The walk back to the Dilligaf was a different experience than the walk from the boat had been. In the first place, it was a walk, not the frantic half-jog half-running pace that Matt had set in his desperate bid to get to a wife who was in trouble from some unknown foe. In the second place, there was no longer the sense of impending doom or destruction that had come with that very same pace.

And in the third place, he was with his whole family now.

And by God in His heaven, what a difference that made.

He and Allie were in front of the little procession. He had his shotgun held in his hands. His shield had been left back at the clearing, but he now knew he could summon it to his hand if he needed it, so it didn't bother him much to leave it behind. Toraline, the talking sword, hung from an improvised loop on his belt, her weight tapping against his leg with every other step in a way that should have felt annoying but somehow wasn't.

Allie walked beside him, her rifle held loose but ready. But where before her movements had been tense and readied, now she seemed almost… relaxed. Still alert, still ready, but there was an undercurrent of tension that had been in his wife for…

For years, hadn't it.

He drew in a breath as he realized that the tension he no longer saw had been with her for far longer than even he had realized. And seeing her now without it, seeing the way her shoulders relaxed, the way her movements were just that much more graceful and unburdened… It broke his heart for what they both had missed all those years. And at the same time it lifted his heart, seeing his wife free from at least some of the pain she had been bearing for so long.

"Hey," Lucas said from behind and slightly above everyone else. "Is it me, or is this place kinda pretty?"

Matt chuckled softly, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of his family. Dinah and Olivia and Bel were all walking in a clump, their weapons slung over their shoulders. Except for Bel, who still had those Mosquito noses stuck into her belt. She'd spent about an hour earlier today creating makeshift handles for them, mainly just wrapping pieces of a pair of denim jeans that had given their life for the cause. Now, at least, she could hold them without worrying about the serrated edges cutting into her palms.

Dinah and Olivia walked close together, one of Olivia's arms slung around her friend's shoulders as they talked in hushed whispers about something or other. Olivia looked happy, Dinah looked… Reserved. As always. Although, to Matt's eye, there felt like there was something slightly off about her. But Olivia clearly hadn't noticed–or if she had, she had decided not to call the other girl out on it. Which might have been for the best. Matt decided to let it lie for now.

And behind them all, bringing up the rear on his brand new all-terrain pet, was Lucas. Matt's son hadn't stopped grinning ear to ear ever since Harry the green six-footed alien mammoth had come lumbering out of the forest and into his life. Matt could already tell the two were going to be inseparable, even if Toraline hadn't told him that the pet bond from his "Hannibal's Physician" class would magically make the elephant treat Lucas like a beloved friend.

The creature's bathroom habits had yet to be established, however. Matt just hoped that Lucas was ready for when he needed to break out the big pooper scooper.

And, like fathers everywhere, he had already resigned himself to the fact that he would probably be the one taking care of that particular chore, regardless of who actually 'owned' the animal.

"Yeah, when it's not actively trying to kill us," Bel said in response to Luc's earlier question. "I could get used to thi– Woah! What is that?"

Everyone looked where she was pointing; up in the foliage of the purple-trunked trees around them was…

"Is that a monkey?" Olivia asked, eyes going wide and a delighted smile appearing on her face.

"It looks more like a squirrel," Dinah said, tilting her head. "Unless monkeys commonly have big bushy tails and buck-teeth."

"It's got six arms!" Luc said, sitting up and leaning forward to the point where he would have fallen off of Harry's head had the elephant not raised its trunk and nudged the boy back into place. "Hey, do all the critters here have six limbs? Didn't the croco-cats have that too? And Harry! Hey, do you think hexa-limbs are the norm for this world?"

Everyone paused and turned to blink at Luc.

"What-limbs?" Bel asked, sounding affronted. "You just made that up."

"No! It means 'six'! It's latin! Come on Tori, back me up here!"

"Are you referring to me?" The sword asked, its voice causing the blade to vibrate slightly against Matt's thigh.

"Yeah! Help a brother out! Hexa means 'six' in Latin, right?"

"To the best of my knowledge, 'Sexa' is the appropriate latin prefix to indicate 'six' in your language."

Everyone considered that for a second.

"So," Luc said, drawing the word out. "Does that mean that if it has six legs, then it's a sexa-beast?"

"Aaaaaaaaand we're never calling it that again," Dinah said, glaring at her brother. "All in favor of making it 'hexa' now and forever more, raise your hands."

Everyone except Luc raised their hands. Including Dinah.

"Spoilsports," Luc grumbled. "Okay fine. But that squirrel-monkey thing still has six limbs."

"I saw a couple of those on the way to the clearing," Allie said, watching the critter leap from tree branch to tree branch, paralleling their course. "I think they're herbivores. They also knew to stay away from the forest mantas–"

"The what?" Lucas was leaning forward eagerly again, and this time Harry reached up and caught the back of his shirt in his prehensile trunk, tugging backwards to keep Lucas from pitching forward. "What's a forest manta? Is it cool? Can I have one?"

"You already have an elephant," Olivia pointed out.

"So? A man can have more than one pet." Luc crossed his arms and stuck his nose up in the air. "There's room in my heart for all kinds of animals, no matter how big and hairy and awesome they are!"

"The one I saw was fifteen feet from end to end, had a scorpion's tale, and it secreted powerful acid from its flesh," Allie said in a bland tone. "Oh and it was actively hostile."

"I would like to revise my previous statement," Lucas said immediately, nose still in the air.

Bel barked out a laugh, then threw her brother a mock glare. "Oh, so now you're prejudiced?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Against creatures that want to melt my face off for wanting to pet them? Yes. I am very prejudiced against that."

"At least now we know where the line is," Matt said with a grin, getting in on the action. "It's sad when a man's love turns out to be conditional like that."

"Oh, so you would pet it?" Luc demanded, glaring at him.

"Oh heck no," Matt said easily. "But I'm not the one making bold declarations in the sight of all these gathered witnesses."

"Yeah," Olivia said, and now her grin had turned just a little evil. "I think we should get Luc a forest manta."

"It definitely feels to me like he deserves one," Bel agreed, nodding seriously. "What do you think Di?"

"I think the squirrel monkey is cute," Dinah said, smiling softly and keeping her eyes on the creature in question that was still paralleling them. "I wish I had a banana I could give it."

"Oh god there's two of them," Isabel lamented, rolling her eyes. "We are not starting a zoo, people. We don't even have a roof over our heads yet!"

"We're gonna work on that," Luc declared. "I talked with Billy a little bit before we left. Did you know he's strong enough to hold entire buildings in his branches?"

Matt did know that, as a matter of a fact. It had been one of the things he had asked the tree about while the kids had been sleeping. He had actually had quite the enlightening conversation with the… Boy. Because despite Billy's massive form, and his leafy appearance, and all the powers at his command… The tree had struck Matt as very young and very inexperienced. Like a child.

"That's something we're considering actually," Matt said, glancing back at Lucas. "If we can make it work, and we're not making things uncomfortable or unsafe for Billy, we might actually go that direction.

"Really?" That one came from all the kids in varying degrees of enthusiasm. The most enthusiastic, interestingly enough, seemed to be Isabel.

"A tree-house makes some sense," Allie said, taking up the conversational reigns. "It would give us an elevated position, which would offer greater visibility and tactical advantages against anyone who might try to attack us."

"Plus we're pretty sure the forest mantas can't climb trees," Matt added. "So we'd be safe from them even if they do decide to come looking for us. And chances are we'd be safe from other ground-based predators."

"Well yeah we'd be safe," Olivia said. "I mean, Billy can lunch thousand-foot spikey logs at our enemies with the force of a navy Railgun. That's kinda a big checkmark on the 'making things safe' column, Dad."

"True," Matt conceded. "But we shouldn't rely on Billy so much that it leads us to make poor decisions, or decisions that lead to us taking advantage of him. He's a person, probably, and we need to make sure we don't just treat him like magical maguffin number twenty three in this world. Okay?"

"I wish he could have come with us," Luc said next. "He's a cool tree. I would have liked to talk to him more."

"As the empire grows in power and size," Toraline's metallic voice came from Matt's hip again, almost making him jump again, "He will gain the ability to manifest warforms that may walk alongside you. At least, that is what I believe. Assuming that this new empire bears any relation to the one created by Caesar."

"Oh now that would be cool," Olivia said. "Our very own Ent!"

"Nerd," Isabel said without any heat. "But you're right, that would be cool. Hey, do you think we could get him to imitate John Rhyse-Davies? I'd pay money to hear him say 'But then, you are very small'."

More laughter rang out from the children, and Matt felt his heart warming. Allie's hand slipped into his again and squeezed, and he returned the squeeze with interest. Their kids were laughing again. It was all going to be okay.

"Oh my god guys look!" Dinah's words were a hissed whisper of excitement. She pointed off to the side, and when Matt turned his head to look he saw another creature. This one was also six-limbed, all legs, but where the croco-cats had looked burly and stocky, this creature looked svelte and graceful.

The nearest analog he could think of was an old earth african gazelle. It had the deer-like body and the long neck and marrow head, except it had horns jutting both from its brown-furred forehead and out from its jaws almost like a boar's tusks. The creature stood maybe five feet tall at the flank, and its long graceful neck gave it another ten or so inches. It turned to stare at them with two sets of brown eyes, then, seeming utterly unconcerned, it dipped its head down and took a mouthful of amber leaves from a nearby bush and started to chew.

"It's beautiful," Allie breathed.

"It's majestic," Olivia agreed.

"So cool," Luc said, eyes wide.

"I wanna shoot it," Dinah said.

Everyone except Allie turned to stare. Dinah blushed. Allie laughed.

"Hunting!" She said before Dinah had to defend herself. "Good thinking Dinah. Our food stores will not last forever. We will have to find ways to add to them sooner or later. It is why I brought the guns in the first place!"

"Oh. Right." Olivia said with an unreadable expression on her face. "So uh, should we shoot it now?"

"No," Matt said in his Dad voice. "We don't have time to butcher it properly, and we don't have storage set up for the meat or hides."

"The hides?" Lucas chimed in from the back. "What are we gonna do with fantasy deer hide?"

"Clothing, blankets, building materials," Matt ticked the list off on his fingers. "There's no GAP here guys. Once the stuff we brought with us from home runs out, we're gonna have to make new stuff to replace it with what we've got around here."

"took with us… Hey!" Bel blurted out. "Holy fu–Uh," she stuttered as the weight of two parental glares fell on her at the incipient curse word. "Holy heck," she continued, "we forgot all about our boons! We've all got, like, a magical fantasy present from fantasy Santa waiting to be unwrapped!"

Olivia jerked. "Oh my God how did I forget that?"

"I thought we weren't picking any because the words were screwed up," Lucas said, frowning. "Has that changed?"

"Maybe now that we're connected to the deep system, and we've got coins to power it, the translator will be better and we can actually pick some cool survival stuff," Olivia said, eyes wide and grin wider. "Oooooh, maybe I can still get like a staff of fireballs or something!"

"Excuse my interruption," the sword on Matt's hip buzzed slightly as she made her metallic voice heard. "But are you referring to the boons conferred upon Sojourners when they first arrive upon Seroco?"

"Yeah, that stuff," Lucas called, apparently having had no trouble hearing the sword despite the distance between them, to say nothing of the elephant stomping along and the quiet noises of the jungle around them.

"Those boons are standardized," Toraline said. "They are a standard set of options given to each new Sojourner. They are not adjusted or altered based on Sojourner information. I am fully aware of all the choices available and can provide an accurate list of what would be available to you."

"Heck yeah!" Olivia darted forward to walk beside Matt. "Okay, so, tell me truthfully, is there a fireball staff? Or how about a lightning wand? Ooh! A staff of summoning! I could totally be a battlefield summoner!"

"There are–"

"I know we need gear and stuff," Luc said, "But uh, I'd kinda like to get my clothes, y'know? And it'd be cool if I could get my phone back."

"I wouldn't mind my clothes back either," Dinah said sheepishly. "Um, I don't mind sharing with Mrs. Albright's wardrobe, but um, it's a little… Small. Sometimes."

"We can do this when we get to the boat," Allie said firmly. "We'll figure out the best stuff to get and what we need as we go. But we can't take too much time right now. We're burning daylight and we have to be back to Billy before dark. I don't want us outside after nightfall."

"We may want to hold off picking anything new before we get back to the clearing," Matt added, glancing skyward. "we only have limited carrying capacity. We're going to have to choose what to bring carefully on this trip."

"Y'know," Lucas said thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about that. I might have a couple ideas how we could carry more stuff back with us."

He grinned and patted Harry on the side of the head, just below the elephants ear. The big creature blew a soft trumpet and nuzzled Lucas back with his trunk.

"Huh," Allie said as if seeing the elephant for the first time. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

========================

The Record of Consul Olivia Esperanza Albright, Quaestor

Thou hast not yet unlocked thy calling.

Thou art a Stage Manager of the 1st Rank

Thou art a Licensed Therapist of the 1st Rank

Thy Condition is: Healthy

Thy overall rank is: Peasant

The Arts available to thee are:

- Find Your Face (Stage Manager)

- Set The Scene (Stage Manager)

- The Right Prop (Stage Manager)

- Talk It Through (Licensed Therapist)

The Skills available to thee are:

- The Show Must Go On (Stage Manager)

- All Emotions Are Valid, Not All Are Useful (Therapist)

The Powers available to you as Consul are:

Unending Knowledge

Distribute The Wealth

Audit

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