Late into the night the harp stopped playing, with only the crackle of the fireplace to replace the music. Finn had dozed off on Harv's chest with his black robe draped over them for the sake of decency. Harv lingered in that moment longer than he needed to, until the afterglow had faded into a warm weight on his heart. The rise and fall of their breathing created a ballet of shadows across Finn's skin. Harv could feel his back prickle from where he laid on the couch, now a little too warm. When he shifted, Finn hardly moved, he wasn't dozing anymore, he was asleep.
He had a promise to keep.
It hardly seemed fair to leave Finn in such a state in the sitting room though. So, he carried the bard up to his room one last time and hid him under the covers. Finn rolled over and pulled a pillow close, causing Harv to take pause, but he didn't keep stirring.
Harv's things had been gathered by the back garden door, a change of clothes carefully folded next to his armor and sword. It was as if the elements hadn't touched them at all. With a heavy heart, Harv went back out into the snow, the road now clearer than it had been in weeks.
He needed to go back home.
Though the closer he got to town, roosters crowing well before sunrise, the faster his walk turned into a brisk jog. He'd be able to greet his family with the morning sun. Just about an hour before everyone would wake, he made it to his family home. It was a little different than he remembered. Little changes, like the positioning of chairs and where dishes were left to dry, but none so drastic he felt out of place. At long last he'd be able to greet his parents with open arms and see how big his siblings had grown.
Then something hard and metallic hit him on the back of the head. He dropped to the ground like a rock.
"You picked the wrong house to shake up." A female voice he couldn't quite place shouted. She forced him to roll over and pinned his shoulder with her foot. "Holy-" She dropped the cast iron skillet she'd been using as a one-handed weapon. "Harv!?" There was more commotion coming from the other room as people clamored to see what happened. Harv groaned, his vision still spotted white from the pain.
"Emet, what's going on?" Rhodri asked.
"Emet?" Harv felt the pain subside. He wasn't used to seeing his fellow warrior in a dressing gown, but it was definitely them. "Emet! I haven't seen you since-" He immediately caught sight of Rhodri flailing for him to stop talking. "...forever." He finished lamely. Emet helped him to his feet as the rest of the family poured into the kitchen.
"Is that-" His mother ran towards him. "Harv!" She pulled him into a chokehold of a hug and showered the top of his head with kisses. "I was so worried. We got word back you'd defected, and no one could find you." She released him only to squish his cheeks together. "I'm just so glad you're home." Puck ran up to him, and Harv caught him in stride, though it was harder to lift him up like he used to. He was able to get him about a foot and a half off the ground before having to set him down again.
"Did you bring any presents?" Puck jumped up and down.
"In a minute little man, I just got here." Harv walked up to his dad and gave him a hug but had to stop him from trying to noogie his head. "Emet hit me in the head with a skillet not ten minutes ago."
"Haha!" His father laughed and slapped him on the back. "Yeah, your brother's fiancé is a bit of a spitfire ain't she?" Harv, bug eyed, looked at the two in question who were wearing uncomfortable smiles as they nodded. The look in their eyes begged him to just play along until they could explain in private what was going on. From the bedroom doorway, a shy eleven-year-old watched quietly, still mostly hidden by the shadows of the bedroom.
"Hey Biggie, remember me?" Harv didn't have to crouch as much to get on eye level with the child. Big glanced at his parents to judge their reaction before giving a small nod.
"Harv, why don't you escort," Emet cringed at the word, "me to the well and I can treat your wound."
"I don't see anything that bad." Roland tried to take a closer look, but Harv evaded him.
"Sure," Harv handed his pack to Puck, "present are in the brown paper packages. Don't open them until I get back, but you can pass them out to everyone." Puck snatched the satchel and greedily emptied its contents. "Emet." He awkwardly bowed and generally tried to be gentlemanly, but he honestly couldn't see her as anything other than his army buddy in a dress. Especially with how uncomfortable Emet was with the whole thing too. They walked out into the snow, the house behind them now alight with life and celebration. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, I came here to tell Rhodri what happened to you. I figured Darren would try to cover his ass the minute he realized he fucked up." Emet had dropped all pretense of femininity, falling back into the lower register Harv was familiar with. "I was only going to catch him up, but then that blizzard came through and I got stuck." Emet sucked in air through his teeth. "You can imagine how fun it was explaining to your parents why I was there at night... It was easier to play the part of a lady than touch any of, well, you know. I've been stuck in that tiny two room house with all of them cooing at us, it's basically my own personal hell in there. They're nice people though, kept me safe, it's pretty much all I could hope for."
"Does Rhodri know?" Harv hardly knew how to explain anything to a bystander, let alone a loved one, but Emet rolled his eyes.
"'Dose Rhodri know?'" Emet said in a jester-like imitation. "Of course, he knows. He knew before I did, and besides we've been friends since I started school. He's got a bigger heart than you give him credit for. What about you? I was worried about you, y'know, but you look like a lesser noble right now." Harv hadn't even considered the second-hand clothes or braids to be out of the ordinary, he'd grown so used to them.
"Yeah, uh, I stayed with a... with a friend." He sent the bucket down to the well to at least try and maintain the facade he was receiving medical aid.
"A friend or a 'friend'?" Emet leaned against the frozen stone. "'Cause I thought you were swearing off of 'friends' after the whole thing with Trevor went down." Harv nearly dropped the bucket.
"Would you at long last let that go!?" Harv snapped. "It was years ago, it doesn't matter. Emet grinned at him almost predatorily.
"Oh?" She gasped when he went back to bringing up the water. "Oh ho! See, I told you there were other people that wanted that sort of thing." Harv's lip twitched, ready to get into a fight, because Emet always thought his attempts at a love life were laughable. Just because the results were usually disastrous didn't give Emet the right to poke fun at him for wanting it, especially right now. "Hold that thought, your mom's coming." Emet shifted gears and slipped into a falsetto act like a pair of old shoes. "I think it's just a bump. He should be fine if just rubs some dirt in."
"I was just making sure," his mother smiled, "it was just taking a while, so-"
"Yeah, you should get back inside before Rhodri gets jealous." Harv said tersely. The flash of outrage that flickered across Emet's face was enough to make up for getting hit in the head.
"He might, actually." Emet forced a smile. "But when you come back to the house, I'm sure everyone would love to hear about the friend you met during your travels." Emet chuckled a little, the smile softening into something more genuine. "I am glad you're okay. If you need a job, my dad could always use help around the guild or I could talk to some other friends. Good guys like you are always in demand." So that was how Emet planned to pay him back. It was a kind gesture.
"Friend?" His mother perked up at the potential good news. There were many kind gestures needed to truly call it even.
"Yeah, about that..." Harv hesitated as he watched Emet go back into the house. No one else seemed to be coming outside. "You know that story you told me, about how you met dad..." He could see her eyes start to sparkle with the early signs of a smile. "I think... I mean, I don't know for sure but... it was kind of..." Well, he hadn't had to go hunting for a bear or argue with Finn's parents. There was nothing he could point to as traditional courting either, but Finn had made it clear he wanted something akin to that. "They wanted me to stay with them." His mom looked like she was about to cry all over again.
"All of my babies are growing up so fast." She hugged again. "So, when do we get to meet her?" Harv tensed, this was the part he'd been dreading.
"Him." He waited in the anxiety riddled limbo as his mother let go of him.
"Well... That certainly does complicate things a little, doesn't it?" She cupped her chin like it was an interesting sort of puzzle and looked back at the house.
"Yeah, that's not the only problem." Harv slowly explained to her the situation the house-bound son of the late witch had found himself in. With each new piece of information, she nodded, puzzling the whole time. Yet, she assured him, there was always a solution to be found if the will was strong enough. The real question was, was it worth the risk?
Finn woke at an unimportant hour of the day, slipped on his baggy comfy clothes and shuffled downstairs. He made his morning tea as usual, no longer having to hide every magic implement in the house or concern himself with appearances. Though he did avoid drinking it in the sitting room. As pretty as the fire and bells were, all he'd end up thinking about would be how much of a pain it would be to take it down. It was easier this way. He needed to get used to the quiet by doing something familiar.
After all, he still had false hope to nurse along his wounded heart. Something that numbed the ache with each wave of acceptance. He had to take up all the daily chores again, even though he hadn't the motivation, and his mood grew duller. Just as overestimating how much water he'd need for a cup of tea brought him down or the thought of picking up his harp to play a tune. He'd try to remind himself it hadn't been a definite no. He could always venture up the path to the farm, were he really desperate for a concrete answer. The ambiguity hurt, but not as badly as rejection would have.
It wasn't until he went to do the week's laundry that the numbness started to crack. Amongst the delicates and table napkins was Harv's old tunic from the first day he'd arrived. Finn hadn't needed to wash anything the past few days, so it accidentally got left out of the mix.
It was the accidental part that got to him.
Because Harv left on purpose. He didn't choose to leave anything behind and had Finn thought to check the dirty linens, it would have been packed up with everything else. Harv also chose not to give him a clear answer, even in his absence. No note or final grand gesture of affection, there was no guarantee he'd come back for a shirt he didn't need anymore.
It was just a dirty, old tunic.
But the emotional dam he'd tried so hard to build up cracked at the sight of it and everything came rushing out at once. An ugly sob rattled out of his throat. It still smelled like him, but he was gone. Just another ghost that left echoes of himself behind in the empty house.
He couldn't hear the bells over the sound of his crying.
Puck and Big were playing with handmade toys as they chased each other around the dinner table. The new baby Kenric was on a quilt near Clover's chair playing with his toes and looking in the general direction of the loudest noise. It was a little jarring for Harv to be thrust back into a house so full of life, so many conversations going on at once with Emet and Rhodri bickering over dishes in the background.
Harv had joined his father next to the fire to work on wicks for the lanterns. It was the closest he could get to finding a bit of peace in the chaos. Despite being his family home, he felt a little out of place once he came face to face with all the changes in the house. He couldn't help feeling that a few melodies from a harp would harmonize with everything.
"You've been awfully quiet today." His father said softly. "Not so easy coming back." Harv nodded in response. There were a lot of things about military life that hadn't made its way into his father's stories while growing up.
"It's... weird." Harv tossed one of the stripped reeds onto the pile. "I spent most of the trek wondering what I'd do with myself once I got back. The plan was always to serve as a soldier, and then I'd figure the rest out later."
"Later always catches up to you." His father agreed. They continued to whittle in silence.
"I mean, I have options, I just... I don't know if I'm rushing into something just to have purpose." Harv briefly glanced at his dad. "Was it like that for you?"
"Eh, I didn't have much time to think about it." Roland shrugged. "Your mother didn't give me a chance."
"It was fate." His mother insisted gently. His whole life he'd been told the same story, how his father had stumbled through the doors after serving on the front and they fell in love after sharing a meal. The rest often changed, apparently his grandparents were strongly against her marrying a stranger. "I said I'd marry the first man to walk through that door and not ten seconds later there he was. Couldn't have timed it better if I tried."
"Clover!" Roland relaxed when he saw the little ones were too distracted with their toys.
"I thought it was love at first sight?" Harv said. He felt a little betrayed, which was silly. He was too old to believe in such things, but he had thought his parents an exception to the rule.
"It was, we just didn't know it at the time." Roland said. "Sometimes you get lucky and meet someone who wants the same things. And in your mother's case, she really didn't want to marry anyone her mother picked out. You've seen the miller." He shrugged as Harv imagined the nightmare scenario where he'd grown up the miller's child instead. "You'll adjust to civilian life again; it just might take a bit to find what suits you."
Harv already had an idea of what suited him, it just might take a bit of explaining and time. He looked up at his mom and nodded. She set aside her mending.
"You know, I wish we could properly thank the people who helped shelter you on your way back." She said. "If only we knew where any of them lived. I'd like to bring them a cake or something for being so kind and generous to a stranger." She did her best to indirectly talk up Finn before Harv revealed that, coincidentally, he happened to live nearby. It wasn't the subtlest attempt on his part, but it was enough to convince his father to go in the morning.