Chương 9: New Home (Eris's POV)

I rested my chin on one hand, elbow propped on the counter, and watched the guild hall celebrate something I still wasn't entirely sure I'd witnessed correctly. A marriage by a half-drunk priest, and a wall that was now technically load-bearing by faith alone. I'd seen strange things cross this counter, but I couldn't recall the last time I saw something this absurd. I watched the door swing shut behind the elves as Zebron and Aria disappeared with them, and thought, You finally did it.

I'd known it was coming since the first week Aria joined his party and he started bringing back double the loot. Men like him didn't work that hard for just anyone. I straightened, and the moment of sentiment passed the way it always did: quickly, because the guild did not run on sentiment. It ran on paperwork.

"Now then." I reached for the pile of forms beside me. They weren't going to fill themselves, were they? I flipped one open, dipped my pen, and felt a small and entirely unprofessional stab of envy. Adventurers got to run headlong into disaster and call it a living. I got to file the paperwork afterward and call it a career. Should I become one myself? I considered it for exactly as long as it took to remember that I was thirty-four, mildly out of shape, and had once fainted at the sight of my own paper cut. No.

I was not built for violence. I was built for ledgers, and there was a certain dignity in that too, even if it came with considerably less applause. I started working while everyone else was having the best afternoon of their year. How nice for them. Time passed the way it always did on a slow afternoon. The sun dipped low enough that its orange glow crept fully through the window. It laid itself across my paperwork like it wanted to read over my shoulder.

Most of the adventurers had wandered home by then, off to nurse bruises or spend coin they hadn't earned an hour ago. I set my pen down and stretched, feeling my spine complain in three distinct places. I glanced toward the next counter over. Nill was already tidying her things, stacking papers and coin trays. This girl. I shook my head. It wasn't closing time yet. She was going to catch an earful from the Guild Master the moment he returned from his trip. She approached my counter and clasped both hands together.

"Eris, can you close the guild for me?" I rested my head back on my hand and tapped the counter with one finger, slow and deliberate.

"Let me guess. You have a date."

"How did you know?! Are you a fortune teller now? A witch?"

"You've had two this week."

"Have I?!" I let out a small laugh. What was I going to do with this girl?

"Go on, Nill." Her face lit up immediately. Bright and unguarded in a way I both envied and had long since decided I wasn't going to be jealous of anymore. She bowed twice and turned on her heel toward the door. I watched her go. Still a little giddy at her age, or maybe because of it. Being a receptionist meant you learned to find joy in other people's joy, because your own free time was a theoretical concept that hadn't materialized yet.

I turned back to the emptying hall and waited for the last of the stragglers to filter out into the evening. Five minutes passed. Then ten. I tapped my finger against the counter, the way I did when a number in the ledger wasn't adding up. One person remained. The girl with the rock on her head. Ruina, if I remembered correctly. She was still standing exactly where she'd been hours ago, facing the quest board. I'd noticed the rock earlier, when she'd registered. I'd decided not to comment.

Adventurers arrived with all manner of eccentricities: lucky charms, cursed rings they refused to remove, bikini armor that even men wore because the stats were high, and a rock seemed low on the list of things worth questioning. But a guild hall at closing time, empty except for one very still girl staring at nothing, was worth questioning. I sighed, stepped around the counter, and crossed the floor. I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Closing time." She turned. Her eyes were dry. Almost. There was a wet sheen along the lower rim that hadn't quite decided whether it was going to fall or not.

"Are you all right?" I asked. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. She didn't answer.

"You're with Zebron's party, aren't you? Ruina?" And then, watching her face a beat longer, it clicked into place. I'd seen it before, on other adventurers, on other evenings. Parties broke apart more often than people liked to admit. Adventurers married in. Adventurers married out. And sometimes, death. I crouched down a little, enough to bring myself level with her.

"Are you okay?" Ruina shook her head. Small. Honest. No performance in it at all, which somehow made it worse than if she'd cried outright.

"Do you want me to walk you back home?"

"I don't have a home here." That landed harder than I expected it to. I kept my face steady and smiled.

"Do you want to come with me, then?" Something shifted in her expression. Not quite a smile, but close enough. I reached out and patted her head. The automatic gesture I used on Nill when she'd had a rough shift, forgetting, for exactly one second, about the rock. My palm met stone instead of hair. I patted it anyway, twice, as if that had been the plan all along, and pretended not to notice her looking at me like I'd done something unusual.

Given the day she'd had, I decided a slightly unusual guild receptionist was probably the least of her concerns.

"Come on," I said, straightening.

"I'll lock up, and then we'll figure out dinner. You look like someone who hasn't eaten a real meal since this morning." She fell into step beside me without a word, one hand rising briefly to steady the rock as we walked. I found myself wondering what exactly I'd just agreed to.

I fit the key into the lock and pushed the door open. My hand found the wall in reflex, fingers walking along the plaster until they hit the familiar groove of the switch. The crystal set into the ceiling brightened, warm and steady.

"Welcome home." I stepped inside and turned, waiting for Ruina to follow. She hovered on the threshold instead, one foot in and one foot out. I gave her my professional smile. The one I'd spent years perfecting behind the counter, the one that had talked down furious adventurers, soothed lost children, and once convinced a man that no, actually, he did not want to fight the Guild Master over a rank dispute. If there was one skill I could say that I had mastered, it was smiling in any given situation. It worked.

Ruina's shoulders eased, and she stepped through. Just what I expect with my S-rank skill: Smile. I giggled. I closed the door behind her once she was inside and turned the lock. I crossed to the sink and set the day's shopping down along the counter: vegetables still cool from the cellar stall, a paper-wrapped parcel of meat I'd talked myself into buying despite the price, and a loaf of bread I'd bought mostly because it had smelled too good to walk past.

"Please, sit. I'll make us something warm." Soup seemed right. Something simple and heartwarming. I started pulling vegetables from the bag, peeling and chopping. The meat was an indulgence I told myself I was allowed. It had, after all, been a day worth celebrating, in whatever strange shape that celebration had ended up taking. I tied my apron on and got to work.

The better part of an hour passed before the soup was finally ready. The kitchen filled with the kind of steam and smell that made a house feel like home. I ladled a bowl and set it in front of Ruina, along with a slice of bread.

"Careful, it's hot." I filled a second bowl for myself and sat down across from her.

"Let's eat." I was halfway through lifting my spoon to my mouth when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye: Ruina's hand, moving toward her bowl. Not toward the spoon resting beside it. Toward the bowl itself. Directly into the soup. I lunged and caught her wrist before contact.

"Um. What exactly are you doing?" She tilted her head at me. The rock riding the motion without so much as a wobble. An impressive display of balance I chose not to comment on.

"Eating?" she said as if it was the most normal thing to do. I sighed.

"Are we starting with this?" She didn't answer, which I decided to interpret as a yes. We spent the next several minutes conducting what could generously be called a spoon tutorial. It did not go smoothly. There was a grip issue. There was an angle issue. There was a moment where she appeared to be testing whether the spoon itself was edible, which I chose not to dwell on. By the end of it we were both a little damp and the soup had gone from steaming to merely warm. But she was, technically, using a spoon now.

It was a long battle. I considered it a narrow victory. Once the bowls were empty, I led her upstairs to the spare room. The one that had sat unused since my brother had decided, with all the foresight of a man throwing darts blindfolded, that guild work wasn't for him and taken off to chase fortune somewhere south. I hadn't gotten around to doing much with the room since. I pushed the door open. It creaked, loud and long. The sound of hinges that had spent too many months forgetting they had a job to do.

I made a mental note to oil them before I forgot again. I flicked the switch by the frame, relieved when the light crystal cooperated on the first try. I gestured toward the bed.

"Feel free to use the room." Ruina stepped inside slowly. She looked around at the modest furniture, the dust that had settled into a fine, undisturbed layer over everything, and the cobwebs strung with quiet confidence in two of the upper corners. I winced internally. Well. I couldn't spoil her with everything. I handed her a broom from the hallway closet.

"I'll take care of the dishes. You clean up in here, all right?" No reply again. I took the silence as agreement and turned to head back downstairs. Something tugged at the hem of my shirt before I'd made it two steps. I turned back.

"Are you going to leave as well?" Ruina's voice was smaller than it had been all evening, and there was something underneath the question that had nothing to do with the room, or the broom, or the dishes waiting downstairs. I moved forward and flicked her forehead. She put a hand to it and tilted her head.

"Silly." I stepped in and hugged her, rock and all. Close enough that I felt the cool edge of the stone press briefly against my cheek.

"This is my house. I'm not going anywhere." I let her go after a moment, straightened, and pointed her back toward the broom leaning against the wall.

"Now. Start cleaning, understood?" She finally nodded, though I had a feeling she didn't understand. I decided not to worry about it. There would be time to teach her once the dishes were done.