# 011

"I'm not taking a bodyguard today." I state after breakfast. I'm just not ready to be alone with Jen, just getting through the meal without blushing was bad enough. "I want to get back to exploring the backwoods, make up for lost time."

Mom exhales a stream of air through her nose before nodding once. That's all the permission I need before I dash off to get dressed and escape before she changes her mind.

...

"You heading into town?" I nearly jump out of my skin when Jen sneaks up behind me while I'm hitching up the wagon later that day. "I'm coming along."

"Want to go see Selene?" I tease. I think it's for the best if I just ignore that this morning ever happened, so I'm trying to act how I normally would.

"Shut up." She growls the words, but I can see the pink flush on her cheeks.

...

"Young Mister and Miss Ryder." Selene's master, a gentle-looking grandmotherly type greets us when we enter her shop. "I'm sorry that you were injured, but I'm glad that it was able to bring light to this matter. That merchant was indeed doctoring the salve; I discovered that they were skimming a bit off of every jar and mixing in a lower quality salve to make up the volume."

"Oh, don't worry about me; my arm is almost back to how it was before. I'm just glad that you discovered it when you did." This is why I followed Jen inside instead of just dropping her off. "Though if you could let Jenny steal your apprentice for the afternoon, that would be great."

"Cole!" She turns bright pink and slaps me on the arm.

"Hehehehe." The alchemist giggles. "I think I can manage that, just this once."

"Thank you, master." Selene gives her a quick hug before dragging the two of us outside. "And, thank you two too." She hops up to give me a peck on the cheek before wrapping Jen in a hug.

...

"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Maria smiles up at us when we enter the healer's

"We're hoping to steal you from your master." I reply with a smile of my own. "Selene's been all over Jen since we freed her, and I'm starting to get a little jealous." I laugh when my sister blushes.

"Ah, Cole. How's the arm doing?" The healer herself walks out of the back. "And, yes, you can go with them." She laughs at the pleading look Maria was sending her. "It's the least I can do for you after you spotted that issue with the salve."

"Thank you, Master." Maria bounces over to join us with a wide smile on her face.

"Yes, thank you." I offer the woman a bow. "And, my arm is fine. There was a still little pink on the back of my hand earlier." I quickly undo the bindings. "But, it looks fine now. Though, I don't suppose you know any hair growth spells." I add with a laugh.

"Heh. Sorry no." She shakes her head with a smile. "But, speaking of business. Would it be alright if I stopped by later to speak with your mother about those shipments? And maybe buying a few of those slimes; that one you gave to Maria is dead useful... now that it's not eating the bandages, that is." Her apprentice blushes at that.

"Of course." I nod. "I'll tell her to expect you. And, it looks like we need to recreate the shop's training area."

"Thank you. I'll see you later then." She takes the seat her apprentice was using and shoos us out the door. "Have fun but don't forget your spells, Maria." Maria does her best impression of a beet at that and ducks outside as quickly as possible.

The healer was talking about the contraception spells. Even if Maria wasn't able to cast them, not likely for an apprentice healer, Dad still made sure that we learned them as soon as we hit puberty. He even spent a grueling week tutoring Kaitlyn until she could cast it seamlessly.

"I really hate working for a healer sometimes." The poor girl sags in place until I wrap my arms around her. "Mmm, nice."

"Very." I agree. "Now what do you girls want to do today? Let me guess, read and play with Queenie some more."

"Yeah, that sounds good to me." Maria nods against my chest before separating to climb into the wagon. "There's nothing to do in town anyway."

"Alright. We just need to swing by the carpenter to see if the bed we ordered is finished." I climb into the driver's seat. "You know that pest my dad hired as a driver? Well, Mom took pity on his sister and hired her as a maid and nanny for the twins."

"Maddie?" Her eyebrow goes up. "She seemed alright, but we didn't really get a chance to talk since her brother was always around. She's staying with you guys now?" I see a hint of jealousy in her eyes.

"Yeah, Mom even gave her my room." I grumble. "I'm hoping that the bed is done so she can move into the main house until the new servant's quarters are built."

"Good news there." Jen interjects. "The earth mage insists on doing the foundation himself, but he said that he'll let me help on the walls after seeing me draw stone up from the ground today. That should let us shave a day or two off the construction time."

"That is good to hear." My head bobs up and down. "I just want that bed to be done though. I'd rather sleep on that lumpy couch that Dad insisted we bring from the city than share a bed with you and Katie again."

"Aww, sleeping with your little sisters. How cute." Maria messes up my hair.

"That's one word for it." I scoff and focus on the road, not willing to even think about what happened this morning.

"We actually started a few nights ago because we were having nightmares." Jen adds. "Poor Katie even missed the start of her period the other night." The girls both wince at that.

"Queenie dealt with that." I wave it off as inconsequential. "But, them pinning me down and almost making me wet myself because they're too lazy to wake up. That was annoying."

"You didn't need to have Queenie tickle us though." She pouts at me. "Oh, but you girls have to try her massages, and wait until you see how good her copies are now."

...

"Give me a hand here, Jen." Gravity spells always give me a headache, so I leave it up to her to lighten the new bed enough for me to move it inside.

"Ugh, you know I hate this spell as much as you do." She grumbles but weaves the magic together to let the bed mostly ignore the earth's pull.

"Whoa!" Selene breathes out the word when Jen shoves the bed at me with her foot.

"Hey!" I shout and carefully grab the bed to slow it down so it doesn't hurt anyone. Like me. "Careful there, you know it still has the same mass as before."

"Whatever." She rolls her eyes at me. "Just get it upstairs before I get a headache."

"You're really gifted." Selene sidles up next to Jen with stars in her eyes.

"And, you're really strong." Maria says to me with a giggle.

"Oh, hush and go hold the door for me." I shoo her away when she grabs my biceps.

"I got it." Madison says from the doorway. "You girls get out of the way, or no more playing with Katie."

"Girls, go get in the way." Kaitlyn says right away, trying to get out of her punishment. Her hair is done up in a dozen different pigtails right now and she looks like she's about one more away from snapping.

"Hahaha." I laugh the whole way upstairs as the twins don't just get out of the way, but tow their favorite new doll off to play with some more.

"Thank you again for this." Madison ducks her head at me. "And, sorry again for putting you out of your room. And, sorry to you girls too, for... you know, my brother."

"Heh!" Selene snorts. "Don't worry about that, he's not the first annoying adventurer we've had to deal with."

"Yeah, he's not your fault." Maria waves it off. "We were just going to go play with Queenie, do you want to join us?"

"Go ahead." Mom says from the door of the nursery turned guest room. "Katie can survive the twins on her own for a while." And... there goes my chance of kissing Maria in the back of the library

"I'll meet you girls there after I bring up that small table." I only needed help with the bed because of its bulk. "Oh, and Mom. Maria's master is going to stop by in a bit to talk business."

...

"Did you miss me?" I pull slime-Maria into a hug from behind.

"Oh, shut up, you dork." The real thing drags me away from the slime. "We're trying to get her to follow my movements."

"She hasn't been trained for that yet." I say and then move Maria so she's standing in from of the slime. "Queenie, repeat." I lift Maria's arm while willing the slime to follow the movement. "Good girl. That's it."

"..." I put my hand over Maria's mouth when she opens it to complain about the boneless nature of Queenie's duplication.

"She learns quickly, but need lots of positive reinforcement to help her along." I explain while she licks my fingers. "Now, you do it. Just give her the command and be sure to praise her afterward." I sit down next to Maddie to watch my girlfriend play mirror with a queen slime. "Are those two already lost in their book?"

"Yeah, Selene asked her about it and towed her over to the couch as soon as we got in here." She smiles over at them. "They make a cute couple."

"Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise." I send a smile their way too. "I'm still not sure if Jen likes her because she's a girl, or just because they have the same taste in books."

"Heheh." She chuckles softly. "What about you and Maria?" She asks just a smidge too nonchalantly to be taken for a truly innocent question.

"Oh, I always wanted to be a tamer. Queenie, stop. Good girl, you can relax now." Maria answers and sits down right next to me, our legs touching in a subtle marking of her territory in front of the new girl. "And, I just had to get to know the person who could tame such an amazing pet. What about you, did you two meet when your brother got hired?"

"No." Idiot girl ducks her head in embarrassment. "He saved my life... twice. Once from slimes and then again during the dungeon break."

"You were there?" She looks to each of us with wide eyes. "That's all anyone has been talking about. Usually a bunch of idiots moaning that they didn't get a chance to fight some wargs because it was cleaned up so quickly."

"Cole was the one who reported it." Maddie says, awe for me clear in her voice. "He heard one howl on the wind and called it in right there. And, then he had to chase after me when I ran off after hearing my brother scream in the distance. He barely slowed down to kill a wolf that would have ripped my throat out, and then took down two wargs in just seconds."

"Cole?" Maria looks at me with disbelieving eyes.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what happened." I offer an embarrassed shrug. "But, I was lucky, very lucky. First, that they were distracted toying with her brother which let me even the playing field. And, then that the other one fell for a simple feint. If I wasn't trying to save a couple of idiots who never should have become adventurers in the first place, I would've done the smart thing and hidden until the woods were clear."

"You're not the lucky one." Madison shakes her head. "My brother and I are; if you hadn't taken pity on me and helped me get those cores the both of us would be dead right now."

"Weren't we supposed to be training Queenie?" I change the subject, or at least I try to.

"Cole, I don't know much about adventuring." Maria says seriously. "But, I've learned enough about wargs in the past week to know that you don't solo them, ever. Even an experienced team can have trouble with a single one."

"There's never just a single warg, they're pack animals and, like I said, I got lucky." I huff in annoyance. "It's not like I was in any real danger though. Dad's a magical researcher, so I have more than one life-saving enchantment on my person whenever I go in the field." I lift my necklace out from under my shirt. "Emergency teleport straight to the best healing house in the Capital."

"Y-you could buy the town for that, several times over." She blanches.

"Dad built it himself." I shrug one shoulder. "The only cost was the materials which he and Mom collected themselves. As long as I had this I knew I would be fine. Now, can we focus on Queenie?"

...