A/N: Revised 9/3/2024.

Character Index/Family Tree:

Elizabeth + various (deceased) men = Tor, Ellyn/"Faolan", Elaine

Elaine + Arran = Phelan and Tara

Phelan + Aisling = Bethany (14), Aedan (11), Oisin (7), Daithi & Eimar (5)

Tara + Darach (deceased) = Faye (5), Fillin (2), Darragh (less than 1)

Chapter 16: Inheritance

The library of Corbin Castle has changed little from the expansive room I saw in Zoso's memories. I pull a few scrolls from the shelves about the castle and the history of the town of Corbin, but the proverbial jackpot is hidden behind another blood-magic barrier on a shelf near the central desk. It's a huge leather-bound book filled with handwritten notes, some going back decades before even Balthazar was lord here. I hand my small pile to Rum, and he shunts them into a pocket dimension for later.

We rejoin the d'Corbin family as they disperse to the various shops. I and Rum stick with my mother, and Tara and Bethany accompany us to the tailor's, the latter carrying two-year-old Fillin so Tara can hold the baby. The tailor and her assistants give us a cold reception, and, as Rum predicted, they give my mother odd looks as she floats along next me.

"I think they're on to us." I jest quietly to Mum, nodding to the assistants as they whisper to each other.

"They're not nearly clever enough to be on to us, dear. People are just gossips."

"Hmmph. Hey, Mum, where do you stand on the Barking Beast? Arran doesn't think it's back, but Phelan does. And the villagers certainly do."

"I don't know about all that. If it is back, I say let it be. Our neighbors cause more problems than it has."

How I wish Pellamos Pellinore had had that attitude; if he could have just left it alone, maybe Tor wouldn't have died trying to kill it. He would've just found a different suicide mission for Tor, I think bitterly. Easier to get rid of us than to take responsibility for your bastards.

"Yeah, the monsters are only ever half the problem. It's the people you have to worry about." I may not have seen the Questing Beast, but the things I saw during the Ogre Wars branded that lesson onto my psyche.

"Faolan," Tara calls to us, "What do you think of this color?"

I glance over to her, then to Rum, who has been hovering nearby and looking bored. "Stay with Mum, yeah?"

"Of course, little wolf."

I cross to Tara, taking a millisecond to enjoy the site of baby Darach sleeping in her arms before I actually look at the fabric. "Pretty color, but red fades quick."

Tara ignores me, leans in closer. "Between the two of us, Faolan, is there really nothing going on between you and Rumple?"

A small spark of annoyance shoots through my chest. "So this wasn't about the fabric, huh?" I grumble.

"Come on. You don't find him attractive?"

"That wouldn't mean there's something going on with us."

"You're really not interested in him?"

"Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?!"

"I don't mean to offend, Auntie. You two just seem so comfortable and… I just want to say that if there is, or if you want there to be, you should say something. If I'd faced my feelings I could have had two more years with my husband."

I digest that in silence. It'd be easier if she hadn't played the dead husband card. "Thank you." I say eventually. "If it happens, I'll try to take your advice."

She lets out a half-frustrated sigh at the word if. "Faolan, if this is what you're like with men who are just friends, you'd be unbearable when you're in love."

"What? What am I doing now?"

She flashes a grin and meanders down the wall. "Let's start with the hand-holding."

I feel my face getting hot. "That's not romantic, that's practical! If you don't keep ahold of him he wanders off or sneaks up on you. If he were a cat I'd put a bell on him and be done with it."

"You were cuddling in the hay loft."

"We weren't cuddling." I argue, nearly aghast. "We were talking, I fell asleep-"

"Right, of course. And how often does that happen?"

"This was the only time! It's not like I sleep enough to make a habit of it." I catch a glance of Mum talking intently to Rumple, who looks somewhere between bemused and uncomfortable. A smile twitches at my lips. "You two set this up, didn't you?"

"We have to give the credit to Bethany for the idea. Grandmum hasn't really gotten to talk to him, and we wanted to get you alone."

"So is she asking him the same thing about me?" I ask. Rum notices us watching and shoots me a furtive, pleading look over my mother's shoulder. I flash a wide grin and waggle my eyebrows, and he scowls back at me. "I guess I should go save him."

"Hah. Good luck prying him away from Grandmum when she's got something to say."

I'm just nearing Mum and Rum when the door to the store slams open, and we all look over to see Aedan, Phelan's oldest boy, standing in the doorway.

"Pop says we need to go." He pants. "Now."

A shot of cold anxiety goes through my chest. "What happened?"

"Dunno. Him and Grandpop are at the wagon."

We're already moving towards the door. "Are they alright?" I ask as we trot out into the street.

"I think so, but Granpop's got a shiner."

That doesn't bode well. I jog past Aedan and down the short alley, rounding the corner to the grassy stretch behind the tavern where the wagons were left. I find the rest of the d'Corbin women and children already climbing into the back of the wagon, save for Aisling, who is holding the horses as Phelan and Arran hitch them to the wagon with impressive speed.

"What's going on?" I demand.

Arran glances over briefly, and there's a fresh bruise around his eye. Elaine immediately takes his face in her hands, inspecting it with worry as he explains, "Me and Phelan walked up on Callum 'n Finn Dornigan messing with the wagon." Cold anger sweeps through my chest. "They've got three brothers. The family's known for fighting."

"And?" I growl. "What are five regular people gonna do to us?" For gods' sake, his wife and both of his children are lycanthropes, and Phelan's big enough to take two people without shifting.

Arran rounds on me immediately. "You will not go around slinging magic and killing people in broad daylight!" He all but shouts. "Do you understand me? I will not allow it!"

Forget cold anger. Now I'm furious.

"I'm sorry, what the fuck did you just say to me?" I shout back, taking an aggressive step forward without conscious thought. "You think you allow me to do anything?"

I'm vaguely aware of the women shouting at us- to calm down or to shut up- and Phelan ducks around the horse and jumps in front of Arran, stopping his father back from matching my forward movement.

"I am the head of this family, Faolan!" Arran shouts over his son's shoulder. "Not you, me!"

"Excuse me?" Elaine interjects sharply.

"Don't you start!" He snaps harshly, rounding on her.

"You don't talk to her that way." I cut in, stepping forward again.

"Ellie." Rum steps in front of me, a hand on either of my shoulders, holding me in place. I grab him by the color of his shirt and almost lift him off the ground, an instinctual reaction to the unexpected touch. I stop just short of it and stare at him for a second, then glare around his shoulder at Arran. "Look at me, little wolf... Ellyn!" I match his gaze, practically vibrating with pent-up frustration. "As much as I'd love to watch this play out, I don't think the children will be so entertained."

My hands tighten in his shirt, but I know that he's right, and I take deep breaths and try to focus on the grey-gold eyes in front of me instead of Arran and Elaine bickering behind him. I force my fingers to minutely relax their death-grip, and Rum squeezes my shoulders.

"We can sort him out later." He soothes, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. "But not here."

I don't answer, but I also don't move. Arran gives me one last black look over Phelan's shoulder, and then the two men climb onto the driver's bench. In the span of a few heartbeats, they've disappeared back up the alley.

"I'm going to hit him." I grumble.

"I know."

"I got in scraps with my own brothers for less."

"I know." He repeats; I've told some of the stories to him and Graham. He cocks his head. "Is that why- well, this?" He taps the back of the hand still curled in his shirt, and I sheepishly straighten his collar.

"I wasn't joking all those times I said not to seek up on me." I fix him with a serious look. "I could've hurt you."

"No, you couldn't have." He shoots back, a teasing twinkle in his eyes. "But your concern is just adorable."

"It's the effort that counts, Rum. I don't want to end up throwing you against a wall."

"Don't threaten me with a good time, little wolf." He says with a predatory grin that is wildly contradicted by the ridiculous playful waggle of his eyebrows.

I scoff. "Like you'd know. When was the last time someone threw you against a wall in the fun way?"

"I was young once." He replies in mock-offense. That wicked grin returns as he adds, "But you are welcome to jog my memory."

"Please. I'd snap you like a twig, pretty boy."

"Promises, promises." He pauses. "Pretty boy?"

I start off, glancing at Rum to assure he follows. "Com'on, there's no way that's the first time you've heard that."

He draws an X over his chest with a hand as he says, "Cross my heart. So what makes me so pretty, hmm?"

"Besides the sparkly skin?"

"For the last time, I do not sparkle." He huffs, scowling. I grin over at him.

"Keep telling yourself that, mate. And you're pretty 'cause of the long hair and the lean body and the tight pants."

He's trying not to look so flustered, and deflects, "Now that was a quick answer. Been thinking on it, have we?"

"Oh, for sure. How could I resist?"

His smile is performatively self-satisfied. "I am quite dashing, aren't I?"

"Aye. That muscle-bound demigod I was dating has got nothing on you."

Rum rolls his eyes at that jab. "That oaf cannot really be your type."

"I have an eclectic taste." I rake a mock-predatory gaze over him to prove it.

Despite the teasing, the statement is true; he and Vali are attractive in different ways, but attractive nonetheless. I suppose that's a result of traveling so much in my youth, and meeting so many vastly different peoples as a hormone-racked teen.

"You have poor taste." Rum corrects. "Myself excluded, obviously."

"I'd drink to that if I had one." We walk a few steps in amused silence before I ask, "If we go to see the king, how do you think we should play it?"

"Hmm. What do you know of him?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. The last I saw him he was mid-twenties, short-tempered, something to prove- you've seen the type- but I barely interacted with him. Pellamos would send everyone else out of the room when I came around. I know Pelagios wasn't happy to have two of his father's bastards come calling in as many years, but I'm not sure how much of that he still cares about now that he's on the throne.

"You're not sure?" Rum asks incredulously. "He sent King Nidhad's men to your house."

"He sent Nidhad's goons to the area, he doesn't know where my house is. And that could've just been business. Nidhad's a conquering jackass and Listenoise isn't exactly thriving. Pelagios obviously wasn't invested enough to send his own men with them."

"What a caring baby brother that makes him."

"I'm just saying that he could be hostile or indifferent."

"With you, little wolf, I think that hostile is the safe assumption."

When we arrive back at the d'Corbin farm the children are playing outside, and Bethany is following two-year-old Fillin with long-suffering patience as he toddles through the grass. My mother sits in a rocking chair in front of the house, a blanket across her lap and baby Darragh sleeping in her arms. Bethany looks up as we approach.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you."

I grimace. "They fighting, are they?"

"Oh yeah. Grandmum is tearing Grandpop up."

"It's refreshing to hear that one of them has some sense." Rum says.

"Y'know, I don't think I've ever heard Elaine yell." I muse. "She must be mad."

"She is." Bethanny answers. "That 'man of the house' talk don't go over well when most of the family is women. They're tearing into him like-"

"A pack of wolves?" Rum asks with a wide, conspiratory grin. My grandniece matches it perfectly.

"Exactly."

I smile at them both. "Thanks for the warning, Bethany. We'll wait with Mum."

My mother squints up at us as we approach, then breaks into a warm smile. Through the wall of the house, I can hear muffled, angry shouting. "You're back! After how Arran behaved I wouldn't have blamed you for taking some time to yourself."

If we hadn't pissed Alastar off, I might've, I think. Instead I say, "I've had my share of time by myself." Rum waves a hand, and a pair of chairs appears in front of my mother's. "Thanks, Rum. Didn't want to join in on the fun, Mum?" I ask, nodding to the house as Rum and I sit.

"Hmmph. I've yelled at enough men in my life. They're a waste of breath, the lot of them." She glances to Rum and adds, "No offense, dear."

He looks to me quizzically and scrunches his nose "I count as a man? How distasteful."

As I did with the rest of the family last night, I tell my mother of the major life events of the past few decades: losing Ian, training and then splitting from Ezra, being engaged to and then leaving Vali. When I tell her of Graham, I can't help but glance over to my many grand-nieces and grand-nephews as they play.

"Ellyn?" Rum asks, in that tone that suggests someone has asked me a question I didn't hear.

"Sorry." I say reflexively, smiling sheepishly at the both of them.

"What are you thinking, little wolf?"

He looks so concerned, so I sigh and admit, "That I wish Graham were here."

Part of that is because, though I don't want to make it real by admitting it, I miss him already; the other part just wants him to have children of a similar age to play with. Even to this day, he spends more time with Kraken than with anything resembling a human friend.

"The joys of having children," My mother says with understanding. "You'll never stop missing them." I know that she means nothing by it, but it still sends a shot of pain and guilt through my chest to be reminded of that sentiment knowing that I have left her in the past and will do so again. When she sees my expression fall, she adds, "You know, you could bring him here. We'd love to meet him, and he might enjoy some time with the kids."

She's trying to make me feel better, I know, so I don't know how seriously to take the offer. There are certainly several reasons that that is a bad idea, first and foremost being that Graham, despite his growing confidence, is still anxious around strangers- let alone a group big enough to have me hiding in a bedroom.

"Thanks, Mum, but, uh… I don't really know if that's a good idea-"

"There's no rush to answer, dear. It sounds like he's been through a lot. Perhaps just talk to him about it."

I hesitate. I'm not sure I want to do even that, because I don't want him to make friends that he will too quickly have to leave. Or maybe he doesn't have to leave, my mind supplies. They could give him a more normal life than we could, and if they move into the castle, they'll have plenty of room... The idea of not living with Graham, of no longer seeing him every day, makes my chest tighten, but some logical part of me knows he was never supposed to stay with me forever, and that he deserves more than he can have with us.

"I'll think about it, Mum." I say quietly. Rum gives me an evaluating look, sensing the shift in my line of thinking.

We continue to chat, but I notice Rum growing less animated, beginning to zone out. I can't say I blame him; this much extended social interaction is something we're only used to with each other and Graham. When baby Darragh begins to fuss and Mum insists on taking him inside herself, I take the chance to lean over to Rum.

"You don't have to stay, y'know."

He wasn't paying attention when I said it, and it takes a heartbeat to register. "Trying to get rid of me already?" It's meant to be playful, but there's a slight edge to his voice.

"Give me a bloody break, would you? I didn't mean it like that."

"Well, do enlighten me."

"Look, mate, I'm just saying that these people are alot for me, and I'm related to them. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to take off until they've decided about the Castle."

His expression eases a bit. "And leave you here alone? Who would stop you from killing your brother-in-law?"

I smile, not because of the teasing, but because he's trying to find a reason to stay. The sentiment is more valuable than I'd admit.

"It's up to you." I flash a mischievous smile and add, "We could roll the dice and see what happens with Arran. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Remind me," He says, "Would we consider alive or dead to be lucky?"

The door to the house cracks open, and Elaine pokes her head out. "Faolan, you wanted to tell us something before dinner, didn't you?"

"We did. Do you think we should wait a bit?"

"If there's going to be another fight, I'd rather get it out now." I distantly wonder if I should be offended that she suspects I'll cause a fight, but I know I shouldn't blame her.

"Elaine, this is… big. I think we should wait for clearer heads."

Her expression hardens. "If you want clear heads, it will take days. I assume you don't intend to stay that long?" At my expression, she scowls and bites out, "No, I didn't think you would."

I blink, caught off-guard, and Rum's face falls into cool disapproval. Our expressions must make Elaine realize what she said and how she said it, because she looks away, fidgets with the door handle. "I meant-"

"Let's get to it." I cut her off, tone level as I climb to my feet.

"Faolan-"

"Elaine." I cut in again. "Let's get to it, yeah?"

"...Alright."

We follow her inside and hover by the doorway as she disappears back into the kitchen. As soon as she's out of earshot, Rum shoots me a sidelong look.

"She was trying to apologize."

"I know."

Elaine emerges from the kitchen with Aisling in tow, and our conversation drops as the d'Corbin adults slowly fill the room. Rum leans against the wall by the door, silent for now, and I help my mother shuffle to the bench in front of the fireplace. Aisling and Tara sit on either side of her, and Phelan nods to me as he settles into one of the chairs next to them. Arran is the last to arrive; he slips in quietly from the short hallway that connects to bedrooms, hovering on the edge of the room with an annoyed expression already painted across his face.

I lean back against the unlit hearth. "It's been a long day for us all, so I'm going to be blunt with you all. First, that family legend of yours is right. We're descended from the Corbin lords, and by all rights should own that castle."

Everyone looks at each other. My mother grins. "I knew it."

I continue, "I think that what happened today shows that you all aren't exactly safe out here-"

Elaine's eyes widen as she guesses where this is going. "Faolan-"

"I think you all should move into Corbin Castle."

The house falls silent as they look at me with the expressions of startled deer. Ironic for a pack of wolves.

"You want to make us lords?" Phelan asks, staring into space, shell-shocked.

"I think you should move into the castle. I don't care if you're lords or not."

Now he comes back to himself, looking up at me with furrowed brows. "Could that work? Would the king allow it?"

I fight to keep my expression neutral. "I haven't asked yet. If you want to do this, me and Rum could convince the nobles." And if we can't, I'd have no problem killing another King of Listenoise, or shredding the current aristocracy entirely.

"Auntie," Tara asks carefully, "Are you serious about this?"

Arran cuts in then. "You can't be considering this." He all but snarls- at me, not at Tara. "This is insane."

"Pop," Phelan interjects. "We barely fit in this house. We could have a castle-"

"That castle is cursed!"

Tara cuts in, "I share a room with three kids. I'll give the haunted castle a try."

Arran and his children descend into ever-loudening bickering, but Elaine ignores them, looking between me and our mother. "Mum, what do you think?"

Elizabeth shrugs. "Go where you want, dear. I'll probably be dead before we finish unpacking."

"Mum." Elaine gasps, and Elizabeth breaks into a wide grin and a high, raspy chuckle. "You can't joke about that."

"Bah. If I can't joke about it, who can?"

"No one, Mum."

A smile tugs at my lips, and I glance at Rum across the room as the family fights around me.

"You seem at home." He says quietly and half-sarcastically, and I don't know if it's lycanthrope hearing or magic that lets me hear him.

"Eh, this is nothing. You should've seen the screaming matches that Liam and Pop would get into."

As Arran argues back and forth with my niece and nephew he steps fully into the room to stand in front of them, putting him only a few arm's lengths in front of me. His face is growing redder by the minute.

"Enough!" He shouts. "That's enough! We are not leaving our home for that cursed ruin. Are you out of your minds?! We're farmers. We're farmers who can't even go into our town without an incident. Our neighbors despise us. They think we're cowards and witches." He spins to face me, stalks a step closer, and I narrow my eyes and straighten from the fireplace. "And you want us to walk into that ruin and try to lord over them? When you walk out on us again, they'll tear us apart! If you think I'm putting my family in that kind of danger, you're a crazy witch."

Only he doesn't say witch.

Arran turns and is stalking from the room before the last words are even out of his mouth. He's lucky that he's halfway to the door in the heartbeat it takes for me to register the insult, because if he were in arm's reach, I might've hit him. He almost makes it out, but just as he passes Rum, my partner's arm shoots out and snags the collar of his shirt, yanking him in till they're almost nose-to-nose.

"You will not," Rum snarls, low and cold and absolutely vicious, "Speak to her like that again."

Shock and a tinge of fear flashes across Arran's face, and then it melts back into anger, and he jerks free from Rum's grip and stalks out the door, slamming it behind him. For a moment the house is deathly silent.

"Faolan-" Elaine begins softly.

"Let me guess," I cut in, "You're sorry for his behavior. You realize it doesn't really count as an apology if it's not from him, right?"

My mother hmmphs. "Well, it's the only apology you'll get. That one would rather lose a limb than admit he was wrong."

I run a hand through my hair. "I want to make something clear to you all. I can't stay here forever. At some point, I'll have to get back to… everything." To Graham, to finding Ian, to my real life. Grimness settles over my family, but not surprise. "But I promise you that if you want to move to the Castle, I'll make sure that things are stable. I'm not going to drop you in a dangerous situation and walk away. If that means I have to stay awhile, and that I have to visit more when everything is settled… I'll make it work."

"...Thank you, Faolan."

I nod. "I'm going to take off for a bit. I'll be back for dinner." I'll give them time to actually discuss this as a family. They slowly nod, solemn but understanding.

Rum joins me as I step out the door, and we walk side by side for a few feet in silence.

"Thank you." I say.

"You told off Alastar. I was returning the favor."

"Sure. It was purely transactional." I tease with a grin and no small amount of warmth. A small, almost bashful smile crosses his face, and he glances away.

"Where are we going?" He eventually asks.

"Oh. Uh, I don't know. I was just walking."

"We could go to the castle." He suggests, and when I glance up at Corbin Castle in the distance, he clarifies, "My castle."

"Really?" We've spent most of the past year at my place; I've only been in the Dark Castle a handful of times. "Okay, sure."

When the smoke clears we stand in some kind of laboratory. On one end is a table haphazardly strewn with books and hand-written notes, and the rest of the space is dominated by an extensive alchemical setup, one wall is completely lined with shelves of ingredients- all labeled, some very rare. Numbers and notes written in chalk almost completely cover another wall of the room.

"Damn. Impressive setup." Cinaed would absolutely kill for some of those ingredients.

"I know." Rum replies jovially. "I have some tests to run. You can do-" He makes a flippant motion with his hand, "Whatever it is you do."

I suppress a smile. He wants some quiet company, but doesn't want to ask for it.

"I'll get started on my reading.."

He nods, trying not to look pleased with my response. He summons the books that I collected from Corbin Castle and shoves some things over on the table to set them down, then begins pulling ingredients out of cupboards. I cross to the table, then glance over to the stone wall covered in chalk. I sit against the edge of the table, brow furrowing as I try to make sense of what I'm seeing. In my periphery, I see Rum glance over at me.

"Any guesses?" He asks at my apparently puzzled expression.

"I think it's some sort of magic." I reply dryly. He's designing a spell of some kind, but I have no idea what it's supposed to do. It has some teleportation here, some kind of mind manipulation there, but I see absolutely no way it could all fit together. Light-heartedly, I add, "It'd be easier if you had better handwriting." I frown at some numbers written at a slant in a corner. "Wait, is that the energy input?"

He glances over. "An estimation."

"You can't be serious." He raises an eyebrow at me, and I look between him and the number. "You can't really put out that much energy on your own, can you?"

"I probably could."

For a second I only stare. I proposed this partnership because I needed a level of power that I don't possess to activate the Standing Stones to Neverland. What I'd ask of him will be a third of what he has written.

"Blood-y hell." I mutter.

He flashes a toothy grin. "More use than a pretty face, hmm?"

I huff a laugh, still half in disbelief. My eyes flicker over the wall. "What's it all for, then? It's gotta be something big."

His face falls, begins to shutter. "It is."

I look over at him fully. I can see in his face, in the way his lips press into a thin line and the tightening of the muscles around his eyes, that he doesn't want to talk about it. Some instinctual part of me knows that he's priming for an argument.

"...Alright." I say at length, and though surprise flashes briefly across his face, some of the tension eases out of him. Part of me wants to scoff at him. When have I ever tried to pry? I back off when he gets prickly like this. He does the same for me; after my relationship with Vali, it's become a trait that I treasure in a companion.

I settle into the chair and kick my feet up on the table, and note in my peripheral vision that Rum is still looking at me. I pull that huge tome of hand-written notes from the Corbin lords onto my lap and begin to thumb through it, looking for Zoso's handwriting. I hear Rum begin to putter around the room, glassware clinking as he loads a compound into a bulb flask and lights a small fire under it.

The book is in chronological order, and I'm almost to the middle of it when I find the name Caim. It takes me a minute to realize why that name is familiar: he was Zoso and Alastar's father. I begin to skim through his notes. Across the room, a glass jar thunks onto a countertop, and Rum sighs dramatically. I look up just in time for Rum to sweep past my chair and tug me to my feet, pulling me over to the wall.

"Pay attention and don't interrupt," Rum instructs light-heartedly, guiding me to one end and pointing as he begins, "This corner is a mass teleportation-"

He runs through everything at a blistering speed. The majority of the work is a mass teleportation of an unheard-of scale, which is what has given him that huge estimation for the energy input. One corner is dedicated to a manipulation of perception and memory, a hard task made harder by the fact that he's trying to build it around several exceptions. I assume that these are for himself, so that it can't be used against him. A small smile creeps onto my face as I watch him explain his project, and how passionate he clearly is about it.

When he's done, he holds his hand out to the side and spins, encompassing the wall and the room at large. "And that-" He says as he comes back around to face me, a near-manic smile of pride on his face, "Is what I'm working on."

"It's impressive, mate. I've never seen a teleportation that big." I clap him on the shoulder companionably, then glance to the wall and back. Does he want to talk about the why? He could've left it alone when I did. With genuine curiosity and a little trepidation, I look to him and add, "Can I ask where you're going?"

For a minute the manic grin starts to fall, and then it stretches into a grimace.

"The Land Without Magic."

To Baelfire. Of course.

I put a hand on his back. "You'll get him back, Rum."

He nods, but on his face is a depth of pain and guilt that I can barely describe. Bereft, I think to describe it. Like a part of you is missing. Like Zoso felt when his brother died. Like I felt when I lost my brothers.

And the worst part is that there is nothing I can do but watch him be in pain.

Before I fully realize what I'm doing I step closer, the hand on his back pulling him in with the gentlest pressure. He stiffens, begins to recoil, and I pause. He stares at me from less than an arm's length, wary and nervous, like he doesn't trust whatever I was trying. I pull my hand just off his back and let it hover a hair's breadth away, and slowly hold my other arm out.

Hug? I'm both asking and clarifying.

He doesn't move, but his eyes flicker over my face. I tentatively set my hand on his back again, and his body relaxes. I pull him in to a proper hug, resting my chin on his shoulder and wrapping both arms around him. He makes a small sound that's somewhere between a sigh and a gasp of pain, but he wraps his arms over my shoulders, leans his head against mine, and sags into me.

It's a little pathetic, really, how this basic human action sends affection flooding through my chest, how it suffuses my mind with a warm fuzziness. I run my hands up and down Rum's back in small, soothing motions. I need to get out more, some part of me distantly thinks. Talk to people, spend the night with someone. Anything to make my emotions stop latching on to a simple hug like it's a life raft.

Eventually Rum pulls back slightly, just enough to go nearly cross-eyed trying to look at me as he says, "And we'll find your brother, Ellie."

I grimace. "Finding him isn't going to be the hard part." That's going to be keeping him and Rum from trying to kill each other.

His expression falls somber at that, eyes suddenly distant. "I don't imagine Baelfire will be happy to see me either."

I lean back into him and give his body a light squeeze. I want to tell him that that boy loved him, and that they could rebuild their relationship if given the chance. I hold back because I have no actual evidence to think that; I don't know how they were separated, or how forgivable their parting circumstances actually were. All I really have is the knowledge of everything Rum would do for his son, and the bone-deep conviction that they deserve a second chance.

"One step at a time, Rum." I mumble, and he hums a noncommittal sound as he leans back into me and rests the side of his head against mine. Then his head turns, and it takes me a minute to register-

Did he just kiss my forehead?

Warmth surges through my chest, and I grin. "Softie."

He huffs a small laugh against my ear. "And if you tell anyone, little wolf, I will sssskin you."

"Promises, promises." I glance over his shoulder. "Uh, Rum? Whatever you got in that bulb is burning."

He whirls toward his alchemical setup and curses, and I smile fondly and sit back down as he darts about. I pick up reading again as he fiddles in his lab, and as the afternoon slowly begins to slip by, I find myself sneaking glances at him. He kissed my forehead.

We return to the d'Corbin house as the sun is setting. The kids are setting the table when Rum and I walk through the door, and the smell of slow-cooked meats and starchy vegetables permeates the air. We're barely in the door when the adults of my family begin to file out of the kitchen, the women carrying food and drink and Phelan helping my mother along. Arran, I notice with some relief, isn't among them.

I sit in between my mother and Rum, and she spends most of the time talking to me in hushed tones, trying to avoid the children's attention as she summarizes where the family stands on Corbin Castle. Elaine, Phelan, and Aisling are trepidatious about the logistics but willing to give it a try, and Tara is firmly in support. Despite our attempts to be discreet, Bethany is watching us with an eagle eye; she's noticed something going on between the adults, and wants to know what.

The dinner is nearing an end when I hear it, and I narrow my eyes and turn my head toward the door. Around the table, the grown d'Corbins and Bethany look over as well, wolf's hearing alerting us all to the noise. The children chatter animatedly amongst each other, none the wiser as we glance at each other, and I stand and cross to the door. When I crack it open and glance out, I scowl immediately.

"Ellyn?" Rum asks quietly, voice on edge.

"We've got company." I say to the room at large, tone tight and grim, and the children fall silent.

Elaine claps her hands together and says brightly, "Alright everyone, to your rooms. The adults are going to talk for a bit. Tara?"

Tara apparently knows what her mother is asking with that one word, because she replies, "I'm staying with the baby."

The other adults are already hurrying the kids from the room as Elaine nods. Phelan catches Bethany and says something into her ear, and she nods as they help move the kids along. Aisling and Tara disappear into one of the bedrooms with all the kids, and Bethany posts up in the hallway outside the door. While my family sets to motion, Rum crosses to me, peaking over my shoulder at the torches bobbing down the road towards the house.

"Always with the torches and pitchforks," He grumbles.

"Not very original." I agree.

"Auntie," Phelan calls from behind me, hastily gathering his bow and quiver from next to the hearth, "Let us take the lead. Please. It's never come to blows before."

"Yeah? And how many times has it happened before?"

"Three or four. They might damage property, but they've never put hands on us."

Three or four isn't exactly a comforting sample size. I bite my tongue and nod. "We'll try to stay in the background." Rum looks at me and cocks an eyebrow; he knows the chances of that are low.

"Thank you."

I tug Rum and myself back a step to allow Phelan out the door, my sister hot on her son's heels. Rum throws his hood up, and we follow them out. The crowd is less than a hundred yards away from the house now, close enough to make out faces of the people in front and a low buzz of conversation. Phelan strides out almost to the road, only a few feet back from where the dirt path to the house meets the cobblestone. I stop slightly in front of Elaine, Rum at my side, my hand resting on Durendal's hilt.

The crowd comes to a halt on the road in front of us, and I note that the people are indeed armed- most with bows or boar spears, some with only hunting knives and pitchforks. The group is between twenty and thirty strong and almost entirely men, which doesn't bode well; around here, that means they're anticipating danger.

"What's all this about, then?" Phelan asks the group, his own bow held loosely at his side.

An older man at the front says, "The Barking Beast ripped through the Dornigans' sheep 'round sunset. Said they seen it cross the river to the back o' your land."

Phelan scoffs. "Callum and Finn got a good thumpin' today for trying to steal our wagon. That's all the Beast they've seen."

"You callin' my brother a liar?!" A man yells from within the crowd.

"No," Phelan shoots back, "I'm calling the whole lot of you Dornigans liars!"

A ripple of angry shouts goes through the group. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement, and look over to see Arran jogging over from the barn. There's movement in the crowd as a smaller group of five men begin to try to shove to the front, but the people in the front turn to push them back. They're arguing amongst themselves when Arran reaches us.

"What's going on?!" Arran demands of no one in particular.

Phelan keeps one eye on the crowd. "The Dornigans saw the Questing Beast on our land."

Arran's face pinches. "How convenient."

"Arran," That man at the front of the crowd snaps, "You're damn near protecting that thing, you know that? It kills our animals, makes the roads unsafe, and you let it hide on your land!"

"They're harboring it!" Someone in the crowd shouts, and others pile on. I catch phrases like traitors and they're witches and they summoned it.

"It doesn't exist!" Arran shouts back at them. "It's a myth!"

Arran and the crowd begin shouting back and forth; Arran only continues to repeat that it isn't real, that they don't know what they saw. Despite how tense Elaine and the boys are, I'm quickly growing annoyed- and a little bored.

I lean over to her. "Is this how it normally goes?"

She glances nervously between me and the crowd. "Things are a bit more, uh, loud, tonight."

"My," My mother says from behind us, and we both spin, "This is a bit much, isn't it?"

"Mum," Elaine gasps, "You shouldn't be out here! You need to go back inside."

"Bah." Our mother says, hobbling right past us.

"Mum!" Elaine objects again, and when Mum doesn't stop, she looks to me for support. I glance to Rum and shrug, and we fall into step next to her. Rum offers her his arm like some sort of proper gentleman.

"Thank you, young man." She says as she takes it.

"Y'know," I say to Rum under all the shouting, "I'm starting to think you just like being called young."

"Guilty." He replies with a grin, then makes a quizzical, thoughtful face. "Not much of a compliment from a blind woman, eh?"

I chuckle as we're passing Arran and Phelan. The pair glance over briefly, then do a double-take.

"What in the hells do you think you're doing?!" Arran snaps, rounding on me. "She shouldn't be out here!"

"Arran, dear," My mother says sweetly, "You're going to stop talking about me like I'm not here, or I swear I'll poison your food."

Rum cackles, and I grin. She squints over at the gathered crowd, who have quieted a bit at seeing the elderly matriarch.

"Willam? Willam, is that you? What are you doing in all this nonsense? You used to have a good head on your shoulders. And Finnigan! You're here somewhere, I heard you. How did you get everyone to forget that you're a cattle thief? That's where all the missing animals are going, I wager."

I suppress a chuckle, beaming with pride at the looks of shock and anger that ripple across their faces.

"Just shut up, would you?" One of the Dornigans shouts back, pushing past through the group to finally break through the crowd. Willam, the older man in the front, grabs him by the collar before he can go further.

"Which one is that?" My mother asks loudly, squinting again, "The one who's too friendly with the sheep?"

I bark a laugh, caught off guard by that one, and Rum giggles next to me. Anger spasms across the Dornigan man's face.

"I don't have to take this from the old town whore-"

Cold rage sweeps through my chest, and I move without thinking, holding a hand out and then yanking a fist down. The man is flung into the air with a shriek of terror and hovers, screaming, twenty feet above the ground. A ripple of noise and movement goes through the group as they flinch back.

"Faolan!" Arran shouts, panic in his voice. "By the gods, put him down!"

"My name is Ellyn," I say coldly, "And he just called my mother a whore."

"And you're going to kill him for that?!"

Rum scoffs dramatically next to me. "A fall from that height won't kill him. It'll barely maim him."

"Auntie, please-!" Phelan begs, voice frantic.

"Put him down!" I look up to see that one of the other Dornigan boys has a bow drawn and pointed at me. "I said put him down!"

I make an overly contemplative face. "Alright."

The man shrieks again as he plummets, and the crowd makes an audible horrified gasp at the same time that the bowman looses his arrow. My magic catches the man again a few feet from the ground, but it takes enough focus that I don't react to the arrow; an instinctual part of me knows I'll survive it anyway. Before I can even blink, Rum has stepped in front of me and caught it in one hand. He glances down at it with disdain, snaps the shaft in half, and lets it fall to the ground.

I stare for a brief second. Okay, that was bloody cool.

"How rude." Rum says, voice flat. I drop the man to emphasize that point, and he thuds against the ground with a muted yelp. The crowd backs away, raising spears and pitchforks.

"Gods," Willam mutters, "You really are witches."

"Just me and Rum." I reply jovially. "I think that's enough, though, don't you?" I hold my hand out to the side and summon Durendal from it's sheath with swirl of red-black smoke, and the crowd flinches again. "You all should be heading home. You never know what kind of things go bump in the night."

Silence stretches for a long, long moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Phelan's head snap around. He spins in a circle, eyes wide and searching the darkness around us as he nocks an arrow.

"Mum, get Grandmum inside now!" He snaps.

"What's going on?" Arran and Elaine ask at nearly the same time. I shift in front of my mother and scan the darkness, sword held ready for whatever threat Phelan is detecting.

"Now!" Phelan shouts.

And then a huge fang-filled head on a long, long neck shoots into the light of the torches, clamps down on a man's shoulder, and yanks him back into the darkness.

Everyone is screaming, and half of the men scatter as another half whirl towards the darkness, spears raised. Something large and heavy moves through the grass along the road, just out of sight, pacing and snarling. An ungodly barking noise, like a dozen hellish, anguished hounds, begins to echo through the night.

The Barking Beast.

My mind stalls for a second. Is this the same one that got Tor killed? It can't be. It went over a cliff.

A new one? The Curse passes down the bloodline when one dies. But we're all here, so who's that?

"Rum!" I'm only distantly aware of saying, "Get them out of here!"

He knows who I mean. "Don't do anything that you would do." He commands, and then he steps backs and makes a motion, and purple-black smoke swirls around him and my family. One of the remaining villagers screams, and I look back to see legs flailing in the air as another man is yanked out of the reach of the torchlight.

I stalk forward, Durendal in one hand, a ball of light forming in the other. I toss the ball up, and it hovers in the air and bursts, flooding the area with bright sunlight. The villagers flinch away and shield their eyes, momentarily blinded. Beyond them in the field I finally see the Barking Beast, eyes closed against the bright light. I stroll past the villagers, taking in every detail I can. It's quadrupedal, taller at the shoulder than a draft horse. The head and neck are scaled, serpentine, but the rest of its body is covered in short white fur with leopard-like spots. A long tail with a tuft of fur on the end curls over it's back.

I'm twenty yards away when it opens its amber, reptilian eyes, squinting in the light for a moment before it zeroes in on me. It hisses and bares rows of teeth, its neck arching up and back like a cobra preparing to strike. I summon a flame to my free hand, focus honed to a fine edge as I wait for the head to come forward, only distantly aware of the staccato beat of my heart.

The strike never comes. It just stares at me, the seconds dragging on, and then the reptilian pupils dilate, and the beast shakes it's head and staggers forward, eyes squeezing shut. I stare back in confusion and take a wary step toward it, trying to get a better look. The eyes flutter open, and for a second I swear that they're a different color. It blinks, and the eyes are amber again, and this time when it lowers it's head and hisses, the sound is unsure, afraid.

What in the bloody hell-

It flinches as though struck, shakes it's head again, stumbling to the side like something drunk. When it looks up again, it's breathing heavy, but it's eyes-

Human. Near-black. The beast's flanks heave for breath, but it doesn't move to run or fight, only lowers its head to look me in the eyes. It's head is within arm's reach; I can feel it's breath on my face, but it's a distant, surreal feeling. The flame in my hand dies, and I nearly drop Durendal. I step up to it's head, right up to it, knowing what I'll find even before I see it. The left iris has two flecks of chocolate amidst the sea of black. It stares at me, and I stare at it, mind not completely comprehending, chest bursting with emotion.

"Ellyn!" Rum shouts, voice panicked, and the Beast's head snaps up, and when it blinks, it's eyes are amber again. It recoils and kicks out with long front legs, catching me in the chest and lifting me from the ground. Pain explodes across my torso, and the daylight spell winks out along with my concentration. My back hits something solid but not very hard, and I would realize later it was Rum's chest as he caught me. His arms wrap around me even as the impact knocks him to his back.

I gasp for breath, all the wind knocked out of me and a sharp pain pulsing down the front of my body. I've definitely broken ribs, and probably my clavicle. Rum sits up, sitting me up with him. The villagers are long gone, and something tells me that the Beats is as well, yet I still start into the darkness where it stood. Rum is shouting at me, furious, but it seems distant, and I only catch snippets of the words.

"-Out of your mind!- Could have been killed!- I'm not doing it again! I'll leave you on the damn road before I go through that again, you selfish, reckless-"

"Rum." I wheeze. Or maybe I just think it, because I have to repeat it at least once.

"What?" He snarls, and I finally look up at him.

"It has Tor's eyes."