The village wasn’t all that large, but they spent the afternoon slowly walking around and briefly meeting people as they busied themselves with preparations for the feast. As Priscilla shook hands and got glimpses into the villagers’ lives as they introduced themselves and joked with Kavil, Priscilla felt a sudden surge of greed to know more about the people she had saved.

  They weren’t just words on paper, they were living, breathing people and though Priscilla had only been in this world for a week now, she felt oddly responsible for them since she saved their lives. She met Theodore, who had a playful rivalry with Kavil about who was better at foraging; Allasan, the baker with a frying pan, had a whole gaggle of geese and cats; Holly, who was Yarnon’s cousin, kept pigs and loved spices and herbs. With each new person she met, Priscilla hoarded each piece of information she learned like a dragon does gold, keeping close to her heart because it made her feel grounded, like what she was trying to do mattered.

  Sulaiman was more stoic and reserved than she was, but Priscilla caught him smiling when Kavil went off on a tangent about the time he healed a deer and it followed him home, and then got its horns hopelessly tangled in the laundry lines. Even Sulaiman was weak to Kavil’s affable personality.

  The tour came to an end by the bell tower, which had a ladder leaned up against the back. It wasn’t overly large, smaller than the trees surrounding it, but it would be difficult to reach the small opening Priscilla spotted without the ladder or precariously balancing on each other's shoulders.

  “This is the last stop,” Kavil said, looking up at it. “There’s a space to sit up there but…”

  Kavil trailed off, looking at Priscilla’s stupid little sling.

  She huffed, “I can climb a ladder that high with one arm.”

  Sulaiman rolled his eyes in a move that was almost sublime with how well practiced it seemed. Priscilla flipped him off, easily ignoring her biggest hater.

  “Kavil, I can climb up if I’m really careful, right?” Priscilla asked, giving him her best pleading expression.

  Kavil looked torn, glancing between her and Sulaiman, who continued to look unamused.

  “It’s probably a bad idea…” Kavil said. “If you fall from that height, it’d set back your recovery by at least two weeks.”

  “What if Sulaiman stays down here to catch me?” Priscilla asked, fluttering her eyelashes at Sulaiman. She didn’t think they’d actually let her do it, but the saying was nothing ventured, nothing gained after all. Plus it was fun to see how far Priscilla could push before they got fed up with her bullshit.

  Sulaiman closed his eyes, muttering, “Gods grant me patience.”

  “That’s not a no,” Priscilla sing-songed, grinning at him.

  “You have a death wish,” Sulaiman deadpanned, glaring at her.

  “Who doesn’t?” Priscilla asked, dancing out of the range of Sulaiman’s swat. “Yes or no, Mr. Halsteed? Will you help fulfil this poor girl’s dream or shall you crush it mercilessly?”

  Sulaiman gave her an exasperated look and Priscilla fluttered her eyes again, cupping her face with her right hand.

  The stand-off was broken by Kavil’s giggles.

  “Sorry,” Kavil said in between fits of laughter, “you two are just so–haha!”

  His laughter was infectious as he doubled over and Priscilla giggled with him, dropping the pleading act.

  “His seriousness is one of Sulaiman’s many charms,” Priscilla said, patting Sulaiman’s shoulder, “and it makes him the perfect straight man to my antics.”

  “That he does,” Kavil said, his laughter softly dying even as his smile remained wide. Priscilla opened her mouth to quip again before she noticed something. Well, it was more like the absence of something she finally clued in on.

  Priscilla hadn’t realized it before, since she had only seen Kavil in chaotic situations, but there had been underlying tension in the way he carried himself. A stiffness that was hidden well if you didn’t know to look for it, but it was obvious when Kavil finally relaxed.

  Sulaiman’s gaze flickered between the two of them and Priscilla gave him a challenging smile. If needling Sulaiman made Kavil smile, then Priscilla didn’t mind providing a spectacle.

  “If you’re insisting on being stupid,” Sulaiman said after a beat of silence, his face reluctant but resigned, “then it’s better if I supervise the stupidity.”

  Priscilla cheered, surprised but delighted.

  “Doc, you heard that right? I have a safety net, so lead the way up!”

  Sulaiman and Kavil shared a look but Priscilla ignored the manly bonding, wandering over to the ladder. It looked sturdy, made of thick wood that made picking it up with one arm impossible. But it didn’t look that hard to climb with the steps evenly spaced and tilted slightly forward so gravity wouldn’t be as big of an enemy. If Priscilla focused and kept her balance, it should be possible.

  “Move,” Sulaiman said, suddenly behind her. Priscilla jumped and then pretended she did nothing of the sort, sliding out of his way with grace and dignity. Kavil laughed and Sulaiman rolled his eyes, moving the ladder to where Kavil directed.

  Kavil climbed up quickly and skillfully, pulling open a small door and entering the bell tower. He popped his head back out and said, “I’ll help you up when I can reach you.”

  “Here we go,” Priscilla said and stepped onto the ladder. It was odd to feel the wood shift beneath her weight and honestly it was awkward only having one arm to rely on. But Priscilla was nothing if not stubborn, and kept climbing steadily up.

  Priscilla was about four feet off the ground when her slipper slipped right off. Priscilla yelped and clutched the ladder the same time she felt a pair of hands stabilize her hips.

  “Be careful,” Sulaiman hissed, “or I’ll just haul you down right now.”

  “It was the slipper,” Priscilla whined, toeing off the other shoe to go barefoot and ignoring how large Sulaiman’s hands felt to focus on not getting splinters. “It won’t happen again, so lemme go, you tyrant.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Sulaiman sighed but let go, returning his grip to the ladder.

  Priscilla made it up to Kavil’s outstretched hand with no more incidents. Kavil’s grip steady as he grasped her forearm and hauled her up the last foot. The space inside the bell tower was small and once Priscilla got situated, her knees and Kavil's were pressed against each other even though they were sitting on opposite ends.

  “It’s tight up here, Sulaiman,” Priscilla called down, sticking her head out, “but we can fit if you’re comfortable sitting on our laps.”

  Kavil stifled a laugh as Sulaiman stared up incredulously.

  “I will not be sitting on your lap,” Sulaiman said firmly. “I’ll go grab my sword to sharpen and wait for you.”

  He took a few steps and then gave Priscilla a piercing glare over his shoulder.

  “Do not try to climb down without me,” Sulaiman said.

  “I don’t have that much of a death wish,” Priscilla called and Sulaiman just shook his head and stalked off.

  Priscilla finally looked at her surroundings more closely. There were five bells of various sizes that took up most of the space, but it wasn’t uncomfortable with a soft blanket to sit on. A small pillow was tucked into Kavil’s lap, and a soft sided bag was pinned to the wall. There was a wide but narrow window across from them that gave an interesting view of the village if they titled their head around the bells and unfortunately highlighted the houses that had been most damaged last night.

  “It’s so cozy up here,” Priscilla said, tucking her legs beneath her and reminding herself they had won and houses could be rebuilt.

  “I spend a lot of time up here,” Kavil said, relaxing against the wall, “though my auntie complains I have my head in the clouds too much. She says I have a proper bed and should sleep there.”

  Kavil let out a mirthless chuckle. “She probably has a point. I fell asleep here last night and that put me in the thick of things.”

  Kavil was looking at the bells in a way that told her he wasn’t seeing them at all, his eyes clouded over with emotion. His hands were shaking, clutching the pillow, the tension returned to his shoulders.

  Priscilla hesitated only a moment before reaching out to still his hands.

  “I, for one, am grateful you have this habit,” Priscilla said as Kavil looked at her, “because if you hadn’t intervened, the night would have gone very differently.”

  “You would have still won,” Kavil protested but Priscilla shushed him with a gentle squeeze.

  “I was easy pickings due to that curse,” Priscilla said, “and I’m not a long-ranged fighter. If you hadn’t healed me, then Sulaiman would have taken a cursed bolt straight to the spine, and if he fell…”

  Priscilla let her words trail off as her mind ran away with that idea and imagined what would have happened. If Sulaiman fell, then the villagers would have been overwhelmed without his magic supplementing their fighting power. And then fate would realign itself in the cruelest way, taking not only Kavil’s village but Sulaiman as well, all because Priscilla had tried to meddle and failed.

  Priscilla banished such thoughts from her brain, and found that Kavil was staring at her. She couldn’t decipher the look on his face but Kavil averted his gaze as he nodded.

  They sat in silence that teetered on the edge of uncomfortable and companionable. Priscilla wasn’t sure where to lead the conversation from there, so she remained quiet, watching the villagers walking around as the sky began to shift into evening hues. She spotted the blacksmith Marian carrying one end of a table with her husband Kayir, walking alongside Yarnon who was carrying a large pail of something as the only children in the village, a pair of twins named Tuyi and Dani, trailed after them with baskets full of fruit.

  “Why’d you ask Kopica’a about me?” Kavil asked quietly, looking at the bells.

  Priscilla pondered the question, taken off guard by the topic change. She fidgeted with the edge of her sling as she said, “Yarnon had just been telling me about Frean and you having a strong bond. With what I knew about what Kopica'a had done combined with them talking to you, well, it got me worried about what they planned to do with you.”

  Kavil was quiet, looking contemplative.

  “I had just been telling him about how I helped you last night,” Kavil confessed softly, his voice growing quieter and quieter with every word he spoke, “and he… they asked if I wanted to go on an adventure to… to help heal others that could help protect villages like mine.”

  Well, that confirmed what Priscilla already knew: the cult was trying to lure Kavil to their side. It seemed Kopica’a had been trying to appeal to Kavil’s innate goodness, which might have worked if Priscilla hadn’t violently inserted herself into their conversation.

  “Well, is that something you even want to do?” Priscilla finally asked, and it seemed to startle Kavil enough to look at her. He looked unsure as he considered her words.

  “I don’t know,” Kavil said. “I, I’ve always wanted to leave this village one day and travel the land to heal others like my parents did but the fact that F–Kopica’a wanted me to do that makes me feel like maybe…”

  Kavil shrank in on himself, squeezing the pillow tightly. “Like maybe I shouldn’t want that anymore.”

  Priscilla bit her lip to keep herself silent.

  As much as she would love to have Kavil travel with them as a healer was always a useful addition to the party and she loved him as a character, the entire reason that Priscilla had traveled here in the first place was to give Kavil the chance to stay with his family. She didn’t want to pigeonhole him into following fate and traveling with Illnyea, not when she was the champion of the ‘fuck fate.’

  But Kavil looked up at her, his eyes begging for her to say something, anything, to give him an answer to his unspoken question, give him something to hold on when everything was changing.

  It struck Priscilla then, that Kavil was barely old enough to be a college student in her original world. The only person that she had trusted enough to turn to at Kavil’s age to rely on was Mr. ––. Even though Kavil hadn’t known her long, he was placing his trust in her, trusting that she might help him, and Priscilla felt overwhelmed by that and knew that she had to reciprocate sincerity with sincerity.

  Priscilla tried to think of what Mr. –– would have said if he was here, what type of advice he would give with his signature half-moon grin.

  “Your life is your own,” Priscilla said slowly, meeting Kavil’s gaze because she would be a coward to look away, “and I won’t judge whatever choice you end up making since it’s your life. But I don’t think your dreams are suddenly invalid because some fucked up guy wanted to twist them into what he wanted you to do. It was your dream first, and nothing Kopica’a said can change that. And the only person who can decide if that dream will become reality is you, Kavil. Only you get to decide what path you take.”

  Priscilla gave Kavil a small, nostalgic smile as she looked at one of the reasons that she had been able to find her own path, and meant the next words with all her heart.

  “I can only hope you pick one where you can be happy.”

  Kavil’s eyes were wide as he stared at Priscilla but he didn't say anything as he absorbed her words. Priscilla lets the silence remain undisturbed because she felt like she may have already said too much. Priscilla wouldn’t be like Kopica’a, trying to twist Kavil’s dreams to get him to do what she wanted.

  “Hey!”

  Sulaiman’s voice cut through the air and made them both jump.

  Priscilla poked her head out to glare at him.

  “What?” Priscilla hollered down.

  “Food’s getting set up,” Sulaiman said, gesturing with his sword towards where tables had been set up, “and if you dawdle, there won’t be any left.”

  “It’s poor form for the guest of honor to go hungry,” Priscilla sneered.

  “Not if the guest of honor is an idiot who doesn’t bother showing up on time.”

  Priscilla rolled her eyes and looked back at Kavil.

  “Looks like our time is up,” Priscilla said ruefully, but didn’t move, not yet. They hadn’t fully finished their conversation and she was reluctant to leave.

  “Looks like it,” Kavil agreed softly.

  “You ready to face the masses?” Priscilla asked when he said nothing more, trying to gauge if Kavil was still in a fragile emotional state.

  Kavil took a deep breath in, setting aside the pillow and met her gaze with a lopsided smile. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Priscilla, if you don’t come down now, I’m letting you starve!”

  Priscilla sighed and stuck her head out.

  “Fuck you!” Priscilla said. Sulaiman just crossed his arms and stared up judgmentally.

  Kavil chuckled. “Come on, I’ll help you. We wouldn’t want you to starve.”