor, leaning against the wall beside the cage.

Ember adjusted her coil and slithered closer to his new position, lowering her head to his level. "I only do it with tense novels. I hate wondering if it'll turn out well or not. Even if it's going to all end badly, I'd rather know."

The guardian nodded. "It's a shame one can't peek at the end in life. Is Guisonel your favorite character, then?"

"He's the one I worry about. He keeps charging into the middle of these dangerous situations. I think he's looking to be a martyr. So you read it too?"

A wry smile. "The Hope books are some of my favorites. That's why I had them here. Guisonel gets a little less foolhardy with time. A little." Aunbrel gestured with thumb and forefinger pinched close together. "Where are you?"

"The battle for Royale Wyenard. Just after the archers arrived."

"The first time I read it, I'd forgotten the archers were even on the way. I yelled out in triumph when they showed. Got the strangest looks from my school fellows."

The little viper-dragon wiggled her tailtip, orange eyes amused. "Did you really?"

Aunbrel gave her a serious nod. He looked at Ember, her tail stroking over the book cover now. "Miss ... what were they going to do to you, that a night in jail would be a pleasant vacation in contrast?"

Ember would not meet his eyes, shaking her head and looking at the floor of the cage instead.

Aunbrel put his palm against the crossed metal bars of the cage. "Did I make it worse, intervening?"

Her head darted up to look at him. She shook her head again. "No. No worse." She rested her cheek against his hand through the bars. "Is your arm all right?"

"It's fine. Do you still want us to release you tomorrow? We could hold you a few days before we'd need to prosecute or dismiss the charge." It's not as if we've gotten any paperwork done tonight anyway.

"No. I should go back." Ember dropped her head to rest her chin on the book. "I'll run out of books to read before tomorrow night in any case."

"I could bring more from home."

The viper-dragon parted her jaws in imitation of a smile, and gave another headshake. "I have to go back eventually. One night should be enough."

"Enough for what?"

Aunbrel let the silence stretch after his question this time, not insisting, not importuning, just ... waiting. "To lose the moment," Ember said finally. Aunbrel waited. The dragon exhaled. "It's a matter of dragons. You wouldn't understand."

"I certainly do not understand now," the elf admitted. "But I am willing to learn, if you are willing to teach."

Aunbrel was working another late night in the peacehouse, completing the case notes for the day's investigations. His partner not only disliked paperwork but was abysmal at preparing it, and as junior partner tradition dictated Aunbrel do it in any event. Aunbrel didn't mind; late night was the only time the offices of peacehouse lived up to the name. His uniform jacket was off and hanging from the back of his chair, shirt sleeves rolled back to keep them from smudging the ink. On the first floor the hubbub of the night's arrests and complaints continued, but up here all was still. Quiet enough that the soft pad of feet in the hall outside drew the guardian's attention from his task. He rose and stepped toward the open door. "Hello? May I help you?"

A human woman in a golden headdress and elaborate fur robes, a jeweled staff in her hand, peeked through the doorway. A spotted leopard prowled about her feet.

Aunbrel fell to one knee, dropping his eyes. "Bright Lady!"

A fair hand touched his shoulder. Aunbrel's tan skin darkened with a flush that crept to the pointed tips of his tall ears, in mortification at being caught out of uniform by Commander Lisia herself, the leader of all Hopestart. But the gentle voice that said, "Rise, Guardian. There is no need for such formality," held no rebuke, only a hint of amusement.

Reluctant, Aunbrel stood, eyes averted. With an elf's height, he towered over her, which only added to the sense of his own impropriety. He straightened his shirt cuffs self-consciously. "My apologies, Bright Lady."

Commander Lisia waved off his words. "There is no wrong to forgive. Be at ease ... Aunbrel, is it?"

His gaze jerked up to her face in a moment of surprise. Faint lines around her large dark eyes and at her mouth and jawline hinted at her age. Aunbrel dropped his head again quickly, giving an awkward nod. "Yes, Bright Lady." Her leopard sat at her feet, leaning against her leg and staring at him with unblinking eyes.

The Commander took a step back, dipping her hand to scratch the leopard's ears. "It seems there's light in this office every night, Guardian. Is it always you here?"

"Not every night, Bright Lady."

A smile played on her lips. "Almost every night?"

Aunbrel didn't know what to say to that. "I am only completing my work, Bright Lady."

"And perhaps the work of one or three others as well?" The Commander shook her head, smiling still. "Your diligence is commendable, Aunbrel. Relax." He would have rushed into a burning building at her command, or faced down a rioting mob, but Aunbrel had no idea how even to begin to follow that instruction. "I appreciate your service to my city, Guardian. And perhaps it is unfair of me to ask one more thing of you, but I shall."

"Bright Lady?" He raised his eyes to her lips, but no higher.

"Don't let the work eat you alive, Aunbrel." She touched his arm. "If you do nothing but Guard, you will forget the why of it. Do not allow yourself to become isolated, with no one and nothing to return home to. Remember to enjoy your life and the world you live in. Else what is it all for?"

"Yes, Bright Lady." Aunbrel had no idea how to follow that instruction, either, but there was no other possible response.

The Commander patted his arm. "Good night, Guardian." With her leopard beside her, she withdrew from his office. In the corridor, she shook her head and sighed to herself as she left.

---

Kinsley had been Aunbrel's partner in the peacekeepers since Aunbrel joined three months ago. Kinsley had been a Guardian for nearly thirty years, and no one would accuse him of working too hard. Not that he was corrupt, or bad at his job, exactly. Though Kinsley was lazy: he had a habit of splitting the two of them so Kinsley could take the shorter half of a patrol route, or sending Aunbrel to run errands or interview witnesses in inconvenient parts of the city. But that sort of thing had to be expected from a partner with seniority, and the old human had the insight and knowledge of law and regulation that one would expect from someone with his experience. If he left early every night to go drinking -- "You don't mind finishing up the casework, right, Aunbrel?" -- well, surely he'd earned that right.

The two were walking their usual circuit through the Iron District, narrow cobbled streets winding past dilapidated warehouses and aging smelteries, walls and roofs blackened by soot. Kinsley's pale face was open and smiling. He tipped his hat to the occasional passing human woman, offered a casual salute to human men, and a nod to members of other races -- elves, dragons, an unescorted panther. Aunbrel's own expression was grim, mouth thinned beneath an aquiline nose. After a little while, Kinsley elbowed him in the ribs. "Elf boy, you need to lighten up."

Aunbrel made an 'oof' sound and failed to lighten up.

Kinsley raised a graying eyebrow at him. "What's eating you? Your dog take ill?"

"I don't keep pets."

"Maybe you should start. Seriously, you look depressed even for you, and that's saying something."

"I am not depressed."

"Look in the mirror and you will be. You can't let the job get to you, kid. You work too hard." Kinsley slapped Aunbrel's back.

The tall elf sighed. "That's what the Commander said."

Now Kinsley raised both eyebrows. "The Commander was talking to you?"

"Last night. I am using too much gaslight at the peacehouse or somesuch, I imagine."

Kinsley laughed. "That'd be you all right. Look, it's been a quiet day. We wrap up this loop, why don't you come with me to the Drunken Scarab?"

Aunbrel rubbed the back of his neck. "I could stop by after I finished the day's paperwork."

The older guardian shook his head. "No no no. Just skip it. Take off early." At Aunbrel's look, Kinsley chuckled. "I'll let you in on a secret, elf boy: the paperwork's not going anywhere. You don't do it today, it'll still be there tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that."

"Yes, and there'll be more of it," Aunbrel said sourly.

"Ah, you wait long enough, and some of it won't matter any more and you'll never have to do it at all. Don't give me that look, kid. I've been at this game longer than you have. Trust me, one night's not gonna kill any one." Kinsley punched his arm, and Aunbrel yielded with a nod.

[This is from the prompt tuftears left me last month, using cards he drew from the Tarot of the Cat People, and which I proceeded to not write. I finally coupled the prompt with a drawing by djinni and came up with "A Guardian's Companion". The cards Tufty drew are:

The Empress (right side up)
The King of Pentacles, reversed (7th picture in the link)
The Three of Cups, reversed (2nd picture in the link)


As short stories go, this one is not very short. There'll be another two or three parts. ]