"Agent has a nice ring to it, eh partner?"

Mikel couldn't help but smile. Tybalt's enthusiasm knew no bounds. "I still owe you that cider."

"That you do." The Charr's big, square muzzle split into a grin. "And since the preceptors gave us a few days leave before our next assignment, I think it's high time I collected. Lion's Arch?"

"Yeah..." Mikel trailed off as his attention was drawn to Demmi Beetlestone being debriefed by a pair of Whispers Agents. She was fingering the chain that had held her mother's pendant. She hadn't hesitated to give up the heirloom once she knew it was how she was being tracked, and yet clearly it was a sharp loss to her. Mikel felt a stab of both jealousy and empathy.

"Mikel, you alright?" Tybalt's voice was unusually serious and it yanked him most of the way out of his thoughts.

"I'm fine." He shook his head and managed a smile for his partner. "I'll meet you in Lion's Arch. I've got something I need to do first."

Tybalt looked askance at that, but merely nodded. They kept to silence even as they left the chantry of secrets.

Just south of Lion's Arch, Mikel split from Tybalt and headed west. It didn't take him long to find the old road that wended westward from the large city towards the Kessex Hills. The countryside was quiet. Not many people lived so far out from either Lion's Arch or Divinity's Reach. Centaurs were few so far south, and without travelers to prey on, bandits and pirates were likewise scarce.

As the road bent back southwards Mikel moved with more caution. Sure enough, just as the road dipped through a cleft in the hills he could see signs of ettins. Luckily enough it seemed that none were recent. They had not returned since he and the Shining Blade Exemplars had cleared them out.

When he reached the low rock wall ringing the small hill, Mikel looked about for the spiders that had last made this place their home. They too appeared to be gone for good. The ruins were truly empty this time.

Slowly he made his way up to the smashed doorway. The last time he came he was looking only for answers on his parents' whereabouts. He had still been caught up in the futile dream that they were still alive and looking for him. In the disappointment of that hope being crushed, he had fairly fled the ruins without even trying to learn who his parents had really been.

The door lay inside the house, ripped from its hinges and partially burnt. Whatever had come for them had made a forceful entry. For the first time in his life Mikel began to realize how lucky he was to have survived.

He trailed his hands on the stone of the walls, as if he could learn about the house's history through that touch. A table stood on one side of the room. Two chairs were intact beside it; a third was smashed to splinters nearby. Beside the table was a modest cooking area with a wood stove sitting cold and dark in the corner. Many of the cooking utensils lay scattered and broken. Mikel crouched down and sifted through the debris gently. None of it could tell him anything other than more details of their final struggle, and at last he moved further into the house.

The next room was clearly a bedroom. A simple wooden bedframe took up the center of the space. Mice had clearly made a nest in what was left of the mattress. Decaying curtains hung over a window that offered a pleasant view of the hills beside the road. A simple wooden dresser stood by the door, but all of it's drawers were missing. Mikel was about to turn away to another room when he caught sight of something else beneath the window. When he moved closer he realized it was a cradle.

He knelt beside the cradle and ran his hand softly over the wood of its frame. The boards were rough and when he pushed it, the cradle rocked somewhat crookedly. Carved somewhat jaggedly into one end of the cradle was a symbol of protection and the initials 'M.B.' Somehow he just knew one of his parents had made it for him with love despite the lack of carpentry skill. A scrap of cloth lay in the tiny bed still, and though it was faded it was still soft. Mikel was sure if he asked some of the old mothers at the orphanage they would tell him that he had been left there wrapped in just such a cloth.

The last room of the house held the remains of a desk that had clearly been ransacked. The drawers lay scattered and broken about the room. A heavy chair lay tossed on it's side. Beside it stood a simple rocking chair of the same level of craftsmanship as the cradle in the bedroom. Had it too been made by one of his parents? Almost reverently he sank to sit in the rocker. It was comfortable, if uneven. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine his mother holding him as a baby in that very room, rocking him to sleep. He stood quickly before he could make himself any more heartsick than he already was.

He turned his attention to the desk and the narrow bookshelf beside it. The desk was empty. Any papers that had once been there had long since been taken by the White Mantle who had sought his parents' deaths. The bookshelf had been similarly cleaned out, but a few battered books remained. The cover of one had been slashed near in half, it's title unreadable. Mikel opened it carefully and found it to simply be a cooking guide. He flipped a few pages, but found nothing else of interest and placed it gently back on the shelf. The second book he picked up held only blank pages. The final book lay on the top shelf, and Mikel had to stretch to reach it.

When he'd pulled it down and brushed the dust off the cover he found it was a textbook of magical instruction, specifically the elemental magics. In fact, Mikel had a copy of that very book on his own bookshelf back in Divinity's Reach. Had one of his parents also been an elementalist? He knew that a tendency towards a specific branch of magic could run in a family, but it was by no means the rule. He flipped open the book with quaking fingers. His breath caught in his throat as he flipped through the pages. In every margin notes in sketchy handwriting had been crammed into every available space. Mikel knew instantly what he was looking at; his own copy of that book looked much the same. Those were the notes of a student eagerly studying his or her craft. He quickly flipped to the inside cover, and found only the initial 'R.B.'

Mikel's heart leapt in his chest as he stared at those two simple letters. This was what he had been searching for. Perhaps he could finally lay the specter of the unknown to some sort of rest. He had an initial now. He could take that to the Shining Blade, and perhaps even learn a name. He turned to the back of the book, hoping for more. There was no other identification. As he flipped forward again a small stone disk fell from the pages. Mikel caught the stone on reflex. It was no larger than a silver coin, but was made of a translucent blue stone. Something about it hummed faintly with magical energy, but he had no idea what it might be. That was when he noticed the page the stone had fallen from. A hole had been cut through several pages to make a space to hide the disk. When the book was closed, there was no indication that anything had been hidden within. Someone had taken great care to keep the disk hidden. Perplexed, Mikel pocketed the stone disk and turned back to the beginning of the book.

Suddenly he thought of Demmi fingering the chain of her mother's pendant while divulging her father's secrets. She had not hesitated to leave sentimentality behind when she had to. She still wore the chain because it was an important memory, but she was still moving forward. She had braved facing down her father's hired guardsmen, and moved on to a life that was not determined by her past or her family.

He thought also of his partner Tybalt, waiting for him in Lion's Arch. It was time he stopped wallowing in the past. There were things he needed to do. Mikel shut the book with a snap and held it tight to him. He would read the notes as soon as he had a chance, but now it was time to be away.

There was one last thing before he left, however. He stepped carefully into the cave that led to his parents' graves. The spiders had not returned to that place either, and the natural rock tomb was quiet and still. That was why he immediately heard the sound of footsteps from behind him.

Mikel whirled quickly, but silently. He held the book tight in one hand and drew his long knife with the other. He whispered a quick invocation to Melandru and felt her power of earth flow through him. The stone about him sung to him, resonating with the elemental magic he was preparing to call upon. Fury built in him at the thought of bandits or other lowlifes finding the house. No one was going to defile his parents's resting place while he still drew breath.

Mikel stepped as silently as he could to the entrance of the cave. He heard another quiet step and knew the intruder was close. He sprang around the corner and brandished his knife...about an inch from a very startled wide, white muzzle.

Mikel sagged against the wall of the cave and dropped his knife into its sheath. "Don't scare me like that. I nearly impaled you."

Tybalt Leftpaw gave a nervous laugh and ran his paw between his horns. "Before we have that cider together? Naw, you wouldn't."

"What are you doing here?"

Tybalt looked around nervously before answering. "I probably shouldn't have, but I followed you. It seemed like something was wrong back at the Chantry, I wanted to make sure you weren't in some kind of trouble."

Mikel had to smile at that. Trust Tybalt to always have the best intentions at heart. "Don't worry, I'm in no trouble."

"What is this place?"

"My parent's house." Mikel knew better than to try and deflect questions. His partner was curious to a fault. "Or at least what's left of it."

"What happened here?" Tybalt was really looking around now, taking in the ransacked rooms and the carved out cave.

"According to the Shining Blade, agents of the White Mantle did this." Mikel turned back towards the darkness of the cave. "Friends or fellow Shining Blade spies were able to rescue me and brought me to an orphanage in Divinity's Reach. I never knew any of this until about a month ago when the White Mantle tried to kill me too."

Mikel felt the soft touch of Tybalt's paw on his arm, but he shrugged it off and moved further into the cave. He was struggling to move on as it was; he didn't want sympathy pulling him back.

Luminescent fungus lined the walls and lit the passage enough that Mikel could easily see his way to the gravestones. As he did on his first visit, Mikel knelt before the graves and said a quiet prayer to the Six. He heard Tybalt shifting behind him. When Mikel at last stood, he had barely had a chance to turn around before his partner started speaking.

"I lost my warband, and my paw, in an explosion that I bungled." The Charr spoke quick and low, as if telling the story was like drawing a thorn out of a wound. "That's why I joined the order, because I was useless to the legion. And that's why I hadn't ever been on a field mission before I met you. I didn't know what it was, but I knew when I met you that you had some black hole in your past you were covering for too. I put on a bright face, and so did you. You had my back through it all, and what's more, you trusted me to have yours. You're the first that's ever really done that for me. So I'm here to do it for you."

Mikel was stunned by the honest and serious words from the often joking Tybalt. It seemed he wasn't the only one who was struggling to move on from the past. He clapped a hand to his partner's arm and managed a weak smile. "I'm glad you followed me."

Tybalt's grin threatened to split his face in two.

"It's time we both leave the past behind us," Mikel kept his hand on his partner's arm and steered the Charr back towards the entrance of the cave. "and look to the future."

Tybalt ducked his head and took a deep breath. When he raised his face again his eyes were shining. "Long past time. Let's go get that cider, partner."