((Greetings, everyone! I just wanted to thank BigDragun987 for his review. It was very encouraging. Thank you!

On with the story!))

Chapter Six: An Ordinary Day

"So," Yuhina said, leaning on the counter, "what's up?"

Seyreon stood nearby, listening but also looking around the pub.

"Not much," replied the pubkeeper, "but I did hear something. You remember that old nu mou who told you about the White Priestess? It turns out he's a priest of the Order of the Sacred Secret."

"The what?" Yuhina asked, puzzled.

"I'm afraid that's all I know. As you might expect from their name, the Order is very mysterious."

Yuhina sighed.

"Well, thank you," she said.

"Come back anytime," Domar called as they headed back to the base.

"Thanks again!" Yuhina called over her shoulder.

"So every morning you talk to him?" Seyreon asked.

"Yep," Yuhina said cheerfully. "Every morning. He's the pubkeeper, so he hears lots of interesting rumors. And he's happy to pass them on. Plus, it's nice to have someone to talk to when the others are out on a mission."

For a moment, it seemed that a sad expression crossed her face, but it was gone so quickly that Seyreon wondered if he had imagined it.

"Yeah," he said, "I guess it would be." He didn't know much about the world, seeing as his memory spanned approximately one day, but he already knew something about being lonely.

"So!" Yuhina clapped her hands. "We've two more days to finish this up, and the second one is really only part of a day. We'd better get to work!"

They did the armor next, chatting as they sorted.

"So what do you usually do, Yuhina?" Seyreon asked. He was curious about this girl, this bookkeeper who had helped him so much. "I mean, when the rest of the clan is around."

"Oh, all sorts of fun things," Yuhina said happily. "There's not much work to do, since mostly what I do is record the missions we've been on, and if there's no missions, well, there's nothing to record! So we just relax, enjoy each other's company, and generally have fun. We play games, have conversations, all that sort of stuff. And then when they start getting restless I find them another mission and off they go to adventure!" She said this in a cheery tone, yet Seyreon thought that her face looked sad for a moment.

It quickly passed.

"And then when they're not around," she went on, "I keep myself busy doing things like this, so that the time goes quickly until they come back! Plus, if they're doing something useful, it's nice to think that I am as well. You know, so I'm not useless."

"I don't think you could be useless if you tried," said Seyreon.

Yuhina giggled.

"Aw, that's sweet," she said.

They kept up the friendly conversation until the work was done.

"Well, that was much easier than the weapons," said Seyreon.

"Yeah, fewer kinds of stuff," said Yuhina. "Just armor, robes, and clothes, really. Then get it all looking reasonably neat and we're done!"

"So what's next?" asked Seyreon.

"Lunch," Yuhina declared. "I'm hungry!"

Seyreon chuckled.

After lunch, they sorted the hats and shields (which for some reason had been put in the same room, but was quite soon done because there were hardly any of either), followed by the room full of random other items (shoes, gloves, amulets... Seyreon wondered just how they had decided what went where).

And then, they returned to the weapons.

Oh, they had fun looking through the book and figuring out just what Clan Verity had. They were able to separate the swords into greatswords, knightswords, and various other categories neither had known existed.

"Yuhina, why are you putting those weapons to the side?"

"They're special," said Yuhina, patting the small pile of bluish-white weapons. "These are made of mythril."

That answer made Seyreon only slightly less confused.

"Hey Seyreon, why are you staring at that staff?"

"Did you know it was possible to revive people from the dead?"

"Oh yeah, people do that every now and then. It can be kind of annoying when your opponents do it and really useful when you do, Azila's told me about it. It doesn't work as well if you're not in an engagement, though. I'm not sure why. And judges do it after every engagement."

Seyreon blinked. Then he shook his head.

Note to self: Anything can happen. So don't be so surprised when it does.

"Um... explain this 'engagement' stuff to me? You've said some things about it, but I'm not sure I really understand..."

It took them the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening to finish organizing all the weapons. By that time, Yuhina had told Seyreon everything she knew about engagements (which was not very much), and a number of other things besides.

Finally, Yuhina clapped her hands.

"Whew! All done," she said happily. "Won't they be surprised!"

Seyreon was surprised himself. The weapons had been placed neatly, sorted by type and within the types by some system he did not understand, but which Yuhina assured him she did. Most were hung on the wall (those nails had been quite a bit of work to hammer in), though some had been put on shelves (the room had already had the shelves, and Seyreon wondered why they had not already been in use).

The mythril weapons had been left on a table in the center (the table had already been in the room, buried in a pile of weaponry).

The two of them went back to the common area, where they promptly collapsed onto the couch.

"We ought to go to bed," Yuhina mumbled.

"As soon as I can actually stand up..." Seyreon replied.

Only a few minutes later, they were both asleep, Yuhina's head on Seyreon's shoulder.