Chương 144: Chapter 143 [A Trip Down Memory Lane]

Leo watched the others disappear in different directions. Shai looked around for a moment before turning her gaze on Leo.

"Anything you want to do?"

"Going back to bed sounds nice." She laughed and slapped his arm.

"Be serious."

"I am serious." He grinned.

"But I'm happy doing whatever. You mentioned showing me round at some point." He looked at her.

"Anywhere you want to take me?" Shai considered it for a second and then started walking.

"Yeah. Come on, I'll show you the house I grew up in." She took him down a quieter street, away from the square and the last of the tournament crowd. The village felt different back here, less festival and more just where people lived. Washing hung between buildings. One of the glowing turtle creatures Leo had seen the day before sat in a doorway and watched them pass. Shai slowed as they reached a house partway down the street, bigger than most of the others and well kept.

The yard out front was what caught Leo's eye first. A pair of sparring posts stood to one side, the wood dark and worn from years of use, the surfaces dented where they'd taken hits. A low balance beam ran along the other side, the top edge smooth from however many feet had walked it. On the ground between them, someone had marked out a grid in faded paint, the lines worn but still visible.

"This is it," she said.

"This is where Kai brought me after my parents died." Leo looked at it.

"What was it like? Being here at the start?"

"Difficult. For everyone involved, I think, though Kai never let on." She looked at the garden.

"I don't remember a lot from before. Bits and pieces, feelings more than anything. After, I just remember having a lot of anger and nowhere to put it. Climbing onto rooftops to avoid going to bed, getting into fights with kids twice my size, breaking things." She paused.

"He was never unkind, though. Not once. I think I was waiting for him to lose patience with me, and he just never did."

"When did things settle down?"

"When he started training me. I was six, seven maybe. Just the basics at first, but something about it clicked. All of that energy, the sadness from losing my parents, it stopped coming out at any opportunity and went somewhere useful instead." She smiled at the memory.

"I broke my first wooden sword when I was eight. Hit a post too hard. I thought he'd be furious with me."

"What did he do?"

"He looked at the sword, at the post, then at me." She laughed quietly.

"Then he told me to come back tomorrow and he'd get me a better one. More impressed than anything else."

"I can see why you were so adamant he was kinder than first appearance when he started training me." She nodded.

"He comes across most of the time as a grouchy or silent person, someone who doesn't show much emotion. It's so far from the truth it's funny. I don't really get why he acts that way, but the real him is warm and friendly. You still haven't seen all of it yet. You know the first day you trained with him? He was impressed. He came to our house and we spoke about it. Rika let slip she thought something was going on between me and you, and he went off about making sure you were good enough. He can be overprotective."

She smiled at the thought.

"That's why he was suddenly so hard on you the next day. Sorry about that." Leo grinned.

"I had wondered about that. So, Rika suspected something was going on? Tell me more about that."

"Oh gods. She started with it the day I brought the watch back to Monkhaven. All I heard for days was about how I should try to spend more time with you. I didn't even know you properly then, but she was adamant."

"Well, I'm glad. I don't know how much of that caused us to end up where we are now, but if any of it played a part, then I'm happy. I'll thank her later." They carried on walking. Leo thought about what it must have been like, a five-year-old with nowhere to put her grief and a man trying his best for the child his friends left behind. It was obvious the situation was hard on Kai, but he pulled through anyway. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

He's a good man.

"He may not be my actual father," Shai said, like she'd been following the same thread.

"But he's close enough. It makes no difference to me. Obviously, I miss my parents and wish I could have grown up with them, but Kai did a great job in their stead." A little further down, she nodded toward a smaller house on the opposite side of the road. A worn target was propped against the wall beside the door, years of arrow holes in it.

"Rika's," she said.

"I met her when I was nine, ten maybe. She was just starting with the bow and already convinced she knew more than whoever was trying to teach her." She smiled.

"She was exactly the same then as she is now."

"How did you actually become friends? You don't seem like the most obvious pairing."

"She talked at me until I gave up ignoring her." She said it warmly.

"When I started training for the guard, she told me she'd follow me in. I didn't take her seriously at first. Then she went away, trained until she was good enough, and showed up one day exactly like she said she would." Shai shook her head.

"I stopped being surprised by her after that." The street widened as they walked further from the square, the buildings more spread out. Leo was about to ask something when Shai spoke first.

"Torren came a few years after that. He'd left his tribe: a lot of half-orcs do at some point, just to see what else is out there. He arrived, joined the guard, and that was that."

"What made you pay attention to him?"

"The contrast. You look at him and you expect something brutish, even when you know orcs aren't like that. Their looks can be quite intimidating, though. I'm sure you remember how you and the others looked at him when he first stepped out of the treeline when you first met." She laughed.

"And then he opens his mouth and it's something completely different. His perspective on things is much gentler than you'd expect from someone his size." She thought about it for a second.

"He told me that wanting to improve, to protect the village, was good, but to not let that need to improve cloud the reason I was practicing in the first place. That came at a point I was frustrated with myself because I felt like I was stalling in training and nothing was going right at the time. I remember thinking he had a point. He made me some of his tea to help relax, and within hours I felt like the whole thing was just me getting in my own way. After that, I got back to improving at my normal pace.

We've been close friends ever since."

"You picked good people," Leo said.

"The best," she said. The street curved and the buildings thinned out. Shai turned off the main road down a narrower path that led to a patch of earth raised up against part of the wall, a short staircase leading up to it. A low fence ran around the edge, simple iron, and beyond it Leo could see a handful of gravestones, pale and clean, flowers and small offerings arranged around the bases. He followed her up the steps.

"They're enchanted," Shai said, without him asking.

"They never become dirty. Never deteriorate." She pushed the gate open.

"These are the people who gave everything for the village and its people. The ones who live on in the village's memory." Leo hung back slightly and let her go ahead. She stopped in front of two stones set side by side. There were fresh flowers at the base of both, yellow and white, still bright. She stood there for a moment and then crouched down so she was level with them.

"Hey, Mum. Hey, Dad." She smiled.

"I know I came by yesterday and you're probably confused I'm back so soon, but I wanted to introduce you to someone." She waved Leo forward.

"This is Leo. He's one of the people who arrived here a few months ago from another world. I know, it sounds like something out of a story. He's from a place called Earth, a town called Monkhaven, which is apparently on the north-east coast of his country. He ended up here along with a few thousand other people from his town, and nobody really knows why yet." She paused.

"He's also the one I've chosen." Leo crouched down beside her.

"Hello," he said.

"It's nice to meet you both. I've heard all about you, so it's an honour to be here." He paused.

"Shai's amazing. The people here love her and seem at ease. That's in large part because they know she will protect them. You should be proud of who she's become." He looked at the stones for a moment.

"I promise I'll look after her. I don't intend to be a stranger here for long." Shai looked at him for a second and then turned back to the stones.

"I entered the tournament again this year. I lost to Kai. No surprise, I know." She smiled.

"I landed a point on him, though. Progress. I'll get there eventually." She glanced at Leo.

"Leo is his newest student. He's been training for a month and he already won the trainee tournament. How amazing is that?" She paused.

"I wish you could be here to meet him. I know you would have liked him." She was quiet for a moment.

"Everyone else is doing well. Rika might have found someone she likes, but I really don't know with that girl. I'll let you know how that turns out." She smiled.

"Some of Leo's friends have tattoos. Apparently, humans on Earth treat them the same way as the orc clans. Torren's obviously happy about it. He's offered to take them all to the Ironwood, which should be interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the place again." She looked at the stones for a moment longer.

"Anyway. That's all for now. I love you both. I'll talk to you later." She stood up and Leo stood with her. They walked back through the gate and down the steps.

"It's lovely that you come and talk to them," Leo said. He put his arm around her waist as they walked.

"They'd be so proud of you." Shai leaned into him slightly.

"I like to think so."

"Anywhere else you want to show me?" She shook her head.

"Let's get some food. Maybe see if we can find out where the others got to." She looked at him.

"I'm sure spying on Phil could be fun." Leo laughed.

"Yeah, that does sound good."