Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The village of Plaht has a major problem. 

It's a pretty peaceful place most of the time. A large and bustling one, to be sure, so much so that it hardly feels appropriate these days to call it a "village" at all. It's smack-dab in the center of bright green hills and walled by dense forest on two sides. A lively river runs through it and the farmlands that stretch throughout are beautiful even if they're quaint, the vast expanses of golden wheat constantly moving in a warm, gentle breeze. 

Cross the river over an old stone-brick bridge coated in moss and you'll reach the village square. You'll recognize it right away by the big fountain in the center. That fountain spouts an eternal stream of sparkling clean water, said to be the very place where the village was founded centuries ago, the spot forever blessed by a forest sprite so long as the surrounding nature is treated with respect. 

There's a bakery near the fountain with sweets so delicious that people stop in during their travels to the capital just to try it. Those visitors may also stop by the market stalls and the grocers that sell fresh fruit and vegetables, or venture north towards the mountains to buy healthy and hardy livestock from the farmers. And many of these visitors might say that Plaht is the loveliest place in all of Aurita. 

But it's not perfect. Because there is, as established, a major problem, and that problem has a name. 

"It doesn't look like much if you don't know what's in there", most of the villagers will tell you. When they say this, they are almost always pointing at a twisty hill. Atop it is a sloping cottage surrounded by trees with spindling branches and dark, dangling leaves, nearly obscured from view. The home, when it can be seen through the foliage and only at very specific angles, has a tall chimney and what looks to be a greenhouse behind it. It seems like a nice place to live, even if it's a little lonely. 

"What's so bad about that place?" The unsuspecting visitor will usually ask. 

The locals will look over their shoulder to make sure that no one is eavesdropping. And they will often look up at the sky, as if they are suspicious of even the birds. They will lean in and whisper hoarsely into that newcomer's ear:

"The warlock," they'll hiss. "Yorak, the Great and Terrible."

Most of the younger villagers have never seen Yorak. Not in person. He almost never opens his doors to visitors, and this is in the rare case that someone is brave enough to venture too far in that direction, and in the even less likely case that someone ventures there and is not chased away by some manner of magick. Yorak is also not one to leave the safety of his refuge to go shopping for groceries, or to make small talk by the fountain. He is an enigma. A specter that haunts that hill. 

The older folks— the elders and some of the adults— they HAVE seen him. So far, they have all lived to tell the tale, but no one is pushing their luck. 

Without fail, the villagers have all taught their children to steer clear of the house on the hill. They tell the little ones that if they see Yorak peering out through his window or tending to his gardens, they must avert their eyes and tell no one. That they must avoid suspicious animals, because one can never be too careful with magick folk. Yorak could easily have summoned familiars. A wolf, or a crow, or a frog... any one of them could be an agent of Yorak in disguise, waiting to give its master a signal to cast a hex upon you and your household. 

Lance McClain has heard these scary stories since his early childhood. 

His parents place herbs above the farmhouse's door meant to repel the curses of witches and warlocks, and there are protective Laphamian runes on the backs of their scarecrows and some of their tools and on the inner walls of the barn. Lance is still scolded, even though he is now technically an adult, if he spends too much time in that part of town. Even if he's nowhere near that suspicious-looking cottage. 

He doesn't often look at it or think about it. He tries not to. But, still, he is curious about the warlock that's supposed to reside there. Talking about him is so taboo that Lance has never actually heard a description. 

Lance is in the famous local bakery, making one of his standard deliveries of milk and eggs, when he has that thought for the first time in a while. The owner and his husband linger nearby. No one else seems to be eating or shopping— it's so hot out that everyone is probably near the river or staying in the shade. And so, it just so happens that Lance is in the company of the only people in town that will talk about Yorak without shushing him. The only people that do not seem to be afraid of him. 

"Hey," Lance says through a mouthful of free 'thank you for your services' bread, immediately getting Takashi's attention. "Have you actually seen the guy we're not supposed to talk about?" 

Takashi flashes a glance at Adam. Adam has to squint these days to see what people are trying to tell him with their faces. He broke his glasses a short while ago, shattering the lenses into pieces, and the nearest place that can get him new ones is a long ride away. Even people as well off as those two have trouble getting their hands on certain things. 

"I have," Takashi answers once his husband tells him it's okay with a nod. "Several times."

"Up close?"

"Close enough." 

"What does he look like?"

"What do YOU think he looks like?" 

Lance frowns. He doesn't have the patience for cryptic games like these. Especially not today. The sun will set before he knows it, and then he won't have time to take his horse out towards the Feldakor mountains in search of jewel caves. 

"I guess I was picturing the stereotype," Lance answers in a huff. "Hunched over. Long beard, long fingers. Scary voice." 

"You are... completely and entirely wrong." Takashi says that with a surprising bite of mockery. Adam laughs at him. Lance scoffs. 

"Well, how would I know?! Nobody will talk about it!" 

There's a silence. Takashi and Adam exchange a glance. Takashi looks out the windows and confirms that no one is in any hurry to buy a pastry. So he puts up the sign indicating that he is busy taking his lunch and shuts the door. And suddenly, it feels like Lance is part of a clandestine mission. And Adam is suddenly interested in focusing on putting away all of the supplies and getting the business ready for future customers. 

"Sit down," Takashi commands. "I'm going to tell you something that nobody else will."

"Why me?" Lance asks. He is not making any sort of accusation. He genuinely doesn't know. Takashi smiles a bit nervously. 

"You're... always trying to expand your horizons. To see beyond Plaht, right?" Lance nods. Takashi sighs and resigns himself to a creaky wooden chair. Lance finally does what he's told and sits across from him at the little table, still clutching the last of his bread. "Right. And I think we've known each other long enough that I can safely say you don't just go along with whatever everybody tells you."

"You're not wrong," Lance grants him. "My parents don't like me poking around in the caves, but I know what I'm doing." Lance doesn't mention the fact that he's recently decided to found an adventuring crew and that his parents would have his head if they knew. 

"Right. So... everybody in the village will tell you that Yorak is a menace to society. But tell me— can you name a single thing he's actually done?"

Lance's frowns deepens. He's more or less glaring at the knots in the wood. He knows there is an apparent laundry list of crimes. But it's the sort of thing that happens so often that he thinks little of it. He doesn't keep track. 

"He... caused that bridge collapse a couple of years back, right? The rope bridge by the Wiebian swamp." 

"It got struck by lightning."

"Chief said Yorak summoned the lightning," Lance recalls. The village chieftain seems, to Lance, like he jumps to conclusions too often. About anything he doesn't understand. Anything foreign or strange. 

"But did Yorak say that? Did anybody ask him? Can anyone prove it?" 

"I... don't really know how you would prove something like that."

"So we can't prove that Yorak didn't do it. Why are we so quick to assume that that alone is proof he DID? That's not how logic works. And it certainly wouldn't hold up in a proper trial." 

Lance has never thought about it that way. He has to admit that much. He's never been a part of the "run Yorak out of town with torches and pitchforks" crowd— he's always assumed that the warlock will leave him alone as long as Lance does the same. And still, he has never really considered that Yorak... well, that he hasn't really done anything. Besides live in a creepy house and be a bit of a grouch, and last Lance checked, neither of those things are crimes. 

"...I guess you have a point," Lance relents. "I don't wanna assume the guy is totally harmless, either, but... the town HAS been in a frenzy about him for, uh. A while. I don't even know how long. The chief's son said he's, like, three hundred years old or something." 

Takashi shakes his head with a friendly laugh. 

"Oh, no. Yorak is probably about sixty at the oldest. Which, incidentally, is pretty young for... whatever you'd call him. Magick folks like that. And that's why your description is so off... he looks about your age." 

"Really?!" 

"Yep. And almost the same as any other person. It's just the pointy ears that give him away, I think. And he may or may not have fangs?"

"I THINK there are fangs," Adam shouts from somewhere behind the counter. He's pretending to sweep. "Little ones, but still." 

"He sounds strangely normal," Lance mumbles. His voice comes out disappointed, for some reason. Maybe he thought it was cool, deep down, that they had a monster that lived in town, and finding out that Yorak was just some guy was underwhelming. "Does he at least wear the robes?"

"He DOES wear robes. That part is true. He dresses unusually. And he does use a cauldron."  

"For potions," Lance says as ominously as he can, wiggling his fingers as he gestures outwards with his hands. 

"Yeah. And soup." 

"...Oh." That makes sense, but Lance has trouble picturing a warlock making soup. But they have to eat something, he guesses. Or maybe they don't. He doesn't know. He knows they live longer than mortal folk and practice magick, and that's the extent of his understanding. "Why, uh... why does everybody hate him so much? If he hasn't done anything?"

"He can be hard to get along with," Takashi says bluntly. "He's not used to talking to people. Past that... I really can't say. It's a rivalry that's been going on longer than I've been alive. He's not the first one to live in that cottage and they hated the ones that came before, too." 

"If you have an opinion on his demeanor I think you're done more than catch a glimpse of the guy," Lance says, and he is making an accusation this time. "Is the chief right? Are you secretly in contact with the warlock, sir?"

Takashi smiles again. This one is thinner, so subtle that it almost mirrors the perfectly straight line across his nose. There is a secret etches into that smile. One that he does not yet have any intention of confessing. 

"Maybe." 

That's all he says. Takashi changes the subject and says it's about time he prepares the shop for the lunch rush, and then Lance is ushered back out onto the cobblestone street. 

Takashi did not say much, but he said enough. Lance starts to think the occasional kindly thought about the house on the hill. His life otherwise remains the same. Sometimes he glimpses those stone slabs through the gaps in the leaves and thinks to himself that it's not an ugly house. Not at all, he thinks. Once, he waits for his father to return from the grocer's and stands atop a nearby wall and tries to spot the greenhouse that he knows is up there and wonders what it would be like to meet Yorak. Only once, and he denies that that was what he was doing when his father asks him. He makes up some story about watching the birds. 

But nothing actually changes for Lance, or for Yorak, until the rain stops. 

A dry season is nothing to be too worried about. They're somewhat common. Lance IS a farmer by trade, whether he chose the career for himself or not, so he would know. His family knows that a dry spell has arrived well before anyone else in the village does. And so his father and his older brothers try to calm everyone else, to insist that a little dry stretch is no reason for a village-wide panic. 

The assurances of the McClains are, of course, too late. No one can remember the last time the ever-abundant village of Plaht went a whole month without one drop of rain. Lance has heard on the grapevine that similar dry stretches have been creeping their way southward, that they have already struck the mining towns of Jitan and Lukh, and that in some parts it's been several months now. What if Plaht is next? the villagers wail. Who's to say that it will ever rain again? Hysterical, to be sure, but that doesn't stop people from voicing such fears at the village meetings. Every time Lance's father or one of his brothers returns from a gathering in the village hall, they seem more tired than they did the last time. There's no reasoning with Plaht when it has arrived at a consensus, for good or for ill, and Plaht has decided to assume the absolute worst. 

Finally, the chief decides that it's time to properly address this panic. A meeting is called. The sort of meeting that everyone, including the young ones, is allowed to attend. Lance regroups with his friends Hunk and Katherine (no one calls her Katherine). Hunk gives him a solemn pat on the back before he runs back to his father, and Lance is seated with the McClains. His parents are deemed important enough that they take a seat near the front and no one protests. Lance has always thought that the village hall feels more like a church than a civic building. The benches are similar to pews and the elevated podium up front is reminiscent of a pulpit.

"Settle down, now!" The orange-haired man standing up there commands silence. He's not the chieftain. Not yet. His father is, but he's ill, and getting up there in years. It is understood that Coran will replace his father soon. He technically needs the election of the council first, but nepotism runs deep in Plaht and none of the council members would dream of voting for anyone else. "I need order! This meeting shall come to order!" 

A lull spreads throughout the crowd like a warm evening wave. Coran nods once the quiet is all-encompassing. The scribe nods back. He's good at note-taking, but his voice is nervous as he calls things to order, announcing the date and time. He makes a record of all present. And he clarifies that the usual chief will be stepping back to attend to his health, making Coran the acting chieftain for now. 

"Enough of this," One of the council members scoffs. His son gives him the eye. "Enough of these useless formalities! We all know what the problem is. It just so happens that most of you are not man enough to speak its name aloud."

From that alone, Lance has a feeling he knows what the tone of this meeting will be. Only one thing— one person— is addressed in such whispers. 

"Now, now, Councilman Griffin." Coran shushes him with a gloved hand. "I was about to address that myself, if you would have patience."

Seriously? Lance thinks. You, too?

Lance knows that Chief Smythe, Coran's father, is a suspicious man, and that he would probably start the meeting the same way. But he didn't know, before today, that Coran takes after his dad. Or that he at least pretends to in order to maintain the silent promise that guarantees him his future role— the understanding that the status quo of Plaht is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. For good or for ill. 

"So you agree!" Lance's eldest brother, Luis, declares. He's one of the newest members of the village council. "Yorak is to blame, is he not?" 

Lance tries not to sigh as everyone shouts their agreement. Accusations are hurled around the room a mile a minute before the scribe brings order once more. 

"It is the most likely explanation," Coran says a bit smugly as he twirls his mustache. "Such a sudden and severe drought could easily be the work of the supernatural. And if that is the case, I must say that he has gone too far! To cause the occasional accident is one thing, but to curse the entire village is another thing entirely!"

"I must agree with the acting chieftain," Councilman Griffin says, and of course he does, because he's just agreeing with himself at this point. "Yorak has been a plague upon this land for far too long, and I say that we put a stop to it once and for all!" 

Lance hopes they don't resort to such a thing. He has a feeling that the villagers are underestimating their fabricated enemy and that the confrontation won't go the way they've planned. There is a brief uproar, but one figure rises and makes his voice project as far as he can without shouting. 

"The drought could be supernatural. But what reason is that to assume that it is?"

Takashi, so frequently, is the only detractor when things are like this. He's standing to make his voice and his dissent heard. Coran huffs irritatedly.

"You do not mean to suggest—"

"What I mean to suggest is that we are supposed to be rational and civilized people who do not jump into a state of terror of potential witchcraft at every possible occasion! There is NO evidence to suggest that Yorak is responsible. There is no evidence that he even COULD do something this massive. A common warlock is not omnipotent." 

"Ha!" A quiet and calculating voice dismisses Takashi with a simple laugh. Councilman Leifsdottir and his family run the local library and hall of records. "Of course you would say something like that."

"If you have something to say, then say it plainly, councilman." 

"I will. It is no secret that you have been providing the warlock with food and goods... or do you mean to deny it?" 

Lance hears several gasps of horror, but they don't change Takashi's resolved expression. Lance has never heard these rumors. He believes them, though, based on the little that he has heard from Takashi himself. Takashi's gentle voice too easily betrays fondness. There's not a malicious bone in his body, Lance is certain.

"And if I do? Everyone deserves food. It's not a crime. Or do you mean to suggest that you fully intend to see him starved to death?" 

"What if I do? Have you forgotten who we are talking about here?!" 

"Now, councilman," Coran interrupts, "Shirogane may do whatever he pleases with his own property and align himself with whoever he sees fit." Takashi opens his mouth as if to thank the acting chieftain, but is cut off before he can say another word. "BUT he cannot do so and also expect to have all of the villagers on his side if it seems to us that he is willfully aiding our mutual enemy." 

Takashi crosses his arms and stares up at the podium as everybody turns to look expectantly at him. 

"These are consequences that I am prepared to accept," he says calmly. "I, for one, am NOT prepared to turn my back on a friend simply because it will make me less popular. And I feel shame for any man that would." 

A heavy sigh, and Adam stands. 

"And I must stand by my husband on this, as in all things." 

"Your mutual dissent is noted," Coran says. He is not hostile, but this doesn't mean he welcomes their decision. The scribe writes it down. Both men take their seats once more. Lance notices more glares directed at Adam than at Takashi. He knows the reason why, and it's an absurd reason. 

Takashi's argument doesn't seem to sway the room much. There's an uncertainty that lasts all of a minute before it rekindles itself into righteous fury. The village's men, mostly the councilmen, decide to confront Yorak at his home, and to do so with arms. Not torches and pitchforks, but axes and swords. Lance would have preferred the former. 

As the meeting dissolves, Lance is fearful of what will come. His father grips his shoulder and tells him that he is forbidden from participating in the mob. 

"Oh, don't worry," Lance says bitterly. "I wasn't planning on it."

Chapter Text

Yorak the Great and Terrible is neither great nor terrible, but no one ever bothered to ask him how he felt about the name before they went and assigned it to him. 

The word great implies a particular status. Yorak doesn't have that status. He isn't accepted by mortals or by magick folk, so how could he attain that sort of recognition? Great could also imply stature, and Yorak is admittedly not very tall. He doesn't think that he's short, but he is not tall either. 

Terrible, of course, is only ever a mean word. Yorak is not always very fond of himself. But he knows that he means well, and that he does not interfere with anyone if he can help it. He keeps to himself. All that he asks is that he be allowed to do so.

The villagers usually leave him alone these days. He sometimes sees them through his windows, through the gaps in his trees, and they flee if they happen to catch his eye or turn their children's heads away from the house. He doesn't find that hurtful. Of course he doesn't. He definitely doesn't, because he wants to be left alone. It's not like the mortals could offer him anything anyway. 

Something is stirring, though. His occasional glimpses into his crystal ball and secretive explorations around town have told him that the village is in a state of distress. About the lack of rain, most likely. Yorak can do without it for some time, as his elemental magick is enough to supply his own basic need of water, but he guesses that it is not the same for the village. Even he could not produce enough for everyone if it was demanded of him. 

Yorak spares little thought for the rain and little thought for the village below until it comes storming up his walkway. He wakes one morning to what sounds like a bar fight and peers through his windows to find that a mob of angry villagers armed with blades and bows is making its way, slowly, up the hillside. 

He sighs. He turns to his collection of birds aligned in cages of varying shape and size. 

"Such arrogance," he laughs. One of them chirps something at him that he interprets as agreement. 

The first time, Yorak is lenient. He sends a smoky apparition of what a mortal man might call a "ghost", and then they run away screaming and hysterical, many dropping their weapons as they do so. Yorak laughs. So simple. 

He tries to pay little mind to the attempted invasion and to return to his usual routine. No rainfall means that his garden maintenance has changed ever so slightly. But he does have a decent supply of rainwater, so he doesn't have to resort to exhausting his magick just yet. 

Yorak grows most of his own food. It is shared amongst him and his animals— the birds and the snakes. He often has to gather small fish or earthworms for the snakes. And he frequently lets the birds out, either giving them free reign of the cottage or taking them into the greenhouse and transforming it into an aviary. He thinks that he is a very good caretaker for his animals. For this reason, he also keeps bees. He has an easier time than a mortal might have avoiding their punishing stings and their sweet honey is a nice supplement to his mostly-vegetable diet. It also serves him well in trades. 

On an average day, Yorak greets and cares for his animals as soon as he wakes. Which he does rather late in the day as a largely nocturnal creature, and the shade of his trees combined with his sturdy wooden shutters means that the sun rarely disturbs his slumber. He talks to the birds that can talk back. Better companions, he is sure, than any more sentient being. The sorts of creatures likely to stab you in the back or to grow tired of you. 

When his pets are satisfied, Yorak tends to his gardens, if need be, and does whatever chores he must, from dusting to sweeping to washing his clothes. He cooks himself a meal when his stomach reminds him that he is supposed to eat. And then he returns to his studies. Magick is an endless study, as best he can tell. He could live a thousand years and then live a thousand more, and still he would not comprehend everything about it. 

Even if he is mostly bound to his home, Yorak would have to say that he has all that he needs. The exterior of it is misleading, and it's far more spacious than one would guess by looking. He is not in want of space, and he supposes he doesn't need companionship because he does have his animals, and he can get his hands on all that he needs to survive. 

Still, he finds himself staring out the window more and more these days. He gets the feeling that he is meant to be expecting something. But that thought is a foolish one. There is no one left to return to him. No one is looking for him. 

He sees the schoolhouse in the far distance, sees the children being swept up by their parents and skipping eagerly home, often accompanied by a little entourage of friends, tiny feet pitter-pattering along. He swallows. And something tastes bitter. But it's not like it reminds him of anything— he was never able to go out like that. 

Maybe that's why he's bitter. 

Yorak spends many hours, late into the night, watching the restless village from his crystal ball. He does not know their names, and he does not recognize most of their faces, save for two. But he watches. He doesn't know why. He tells himself that he is trying to find something. He falls asleep on the table and wakes to a pair of tiny striped birds furiously pecking his cheek with their little orange beaks. 

A matter of monotonous days pass, and the village is prepared for a second round. Yorak is beginning to get very annoyed, as that bitter taste has become more pungent and he doesn't know why, so he may as well take it out on those who would pick a fight with him. He puts on something of a fireworks show, and this time their departure isn't quite so sudden. Some of them pretend to be brave just long enough to survive the initial lights. The balls of bright green flame are enough to subdue them, and then they join their friends. Yorak doesn't laugh, this time, as he watches them go. He glares into the distance until he is CERTAIN that every last one of them has fled his property. And then he glares some more, reflecting on how absurd mortals look when they're startled, their wrinkled faces illuminated in green. 

Yorak tries to forget the disturbances once more. He decides to entertain himself by studying the stars. He likes making star charts. He designates his own constellations. More and more often he finds clusters in the stars that remind him of his mother. When that happens, he misses her, but he marks them down anyway. He likes to imagine that her soul is up there somewhere and that if he finds the right cluster, he can look at her whenever he is lonely. He knows that she is part of the earth here. It's what he was taught. It's why he had to cremate her, had to scatter her ashes on this holy ground. But that knowledge is not always very reassuring. It doesn't bring him warmth in the dark days of winter. 

More days. 

More nights. 

A week more, and then the villagers return. They come in the evening and there are more of them this time. They are more heavily armed, and many carry torches. Yorak has almost missed that bit of apparent tradition. It's so very rustic. 

At the front of this newly invigorated crowd is a mustached man with a posture so rigid that his knees will likely lock. He's trying to project confidence, but Yorak can see his desperation. He knows that that must be the new chieftain. He looks just like the last one, Yorak can see— ah, nepotism.

Yorak does try to scare them away once more. He goes all out, and it isn't entirely unsuccessful. Some of the mob members break free from the pack and retreat. The young and scrawny ones, mostly. But the group at large continues its grim procession. The path gets smaller and smaller. And then there is a pounding on the front door. 

He groans, at first, and doesn't move. He has a terrible migraine and his dinner has not finished yet. He is really looking forward to having some of his delicious-smelling veggie stew, which he can smell from his living room, and his stomach is growling at the very thought of it. He is not in the mood. So he pretends that he is sleeping and is careful not to make any noise. This, apparently, encourages them, and the pounding grows louder. He's sure there are several fists against his door now. A boot or two, or even an axe, by the sound of it. His birds begin to squawk and squeal in agitation. 

Yorak isn't really used to being bothered in this way, so he can't say that he's terribly patient. The birds and the villagers quickly become too much. With a dramatic groan, he marches across his house and throws the door open— almost. Not yet. He remembers, at the last moment, to raise his hood. It conceals his ears and casts most of his face into shadow. Wearing a hood has saved his life on many occasions. Once it is in place, he throws open the door with one arm, making sure to keep his cloak in place with his other hand. 

"WHAT?"

The crowd reels back at the sight of him. Most of them are faces Yorak has never seen, and it has been a few years since he has opened his door to anyone. Chances are, most of them thought he wouldn't answer. Or, perhaps, that he didn't exist at all. He has become a legend in the village, a mythical thing, and he often hears stories about himself so grand and horrific that he would laugh at them if doing so wouldn't ruin his disguise. 

The man with the mustache takes some time to recover from the shock that nearly knocked him backwards. He raises his torch high. 

"You! You there!" He bellows. "Yorak, is it?!"

"Yes? What the hell did you want? I'm trying to make dinner." 

The villagers, surprised to hear that, murmur amongst themselves. Yorak hears one of them suggest that warlocks must drink blood for sustenance, while another asserts that warlocks eat live rodents. He definitely doesn't do either of those things, but he doesn't have the time or patience to host a class on the basics of magick folk for foolish mortals. He doubts they would even listen to him if he tried. He has learned that the hard way. 

"W-Well!" Coran stiffens his back and his knees once more. Yorak contemplates blowing at him or poking him to see if that would knock him over. "We come on behalf of the entire village of Plaht! We have left you to your own wicked devices for quite some time, young man, but we can tolerate your interferences with our village no more! We demand—" 

"Young man?" Yorak gives the onlookers a hollow stare, one he has perfected, that drives them back a ways. He hears the quiet scraping of metal as some of them begin to shake. "How old are you? I would wager that I'm older than every last one of you. I may not look it, but that's magickal lifeblood for you. Probably from all the live mice I swallow whole, you know. Or the blood of virgins." 

He's bluffing, slightly. He's only sixty (and definitely doesn't swallow mice or kidnap virgins). This guy might be around his age, and there are definitely some greybeards in the crowd. Mustache man clears his throat. 

"Y-Yes, I—"

"Trying to impress the underlings by talking a big game, I guess?" Yorak grins, and he knows that his pointy teeth are probably visible. "Haven't seen you before. You must be new to the job."

"Th-That is ENTIRELY beside the point!" Yorak can tell that he's offended, and he whips the torch about as if to change the subject. "We have had enough!"

"Of what, exactly? I didn't do anything to you. You're the ones who came and interrupted my dinner."

"Do not play innocent with me! We know that you are responsible for this drought!"

Now, that— Yorak wasn't expecting that. He doesn't know when they arrived at this consensus. And a stupid consensus it is, but they don't have any way of knowing that, he supposes. They don't know anything about magick, so they don't know that it would take a horrifyingly powerful warlock much older than him to stop the rainfall for an entire village. An entire quadrant. He crosses his arms and pouts. 

"I definitely didn't do that," he grumbles. There is probably little point to it if they've already made up their minds. 

"That, er... Your protests will not fool me! Your dark magick knows no bounds!"

"If that's the case, and your flattery is sincere, then what the hell are you doing on my property? Couldn't I just strike you all dead?" 

An awkward, pained silence. Yorak sees a few more brave souls forget their bravery and break from the group to head back down the twisting pathway. Mustache man shakes his head to dispel his own fear. 

"I-In any case, we are here to deliver a warning!" The torch is pointed directly at Yorak's chest. As if fire will hurt him. "Either rescind your curse upon our village, or leave at once! If you do not, we will be forced to drive you away by whatever means necessary!"

Yorak gives him a terse look, mouth set into a deep and unimpressed frown. 

"Will that be all?"

"Well, er—"

"Goodnight, then. I didn't curse your village and you can figure your drought out by yourselves." 

With that, Yorak declares the conversation finished with a slam of his door. He waits with his back pressed against it until the villagers take the hint and leave, certain that Yorak has absorbed their message. He brushes a long strand of raven hair behind his ear and holds his breath until he is once again in a quiet home. 

He has a feeling that this is going to be a long month.

Chapter Text

Plaht is often a sleepy sort of place to live. Lively when tourists are around, sure, and the festivals are to die for. But most days, Lance's neck of the woods is just another farming town, and he's gotten very bored of that lately. 

He's not the only one. His best friends have similarly restless spirits, he's learned, and they decided that it was best to stick together in search of excitement than to risk being apart. That's how their exploration crew, their guild, came to be. They call themselves the Paladins of Plaht, as if that means anything. Hunk just thinks it sounds cool. Which it does. Lance isn't denying him that. 

Katherine— Pidge, they call her, because she reminds Lance of a fidgety little bird made up of hollow bones and a total lack of awareness of its own meager size— is mostly responsible for the formal things. The acquisition of treasure maps and bounty posters and local secrets falls upon her narrow shoulders. It's rare that she gets to put any of the information she acquires to use, but it's fun just to gather and talk about it, and she sometimes earns herself some pocket money for selling her secrets. They'll have their adventure one day. Lance knows it. 

Their little guild is "official" enough that they sometimes meet with another one. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are making their traditional trek together to the closest neighboring town of Yalexia, which sits right on the edge of Lake Carthia, on a strangely humid night. Once every few months or so (the schedule is not terribly consistent, as the life of a rogue is not easily regulated), Lance and his friends visit the Plummrose Inn and Tavern there. It's a popular spot for travelers, even if some of the visitors are on the shady side, and serves an incomparable mug of ale. Lance is always quick to remind Pidge that she's still too young to have any, to make a show of drinking more than he probably should. And then she ends up laughing at him when he makes a fool of himself. It's a cycle that is only fair. Things tend to work themselves out in the end, and she'll be old enough very soon, anyway. 

When Lance finally has his hands against the heavy door of the inn, he hears a loud clanging of a bell announce their arrival. He shouts for the bartender. They're regulars by now. They get their drinks at a reduced price because Lance's father supplies them with so much of the grain they need. Hunk pushes past Lance into the building, and he has an easier time of forcing it open. Hunk is not worried about drinks. Lance smirks, knowing full well what his friend is looking for. Hunk has had an eye for the innkeeper's daughter for as long as he can remember. Since the first time he went to Yalexia, he bets. 

"Shay!" Her older brother shouts, wiping his hands off with a dishrag. "Your friends are here!" 

And just like that, the three of them get their usual greeting. Lance has yet to visit any place where he's greeted quite as warmly. It kind of feels like getting back home after a long trip away. Shay has them seated at a table with a bowl of fresh bread in no time at all, and they're promised the drinks are on their way. 

She's a very tall girl, Lance has noticed. She's taller than Hunk is, and broad at the shoulders with a strong jaw, but he doesn't seem to mind any of that. The things that villagers had allegedly once teased her for are things that Hunk either likes or doesn't even notice. Shay works hard at helping her family business, as the three of them also do. Pidge isn't expected to do quite as much— she does still have her schooling to worry about— but that hasn't stopped her parents from teaching her basic first aid and plenty about medicinal herbs. 

Shay, unlike Pidge, never complains about family work, or about family in general, even when it seems it would be warranted. Her brother Rax is still apprehensive of Hunk and makes dismissive comments from time to time that Lance is sure must get under her skin. But he's slowly coming around. Lance thinks that Rax is just overprotective. His own mother tends to be the same way whenever he's got a new girlfriend. She always has a thousand questions about where they met and what she's like and what her goals are for the future. Sometimes the overwhelming size and nature of his family chases those girls away. 

Lance frowns at that thought. He wonders: will Hunk's family approve of Shay? A part of him fears that Plaht's insular ways will win, that they'll tell him he should marry a girl from his hometown instead. Takashi has allegedly heard that a thousand times. But Lance knows the Garretts. He knows Pappy, that he's an honest man and just wants his boy to be happy. And he tells himself that Hunk's future engagement will be met with joy and celebration. He shakes his head and tries to focus on the atmosphere of merriment that's captivated the little tavern once again. 

"It's a wonder they never kick you out," Lance laughs, peering over at Pidge, "on account of your obvious baby-face." She tends to wear a hooded cloak in the tavern just so she doesn't get comments from other patrons. She scoffs. 

"Why would they turn my business away? I'm the one that chose this place!" 

"I'd like to think I had something to do with it," Hunk reminds her. He gestures, vaguely, at Shay, who's almost done pouring their drinks. Lance reminisces on the hints that Hunk used to plant that he wanted an excuse to spend more time here. 

But before they can argue amongst themselves about credit (Lance is the one who actually travels to Yalexia to deliver grain), there's that bell again. Three familiar faces. Pidge raises a hand to signal them over. Rax doesn't need to be told to call for more drinks, more bread. 

"Forget bread," a lanky man calls out to him. "I'm starving. How about some pork?" The man's female companion seconds that. Their ringleader just shrugs. 

"Whatever you want," Rax answers. He turns to Shay. "You heard the man." 

Shay hurries to set down several mugs of ale before she bows politely and makes a beeline for the kitchen, where she'll surely be hard at work cooking for some time, while Rax grabs for more glassware. 

Little Pidge has an older brother. And that older brother heads a guild of his own. They call themselves the Rogues, which Lance thinks is a bit too on-the-nose and not very creative, but maybe that part isn't so important. Matthew Holt— Matt, for short— assembled them in Jitan, a mining town some distance northwest of here, shortly after he fled Plaht in search of adventure, leaving Pidge behind with parents that only became more and more protective in his absence. 

Matt is limited to two underlings for now. Rolo is a suspicious sort of man that knows how to charm his way out of trouble with hair like straw and a build not dissimilar, but those wiry arms are deceptive. Nyma's golden locks form sparkling curls that cascade down her shoulders. She can bat her eyelashes at most men and get whatever she wants in return, but Lance knows better than to be fooled by her. She's a no-nonsense sort and far more cunning than she would have you believe. 

As soon as he is seated, Matt throws an arm around his sister. She glares, but doesn't make any move to shrug it off. With his other hand, he slaps Hunk's shoulder. His face is split into a wide, toothy grin. He's missing a tooth that he had when Lance last saw him and there's a wound on his lip. He doesn't intend to say anything about that. It's poor etiquette to do so when Matt will likely get to that on his own time. 

Shay sets down several plates full of juicy-looking, freshly-cooked pork slathered in a savory sauce and Lance can feel himself salivating at the sight of it. She tells them to wait a moment before she returns with another dish. A wooden bowl full of potatoes whipped into a pile of creamy mash. She sets it in front of Hunk. 

"Just for you," she says, voice sweet as she hands him a spoon. "I've been working on my own recipes." 

"You—" Hunk kisses her hand. "Are a doll. You're too good to me. Really." 

Shay is all smiles as she gets back to work polishing the empty tables with a rag, and Lance is admittedly quite jealous of Hunk's free meal. He stares at it with hungry eyes. As if to placate him, Rolo offers to share his plate of pork. 

"It's more than I can eat on my own, anyway," he insists, forgetting his earlier claim that he was "starving".

Normally, Matt and his group start talking first, because they have actual adventures to talk about. Lance is sure there's a story behind the new cut on Matt's lower lip. But, no, not this time. This time, the Paladins have a story worth telling. One that Pidge can hardly wait to tell. 

They talk over each other from time to time as they relay the story of the village revolt against the town's famous warlock. Pidge describes the preceding events, using her father as a reference seeing as he's an actual member of the village council, while Hunk spins the yarn about the town hall meeting and the argument that transpired between Coran and Takashi. Lance goes back to add more context, to talk about what he heard from Takashi himself, to further detail the state of the rainfall that led to the confrontation. All the while, the rogues listen, enraptured, and rarely interrupt with questions. 

 Matt whistles and leans back once he has absorbed everything. 

"I never thought I'd see the day," he laughs. 

"You got told not to go by Yorak's place when you were younger, too, right?"  Hunk asks, and Matt gives him a nod. 

"Oh, certainly. But I was always too curious for my own good, you know? If I hadn't decided to leave Plaht I probably would have been the one to risk it all and go knocking on his door." 

"Don't even SAY that!" Hunk shudders. "I'm not going anywhere near it. I can tell you that."

"Don't call him an IT," Lance protests. Hunk frowns. "That just feels icky." 

"I was talking about his house, not him. But... I mean, he's not human, right? It's kinda funny that chief and the others want us to think he's this monster, but they still call him a he." 

"I heard Coran called him a young man," Pidge adds. Lance sputters out a howl of a laugh and wildly shakes his head. 

"No. No way. He doesn't have the guts, does he?!"

"My dad said it seemed like he just got caught up in it all. And that Yorak is surprisingly little, so he kind of forgot what he was looking at."

"There's no way he's little!" 

"I saw him once," Pidge claims. "Just barely, but I did. I don't think he's tiny or anything. He's just not what I expected. They talk about him like he's supposed to be twelve feet tall and breathe fire." 

"You did not see him!" Matt challenges. "You would have told me about it, right?!"

"It's just never come up in conversation!" 

"Then what did he look like?"

Pidge squints at the ceiling. 

"He was obviously far away. It's not like I could see his face. But you can get a decent look at the house from certain angles if you're trying to spot it. I had a view from the back once and he was out there doing... something. He might have been gardening. I think maybe he only comes out at night." 

"Gardening?" Nyma's nose wrinkles. "A warlock?"

"I mean, he must have to grow his own food," Hunk says thoughtfully. "It's not like he can just wander into town for some produce. He'd get run out."

"And the rest is Shiro, I guess," Lance adds almost glumly. 

Takashi hasn't been invited to a single meeting since that incident. The council members avoid him and he gets dirty looks sometimes. It's even hurt his business. Takashi still hasn't told Lance just how much of what he's been accused of is true, or what exactly he provides the warlock, or if he gets anything in exchange for his help, but Lance hasn't had the guts to ask. All he knows is that Takashi did refer to Yorak as "a friend". 

"I've met some witches and warlocks in my time," Nyma says once Matt has finished relaying his own news. "I'd love to meet yours. I'm curious about my hypothesis— they're almost always gorgeous, for some reason."

"Is that what you should be concerned about?!" Rolo laughs, incredulous. Nyma wags a scolding finger at him. 

"You remember our trip to Daibozaal, don't you?" 

"When did you go to Daibozaal?!" Pidge is shocked to hear that the pair has traveled so far, to a land across the sea, and to a land so shrouded in mystery and mixed messages and misinformation. Some say that all witches, somehow, came from Daibozaal. Did Yorak's parents travel across the ocean to arrive in Aurita, or is that a myth? Others would tell you that witches come directly from hell, or that they're grown in the depths of caves. 

"We went to Daibozaal on business, and there we took refuge with some witches. The one that showed us around— don't you remember?" 

"Oh! That's right. Lotor, I think. Something like that."

"Sounds like the kind of guy who would wield a warhammer and wear one of those horned helmets," Hunk replies, but Nyma shakes her head. 

"Not so. Sort of a cocky intellectual pretty boy. Some kind of witch royalty. Not that I would understand how their rankings work. He said there's a ceremony of some kind, but I think he may have been exaggerating."

"He did have that kind of attitude about him," Rolo recalls. "The type that knows he's charming." 

"You're one to talk," Matt says, almost accusatory. Rolo just snickers knowingly. It's likely that this group's way with words has gotten them out of plenty of life-or-death scenarios. 

Nyma and Rolo weave tales about their travels late into the night, until Lance has had enough to drink that his head is slightly fuzzy and he can no longer make out the details of stories that will likely forever be lost to that evening. And then, as always, they all part ways. Shay is sad to see them go and makes Hunk promise to come visit her again sometime soon. He says that he'll do so and that he'll do it without his friends, so that they can finally spend some time alone. Maybe that's when he'll properly pop the question. Lance wobbles his way back home to Plaht, using his bigger friend for support. Hunk always calls him a lightweight. Lance doesn't have the benefit of Hunk's overall girth.

He still has a headache the next morning when it's time to make his deliveries. But it's not like his family has employees around that can replace him at a moment's notice. He drags himself out of bed anyway, has breakfast, bathes and dresses himself, loads up his wagon, and is off while the sun is just barely rising above the distant treeline.

While Lance is making his deliveries to Shiro's Sweets, he may as well give his condolences. He shouts for Takashi. Adam is behind the counter and looks especially tired, but he volunteers to fetch his husband. He mumbles some excuse about needing help with the boxes anyway. Even though it's just a sack of wheat and a single box of fruit. 

Takashi's smile seems forced. He's not his usual cheery self, Lance can see. He suspects that this business with the drought is really getting to the man. 

"I'm just tired," Takashi insists. "We both couldn't sleep last night, for whatever reason. You don't look so great yourself," he teases. Lance laughs a mocking laugh. He knows he must look like hell. 

"But they're really not being fair to you guys," Lance argues, more sincere than he might dare to be if any prying eyes were around. Adam exhales loudly.

"What would you have us do?" He inquires. "I wouldn't feel good about capitulating just to satisfy them. And it's not like they ever liked me anyway."

"How much of it is true?" Lance doesn't know he's going to be that blunt until the question has already escaped him. "Do you really provide Yorak with food and goods?" 

Takashi gestures too casually and shifts his weight on his feet. He's trying to play it off, but he must not talk about this often, and maybe he's not entirely sure he can trust Lance yet. He's choosing to do so despite his reservations, though, which Lance truly appreciates.

"I do. He can grow his own vegetables easily enough, plus some grains— barley and millet, I think— but he doesn't have a great deal of space and he's no expert. I provide him with flour, some oats, eggs, spices, sugar, and the occasional bit of dairy, but the most important thing seems to be the tofu." 

"...Really? Tofu?" A strangely innocent food. Not that Lance could think of an evil food. 

Takashi laughs.

"I eat a lot of it. Have good suppliers. I think it's a dietary essential if you aren't eating meat."

"Does he not have time to go hunting? I know he doesn't have enough room up there for livestock..." 

"I don't know why he doesn't eat meat. I just know that he doesn't. He's always looking for ways to incorporate savory flavors into his food. The man's got a strong fondness for mushrooms." 

"I guess salad and porridge do have to get boring after a while... do you get anything in return?"

"Honey. He keeps bees. It's a great sweetener when you want to add a bit of depth to the the flavor." He smiles mischievously. "There's something else, too, but it's a trade secret. My lips are sealed."

"Whatever you say." 

Lance is just relieved to know that Takashi is alright, as strange as all of this seems. It's hard for him to imagine what their exchanges of goods must be like. When and where do they even meet? How does Yorak steal in and out of town with no one noticing? Lance decides that he must be able to teleport. 

He's still thinking this over as he steps outside, and something instantly snaps him out of those thoughts. A shape. A dark shape slinking silently in the shadows of the building, as if it thinks that Lance cannot see it. The shape freezes. A little head turns to look curiously up at Lance. It's a shiny black cat with smooth, silky fur, eyes sparkling a deep purple. 

He's never seen a cat like that up close before. 

"Hi! You're beautiful!" 

Lance is a lover of all animals. He thinks he has seen the silhouette of this one once or twice. Only ever at night, and it's always skulking away and trying to hide. He thought that it was someone's pet, at first, because it looks so well-brushed. But it doesn't wear a ribbon or a cord around its neck, and if it's prowling by the bakery it is surely in search of food, is it not? 

He drops to his knees and extends a hand. He makes a sound that's meant to soothe it. That strange noise— that pspspsps— that people make at cats. He's not sure who started doing that or why, but it is usually effective. 

"Are you friendly?" He asks as his arm reaches out. "Are you looking for snacks, little one?" 

His methods are almost always foolproof. Lance thinks himself something of an animal whisperer. But this cat— no, not this one. Its hair seems to stand on end and its eyes grow hard as its body tenses, spine curving, tail upright, rigid. Glistening white teeth are bared at him, at the innocent offering of his hand. Lance's heart hurts. 

"Oh—" Takashi's voice from just behind him nearly startles him into the dirt. "I thought I heard you talking to somebody. Um..." Takashi leans out the doorway of his business and his home, and he can clearly see the cat past Lance's crouching figure. Lance has to crane his head back to catch a proper glimpse of Takashi's face. He's almost pouting, glaring at the cat like it's a regular nuisance. "Come back later," he tells it in a near-whisper. Lance assumes he's talking to the cat, anyway. 

"Do you usually feed her?" Lance asks innocently.

"It's a boy," Takashi corrects reflexively. This cat is no stranger to him. His shoulders are tense. He looks agitated. "It's, uh... Kitty. I call him Kitty." 

"Wow. Impressive effort there."

"It doesn't matter!" Takashi is rarely so blunt. Lance raises an eyebrow. "He stops by for scraps sometimes." He looks down at the feline once more, this time like he's scolding a younger sibling. It's a look Lance knows he has often directed at his own pets. "Sweet cat once you get to know it. But I wouldn't try touching him if I were you. Not yet."

"I can't pet him?"

"You could, someday. Maybe. But you have to let him warm up to you." He says that very loud, for some reason. Like he wants to make sure Kitty can hear it. As if to protest that, the cat turns and scampers away. His movements are elegant as he leaps atop a crumbling stone wall and dashes for the safety of a nearby clump of bushes. 

When he's certain that the cat is gone, Lance stands up and turns back to Takashi. 

"Can I have another roll?" Takashi stares at him, and he smirks back. "I want to keep it in my pouch in case I run into Kitty again. I figure he'll be easier to disarm with food." 

Takashi's expression of concern fades. He gestures past his own frame and into the cozy bakery. 

"Help yourself." 

Chapter Text

With the drought getting worse by the day and stretching on longer than anyone could have anticipated, the citizens of Plaht are quickly becoming unhinged. Demands are laid at the chieftain's feet— stop this warlock, or we will do so ourselves! He cannot allow so many to throw themselves into a fool's mission, so he knows he must do SOMETHING. 

There is an emergency meeting. Takashi Shirogane and his husband from Jitan are not invited and most of the young ones are told to stay away. But some of them— older teens, mostly, most of them the sons and daughters of various council members and local businessmen— are allowed an exception. 

That is why Hunk Garrett is allowed in the room for this discussion, seated beside his father. Hershel "Pappy" Garrett fixes just about everything in town that breaks in his little tinker-shop and Hunk is dutifully following in his footsteps. He is nervous because Lance and Pidge aren't present, but one of Lance's brothers is, along with Pidge's father Sam. And there are several others around his age that he considers friends. Once, not so long ago, he and these other young people were crammed into a tiny one-room schoolhouse together nearly every day. Even when business and distance change things and they can't see one another very often and don't have time to catch up, that fact remains the same, and it has a funny way of bonding people together.

"It is apparent that force will not work when dealing with Yorak," Interim Chief Coran sighs from his podium. He seems so fatigued these days. He was full of righteous fury at first, but according to Sam Holt, Yorak's dismissive attitude proved strangely effective in draining him of his will to fight. Hunk found that strangely humorous. 

"It's best not to attack him unless we know what he is capable of," Ryan adds. His father smiles proudly. He probably taught his son all about being cautious in a potential standoff. 

Ryan's father, Councilman Kinkade, is a valuable bow-hunter, and Ryan doesn't want to disappoint him. Ryan's friends have the same ideals regarding their families, but they seem less relaxed about it than Ryan must look to them. He may not show it in his mannerisms, but Ryan is often just as anxious inside. Hunk respects Ryan a great deal and knows this to be true. He can just barely see nervousness in Ryan's brow. 

James is getting a lot of stares. Ina, too. Their parents are the town intellectuals, and so they're expected to have clever things of their own to add. But it isn't fair. It's quite unjust, James feels, to treat them all like children one day and to expect pearls of wisdom from them the next. But as usual, he swallows these complaints and says not a word. 

"...If he does not respond to threats, we need only determine his language," Ina says after staring James down. "We must find the kind of messaging that gets through to him— make it worth his while to cooperate."

"But what could he POSSIBLY want from us?" James retorts, already hopeless. He's always been a little high-strung. "We're talking about immortal monsters here, are we not? And he's managed to keep himself clothed and fed without any input from us thus far."

"Everyone likes money, right?" Hunk suggests just to say something and show his father that he's willing to cooperate. "I'm sure he wouldn't turn down gold."

Hunk gets several glares from the others. His joke was not appreciated.

"...If he needed gold, he could get it," Romelle quietly explains. "With that kind of magick. If he were desperate for money he would resort to intimidation."

Hunk wants to argue that Yorak might, very simply, not be that kind of man, but he knows that that answer will not earn him any allies here. James is nearly collapsed into himself with his arms crossed over his chest. Ryan, beside him, has an impatient finger tapping against his knee. Ina is trying to hide her face. Only Romelle manages to maintain her elegant posture. Her mother is Plaht's seamstress. Beauty and poise are everything to that family. 

"Well, what if we offer him something that money can't buy?" Councilman Leifsdottir asks. He side-eyes his daughter until Ina nods her head as quickly as she can to show how much she agrees with him. "Every man wants something."

"I imagine it gets lonely upon that hilltop," says Romelle. "What if his heart's desire is mere companionship?" 

"Absurd." Councilman Griffin scoffs. "A warlock? Lonely? The only thing he desires is power."

"Would you suggest we give him power, then?" Hunk's father retorts. Hunk grins proudly. "Or do you maybe have a reasonable alternative instead of quips?"

"That—"

"Now, gentlemen," Coran interrupts. There is little force behind it. Even the scribe seems bored and he isn't in any hurry to write down every word spoken. "Let us not dissolve into infighting. That would give him exactly what he wants!"

"What he wants..." 

All heads turn to face Luis McClain. He's much taller and broader than the brother that Hunk knows. Farmer McClain, the family head, says he's too busy to serve on the council, but he did provide his oldest son for them in his. Hunk knows that Farmer McClain is not very good at politics and small talk, anyway— he's more of a hands-on kind of fellow— and he's sure that Luis is probably a better candidate. Luis certainly does like to talk, for better or worse. 

"Did you have a suggestion, Councilman?" 

Luis nods. He looks awfully proud of himself all of a sudden. 

"I'm sure I speak for all of us— the men of Plaht— when I say that real men desire one thing above all else. And that thing is to continue their family names, is it not?" 

Several of the councilmen whisper amongst themselves. Hunk tries not to grimace. Something about that idea is, to him, rather icky. If he can borrow that word from Lance. Ryan and James exchange a glance that tells him they feel the same way. 

"I... suppose so," Coran agrees, though he is clearly hesitant. He doesn't have any children of his own despite his father's insistence. It surely weighs on him. Is Luis throwing an underhanded insult in his direction with the real men comment? "Yorak lives alone. It is my understanding that he is the last of the witches... Marmora, I believe it was? It's been some time since I looked at those old records—" 

"Indeed. And so his family name dies with him. The entire history of the Marmora clan becomes a footnote relegated to an abandoned cottage on a hill. Surely that is not what he wants."

"Uh, Lui— Councilman McClain," Hunk calls as he raises his hand, "are you suggesting that we find Yorak a girlfriend? So he can have kids?" 

"Something like that." Luis stands to address the congregation properly. "I formally propose that we make Yorak the offering of a bride." 

Everyone starts talking over one another before Hunk has a chance to react. Ina exchanges a frightened glance with her mother. Hunk's heard of this sort of thing in ancient fairytales, but here? Now? If the entire village is really at stake like everyone says it is, then maybe they have no other choice. Even so, Hunk can't help feeling like this is as hasty as it is barbaric. 

"Maybe it's a good idea," James says once the rabble has quieted. Hunk is shocked to hear those words from him. James' expression softens into something that almost resembles sympathy. "I imagine he would be less of an overall grouch if he had a companion. As Romelle attempted to suggest earlier."

Hunk does have to give credit where credit is due— Romelle was shot down awfully quickly just so that a council member could propose something that took the same shape as her idea. 

"Bridal offerings are the stuff of bedtime stories, are they not?" Sam Holt protests. Councilman Leifsdottir chuckles condescendingly at him. 

"But even tall tales have their basis in reality, don't they? Such stories about warlocks and demons are said to have their basis in historical truth. If the same concept has appeared in a number of tales there must be some good reason." 

Or maybe people aren't very creative, Hunk doesn't say. Ina is pouting about something and turns to her mother before she tries to speak again. 

"Yorak... wasn't always alone, was he? The Marmora bloodline started—" 

"Enough!"

A voice that no one expected interrupts her. It's hoarse, like the very act of speaking takes up most of what he has left. Coran shoots him a look that's likely meant to serve as a gentle reprimand. The Chieftain proper— Hieronymus Smythe— is seated below the Interim Chief at his podium, beside the scribe. But it was assumed that he is there only to spectate, and that he doesn't have the energy to participate in any meaningful sense of the word. 

He carefully, slowly lifts himself until he is standing. The scribe, though he rarely speaks, takes it upon himself to implore the old man to sit down. Hunk thinks it's a difficult position to be in. To be so vital to the function of the council, but not technically a part of it. It's supposed to preserve the integrity of the records by avoiding bias, or something. 

"Ch-Chief, you really ought to listen to Doctor Holt and not strain yourself—" 

"Quiet, Tavo." With his gnarled wooden branch of a cane in hand, Hieronymus makes his way towards Ina and points the cane at her. "You young ones know nothing of Marmora. Of the clan that has plagued this village since its very inception." 

It's always like this. If Hieronymus is around and someone so much as breaches the subject of witches, his voice fills with venom and there is no hope of reasoning with him. Ina's question isn't meant to challenge the entire concept of the warlock. She's just trying to keep village history accurate. Even that, somehow, is read as a challenge. Hieronymus never, ever permits talk of the history of the Marmora clan. And the records are classified. 

"M-Miss Leifsdottir is only doing as she has been taught," Coran stammers, "seeing as she will likely be put in charge of the library and the record-keeping someday. We should not fault the young lady's ambition!" 

"Hmmph... Very well." He turns his attention to Luis, instead, though he doesn't get the pointing end of a stick. "You've proposed quite a plan. The warlocks are an old-fashioned people. I do so hate to think that we would be sacrificing a dear villager, but desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures." 

And like that, it is settled. Hunk feels like he's reading some horror story. The council gathers separately from the rest of the villagers to decide upon a suitable bride. In order to be appeased, they're sure, Yorak will accept only the most beautiful and sophisticated damsel they have. Sam Holt sounds anxious and depressed when he relays this to Pidge over the dinner table. Pidge sounds defeated when she further relays it to Hunk. 

The council debates and considers several candidates before it agrees on a bridal offering: Romelle Pollard. She is determined to be one of the fairest maidens in Plaht, with a respectable pedigree and a good head on her shoulders. More importantly, she is willing to do anything at all to save her village. To honor her family. 

It is a clear-skied Sunday morning when the council members and elders meet at the village hall, where Romelle waits in a ceremonial white gown lovingly sewn for her by her mother and a crown of pink roses. She weeps as she bids her parents farewell and hugs them too tight. Then begins the grim procession. She's guided like a lamb to the slaughter, the parade headed by Coran and Councilman Griffin. Villagers line the streets and wail for her fate. Some throw flower petals and rice for good luck. Many hold flags that bear the village crest or salute the solemn caravan as it passes. Romelle carries a velvet sack full of other gifts— an impromptu dowry. Some of the kinder folk stop her to give her more treasures in the hopes that a large enough payment will soften Yorak's potential wrath. 

Hunk is standing next to his bawling mother when Romelle passes him by. She spares him barely a glance, keeping her eyes fixed firmly ahead. She has told herself that she is only allowed to shed tears before her parents, it seems. Her face is serious and only the redness at the corners of her eyes betrays her true feelings on the matter. 

Hoof-steps behind Hunk catch him by surprise. He turns to see his best friend, Lance, atop the spotted steed he calls Kaltenecker, and he has never looked so confused. 

"What in the twelve hells happened while I was away?!" He whispers hoarsely. Hunk approaches him so that he may whisper back. Poor Lance has been with his sister Veronica in the southern town of Puig for an important cattle auction. He has missed so much in such a short time. He only looks more and more distressed as Hunk fills him in, though. Not quite the welcoming party he was expecting. 

Neither of them are a part of the procession, so they have to hear a paraphrased version of events later— a summary of what transpires when Romelle and her entourage reach the hilltop. James is kind enough to give them a detailed summary of what he saw that morning. It goes as follows: Chief Coran knocks upon Yorak's door, chest puffed out as he prepares to proudly present their peacemaking package. And Yorak, apparently tired of pretending to sleep when they come calling, opens it in a reasonable amount of time.

"Yes?" He asks wearily. James tries to see past his father to get a look at Yorak as Coran gestures at Romelle. She lowers herself to her knees and holds out her dowry. 

"We have come to make peace once and for all! We bring your our finest maiden as a token of our submission to you. You may take her as your bride and continue your family line!"

Yorak, in response, only blinks. Which is a strangely human response. 

"...What?"

Romelle clasps her hands together, pleading. 

"I am willing to submit myself as your wife for as long as I shall live if only you would end this accursed drought! Please, sir."

James tries not to vomit at the word "submit" that keeps popping up, but that's not Romelle's fault. She's a literal sacrifice here and he doesn't think that a marriage to Yorak would be a pleasant one. 

Yorak stares at her, kneeling reverently before him, and his face twists into an artistic rendering of disgust.

"That... no. No! My gods!"

"Now, now. I know that it is rather sudden, but—" 

The door slams before Coran can finish his sentence. Romelle looks... offended. A girl that pretty isn't accustomed to rejection, and she spent so many days preparing herself for what she thought would be the hardest decision she has ever had to make, and all to be left sitting in the dirt like a discarded old doll. 

Lance thinks, for a short and naive while, that the morning's experience will deter the villagers from pursuing their fruitless bridal plan. He is proven wrong, as he so often is by the village council. The elders decide that Romelle herself must be the issue. That Yorak must want an older girl, or a shorter girl, or that he must not like blondes. No one pays any mind to Takashi when he suggests that maybe— just maybe— Yorak doesn't want to marry or have children. 

When Romelle fails, it is Luka's turn. Luka hugs her childhood friend and promises to do what she could not, thanking her for her valiant efforts despite Yorak's rejection. The tragic parade is staged all over again as if the first one did not happen. Rice, flower petals, flags. The works. Ryan is part of the procession this time and later vows that Yorak's reaction to the second attempt is nearly identical to the one James claimed he had to the first, except that this time he seems to expect it and isn't as forceful in his refusal. 

"And in case you were still curious," Ryan adds when he has safely escaped the hilltop house and the listening ears of the elders and is surrounded only by his old friends, "Yorak is, in fact, smaller than he seems. I'd say he's a little bit shorter than Lance." 

Lance is strangely proud of being taller than the warlock. He chuckles to himself every time he thinks about it when he washes his family's dishes that night. 

Another week passes. Nadia barely avoids the chopping block and Lance's sisters are forbidden by their father from volunteering, so Luka is followed by Merla, daughter of the carpenter. But Merla, too, is rejected. The cycle continues. It's Plaxum's turn now. Her father, a fisherman, begins to prepare her dowry. 

All of the volunteers are beautiful, intelligent young women that would make excellent wives. But each time, the same reaction from Yorak. Less and less interest upon every visit. By the time he gets to Plaxum, Yorak does little more than open his door, peer out, and then immediately close it again. At this rate it's likely that he will stop opening it at all and resort to scoping out the scene through his windows instead.

"This is getting absurd," Lance complains to the others after the fourth rejected offering. "Aren't you guys getting tired of staging these dramatic marches every other day?! You should know by now that he isn't going to accept any of the proposals! All you're going to do is make him angrier, if anything." 

"What other choice do we have?!" James retorts, throwing his hands up in a mock surrender. "I don't like this any more than you do, but their minds are made up. Unless somebody else can come up with a better idea it's going to stay this way. At this point it's about pride or spite." 

And stay this way it does. It is Ina's turn. She doesn't want to volunteer, but she doesn't have the heart to turn the offer down once she gets it. Especially not with her father glaring at her like that. He always wanted a son, and even Ina knows that somehow. Whatever the case, James, now, is suddenly conflicted about the strategy— he wasn't planning to give up a close friend of his. 

Ina is dressed in her white gown. She doesn't want to make as big of a fuss as the others have, so she asks to be delivered in the evening instead. Coran waits until the sun begins to set before they set off. Both Ryan and James insist on accompanying the procession this time. They demand that Nadia stay behind. 

"I'd rather only lose one of my girls," Ryan says sadly, "if I have to lose anyone at all." 

Nadia gives them all bone-crushing hugs before she retreats to her home. She goes to bed early and doesn't speak to anyone. 

There are fewer onlookers this time. People are having dinner right about now, and others got impatient. The emotional exhaustion was less than ideal. As if to make up for the dwindling numbers, though, the procession itself is larger and more heavily armed. James and Ryan are both accompanied by their fathers, who bear lanterns, while James holds a sword. Ryan is better with his bow and has a quiver across his back. But as a careful hunter, he doesn't want to draw the weapon unless he has to. 

Coran knocks on Yorak's door. He doesn't seem afraid of doing it anymore. Why should he? He has done so several times by now and Yorak has never actually harmed him. One would think that would give him a clearer idea of what he is dealing with— not an aggressor, but a recluse. 

The second Coran's hand leaves the surface of the wood Ina hears thumping footsteps. Boot against hardwood. He is not running, but stomping. The door is thrown open in such a forceful motion and swings so far so fast that it bounces back against its own hinges and Yorak has to stop it from slamming shut again, holding it back with one hand until it is still. 

"How many times are you going to trespass on my property?!" 

"As many times as it takes to save our home!" 

"I'm not doing anything to your home!" 

"Prove it!"

"How am I supposed to prove it?!" 

Ina blinks as she watches this oddly personal argument. She feels like she's watching a village hall dispute between a councilman and a neighbor who refuses to trim back his blackberry bushes. Isn't this supposed to be a devious sorcerer? A devil? Isn't Coran supposed to be more scared of him? 

From what little she can glean from the shouting, Yorak has asked several times that Coran and the others stop knocking on his door. Coran's argument is that they need to talk to him because they have to reach some kind of truce and can't help it that Yorak keeps such unusual hours— that sometimes he's trying to cook dinner and other times he's sleeping while the sun is out. Yorak says they should just send him a letter if they want to arrange a meeting that badly. Coran says they can't bring Yorak into the village without causing a mass panic. Yorak says that's not his fault. Coran says it is. 

"I'm not terribly fond of these circumstances either," Coran yells, "but we shall do whatever must be done! You have no need of goods and gold, especially since you've cast some sort of mind-melding spell on our innocent baker—" 

"What spell?! Has it not occurred to you that maybe Shiro is just nice?!"

"Nonsense! No citizen of Plaht would be so foolish as to approach you!"

"And yet here you are. AGAIN! Even though I told you to go away!" 

"Well, now! I am here solely to fulfill my responsibilities!" Coran chuckles arrogantly, twisting his mustache. "Make no mistake— I won't be having you over for tea anytime soon." 

"Good. I won't be inviting you in."

Is this what you two should be arguing about?

At long last, Yorak looks at Ina. He seems unimpressed, though he is still simmering. Coran gestures at her. 

"Ina here is our latest offering," he explains. Ina bows. She's already forgetting what she is supposed do, and clings awkwardly to her dowry. "She is an intellectual unrivaled by most anyone in the village and specializes in science and arithmetic. Any children she bears you will be geniuses, to be sure!"

"For the last time..." Yorak's voice is a growl. It is apparent even with his hood up that his hair is a disheveled mess and there are bags under his eyes. "I don't want your brides! At all! What must I do to get it through to you?!" 

Ina flinches at that, at the volume and ferocity of it, but her spirit is free and galloping with relief so strong that she could pass out. Never has she been so happy to be rejected. She reaches behind her to squeeze James' hand, but stands steadfast so that neither he nor Ryan can push past her. She and Coran make up the front line of the mob. 

"What else do you suggest we offer you?" Coran whines.

"How about some peace and quiet?!"

"You expect us to sit idly by and WAIT for you to remove this curse?"

"There IS no curse! This is— I just— agh!"

Yorak turns and paces in a little circle. Coran has no intention of budging, and Yorak looks so frustrated by this that everyone else tenses, fearing he may attack. But he does something worse instead— he laughs. He laughs and he laughs, a menacing sound, mildly deranged. And when he turns Ina does not like his mocking but exhausted expression. 

"...You all want me married off so badly?" 

His voice is stretched thin. Ominous. Ryan does not like the sound of it one bit. The crowd nods and murmurs. 

"That IS the gist of it, yes," Coran confirms on the behalf of them all. Yorak's smile widens into a malicious grin. "Whatever we must do to appease you and be at your mercy henceforth." 

"Fine," Yorak spits, "but I decide the terms. Not you." 

"And what are your terms?" 

Yorak's smile fades and he seems to contemplate his plan. Whatever awful thing he's concocted in that allegedly monstrous head of his. 

"...I will set up a test. A challenge of sorts. Whoever passes this test shall indeed marry me, and when that day comes, I will be treated as any other villager. Because I am married to one of your own. And because I am one of you, I will never again interfere with your way of life and you will never again interfere with mine." 

A silence. No one seems to disagree, as it is more or less what they came for even if there are some extra steps involved. Still, Ina is surprised by the implication that Yorak wants to be seen as part of the village. Is he implying that?

"Very well," Coran says reluctantly and through gritted teeth, "I suppose that can be arranged—"

"There is a catch." 

Yorak's eyes are wide and far too empty when he says that. Ina's bones freeze. Ryan's hand on her shoulder is a death grip. 

"And... what catch would that be?" Coran is afraid to ask, but he must know. If he hopes to be a proper chieftain he must do... well, whatever he must. Even when it is frightening in a way that he cannot describe. 

Yorak raises an arm. His hand reaches out as though he is about to offer a handshake, but it is not time just yet. A supernatural light flickers in his eyes, lighting them up like violet torches, and when he next speaks his voice echoes. For his surprisingly small stature, Yorak can be quite intimidating when he wishes to be. 

"In the event that you do not meet these conditions— that you fail to meet your end of this promise and go back on your word— there will be consequences. Consequences that I decide. Perhaps I will truly curse this village! Perhaps the drought will be neverending. Your crops cease to grow, your livestock die, your riverbeds and wells dry up, and Plaht falls to eternal ruin." 

No one speaks, and no one screams. They are all too shocked, too horrified, to articulate anything more than a gasp. Coran shivers slightly, but stands his ground. 

"...I-Is there some sort of time limit on this challenge of yours?"

"There will be. I will decide it soon enough." Yorak finally and fully extends his hand. His fingers are not clawed, not curled. Just pale and short and mostly gloved. "So. Will you do it, or not? Do we have a deal?" 

The quiet that trails after that question is unlike any other quiet that Coran and the others have ever experienced. It feels as though it lasts a lifetime for how relentlessly it drags on. There is no mercy for any of them here. Yorak is waiting for an answer and his hand is outstretched. 

"...It's a deal." 

"Promise?"

"Promise." 

Coran tries to disguise the tremble in his arm by moving swiftly. He regrets this decision just as swiftly, because as soon as his hand has been clasped Yorak squeezes. There are screams, and Coran shouts in pain and collapses to his knees. There's a blinding flash of light. Then, suddenly, as if it did not happen at all, Coran looks up from the ground to find Yorak sneering down at him. Just waiting. Coran lifts his own hand and stares at it and chokes out a gasp at what he sees. 

There is a glowing purple rune etched into his palm, like a sinister tattoo. 

"What have you done?!" James shouts. Wielding his sword, he braces himself. He isn't foolish enough to charge or to swing, but he wants to give the impression that he will strike if it is necessary. His father grabs his shoulder and yanks him back as Yorak huffs. His voice sounds, quite frankly, more annoyed than anything else to James' ears. 

"It's only a seal," he claims. "So that you lot can't pretend you don't remember your promise. I'm not so foolish that I would trust you to be true to your word without a reminder. Without collateral." Coran has pulled himself back to his feet, so Yorak fixes his gaze on him. "A promise is a promise. You said the magick words and have entered into a little something that my people like to call a blood oath."

"What's that?! What did you do the Chief?!" Someone shouts. 

Yorak's face is blank again. There's that cold, glassy stare again. Coran vastly prefers the villainous smirk.

"You'll have to see, won't you?" The villagers cry out in protest and fury. Coran is silent as he processes his new position. Ina looks to her friends, who have no answers. Ryan has never looked more grim, and he has a perpetually serious kind of face. 

Yorak smiles politely as he puts one hand on the edge of his door. He is through with this conversation. 

"Tomorrow night," he announces. "In your village hall. That's when you will hear my conditions, and when you will learn the extent of your predicament." 

He closes and bolts the door. He doesn't slam it. Not this time, because he's already won.

Coran studies his skin and waits for several agonizing seconds. The others hold a collective breath. They anticipate his next instructions. 

"...Well, everyone, you heard the man," he says with a sigh. "Go home and get some food and rest. You may very well need it if you want to be present and alert for tomorrow night's meeting."

Chapter Text

The village hall has quite possibly never been more full or more angry. Word spreads fast in a town so small. 

There are so many attendees that many do not have room to sit down, and this despite the fact that most everyone has forbidden their children from attending. No reasonable parent in Plaht would have their beloved little ones anywhere near Yorak. And he is going to appear here, in the flesh, tonight. 

Morbid curiosity surely drives much of the crowd. Most of the villagers, still, have never seen him. Takashi hears one or two of them admit that they thought him to be fictional. He hears many descriptions of Yorak like Lance's once was— guesses weaving together and forming strange approximations that resemble the unholy monsters in children's books.  

Coran is not happy to see Takashi there when he enters the building. Takashi is not happy to see the mark on his hand. He legitimately does not know why Yorak did that, and he hopes that the blood oath bit isn't true. He hadn't pegged Yorak as the type to snap like that. To actually, properly curse a man. What IS a blood oath, anyway? It sounds scary enough.

Lance McClain is not in attendance. Neither is his sister Rachel. But the rest of the family is there. If he wasn't stuck with his sister, Takashi is sure that Lance would be eavesdropping from a window right about now. He knows because he has already spotted Hunk Garrett and Katie Holt. They think that they're sneaky, but Takashi knows how to find them. He was that sort of nosy teenager once. 

The rest of the McClain clan is here, and so are the Holts. Sam Holt pats Takashi's shoulder reassuringly as he passes. Takashi isn't quite sure why. Maybe it's because he can sense that this is hard on him. Adam can certainly sense as much, and he's been glued to his side ever since Takashi heard about what allegedly transpired on that hilltop. 

To stand by one's conscience— to refuse to bend with the rest to hysteria and antiquated ideals—  is often lonely. 

Takashi and Adam join the gathering at what they assume is roughly ten PM. Two full hours pass before the anticipated moment arrives, but they somehow feel more like minutes. There was never a pause in conversation and speculation as they waited. 

Yorak, of course, cannot simply walk through the front door. Oh, no. That would not be befitting of a warlock. Of Yorak the Great and Terrible. At precisely midnight, just when Adam begins to wonder aloud if he is coming at all, a black miasma spreads out from the floor of the hall, forming a smoke that envelops the wooden boards. There are screams, pointing fingers. Those standing close to it scurry away, pushing over the others in their paths. 

Crackles of electric purple light. A figure rises like the fabled Phoenix from the ashes, at first a sharp black shape that expands. And then it is a hooded young man standing in a cloud of smoke that quickly evaporates. One that Takashi recognizes. Mostly. These eyes are spiteful and not the ones he knows. 

"...Nice place," he says rather anticlimactically as he looks around, seemingly unaware of the absolute terror that has gripped the onlookers. Takashi watches families cling to one another for protection. Grandmothers begin to pray. There is a chorus of hisses and boos and other voices that hush them, warning that the hecklers will lose their immortal souls if they displease Yorak. "Though I was expecting something a bit more... ostentatious. I could have mistaken this for a standard church." He turns, too slowly, to face Coran at the podium. Two glares meet with equal force. Yorak's lips are curled into something ugly. "I never was allowed inside, you see," he spits. 

"We don't allow wickedness within these walls," a raspy voice challenges. Yorak's scowl is redirected at Hieronymus, who he stares at for a long and confused moment. 

"Is that you?" Yorak's head tilts. "The previous chieftain? It's been quite a while. I'm afraid the years have been unkind to you." Takashi suddenly remembers that Yorak is somewhere in the range of sixty years old. He doesn't look or act a day over twenty and he hasn't changed in the slightest since Takashi met him seven years ago. 

Hieronymus stands. Tavo sticks by his side, ready to keep him from collapsing if necessary, and helps him hobble towards Yorak. Yorak is still. There is absolute, unadulterated hatred in the warlock's gaze. This is a rivalry older than Takashi. Something he cannot understand.

"I care not for your taunts, little fiend. I seek only answers. For the curse you have laid upon my son." 

"It's not a curse," Yorak says with a shrug. "Not yet. Just a blood oath. It only takes effect if he fails. Don't you have any faith in your own offpspring?" That last sentence truly is a taunt, and it drips with venom.

"Then tell me what I must do so that I may not fail," Coran calls from his position at the podium. "Give us your terms. That IS why we are gathered here, is it not?" Yorak looks up, looks to Coran once more. Begrudgingly, Coran steps aside and gestures at the spot he occupied. "The floor— the audience— is yours, if you'll have it."

Yorak bows low. 

"Why, thank you," he snarks. If Takashi were his father he would have to have a word with him about his attitude. 

Yorak isn't accustomed to having this kind of attention. Even with the protection of his cloak he fidgets under the many eyes on him. He disguises this by swaying slightly, gripping the edges of the wood with his fingers. 

Then, he lifts his hands. He does that fanciful little teleportation gimmick again. But it is smaller this time. A poof from his palms and he materializes an object out of what appears to be thin air. The crowd oohs and aahs. It's a key. A simple black key. 

"This key," he begins, "unlocks my cottage door." He pulls a length of ribbon from one of his pouches, hooking it through the ring at the end and tying it there. He seems to be fashioning a small necklace. Too small to fit around his own head. "From tomorrow on, it will be easy enough to locate. Any of you may easily find it upon the neck of a black cat."

Several voices call out in anger, and Takashi hears scoffs and jeers. 

"I knew that damned cat was fishy," Councilman Griffin boasts. "Something like that slinking around can only mean trouble." 

"Only if you're superstitious," Adam retorts. Takashi gives him a pleading look. He won't earn any favors by picking fights with councilmen. 

"Superstitious? I was correct in this case! The cat is one of his accursed familiars."

"Right," Yorak agrees. He almost glances over at Takashi, but doesn't. "A familiar. ...Anyway, the challenge is simple. All that you have to do is get your hands on this key. If you manage to do so, and use it to successfully gain entrance to my home, then we'll be wed." 

"That sounds simple enough," says Coran. "Can it truly be so simple?"

"It sounds simple, but I don't know that it will be. My familiars are fast. Intelligent. It won't be so easy to snag as your average stray, I'm afraid." 

"How many familiars do you have?"

Yorak grins. 

"That's none of your business, is it? The only one you need concern yourself with is the cat."

"Does it matter HOW we acquire the key from the cat so long as we do so?" Merla asks, raising her hand. Yorak shakes his head. 

"Fair is fair," he says, "but I would advise the use of strategy nonetheless. Your force probably doesn't amount to much in contrast to my magick, does it?"

"I... suppose not," Merla admits. Takashi can see the gears in her mind spinning. He has a feeling that there will be any number of cat-traps built over the next few days. That the cat will have a more difficult time navigating the town. 

"And you did mention a time limit," Councilman Kinkade reminds Yorak. "How long do we have to acquire this key?" 

"One year. No longer." It sounds like a long time, but Takashi just knows the cat won't surrender in the first month, at the very least. Yorak is likely petty enough to stretch this out for as long as he can. 

"...I-Is that all?" Coran asks feebly. Yorak studies his fingernails, disinterested. 

"Seems so. You catch on quickly enough."

"But you're forgetting something, aren't you?"

"Am I?" Coran holds up his hand, letting Yorak spot his own handiwork there. "Oh!" Yorak laughs casually. "That. Yes. You've really never heard of a blood oath?"

"I have not! And I would very much like to know—"

"A pity. They're quite common among my people. It's why we don't enter into promises so haphazardly. Your word actually has to mean something, right?" 

"Enough!" Hieronymus interjects. "Tell us."

Yorak looks up. And even Takashi is somewhat frightened by the look on his face this time. 

"...If you— Chief Coran Smythe— blatantly refuse to meet my terms, try to remove our seal, plot to trick me, make any attempts otherwise break our oath, or you run out of time, you will die. Simple." 

There is an immediate uproar. Boos, and hisses, and screams. Panic and pandemonium. Yorak is unaffected. He just stands there, waiting to elaborate, and this time he makes a pointed effort not to look at Takashi or at Adam, as if he knows he will see disappointment there. 

"Really, my marking is quite helpful," Yorak eventually shouts above what is left of the fray. "You will notice that it expands as time passes— as the end of your time limit draws nearer. Eventually it will fully engulf your arm, but by that time it'll be too late for you. Think of it as a reminder." 

"Does your cruelty know no end?!" Councilman Leifsdottir shouts. Yorak nearly rolls his eyes. 

"You all wanted to play these games, didn't you? You came to my doorstep again and again. ...Come to think of it, didn't you offer me your own daughter? That last girl resembled you. The poor thing looked terrified, you know." The councilman is so offended that he can't respond. Or maybe he just knows he's in the wrong there. That he DID, in fact, attempt to sacrifice Ina. At least Romelle went willingly. 

"Fine. Fine!" Coran declares, standing up once more. Everyone seems surprised. "Whatever must be done. I do wish that we did not have to resort to such things, but if this the way that your kind operate, I suppose it is what it is!"

"At least my kind don't throw out promises with no intention of keeping them. As far as we're concerned, your word is your life. If you don't have that you have nothing." 

"You mean to imply that you're especially trustworthy?"

"Of course I am." Yorak raises one of his hands and moves aside the black glove that hides his palm. He, too, has that rune. "I have the same marking now. Which means that I cannot go back on my promises either. If I were, say, to bury the key so that no one can find it, or to kill my cat, or to refuse to marry whoever brings me the key, or if I cursed the village anyway before the time limit could be reached... I would die."

"As if that could be true," Luis— Councilman McClain— argues. "Witches don't die, do they?" 

Yorak huffs. Takashi, having made this mistake before, knows why. 

"My mother was a witch. I am a warlock. And they do, in fact, die— I should know as much, or she would be here with me." Yorak glares down, and not at Coran, but at Hieronymus. "But you don't want to talk about her, do you? Hmm? Don't make me laugh!" 

Yorak doesn't like to talk about his mother. He thinks of her often and he mentions her fondly on the rare occasions that he does, but it is a sordid affair that he dares not breach if he can help it. Takashi has also regretted asking what happened to her. It is a quick and surefire way to shut the man down. If Hieronymus Smythe had anything at all to do with her fate, as Yorak seems to imply, then Yorak hates him enough to wish him dead and then spit on his grave. That much is certain. 

After that, there isn't much left to argue about. Because arguing won't do anything. Yorak likely couldn't undo this hex if he tried, and Coran has agreed to the terms in so permanent a way that his very life depends on it. And the challenge is not one that sounds especially absurd— just a cat, right? How hard can it be? (Takashi wants to laugh at that notion, but he doesn't want to give away just how much he knows about these things, lest the council hate him even more than it already does.) The thing is settled, whatever it is. 

"If I have made myself clear, and everything is understood, then I will take my leave," Yorak says. "Don't bother trying to follow me." 

Yorak swings his cloak in a fluid motion until he is hidden behind the fabric and disappears in very much the same way that he arrived, leaving a black cloud in his wake. Several of the more bold amongst the villagers are quick to search the building, to check the podium. To make sure that he is well and truly gone. Takashi can see that even they are shaken. 

Takashi's mind swims as Adam more or less drags him from the building. Adam intends at first to take them both straight home where they will immediately go to bed, but he's soon distracted. Luka's grandmother wants to know if all of this unpleasant business will affect anything about their bakery's services, if she can still expect her beloved granddaughter's special birthday cake to be ready in time. Takashi is normally better at these interactions, but he uses this as an excuse to slip away without his husband, and then he heads for the denser part of town, where there are plenty of empty businesses and alleyways between them. Plenty of places to hide. 

The strategy pays off. He spots an unnatural sort of flicker in one such dark place and moves towards it. He sits down on a wooden crate, and before long that flicker is a man. He doesn't say anything and he looks at the ground, hood obscuring his face. Takashi sighs. 

"Yorak the Great and Terrible, what were you thinking?" 

That gets a reaction. Yorak looks up and jerks back so quickly that the hood falls, revealing the pointy ears it was mostly designed to conceal. 

"Don't say that like it's my last name or something! And you're not my father!" 

"Maybe not, but I am very disappointed in you." Takashi runs a hand through his hair. "You said that you don't DO curses."

"Right— I said that I don't. Not that I can't. A critical difference." 

"I guess that I shouldn't make you mad, then!"

The warlock bristles. Very much like a cat. 

"I wouldn't—" Yorak scowls. "I wouldn't. You know that." 

"Do I?" 

They stare one another down. 

"...It's not a curse. Not yet. I said that already. All that he has to do is meet my conditions, and it's not like it's one-sided."

"But I don't think you're going to make this easy on anybody. Your 'cat' is not going to surrender the key to the first person that tries to grab it." 

"Why should I make it easy?! It's a challenge, isn't it?! At least now, with the oath, they'll take me seriously!" Takashi starts to retort, but Yorak interrupts him. "No, really! Always going on and on about how fearsome I am and how terrible I am, but that doesn't stop them from constantly trespassing and waking me up and disturbing my pets at all hours, does it? And to do what? To accuse me of doling out famine and committing murder anyway? To offer me teenage concubines and unwilling brides? My patience has run thin, Shiro!" 

"And I understand that much. I do. But do you... actually want to get married? Is that what you're trying to find here?" 

"Maybe I do!"

"Do you even know what you want?"

"I don't kn—" Yorak inhales through his teeth. He clearly didn't mean to say that. "Look. I... have a plan with all of this. Sort of. I-I know what I'm doing! Just trust me, will you?" 

"Your tone doesn't inspire confidence." Takashi sighs again. He's very, very tired. "...I guess they'll leave you alone now, at least. I was starting to worry that they'd try to hurt you."

"Ha! Try."

"Just... don't do anything too crazy, alright?"

"I won't," he says, though he already has. "Just... take this, will you? Your husband's going to get himself killed hobbling around half-blind like that." 

Yorak's next magick trick involves pulling a pair of glasses from thin air. Instead of just carrying them in his pouch or his pocket like a normal person. Takashi has begun to suspect that he is a bit of a showoff. But whatever the case, Takashi recognizes these frames— Yorak asked Adam for those and the broken bits of glass about a week ago, though he refused to admit that he intended to fix them. Takashi doesn't know if he did that the traditional way or not, but he knows Adam will appreciate it. Hershel Garrett doesn't have the training required to fix the lenses and getting a new pair would have required Adam to travel quite a distance and spend no small sum of gold. For all the glasses-wearers in Plaht, they still don't have a glasses-maker. 

"Hey, thanks! It's not that we're hurting for money, it's just difficult to clear out that much time, and time is money."

"I know that." Yorak looks to his left and to his right, confirming that this meeting is still a secret one. "Well, then. If you have nothing more to say, then I really must be going." 

He vanishes again, and this time he is actually gone, likely back in his cottage. Takashi wishes he could just teleport around like that. He doesn't know what Yorak expected him to say. 

Takashi stands. He wanders back out into the streets, and before long he can hear his now-agitated husband calling for him. The other man walks very slowly, no doubt afraid of tripping over a loose brick or a fallen branch that he can't see.

"I'm right here," he announces when he's back at Adam's side. "Just taking care of something. ...You were panicking, weren't you? Lord knows you can't tell me from anybody else right now." 

"That's not true," he snaps back. "My vision isn't that—" Takashi holds up the repaired pair of spectacles and Adam momentarily forgets his protests. He breathes an audible sigh of relief at being able to see once again. And then he concludes that he doesn't like the look on Takashi's face. "What happened?" 

"Yorak fixed them. He was hiding in one of the alleyways waiting to talk to me and hand them over."

Adam takes the lenses off again to study them more closely, squinting at the details of the flawlessly fixed metal where there had once been a big dent. 

"...Do you think he could fix your arm the next time it breaks? We probably wouldn't have to pay Sam or Hershel to do it." 

"Adam."

"What? ...What?! It's a perfectly valid question!" 

No matter the circumstances, it seems, Adam's mind is always on high alert in search of a good bargain. Takashi is just happy that his spirits haven't been dampened. 

For the first time in what feels like a while, they're able to walk home together, in the dark, without Adam needing to cling to his side for safety. And Takashi lies awake for several hours wondering what will become of his strange friend.

Chapter Text

Lance McClain and his friends— the ones that were around his own age— noticed an obvious change in their parents after the alleged meeting with Yorak. Each family responded differently, but none have been left completely unaffected. 

Lance’s chose to leave him in the dark. He’s not sure if his siblings, beyond Luis, know about it or not and he’s almost afraid to ask them. Being the baby of the family was fun when he was little because it meant that he usually got what he wanted when it came to toys and sweets. It was less fun when he was an adult and his parents treated him like he was still a child, like he couldn’t handle much of anything on his own. Like whatever was discussed in that meeting would strike him dead on the spot. 

He wants to know. But it’s a hectic time of year, so he hasn’t had time to meet with Hunk or Pidge privately to ask them what their parents told them. And when he sees others, it’s because he’s making or receiving a delivery. He spends many days confined to his farm, hard labor leaving him a creaky-boned and sweaty mess with no time or energy left for socialization, passing out the moment the sun sets. 

That’s why it is a good two weeks before he finds himself near the center of the village again. 

He has developed a sort of routine. He’s been determined to befriend that pretty cat since he first saw him sneaking around Shiro’s Sweets, and befriend him he has. Sort of. Kitty still hasn’t allowed Lance to pick him up, but he DOES allow Lance to pet him. Takashi wasn’t joking when he said that the cat takes its time to warm up to new people. 

Lance got into the habit of carrying around extra sweets and snacks— stuff safe for cat consumption— and presenting them whenever he saw Kitty. The cat eventually approached. After several of these exchanges he started allowing Lance to touch him, just barely. He only likes to be pet on the head. If Lance’s hand dares venture past his shoulders, he snarls. Lance doesn’t want to ruin their new friendship, so he is always quick to apologize and return his hand to the space behind the cat’s ears. 

He keeps an eye out for Kitty as he wanders the town square alone. He’s finished his deliveries early and is taking the opportunity to potentially meet up with some of his pals. Maybe they’ll tell him what went on at that meeting. He knows that they’re likely working, though, and there are crowds of decent size in the marketplace, so he has no intention of bothering them when they’re at their busiest.

Lance squints, white-hot springtime sunlight burning into his eyes. It makes Kitty’s dark shape harder to spot, but he does spot it. Kitty keeps to the bushes. He’s probably headed for Takashi’s place, but for whatever reason, he is especially sneaky. 

“There’s my little guy! You almost blended into the shadows there, huh?”

Lance approaches with an offering of dried fish. He knows the cat is expecting its bribe by now and would likely be annoyed if he waltzed up without it. And by now, he is accustomed enough that he takes the fish without needing to sniff it and inspect it first. Lance watches him eat and strokes his soft little head. Kitty eats strangely and must have been someone’s pet once. Lance brought him fresh fish once and Kitty didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He doesn’t have trouble with the dried fish, but he does hold it between his paws and take careful bites like a tiny person might. It’s strangely endearing. 

It takes him a bit too long to notice the change. His fingers brush against something, and that’s when he notices the ribbon around Kitty’s neck. He grabs for whatever it is and Kitty hisses at him.

“Fine! I won’t touch it!” He puts his hands up to indicate his surrender. Kitty goes back to eating. Lance moves his head around until the sun’s beams finally reflect off of the dark metal. It appears to be a small key, and it’s fastened around his feline neck with a length of sturdy ribbon. “What are you doing with something like that, anyway?” 

Kitty, of course, does not answer him. Lance doesn’t want to get scratched, so he makes no effort to grab the key. He does notice, though, that the cat seems even more on edge than he usually does. He eats quickly and keeps looking around for possible enemies, or maybe for those that would steal his fish. 

Lance is stationed there, crouched down by the bushes, for what could not be any longer than two minutes as Kitty eats. Just two minutes before the marketplace spirals into chaos. Lance is looking at Kitty, and then hears a horrifying warrior’s scream as a woven basket comes flying out of nowhere. Its handle barely grazes Kitty, but it does not land atop him, as was apparently the intention. Kitty yowls at the top of his tiny lungs and bolts past Lance and into the fray that is the town square. He quickly realizes his mistake, but it’s too late. People are shrieking and either jumping back to avoid him or grabbing at him. Lance jumps to his feet. 

“What was that for? What’s going on?!” He shouts at Romelle, who threw the basket. She isn’t listening to him. She’s jumped atop a nearby wall. 

“NADIA! GRAB IT!” 

Nadia looks up from the crowd of customers in front of her family’s stalls. She puts down the melon she was handling— gently, of course— and throws off her apron before she springs into action and leaps over the barrier of vegetable crates. Her eyes are locked on Kitty. It’s been a while since Lance has seen her sprint like this. 

He watches the chase in confusion and horror. Even with several girls working to corner the cat, he’s just too fast. He manages to escape the market square and runs down the street, and then he is a dot in the distance. He didn’t even get to finish his fish. 

Shaken by the incident and knowing that he won’t be able to get the attention of either girl he knows while the square is still in such an uproar,  Lance returns to his home and asks his sisters if they know anything about it. Both of them and his brother Marco start talking at him at once, and he can’t make out what any one of them is saying. He shouts over them to take turns. 

“You seriously still haven’t heard?!” Rachel scoffs. Lance glares at her. 

“No! It’s not like any of you told me!”

“You have to get up so early,” she retorts. “We haven’t had a chance to gossip in a while and you KNOW I can’t say anything if mom or dad is around.”

“Don’t forget about Luis,” Marco adds.

“But— But I’m almost always working around Luis!” Lance’s work involves the animals, most days, and Luis is in charge of that. Marco helps dad and Uncle Roberto with planting and harvesting while Veronica and Rachel help mom and Luis’s wife Lisa with the flowers. The McClain farms are practically an enterprise now, and it’s not uncommon that he doesn’t see these three siblings for four days because they’re all so busy working in different sections. 

Veronica shrugs. 

“Exactly. If we could have found you alone we would have filled you in, but I was sure one of your friends would have told you by now. I guess you’ve been pretty busy, though...”

“It’s too fast,” says Rachel. “There’s no way either of those girls could catch it. Romelle just sews!”

“You’re not supposed to be going after it!” Marco reminds her through gritted teeth. Rachel scoffs. 

“Well, if it’s for the village, then—“

“Is ANYBODY gonna tell me what’s going on?!” 

The story that Lance’s siblings tell him sounds almost impossible. He’s not even sure what he should believe. Takashi has made Yorak out to be nothing more than a bit of a grouch and largely misunderstood, but according to everyone else, he’s gone into the cursing business. The only way to cure Coran, Veronica explains, is to take the key and then marry Yorak. It’s no wonder that Rachel has been forbidden from trying to catch the cat. 

“I guess Romelle and Nadia are willing to do it, then,” Lance guesses. “Romelle makes sense. She was the first to volunteer. Nadia might have just been trying to help her catch him.”

“You’re not going anywhere near that cat,” Veronica commands. Lance throws his arms out at his sides. 

“I never said I was—“

“You didn’t have to.” 

Lance isn’t about to let Veronica tell him which animals he can and cannot befriend. The next day, he buys a sweet roll from Takashi’s place and looks around the village for Kitty once more. He finds the cat and a small crowd of would-be-cat-catchers by the riverside. Plaxum’s father is backed as close to the water as he can get without falling in, rod in hand, as Ina and Pidge attempt to catch the black shape that darts back and forth. 

“Katie!” James sprints towards the scene with Ryan hot on his heels. “Knock that off! You’re too young!” 

“I don’t care if it’ll get me out of being a small-town doctor for forever!” 

“We both know you don’t mean that!” 

James takes a moment to catch his breath before he crosses his arms. Ryan settles in beside him and observes silently. As he usually does. Lance isn’t going to try and grab either of the girls, so he approaches the two of them instead. 

“You guys HAVE to calm down and leave the cat alone,” he pleads. “Kitty can be touched pretty easily if you offer food and take your time.” 

Both men (and Plaxum’s dad) stare at him, bewildered. 

“Are you familiar with this cat, Lance?” James looks like he might just explode. Lance is sure James has heard no end of this whole predicament from his father. 

“I am! I’ve been feeding him treats for... I don’t know how long exactly, but it’s probably been weeks now. And then suddenly everyone was trying to grab him by the tail.” 

Lance is yelled at by several people at once for the second time in two days. Ina and Pidge overheard him and intend to give him a piece of their minds. James is furious that Lance has not said anything to them about the cat. But why would he? As far as he knew it was another cat. He doesn’t announce it every time he pets another dog the next town over, or every time one of the cows nuzzles him or a baby chicken eats out of his hand. 

“I didn’t think it mattered that I started feeding a stray cat,” Lance says with a shrug. Ryan shakes his head. 

“You’re not supposed to feed strays.”

“Is it... really a stray, though? Or is it really a cat at all?” James wonders. 

“That’s not the point!” Pidge is on the verge of ripping her own hair out. “Lance, give me your bread roll.”

“I don’t know if—“

“Give me the roll!”

Lance sighs as he rips the bread into a few pieces. There’s a piece for Pidge and a piece for Ina. Carefully, quietly, both girls approach. Both are hissed at. Ina is so startled by it that she runs to stand behind Lance. Pidge is just irritated. Lance half expects her to hiss back. 

“I don’t think the cat likes women,” Ryan says. James scoff-laughs and smirks at him.

“What, you think it’s a misogynist?”

“Oh, no.”

“Well, that’s good, because—“

“I think it’s gay.” It’s Ryan’s turn to be shouted over now. He isn’t one to yell, so he just holds up his hands and waits until he can speak again. “It’s a familiar, right? We can assume that this is not a normal cat, and that it does have some kind of purpose. It acts as an extension of its master. Of Yorak.” 

“Okay, and?!” 

“So, what if Yorak is gay? Did anybody actually ask him? He wasn’t interested in any of the brides, but he DID agree to a marriage contract.” 

James open his mouth as if he is going to protest. He shuts it. There is a long silence. Then, the next thing Lance knows, he is chasing them all down as they rush up the hill to Yorak’s house. Ryan has his bow ready just in case. James has a heavy piece of wood and Ina opted to grab a frying pan from Plaxum. James likely has his father’s voice in his head when he insists on being the one to knock. 

Lance holds his breath. This is the closest he’s been to the warlock thus far. 

The door creaks open slowly. Yorak doesn’t seem especially angry this time. Maybe that’s because there’s no mob, and there doesn’t appear to be an offering, or because he’s already established his contract with the village and knows they know better than to try and weasel their way out of it. Lance can’t really see him past Ryan, but confirms that he and Yorak are around the same size and that he wears a hood over his head. 

“You again,” he greets, sounding tired. His voice is distinctive enough to be picked out of a crowd. “Did you want something?” 

Pidge is normally one to boast, to pick on those far bigger than she is. Now, she is terrified and clings to Lance’s side, preventing him from moving in order to get a better look. He doesn’t say anything. 

“You recognize us?” Ryan seems surprised. Yorak hums. 

“The two of you. And that girl. Pity about your father.” Lance assumes that Yorak is referring to Ina, to Councilman Leifsdottir. 

“Right,” James agrees. “It’s a shame. ...Now, we really hate to bother you, but we had a question regarding your challenge. Your cat.”

“Yes?”

“You’re, uh... Are you gay?”

“Yes.”

Lance can sense that the group would like to shout at Yorak. They don’t have the guts, though, so it’s left to James to express their mutual frustration. 

“W-Wh— Why didn’t you you just say so?!”

“Why did YOU assume?” 

“That’s fair,” Ryan says despite James’ protests, eying him sternly. “We shouldn’t have. And we’re sorry about that.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Ina adds. Yorak’s head tilts. 

“I— I know?”

Yorak seems more confused than anything. Maybe witches don’t make judgements about that sort of thing. Plaht isn’t unfriendly to the idea— Takashi would have a harder time running his business if it did— but it DOES treat marriage like a contract meant to do nothing more than bear children, so the elders do tend to make assumptions.

“Oh. Oh! Well, I mean, I guess that’s good—“

“Will that be all?”

Everyone looks at James. 

“Uh... Yeah. That’s all. Sorry for bothering you.”

The door slams. Not violently, but firmly enough to get the point across— that Yorak is bored of them now and won’t entertain their company any longer. They stand there in silence before they march back down the hill. Not defeated, because they did learn something valuable, but feeling very silly nonetheless. 

Halfway back to the town square, they spot Kitty again. James and Ryan sprint after it in lieu of the girls this time. 

“No, guys! Slowly and with food— Slowly and with food!” 
 
It’s too late. The cat has once again been chased away. Lance’s chest collapses in a heavy sigh as he resigns himself to eating what is left of his bread roll. 

Chapter Text

Lance used to read about people waking to the crows of roosters in storybooks. To other people, it seems like a folksy trope. Something used to set a quaint scene. For the McClains, it’s a reality in some sense— the roosters do signal the start of each day, but Lance is usually awake before they can greet the new morn, because the dawn itself is what wakes him. He instinctively crawls out of bed shortly before the sun rises and spends most of his early minutes fumbling around in the half-dark. The distant crow of a rooster is a signal that he should get a move on. 

He doesn’t have any trouble getting up so early. His body is accustomed to it— he has more trouble staying awake late into the evenings. He often does so anyway, but he seems to function with less sleep than others. His own restless mind is likely responsible. Maybe he’s never truly asleep. 

It’s going to be a long day, Lance knows, but he’s looking forward to this one. He does breathing exercises as he washes up and gets dressed. He opts to grab his straw hat, as he knows the sun will likely be relentless, and dons a pair of thick overalls with a sturdy set of gloves shoved into the pockets, as he knows the day’s work will likely get messy. 

Breakfast, as is so often the case, is prepared by grandma. Dad’s mom. And as is so often the case, Lance does not have much time to sit down to eat, and most of his siblings have yet to wake, and his parents are already working. The kitchen is empty of anyone but grandma. Lance thanks her and kisses her head before he grabs food that he can eat as he moves and runs outside, his stomach growling in protest at his inability to sit down for a bowl of oats. The sun is just beginning to peek around the horizon. The roosters are restless. Then, just like that, it is morning. The sun always seems to rise so quickly when you’re looking at it. Lance was right to think of bringing his hat— already, it’s so bright he’s nearly blinded by it. 

Lance scarfs down sausage links, bacon strips, and a handful of fresh berries as he jogs a bit lazily down the dirt path between fields. Uncle Roberto and grandpa wave to him from their places kneeling in the dirt. The springtime is all about leafy greens, and carrots and peas and radishes. The wheat, too, is maturing nicely and should be ready for harvesting soon. Veronica is hard at work tending to mom’s latest bounty of daffodils as she waits for Rachel to join her there. It’s a tapestry of bright, clean colors. Looking at it, one would never know that the farm hasn’t seen proper rain in well over a month. 

Lance’s work, for the most part, isn’t found in the fields. He helps when he must— usually with the harvests— but his main responsibility lies beyond them, in the collection of fences and barns on the hill. Lance can see his brother’s wife, Lisa, with her hair tied back in a checkered handkerchief as she feeds the chickens. He doesn’t have time to get her attention or wave to her before Luis butts in, irritated. 

“Get a move on, will you?” Luis calls. His arms are crossed and he shakes his head. Lance can see his mouth moving. He’s probably muttering something under his breath about Lance’s laziness. As usual, Lance pretends he can’t see Luis’ open disapproval and picks up his pace until he is nearly sprinting up the grassy slope. Even the sprint isn’t good enough for Luis, though. Even when his legs can’t possibly carry him any faster and most of the village still sleeps. Sometimes Lance wonders why he even tries. 

Lance isn’t in any hurry to see Luis, or to cave to his demands. What he’s eager to do is see his mother. He doesn’t get to spend a lot of personal time with her anymore. She’s always with his sisters, the three of them working together on the flowers, assembling bouquets in bundles of tissue paper and ribbon and carefully pruning the sprawling bushes and shrubs (mostly lilacs this time of year), and Lance spends what little free time he has exploring and meeting up with his friends. It’s not often that he has her largely to himself for a day’s work, but today is a special sort of day. 

Ginger— one of their best cattle— is pregnant, and today’s the day. They have to help her deliver her calf. Lance’s mother has the most experience with childbirth out of anyone here. She’s had five of her own. She knows what to do, and she knows it like the back of her hand. 

Lance greets his mother by throwing an arm over her shoulder. Not a hug, not quite, but she squeezes back anyway. Luis gives him a judgmental look. Lance just sticks his tongue out at him. There’s not a force in this world that will ever make him anything but an unapologetic momma’s boy, come hell or high water, and if Luis has a problem with that he can keep it to himself.

“How is she?” Lance asks. He doesn’t waste time on formalities like greetings. He can see Ginger lying down, having separated herself from the rest of the cattle, and she doesn’t look particularly happy. Lance can only imagine the pain she’s in. She’s a heifer— she’s giving birth for the first time. 

“It should be another hour, at least, but she’s coming along,” mom says, patting his shoulder. Lance is taller than she is now and has been for some time. Most of her children have outgrown her. 

Ginger has been pregnant for a little longer than expected. She’s carrying a bull, mom explains, but Lance already knew that. He’s not exactly new to this either. He says a little prayer for Ginger despite not believing in any particular gods. A plea on her behalf for as quick and painless a delivery as possible to a strong, healthy calf. 

There’s nothing they can do for a while. They wait as Ginger gets up, moves around, and then sits back down several times, until they can see that it’s time. They keep her as calm as they can until her calving begins. It’s a process that’s less than pretty at first. When it goes poorly it can become downright grotesque, and Lance had to make sure to wash his arms just in case it came to that. But Ginger has this. The calf breaches front-legs first, then the head, and then he and Luis can assist her. With mom’s supervision and instruction, they each take hold of one little leg. Mom watches Ginger closely and signals her boys to help pull the calf along when Ginger pushes. It requires paying careful attention to the animal so as not to hurt or rush her in any way. 

Lance is amazed, just about every time, by how quickly his feelings change on days like this one. During the calving itself he is doing everything he can not to grimace. Someone ends up bickering at some point, or he fears that something is going wrong, and the cow seems to be having just about the worst time of its life, and Lance wonders why they bother doing this at all, why they decided to go into this business, why he ever volunteered to help with the animals. 

And then the calf, fur a mess and proportions nearly comical, is welcomed into the world on wobbly and uncertain stick-legs. Mom cleans his tender face and makes sure he can breathe. Lance and Luis both seem to hold their breath as they watch. 

That’s why, Lance rememberers. For this moment here.

Wow.

Ginger lies down in her own stall with clean hay and fresh water, and they help her calf along to lie down with his mother. He’s eager to have his first meal. There’s a long stretch of quiet as the three humans oversee them. Then, mom smiles at Lance. She has to crane her neck a bit to look up at him. 

“So?” She gently elbows him. “What are we to call this one?” 

“Oh. Right.” Lance names the animals. He has always named the animals. None of their cattle ever end up on a dinner table— the McClains raise them for showing, for breeding, and for milk, while the Kinkades and the local butcher supply most of the town’s meat— so they all have names. He points at the little guy. “His name’s Oxford.”

“Bit of a tough name for something so small, isn’t it?”

“He didn’t kick you! He’s stronger than he looks. Believe me.” Mom laughs. Lance looks wistfully at the pair, at mother and son. “...Was it like that for you?”

He doesn’t have to clarify what he means.

“Of course. Luis, especially— you were an enormous baby.” Even Luis is a little embarrassed by that. He grins sheepishly as Lance gives him a hard stare as if quietly admonishing him for causing their mother so much pain. “And YOU, Lance. You were late! Over a week late!” Luis is quick to turn the tables on Lance. That awkward smile becomes a mocking one and Lance frowns. 

“B-But it was all worth it once I was born, of course, wasn’t it?” Lance protests. And mom smiles at him. 

“Yes,” she agrees, “of course.” She throws one arm around each of her boys, tugging them down until they’re closer to her level. For a while, she doesn’t say anything more. There’s no rush to get back to work for once as they watch Oxford acquaint himself with the earth. 

Luis is the one to leave first. He joins his wife and the chickens. Mom looks over her shoulder and watches him leave until she can confirm that he is well and truly gone. 

“I knew you’d be something special,” she says to Lance, seemingly unprompted. Of course she waited for Luis to leave. Moms aren’t supposed to show any kind of favoritism, are they? Even for the baby of the family. Lance’s eyes are wide when he meets hers, and she smiles that knowing kind of smile that only mothers have. “Even back then.” 

“Who, me? Little old me?” Lance’s words are humble, but his tone is not, and mom doesn’t miss that. She gives him an affectionate shove. Then, her smile tightens. Lance knows that look. He doesn’t even have time to groan before she gets the words out.

“Now, you’ve had your fun— your father’s expecting you.” 

“To do what?!”

“They need help harvesting the radishes. So they’ll have all hands on deck when the wheat’s ready.” 

“They always want all hands on deck,” Lance grumbles, but he does as he’s told anyway. His mother laughs at his dramatic antics as he slowly trudges out of the barn, back a slope and shoulders pulled forward. “Why’s everything always have to feel like an emergency around here?” 

The harvest is only the first of the demands for the day. 

He spends his whole morning helping to bring new life into the world, and his whole afternoon crawling around on his hands and knees and pulling up root vegetables. He throws them into wooden crates and helps load them up onto the designated wagon, where Uncle Roberto sorts the crops. Lance is stronger than he looks, but the sun is downright violent and it’s backbreaking labor even for him, even with all his youth. 

He expects relief to come in the evening, as the sun begins to slip down the sky. Instead, Luis informs him that he’s expected to pick up his niece and nephew from school. He doesn’t mind this task, hypothetically. He loves those two. But he’s not crazy about the idea of running halfway across town after the day he’s had. 

Nevertheless, he washes up and heads out. He won’t let Silvio and Nadia (not to be confused with the spectacled Nadia his age) see his fatigue. 

Lance jogs across town. The air is nice at this time of day, and he passes familiar and friendly faces, and it’s almost enough to make him forget how tired he is. The schoolhouse is in his sight before he knows it. It was just one room once. It’s since been expanded. 

Lance and James exchange insults as they wait for the bell that will dismiss the little ones. James is a teacher by trade and is eventually supposed to take over his father’s position as overseer of the town’s education system. He knows both of the little McClains. Even if he doesn’t like to give Lance any credit, he acknowledges that those two are special. Nadia is smart and Silvio is sweet as can be and Lance wants the world for both of them. 

When it’s time to take them home, Lance stands in the middle, with his niece holding one of his hands and his nephew the other, and he swings his long arms so far that they laugh as they try to keep up. They pass by Romelle and Plaxum and he makes a show of lifting them up— one hand each— without much trouble, simultaneously showing off both his physical strength and how great a father he’d make some day. The girls giggle, but they know better than to pay any mind to his tricks by now. Lance doesn’t actually expect them to. It’s just a bit of teasing among friends. 

“Uncle Lance?” Silvio says, and Lance can already hear in his voice that he’s up to something. “Can we PLEASE stop by Mr. Shiro’s and get a pastry? Please?” 

Nadia, too, joins in on the pleading. Lance is a bit of a sucker and he knows it. It’s not that he CAN’T say no. He just knows that Luis is pretty strict and doesn’t get them treats very often, so he spoils them where he can in his brother’s stead. Uncle Lance is the cool uncle. 

Takashi is appreciative of their patronage, and he always seems a little too wistful as he greets the kids. Lance thinks that maybe he wants some children of his own, but isn’t sure how to breach the subject with his husband. Adoption can be an expensive and grueling process around these parts. Takashi would make a good dad, though. Even Silvio comments that he thinks so too. 

When the trio is walking back home once more, it’s Nadia that speaks up first. 

“Uncle Lance, do you get paid to work on the farm?”

“What?” Lance laughs. “Why are you asking about wages?”

“We talked about it in school last week! Mr. Garrett came to talk to us about what it’s like to do his own store.”  

“It’s called running a business,” Lance corrects. He shrugs slightly. “But to answer your question... I get money. I do now, anyway, and my stipend gets bigger as I get older so I don’t move out and go work somewhere else instead.” 

“They didn’t give you any money before?”

“Oh, no. When I was a kid I had to help just because I was part of the family. You two are lucky your mom won’t let you work yet! By the time I was your age—“ 

“UGH!” Silvio is sick and tired of hearing about this particular subject and Lance can’t help but laugh. “You always talk like you’re old!” 

“I’m SO old, though.”

“No you’re not!”

“No, really, I’m old! My bones are made of glass and paper!” 

“That’s not what happens when you get old!” 

Silvio continues to argue with Lance about aging for most of the walk. As soon as they can see their house, the kids take off running, eager to have dinner and play. The family barely fits around their table anymore. Mom talks about Oxford and how well he’s already doing. Lance doesn’t have much to say. Having skipped lunch, he swallows down his food like he hasn’t eaten in weeks while the others catch up (minus dad and Luis, who both went to bed early), and then he goes back outside after he’s thanked grandma for her hard work. He finds his favorite oak tree on a nearby slope. There’s a rope swing there that he and Hunk put up when he was about seven. Lance intends only to sit underneath of the tree and wait, but he falls asleep. He’s jostled awake by someone’s foot. 

“C’mon, dummy,” Veronica calls. The sun, behind her, is nearly gone and rapidly descending down the sky. It will be dark in mere minutes. “We shouldn’t be out too late.”

“I was just resting my eyes,” Lance groans. “Is it that late already...?”

“You passed out! I had to look all over for you because you weren’t answering me when I tried to call for you.” There’s a soft plop and something barely taps Lance’s elbow as Veronica tosses it onto the grass. “I grabbed your bow and your stuff for you.” 

Lance has to blink a few times before he can place what Veronica is talking about. He’s nearly forgotten, in the day’s labor, that he and Veronica made plans the night before. He drags himself to his feet a bit reluctantly. It’s too late to back out, but right now he just wants to sleep. 

“I’m EXHAUSTED,” Lance whines as he stretches. He hears something in his back pop. Veronica just laughs. 

“You never pass up a chance to beat me at something, though,” she reminds him. 

She isn’t wrong there.

It was Ryan’s father, Councilman Kinkade, that taught Veronica how to use a bow. And then Veronica taught Lance. His other siblings didn’t show much interest in it, but Lance, as the youngest, thought it was cool and wanted to be like the elven heroes in his storybooks. His parents didn’t mind. They were just happy to see his energy focused somewhere. 

Once every couple of months or so, Lance and Veronica go together to the range just outside of the Kinkade cabin to get some target practice in. It’s supposed to be practice, anyway, but it tends to seem more like a contest. 

Veronica’s key opens the gate. The range is surrounded in walls to prevent any stray arrows from striking innocent bystanders. Ryan Kinkade knew this place like the backsides of his own eyelids by the time he was six, probably. He could outshoot both Veronica and his own father by the time he was twelve. Lance hopes to be that talented someday. He’s on his way there, but it will take time and discipline. 

“So?” Veronica draws her bow. “How did you fare this morning, with Ginger and all?”

She fires off an arrow. Not quite a bullseye, not yet, but she’s just getting started. Lance shakes his head to stave off the oncoming slumber that threatens to envelop him again. He’ll need his wits about him if he wants to win this round.  

They take turns shooting as they discuss the day. Lance can be honest with Veronica about Luis. Veronica isn’t necessarily on Lance’s side— she says she “gets where Luis is coming from”, and she HAS known him longer than she has Lance— but she doesn’t shoot Lance down or tell him to just deal with it, and that’s more than he gets from the rest of his family. But Lance can only complain about his brother for so long. Before the moon has properly risen, the conversation breaches that wicked, devious cat. 

“You... You haven’t gone for the cat, have you?”

Lance is tentative as he asks. He knows that Rachel has tried her hand at catching it, but Veronica said no such thing. Veronica makes a strange face.

“No,” she insists. “Mom and dad’s orders aside, I, uh, don’t think I would be Yorak’s type anyway.” She apparently has no intention of elaborating. Lance hasn’t dwindled much on the subject before, but as far as he knows, Veronica has never really dated and hasn’t expressed any interest in it. 

“I’ll say,” Lance agrees, snickering. Veronica raises an eyebrow at him. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you about it yet, but I might have spoken to him for a minute or two. With some of the others.” Veronica opens her mouth to scold him and Lance holds up a hand to stop her before continuing. “It wasn’t exactly my idea! And I don’t think he saw me, because I was in the back of the crowd, but we had to ask him about something regarding the challenge!” 

“And? What exactly did you asks him?!”

“Well, we found out that he’s actually gay. And that the girls shouldn’t bother trying at all. Only boys.”

“Oh?” Veronica laughs and scratches the back of her neck, looking embarrassed, before she waggles an eyebrow. “I mean... I guess he was awfully theatrical. He sure knows how to make a dramatic entrance.” 

“I-I don’t know that that means anything—“

“I know, I know. I’m only joking.” Veronica crosses her arms as she thinks, one of her thumbs stroking her chin. “I suppose that does change the game quite a bit, though, doesn’t it? It completely reverses the list of eligible bachelorettes—“

“Bachelors,” Lance reminds her. 

“Maybe we should just call them candidates. Contestants, even.” 

“It doesn’t feel much like a contest,” Lance grumbles. “Seeing as nobody really wants to claim the prize, far as I can tell—“

“Luis is already married,” Veronica interrupts, “and Marco’s too manly to even try. But if Rachel isn’t allowed to go after the key, then you aren’t either, so I guess the McClains are out of the running here.”

“I never said I was going to grab it!” She continues to stare at him, because big sisters always just KNOW somehow. “I just... I just feed the cat sometimes, okay? You were right. But I thought it was just a cat! It won’t let me touch the key anyway.”

“So you admit that you tried to grab it.” 

“...Promise you won’t say anything? It’s not like I even knew what it was at the time!” 

“Just this once, I’ll keep quiet, but you need to be reasonable here. You really don’t know what this Yorak figure is capable of and you’re already bold enough to go knocking on his door, tending to his familiars!” 

“You think I can’t fend for myself or something?”

Veronica wasn’t expecting that. Her arms remain insistently crossed and her gaze flickers behind her, towards the targets. Her latest arrow is lodged near dead-center. She’s forgotten all about the target practice in her lecturing. 

Lance hasn’t. 

He draws his bow. Shuts one eye. Holds his breath. Lets the arrow fly. And this one is so true to its mark that it nearly dislodges Veronica’s. She huffs in some sort of offense, some kind of indignation. Lance just chuckles as he makes his way to the target to retrieve their ammunition.

When he returns to Veronica’s side, she ruffles his hair. 

“Fine. You win this round. ...You’re growing up too fast.”

“I don’t think I’m growing up fast enough. I get tired of being the baby.”

“I don’t believe you.” Veronica squints up at the moon. It’s not full, not yet, but it’s getting close. Her glasses make her eyes glow. “I do get curious, too, you know. About Yorak. ...But don’t go saying that in front of dad!”

Lance knows better than to do that. He hasn’t even mentioned the cat around the older members of his family. Ol’ Farmer McClain has always looked up to Hieronymus Smythe. He’d never dream of humoring his greatest enemies. The Marmoras (whatever that means). 

“Do you ever get scared?” Lance asks. He thought that question would surprise his sister, but it doesn’t. She hums low. 

“Sometimes. I’ve always heard the scary stories, but they’ve never been this REAL, you know?” A pause, and then she looks back down at Lance. Her expression isn’t a reprimand this time, but it is firm. “Arrows might not save you from something that’s supposed to be immortal. Just... don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

Lance grins. He can’t help but be amused by her open concern for him. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 
 
Veronica is definitely unsatisfied with that answer, but she doesn’t voice those concerns as they make their way back to the farmhouse under the cover of dark. 

Chapter Text

Hunk Garrett is used to the sound of clanging metal-on-metal. He could probably sleep through it. 

Scratch that— he definitely has. He’s passed out in the workshop once or twice at least. When he was little he would curl up near the crackling fire and drift on in its warm glow. Until Hershel woke him, anyway. He wouldn’t want his boy to get hurt just because he didn’t want to disturb his nap. 

As a tinkerer, Hershel can fix almost anything, but he specializes in all things mechanical. The Shiroganes, for instance, are frequent customers between the bakery’s equipment and Takashi’s arm. Every would-be inventor in town stops by on a weekly basis. Even when they don’t need anything repaired, they value Hershel’s assemblage assistance, or his advice, or want to buy some of his parts or borrow some tools.

Hunk’s not where his father is just yet. He’s got his own flashes of brilliance owed to the creativity of youth that Hershel doesn’t have, but he doesn’t have Hersel’s learned wisdom. His craftsmanship, honed after years upon years of hard work. Hunk fancies himself more of an inventor than a tinkerer. A sort of mad scientist. He has his own little workshop where he collects everything he can— spare bits of metal too small to use, or loose nuts and bolts that don’t seem to go with anything— and uses them to fashion creations of his own. People call them automatons and he’s got at least one for just about everything he can think of. They don’t all work, but they’re getting there. 

Before he can play with and assemble the parts, though, he has to earn them. He’s fine with taking a smaller cash payout if it means that he gets the equipment he would have to buy anyway. So he started working in the shop once he got to be old enough that he could be trusted not to hurt himself with the flames or the sharp tools. 

Today’s not any different, at first, than any other day. Mom is baking sweets while his younger siblings wait at the table. She says she’s making enough to sell the extras to some neighbors that will be stopping by. Hunk’s brother has a few childish sketches for him— ideas for inventions, he says— and Hunk tells him that those are called blueprints and that he’ll be sure to add them to his workbook. He’s working on a machine that dispenses candy whenever the kids save up their allowance coins instead of spending them right away, but that’s supposed to be a surprise, so he doesn’t say anything about that just yet. 

Hunk has a big breakfast with the whole family around an even bigger circular table. They hand a basket of bread around, and there’s fresh fruit to go with everything. Hunk doesn’t have to wake before dawn like Lance does. The shop doesn’t open for business until later in the morning. It just doesn’t make sense to open that early— this time of day, people are going to work and dropping off their kids and making their own breakfasts, not walking to a repair shop. 

Uncle Filo is the one who walks Hunk’s siblings to school most days. Hunk is often the one to pick them up just in case he runs into Lance. The first order of business is getting the workshop ready. Their careful routine means that Hunk and his dad can start the labor early, so they’re already up and at ‘em by the time Filo returns and puts the sign out. It’s a busy day and the customers start appearing before long. Hunk’s mother runs the desk and takes people’s appointments. Her sweetness and charm are likely responsible for a lot of their customer loyalty. 

It is, as it seems, a very normal day. There is an average amount of business. No remarkable interactions with the customers and no funny stories or splendid discoveries about the work itself. No accidents or injuries. Hunk might have forgotten the day entirely. But it isn’t finished just because the work day has come to an end. He has promised to meet Pidge for a melding of the minds. They often combine their intellectual powers in the pursuit of making better and cooler automatons that can accomplish a wider range of tasks, and this goal has become an even loftier one now that Pidge has started studying a little bit of magick. 

The fusion of magick and science is something that Hunk could probably talk about forever. There’s always another thing to talk about because there’s always something else to try. But he can’t speak about it too openly. The Chieftain frowns upon that sort of thing. Always has. He was angry enough when he found out that Mrs. Holt was going to study white magick to help heal clinic patients, and that was for the greater good of the whole village (and is— Colleen Holt is not one to be so easily swayed by an angry old man telling her what to do, Chieftain or not). 

“Why does the Chief hate magick so much?” Hunk once asked his father. Hershel groaned at the question— obviously one that he had hoped he would not have to answer this soon.

“He... conflates things,” Hershel said. “Back when Plaht was founded there were plenty of mages. But as time went on he started thinking of anything magick as the domain of the witches and warlocks, and...” Hershel gazed out the window at the hilltop they do not speak of. “Well. We know how he feels about that.” 

The years only proved that Hershel had been telling the truth, even if he had oversimplified the issue. Hunk is certain that Hieronymus Smythe will not be changing his mind about magick anytime soon— it’s difficult to teach such an old dog a new trick. 

Hunk dashes to his and Pidge’s dedicated meeting spot as soon as he is free from his work and the greasy apron that symbolizes it. They like to unite beneath of a gnarled oak tree with twisty roots that’s about halfway between both of their homes. There is a familiar pattern visible here— Hunk, after a long day of hard labor, is energized and grinning, while Pidge almost always looks tired or grouchy. Hunk has boiled this down to a simple issue of passion. Hunk enjoys what he does and Pidge does not. It takes something more from her that Hunk cannot personally grasp. 

Before he can say anything, Pidge signals him with her hand. She points upwards. Hunk knows that this means Pidge wants him to join her in the camouflage offered by the branches for an extra bit of privacy. He groans, but doesn’t otherwise protest. It’s a bit harder for him to get into the three now than it was when he was nine. With a lot of struggling and heaving, and a moment of fear that the branch will snap under his hefty adult weight, he manages the task, and soon he and his old friend are side-by-side upon the branch with their legs swinging off the edge, like those long-long golden days when they didn’t have to worry about things like their jobs and village curses. 

“Check this out,” Pidge says in a boastful tone. She pulls from her knapsack a rolled-up sheet of aged parchment. Hunk already knows what it is.

“Don’t tell me that’s another treasure map,” he whines. It’s too late, though, to dissuade the devious sparkle in her eye. 

“Not just any! Matt sent this one. Said it didn’t really suit his guild. And I don’t wanna give him credit unless I have to, but this one dooooes have some clues hinting at something you might be interested in.”

Hunk can’t help but perk up at that.

“Don’t tell me— the gloves of transmutation?!” Hunk snatches this map for himself. It’s a special one, alright. The special ones are always practically impossible to read. It will take several trips to the library, and possibly Ina’s help, to interpret whatever this esoteric diagram means to tell them. But if it leads to those coveted gloves, Hunk welcomes the intellectual challenge. 

“I’m glad you like it so much,” Pidge says, and her tone is strange. Hunk knows why. He lowers the paper, just a little bit, to give her a sympathetic look. She jut pouts angrily at him in response. “Just wish I could find them myself. Matt gets to explore the whole country with his guild and that’s fine, but oh, no, not Katie!”

“They’ll come around,” Hunk insists. “I mean, your mom was the one that started studying magick first.”

“It’s just for work.”

“But still! You know Chief doesn’t really make a distinction there. White magick, necromancy— it’s all the same to him.” 

“Yeah, whatever.” Pidge gazes into the distance with her chin firmly resting on the back of her hand and her lip curled out at nothing in particular. Then, as it always seems to, it vanishes and she changes the subject. “Think we should show it to Lance?”

“Why not?”

“He’s been so busy. He might just feel bad that he can’t find the time to go with us.”

“I’m sure he’ll find the time for something like this! Somehow. You know how much he’s always wanted—“

“Shh.”

Hunk doesn’t like being shushed, and he definitely doesn’t like having it done to him rather forcefully with a tiny hand in his face, but the urgency of Pidge’s order does silence him. He follows her line of sight and imitates her decision to move further into the foliage so as to obscure herself from the view of the street. Pidge is squinting at an approaching group of figures. Hunk strains to hear what they are discussing, as it’s a conversation that sounds heated, or perhaps panicked. 

There is the Chieftain— the Chieftains, both acting and formal. Coran is supporting his aging father’s weight on one side. On the other is Councilman Griffin. Councilman Leifsdottir and the scribe, Tavo, trail behind. Usually seeing that whole group together means that some parade or town meeting is in progress. That’s why it’s so strange to see them like this. In a state of disarray. 

Hunk holds his breath and hears Pidge do the same as the elders approach the tree. They’re surely too focused on the mission at hand to look up and search for eavesdroppers in the shrubbery, but Hunk cannot help that impulse. 

The councilmen are not really having a conversation. They’re just hissing things at one another about being careful, but also hurrying the pace. Hunk and Pidge do not need more information to determine that Hieronymus is not well. That much is plain to see in his white and clammy face, in his hunched posture and his wobbling steps. 

Pidge waits until they are out of earshot, and just as she is about to say something, there are footsteps and two more voices. 

“Takashi! You can’t do anything more for them than the doctor can!” 

“That’s— don’t worry about me, just attend to the shop while I’m gone!” 

Takashi is intent on following the Chieftain all the way to the Holts’ residence. Adam is not so keen on the idea. He does as Takashi tells him to and turns back to mind the bakery, but not before he stares anxiously at his husband’s back. 

When Takashi, too, is gone, Pidge does not need to say anything. Both of them descend the tree as rapidly as they can and weave their way through hidey-holes and other forms of foliage until they make it to Pidge’s home undetected, and from there they run around to the side of the building and climb up a disguised series of crates and branches conveniently propped against the flaking wall. At the top awaits a section of the roofing that can be lifted up, and within it lies Pidge’s very own hidey-hole— her loft. A space that once was claimed by her older brother and that she now uses for astronomy and the occasional bit of shameful spying. It’s useful at a time like this. Both of the eavesdroppers crawl to the far end of the space until they are lined up with a crack in the mortar (usually concealed by a pile of old toys stitched together from buttons and burlap) that allows them to peep through undetected. 

Sam Holt is as professional as ever. He reacts to Hieronymus’ state with a respectable degree of urgency without betraying any shortage of confidence in his own skill. With Colleen’s help he is quickly assisted into a cot and Sam begins a preliminary evaluation while his wife prepares a salve to remedy the Chieftain’s fever. 

And yet, despite their efforts, the prognosis is grim. Sam does not have to say so aloud. Not in any technical sense. He’s something of a straight-shooter and doesn’t see the point of useless details. 

“I won’t lie to either of you— it’s not good,” Sam announces, wincing. “You, Chieftain, ought to be confined to bedrest. There’s simply nothing more that we can do for now.” 

The Chieftain grunts some sort of agreement. Maybe he expected to hear that. Hard-headed as he so often is, he must know that death is coming for him. He’s lived well beyond so many of his peers. 

“Very well,” he says as if he is not bothered. “I suppose that tonight, then, I shall have no choice but to formally sign over my post. Permanently.” 

Coran clearly wants to object. But he keeps his mouth shut. Sam looks at him and forces a smile. 

“We can worry about seeing to the paperwork if you’ll lend us Tavo. Right now the Ch— your father— needs to rest. Then, we can at least alleviate his pain.” 

“I... understand. I shall leave you to it, then.” 

Coran turns, expressionless, and leaves the room with his confused councilmen in tow. Hunk finds that this is a very abrupt way to respond to the news that his father is on his deathbed and that he is now well and truly the Chieftain— not Chief-to-Be, and not Interim Chief. Perhaps they are two kinds of news so completely opposed to one another that Coran is left in the grey of the very center. Or maybe it will take him some time to process what has just occurred. 

Whatever the case, Coran exits the building. Hunk clicks his tongue in annoyance as he and Pidge race back out of the loft as quietly as they can, careful to cover their peephole before doing so. Hunk lands too hard when he hits the grass and has to stifle a yelp. They crawl along in the grass until they are near the entrance and hiding behind Colleen’s prized rose bush.

Luckily for them and their nosy schemes, none of the men have anything to say for several seconds when they are safely outside once more. Coran eventually inhales deeply and projects his voice as much as he can. 

“Very well then— if I am to act as Chieftain it is best to start as soon as possible.” Or you just want to run away from what’s happening, Hunk thinks. “And now that I am in charge, I would rather be over-prepared for this drought than blindsided by famine.”

“A good call, sir.” 

“Councilman Leifsdottir: it’s time we enact the resource preservation program. Go and check on the wells and work out the math of it. And Councilman Griffin: pay a visit to Farmer McClain and let him know that it’s time to tighten up our soil management system, lest we face dust storms.”

“An excellent idea, sir. The McClain boys can help with forest and brush maintenance too, can they not? To prevent wildfires?”

“Indeed, Councilman. ...Go, now! Off with the both of you!” 

The councilmen are apologetic as they salute. They must salute him now— it is a particular gesture reserved for the Chieftain. They seem to have adapted to the transition of power quickly enough. As the men flee, they vaguely acknowledge the slowly approaching Takashi. Neither man is eager to make eye contact. Coran only gives him a silent nod before he, too, departs. He walks briskly away with his hands clasped behind his back and said back too rigid. Takashi watches him go. He knows that anything he says now will be ignored. 

There is a strange, quiet moment. Takashi is still, staring at the reflection of the setting sun on his metallic hand. Hunk thinks about standing up and saying something to him, because he and Pidge aren’t afraid of Takashi, but knows that doing so would betray their espionage. So he waits, and soon enough Takashi gathers his thoughts and knocks on the clinic door. Sam is quick to answer despite his preoccupation. 

“Shiro,” he greets, startled. “I wasn’t expecting you. If you’ve come for an emergency exam then I’m afraid—“ 

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I-I know you must be busy with the Chieftain.”

“...The former Chieftain.” 

“What?” 

Sam explains what has transpired as gently as he can. He closes the door behind him and joins Takashi outside for a moment, so that they can speak man-to-man. Sam Holt is the only council member that shows open admiration— even some degree of paternalistic affection— for Takashi Shirogane. 

“I... don’t know what to say,” Takashi says when Sam’s news is finished. “I-It’s not as though Hieronymus and I have always seen eye-to-eye, but I do know that my grandfather respected him, at least. It’s sad to see a part of that legacy go. ...Even if it’s a legacy that has run its course.” 

“I just wish that good men could quit bickering over the little squabbles and get along,” Sam laments, sighing heavily. He firmly grips Takashi’s shoulder. “D’Jahno was a good, good man. And he deserved a hell of a lot more credit than they’re currently willing to grant him.” The comforting hand slips away, as does Sam’s smile. “Not that I have any right to say that— I’ve never had the spine to go against Hieronymus.” 

“I doubt it would make any difference if you did,” Takashi almost scoffs (to Hunk’s surprise). “Stubborn old men will be stubborn old men. I doubt he’ll be swayed by some soft-spoken intellectual.”

The men share a laugh that Hunk doesn’t really understand. Sam shakes his head.

“You might just be right about that.” 

Takashi waits. Sam doesn’t have anything more to say about that, so he shrugs. 

“...Well. I should get back to work. I just wanted to know what was going on. Is it alright if I let Adam know?”

“That should be fine as long as he keeps it to himself and waits for the official announcement. I know Adam’s not one to run around town spreading gossip.”

With that, Takashi, too, takes his leave, and Sam retreats back into the clinic. 

Hunk waits for several seconds, counting out the moments in his head. He can feel the gears spinning up there. Like he’s been asleep for the last half hour or so, or like he imagined all of it, and he’s only just now registering the reality. He turns to Pidge. Her face is blank.

“...Looks like our fun might have to wait after all.”

“Yeah,” Pidge replies without looking at him. Her voice is small and empty. “Sounds like Lance might be busy for a while.” 

Chapter Text

Pidge does not properly enter her home the moment Hunk leaves. She gives her father a few minutes to process things, gives the air some time to settle, before she makes her entrance. She pretends not to know what is going on. She reacts to the news of the Chieftain's inevitable death as if it is the first, and not the third, time she is hearing it. Normally her parents would likely shield her from this sort of thing. They likely feel that they must inform her if the man is to die in their home. 

It's strange, really, that everyone seems so surprised. The Chieftain is very old. But, perhaps, that's the very reason. He has gotten so old that everyone forgot he could die at all. 

Pidge doesn't know the chieftain well— she's far too young for that. She can't say that she has any personal stake invested in this. Still, this much change this fast is admittedly frightening. Even for someone as hungry for change and adventure as she is. 

"We shouldn't linger on this for so long," Colleen Holt suggests, half-hearted. "I'll make us some stew." 

Sam Holt, simple and easy to please as is he is, perks up at that. He will never turn down his wife's potato stew. 

Dinner is largely quiet, though Pidge's father does his best to liven things up with a story here and a joke there. Pidge can't seem to force a convincing laugh as she stirs her soup of vegetables with her spoon, suddenly too warm for such a hearty meal and not very hungry. Lance is always the ideal person to have around at times like this, in some strange way, but he isn't here. So Pidge leaves the table early. She can feel her mother's eyes on her back as she goes. 

"I worry about her sometimes," Colleen says when she thinks Pidge is out of earshot. Sam laughs. Pidge doesn't know what he finds so funny about that. 

Pidge's room is small. She doesn't mind that. And it's only fair, because she also gets the space in the attic. It's cluttered, though, because she's a bit of a pack-rat and can never seem to let things go. Her desk is topped with cool rocks and crystals and plants and things that she fully intends to study, the floor littered with leather-bound books full of the scribbled fruits of her research, and the dresser hides the bounties from her many adventures under a thin layer of clothing meant to hide it. 

She crawls into bed with a sigh. The quilted blanket her grandmother stitched for her is as itchy as ever (she wouldn't use any other). Pidge had hoped to fall asleep quickly. She never does, though, and Colleen knows that. Pidge doesn't bother pretending to be asleep when she hears her door creak open, when the light from the hallway bleeds in as a cut through the dark. 

"Hey, hun," Colleen greets as she sits on the edge of Pidge's mattress. Pidge, slight as a bird, slides in her direction from the added weight, but doesn't sit up or turn to face her. 

"Hey."

"I know things have been... hard lately." That's an understatement. "And I know it probably doesn't help that the house feels lonely these days."

Pidge winces. That is, somehow, the worst thing her mother could have said. The house doesn't have to be empty without Matt in it, does it? She feels a flare of hot jealousy in her blood as she wonders if they'd say the same thing if it was switched. If Matt was home and Pidge was not. But, no, that would never happen in the first place, would it? Matt is allowed to explore, to spread his metaphorical wings, and Pidge isn't. That's that. 

Matt leads his own adventurer's guild. That much is known even to her parents. But she constantly has to hide her own membership in Lance's guild, has to make up stories about where she's going even when she isn't going all that far. When her parents do occasionally manage to find out the truth, she is scolded, and sometimes even punished. Is it really just because she's younger? Because they want to protect her? She doesn't know. 

Since she doesn't know how to voice her frustrations, and never manages to do it without saying something needlessly cruel that she doesn't really mean, she changes the subject. 

"Why is Plaht the way that it is?"

Colleen just sighs at first. She's tired of answering that question. Pidge is tired of asking it, somehow hoping that she'll get an answer that makes sense in her head. 

"We've had this discussion. You already know." 

"About the founding legend? Sure, I know the story, but I don't see why that should still matter so much." Pidge wrinkles her nose. Every year as a child she had to attend that silly youth festival in an embarrassing, brightly-colored costume and hear the ancient legend of Plaht's founding all over again. Even if it was a little different every time depending on who told it. 

It was said that many years ago, long before the arrival of the warlocks on the hill, the tiny cluster of land and homes and people that would eventually become Plaht was blessed by a forest fairy. Selfish hunters had stolen her treasures and desecrated her home one too many times. But the virtuous founder of Plaht drove those who would harm her away and swore to protect her forest, and in response she offered her blessing so long as his word is upheld. The old stone fountain in the village square— the one that always flows with clean water, somehow, even in these times of extreme drought— bears a plaque with esoteric runes said to mark the occasion and enshrine that promise.

Pidge has never believed in that story. 

"We are lucky to have been so prosperous for so long despite the village's size. The elders aren't about to tempt fate by changing things now." 

"Still, don't you think it's kinda ironic? It's because of that dumb old pact that we're dealing with the warlock problem in the first place! He obviously just wants us to leave him alone, but the village keeps growing closer and closer to his house. If we would just cut down some trees we could build in the other direction instead—"

"You know things just aren't that simple." 

Of course not, Pidge thinks. That's what you always have to say. And somehow she gets more from Colleen than she could ever get from, say, Coran. 

"Well, what do you and dad think of Yorak?" Pidge feels her mother glare at her at the mention of his name. They're not supposed to say it out loud, she suddenly remembers too late. She bites her tongue for a fraction of a second. "Do you think he's bad, too, or—"

"Katherine." She's interrupted again, and this time by a stern and uncommon use of the first name she hasn't gone by in years. She was Katie even before she was Pidge. "Tell me you aren't talking to him."

"Of course not," Pidge lies, thinking about how short he is. Does that count as a lie? It's not like she and Yorak have regular conversations, but she knows her mother would be mad if she knew about their brief confrontation. 

"Not everything is the way it appears to be. You're proof of that, aren't you? Hiding that big brain of yours in that tiny head." Colleen gives her daughter a playful sort of shove. Pidge resents being called tiny, but does understand what her mother is getting at. Then, she feels her mother's weight shift as her shoulders sag, and imagines that her mouth has settled into a flat line. "There are... things that you can't know yet. But you'll know them in time, and then it will all make sense. I promise. ...Don't you trust your folks?"

Pidge doesn't answer that one with a word. More of a grunt. Because she doesn't trust them— not really. She doesn't trust any of the adults. After all, she and the other young ones are always being forced to play by unfair rules. They're asked to blindly trust in old wives' tales that they aren't allowed to learn for themselves. They just have to accept that the truth is awful enough to justify all of it. 

What did Yorak DO, anyway? She wonders. Did he burn the village down? What, she wonders (with a creeping feeling of dread that's unfamiliar to her), is the warlock's heinous crime? 

Colleen leaves Pidge to her own devices after patting her head one last time (and insisting on kissing her forehead), but Pidge continues to pout and to wonder long after her mother is gone— she doesn't understand what Colleen had hoped to accomplish by visiting anyway. She loves her mom, but they've never seemed to understand one another, not in the way that she just gets her dad. 

She doesn't understand anything anymore. 

The more Pidge thinks about it, the less it all seems to make sense. Coran says that the rivalry with the warlock Marmora goes back to his grandfather, before Chieftain Hieronymus Smythe, but how could that be if Yorak is as young as he is supposed to be? Lance said that Takashi said he's only about sixty. Is Yorak being blamed for the sins of his forefathers, then? And is that fair?

She decides that she ought to poke around the library records and see what she can find. But she knows in advance that that is a fool's mission, and that the necessary information is surely locked away where only the high council members can read it. She finds herself thinking about that council, too— will Mr. Griffin get Coran's old spot when Coran becomes the new chieftain? And will they need another member then?

She thinks, and she keeps thinking. No turning her brain off now. It's going to be a long night. 

Pidge waits for several minutes that feel like several hours. She waits just long enough that she's sure her mother is asleep (she knows her father well enough by now to know that he's lying when he says he's turning in, that he always stays up for several more hours mixing tonics and cures for his patients). She is quiet as she crawls out of her bed, slides her wiry frame out of her bedroom window, and crawls her way back up to her fortress of solitude in the roof. 

She calls it her star hut. 

Colleen Holt took up the practice of white magick to assist her husband with their healing work about a year ago. Somehow no one has pointed out that hypocrisy, but whatever the case, it did pique Pidge's interest. That curiosity led her to the next town over, where she got her hands on her first set of Tarot cards and her first star chart. 

Lunar magick— it comes in many forms, like any other magick, but Pidge is mostly interested in the divination aspects. She thinks that predicting things is kind of like math, which she's good at, and she's always been nosy enough to want to know about things before they happen. Space itself is fascinating, too, and she often stares at the stars and wonders if there are other worlds out there beyond her mortal comprehension, beyond what even a warlock could imagine.

She pulls out her trusty telescope and her detailed maps. She must not be very good at star-charting yet, because so many things are changing so fast without her knowledge or permission. She's noticed those weird patterns in the sky, though. She knows not what they mean. 

Pidge is deep in a murky swamp of thought when she is dragged suddenly out of it by a familiar sight. It's not something in the air, but on the earth. When her telescope is pointed in the direction of the woods, she sees Lance there, by the edge of the forest, looking nervously over his shoulder, trusty bow in hand and quiver full of arrows slung over his back. She cracks a smile at their similar mindsets. He, too, is sneaking out, and going much further. 

Something moves to the east of him, just a flicker, and she moves her instrument to try and catch it in her lenses. It's... she's not sure what it is. There is a moment of something inexplicably dark, like a shadow, that goes slithering into the trees and is gone as quickly as it had appeared. She looks back for Lance too late. He is gone, too, having been swallowed by the foliage and the blanket of night. 

For a moment, she retracts, squinting and pursing her lips. She has a feeling that she should warn Lance, but how could she? What is she even warning him about? What was that just now? 

Whoever— or whatever— it was, something strange is in the air over Plaht tonight. And only time will tell if that is a good or a bad thing.

Chapter Text

Lance would say that he knows the Olkari woods that frame the Feldakor mountains like the back of his hand, but he would be lying if he did so. 

The truest truth is that these woods are so dense and so vast that he wouldn’t know them if he spent a hundred years there. And this is what he loves most about the woods. It’s the exact opposite of Plaht in that there is always something there that he has yet to see.

He DOES know them well enough that he doesn’t often get lost. There are proper pathways through the section just north of town where the brush has been cut back, and he knows how to navigate those and how to find his way back to them when he wanders away. He knows how to get to the foot of the mountains, where to find berries and mushrooms and crystal caves, and how to make his way to the wiebian swamplands. He knows certain parts well enough to occasionally join the Kinkades for their hunts.

Tonight, Lance is in search of caves once more, but the word “cave” is perhaps a bit loose. Many of them are more like holes or dips or crevices in the face of the rock that contain small amounts of crystal. Lance has mapped out dozens of these smaller nooks. Some of them connect through tunnels that are often so small that he won’t risk trying to crawl through them and getting stuck there to die an embarrassing death. Most of these caves are low-tier. The crystals they grow are abundant, but not worth much in terms of money or magick. Lance is always in search of bigger and better ones, where he might find those more coveted gemstones. Once he does, he can always come back to re-harvest when they grow back. The magick ones always do. Like vegetables, almost, so long as the “roots” are left intact, and he’s careful to collect them properly in order to preserve them. 

One would think that it would be easy to find a cave. Not so. Many of the little ones are hidden in the brush or behind collections of boulders. Some of the mountain tunnels, too, are so convoluted, so full of twists and turns, that one could explore over and over again and still miss some of its secrets. Outsiders don’t often venture into the peaks of Feldakor or the woods that surround it— to those unfamiliar, it is a rather daunting mountain range, the forests dark and unwelcoming. But Lance is as much at home here, jumping from rock to rock or climbing up a tree, as he is in his own creaky farmhouse. 

He’s a farmer by trade, but he’s an adventurer and a treasure hunter in his blood. His town and his family cannot take that from him. 

It is, at first, a standard outing. Even if something about the atmosphere seems almost magickal, and even if he feels strangely compelled to remember every detail about the trees and the full moon above him and the smell of the air. He makes note of it all. And in doing so, he sees something odd. Several tiny holes dug in the dirt from which something was removed. Herbs, perhaps, or magick crystals. Lance knows now that he is not alone in the woods. 

As he stalks through the trees with this new knowledge, he hears it. In the distance his ears just barely detect the sounds of twigs breaking underfoot. It’s wrong, though. Not human boots. More like the haunches of some large animal. He knows this much from his excursions going bow-hunting with the Kinkades. Quietly, he draws his bow. Just in case. 

Twenty feet. The sound is close. The creature, whatever it is, is pursuing him. If it’s an animal he is accustomed to, it should be easy enough to frighten it away. He knows how to avoid being eaten by now, but he would be lying if he said it didn’t make him nervous. 

He rests, prepared for anything, back against a tree. He close his eyes and inhales a breath. He jumps out from his hiding place, bow at the ready. 

Nothing.

Suddenly, there is a silence. And that’s suspicious in and of itself. Lance squints, scanning the horizon, and still, there is nothing. ...An animal didn’t dig those little holes, did it? What use does an animal have for medicinal herbs? 

He holds his breath. Perhaps the beast is listening for him. Apparently satisfied that Lance has left, It begins to move again. This time, Lance sees it leave the bushes it had concealed itself in, and it takes all that he has not to shriek or flee at the sight of it. 

A wolf. They’re uncommon enough in these parts, especially at that size (he had expected a fox or a coyote, or even a small bear) but this one is especially strange. Its fur is pitch black. And though it seems larger than local wolves, it is lean and slender, a sleek shape cutting through the light that leaks through the trees. It blends effortlessly into the shadows. How long has it been there? Has Lance simply not noticed it because of its camouflage? 

Lance thinks his trip must be over. He doesn’t want to kill the wolf, but he doesn’t want to end up its dinner either, so it’s best to retreat. He makes sure the creature is not facing him before he moves. 

He jumps, startled. It somehow got on the other side of him, lightning quick and with hardly a sound. It’s looking at him. The eyes, they glow. They’re purple. 

That’s no wolf, he thinks, though he knows not what it is. 

The creature waits. Lance doesn’t give it long to think. He secures his bow and then hurls himself into the nearest tree, lifting his own weight with one arm. If it’s bound by the movement of a normal wolf it shouldn’t be able to climb. He climbs through the branches, making his way from treetop to treetop, thankful for the density of the foliage. When he catches glimpses of the ground he thinks he sees the beast pursuing him, but before long he loses sight of it. He has evaded it, he thinks. 

He travels a bit longer above-ground. Better safe than sorry. When he’s back to terrain he recognizes more readily and knows it’s a straight shot from there to the forest’s exit, he finally makes his descent. There is a slight clearing in the canopy of trees here with enough moonlight that he can make sure he didn’t scratch himself on any branches. He should be able to easily readjust his equipment and gather himself before he leaves. 

That is what he plans to do. But instead, his feet hit the soft soil and he just barely regains his balance before something alters the shape of the light. He registers the shadow before he can identify the shape. The wolf, he thinks at first. It has caught up with him and intends to devour him. But, no. This one is a human silhouette. ...Right? 

Lance looks up, catching a startled scream in his throat and making some kind of choking sound instead.

No. Not human, after all. 

“Yorak. ...That’s you, right? I didn’t come here to bother you.”

Yorak doesn’t respond with any kind of confirmation, or with anything at all, but that’s definitely him. Lance is reasonably sure that it’s him, anyway. He still hasn’t gotten a direct look at the guy. He’s going off of Takashi’s description and the glimpses he got over James’ shoulders. 

Silence. Yorak just stares. He’s holding some kind of staff with both hands, and his fingers grip it tight. Is he... is HE scared? Of Lance? Yorak’s eyes are focused not on Lance’s face, but on his bow. Ah, Lance thinks. I pointed it at his... at his wolf. It must have been his. Kitty has similar coloring. Yorak has all kinds of strange familiars, it seems, and he doesn’t much appreciate them being threatened. Lance wasn’t going to hurt his pet, though. 

“I-I, uh... didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Or your wolf. I really wasn’t gonna shoot it! I thought it was a normal one and didn’t wanna get eaten, but I usually just have to scare ‘em away. I don’t shoot anything if I can help it. I’m sorry about that, really. S-So if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way—“ 

Before Lance can even finish his apology, Yorak is closer to him. The gem embedded at the top of his staff acts as some sort of lantern. Lance’s face is flooded with a blue-green glow. So is Yorak’s. Now, truly, they see one another for the first time. 

Lance freezes in place, back against the bark of the nearest tree. He knows that he should run away. But he can’t, somehow. He feels as if the eyes he’s now locked onto are staring straight through him. Maybe Yorak is casting one of the horrifying spells that Lance has heard so much about. A spell that has instantly captivated him. 

Eyes like that have to be witchcraft, don’t they? The steely violet-grey, the pointy edges of those long black lashes, all so vibrant despite being hidden under the cloak of shadow provided by his hood and the canopy of trees. If he can see them so clearly , they must be glowing, right? Or is that just the reflection of the moonlight? 

“Who are you?”

Those are the first words out of Yorak’s mouth once he seems satisfied with his inspection. Lance, of course, does recognize that distinctive voice, and his suspicions are confirmed, even if it’s quieter now. The question is less of a demand and more like genuine curiosity, as Yorak sounds perplexed about something despite the apprehension in his hard gaze. Annoyed, maybe, at having been interrupted in his witchy tasks. Lance swallows and touches a hand to his own chest. 

“Uh. I’m Lance. I’ve been talking to your cat!” 

Lance winces at himself, at how stupid that must have sounded. Even though he has, quite literally, been talking to the cat. The familiar. Yorak’s head tilts very slightly, like he’s amused, or maybe offended. It could just as easily be either one. He’s hard to read. Lance only has his guesses and he keeps second-guessing himself. 

“You have. I know that. I know your name, McClain.” 

Lance’s hair raises at the fact that Yorak does, in fact, know his full name already. Maybe he does spy on the village. Or maybe Kitty told him? Can the cat talk? He can’t help but feel like the cat can talk and simply chooses not to do so. 

“Then why did you ask me?” Lance asks, nearly a sigh. His shoulders slump uselessly. Yorak shakes his head. 

“I didn’t ask you what your name is.”

“...Oh.” Lance stops to think over the deeper implications of a nothing-question that he has always answered habitually. These witches and warlocks have different formalities than mortals do. Do they introduce themselves by age, or by rank, or by profession? “I’m... a farmer. Technically.”

“Is that all?”

“No!” Lance can’t help but be offended by that. “I... like animals. I take care of them a lot. And I like exploring, and sailing, and swimming, and adventure, and I have my own guild and a few friends I care a lot about and a really big family that I like spending time with. Especially my sisters, and my mom, and my little niece and nephew. I’m a pretty good cook, too, and I play an instrument.” 

“I didn’t ask for your life’s history either.” Well, what was I supposed to say?! Irritated, Lance looks around. No sign of Yorak’s wolf, or dog, or whatever it was. “What do you want from me?” 

“Nothing. Where, uh, where did the wolf go? It reminded me of your cat, so—“

“I sent him back,” Yorak interrupts too casually. 

“Back WHERE?”

“To the hell dimension, of course. Now answer me!” 

“I— I did!” 

“Nothing? You don’t want anything?” 

“No! Nothing.”

“Well, then. If you will excuse me...” Yorak raises his staff. Lance flinches, thinking he is moving to strike, perhaps, but Yorak just taps it twice on the ground and the crystal in the center brightens its light enough to illuminate the ground. “I have work to do, so I’ll be on my way.” 

His footsteps are not thunderous as he turns and walks away. Some leaves crunch rather anticlimactically beneath the feet of his boots. He grows smaller as he becomes more distant. 

Lance watches him, thinking on how strangely... normal he is. He has a hell of a presence, to be sure. But Lance doesn’t feel intimidated anymore. Not quite. Just a little tense, and he’s certain he would feel that way about meeting any mysterious cloaked stranger in the woods. 

He was expecting a little bit more from a warlock. 

Lance sprints ahead until he is barely trailing the hooded figure and slows to a walk when he is nearly beside him. 

“What kind of work?”

Yorak stops and turns, very slightly, to glare at him.

“Excuse me?”

“What sort of work are you doing?”

“What business is that of yours?”

“It isn’t my business, but I can’t imagine what you would need to be doing in the woods in the middle of the night—“

Yorak whips around. Sudden. His eyes are dark. 

“I’m here to eat your soul, obviously.” 

Yorak says that a bit louder than he has said anything else thus far. But Lance just blinks at him, because he can’t tell if that was meant to be an actual threat or a bizarre joke that fell flat. There’s a painfully awkward moment where no one says or does anything. Yorak sighs and looks kind of embarrassed. 

“...Potions,” Yorak amends, as though clarifying that he was, in fact, only joking. “I need to harvest ingredients for my potions. There are mushrooms here.”

“I could help.”

“I don’t need help,” Yorak scoffs, “and besides— aren’t you supposed to run away and scream? Or try and stab me? Cut off my ears and sell them?” 

“What?!” Lance has never even heard of the ear thing. “I’m not some kind of brute! And honestly, I don’t think you’re all that scary.” 

“No?” Yorak definitely sounds annoyed despite his haughty little smirk. Lance does his best to conceal the fact that he is, actually, quite nervous, because he has no idea what the hell he’s doing. He tries to focus, to think about Takashi. Warlock or not, Takashi trusts this guy. 

“Nah. You didn’t do anything to my friends and I when we stopped by.” 

“So you were with that group... Some nerve you lot have.” 

“Hey! Aren’t you glad we came?! If we hadn’t they would have kept sending you women!” 

Lance didn’t come to these woods with the intention of bickering with warlocks, but, well, here he is. 

“I didn’t know humans were so presumptuous. That’s your own damned fault,” Yorak argues. 

“You’re not— you’re not wrong. I guess. It was the elders who assumed, though. They were the ones that kept getting the girls all dolled up and sending them to your house with their little parades.”

“And would you, as a mortal, happen to understand why? Because I certainly don’t.” Yorak says the word “mortal” strangely. Not quite bitterness, as far as Lance can tell. Sarcastic, almost. 

“They were sure you wanted an heir!” 

Yorak snickers. Almost. 

“Not very imaginative, then, are they?”

“D... Do you not, uh, need it to be a woman? Do you guys reproduce differently?” 

“The elders think that I can singlehandedly trigger lightning storms that topple your essential architecture out of mere spite—“ So they did confront you about that whole bridge collapse thing, Lance thinks— “but they still assume that I have to do everything else the old-fashioned way? ...I’ll never understand it.”

Yorak didn’t properly answer the question, but then, why would he? Why should he? Lance is just some strange human that’s tagging along with him. He’s tolerating the nuisance for now, but he has no real obligation to explain anything about himself or his ways.

“I-I think they’re just afraid of things they don’t understand. And they don’t understand you. How could they, anyway? You’re always hiding up on your hill, right?”

“Who says I’m hiding?” 

“Oh, well, I can only assume—“ 

This time, Yorak stops walking so suddenly that Lance almost bumps into him. Scared of Yorak or not, Lance has yet to touch a warlock and he isn’t eager to risk doing so. 

“ENOUGH of this!” Yorak is exasperated and hostile, seemingly out of nowhere. “Enough of your games. Honestly. What do you want?”

He’s... pouting, almost. Lance is standing right beside him, so he can see him properly. The hood and his hair cover the pointy little ears that Takashi has said he’s supposed to have, and Lance wishes he could see them, but... well. He finds himself struck once more by Yorak’s narrow, almost elven features. He admires them in the same way that he might admire artwork. 

It’s sort of distracting. His throat is dry, so he swallows before offering an answer. 

“I’m just... curious. About magick. The village, it... sort of suppresses access to that kind of inf—“

“Oh, I’m well aware of that,” Yorak interrupts with a sigh. He puts his hands on his hips as best he can without letting go of his staff and looks around. At the dirt, mostly. They’ve stumbled upon an impressive patch of mushrooms of several varieties. Some of them bounce the moonbeams they’ve absorbed back up into the sky, giving them a metallic sort of glow. Those are the special ones, Lance has heard. The ones Yorak has been digging up, perhaps with the help of his wolf. 

There is another painful stretch of silence between them. Lance is very aware of the sounds of chirping crickets around them. 

“Fine,” Yorak says. Just one word, but he says it as though he is agreeing to something. Lance doesn’t know what. 

“Fine?” All Lance can do is parrot him. Yorak isn’t looking at him, though. He’s kneeling down to collect the mushrooms he has fixated on. 

“If you so insist on pestering me and that it’s purely for an education in those forbidden arts, you might as well make yourself as useful as you can manage to be.” 

Lance doesn’t really know how to react to that. It was quite rude, in terms of tone and the implication that Lance is little more than a pest to him, but he’s also... agreeing to let him tag along? To learn something about magick, even? 

That’s not an opportunity he can pass up. 

“What should I do?”

“Look. With your eyes. Obviously.”

“Okay, yeah, but for what?” 

“More mushrooms. Try paying attention, won’t you?”

Lance bites back his retorts, not wanting to press his luck with a warlock, and does as he has been told. 

It’s not especially hard to do, but it is tedious work. He keeps an eye out for the mushrooms while Yorak also takes the time to clip some herbs with a tiny blade— it’s only sensible to multitask when he has an extra set of hands to use. Lance has a sharp eye, though, trained from his target practice. He has an armful of the things before long. He hopes he’s dug them up properly, having taken note of the way that Yorak does it with fibrous roots intact. 

Yorak doesn’t offer a thanks as he accepts the gift. He just puts them in the pouches he has hidden under his cloak and starts to walk away, seeming to know exactly where he is going. He does not look over his shoulder to confirm that Lance is still following him. He just knows, somehow. 

“...What are we looking for now?”

“A clearing in the trees. I need moonlight.” 

“Ah. You’re out here because the moon is full, right? That’s a magick thing.”

“That may be the smartest thing you’ve said yet.” Lance once again ignores his brand of jabs. “You are correct. The moon is a generous patron.”

Lance doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t ask. 

“...I could find you a clearing.”

Yorak stops walking and narrows his eyes at him. 

“Oh?”

“Sure. I know where we are. There’s a big one not far from here.”

Yorak just stares at him. After too long, Lance realizes he is waiting. Yorak really must not get out much, because his social skills are in sore need of improvement. Lance wanders off without his permission and hears the warlock following, putting some measure of faith in his ability to navigate. 

His faith is not misplaced. It is only a matter of minutes before they find what Lance promised. A break in the foliage, through which the moonlight is as clear as could be. It’s so bright here that Yorak’s staff is hardly necessary. 

“I like to sit on that rock over there sometimes,” Lance explains with a half-hearted point at the flat-topped boulder towards the clearing’s edge. “It’s a nice place to gather one’s thoughts.” 

“...I see.” 

Yorak unbuckles his pouch full of mushrooms and scoops a few of them out with his palm. He squints at the dirt, trying to find the very center of the clearing as best he can. Lance clears his throat. 

“Anything else I can do? What’s the next step?”

“Now, I... have to make a circle.”

Lance watches as Yorak kneels and digs a little hole in the soil with his fingertips, essentially re-planting the mushroom there. It begins to glow once more as soon as it’s bathed in the earth and in the silver light above. Another moment of observing and Lance thinks he knows what Yorak is doing. And it’s going to be a long process if he does it alone, so Lance wordlessly takes a handful of the fungi for himself and gets to work. 

What they end up with is not a perfect circle, but it’s large and quite impressive, if Lance may be so bold. Yorak seems satisfied with it. He strikes Lance as the type that’s difficult to please, so he’ll take what he can get here. 

He doesn’t pester Yorak as he moves through the motions of the next step. He places a metal basin in the center of the circle and fills it with cool, clear water from a canteen. The surface is placid as glass and perfectly reflects the bright orb in the sky. 

“Stand aside,” Yorak orders. He exits the mushroom circle and Lance follows suit. “On the other end, if you please.”

“You’re gonna do some magick with this stuff, right?”

“I plan to do just that. This is the process of procuring a more troublesome potion ingredient. Very potent, though.” 

Lance imitates Yorak as he kneels once more by the edge of the circle. Yorak rubs his palms together before placing them on the ground, eyes closed. Lance does the same, but knows his hands don’t have the same effect. Even from this distance he can feel the static-like pulse coming from Yorak’s hands. 

All at once, the mushrooms glow brighter than ever before, and the basin of water with it. If it was like a mirror before, it is now like the moon itself has been liquified and gathered in that basin as it bled from the sky. Lance holds his breath and doesn’t dare interrupt with his voice for once. 

Instead, he studies Yorak while he can. The warlock’s eyes are closed and he looks surprisingly peaceful, though his lips twitch with some song or incantation that Lance cannot hear and would likely not understand if he could. His dark hair is thick, almost unruly in its length, but looks silky all the same. His cloak is carefully stitched with embroidered details and accents of gold, his gloves mere decorations that cover little more than his palms. When his mouth parts as it stutters on a long word, Lance catches a glimpse of sharp teeth like the fangs of a predator.  

But Yorak is no predator. Not here. Not now. 

The ritual is not one that takes an especially long time once it has begun. When the silver essence in the basin seems to thicken into something not dissimilar to liquified silver, Yorak heaves a heavy sigh and opens his eyes at last. He inspects his work, and then, apparently satisfied, he procures a collection of glass bottles and jars and uncorks the first of them. He is careful as he collects the liquid. The containers are already labeled— essence of moonlight. It certainly is. 

“What, um, does this stuff do?”

“That depends.” Yorak sounds tired. Maybe he exhausted some of his magick. “It’s mostly used in the lunar arts of dream magick. Hard to attain pre-made— it’s a delicate practice.” 

“Dream magick, huh? Is that, like, prophetic visions, or is it more like astral projecting or lucid dreaming?”

“...That depends.” Lance interprets that to mean that Yorak is fully capable of both, but that there are complexities he doesn’t care to explain to a mortal. 

Lance continues to watch in silence until Yorak has exhausted most of the basin’s reserves. This looks, to him, like a proper restock of this particular resource so that he doesn’t have to do this ritual again anytime soon. Soon there is only a sliver of the stuff left. Enough to fill a standard cup, if that. 

Yorak stares at the shivering droplets. He shifts suddenly and grabs a different sort of container, like a beaker or a vial. This one he has not labeled and he doesn’t bother doing so. He just scrapes what little he can of the moonstuff into it and seals the cork shut before he finally moves to stand, taking his supplies with him. 

The vial is then thrust into Lance’s palm after Yorak seizes his wrist without warning. 

“For your cooperation,” he offers. An eye twitches. “And, I presume, your silence.”

Lance can’t help but hear that as a veiled threat, somehow. Don’t you dare tell anyone what happened here. He doesn’t react, though, as he hadn’t planned on telling anyway. Who would believe him if he did? 

“You don’t have to offer me anything,” Lance insists. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with it. ...It IS pretty, though, I gotta admit.” He passes the vial between his fingers and watches the contents glimmer. 

“I know better than to believe that. A trade is the simplest way to resolve these things.” Yorak is distrustful. But that makes sense. He has no real reason to trust Lance yet. 

This is less a generous offer and more a bribe. Lance doesn’t mind either way. 

“With that, then, I should be on my way. Are you satisfied?” Yorak asks. It translates to something like are you going to leave me alone now?

“...Almost.” Lance studies the bottle until he can confirm that the glow is not a trick of the moon’s reflection. He looks up and dons as neutral an expression as he can manage, not wanting to betray the smirk that lies beneath his lips. “Who are you?”

Lance caught him off guard. A success. Yorak’s eyebrows raise slightly, though Lance can just barely see their impeccable shapes through his fringe of hair. The warlock is intrigued. Lance can see it. 

Yorak smiles. Just a little bit. One hand reaches for his hood, and Lance thinks, for a moment, that he might lower it, might let Lance look upon him (and his pointy ears) properly. But he has no such luck. 

“I’m not yet inclined to answer that question,” he says. “But... I like animals, too.”  

With that, Yorak’s other hand moves— the one by his hood an apparent distraction of sorts— and then he is gone. Lance knows no other way to describe it. He’s there one moment, and then there is a puff of radiant smoke with crackles and pinpricks of light like the sparks from a fire, and then Yorak isn’t there anymore. 

Lance blinks. The spot before him is still empty. 

Did he create the warlock? Was the Yorak that he just saw a figment of his imagination? A fanciful delusion, maybe, that he engineered from the beauty of the moonlight and the trees? 

He looks at the bottle in his hand. It’s still there. Still sparkling. 

No— that Yorak was real. And he is not at all what the village has told him to expect. 

Chapter Text

Lance's entire life changed that night in the Feldakor woods. 

He's always been a curious sort, eager to see whatever he can see, but interacting with Yorak face-to-face and one-on-one has multiplied that natural inclination tenfold. It has verified every sneaking suspicion he's had since childhood that the village's war on that hilltop is not what it seems. It has confirmed that Yorak the Great and Terrible is perhaps not so terrible, if a little cranky and antisocial.  

Now that he has a taste of that forbidden truth, he craves more, and he will stop at nothing to get the answers he so desperately wants. 

The village of Plaht won't make this an easy task, of course. Knowledge of magick in any form is heavily frowned upon and he has gotten in trouble with the council enough times that he wouldn't get a slap on the wrist if the elders knew. But there's nothing wrong with reading up on what's publicly available in the library, is there? And with Ina's help he has at least some semblance of cover. 

Ina brings him a large stack of daunting tomes and Lance winces at the sight of it. She gives him an unimpressed stare. 

"You wanted to know so badly," she reminds him. "You'll have to start somewhere. The elders wouldn't just write everything down in one easy-to-access place."

"I guess not," Lance groans. It's going to be a chore to glean anything at all from what little he is allowed to access. 

Plaht's public historical records are extremely vague whenever they do make note of the local warlocks, and most of the recorded events seem to cover small disputes. Every time a sheep mysteriously drops dead or an especially strong thunderstorm burns down a woodshed, the misfortune is blamed on Yorak, or on different warlock called "Krolia". With or without evidence. It's more of the same absurdity and Lance feels silly for having wasted three days' worth of his spare time poring over everything he could find in those dusty books. 

It's onto the mythological texts, then— Ina, admittedly, has to help him decipher those. They're written in the heavy esoteric prose of eras long past, often by hand in fanciful fonts that Lance cannot seem to read. Once interpreted, these texts are both more entertaining and more informative. Every little thing he learns about Yorak's people is somehow fascinating despite (perhaps because of) the shroud of uncertainty. 

What the people of the nation of Aurita know as witches and warlocks are the descendants of a magickal race from the mountains of the distant northeastern nation of Daibazaal, once called the Galra. They were said to be enormous compared to mortal men, with animalistic features and glowing eyes and purple skin. Those features faded over time as the bloodline of the original species was thinned. Daibazaal was a warring nation of many races in those days, and the Galra eventually chose to scatter about the world due to increasing hostility towards them in what was once their home. They are, in the modern era, bound together not by location or community, but by occasional meetings in secret places and traditional rituals. They are a secretive people by necessity. They are secretive because of pride. Both of these things are true. 

It is strange, for sure, to live in such a nomadic and independent way. But Lance doesn't know the pain of being cast away from his home, and he cannot imagine it. He wonders if those old scars can linger in the genes, like a grudge attached to one's blood, or if Yorak's distrustfulness is all his own. 

"Where are these so-called secret meeting places? And how often do they meet?" Lance asks. Ina, pretending that she is not equally curious, stares out a window and shrugs. 

"If that was known it wouldn't be a secret, would it?" 

"Do you think certain people go to those meetings?"

"...He doesn't strike me as the type." 

It seems Lance won't find all of his answers in ancient texts. 

He works the farm by day, goes adventuring at night, and spends his afternoons in the library for many days, continuing his research of these "Galra". He learns that their magick is drawn from the earth, and that they tend to seek gifts and trades of items like animal bones, mushrooms, herbs, precious metals, and crystals. They are known to enjoy savory flavors and never turn down a good stew. Though they often excel in combat, they see this as an intellectual art and are not interested in the idle physical activities of mortals. Many are voracious readers. Others are artists. Some, even, are poets and musicians, and all in service of their patron gods. They are respectful of Mother Nature and are known to keep pets. 

...The part about gifts, admittedly, gets Lance thinking. It has not occurred to him to give Kitty anything other than offerings of food, but if Kitty answers directly to Yorak, he can surely bring him other things, can't he? If Lance gives Kitty something he can't eat, will Kitty take it to Yorak for him? The thought of it is thrilling. Yorak has already given him a gift, after all, even if he thought it was a bribe. 

That gift. He keeps it under his pillow when he sleeps, and he's noticed upon doing so that his dreams have become more vivid. Is he practicing some sort of dream magick without realizing it?

"Do we keep books on lunar magick here?" Lance asks Ina when he next visits the library. She gives him a stern look. 

"Not in the public area. Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Because I want to study it, obviously."

"Haven't you pushed your luck enough?"

Maybe he has. Lance pushes it no further and gives up for the evening. He assumes that his luck has finally run out, and that he can learn no more. Ina has been generous enough in allowing him to read about the warlocks, and in keeping watch for him. He returns to his usual work and it seems even more tedious than it once did. 

He crosses Ina's path next when he's in the local tavern trying to drink his boredom away. Alone. He didn't expect to see her there, and her nose wrinkles at the smell of the place as she distastefully eyes the other rowdy patrons. She carries some sort of bundle under her arm, and she waits for only a moment before she marches towards Lance. 

"Ryan told me that you would be here," she says, and then she shoves what she's carrying into his chest with enough force to jab him in the space between his ribs. "For you." 

In his drunken stupor, it takes him entirely too long to relieve Ina of her burden and take it in his own hands and undo the impromptu wrappings. 

It appears, at a glance, to be a leather-bound text on the local flora and fauna. Lance is confused as to why Ina would gift him with something like that, even if it's a nice book. It is when he opens it to look upon its insides that he understands. The cover is a lie. Ina has carefully taken the pages of a lunar magick spellbook— "moon magicks", it is called— and encased them in a deceptive shield. She likely did this by hand, and Lance can only guess how long it took her to find a book that was just the right size. 

"It's a gift from my personal collection," she says loudly enough for the others to overhear. "You never did read enough. Ryan says this book was quite helpful in his hunting."

"Tell Ryan to mind his own business," Lance teases. He doesn't mean that. Ina knows. "Thank you," he adds, quieter. Ina nods.

"Don't make me regret this." 

Lance wants to keep his promise to Ina, and so he knows that he must be careful. He reads the spellbook only when he is alone. He concludes that he has, in fact, been practicing some primitive form of dream magick with the aid of Yorak's essence of moonlight. Yorak surely must have known that Lance could use it for such a purpose, right? Isn't that an awfully generous gift? 

He intends to return the favor. It is with that purpose in mind that he pursues his next adventure. He and his guild accompany Matt and his crew to the north, where they help a shepherd escort his flock of sheep through a mountain pass while protecting them from would-be bandits. They are paid in gold coins, in leather armor, and in rare crystals. Lance's parents, in need of the funds, know and approve of this particular excursion. He doesn't mind parting with his share of the money. Because he has set his sights on those gemstones. 

Some more reading tells him what kinds of stones he's procured, and what they're useful for, and how best to care for them to preserve their mystical qualities. He polishes them, and then he bundles them together in a handkerchief with some potent herbs and a hastily scrawled note and secures it with twine and hides it in his satchel when he sets off for work one morning. When the day's work is through, he makes his way to the village square and locates that now-elusive cat. He shrinks away from Lance's offering. 

"Take it," Lance pleads. "Take it to your master. It's a present. He'll know why."  

Kitty can definitely understand his words, Lance concludes, because the feline stands there with his head at a slight tilt to contemplate what Lance has suggested for a short while. Then, almost begrudgingly, the cat opens his little jaws and takes hold of the fabric bundle. He has some difficulty with the weight of the stones. Lance pats his head as a quick apology. He watches Kitty leave, somewhat disappointed at how brief their encounter was, but happy nonetheless that he's earned the familiar's trust. 

He does not see that cat again for a number of days that stretch monotonously into a week. Soon, he's nervous. He wonders if his research was incorrect and if his gift has offended the warlock somehow. He goes for a horseback ride through the countryside to clear his head and just breathe for a while. Alone. Away from the drought and from Plaht and its expectations. When he returns to the village, walking Kaltenecker behind him and guiding him along by the reigns, he somehow wanders his way to the old schoolhouse. He watches from a distance as the children eagerly flee the confines of the building. He stays hidden as he watches Veronica pick up his young cousins in his stead. He's not sure why he's hiding, but he does it anyway. 

Lance continues to stand there for some time. A slap to the back of his head reminds him of the fact that he's still blocking part of the pathway. He turns to find James, arms crossed, looking as stern and disinterested as always. 

"You and your oversized stallion are standing right in the middle of the road," he scolds. 

"I can see that! What do you care, anyway? Your students are gone now."

"We're expecting the council! I'm sure you don't want to be here when they show their faces. What with your recent library excursions."

James doesn't elaborate, but he doesn't have to. Lance knows that he knows. He won't talk, will he? Lance is unsure. 

Before he can beg for his secrecy, Lance spots something dark behind him, nearly concealed in his shadow. He makes a noise of realization so loud that it stuns both James and Kaltenecker. The horse is agitated by what it sees. 

"Kitty! You're back! Leave him alone, James."

"I wasn't going to grab him! ...He's too fast for me, anyway."

The cat does not move. Lance approaches him instead, noticing as he does so that Kitty is carrying something in his mouth. Another bundle. This one is smaller than the one Lance gave him, and the note is on the outside, affixed to it with the same sort of dark ribbon that binds the key around Kitty's neck. Lance points at himself and looks imploringly at Kitty.

"Is that for me?"

Kitty drops the package on the ground and answers with a single mewl. It's the first time Lance has heard the cat make any noise besides a hiss. It sounds strange, though he can't explain how. Kind of like a cat that can talk but is pretending it can't, maybe, he thinks. 

Whatever the case, he doesn't need any more instruction than that. He's careful when he kneels down to take the gift— he knows he'll get scratched something fierce if he so much as grazes that key with his pinkie finger— but does so with hands that tremble in their excitement. 

Farmer Lance:

Something for your steed.

~Yorak, Clan Marmora~

The bundle contains some kind of food item that looks to be made from oats. Indeed, the sort of thing that seems more suited to a horse than to Lance. He turns to look at Kaltenecker and instead catches James' face entirely too close to his own. He shrieks. 

"Don't feed him that," James says, sparing no sympathy for his fright. "It could be poisoned."

"Why would Yorak poison my horse?!"

James hushes Lance with a high-pitched hiss and looks around fearfully. Right, Lance remembers. The council. He probably doesn't have long to stand here and think things over before the council members arrive. He pulls himself back to his feet. Kitty doesn't move. He just stares, amethyst eyes unnerving in the way that they are unblinking. 

If he is going to establish a relationship, as he intends to, then the least he can do is accept Yorak's gift. Right? Isn't that what Kitty is waiting for? 

"Here you go, boy," Lance coos at Kaltenecker as he offers the treat. "For you!"

Kaltenecker gives the food a sniff before he deems it safe and eats it in two big bites, right out of Lance's palm. James watches disapprovingly. He obviously wants to say something, but he holds his tongue for once. A few seconds pass. Then, Kaltenecker whinnies his approval and kicks up a cloud of dirt. Lance smiles. It's as if the treat gave the horse an instant burst of energy. 

"He liked it? ...He liked it! See, James?! It's fine!" 

"...If you say so. But don't complain to me if he throws it up later." 

"Yeah, yeah— you can never just let me win, can you?" Lance ignores James' protests and instead returns his attention to Kitty, who waits patiently and has definitely gotten closer since last he looked. "Thanks for that. Tell your master that the gift was appreciated, okay?"

The cat definitely looks satisfied with itself as it takes its leave. 

Lance watches the distinctive silhouette slink away and wonders if this means that he and Yorak are— in some loose sense of the word— friends.

Chapter Text

Lance can’t help but yawn as he looks over the shoreline at the hazy objects in the distance, and this despite his interest in making sense out of the shapes. He’s grateful for the fact that his father is still busy with the transaction behind him, or else he’d tease him about his earlier insistence that he wasn’t tired. 

The air in the town of Nalquod always smells like salt. Every so often the McClains take a few days to travel there to sell livestock and crops. Lance’s father is fond of the fish that the man by the docks sells and always buys plenty to take back to his wife. Most days Lance would use that exchange as an excuse to talk to the fisherman’s daughter. Today, though, he finds himself distracted. 

Past the ocean, somewhere, is a country called Daibazaal. Of course he can’t see it from here, but how far away is it, exactly? What’s it like there? Lance has always felt something pulling him past the sea. He wants to know what’s out there. He can’t stand not knowing. What if he never knows?

“C’mon, son!” His father’s voice calls. “Let’s get a move on! We wanna be out of here by sunset.”

“I’m coming!” 

Lance jogs to his father’s side. He doesn’t even ask before he shoves a bundle of fish into his son’s arms. Lance wrinkles his nose slightly at the smell, but looks forward to the meals nonetheless. 

“It was nice to see you, Lance,” Florona says. She’s wearing a nice dress and smiling at him. “Come by again and visit soon, okay?” 

“Uh. Sure.” Lance squirms at the attention. At the fact that his dad definitely notices. What’s wrong with him today? He’d normally be delighted. “See ya.” 

Lance is quiet and keeps his head down while they reload the wagon. It’s not until he’s standing beside his dad as he prepares to command the horses that the man finally cracks a grin. 

“So Florona likes you, huh?”

“I guess so.”

“Why not give her a chance? She’s a pretty girl.” 

“You’re not gonna make me a marry a local girl instead?” 

Lance means for that to come out as a joke, but it doesn’t. Not quite. His dad laughs like it was funny. 

“That’s the council’s deal. So your brother might not like it, but I don’t care so much if she’s a local so long as she’s a nice girl from a good family. That’s what’s really important if she’s gonna give me grandkids and work on my farm.” 

Lance just hums, briefly, as some form of agreement, but doesn’t say anything. He climbs into the back of the wagon to watch over the cargo and watch the changing scenery fade away behind him, his feet hanging out the back. 

When they stop at a tavern between stops, Lance hopes his dad would have forgotten about Florona, but he hasn’t and he’s still teasing. 

“If that’s your type, why not just go for Plaxum?” he asks. Lance laughs nervously. 

“I don’t think she’d appreciate me asking her out. Seeing as I, uh, kinda broke her heart when we were twelve.”

The tension breaks when Lance’s dad groans and buries his face in his hands. 

“What on earth am I supposed to do with you boys?” He laments. “Between you and Marco— I swear.” 

They eat until their bellies are stuffed full and then spend a night in that tiny village. Early in the morning, they wake before the sun does and set off for Plaht. Lance can see the mountains that surround it long before they get there. He smiles at the cool afternoon breeze. Business trips can be exhausted, but he’s glad he’s old enough to tag along now, because he does love getting out of Plaht and seeing new places and faces. It also makes returning home feel sweeter. 

His siblings help with unloading the cargo when the wagon pulls up to the McClain’s farmhouse. Lance’s dad, apparently, intends to take the rest of the day off, and he tells Lance that he can do the same. Lance grabs his shoulder before he can get back into the house and pass out there. 

“Actually, can I take the horses? Somewhere special. They worked hard, too.” 

Farmer McClain thinks that over for a moment. He shrugs. 

“If you want to. Just make sure to put the tack and things away.” 

With that, it’s settled, so Lance releases the horses from the confines of the wagon hitch before he leads them away and down the spiraling dirt path that leads just out of town. Whiskey, the larger of the pair, seems to know exactly where they’re headed and his tail swishes upwards in his excitement. 

A short walk past the last houses of Plaht will lead the weary traveler to the sprawling beauty of the Juniberry fields. Here, a smaller stream forks off of the river and crosses through the swathes of pink buds. The remnants of a worn wooden fence dot the edges of the plain, while a similarly weathered signpost points out the directions to Plaht and to neighboring Yalexia. The flowers are both sweet-smelling and a tasty treat for horses, while the field is large enough that they can frolic through it or take a comfortable nap in the sunlight. Whiskey makes a beeline for the stream as soon as he is freed, where he takes a long drink of the cool water. 

Lance doesn’t mind letting them have their fun for a while. He, too, could use the distance and the time on his own to try and sort out his own thoughts. He sits on a tree stump and pulls out his river-pipe— it’s a little instrument made from a hardened reed that he learned to play as a boy. His current pipe is getting old and he’ll have to fashion a new one soon enough. The horses are startled, briefly, by the sound before they return to their grazing. Lance can’t help but laugh into the mouthpiece as he watches them chase one another in circles. 

It’s only reasonable that he would get distracted after a while. He did come here to think, and think he does. The sun sinks lower in the sky until it dims into a blush-colored haze and the horses, now weary from their playing, are resting nearby. Lance hears Willow stand, and then hears her freeze, and he pays it no mind until she makes a sound of distress. That, at least, snaps him out of it. 

When Lance finds Willow, she is staring at something, refusing to move but visibly upset. He expects to find an animal (though he can’t imagine what sort of animal would attack something as large as a horse in the daylight hours) and draws his pocket knife just in case. 

But, no. Not an animal. Not exactly a person, either, though. 

“Yorak?” Lance puts his hands on the horse and tries to comfort her. “Is that you?” 

“...It is.” 

As Lance suspected, the warlock himself is standing there looking confused and out of place against the backdrop of flowers. He’s wearing one of his usual cloaks. His face is barely visible beneath it. 

“Could you put your hood down? I think that’s what’s scaring Willow.” She could also sense that he’s not human, perhaps, but Lance doesn’t want to say that. 

“I didn’t mean to scare her.” 

“I-I know, it’s just... Usually people with hoods like that are bandits, so—“

“Fine, fine.”

He is apprehensive about doing it with Lance looking at him, but Yorak does lower his hood at last. Lance can finally see his ears. They’re... cute? Somehow? He isn’t sure why. Yorak is also wearing what appear to be small earrings, which is interesting. 

Yorak gives Willow a moment to smell him. She seems confused, but no longer fearful. She’s still as Yorak strokes her nose. Lance isn’t sure if Yorak approached her in order to do that, or if they crossed paths accidentally, but he won’t push his luck by asking him. He’s probably already pushing it by talking to him so casually. 

“I, uh, started figuring out how to use that stuff you gave me. The moon water. ...Magick is confusing.” 

“It is.” That was meant to be funny and Lance phrased it that way, but Yorak treats it like a very simplistic statement of fact. He isn’t looking at Lance. His eyes are fixed on the soil below them and the blossoms that protrude from it. Just then, Lance notices that he is carrying some kind of basket, where he already seems to have collected some of the flowers. “Don’t mind me. I won’t bother you.” 

Yorak spins on his heels and walks away. Lance stands there, uncertain of what to do for a moment. It feels rude, somehow, to just let him walk away without a proper conversation, but at the same time, Yorak isn’t exactly a social creature. In the end his instincts win and he lets go of Willow to rush after him. 

“What are you doing?” 

Yorak stops and cocks his head slightly. 

“Flowers. ...I came for flowers.” Lance waits for him to elaborate, so Yorak does, though he seems impatient. “I’m looking for juniberries with bright pigments. They’re useful for making paints.” 

“Paints? For potions?”

“For painting, fool. What else?” 

Yorak makes a mocking sound. He searches the flowers and kneels when he finds an especially bright patch of them. Lance watches as he carefully plucks them from their stems and puts them in his basket. He seems to be on the lookout for fully-bloomed and dark flowers with big, healthy petals. 

“...I could help.” 

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Yorak makes no effort to so much as look at Lance. “I had no intention of interrupting your alone time.”

“Then why come here at all?” 

“Because I had already intended to! ...I thought about returning home when I saw you, but I assumed you wouldn’t attack. I just wanted to pet the horse. That’s all.” 

Lance frowns. 

“Do people usually chase you away or something if you try to approach them?” 

“...It varies.” 

It checks out. Lance knows there must be a reason that people don’t usually see Yorak in the flesh. If he can’t so much as forage for mushrooms without being harangued and stalked, and without striking terror into the hearts of mortals whether he means to or not, it’s no wonder he keeps to himself. 

Lance makes up his mind and joins Yorak in the grass. He’ll need help if he wants to fill his whole basket before nightfall. Yorak does not look up, but he freezes for a moment, so Lance knows he’s noticed. He says nothing as he begins to pick at flowers for himself. 

“So what kinda stuff do you paint?” 

“...Landscapes, I guess.” Yorak grumbles his answer like he’s a little kid being forced to come downstairs and talk to a relative he doesn’t care for. “I make my own brushes and they’re rather blunt. I’m not good enough at it yet to do anything else.” 

“Painting’s hard. You don’t have to beat yourself up over it.” 

“I’m not— it’s— it’s a newer hobby. I usually draw. ...For now I’ll just call my paintings abstract.”

Yorak’s shoulders relax after some time. He doesn’t like being looked at directly, but he’s not hiding from Lance’s gaze, either. When Lance can sneak lengthy glances he confirms that besides the earrings, there are other little holes along the lobe and in the cartilage of his ears, so that he can wear a variety of piercings in different places. Lance recalls seeing drawings of ancient Galra in his studies with ears and noses and brows decorated with chains and rings in silver and gold and all colors of jewels. Yorak isn’t quite so ostentatious. 

It’s obvious that Yorak isn’t accustomed to idle conversation. He doesn’t know how to keep a topic going. Lance asks him a leading question every so often, and Yorak answers it, and before long the thread reaches its end and Lance has to start over. He rambles about the farm and his siblings and the village, and he has questions about magick that Yorak isn’t sure how to answer in as few words as possible. 

“How do you make paint?” He asks, desperate. Yorak glances at the basket and confirms that it’s not quite full yet. 

“...I have to grind them down into a powder. Just for the pigmentation.”

“Does it have to be flowers?”

“No.” 

“What else—“

“You don’t have to do that,” Yorak interrupts. “I’m not good with formalities.” 

“But how’re you ever gonna learn if nobody tries? You’re getting married eventually, remember?” 

At that, Yorak gives him a cross look. But Lance hasn’t said anything unfair or untrue, has he? So long as the “curse” is in effect he may as well refine his underdeveloped social skills. 

“I suppose I am,” he relents. “Though I hadn’t thought of it that way. It’s not as if I’m thrilled.” 

“Well, no. Of course not. The whole thing is kinda weird. ...Sorry about that, by the way. That we had to go and bug you at your house just because everyone assumed you wanted girls—“

“No, I— I should have specified as much. With how backwards your village is, I should have known it would pose some problem.” 

If anyone else had said it, Lance would have felt some need to defend Plaht. He doesn’t feel like doing so at the moment. He looks at its blurry shape in the distance over his shoulder. As the sun has hidden itself further behind the mountains, more and more of its lights have turned on, so it looks like a collection of fireflies on a summer night. Strange that something so lovely can hide so much ugliness, he thinks. 

“You’re not wrong,” he eventually admits. Yorak’s brow raises slightly, but he says nothing more. “What’s that like for you guys, anyway? Is it treated the same way or is it no big deal?” 

“It makes no difference for most of us. My mother could have cared less. Most Gal’raa can reproduce with one another regardless of sex, so—“

“Wait, really?!” How had that not come up in the textbooks Lance had so carefully studied? Was it just because no one had bothered to ask? Lance supposes that it’s an invasive question to ask someone directly. 

“So long as both parents are the same species, then, yes, really. It’s not always the same for blended families, though. I don’t know that I can reproduce at all.”

“What?” Lance squints at him. He looks perfectly healthy. “Why?” 

“...Never mind.” 

Yorak, with Lance’s help, has depleted this patch of all the flowers that he can use. He stands and moves to another, where he goes right back to the meticulous process. Lance doesn’t follow right away. He’s been left behind with a number of juniberries that weren’t quite good enough. He looks at them, and then at the back of Yorak’s head, grinning. 

Being the youngest sibling in such a large and close-knit family has left Lance with a few devious tricks. He’s quiet on his feet, he can swipe things off of people without them noticing, and he can do the same, essentially, in reverse— Yorak doesn’t notice Lance putting the flowers in his hair. His hair is thick enough that the stems hold firm and don’t budge once they’re there, and the pink petals are vibrant against his dark locks. He continues to test own stealthiness (and the warlock’s patience), slipping more and more flowers into the arrangement whenever and however he can, until eventually Yorak is sporting something akin to a crown. It’s at that point that his own sputtering laughter betrays his antics. 

“What have you done?” Yorak touches his own head and scowls when he finds the juniberries. He plucks one from his scalp to look at it and crushes it between his fingers. “A very good job. Just grand. I hope you’re satisfied with yourself.” 

“Very much so, yes.” Lance approaches with a handful of flowers and moves as though he intends to replace the one that Yorak has removed. “Don’t ruin my handiwork!” 

Yorak swats his hand away and stands to his full height in one swift, fluid motion. Lance steps back, just a bit, but doesn’t turn away. The look on Yorak’s face probably should scare him. It doesn’t. 

“Do you have some sort of death wish?” Yorak asks. Lance thinks on that and has no idea what it’s supposed to mean, so he just shrugs. 

“Nah. Why?”  

“Because you refuse to take me seriously,” he elaborates. “I could lay a curse upon you, you know.” 

“I mean, yeah, sure. But you won’t. Right?”

“How could you possibly know that?” 

“I guess I don’t.” 

“...You’re very strange. But, then, I’ve never understood humans.” 

Lance, for whatever reason, takes that as a compliment. 

Yorak’s basket is full at long last. He’ll have enough pink paint to last him for quite some time, Lance guesses. Or, maybe, all of those flowers will produce only a small bowl of pigment. And then he’ll need Lance’s help again. He hopes that’s the case, and that this won’t be their last meeting. 

The horses watch, anxious, as Yorak dons his hood and prepares to depart from the field. 

“Will I see you again?” Lance asks. “I’ve always wanted to know more about this magickal stuff. About you. The elders don’t tell us anything if they can help it.” 

“You might,” Yorak answers, looking at the sky. “So long as I can complete my tasks in peace, I can’t say I mind the company. Just don’t mention it to anyone else.”

“I won’t. Promise.” 

Yorak, not one for formalities, doesn’t say goodbye. He spares one last glance at Lance before— poof!— he’s gone. Once more, Lance is left to wonder if he imagined the entire thing as he walks the horses home. 

Chapter Text

Yorak isn't the sort that spends a lot of time with others. At all. He does visit that baker occasionally, but it's not as if he can stick around for long when he does— the villagers would punish Takashi if they saw Yorak in his place of business. So he has never kept the company of a mortal long enough to hear about his family and his daily life. Lance McClain is a strange disruption to his routine and has completely defied each of his expectations of a human farm boy. 

...It's also made him recognize his own loneliness for what it is. That is his motivation as he frantically searches through a velvet bag of what would appear, to the unenlightened, to be a bunch of shiny rocks. They're much more than that. Memory stones, his mother called them. She spent many long nights making them for him not long before she left him here all alone. 

There are many ways to use a memory stone, but Yorak has his preferred methods. He picks the memories he wishes to see and he dons his special fitted glove with a groove in the back of it in which he can insert the right stone. He then stands above his cauldron and casts the memory like a vision across the glass-like surface of the water. He is proficient enough at magick that he can see the visions clear as day. 

Yorak usually picks the same stone. Tonight is not different in that respect. It is the first one in his collection, chronologically speaking. Or, at least, he has always assumed as much— some sort of nameless fear has thus far kept him from inspecting each memory. He ignores that fear as he watches the familiar pictures dance across the water. Krolia holds her newborn son in her arms and rocks him gently back and forth, singing him a chant in a language he knows only bits and pieces of even now. She tells him what his name means, why she chose it for him. He is dressed in handmade robes that look strange on an infant and are too big for him. She tells him that he is quite small for a warlock, hence the errors in his wardrobe, but that she loves him anyway because he is her son, and she knows that his heart is big. She will see to it that he grows bigger and stronger and she will never, ever leave him. 

But that memory, as it always does, fades, and then Krolia is gone. She has been for quite some time now and no amount of remembering will bring her back. Even magick can't do that. Yorak stares at the water in what is now a pitch-black room, and for the first time in a long while he finds himself thinking about his father. He hardly knew the man, after all. Even his face is a blurry picture in Yorak's head. 

He takes a deep breath. He lights a lamp before he searches through the stones, the surfaces of them cold against his skin. He feels the energy that pulses from them and searches for his father. He finds one that bears the man's energy, and for many long moments he does nothing but cup it in his palm, uncertain of what to do with it. Now is as good a time as any, he decides, and so he casts the memory. 

Yorak's father was a mortal man. Yorak is stiff as he squints at his features, searching for something familiar there, and he finds it. He sees his own self in him. His coloring, and the texture of his hair. His smile. Yorak doesn't have his mother's smile, and he always thought that he did, and he doesn't know how to feel about that revelation. 

How much more is hidden in these unassuming stones? Yorak can approximate a vague idea of their contents and their emotions, but he isn't certain. Once more, he argues with himself as a vision ends. This is always where he stops himself. But Krolia gave these to him for good reason, didn't she? He has been terribly selfish thus far. Selfish and cowardly. 

Yorak has, without thinking, ignored his mother's repeated warnings. She once made him promise that he would never, ever cast a spell while he was angry— when he didn't truly mean it. And yet he's done just what he promised he wouldn't in cursing the village chieftain. Why didn't he listen? He of all people should know what can happen when spells are cast under emotional duress. When magick is used like a reflex. Krolia learned that lesson the hard way, and even now, his memory is a senseless swamp of sensations because of it. 

He knows she didn't mean it. He knows that. She wept as she insisted as much, over and over again. But no amount of her apologies ever undid the damage. ...She shattered his memory. She broke it. With a single touch of her hand, she split his fragile young mind into thousands of fragments, and all because she made a subconscious wish that he would not remember his pain. These stones, now, are all that he has to glue his memories back together. She wanted to make up for her mistakes somehow. What right does he have to defy her final wish? 

Yorak takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and chooses the stone that calls to him. He has never watched three visions in one night before, but there's a first time for everything. Colors swim into focus on the surface of the liquid. Right away, he knows this memory is... different. And he knows, then, why he has been so afraid to view it. His blood runs cold at the eerily familiar scenario that plays out. 

The witch Krolia of the Clan Marmora prowls through the Feldakor woods in total silence. Her form is that of a black deer, sleek and elegant, antlers like the branches of a birch tree spindling away from her head in impossible spirals and with eyes like violet flames and with legs so long and slender that the hooves in which they end are like merciless daggers. Subtlety, it seems, is not her strong suit. This is clearly not an average deer. 

Without warning, and despite the odds, she is confronted by a puny mortal man. A dark-haired hunter with his bow and arrow drawn and ready. Her fur bristles. A black miasma spills from her in glowing particles. A warning to anyone with common sense. But the man is not scared away, perhaps because he lacks it. Intrigued, he grins. 

"It's you," he declares. "The witch from the hilltop." 

"And what do you know of witches?" Krolia answers in several booming voices, only one of them her own. Her form lurches, and it looks like her spine breaks. The shape of the deer twists and lengthens until Krolia stands there as herself. Taller than any human woman, with alien but regal features and adorned in gold and jewels and billowing robes, ears a fine tapered point, hair like silk, eyes like death and teeth sharp enough to inflict it. Beauty and terror all at once— something Yorak can only aspire to as he is now.

All the while the hunter watches. He is mesmerized, and apparently he is happy with what he sees when her transformation is through. The grotesque nature of the change doesn't seem to register with him. 

"So it's true," he breathes. "You can shape-shift."

"What do you want with me? If you intend only to waste my time, or are truly so arrogant as to believe that you could harm me, I will be on my way." 

"I intended not to distract you, your witchiness. Not at all! I only wanted to see what everyone else was so afraid of. And now that I have... I hardly see anything to fear." 

Krolia contemplates this. She does not appear to move, but she is inches away from the hunter's face in the blink of an eye, her searching expression unchanged. 

"Is that so?" 

The hunter shivers slightly, but he does not retreat. 

"Yeah," he affirms, grin widening. 

Krolia, unimpressed, takes her leave. She knows without having to look that the mortal follows, as he makes no effort to conceal his footfalls. She tells him that if he is going to stalk behind her, he may as well make himself useful to her. So she has him assist her in gathering animal bones— if he is a truly a hunter he should know where to procure them. He offers to get her fresh ones and she scoffs, asserting that she has no need for such cruelty. Is it not enough that she must grind their bones for her potions? She has no desire for the deaths of the innocent. 

The man is obedient enough, it seems. Krolia makes a bitter remark about how men are as easy to discipline as dogs. She also scolds him about the fact that he insists on staring at her face, though. He asks what he is expected to do in the presence of such beauty and she scoffs. He never once complains as he does the witch's bidding, and so when they part, she begrudgingly gives him a token of her appreciation. A charged crystal, she calls it. An amethyst that should bring him clarity of mind. 

"I've never believed in all of that mumbo-jumbo about vibrations," he says as he inspects the present. Krolia doesn't hide her amusement. 

"You ought to in this case. I've blessed it with my magick." As if to prove the truth of her words, the gemstone glows. The man puts the cord around his neck to confirm that it fits him, and it does as if it was custom-cut for his neck.

"In that case, I will cherish it. Always." 

Krolia raises her head proudly. 

"A wise decision," she assures him. "A mere mortal needs all the help he can get." 

The mortal in question does not buy into her routine— a wall carefully crafted to shield her— and smiles at her as if she was any one of his neighbors. 

"Will I see you again?" The inquiry is casual, but there is hope in his voice. 

"...We shall see." 

The memory ends as the witch and the mortal part ways, and Yorak withdraws fearfully from the cauldron to fall against the far wall. His chest rises and falls too quickly and his breath is hoarse as he tries to refill his lungs with much-needed air, but he has been so transfixed on the vision that he does not know when he forgot to breathe. 

He cannot help but look to his cupboards, where he can see a large glass bottle full of fresh essence of moonlight. He cannot help but recall how he acquired it. Is he doomed to repeat his mother's mistakes, or...? Were they mistakes at all? He wouldn't be here at all if not for that folly. But Krolia would also be alive if not for that mortal. Yorak suspects as much, anyway. Had she not wasted so much of her magick trying in vain to extend his mortal lifespan, she would have had to strength to fight off some silly illness. 

Yorak wipes the sweat from his clammy brow and then shakes his head. He is overthinking things, he's sure. He decides that he is only allowing himself to do so because he has not slept in some time. 

He clings to that belief as he turns in and he blatantly refuses to dream, as though a lack of his own meaningless nocturnal visions will erase the ones he knows all too well are real.

Chapter Text

Lance is noticeably grouchy as he tosses another hay-bale onto the back of the wagon. His brother Marco slaps him across the shoulder blades once their father is safely out of earshot. 

“Cheer up, kiddo,” he mocks. “You shouldn’t take it so personally.”

“Do you have any idea how much fish I’ve given that cat?!”

“Maybe you gave it bad fish. Maybe you got it sick.”

“…Maybe.” 

Lance doesn’t know what, exactly, he did or did not do, but Yorak’s familiar has started to ignore him. Worse, it has started avoiding him like a plague. It’s not something he would have complained to his family about, normally, seeing as his parents wouldn’t want him interacting with the cat anyway, but it’s not his fault. Rachel spotted him chasing after it and yelling. And then she went and told the others because she thought it was funny. He got an earful about it over the dinner table after their parents had gone to bed. 

His siblings, of course, do not know the real reason that Lance is so bothered by his predicament. If Kitty were any other cat, he probably wouldn’t take it personally. Animals can’t speak and it’s useless to try and understand their motives. But Kitty is different. He is a direct conduit to his warlock master. And if Yorak’s messenger has taken to disliking Lance, then what of Yorak?

He feels foolish for having thought it now, but Lance had hoped they would become friends. Maybe he could have talked some sense into Yorak, could have convinced him to call off his blood oath.

He never meant to offend the familiar, but it can’t be helped. It was fun while it lasted, he thinks. 

The sun beats down on his bare shoulders and he wipes sweat from his brow with a scrap of fabric. Spring has been unusually warm this year and at this rate, summer will be here at any moment. Normally Lance would be delighted by this. He was born in the summer and he’s the type to enjoy it. But when the town is so affected as it is by a drought, the heat will bring with it its own share of problems. Lance has been awake for only a few hours and he’s already managed to stress himself out. 

“That should be enough,” Farmer McClain says when he returns from the house with two water-pouches in his hands and observes his sons’ work. “Drink up.” He tosses one of the pouches at Lance and the other at Marco. Marco empties it in what seems like a matter of seconds. Lance is awfully thirsty, but each sip is as guilty as it is refreshing. Not everyone in town has their own well. 

Hopefully, Farmer McClain (and his wife and Luis, too) can successfully trade the crops for some of the supplies the town needs during their trip to Jitan. The whole family has been hard at work producing a high-quality yield. So hard at work that there’s little else to do now that most of it is packed into wagons. Marco tries not to sound too eager as he glances sideways at Lance. 

“So, uh… what do we do for the rest of the day?”

“I suppose you boys have earned a break.” Marco hollers and is quickly interrupted by his father. “But don’t think you’re getting a vacation! You’ll still have to look after the place while your mother and I are gone. Feed the animals, tend the fields, help take care of your niece and nephew, keep up with your chores—”

“Yeah, yeah, we got it. I’ll make sure Lance behaves.” 

“Why are you singling ME out?!” 

Lance doesn’t get an answer, but, then, he didn’t really want one. He remains in place beside his brother, waving at the wagon as it disappears, until it is a dot in the distance. Marco darts off without warning. 

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got plans!”

“Since when?” 

That question also goes unanswered. Marco isn’t the only one taking advantage of the free time— Lance is standing in an empty farmhouse before long. Oh, well. Lance can keep himself entertained just fine. 

Lance starts seeking out things to do to occupy his time by checking on his friends, of course, but Hunk is hard at work on an automaton and Pidge is helping her parents run the medical clinic. So he decides to spend the afternoon fishing, like he and his older brothers often did when he was younger. There’s a particular part of the river just outside of town, towards the swamplands, that’s ideal for it. It’s where Veronica first found the reeds that she would later fashion into flutes. It’s where they found their first dog just wandering around in the brambles with an injured leg. It looks like any old riverbed, but it’s a lot more than that to Lance. 

He’ll have to go back to the farmhouse to get his gear anyway, so Lance takes the long way through town and knocks on the door of Plaxom’s place, in search not of her but of her father. She tells him that his back is still injured, as expected. So Lance offers to bring them any fish he catches if they’re willing to buy them off of him. It’s a deal, Plaxom says, and she retreats into her home in search of her father for several minutes before she returns with a hastily-scrawled list of prices and things. Bartering like this is one of the nice things about living in a village like Plaht, and definitely one of the things that Lance would miss if he left it behind. 

“I’ll definitely come back with something,” Lance boasts. “I’ve got my family’s magic bait AND my lucky charm here!” 

He indicates the amulet on his wrist. Plaxom bends over, slightly, just to study it. 

“It’s nice,” she says. “Where did you get it? I kind of want one…”

“No can do! It’s handmade. It was a gift from my grandpa.” The Old Farmer McClain may have died many years ago now, but his memory lives on in little things like the many gifts he made for his descendants. In that way, Lance really does believe that the talisman is lucky. It’s lucky just because he believes that it is. Because it reminds him of someone special. 

It takes Lance a long while to settle down once he reaches the riverbed. He thinks it might be good for him to go fishing more often. He tends to have trouble keeping up with his own thoughts most days. Waiting for a bite seems to be one of the only things that can get him to shut up for a minute. And maybe forget about that stupid cat, he thinks with a frown. 

The quiet time does him some good. By the time he’s caught several fish (and very nice ones, if he does say so himself) he feels far less tense. He’d catch more and stay longer, but he can only carry so much on his own. When he and his whole family fished together, one of his sisters was usually on standby to run their catches back and forth. It was a good way to cut back on food expenses when crop yields were low. 

With the drought, though— how much longer can they all rely on their river to sustain them? Lance doesn’t want to entertain that thought, so he fills his sack with his prizes and gets ready to go. He still has several hours of sunlight left. He waves at the Kinkades, just then on their way out for a hunt, before he gets on his way. 

The trail back to the town square from the distant riverbed is one that he doesn’t often run into others on, but it’s not unheard of to do so. Plenty of people live on the outskirts of Plaht. And unfortunately, some of those people are on the village council. Lance swears under his breath when he recognizes the voice of one such man. 

Ina’s father. He doesn’t live in the little home in back of the library any longer. Marital troubles, if Lance has to guess. He’s been condemned to a lonely cottage. A very nice one, but it’s empty of everyone but him, which makes Lance think that it can’t be a pleasant place to be. Lance would know his sniveling voice anywhere. 

“Damn it,” he hisses. He isn’t about to get spotted by that guy. Not with what he’s been up to lately. 

He frantically searches his surroundings until he spots as good a hiding place as any behind a tree, partially buried beneath its roots. With seconds to spare, he curses at the realization that he can’t just leave his sack of fish sitting in the middle of the path either, and so he’s forced to forsake his hiding spot to retrieve it and just barely cram the both of them into the temporary shelter. The smell is awful. He’ll have to put up with it for a few minutes. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about,” another man says. Pidge’s dad. Doctor Holt. What he of all people is doing being harangued by Councilman Leifsdottir, and so far from the clinic he’s supposed to be managing right about now, Lance has no idea. “Children are naturally curious, aren’t they? Telling them what they can and can’t know will only make the problem worse!” 

“YOUR children may be as curious as they want. I only ask that you keep their interests away from MY daughter.” 

“With all due respect, councilman, my daughter doesn’t see yours all that frequently. And she might be a bit strange, but she tends to keep her interests to herself. She’s a secretive girl. What reason do you have to assume that my daughter has somehow corrupted yours?”

“I spotted her using a magickal talisman with my own two eyes!”

“And how exactly would you know one when you saw it? Since you’re so opposed to that kind of knowledge.”

Lance has to put a hand over his own mouth to suppress his laughter. He hasn’t heard Sam Holt sound that irritated in quite some time. At least it’s for the sake of his own kids. Where does Councilman Leifsdottir think he gets his authority from, anyway? What right does he have to spy on Pidge? 

There is a soft thump. Lance fears that one of the men has hit the other for a moment. 

“All that I KNOW is that books like these don’t belong in our library. And that all of a sudden, Ina is quite determined to convince her mother and I otherwise.”

“…Dream Magick? What’s the harm in a little bit of reading on dream magick?”

Lance’s stomach flip-flops, and this time it’s not the fish. Those books are there because of him. Ina— she didn’t lie and say they were hers, did she? Would she do something like that for him? Lance won’t deny that he considers her a friend, but she’s hard to read, and so he has no idea if the feeling is really mutual or not. 

“Ina’s been arguing that we should keep books like these in the library for anyone to access. Heaven knows where she got them from in the first place!” 

“Councilman… perhaps your daughter is simply an academic. Perhaps she believes that no information should be prohibited, regardless of its merit or morality, and that people should be allowed to study and then draw conclusions for themselves. You wanted her to take her education seriously, didn’t you? If I had a gold coin for every successful medic I’ve met with the very same attitude as hers, well, I’d be the wealthiest man in Plaht!” 

“I don’t doubt her intellect. Far from it.” Leifsdottir takes a slightly menacing step in Doctor Holt’s direction. “It’s precisely why I’m convinced that there must be an outside force using her intelligence against her. She can’t have come up with these wild ideas on her own!” 

Doctor Holt holds his ground. 

“Then I suppose you had better look for your culprit,” he says emphatically, “because it is not my daughter.” 

There is a bit of a staring match. Leifsdottir, all bark and no bite, is the first to break, and he does so with a disgusted sneer. 

“Suit yourself,” he says as he takes his leave. “But in the event that my search does lead back to your little bird, the chieftain will be the first to hear about it.” 

It’s about as obvious a threat as it could be. And if Lance knows Doctor Holt, he’s not going to mention a word of this to anyone. So it’s up to Lance to warn Pidge. …Maybe. …Should he? 

The moment that Lance is able to free himself, he leaps up for fresh air, and then he grabs his cargo and is on his way again, faster now to make up for his lost time. He has trouble pulling the leaves and twigs from his clothing, and Plaxom doesn’t let it escape her notice. She teases him about the dirt stain across his cheek as she weighs the fish. 

“I just want to buy myself a fresh pastry and go home,” Lance grumbles. “I can worry about taking a bath then.” 

“Your lucky bracelet didn’t do much for your clothes, I take it?” 

“It—”

Lance lifts his arm and just then notices the lack of weight there. His heart freezes. 

“…Something wrong?”

Lance stands perfectly still and blinks at his empty wrist. 

“My talisman, it— I know I was wearing it earlier. I never took it off. Where…?”

Plaxom frowns. Lance can barely see her in the corner of his vision as she fetches a sack full of coins. It’s quite hefty when it lands in Lance’s palm, but he can’t seem to bring himself to care about his spoils. He’s lost something, somehow, that no amount of money can replace. 

Lance darts from the store the moment Plaxom is through with him, shoving the coins into his pocket without sparing it any further thought. His mind raced as he tried to draw a mental map. If he retraced his steps, he was sure to find it eventually, he told himself as his vision became blurry and his heart began to thump. Where could a bracelet have run off to without his permission? 

Back through the brush, by the riverbed, through the village square and along the stalls he runs, frantic. He searches in the dirt and through the wild grasses on hands and knees. He looks more unkempt with every passing moment and he inhales enough dust and debris that he’s coughing by the time he collapses on the roadside near his fishing spot. 

This was just what he needed. Perfect. Now he’s gone and lost something precious and his family is sure to notice. They won’t let him hear the end of it, he’s sure. His mother will probably cry. His father will say that he never should have entrusted something so wonderful to Lance in the first place (even though grandpa made it especially for him). 

He folds his head into his knees and sobs, shoulders heaving. He feels pathetic. But he doesn’t know what else to do. There is an uncomfortable quiet where he can hear nothing but his own pitiful gasps for breath, and then suddenly, that spell is broken by a different sound. A mewl. 

“…Kitty?” 

Lance raises his head, and through his bleary eyes he can just barely distinguish the dark shape he knows as Yorak’s familiar. The cat’s body is stiff and he makes no effort to move, tail an apprehensive straight line pointing upwards, but his purple eyes are fixed on Lance. He meows again, a bit softer this time. Lance sniffles and rubs at his eyes with the blotted end of his sleeve. 

“I-I’m, uh, I’m okay!” He doesn’t know why he’s explaining himself to a cat. He doesn’t know why he assumes that the cat wants to know. He’s supposed to be mad at it, isn’t he? Isn’t it mad at him? “It’s just that I… I lost something. It’s really important to me and I can’t replace it. S-So I’m just upset. That’s all.” 

Kitty’s tail sways as he seems to contemplate something. Then he tiptoes forward, his paws hesitant, until one of them is on Lance’s knee. He looks up as if asking for permission. Lance sits a bit more upright and folds his legs in such a way that the cat can curl up there if it wishes. He thinks that the cat intends to do so— he climbs up and onto Lance. And then he stops. 

The cat does not curl up, or sit down, or do much of anything but stand there, legs stiff and straight and little nails poking into Lance’s legs. Like he knows in some theoretical sense that cats like to rest in people’s laps in order to receive scratches, but has never actually seen it for himself. He looks uncomfortable and out of his element. Something about it is so ridiculous that Lance can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. 

“You know, I don’t think you’re a real cat,” he teases, brushing what seem to be the last of his tears (for now) from his eyelashes. “Do you even know how to purr?” 

Kitty studies him, almost challenging. Then the cat makes a noise. Definitely not purring. More like he’s swallowed a fish bone and is trying to get it out of his throat. When Lance laughs at the awful attempt, the familiar jumps off of him and walks away as if he’s been offended. Much like his master, it seems that Kitty has a very important sense of pride.

“Hey!” He calls after Kitty. “I didn’t mean to make you mad!”

The cat is slower to return, but it does. It at least sits down this time, looking awkwardly into the distance as Lance strokes his back and scratches his ears. It doesn’t lean into the touch the way a normal cat would. He seems to be considering whether he enjoys it or not at all. 

After a while, he feels foolish once again, but in a distinctly different way. He laughs softly and looks upwards. 

“…You know, I guess it is already getting sort of dark. I can always search again when it’s lighter out.” The cat looks at him. Lance feels like it’s agreeing. “And… maybe someone else already found it, and they’re holding onto it? If I wake up early I can ask around.”

He’s not sure what brought this sudden change in attitude about. Doctor Holt said something once about animals being therapeutic, but Lance feels like Kitty doesn’t really count. For a number of reasons. Kitty tries to purr again, though, and he can’t help but smile at the attempt. It’s the thought that counts, I guess. 

As he allows the cat to go on its way, Lance does indeed opt to stop by Shiro’s bakery for a sweet treat, and he has a great deal of gold left over afterwards. He tries to focus on the positives of the situation. If things get truly grim, he can even offer an award for his bracelet’s return. He’ll set out early tomorrow morning to search and ask around town, and his parents don’t have to know what he’s up to just yet. He’s an adult. It’s his property and no one’s business but his own.

Lance tries to go to bed early in order to make the next day’s plans run more smoothly. Worry rises up in the pit of his stomach and delays his sleep only slightly before he manages to stamp it back down again. 

He sleeps soundly, and for several hours, until some infernal racket startles him awake with a shriek. 

He looks around his room. It’s pitch black. Only a sliver of moonlight peeks through his window. When he does not immediately get up, the noise repeats itself, and this time he can see a silhouette altering the shape of the moon’s rays. Something is furiously slamming itself against his window. 

Lance rises cautiously, dagger in hand (just in case). He fumbles to light the lantern at his bedside, struggling with the match in the darkness. When he at last sees the source of the disturbance, he lets out an incredulous snort. 

“Kitty!” He hisses as he opens the window, grimacing at its loud protest. “Do you have any idea what time it is? My whole family’s trying to sleep!” 

The cat offers no apology, and it likely has no concept of time. There’s something glittering in his mouth, stark against sleek black fur and a matching sky. 

“…Is that…?” With trembling hands, Lance accepts the apparent offering. He recognizes it immediately even in the dim light. “Where did— how did you—”

Lance is rarely speechless. He says nothing for several protracted seconds as he turns his grandfather’s precious gift over in his hands, over and over again as if verifying its quality for an appraisal. He stared at it, and then he looks back to Kitty. The cat’s face doesn’t tell him anything at all. Like it’s here by accident, almost. 

Kitty makes a small noise. Lance sobs with no warning. Also with no warning, he grabs the cat by the scrawny shoulders and pulls him through the window, squeezing him tight and planting several kisses on his tiny, soft head. Kitty’s eyes are wide. He goes limp, then stiff, and then he desperately struggles against Lance’s hold. He doesn’t use his claws or his teeth, though. Lance reluctantly releases the little beast, who wastes no time at all jumping back through the window frame. 

The cat squirms in a genuinely frightening way for several moments as soon as his paws have found grass, as though his joints have briefly disconnected, and his pupils dilate to such an extent that the shiny eyes briefly look more human than feline. Lance likely would have been terrified by the sight at any other time. But Kitty isn’t a normal cat, he’s decided. He’s some kind of adorable little demon familiar made of dark miasma. Probably. 

“Sorry,” Lance chuckles, suddenly nervous. “Didn’t mean to, uh… scare you? I guess?” Much like his master, it seemed, the cat was suspicious and apprehensive of any sort of positive attention. “Hey, tell Yorak I said thanks, will you? It means a lot. Really.” 

Kitty looks at him just once, face a blank once more, and then he trots away. In the darkness, he only needs to take a few steps before he’s totally absorbed in shadow and Lance can’t see where he’s headed off to. 

The window is even louder when he closes it. Loud enough that his older sister finally got fed up with the noise. Veronica, sans glasses and with some sort of cream on her face, throws his door open.

“Do you have any idea what time it is? Are you sneaking people in here or something?!” She wants to shout, but she also doesn’t want Lance to get any points for calling out her hypocrisy, so it’s a hoarse whisper instead. 

Lance looks back to the window just fast enough to confirm that the cat is, in fact, gone before he shakes his head. 

“No! I just… there was a draft, and it was making noise, so I had to adjust the window. You know this thing’s a pain.”

His nervous laughter doesn’t seem to be fooling her, even though the bluff isn’t bad. The window is a pain. The whole farmhouse can be from time to time. It’s probably about a century old at this point, because the McClains have been the farmers of Plaht for as long as anyone can remember. 

“I heard you talking to someone,” she says. Lance nearly flinches. 

“I was just talking to myself! Damn thing wouldn’t cooperate with me. That’s what all the banging was.”

Veronica can’t argue with that. Lance talks to himself all the time. She taps her foot for a moment before she sighs in defeat. She offers a tired wave over her shoulder before she leaves him alone once more. 

Lance waits until he hears Veronica’s footsteps disappear, and then he looks at the talisman he had been discreetly hiding behind his back. 

Where did Yorak find it, anyway? Or was it Kitty on his own somehow? And why? 

He’ll get his answer somehow. Someday. He decides then and there that if he gets another chance to do so, he will simply ask. But, for now, a farmer needs his sleep. He’s got a long day of work tomorrow. 

Chapter Text

“Over here!”

Pidge’s voice is slightly muffled by the tree she’s squatted behind. Lance rushes to get to her first and Hunk nearly knocks him sideways onto the grass. 

“Sorry,” he laughs. Lance pays it no mind. “Didja find something, Pidge?”

“These little threads of bluish stuff. It means we’re close, right?”

Lance is no geologist. He studies the small rock crevice that Pidge is pointing to, and he does see what she’s describing. The dirt seems to glitter in certain places with a sky-blue tint. Hunk nods so excitedly that Lance can hear his various tools and containers clanging around, as if he’s laden with copper pots and pans. 

“That’s the stuff! Skaultrite really likes to spread out, so you find these little residual spots all over when you’re near a big deposit of it.”

Hunk, pleased with himself and with their progress, sits back on his behind on the soft cushion of moss beneath him. Lance figures they may as well join him. He takes the opportunity to take a swig from his canteen as Hunk and Pidge study their chart. It’s not exactly a map. Lance can’t make heads or tails of the thing. Some sort of graph of the local topography. Hunk thinks he can learn to use it to find where certain minerals have been deposited based on soil depth and rock formations and so far, he’s been right— that Hunk sure is smart. But Lance already knew that. 

“Y’know, I don’t care how old I get: I’m never gonna get tired of looking for buried treasure,” Hunk declares. 

Lance smirks, but doesn’t say anything. They’re not really looking for buried treasure, are they? No one buried it. The stuff just grows on its own. And Hunk has very different opinions on exploring or adventuring depending on the day. Whenever they face any sort of threat, he announces that he’s never going out to the woods with them again. …And then the next trip comes around and there he is, more prepared and eager than ever. This time he’s brought along a bunch of measurement devices and chisels and magnifiers for sampling and studying the rocks. 

“…And you know I have you both covered if we run into anything sticky, right? Like a monster or something,” Lance asks, adjusting his bow for emphasis. Hunk’s smile fades slightly for only a moment before he nods. He’s been given Lance’s permission to run away immediately in the event that any such monster appears. Hunk’s not a fighter, and Lance wouldn’t change that about him. He’d cease to be their favorite big teddy bear if he became some sort of warrior monk. 

Only five more minutes pass before Lance fears that he and his big mouth have jeopardized them all with some kind of jinx. They’re moving once more, uneventfully at first, when Pidge squeals and scurries to hide behind Hunk. 

“What is that thing?!”

“What? What thing?” Hunk is trembling already. 

Lance already has his bow drawn and an arrow armed and at the ready. He surveys their surroundings. He doesn’t see anything, but he knows better than that. He can hear a slight rustling in the brush not far off. Something large, he thinks. He points his arrow at the clump of foliage and approaches slowly. Hunk and Pidge both beg him not to, but this is his job, isn’t it? He’s the one who will be able to defend them if this thing— whatever it is— wants trouble. 

The thing darts away. Lance sees the grasses and bushes moving. Its footfalls are nowhere near as heavy as they should be considering the beast’s apparent size. Suspicious. 

“…I think it’s evading us,” Lance says. 

“There’s no way! It’s been tailing us! I just barely got a glimpse, so I thought I must have been seeing things, but you both saw the size of it just now!” Pidge shouts that. Hunk warns her to keep her voice down if she’s so afraid. 

“Well, now it knows that we know,” Lance says, and that alone seems strange. It indicates something with more intelligence than your average animal. Maybe it really is a monster this time. 

Right as he says that, he catches a glimpse of something just barely in the distance, looking back at him briefly over its shoulder before it continues its retreat. Pidge almost screams. She does scream when Lance abandons the two of them to follow it. 

“What are you doing?! Are you trying to get us all killed?!” Hunk yells after him.

To Lance’s surprise, the two of them wait only a moment before they seem to steel their nerves and pursue him. 

“I told you guys you’re allowed to ditch me!” Lance scolds. 

Neither one of his friends answer him. They stick to his sides as he marches through ferns. The thing he spotted is crouching, maybe hoping he didn’t actually see it, but making no further effort to escape. 

When Lance stops walking, he is directly in front of the supposed beast that has, supposedly, been stalking them. Only, Lance doesn’t think it was doing that at all. Hunk grabs Lance’s shoulder for support, nearly fainting at the sight of it up close.

“Dude,” he says, which seems an inappropriate word for the occasion. “That’s, like, literally a demon.” 

“It’s not.” Lance snickers, and the others look at him as though he’s lost his mind. He crouches to face it, extending a hand. “C’mere!” 

The thing looks at him, uncertain. Hunk and Pidge, too, of course. 

What crawls very slowly from the bush it’s hidden in is a wolf. Sort of. A pitch-black, enormous wolf with long bony legs, near-silent footfalls, and amethyst eyes. The very same herald he saw not long ago before he properly met Yorak in these very same woods. He feels silly for not having realized what it was right away. 

“Lance. …Lance! Have you lost your mind?!” Pidge hisses. Lance ignores her. 

“Who’s a good boy? C’mere! I won’t bite, honest!” 

The wolf obliges at last. It crawls forward just a bit further so that Lance can stroke its nose. Like Yorak’s other familiars, it doesn’t seem to know what it’s supposed to be doing with the affection. 

“They’ve never seen you before,” Lance explains, “but they know your cat friend. Maybe Kitty mentioned them? They’re alright, though, I promise. They’re both with me.” 

“Is that… is that just some kind of messed-up dog?” Hunk asks, mouth hanging open. It acts more like a dog than a wolf, Lance thinks, so he’s not far off. 

The wolf stands up and retreats so suddenly that all three of the gathered humans jump. It conceals itself in the brush once more, and when Lance stands to try and find it again and apologize for having frightened it (or maybe having been too familiar too fast) he can’t seem to see it anywhere. That thing really is sneaky. Its black fur is surely a great aid in blending into the night like this.

“…What does Yorak’s cat have to do with—”

Pidge begins asking a very good question, from her position. But her words are cut off by her own shriek as she turns to face the other direction. She backs up, knocking into Hunk, who barrels further backwards and almost crushes Lance. He pushes past the two of them to see what has them both screaming bloody murder. 

Just like last time. 

The wolf vanishes, and then, from a different direction, its master appears— he must send it ahead of him to scope out the surroundings. 

Yorak looks quite agitated, but then, Lance would probably have a similar look on his face if he was greeted with this kind of weeping and bellowing every time he tried to talk to someone. 

“Would you two knock it off?! You’re being so rude!” Lance yells in order to be heard over them. They both stop and turn to stare at him, waiting for some kind of explanation. “That’s… That’s Yorak, remember? Pidge and I went to his house that one time?” 

“We didn’t mean to make you mad that time! We’re sorry!” Pidge nearly sobs her apology. Lance snorts. This sort of behavior is so unlike her. 

“That’s not what I— He didn’t try to eat your soul then. Why would he switch things around now, all of a sudden? And if he wanted to wait to kill us while we were alone in the woods wouldn’t he have done that already? With the wolf?” 

Pidge doesn’t know what to say to that. Hunk doesn’t add anything. They all just look at one another until Yorak clears his throat. 

“If you’re done screeching at me,” he says, his tone less than friendly, “I only wanted to relieve your fears. That canine is just another of my familiars.”

“Why were you following us, then?” Pidge asks. Her usual attitude has returned in a remarkably short time, and she tries to act like she isn’t still crying slightly. 

“I only wanted to confirm your identities. I told him to leave once you’d noticed. I didn’t want you to get the impression that you were being hunted.”

“We get a pass? Why?” Hunk is woefully confused. Lance sighs. 

“…Keep this to yourselves, alright?” He says before he risks stepping forward and turning so that he is standing right beside Yorak and studying the other two. He raises a hand and places it tentatively on Yorak’s shoulder. The warlock doesn’t do anything besides glare at his fingers. “He’s, uh… sort of my buddy now! Him and the cat, anyway. And he’s really not so bad once you actually try and talk to him.”

Both Pidge and Hunk’s mouths gape at that. Yorak ignores them. 

“Who said we were buddies?” He growls. Lance, in turn, ignores Yorak. He’s almost certain the warlock knows why he mentioned the cat just now. 

“Wh-What…” Hunk swallows to try and collect himself before he can formulate a proper question. “If you’re so innocent what are you doing out here so late? It’s getting dark.”

“Couldn’t I ask you lot the very same thing?” Yorak has a point. He sniffs. “I’m here in search of mushrooms.”

“Again?” Lance asks, only then removing his hand from Yorak’s shoulder. 

“They’re for eating this time. Nothing so involved as the moon ritual, I assure you.” 

“So you’re just foraging, then.” Pidge almost looks disappointed. Did she want him to try and eat her soul or not? “Why not do that during the day? I’m sure it’s annoying to look for little mushrooms by lantern light.” 

“Ha! Forage in the daylight hours for what? To run into the tradesmen and the hunters? I’ll pass.” In his effort to arrogantly flip his hair, Yorak’s hood falls off. He doesn’t readjust it. 

“Oh,” Hunk says, startled. “…I, uh, I like your earrings!” 

“I—” Yorak briefly freezes. “…Thank you?”

At that, Lance gives. He can’t help but laugh so hard that he bends over to rest his hands on his own knees. He sounds just like his grandfather when he does that. A wheezing more than anything else. 

Yorak, meanwhile, seems uncertain about whether the compliment is genuine or not, but it’s Hunk, so it definitely is. The innkeeper’s daughter from Yalexia that Hunk is so smitten with— she wears a different pair of earrings every time they see her and Hunk is always delighted by them. Lance won’t be surprised if Hunk decides to start sporting them himself.

“Your staff is really bright,” Pidge observes. “Is that a mechanical thing, or is it magick?” 

Yorak looks like he’s being held hostage. It makes Lance laugh some more, earning him a nasty look from the warlock. 

“It’s… It’s magick. A charged crystal. Simple luminescence is effortless once one reaches my level.”

Lance’s friends have adjusted to the new situation even more quickly than he thought they would. It seems their curiosity about matters of science and the great unknown have overridden whatever fear they previously held of the man. 

“We’re just out here looking for Skaultrite,” Hunk says. “You can tag along if you want! The light would be helpful.” 

Yorak finds that simple statement very interesting, for whatever reason. 

“What do mortals like you want with Skaultrite? Surely you can’t make powerful magick tools.”

“You use it in your witchcraft?” Lance asks, genuinely curious. 

“Of course! It is the base ingredient for any worthwhile divination tool. I have a crystal ball made entirely out of Skaultrite. What do you use it for?” 

“Machinery and automatons,” Hunk answers. Yorak hums. “I’m working on a bunch of lenses for my latest invention, but the stuff is so darn expensive that I wanna collect a bunch on my own if I can. I certainly can’t have too much of it!”

“Hey, why don’t you tag along and take some if we find it?” Pidge suggests eagerly. “And we can all look for your mushrooms on the way. That way we all have lots of light and everybody gets something out of it.”

Yorak takes a moment to think the offer over. He seems about ready to refuse them until he looks over at Lance, who is giving him his best puppy-dog eyes. He grumbles. 

“Fine,” he capitulates. “But only for the Skaultrite! I’m curious as to what primitive methods you’ll use to try and find it without the aid of magickal tools.” 

Pidge, unfazed by the veiled insult and holding the chart, leads the way and Yorak follows behind her at a careful distance. Hunk watches them go before he punches Lance playfully in the arm. 

“Man. …I guess you really can talk to anybody, huh?” 

Lance laughs along with him as they both join the adventuring party once more. 

As they walk, they have a surprisingly normal conversation. Hunk explains their guild and its structure as Pidge pokes at Yorak’s ears and gets swatted away. They ask him how old he is, what he eats, what the inside of his house is like and how long it’s been there, what kind of magick he can do— the works. After a while Yorak doesn’t even seem particularly irritated at the questions. He may not be used to small talk, but maybe it’s nice to have someone let you explain for once. Most of the magick he describes sounds very academic and totally harmless. 

Before long, Yorak is remarkably calm and has nearly a whole basketful of mushrooms. Hunk even explains the flavor profile of each variety he finds and offers helpful tips on how to best bring out their deliciousness, because he’s also an excellent baker and cook. Some of the information is new enough to Yorak that he asks if they can all sit down so that he can “make note of it in his grimoire”. 

Hunk offers everyone some of his snacks as they opt to rest on a small collection of boulders. Yorak says he isn’t hungry and instead pulls out the heavy book he’s wearing like a satchel, held in place by a series of leather straps and bronze buckles. Pidge nosily watches him open it and prepare his pen. 

“That’s your grimoire?”

“It is. Your kind have misconceptions about them, I’ve found.”

“My parents told me it was like a cursed spellbook,” Hunk confirms, “but that’s… probably not right.” 

“Not right, indeed.” Yorak sighs as he flips through faintly yellowing pages of parchment, looking for the ideal place to scribble notes. Lance, right beside him, can see that he crams as much into every page as he possibly can. “…How do I explain this…? The essence of magick is harmony with one’s own self, clarity of one’s own intentions, and symbiosis with the natural world. So increasing one’s mana can involve creating art and writing one’s thoughts down as much as it involves any sort of ritual.” 

“That’s… really cool, actually,” Pidge admits. “I never thought of it that way. Maybe that’s why I’m so bad at the magick I’m trying to learn? I always feel like I have to be getting something specific done or I’m wasting my time.” 

“It sounds like you need to learn meditation,” Yorak says, almost smug. “Among other things. Spend time in nature for its own sake. Write poetry. Make music. You’ll find it eventually.”

Surprisingly reassuring, Lance thinks. 

“So a grimoire has all kinds of stuff in it,” Hunk guesses correctly.

“Precisely. And a warlock is supposed to try and keep just one for as long as he can. Drawings, paintings, poems, notes, pressed plants, letters from others, a journal— anything and everything in one place. It’s my own essence. Which makes it magick all on its own.”

“So it’s more like a mixed-media scrapbook with some spells in it?” Lance summarizes.

“…Yes,” Yorak says tersely as Pidge giggles. “It’s like a mixed-media scrapbook.” 

It’s obviously a little bit more complicated than that and has a great deal to do with his people’s esoteric culture, but Lance still finds the whole concept of magick somewhat confusing. He looks at his arm, where he’s once again chosen to wear his grandfather’s talisman. Is it really magick after all? Is it magick if he decides that it is and makes those intentions known to whatever gods are out there? It can’t hurt to try. 

Once he feels he’s explained sufficiently, Yorak proceeds to take note of everything Hunk has told him about mushrooms and stews. Lance can see that he’s chosen to write it in a series of pages about his gardens, where he’s made careful planting charts and records of his harvests. The humans try not to bother him as he writes and talk amongst themselves. 

By the time they breach the subject of Pidge’s parents (more specifically, her mother’s secret practice of white magick for healing), Yorak has finished with his notes. So Hunk, surprisingly, is the one that dares to ask the question. 

“You haven’t always lived up there alone,” Hunk muses. “So… don’t you have parents?”

Yorak’s face is difficult to read. The hefty book is still in his lap. Quietly, he opens it again with the apparent goal of finding a specific page. Pidge and Hunk get closer in preparation for whatever it is he wants to show them. 

When Yorak finds the pages, they contain a few of his own drawings as well as a proper picture he’s pasted onto the spread. There, Lance sees a strikingly beautiful woman depicted from several angles. Both her face and her style of dress are so similar to Yorak’s that there’s no real question in his mind of who she is. Her skin, though, is purple, and there are unusual markings on her face. She also appears to be absurdly tall compared to a human woman. 

“She’s really pretty,” Pidge says, somehow awestruck by it. 

“Her name was Krolia.” Yorak’s voice is as reverent as it is hard to hear. “She’s no longer here with me.” 

“Did she leave you behind, or…?”

“She passed. Some illness we couldn’t understand. It seemed to come and take her so quickly, before we could find out what to do.” 

“I’m sorry,” Lance whispers, touching his back. Yorak doesn’t glare at him. Yorak’s body, he notes, produces little heat. And yet it always seems to be vibrating slightly, as though he’s bursting with static electricity. It sends a strange but not unsatisfying tingle through Lance’s fingers.

“I would have done whatever I could.” Yorak says that like he’s been challenged on it when no one has accused him of anything. “But I was young. There wasn’t much of anything I could do, and… it’s not like I could rely on the village’s healers.”

There’s a purely acidic bitterness in those words. Judging by Hunk and Pidge’s frowns, though, they all seem to be thinking the same thing: fair enough. Maybe that’s why he hates the village council so much. They refused to aid him in his time of greatest need, even when he was but a child who had done them no wrong. 

“…Anyway, I’ve lived there alone ever since, aside from my animals. It seems acquiring company is more trouble than it’s worth. Your village is nothing but troublesome.” 

“Maybe it is, but don’t you get lonely?” Hunk asks, unusually brave. “Because that sounds pretty lonely.” 

Yorak doesn’t answer that question. He’s been quite cooperative, so Lance has no intention of pushing the group’s luck by asking him what happened to his father. Lots of people’s dads don’t stick around.  

Pidge, perhaps in some effort to lighten the mood, suggests that they continue on their quest. Yorak seems so relieved to have the distraction that he doesn’t much mind spending another grueling hour or so in search of their target. It’s late enough now that the moon hangs high in the sky above their heads. They’re covering so much ground that Lance can barely keep up with himself, and he’s the one who will have to guide them back here if they do end up finding what they want.

The humans survey their makeshift map. Yorak squints at something they cannot see, ritualistically moving his staff in small circles in the air.

“There,” he announces, pointing it at the crack in the stone wall just before him. “A bit of a tight squeeze, but that can always be amended with tools.” 

Lance doesn’t know how he’s so certain that the Skaultrite is actually in there. Magick, probably. He may as well assume that much every time Yorak does something he doesn’t understand. 

The crevice is small enough that only Pidge can get through with anything close to ease. Yorak lets her take his staff with her in lieu of a lantern, as it’s much brighter and won’t go out if she accidentally knocks it over. 

A tense moment of total silence. Pidge doesn’t move. Lance fears that she’s stuck. Then, a holler.

“Bingo! This is the stuff, alright!”

“It’s in there?!”

“A TON of it is in here! Hunk, pass me the chisel!”

Hunk does as he’s told with no hesitation. Then, Pidge is shoving handfuls of Skaultrite through the opening faster than they can keep up. Both Hunk and Lance end up on their knees, holding open their sacks and scooping it away with no regard for any extra gravel or dirt they’re bringing along with it. There’s no time for sorting. As she works, Pidge is eventually able to kick away crumbling bits of stone that are useless to her, making the opening wide enough for Lance to join in with slightly heavier tools. 

Yorak doesn’t do much, physically, but he does take up the task of studying the rock for stability and keeping an eye on the environment. Plenty of eager miners have gotten themselves crushed in their haste to procure minerals. He sometimes presses his ear to the stone as if it is whispering to him. 

Lance removes himself from the crevice, now sweating profusely, and wipes his brow. Pidge follows. 

“There’s this HUGE piece that I wanna get out by itself,” Lance explains, “because we could just polish and sell that bad boy to a collector. But I can’t see how far back it goes.”

“Out of the way.” The warlock pushes past Lance, retrieving his staff as he does so. Hunk tries to hand him a chisel and he waves it away. “You may want to turn your backs. I’ve been told that the light is harmful to mortal eyes.” 

Lance doesn’t know what Yorak intends to do with light, but the humans stand a short ways away to allow him space to work, pointedly looking anywhere but at him or the hole he’s crawled into. Lance can hear something like a magick beam. He’s never heard one in real life— only sound effects imitated in the voices of children, or parents reading scary bedtime stories. He concludes that his own parents are very bad at making that sound. 

When the noise ceases, there is an almost painful silence. For some reason Lance’s heart skips a beat, fearing that Yorak has hurt himself somehow. But instead he hears a self-satisfied huff. 

“Not such a challenge after all,” he calls, signaling that he has finished. Lance and the others turn in time to see him carefully pulling himself back out of the mountain face. Under his arm, he boasts a truly impressive hunk of Skaultrite. The size of a crystal ball, at least. Lance thinks it may be bigger than his own head. 

“Whoa!” Pidge seizes the prize without any objections. Her arms sink in a way that tells Lance it’s slightly heavy. “It’s even bigger than I would have expected!” 

“In excellent shape, too, if I do say so myself,” Yorak adds. He waves a hand over it and it glows slightly. “See the color? Bright and solid. I would wager that it’s pure. Don’t accept anything less than five hundred pieces for it.”

“Five hundred?!” Hunk has probably never seen that much cash in one place. It’ll be plenty, even split amongst the three of them. That seems to remind Hunk of their arrangement. He scrambles to grab another sack, this one empty. “Right— your portion. It’s only fair that you take as much as you can fit in one of these.” 

“…Right.”

The next several minutes are mostly quiet. Pidge dusts off the large piece and begins to work at shining it with a rag. Hunk holds the supply sacks open for Yorak, who peeks inside and takes the shards that he wants. Lance can’t make any sense of the way that he chooses and assumes once more that it’s something to do with magick. 

When he has filled and sealed his own bag, Yorak stands up and takes one large shard in hand, where he joins it to the crystal at the top of his staff. It disappears, melting into the larger shape and altering the color slightly. He taps the wood against the ground, once, then twice. And then the light swells, brighter now than ever before. Pidge shouts in delight at the sight of it. 

“Wow! You can use just about any kind of mineral, huh?!” 

“It’s a matter of mana. That’s all.” 

“With energy like that… I’ll bet you could power half of the village with rocks!” 

At that, Yorak laughs under his breath. 

“I… suppose I could. If only they were open to such benefits.”

Lance frowns. Pidge and Yorak have a good point. Maybe if they would trust him for a day or two, Yorak could find an efficient way to transport the eternal water of the fountain in the village square to the rest of the area and end their water crisis forever. But for now, they’re stuck carrying it off in buckets.

Hunk finishes putting everything away and straps most of the bags to himself. At his size, he seems to have little trouble carrying everything. Glumly, Lance realizes that this means they’re finished, that the time has come to part ways once more. 

Hunk extends a hand to Yorak. To Lance’s surprise, he accepts it, though the handshake is weak and cautious. 

“You know, if you wanted, you could always join our guild,” Hunk offers. “We don’t have any magick users.”

“Hey! Lance and I are working on that!” Pidge reminds him. “That said… we’re still new to it, and learning from anybody in the village is pretty much impossible, so we’d be happy to be your students.” 

Yorak smirks. In the newly bright light, Lance can see glistening fangs.

“I’ll give it some thought,” Yorak says, “in the event that I’m ever painfully bored.” 

Yorak vanishes the way he always does. Hunk and Pidge, seeing it for themselves for the first time, are so startled that they jump. 

“He does that,” Lance sighs. “A real showoff, that guy.”

“…Whatever happened to the wolf?” Hunk thinks aloud. “It just ran off somewhere and I never did see it again. Maybe the familiar poofs away, too?”

“You two came around to him awfully fast!” Lance teases, shaking his head in near-disbelief. “I was worried you were gonna sell me out or something if you found out, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that.” 

“Yeah, Hunk,” Pidge mocks, as though Lance didn’t just hear her gush over Yorak’s abilities. “If you like him so much, maybe you ought to grab that key for yourself! Save us all from this drought, maybe!” 

“…Oh, that’s right.” Hunk pouts. “He’s kind of laid a curse upon our village, huh? I somehow forgot about that. We were all having such a nice time.” 

“I-It’s not exactly a curse. Just a blood oath for now,” Lance says, mostly just parroting Yorak’s words on the subject. 

“…Whatever it is, I can’t take the key. I already promised Shay I’d marry her. And I’m a man of my word, you know.”

“You’re still hung up on that?” Pidge seems truly taken aback by that information. Lance knows that he means it, though, because he still talks about her all the time. 

Hunk, unlike Lance, is faithful and devoted and only has eyes for one girl at a time. Lance has always been accused of being quite the opposite. But if a supposedly frightful warlock can lower himself to spending a night in their company, maybe Lance, too, can change his ways. Maybe nothing is as it appears at first glance. 

For now, the trio returns to the only village they truly know, heavily burdened with treasure and a renewed sense of purpose.