The room was still as the two small ones stared up at him with eyes intense, little fists clenched, ears down, faces scrunched, and tails bristling as they awaited the justice of the undead Elder Lich. To Lithia’s eyes, it was almost some bizarre mix of sinister and wholesome, watching the horned undead wrestle with the problem.

  He scratched his head and seemed to ponder what to do, his red glowing eyes did not move, but Lithia felt almost like she herself was a little girl again, waiting for a father’s judgment. ‘My father used to pull looks like that…how in Amends does he do that without even having skin or facial muscles?’

  There was no way to answer that question, but at least its very existence continued to settle her at ease, and that, oddly enough, made it easier for her to accept his claim to the name and legacy of the ancient hero, Sir Varus.

  “I suppose,” Varus said, unaware of or indifferent to the private thoughts of the watching Lithia, “that the only answer to that is for you to both bring your piles in here and for me to count them one by one to declare a winner.”

  “But that’ll take forever!” Tuesday protested.

  “Meoway!” Hannah objected just as vigorously, “That’s two whole forevers! We can’t wait that long! I’m getting hiss-terical here!” Her cat tail twitched, and Varus then made his counter offer.

  “If you combine your piles, then you both win.” He suggested, and the two girls' eyes went wide as saucers as he offered them a loophole.

  “If,” he added and extended his hand to them before raising one bony cautionary finger, “you also clean up after yourselves, and let me work quietly for at least the next two hours after you eat.”

  “Yay!” They threw their hands up and dropped down to all fours to rush out the door, bristled tails were no longer bristled, ears were now perked up with glee, and a moment later the sound of two little voices went up as the argued over the best way to bring all the future quills inside.

  “You can see why I called for someone to come and get them.” Varus said as the noise went up and no feathers appeared.

  “Not really.” Lithia replied and put one hand on her hip before gesturing toward the door. “They seem to be doing fine. They’re happy, well fed, they clearly like and trust you.” She flipped her blonde hair casually with one hand, “Unless you just don’t like having them around, from where I’m standing it seems like you should just keep them.”

  Varus’s jaw dropped open in disbelief as he searched her pale face for some sign of mockery or insanity or who knew what else.

  “You’re not serious, I’m an Elder Lich. Did our brief fight knock the sense out of your skull? According to you, I was a potential candidate to become a Demon King. That is hardly parent material.” His sarcasm was thick and rich, and yet?

  It flew right over her head.

  Lithia only gave a casual shrug. “I could be completely wrong, besides, if you were really going to go on an evil rampage, you’d have done it by now, right?”

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  Varus had no sweat glands, and yet that didn’t stop him from feeling dismay induced sweat fall from his skinless brow. “Then why did you even offer to fight in the first place?!”

  Lithia casually reached for a stray honeyed apple chip that had been somehow forgotten about on the table, and popped it into her mouth to chew. “Mmm, good stuff.” She licked her lips and then replied, “I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time, besides, your message was all garbled, that’s not my fault, you know.”

  She huffed a little, and Varus mentally groaned.

  Lithia wasn’t completely wrong, ‘Not ‘completely,’ he thought, but even so, recalling her plan he could only add, ‘but a barely summoned skeleton could have come up with a better plan than ‘go alone with one shoddy invisibility cloak to confront an unknown undead summoner.’

  Had he still had his nose, Varus knew he’d have pinched it and exhaled with exasperation as she completely missed the point, and then set his mind back to the issue.

  “My point is, I’m undead, and I’m, again according to you, somewhere around five thousand years old. I know nothing of the world as it is, how can I hope to prepare them to live as adults out there?” He spread out his hands at his side and looked at her with questioning eyes.

  “I…suppose.” Lithia muttered and looked away as the gears in her head slowly cranked forward from one thought to the next, “But Amends is still a dangerous world sometimes. I can’t think of a better guardian than an Elder Lich, especially one who was once a great knight.”

  Varus longed for the ability to frown, it wasn’t that she was wrong, somehow, the dense Valkyrie class adventurer had stumbled blindly over a valid point. But danger wasn’t the only problem. “No.” He said. “Life here would be isolated. And they might stumble off into those woods again. They’re a long way from people,” a small pang pulled at his nonexistent heart, “I had to spend my life always being pulled from job to job, battle to battle, war to war, I lost all my living years without ever having a chance to explore anything but the duty of my station. If I keep them here, I’ll deprive them of opportunities too. They deserve better. Take them to people who will know how to raise them, give them the means to have a good life, and that will be enough.”

  ‘For an ancient undead, he’s exceptionally dense.’ Lithia thought and gave a little half bow in his direction. There was no further point in fighting him. “As you wish. I’ll take them to the village I left from to get here. Once I explain things, I’m sure I can find a family to take them in. I’ll sell off a few books of yours to provide for them. Even a dozen of them should provide for their entire lives.”

  Varus gave a slow, reluctant nod. ‘That will be good enough.’ He thought, but that pang in his chest grew enough for him to add, “Stay for the night, and you can take them in the morning when it’s light out. You can take some of my supplies from the house to get you back.”

  “Are-are you sure?” Lithia asked, bright blue eyes opened a little wider in surprise, ‘One sense I didn’t get off this Lich is…hospitality. You don’t go out into the middle of nowhere because you like company.’ She thought as the sense of doubt settled in.

  “Yes. They’ll be too tired to walk after all their tussling, and you have that,” he gestured to his book which, without noticing, she’d placed her hand on again as if to keep it in place, “to finish reading. Tomorrow is as good a day as today to leave, and it’s not as if you have a deadline.” He pointed out.

  His voice was somehow soft, noble, and commanding all at once, it was so…reasonable. ‘And I really do want to finish it…’ That clinched it.

  “That’ll do, ah, I mean…thank you. I’ll stay the night.” Lithia answered, a wayward glance followed her words as she listened to the two outside. They were cooperating now, using their shirts as baskets and chattering as if there had never been a fight in the first place.

  ‘I’ll never look at raven feathers the same way again, and I’d wager that they won’t either, but for different reasons than me.’ She exhaled heavily through their nose, and pushed down the sense of pity she felt for the trio in the cottage.