“e here, you silly boy!” Lanarot called, holding out her a cup towards her nephew.

  Karot blinked, walking over to her, sipping from the cup as she held the back of his head. “Thank you, kako.”

  Lanarot brushed his hair and his cheek. “My handsome boy, how you make me worry like this?”

  “Sorry…” Karot looked up towards the sky again.

  “Is beautiful cloud.” Lanarot nodded her head as she stared at the cloud, which darkened.

  “It will rain?”

  “It will rain, it will rain,” Lanarot said, g her hands behind her back. “Is a good day fhting.”

  “I do not want to fight…” Karot pouted.

  “How you ot fight? You are Iyrman!” Lanarot pulled the boy to her chest, brushing his hair. “If you do not want to fight, I will fight.”

  “Kako, you will be safe?” Karot asked, his lower lip quivering.

  “You silly boy! You know who I am?” Lanarot pnted a kiss on his forehead. “I am papa’s kaka.”

  “Kako!” Konarot called, before pointing towards the ball to the side. “Nana say y with ball.”

  “If nana say it, nana say it,” the girl said, feigning wisdom beyond her years, before the girl charged towards the ball and picked it up. “Who will go first?”

  “Karot, you go first?” Kirot asked.

  “I want to look at cloud,” the boy admitted.

  “I look at cloud too?” Kirot asked.

  Karot smiled. “Okay.”

  “I look at cloud,” Konarot said.

  Lanarot sighed. “How you all be so cute?”

  Fonasen smiled, watg over the children who pyed so well together. “He has corrupted his sister this much?”

  Sonarot couldn’t help but to smile, beaming as she sipped her tea. “She will grow up to cause so much trouble.”

  “She takes after you,” Fonasen agreed, doing her best to hide her smirk. “You should bring Jirot and Jarot.”

  “I ot take them from their mother…” Sonarot pced down her cup. “She worries for Adam.”

  “Does she know?”

  “I ot tell her.”

  “She is your daughter too.”

  “Do I o worry when father is there?”

  “Since your father is there, you should worry further.”

  Sonarot smiled wide, the woman revealing the exhaustion upon her face finally. “You do not know it, sister.”

  Fonasen fell silent. ‘I do not know it?’

  As Sonarot teased her sister, her daughter finished her prayers with her twins. She held the pair upon her p as they each spoke the words of the light prayer, pg a bead into the small tub with each light prayer, until their hands were finally empty.

  “I am done!” Jirot decred.

  “Shh,” Vonda hushed the small girl. “Jarot is almost done.”

  “Ope!” Jirot csped her hands over her mouth. “Sorry, mummy.” Her voice was barely a whisper, her ears drooping slightly, but they raised upon seeing her mother’s radiant smile.

  Jarot gred at his beads as he prayed, slow and deliberate, each word thought upon. He closed his eyes, seeing the faces of his father, his greatfather, and his uncle. “Mother’s blessings upon you.” ‘Mother’s blessings upon you. Mother’s blessings upon you.’ It was only after he had said and thought of the prayer three times that the boy pced down the beads. He thought of Lud Mara too, and the others who had left.

  The boy closed his eyes, clutg his beads tighter in hand. ‘I did not say it! e home safely!’

  They were pletely oblivious to the explosion within the fort so many miles away.

  Viander Hugo hesitated for a moment, his eyes looking through time. In that moment of hesitation, he had lost his ce to step forward to meet the Mad Dog, and the song of steel striking steel echoed through the air.

  “Viander Hugo, you may step back,” called a voice, and with the words, even without thinking, the Viaepped babsp;

  Jarot’s lips formed a wild grin upon seeing who had cshed with him, his eyes full of fury. “Have you e for revenge?”

  “Do you and I have such trouble?” he replied back, adorned in his full pte, wielding a bde that glowed ever shtly, like the sun itself. Even now, Jarot could feel the radiant light of the bde pierg through his skin, though his axe was only g against the bde. The figure who wielded the bde was tall, strongly built, his face marked with decades of fighting, pieces of his cheek and ears missing.

  “Do you really wish to step forward today?” Jarot asked.

  “I apologise, Mad Dog, but I ot step back.” The figure’s bde exploded with white light as he cshed with the Mad Dog.

  “I will beat you again today!” Jarot roared, his entire body fshing red hot as he engaged with the Sun Sword of the Floral Sun, he who was its Grand ahe stro.

  ‘You are as terrifying as ever, Jarot,’ Sir Zachary thought, already feeling the ache within his arm while only g with the Iyrman.

  ‘Do not fet my name,’ he had said all those years ago, his eyes full of such a viciousness. ‘Jarot. Ja, of the Rot family. I let you live, because I have decided to let you live. Do you wish to know why?’

  ‘…’

  Jarot had grinned wildly back then too. ‘If you had replied, I would have killed you!’

  His hyena like ughter had engraved itself within the Sun Sword all those years ago.

  “How dare you!” Sir Iris shouted, her red bde glowing, before redness fshed all across the Iyrman. “To cause such trouble for the sake of beas-“

  Iris had made the mistake of fetting her pce, as the grey skinned Iyrman’s rage flowed through to his bde the Iyrman giving all caution to the wind, almost breaking the woman’s arms through striking her bde. She stepped back, her arms throbbing wildly as she grunted in pain.

  “Left?” Rajin whispered just loudly enough for her to hear. “No. It must be the right.”

  ‘When I grow up, I will potec you, babo,’ the girl had said.

  “No, I should take both?”

  ‘What?’ Iris prepared herself to csh with the Iyrman once more, who seemed to have finally decided whatever it was he while casually engaging in a battle with her.

  ‘I move this?’ the boy had asked, looking up at him with his sweet amber eyes.

  “It is a shame you have e ae, Iyrman,” the Viander of the Cherry Bde said, holding out his red bde.

  “Have you lost a son?” Tonagek asked, drawing his bde, the bde glowing a light blue uhe gentle rain.

  “Beasts? No.”

  “When Tonogek died, I lost almost all purpose,” Tonagek admitted. “You, Aldishmen, you uand it? The weight of the bde that I wield today?”

  The Viander remained silent, staring at the Iyrman before him as he so slowly drew his bde.

  “You are lucky it is raining,” Tonagek said. “It will wash away your blood.”

  Quiet Rain.

  The Gek family on was quite the bde. Someone like the Viander before him would have loved to wield such a bde.

  It was a Greater Enhanced bde, ohat required Attu, to meditate with the bde, to bee oh it. It was a bde that held a Greater bonus, and it struck as hard as a greatsword, like the one his oppo wielded. It’s main ability was quiet. When Toruck, he could make an additional strike each round. If he was an Expert, instead of attag twice per turn, he would attack three times.

  Except, Tonagek was not an Expert. He was greater than a Master, having only fallen into retirement in the past couple of years.

  Tonagek could attaot twice, but thrice, and with Quiet Rain, he could strike as though he was instead as though he were at the peak of mortal strength.

  The reason why it was called Quiet Rain was because in the rain, the bde gained a greater bonus, or one might say that it was teically sidered a Legendary Enhanced on in the rain.

  Except, in the hands of Tonagek, or any ek, the bde held such a bonus without the rain.

  It was only when Tonagek, sprung forward with a savageness of the Iyr, pushing through his limits, striking the Viander with seven blows within the span of a single moment, did the Viander uand the mistake he had made for stepping towards the limping Iyrman. Each blow was heavy, for only an Iyrman could uand how heavy such a bde was.

  “Do not fall so easily,” Tonagek requested politely, his voice low and sad. “The heaviness in my heart remains.”

  Unfortunately for Tohe Viander had already dropped to a knee, hag blood onto the ground, barely ging to scious.

  “Don’t embarrass yourself, Viander Shiny Armour,” Mosen huffed towards the woman who had drawn her bde and poi towards the Iyrman.

  ‘What?’ the Viahought, suddenly feeling so small, eyeing up the Iyrman who stood with his arms crossed.

  Mosen gng aside towards Tonagek. ‘You should at least take an arm. If yoing to fight, do it properly.’

  Viander Hugo finally drew his bde, fag against the Iyrman who held the same tattoos as the Mad Dog. “Do you not use an axe?”

  “Those children, they love my wife more than me, and I do not io ge that,” Gorot replied.

  The Viander blinked, unsure of what that had to do with using an axe or shield.

  “Little Jarot… he calls me baba,” Gorot said, holding his shark bde over his shoulder, as though carrying a sack. He closed his eyes, recalling the boy’s amber eyes staring up at him so shyly. Though his name was Jarot, he was so uhe old man. The boy, he was too small, too sweet, and too shy.

  ‘It is your baba,’ Mirot had said.

  Jarot hid herself within his nano’s bosom.

  ‘Baba?’ Jirot asked. ‘How you be baba?’

  ‘He is my husband.’

  Jirot gasped, almost dropping her bottle of milk. ‘Why?’

  ‘I married him?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He is so handsome.’ Mirot smiled in the beautiful way that she did, and Gorot’s heart had stirred once more.

  Jirot stared up at Gorot long and hard, judging him. ‘Baba is handsome?’

  ‘I think he is.’

  ‘Baba is strong?’

  ‘He is a little bit strong?’ Mirot said.

  ‘Baba is little bit handsome.’ The girl cackled, causing her brother to cackle too, before the boy gasped, staring up at Gorot, before beginning to cry.

  ‘You should smile more,’ Mirot had warned him ter that evening.

  ‘You prefer it when I do not.’

  Mirot let out a defeated sigh, one of the very few within their marriage. ‘Since my Jarot is so cute when he cries, I will allow it.’

  The Viander wasn’t sure what Gorot was talking about exactly, but the ohing he did know, was that whatever the Iyrman was thinking, it had enraged him so much, he almost chopped the Viander’s neck with his jagged bde. Sir Hugo barely mao catch the bde with his own, his bde led withieeth of the wicked bde.

  “Remember the name of Jarot!” Gorot snarled. “For it was Jarot who has sent Esme to Baktu’s embrace, and my Jarot who will send you to meet with her.”

  ‘What?’ Hugo thought, his eyes growing wide, feeling a sharp pain flowing through him.

  The tears streamed down Gorot’s face, his eyes pure white, his entire body red hot.

  ‘Cucumber,’ Gurot had said, chewing it slowly.

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Kaza give me cucumber.’ The boy smiled so radiantly, as he always did when speaking of his cousin.

  ‘Do you like cucumbers?’

  ‘I like cucumbers, but I like kaza more.’

  ‘…’

  Little Gurot smiled even brighter. ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I like daddy more than cucumber.’

  ‘I love you too, Gurot.’

  Of all the memories Gorot could recall while risking his life, there were so many greater than the half eaten cucumber his son had shared with him.

  Well…

  It was the most delicious cucumber, and the tears which followed when Gurot realised there was no more cucumber left, was the most delicious dessert.

  It was a dessert he could only appreciate because his nephew had been raised so well.

  ‘He is defihe Mad Dog’s son!’ Sir Hugo thought, seeing the wild grin upon Gorot’s face.

  When a man's wife prays for him, it's scary.

  When a man's wife prays for his enemies, it's terrifying.