"Thank you," Bowen said. "To all of you. For protecting my village tonight."

The gratitude in those words was genuine, wholehearted. He directed his words at all three of them, but it was Rinna he seemed to be addressing in particular.

"It was nothing, Mister Bowen," Rinna said.

She shook her head, the gesture of someone rejecting a grand idea.

"You’ve done more for us than we could ever repay you for. This is the least we could do."

Her expression remained unchanged, except for a faint smile that curled the corners of her lips. Ash noticed it, although it was barely noticeable, even to his trained eye.

"Rinna is right," Lissa confirmed.

This, too, was something new. He had known the younger sister’s voice to be precise and direct. She did not choose her words carefully in the conventional sense, but spoke with such clarity that it felt as if she picked words by their function, like tools. Now there was something softer in her tone - something he hadn’t expected to hear from her.

And then he saw her smile.

Not a big one, not a particularly warm one, but it was there. And it changed her features - relaxed her narrow eyes, softened her jawline, revealed a bit of something that lay beneath her habitual reserve. It was the face of a woman who cared about someone she was talking to, and who felt free to show it.

Ash caught the expression and looked away quickly, conscious of staring.

It was not an expression he had expected to catalogue this early. He had been building a picture of Lissa since the road - assembling it piece by piece from the things she said and the way she said them and the sword she drew without hesitation. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

That picture had felt complete enough to work with. The smile made him aware of how much of it was still missing.

There were two ways of thinking about the relationship between the two sisters: in terms of the difference between them, or as two opposing modes that defined Lissa entirely.

At some point, between the carriage ride and the village fight, he had chosen the second interpretation. He knew that Lissa operated in two modes only - the mode of the vigilant fighter, with a constant watch for any threats, and the mode he saw now.

And this was what added depth to the first understanding - because Lissa’s smile showed why she was the way she was.

He shifted his gaze elsewhere before they both realized it.

Around them, Miren was doing what villages do after something like this. People moved between houses in small, purposeful clusters - checking, counting, reassuring. A child’s voice carried briefly over the general

quiet and was answered by an adult one.

Somewhere close, wood was being dragged across the road, the sound dry and definitive in the cooling air. The smell of smoke had thickened. Whatever fires had been lit were burning steadily now.

Footsteps sounded in the direction of the main street. Someone was coming toward them, approaching slowly and deliberately - leaning on a cane that accompanied each of the steps taken by his aged legs, his posture speaking of a man who knew that haste was never useful after a certain point.

He was a sight that reminded Ash of a certain kind of person. The same age, the same dignity, the same solidity - a product of many years passed, accumulated like a sediment in his form.

There was nothing frail about this man despite the white hair and wrinkles, just the density of many years condensed in one body - and eyes that assessed every newcomer with practiced ease.

He had the look of someone who had long since stopped needing to prove anything to anyone. That kind of ease was not complacency.

It was the result of having been tested enough times that the tests themselves had become unremarkable. Whatever had been required of him over the years, he had met it. The cane was not a concession to weakness. It was simply a tool, like any other.

"Hello, young ones," the old man said.

His tone matched his appearance. Unhurried and authoritative. The kind of words that took no effort to speak - and yet filled a place with his presence, even without raising the volume.

Lissa turned toward him instantly, straightening without being asked to do so.

"Adventurers," she said.

Bowen took a step forward.

"Lissa, Rinna - this is my older brother, Coven." Bowen made the introduction with quiet tenderness. "Our village elder."

The sisters bowed their heads in unison, their fox ears dipping with the bow.

"Elder Coven," they greeted.

"Oh, please," Elder Coven responded. He raised one hand. "Do not bow to me. You are the ones who deserve the bow, and not me. I am merely an old man with a cane, while you are the ones who just saved our village."

They straightened up.

"For what you did tonight," Elder Coven continued. "If you hadn’t come - I don’t know what could have happened to Miren."

"It’s okay," Rinna answered sincerely - but quick to dismiss the compliment. "Don’t worry about it. We’re adventurers, and killing monsters is in our job description."

The elder studied her for a moment. Then he nodded, a thoughtful gesture of someone pleased with what they heard.

"Hm," he said.

And it was the sound of acceptance. Like an agreement.

He looked up. The suns had set completely by now, their combined light disappearing while the village was recovering, and the night above was a thick layer of darkness without the city’s lights to break it.

Stars appeared to the east, in greater numbers than he had ever seen from any roof or window in his previous world.

"It is getting dark here," Elder Coven noted. He looked at them again. "Are you going anywhere tonight?"

"No," Rinna replied. "No, actually - we were planning on staying here until morning. Is that alright?"

"If that’s alright," Elder Coven repeated, adding an amused touch to his tone as though such a request was absurd to him. "Village Miren will be honored to have you as guests for the night. I will see to it personally that you have a decent roof over your heads and decent food before you." It was a statement made solemnly, like someone arranging something, not offering something. "Free of charge, naturally. It’s the least we can do."

"That’s really nice of you," Rinna responded. "We would appreciate that very much."

Elder Coven held her gaze for a moment and was apparently satisfied with what he found there. He looked at Ash next.

He had known that Ash had been watching him - even though the young man stood a little apart from the sisters and, consequently, was not a part of this conversation. He hadn’t paid much attention to Ash before that point, but he did now.

"And you, young man," he said. His tone remained the same, unhurried and authoritative, and the gaze followed the same pattern - measured and composed. "You are also invited to stay here. Miren welcomes the one who defends it."

Ash looked back at the old man.

He reminded Ash of Bowen, in spite of how different they were.

Bowen had the look of a man shaped by roads - by the repetition of departure and arrival, by the accumulation of strangers met and left behind.

Elder Coven had the look of a man shaped by staying. By the weight of a single place across a long time. The difference was considerable, but what they shared was the same settled quality - the absence of unfinished business in their eyes. Both of them had made their peace with the world in their own way, and it showed.

The same air of someone who was done with the struggle and lived in peace - something Elder Coven radiated effortlessly, leaning on his cane and surrounded by the lamplight that came from nearby windows of the villagers’ houses.

"Thank you, Elder," Ash said.

Again, his gratitude went beyond his words. His body had nothing left to give - only the exhaustion earned by full use. His mind was fine. His body was not. In this case, the roof and the food would come as a bonus for doing what he would have done regardless.

"I really appreciate it," he continued.

Elder Coven nodded.

That was the end of the conversation, and both of them seemed to understand it at the same moment. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

The night had taken a particular shape around them - the lamplight from the nearby houses, the sound of the village settling, the smell of food beginning to carry from somewhere across the road.

Ash stood where he was for a moment longer, and then followed when the others moved. The body was tired. The mind was already working. There was a city at the end of tomorrow’s road, and much to do when they reached it.