Archive of Our Own

Krobus

It had been a slow week. 

Truthfully, your customers were few and far between at the best of times. This was fine, you had little use for money. The shop was kept more to have something to do, to occupy a bit of time while keeping some vague, tenuous connection to the outside world, some half-hearted attempt at avoiding the temptation to cut yourself off from it completely.

Rasmodius the Wizard, though often a bit pompous and arrogant for your tastes, you welcome as one of your regulars. You appreciate the news he’s able to bring you of goings on in the wider world. Even more so, you appreciate his willingness to allow you to practice the local human tongue with him. It started as a sort of deal between the two of you, with you offering him your assistance in picking up the finer details of your own language and with some aspects of magic that your people were known for in exchange for his assistance in learning to speak as the local humans do. The language you had picked up in pieces through scraps of conversations people had above him over the years, and with Rasmodius’ guidance you were gradually able to refine those fragments into smooth sentences of your own, and in turn, come to understand him quite readily. 

Eventually, it came to the point where guidance was likely no longer strictly necessary on either end, but he kept up his visits and conversations, and you had to admit, you were glad of it. In a strange way, you had become fond of the dramatic old man. 

You didn’t think Rasmodius had many friends, either (though you kept that thought to yourself). 

At some point, the Wizard’s extensive book collection and then your own love of reading had come up in conversation, and since then he had started bringing you books to borrow in addition to news, much to your delight.

He even had a few books in your own language in his collection, and he would sometimes include one with an assortment of others. 

You had read them all before, of course, a long time ago. But leafing through them again felt like getting to glimpse a tiny piece of your former home, just for a moment. The nostalgia was equal parts comforting and painful, but it was a combination you welcomed in small doses.

You had always had more of a knack for the written word, and you picked up reading the human language much quicker than with speaking. Soon, you could read quite quickly. He brought you multiple books now every time he visited, taking back the ones he had brought the time before. Aside from his news, these were the other glimpses afforded to you into the world outside your current refuge, outside the Valley even. There were a lot of concepts they brought up that you didn’t entirely understand, things the authors seemed to take for granted that the reader would be familiar with, but you didn’t mind. The mystery just served to heighten your interest in humans even more. 

One day, a new visitor appeared, catching you quite off guard. What threw you off more than their mere presence was that they didn’t seem to use any of the magical means of entrance that you had become accustomed to your guests using. Rather, they had simply thrown open the physical grate (the sudden noise causing your heart to leap into your throat) and walked right on down themselves, seemingly without a care in the world. 

You had been quite sure those were locked and had in fact been locked for a very long time at that, but there was no time to puzzle over these details now. 

You had quickly tossed the book that you had been working through aside as the stranger descended, drawing closer. Now, you anxiously wait to see what they would do. Fight or flight is threatening to overtake you, your heart pounding and the back of your mind screaming at you to do something, do something before they can do something to you, but you force yourself to stay put, and to just watch. 

The new person comes into view. Your breath catches. They’re human, a fairly young one it seemed. 

Aside from Rasmodius (and you’re not quite sure he counts), you never had human visitors, had hardly so much as seen one up close since settling down beneath Pelican Town all those years ago. They were something interesting to you, something to appreciate from afar, but far too dangerous to interact with directly. And yet, here one was, right in the middle of your own home. You shudder, shaking off the memories that rise up in you of previous sudden encounters, a different time, different place. This is no longer wartime, you remind yourself firmly, and you want to make a point to distance yourself from the manners of the people you left behind. Unless they show aggression, this human is your guest, and you are determined that they be treated as such. 

They wander around, seemingly taking in the sights, and then they notice you. Your eyes meet, and they still.

Tension hangs in the air. 

Your eye immediately snaps to the blade they carry on their hip, but the moments pass, and they don’t move to draw it. 

Finally, you opt to clear your throat. 

“A human visitor…” you venture to question lightly, trying to keep your voice even, calm, collected. “…This is most unusual”, you continue. That was true. 

They blink, wide-eyed, before gulping, and putting on a smile.

“That so? Gotta say, I wasn’t exactly expecting to meet anyone else down here.”

You figure this is the time then for introductions. You attempt to pull yourself together into some semblance of a calm and collected image, and speak. 

“I’m Krobus. Merchant…”

Merchant of what, exactly? Admittedly, you carried a bit of a hodgepodge of everything you could get your hands on. 

“…of rare and exotic goods,” you settle on at the last second. You suppose it’s close enough, and hope it somehow lends you a bit of a boost, an extra air of competence. 

The stranger doesn’t question it. 

“A pleasure. I just moved into the area a short while back, myself. I’m a farmer just outside of town.”

As far as you were aware, you had never met a farmer before. It was something unique to surface dwelling lifestyles, and truthfully you didn’t know much about it beyond that. 

“I see.”

You can’t think of anything else to say. You hold your politest smile as firmly as possible. 

The stranger breaks the silence then with a question.

“Are you here often, then?”

You consider lying, but decide against it. They knew now where this place was and, unfortunately for you, might come back any time. Whether they knew you were here or not didn’t help your safety either way, you reason. 

“I’m here always,” you say finally. 

“Down here? Always?”

“Well, almost always”, you correct yourself. “Sometimes I have to leave to find more um,” you fidget, tapping your fingers together quickly as you search for the word you want, “…merchandise. But I do prefer to stay here as much as possible.”

They seem in turn not to know what to say to that. 

“Care to see my wares?” You venture at last.

“Alright then,” the stranger replies. 

You bring out a few items you have around that happen to be within reach and lay them out for the other to look at. 

The stranger seems to consider the spread carefully. 

“How much for that… thing?” They point to a void egg. 

Truthfully, you had intended that to be your breakfast. Not that it mattered right now. At this point, you’d offer them anything you had on hand if it meant getting them out of your sanctuary without incident. 

You fix them with a tight, diplomatic smile. 

“5000g.”

They consider for a moment before nodding and taking out their money. You’re a bit surprised, but accept their payment and hand over the single egg. 

They don’t purchase anything else, and finally they thank you, and you move to put away the remaining items. 

“Your accent…” they say suddenly. 

You freeze. 

Your voice, you knew, had an airy quality to it that you supposed carried over from your native tongue. You hadn’t considered it that much speaking with Rasmodius, but suddenly felt very self conscious of it knowing it was now being compared directly to the natural, rolling rhythm of the stranger’s speech. 

“…I like it,” they finish. “Has almost an ethereal quality to it. Haven’t heard anything like it before, myself.”

Ethereal. 

You never would have imagined your voice being described in such a way. 

Rasmodius, when he was being charitable, described your language simply and academically as ‘tonal, with an irregular rhythm.’ When frustrated he was more likely to choose something more along the lines of ‘those blasted, infernal wailings of yours,’ which you didn’t think was quite fair, but you had to admit was a bit funny when coming from an irritable perfectionist of an old man frustrating himself more and more with his hangup on a particular verb ending. You’d had to carefully bite back laughter on numerous occasions, as you tried to correct and coach him as gently as you could. 

You’re unsure now if the strange farmer means it as a genuine complement, but you decide the safest course of action is to take it as such. 

“…Thank you,” you say simply, and they smile in response, before turning to leave. 

You are almost ready to let yourself relax slightly. They’re almost gone, they’ll go and with any luck they’ll leave you in peace for good now that they’d done their exploring and knew what all was here, which you’d be the first to admit wasn’t much. 

They turn to flash you a final smile as they grip the ladder to the surface. 

“See you around, Krobus.”

The grate swings shut again behind them with a bang that echoes through the sewers. 

The Farmer

You aren’t sure what to make of your discovery of the strange merchant living underneath the town. Previously, you had encountered others who looked very similar to him before, lurking deep in the abandoned tunnels and mine shafts in the mountains. 

Your interest in exploring and in abandoned places had drawn you to the old mine in the first place, and your initial encounter with the Adventurer’s Guild had been quite accidental. You were afraid you would be turned in for having been caught trespassing, but the man you encountered, Marlon, had instead given you his blessing to traverse the old caverns if you wished to, and even to take any bits of metals and minerals that you might find in there. Somehow, the grizzled old man had taken a liking to you, and you found yourself just a few days later with an invitation to join their Guild.

Since you had joined this Adventurer’s Guild and Marlon had taken you under his wing, you had been slowly trying to work your way through those abandoned tunnels, taking out some of the creatures who had moved in over the years since the mine fell into disuse along your way.

Regular culling of beasts that had drawn too close to towns and settlements had to occur for the safety of the rest of the Valley’s inhabitants, he had explained to you, and it was the duty of the Guild to carry this out. You hadn’t been a member for long, but you tried your best to assist where you could. Slowly you were getting the hang of handling a sword, and you tried to do your part to keep the Valley safe as you went about your exploring.

“It’s an important job, but a dangerous one. Be careful down there, kid,” he had warned you.

Some things you found that lived down there seemed fairly par for the course. Bats, of course, and bugs, though you had to admit these ones were a good deal larger than any you could recall having seen before you arrived in the Valley.

Others were decidedly not. 

A close run in with a walking skeleton had left you very much shaken. The undead creature had caught you off guard, coming face to face with its shambling form just as you rounded a corner. The rotting remains of armor still clung to its desiccated, hollow form, and just as quickly as you had seen it it had turned on you, wielding its own broken bones as weapons. You had tossed and turned sleeplessly once you had dragged yourself home that night, wondering just what the Hell you had gotten yourself into moving out here, cursing yourself for ever going up to that abandoned mine in the first place.

But in the end your curiosity and sense of adventure got the better of you, and steeling your nerves, you returned to the mines again and again.

The ones who look like this merchant you had encountered for the first time last season, you recall, just after you had gotten the second planting of cauliflower in the ground. It had not been a pleasant experience. They blended into their surroundings well and were hard to track down, hard to land a direct strike on. When they hit, they hit hard. 

Marlon had said they were dangerous, and your own limited experience seemed to line up with this.

Until now, that is.

Maybe it was foolish and amateur of you, but you had to admit, you had not expected to ever find one of those things away from the mines, let alone so close to a settlement, under the town itself, and you were wholly unprepared for the encounter. A more experienced Guild member would not have been caught off guard like that when entering a new place, you knew, would have been able to go for their weapon at the first sign that something strange was afoot. However, in your shock, you had simply felt frozen in place. 

Then, stranger still, the creature had spoken.

The ones you had encountered before had never spoken to you before, and you had never gotten any indication from the Guild that that was something they even could do.

That had caused you even more pause.

You had to admit, you were curious.

You decide you will visit him again.

The Farmer

The months go on, and you find yourself coming back often. Conversation becomes easy gradually, naturally, and at some point, you have to admit to yourself, you had come to really value the merchant’s company. You get along better with him than you do with most. You come to feel at ease around him. His own tightly guarded nature slowly, slowly warms to you, and you’re let in enough to see little facets of his personality be revealed, tiny piece by tiny piece. It’s fascinating to you, and you relish learning everything you can about him. He’s like an endlessly unraveling puzzle, so much going on beneath the surface.

You offer him little gifts sometimes, things you find around on your travels, or eggs from the hen you had hatched from that first egg you bought from him, months ago now. You start to get a sense for what he likes, and what he doesn’t.

You come to see glimpses of a bright smile breaking through from behind the polite but guarded neutral one he always wore, hear his genuine laughter over some dumb story you tell. You find you can’t help but love that sound, love that smile. You make a point of trying to bring it out more often. 

Your heart flutters the day that just the sight of you arriving makes his eyes light up, brings out that genuine, radiant smile. You must be doing something right, you figure. You smile back, and rush over to meet him. 

Krobus

“You’re joking.”

“I assure you, I’m quite serious.” You fix them with a measured stare. “I don’t make a habit of joking about such things.”

“Assassin?”

“That’s right.”

They sputtered.

“Who would want to assassinate you?”

You could think of a handful of individuals in particular off the top of your head, but you say nothing. 

The farmer seems to be struggling to digest this. Leaning against the stone wall, they take their hat off, run a hand through their hair.

“Look, you can’t just tell me people are trying to kill you and expect me to just leave it at that.” They hold your gaze.

You sigh. You aren’t sure how to even begin to explain, not sure if it would be wise to do so.

“… To make a long story short, there was a war,” You say slowly, “primarily between my kind, and a race known as the Dwarves. A long time ago now by your standards, I’m sure, but tensions are still high among certain factions. There’s still a lot of resentment on both sides.”

“But still, how could someone like you end up with so many enemies?”

“Like me how? Like I said, on account of me being what I am, the dwarves are naturally against me, and humans-” 

“That’s not what I mean though. I mean like you. You’re so nice!”

“Well, that’s kind of you to say,” You avoid their gaze, the intensity of their scrutiny making you want to squirm. “…It’s all a bit complicated,” is all you can say at last. It’s true, but you know it must not make for a satisfying answer. 

“...It doesn’t matter now. I’m fortunate to have found safety here, and I’m comfortable enough.”

The farmer sighs, shaking their head, before replacing their hat. 

They seem far from satisfied, but leave it at that. You aren’t prepared to offer more on the subject, not now.

“…Here, I just got a new type of fish in today,” you say finally, changing the subject. “Want to take a look?”

They look at the fish. 

The Farmer

“Please don’t take this the wrong way…” He says one day.

“You haven’t… slain any of my friends, have you?”

You think of the creature melting at the end of your sword just the other day, but you say nothing. 

You suspect he knows the answer regardless. 

He never mentions it again. Some things are better not dwelling on.

The Farmer

He’s familiar, you come to learn, with many, many things, things you had no idea of. 

He shares bits of what he knows, what plants that grow underground have healing properties, aspects of the political landscape of his old home, the customs and habits of his people. He’s familiar with magic, his own kind as well as what he has picked up in books. He has a fascination with all sorts of objects, and beyond his shop stock he collects odds and ends that he finds intriguing.

For your part, you offer him stories as you can. You tell him of shopping malls, highways, ice cream trucks. What grows at what time of year on the surface, how the weather changes things. If he shows you a human-made item in his collection, you try to fill him in on the context of it. Such things feel small and mundane to you in comparison but even your description of something as simple as a soda can he seems to find enchanting, listening on with rapt interest.

One day you have something else to ask him about.

“Do you know much about swords?”

He looks at you curiously. “I know a bit,” he says cautiously. “Why do you ask?”

“Would you look at this one for me?”

“If you wish.”

You take the sword from its place at your side. He flinches, and you’re sorry for it, but he recovers his composure quickly.

You adjust your grip on it and offer it, hilt first, and he takes it gingerly from your hands.

As he draws it, you feel the heavy awareness sink on you then that you are unarmed for the first time since you had joined the Guild. He could kill you then, you know, turn your own blade against you and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.

He doesn’t, of course, but the thought still lingers in your mind.

You may be a fighter, and a Guild member, and maybe it goes against your oath, but you had made up your mind many visits ago now that you would never draw your weapon against him. Moreover, you know you would not hesitate to turn your blade on anyone who threatened him. You wonder if he knows this, wonder if he views the weapon, ever present at your hip, as a constant looming threat against him or as a welcome promise of protection. You don’t know, but you hope somehow that he trusts you, trusts you like you have come to trust him.

“…This is interesting,” he says finally.

You wait for him to elaborate.

“It’s Dwarvish. See these letters here?”

His fingers lightly brush over small markings that ran along the flat side of the blade, just under the hilt.

“What does it say?”

“...Something along the lines of ‘where the light of the earth meets the sky’.” He gingerly turns it over in his hands. “Where did you find this?”

“It’s a bit of a long story but… out in the desert, there were these pillars, and when I went there, this gem I had found just… changed? I know it must be magic of some sort, but I don’t know much beyond that.”

“I see… figures. There’s no sign of hammering or other marks of workmanship. It appears almost glass-like in structure, but if it’s Dwarvish, I don’t doubt its strength. Looking close enough, you can see the blade is formed from layer upon layer of this crystalline material.” He seems transfixed as he examines the blade, light refracting from the innumerable inner crystalline surfaces even here in the low light of the sewers. His expression holds carefully neutral.

“How is it possible to just… transform something into a sword?”

“I can’t say I understand it entirely, but… they’re good at such things,” he admits, somewhat begrudgingly. “Anything with weapons and technology. Or at least, they used to be, when they had the infrastructure and numbers to support it.” He sighs.

“…Leave it to them to figure out how to forge without a forge.” He adds under his breath, seemingly to himself.

You feel a little guilty.

“Should I keep it?”

He looks a little pained, like he’s weighing hundreds of contradicting thoughts on the subject. Objectivity, though, eventually comes out on top.

“…It’s a good weapon,” he admits. “I hate to say it, but in your case, you really can’t go wrong with a Dwarvish blade as far as reliability goes.” A pause. “…Believe me, it will last through almost anything.” He looks a little haunted as he speaks.

He shakes his head then, and the look is gone. He returns the sword to its sheath.

“…Well. That’s about all I can gather from it. I wish I could tell you more.”

He hands it carefully back over to you, and his eyes meet yours.

“…May it serve you well.”

Krobus

The frequent long lulls in your work left you with a great deal of time left over to think, and you always made good use of it.

Currently, your mind is digesting a fresh issue. 

Somewhere along the line, it was undeniable. The farmer had come to feel like home, wiggled their way past your many emotional guards and into your heart and mind. You thought you would never feel that way again after everything that had happened and yet, here it is. You aren’t sure how to feel about it now. The new excitement of the genuine joy the farmer brings out in you mixed with the echoes of old grief, of lingering fear, leads now to a strange uneasy and unwanted apprehension. 

The Farmer

The now familiar screech of an angered serpent pulls you from your current task immediately. You draw your sword and quickly try to determine the location the sound came from, a task easier said than done in the echo of the caverns. 

It catches you on the shoulder and you cry out as teeth puncture skin, enter muscle. You manage to throw it from your back, and not for the first time you are thankful for the light weight of your Dwarvish sword, allowing you to spin back around in time to catch it in the neck on its rebound. 

It falls, writhing, to the sandy floor. 

Driving your sword through the beast a final time, you tear open organs, sever the spinal column. It lets out a final strangled, bubbling groan, and stills.

As you try to catch your breath, ragged with exertion, a black glint catches your eye from within the remains of the fallen creature. 

Crouching by the corpse, you dig around a moment before pulling out a pendant attached to a fine chain.

You had seen a similar piece once before, at the trader’s hut that sat on the side of the lonely desert road. You had been browsing at the time, perusing the eclectic assortment of explosives and clothing she was apt to carry. The pendant caught your eye for a moment, and she noticed you pause.

“A good eye you have. That is a rare piece indeed. They say it’s significant to the Shadow People,” and that had your attention. She had explained to you then what she knew of the legends. You had nodded along, taking in her words, before thanking her, and moving on.

You were unable to afford the piece in the shop then, but it had stayed with you in the back of your mind since that day, something you turned over and over in your thoughts during idle moments, on nights when you struggled to fall asleep. A million different what-ifs, circumstances that felt like far off possibilities, but ones that you couldn’t help longing for anyways. 

And now, here one had fallen right into your hands when you had no reason to expect it.

Fate? Luck? Who were you to say.

A token pulled from the viscera of a beast, and yet, it could be so much more.

Pam doesn’t mention the state you’re in as you crawl onto the last bus home that night. 

As you ride, you turn the pendant over in your hands. You had removed the monster’s remnants from it as best as you could for the time being, revealing a near perfect, smooth black surface reminiscent of polished onyx. You briefly marvel at how good of shape it is in, despite what it must have gone through to end up here in your hands. 

Your mind moves to thoughts of the pendant’s previous owners. In your experience, such things don’t end up in the bellies of beasts without having been once attached to something living, something less permanent, something more vulnerable. Surely then, it must have had an owner, a relationship it had represented. You wonder if they had been happy together. You wonder if their partner ever knew what became of them in the end. 

The bus pulls to a stop, and the cool evening breeze of the Valley hits your face. As you clutch your hard-earned prize of the day, you knew you had made up your mind. You could only hope that this next relationship you hope for the pendant to represent might be blessed with a gentler end. 

Krobus

The farmer’s usual bright disposition that you’ve come to expect is wavering at their visit today. 

They seem uncertain. 

You watch them quietly, wait for them to make a move, see if they will offer what’s on their mind. 

They kick absently at a pebble, before dropping to their knees next to you. They sigh, running a hand through their hair. They seem to be trying to find the words for something. 

“I know you said you’re happy here, or happy enough anyhow, and I don’t want to put you in an awkward position, but I…”

Their words trail off as they pull a black shining object from their bag, and time seems to stop as you register what it is. 

Seeing that you understand, they take a shaking breath before extending their empty hand towards you slowly, holding it out in offering. Allowing for you to move closer, or to withdraw from the interaction if you so choose. 

You hesitate only for a moment. 

You slowly reach your own hand out and meet them, cautiously placing it in their outstretched palm. 

You weren’t sure what you expected the farmer to feel like. Their hand is so warm, and there’s a definite solidness to it that feels foreign to you. Slowly, as though any sudden movement will break the moment, they place the pendant in your palm and gently close your fingers around it. Holding your hand still, you meet their gaze and see the question lingering, the hope in their eyes.

“It’s yours, if you want it,” they whisper. I’m yours, if you want it, the unspoken implication. 

You know what danger it could mean, not only for you, but for them now as well. 

You don’t know if an arrangement like this can even work between two beings that are so fundamentally different. And yet… 

And yet, you want it more than anything. 

You say yes. 

Again, your mind nags at you, again you have something to lose, but still it all feels so right as they wrap their arms around you and hold you close to them. A tight, joyful embrace, what was to be the first of many. 

The Farmer

Your next order of business then, you decide, is to make the house more hospitable to him. 

You go straight to Robin’s, still buzzing off the high of him saying yes. She tries to follow what it is you’re after. 

A steam room of sorts, is what she eventually gets the gist of. Tiled and windowless and warm. 

She laughs a bit. “Getting a taste for luxury, are we? Maybe next time you can have me build you an indoor pool to go with.”

You laugh alongside her, but it’s clear you’re serious about your request. 

“Money is no object for this,” you say. “Please make it nice.”

You leave with her assurance that she’ll start on the designs right away, and that she’ll try her best with your strange project. 

You start building up a collection of houseplants as well. Some real, some fake, but they all serve their purpose. 

‘Delicate plants,’ you could tell any curious person that came by who questioned the high humidity, the low light in the house. You had gotten into some specialty varieties known to be found in the wild only in a cave on a little island in the Gem Sea. 

“Of course you of all people would want more plants to take care of,” Emily teases playfully when she stops by your door one day. 

You flash her a grin. “What can I say, plants just sneak up on you. Start with one little house plant and before you know it, you’re five hours down an internet rabbit hole on ideal pH and the merits of different substrates while surrounded by fifty more,” you laugh. 

It is a genuinely enjoyable hobby, and you suppose it suits the eccentricity the townspeople have come to expect from you. Whatever wild thing you set your mind on doing, you commit to it fully, and somehow, it has all seemed to work out for you so far. 

You can only hope that this will too. 

He arrives in the night. You try to insist on helping him with his things, accompanying him so he maybe wouldn’t feel so exposed venturing outside, but he declines. 

“You’re human, you need sleep, yes? Don’t give it up because of me. I’m used to navigating the Valley at night by myself when I have reason to. I’ll manage just fine.”

He gives you a reassuring smile. You look at him intently for a long moment, before pulling him into an embrace, murmuring for him to be careful, be safe, and then reluctantly head back home to finish wrapping up the days farm chores. 

You sit up in the living room that night anyways, something between anxiety and excitement fluttering in your chest. You hope he’s safe. You still can’t believe this is happening. 

At some point, you inevitably fall asleep. You wake the next morning, still curled up on the small couch.

And then, there he is, framed in the early morning light that snuck through the gap in the curtains. Your breath catches at the sight.

“Hello,” he says quietly, with a shy little smile.

“Hi,” you breathe.

And so starts your new chapter. 

The Farmer

The first few months are admittedly an adjustment, often in ways you never really expected. 

Seeing him interact with his environment on a day to day basis is fascinating, and things continue to surprise you about him.

He can climb walls, you learn, can melt easily into any dark crevice. 

It had almost given you a heart attack one day early on, after coming home from the mines, but you suppose it’s a handy ability for watering plants on the taller shelves anyways.

He’s comfortable to spend long periods of time entirely unmoving, still to the point of seeming unnatural if it weren’t for the very slight rise and fall of his chest you learn to spot. When he did move, it was generally slowly, methodically, silently, with an almost fluid grace you find mesmerising. It's as though you exist on different scales of time. You feel excessively fidgety and clumsy in comparison, struggling to sit still for any length of time without bouncing your leg, tapping your fingers on something idly. At least if it bothers him, he makes no mention of it.

But as you find one day, he could be absurdly fast when he wanted to when he had pounced on a spider in the corner, consuming the creature before you could so much as process what was happening.

You learn he cannot regulate his own temperature, and is at the mercy of the ambient air around him. 

“Temperature doesn’t fluctuate all that much, where I’m from,” he had explained. The extremes of it encountered on the surface couldn’t exactly do damage, he had found, but could be very much uncomfortable.

That’s all apart from the light.

He’s used to seeing in very low light, and you find he struggles to adjust to brighter conditions. You make a point of keeping the house as dim as possible, and find you’re becoming rather accustomed yourself to navigating the house in near complete darkness.

You suppose you surprise him as well. You notice him sometimes watching you as you go about your own mundane tasks. The concept of brushing one’s teeth is apparently baffling, for one thing. 

He takes notice of what you like to eat, and what you don’t. In many ways, your preferences are quite at odds with each other’s, but both of you approach these little points of give and take in your relationship with as much curiosity and open-mindedness as possible. It’s a challenge, but pleasantly it seems to be one both of you are willing to meet.

Your dog takes to him as well. You smile to think of the days inside when you find him following Krobus around the house, or curled up at his feet.

There is so much that you wish you could show him beyond the limits of the farm. You feel his absence keenly at every town event, when you browse the town's combination library and museum, when you stop at the bar for an occasional drink.

You try to offer him the next best thing, and make a point of collecting books on all manner of subjects. The entire upstairs you had filled with bookcases, and you try to add to it as much as you can. 

You make a point to keep fresh sweet peas or crocus in a glass of water on the table, in the hopes of giving him a little slice of the countryside with the wildflowers that dot the landscape you traverse so often and that you love so dearly.

You often found him curled up in some corner with a book, or messing around in the kitchen, or simply staring transfixed at some object in the house. He remains intensely fascinated by everything in the farmhouse, from the kitchen sink to the television. You like to watch him sometimes as he takes some household object in in his own slow, meditative way, thoughtful eyes drinking in every detail.

The Farmer

You wake to the crow of the rooster. Morning so soon?

You yawn, stretch, and finally rise. Groggily, you make your way to the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, Krobus is already up and busy.

You come up behind him and gently wrap your arms around him.

He places his arms over yours, squeezing lightly to return the gesture, before looking up at you.

“Good morning!”

“’Mornin.” It was far too early in your mind for such enthusiasm, but you can’t help but feel your heart warm at his energy.

You stay with him like that a few more moments, him wrapped in your arms and leaning into you, humming contentedly, until with a quick kiss to the top of his head you peel away in search of some coffee.

You’ve never been much of a morning person, and find the morning ritual of coffee to be an indispensable one if you’re to get anything done in the day to come.

You’re pleased to find that he had beaten you to making it yet again.

He had gotten the hang of using the coffee maker pretty quickly, and noticing how much you relied on it, had gotten in the habit of making a pot just before you woke.

You feel a bit badly about the number of things he had taken on when it came to managing the house once he settled in.

“I’m awake anyways. It’s no trouble, really.”

It was sweet of him, anyways.

You lean against the counter and take in those first few blessed sips. You gaze idly towards the tulips in a jar on the table stretching towards the slight bit of light that entered the kitchen through the cracks of the curtains, your latest seasonal taste of the outdoors you’ve brought inside for Krobus to experience. Feeling the warmth of the coffee in your hands, you feel yourself slowly being drawn towards full alertness.

He tends not to drink it, though occasionally he will have a cup with you when you relaxed together on quiet, lazier mornings. 

“So, what’s on the agenda for you today?” He asks brightly, once he’s gauged you to be sufficiently caffeinated for conversation.

“Hmm… I’ve got to cut some more hay, the animals are running a bit low.” You rub your eye with one hand before running it through your still messy hair. “After that I’ll probably head to the mountains for a while.” You drink down the last dredge of coffee before heading in for another cup. “How about you?”

He turns to you from his tasks in the kitchen, all smiles. “I’m dusting today!” He chirps, with likely more enthusiasm than anyone had ever spoken the phrase before.

You blink at him, before shaking your head fondly.

Somewhat embarrassingly, housework had never exactly been your own strong suite, with tasks often getting pushed off in favor of outdoor work. You can’t say you had ever met someone before who truly enjoyed household chores, but fortunately for you, he seemed to relish them. Once he had gotten an idea of how a human house is to be run, he was remarkably dedicated to the process, wanting to learn and follow the routines as faithfully as possible. He had grown far better at these sorts of things than you had ever been, tackling tasks with a keen eye for detail and passion you don’t think you’d ever be able to muster for housework in a million years.

“Hey… You know I appreciate the help, but you know you don’t have to do all this, right? Make sure you’re taking the time to do the things you like to do as well.” You’ve told him this before, but find yourself reiterating, to try to ease any anxiety in case his motivation was driven more by some unnecessary sense of duty.

He turns again to look at you, and registers that you seem to be concerned.

“Oh!” He moves towards you, and places his hand on yours, a comforting gesture. “Please don’t worry. I know you don’t seem to believe me, but I actually do enjoy this, I promise.”

He looks up at you, meeting your eyes, trying to read your expression.

“I’ve never gotten to do any of this before now, you must understand. It’s all so different and exciting to me! And besides, I’m happy if I can make things at least a little easier for you, despite the limitations I have to accept to live on the surface…” 

He looks away, seemingly weighing whether he wants to say what he’s thinking.

“...I really don’t know that I’ll ever get the chance to live like this again, after…”

Before you can say anything, he shakes his head, seemingly banishing the thought. “No, nevermind that. It’s not for you to worry about.”

You sigh, but decide not to push the subject.

He looks back up at you. “Just know that I am happy here with you. Really.”

You pull him into a hug, and he returns it.

“Alright,” you finally say quietly, pulling away until you can see his face. When he meets your eyes, you smile, hoping to come across as reassuring. “I’ll see you later then.”

“Wait! Before you go…”

He glides quickly back to the stove before returning and placing a warm poppyseed muffin in your hands.

You stare blankly at it for a long moment, until you register him shuffle a bit uncomfortably. 

“I’m sorry if it’s not any good… you don’t have to eat it.”

“Oh, no! It’s not that.” You rush to clarify. “It’s just that… I didn’t think you liked this sort of thing,” You continue, referring to the sweet, soft nature of the food.

He shrugs.

“You do, though.” He shuffles his feet a little. “I’m not sure if I’ve made it properly at all, but I hope I was able to do it justice.”

You smile, heart warmed by the gesture. “It looks amazing.”

The Farmer

You have nightmares more than ever these days. There are two ways it might go. 

You are always in the mines, facing down an opponent. Something all too familiar in your waking life. 

Sometimes you are victorious, and your dream self looks down expressionless at the wounded, cowering mass at your feet. Backed into a crevice in the far corner, the monster had long since given up fighting back. They have nowhere else to run, and they know it. 

Your sword thrusts through them a final time and they melt into nothingness. 

Sometimes you are not, and the last thing you see is a familiar face, blank eyes staring at you, full of hatred before arms reach out and all cuts to black. 

You aren’t sure which outcome is worse. 

You wake tonight again to the same face, but the hatred from your dream is gone and those blank eyes are only full of concern. The coarse grit of the mine is replaced with sweat-soaked sheets, and the howls of fighting creatures replaced by the quiet ticking of the clock and your roommate’s worried murmuring. 

You feel his cool hand brush the hair back from your clammy face, and you struggle to catch your breath and orient yourself to the present, to reality.

The Farmer

You come to feel your whole life had been cleaved neatly now into ‘before’ and ‘after’. Before and after him. 

Your relationship evades most classic forms of categorization, perhaps understandably given the circumstances. 

He’s your roommate, sure. It’s not wrong, but it feels like an oversimplification. 

He worries for you when you’re gone longer than expected in the mines, when you come down with a cold. You worry for him, try to hear out his anxieties, try to help him feel secure. 

You’ve grown, you know, far closer to him than you’ve ever been to anyone.

He’s everything to you. The thought of losing him ties your heart up into a million tight, painful knots. 

Where all other language fails, you know that you love him, and you think he loves you too, as best as he knows how. 

The Farmer

Krobus is quiet by nature, but he’s always totally silent on Fridays, a fact about him that threw you off slightly when you were first getting to know him but now is as natural a part of the rhythm of living with him as anything. 

Embraces, hand squeezes could talk for the both of you, and it came to be its own sort of language between you two, regardless of the day of the week.

Good morning. Good night. Welcome home. Are you okay? Be careful today. I’ve missed you.

A common thread running beneath every touch.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

The Farmer

You bury your dog on a cool spring evening. 

Grover had lived a good life, you tell yourself, or at least you hope so. You don’t know how old he was when Marnie brought him to your door all those years ago, but you do know he spent his days since then running and sniffing wildly around the farm on warm days, curled up by the fire on cool ones, and many nights stolen on your bed, curled up in a nest of your sheets, snoring magnificently. 

Lots of beautiful years together, but of course, it never feels like enough. 

He was a good dog. 

You’ve chosen a quiet corner of the farm for him, near your grandpa’s shrine. Nearby, a cherry tree is in bloom, its scent wafting over on the breeze, but you feel numb to it. 

You stoically do your work, prepare the hole, lay him down in it wrapped in a blanket that he had loved. Alongside him you lay his favorite toy, some of his favorite treats, and some flowers and herbs you had gathered from the front garden. 

You hesitate, standing and staring at the pit, until with a final whispered goodbye buddy, goodbye my good boy, you gently lower the first scoop of earth on top of him. It feels strangely as though you’re just tucking him into bed, the permanence and reality of it all yet to sink in, you suppose. You repeat, as if in a trance, until the grave is filled. You take the remainder of the flowers and place them on top. They’ll have to do until you can get a proper marker for him, you think to yourself. 

You don’t notice him arriving, but suddenly you register that Krobus is there next to you. He looks at you as you look straight ahead, unseeing, unreadable. Then he looks at the disturbed earth, and the flowers, and he says nothing. 

He moves closer after a few minutes and slides his hand into yours, rubs his thumb gently over the back of your hand. 

You feel you should say something, but you can’t bring yourself to. 

You squeeze his hand lightly in acknowledgement, and stay where you are. 

Finally, after what feels like ages, you move to walk back to the house, and he follows. 

Passing by Grover’s bed and water dish, still full, affects you unexpectedly. The emptiness of it all, of the space he’s left behind, hits you suddenly like a swift punch to the gut, and you break. 

You collapse to your knees right there in the path, and cry, and cry, an ugly, raw sound. All at once, the numbness is gone and the grief is there and suddenly it’s unbearable. 

His arms are around you then, holding you close to him, rocking you slightly as the sobs wrack your body, echoing into the clear night. 

“I know,” he says quietly, over and over, face pressed against your hair. “I know. I’m sorry. I know.”

The Farmer

There’s a sadness about him when he talks about his past, his people, where he came from. He rarely brings it up, and you try not to question him either, but some rainy nights, when the house is darkened and the two of you have settled in after cleaning up from dinner, he’ll speak of it. It’s accompanied by a strange faraway look in his eyes, staring at the drops that fall on the window but seeing something out beyond it. 

The rain seems to bring his anxieties to the forefront, something about it allowing him the space to express some small part of the worries that you know circle his mind constantly. You’re sure he feels he’s imposing a burden on you for sharing at all, but you’re grateful for the flashes of insight he does share. It’s some sort of connection to the person he was before you, some context to the things that haunt him still. 

You wish you knew how to comfort him. 

You continue to offer him stories from your past as well, from growing up in the city, from your family, from the Joja corporate offices. You’re sure it pales in comparison to the depth of his own past life, but he listens with rapt interest regardless, hanging on to every detail. 

Even those small, distant memories that you dredge up of things that feel mundane, unimportant blips in an ordinary life to you, you continue to tell him of as well. 

A vacuum sale at the Joja supercenter that your mom had dragged you to for a whole day when you were 15. The way your dad used to make terrible, terrible grilled cheese, somehow always managing to burn the outside while leaving the cheese inside wholly unmelted (he had always insisted on calling it his ‘specialty’, to boot). Your cousin’s ballet recital when she was 8. 

You realize these things feel normal and almost boring to you, but for him represented a whole other world, one he’d only ever seen in brief glimpses from the fringe of it. 

Together, you stare out into the grey, rainy night.

Krobus

You’re painfully aware of time slipping away.

You’ve made yourself become more aware.

Under ordinary circumstances, time for you blended together, slipped around you as easily as water over a stone. It had never before been something you’d felt the need to focus on, to feel yourself losing.

The farmer changed all that.

The farmer, like all humans, wore their age on their face. Minute changes piled up.

The grey that streaked through their hair. The lines that appeared on their face, near the corners of their mouth, in the furrow of their brow, around their eyes.

You need to take the odd day to recuperate alone, a reprieve from the intensity of light and sound that was inherent to life on the surface but that you are regrettably not naturally equipped to bear. You’re thankful for the very dark, very humid room the farmer had gotten installed for you in anticipation of your arrival.

But as much as possible you try to be present, to be with them. You want to absorb every passing moment as thoroughly as you can.

You take in the senses of it all, the way the air blows the curtains when the window is left cracked on a breezy day, the way the fire crackles lightly and glows warmly in the hearth on cold evenings. The way the old bones of the house creak and settle in the night, when all else is quiet aside from the ticking of the mantle clock and the farmer’s deep, even breathing.

You try to take in everything about them, as well. The way their brow creases when they focus on a project, the way they absently brush aside the strands of hair that fall into their face. The way they sigh contentedly when they stretched out on the sofa after dinner with you and a cup of wine. The feeling you get when they come home safe at last after a long day away. The way they look at you.

You will everything about the life you shared to permeate you completely, leave its mark on you.

Burning it into your memory for when memory is all you have left.

The Farmer

The cool evening air is a welcome reprieve from the hot summers day hours earlier. 

You swirl wine in a coffee mug, remnants from a batch of cherry wine you’d put together last spring. 

Not as fine as your starfruit wine, which had begun to garner quite the reputation around the Valley, but nice enough for your tastes. You savor it sitting on the steps to the porch while simultaneously drinking in that cool summer night. The flies that seem to buzz incessantly during the day have mercifully died down, replaced with the soothing chirps of crickets. As annoying as the flies could be, it had become a comforting constant to be surrounded by something alive out here, making sound, moving. Something you love about the Valley was this diversity of life that brimmed in every possible corner of the landscape. 

You notice him at the door, and turn towards him. 

“Care to join me?”

He sticks his head out slightly, taking in the weather, the surroundings, before nodding and cautiously gliding out to sit by your side. 

Something about being around him has come to be always immediately soothing to you, as though being in each other’s presence is how things are meant to be. As though the universe is saying this is it, this is what you’ve been waiting for. This is for you. Stress and aches from the farm and the mines seem to melt away into the background around him. He draws your focus. 

You wonder idly if he feels that way about you as well. 

He’s always especially uneasy outside the solid walls and boundaries of the house, but with the cover of darkness it should be safe enough for him to be out, relatively speaking. 

He settles, and some silence passes between the two of you. 

“I’ve been thinking”, you quietly bring up.

“Yes?”

“Have you thought about what will happen after? After I’m gone.”

He takes a while to answer. 

“A bit. I try not to. It makes me sad, I guess.”

“I guess. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

The crickets chirp on as an owl flies overhead. 

You place your hand on his back, hoping it comes across as a comforting gesture. 

Part of you just wants to feel his presence, to feel grounded somehow amidst an existential conversation. 

No matter what happens later, it’s a reminder that now he is here, and so are you, and the night is beautiful, and the world is alive. Truthfully, there is nothing you’d rather be doing, nowhere else you’d rather be, and no one else you’d rather be sharing the time with. 

“You know, this is your home as much as it is mine. You can stay as long as you want to.” You know he hates to speak of the future like this, but you feel it is important to offer this fully, openly. You press on, avoiding looking at him. “I can’t pretend to know what it is you’ll want to do once our… arrangement… is over, but I need you to know this place is for you then too, should you want to stay.”

He is quiet for a long while, tense at your side, staring out into the night. You gently rub your thumb in circles on his back.

“...Thank you. Truly,” he manages finally, voice a near whisper.

“Are you still happy with this?” You ask finally. 

He meets your eyes. 

“Yes. I am. Very much so.”

You felt that as well about all things. For all he frets over you spending your short life with him, you never find yourself regretting the decision. 

As the night goes on, slowly, slowly you feel him, finally satisfied with his vigilance, relax into your touch, worries set aside for the time being.

You let yourself lean into him, shifting your hand across his back until you can put your arm fully around his shoulders. His presence is cool pressed against your side, his cheek coming to rest atop your collar bone. 

You swirl your wine, and appreciate love. 

The Farmer

He doesn’t ever sleep, but sometimes he’ll lay with you. 

Tonight you feel especially exhausted from a long day in the mines, and you fully welcome the embrace of your bed as you lay back and rest your aching muscles. You sigh as you relax into the cool evening air and the dark of the farmhouse. 

You don’t see or hear him approach, but you’re not startled when you feel him carefully slip into the bed and nestle his cool body up against the warmth of yours. His head rests on your chest, and you don’t hesitate to wrap your arm around him. 

“Welcome home,” he murmurs at last against the crook of your neck, his soft breath ghosting across your collar bone. 

“Thanks,” you reply with a sleepy smile. You turn your head to press a kiss to the top of his head before letting your cheek rest against him. “It’s good to be back.”

You’re both content to rest in silence for a while. Sleep threatens to overtake you, but you find yourself fighting against it, not yet wanting to let this moment pass. 

“How’s this doing?” He asks you gently, brushing his fingers lightly over the edge of a nearly-healed cut that peeked up from below your shirt collar.

“Fine. A lot better now, really.”

You were always grateful for his assistance in patching yourself back up after a rough day.

He was a healer, in his past life and now again, and on a fundamental level he hated violence. And yet, he was pragmatic enough to accept that it was sometimes necessary. 

Since coming to live with you, he had made a point of learning the main points of human medicine and anatomy, and took to some experiments as to how he could tailor his own kind’s healing knowledge and magic to have some effect on humans. The effort was greatly appreciated, and at least a couple times, that knowledge had likely proven life saving. 

You knew he had long known of your career as a Guild-sponsored fighter, and tried his best to be supportive of your thirst for adventure, even as it brought you over and over into danger. 

You feel badly for worrying him. 

You know he hates it, seeing you get torn up more and more over the years, but he never asks you not to go.

Be careful, is all he says, and you try to be.

You won’t forget his face one particularly bad night, when you had barely managed to drag your way home after a fight gone south. You had been outnumbered and overwhelmed, and beyond that the details get fuzzy. You’re sure you must have lost consciousness, but miraculously, you survived, and after who knows how long you came to and managed through the haze of pain and delirium to claw your way back to the surface. 

He must have been getting worried, and you’re sure you must have been gone longer than intended. As you had turned the corner and headed single-mindedly up the dusty path towards the farmhouse, you were dully aware of the bang of the farm door and him rushing towards you, his usual slow and measured caution thrown aside. 

He had helped you inside, where you allowed yourself finally to collapse. He’s at your side, buzzing with panic that he knows from practice in his previous life must be channeled into action lest it overtake him. 

“No… no. Oh, Yoba, no. Please, no, not like this…” he whispered to himself, over and over, trying to keep himself grounded as he set to work. 

You remember nothing after this, slipping away into the comfort of his presence, until waking suddenly with a start. 

“Oh!” he gasped, looking to you intently from his place at your bedside. “You’re awake!” Tears well in his eyes. “Oh thank Yoba, you’re awake. I was afraid that… I thought… I-”

He had crumpled forward all of a sudden, falling against you, sobbing into your chest. An agonizing couple of days of worrying and working and waiting, trying everything in his power to keep you here, desperately praying that you would pull through, met now with the rush of relief overwhelmed him completely. 

You still had felt hazy and out of it. Before you could manage to collect your awareness and thoughts enough to process what was happening, to try to comfort him, he was pulling himself back. 

He wiped at his eyes, pulling his composure back together, the sobs being held back dying down into choked little breaths.  “… Sorry. I’m sorry, that wasn’t helpful at all, forgive me. I’m just so…  glad. So glad to see you again.” He held on to your hand, as much to comfort you as to steady himself.  “…You must be confused. Are you in pain?”

The resurfaced memory causes you to wince internally. You had truly been in bad shape that time, gaining a number of new lasting scars to mark the occasion. The town clinic was amazed you had managed with the extent of your injuries, when you went to go get checked out at Krobus’ insistence you be seen by human doctors once you had sufficiently stabilized.

You sigh. You owe him a great deal, though you’re sure he never would view it as a debt.

He’s familiar with every mark left on your body at this point. Every scar has a story, and he’s the only other one familiar with them all. 

“...Hey, Krobus?” You ask quietly into the darkness.

“Mhm?”

“I just want to say thank you. For everything, for being here…” Your tired mind searches for the words to express what you're feeling, but comes up short. 

You feel his face shift, likely turning to look up at you, trying to decipher your expression, though unlike him you can’t actually make anything out in the pitch dark of the room. 

“I… you don’t have to thank me,” he says quietly, seemingly unsure of how to respond. “But you’re welcome. And thank you, too.” He stays watching you a few moments more. “...Is everything alright?” He adds, after a pause.

“...Yeah,” you mumble, sleepily. “Sorry. I just… don’t think I say it enough.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. He holds still, still taking in your face. You feel his hand slowly raise to gently brush against your hair, trail along your cheek. After a time he sighs, before finally resting again against you, letting his face nestle again up against your neck.

You adjust, holding him a little closer. You settle together in the darkness, quiet save for the steady ticking of the mantle clock, before sleep takes you at last.

Krobus

“Where have you been?”

You’re seated opposite the Wizard around a small table in the drawing room near the top of his tower.

“Away,” you say simply. “Did you not see the note?”

You take a sip of your tea, a bitter blend. He glares at you over his own cup.

“…If you want something in particular, you’ll have to tell me what that is, you know.”

“What I want,” he bites out, “is to know what the Hell it is you think you are doing.”

You keep your face as neutral as possible. Part of you always knew it could come to this. 

“I think,” you say evenly, “you know exactly what I’m doing.”

He rubs his brow exasperatedly. 

The Wizard you knew from experience was a touchy man at the best of times, and you could tell he was especially worked up now. 

Taking in the barely veiled anger now, part of you is amazed he’s able to do the work he does, managing to walk the delicate lines of diplomacy through all his emotional highs and lows that he feels so intensely.

But for what it was worth, you had to admit he did his job well, and it was clear that he genuinely cared about it. You knew what the job entailed, and you didn’t envy it in the slightest. 

Much of his tenure had overlapped the war, you recall, and though you didn’t know him well then, you had come to respect him even in those early days for his grace under pressure and the clear passion in his work towards restoring peace.

You suppose you should be honored, in some way, that he trusts you enough to let his emotions flare through his composure around you.

“I like you, Krobus. Really, I do. And I know you’re smarter than this. Which is why I just don’t understand… You of all people should know why this is a bad idea.” His stare is intense. “You can’t seriously mean to tell me you’re willing to risk everything you’ve worked for, everything we’ve worked for, for what, some forty more years with them, if that?”

You knew full well that safety you found yourself in was hard fought, and that you were putting yourself in shaky territory at best by entangling yourself so closely with the farmer.

Just out the tower window, they were biding their time fishing in the small lake, waiting for you to finish. 

Looking quickly both ways, they check the coast is clear before taking a small fish directly from their backpack and dropping it, whole, into their mouth. 

Your brow raises in mild surprise. 

Rasmodius looks a bit disgusted. 

It brought you back to a conversation you had had with them earlier on, back in the sewers, back when the two were still just starting to get to know each other. 

~

“You don’t eat any other animals?”

They shook their head. “Nope,” between bites of sushi. “Just fish.”

You stared at them for a long moment.

“…Can’t you… speak to fish?” You’d asked them slowly. 

They chewed on, somewhat uncomfortably now. 

“And yet after all that you still settled on pescatarianism, of all things?” You had asked, incredulously. 

It didn’t actually bother you, and you didn’t mean to give them too much of a hard time over it. Truthfully, you cared very little about what someone chose to eat or not eat. You were simply curious about the reasoning that had gotten them there, in this case. 

“…That’s a relatively recent development,” they had finally mumbled. “I was pescatarian before all that.”

You had laughed then. They were surprised momentarily, but soon broke out into a smile as well. 

“Let’s talk about something else,” they had tried to say, but then they were laughing all the same, laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all. 

“Y’know, I think I bit off more than I can chew, moving out here”, they said finally, tears in their eyes as the both of your laughter finally died down. “It’s all been a bit more than I had bargained for.”

“Sounds like it,” you said, grinning. “I’m glad you did though.”

“…Me too.” 

~

They catch you then looking through the window and almost look embarrassed at having been caught. They wave sheepishly at you. 

You wave fondly back at them. 

Rasmodius drops his face into his hands. He looked as though he’d be happy if someone were to shoot him dead there on the spot. 

You shake your head, before turning your attention back to the Wizard and the conversation at hand. 

You aren’t sure how to explain it, but you know this time with the farmer is what you want. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I have made my choice.”

He exhales long, slow, and keeps his head in his hands. 

“Do they even know?” 

You stare down into your cup.

“They know enough”, you reply quietly, after a pause. “They’ve picked up a great deal. I think they understand the broad strokes, if not more. They understand quite well the importance of secrecy, anyways, if that’s the point you’re concerned about.”

He looks up again then. 

“You don’t think they deserve to know?”

You swirl your tea in your cup.

“…I don’t want to burden them unduly.” 

You pause to gather your thoughts. 

“…You have to remember; they were born long after any of this even happened. This isn’t their conflict, and I simply think it’s unfair to expect them to bear the burden of the fallout from a fight that happened before their great grandparents were even born. I’ll do everything in my power to avoid harm coming to them because of me, of course, but I don’t see how it would make things any better for them to have to know everything about it.”

You offer a sad smile, before continuing gently, 

“Not everyone here is as old as us, my friend.”

He slumps a bit in his chair, dejected. He didn’t like being reminded of his age. 

“That doesn’t solve the problem at hand.”

“What is there to solve? I won’t tell. They won’t tell. The only other one who knows is you, and so long as you’ll keep this secret…?”

He groans. 

“…You know I will,” he says finally, and a weight lifts off your shoulders the slightest bit at those words. 

“…But if word gets out,” he continues, “if word gets out to the wrong people, and things go bad, just know that I warned you, I warned you and I won’t be able to help you.”

“I never expected you to,” you reply honestly. 

He almost looks hurt for a fraction of a second, before his expression closes off. 

“Good,” he replies gruffly. “Fine. As long as we’re on the same page then.” He refuses to meet your eyes. 

You sigh. 

So much had changed in the mere decades since they’d last spoken. 

You take in your old friend. He didn’t look young, by any means, but the truth was he was far older than even the appearance he wore would suggest. It showed through in cracks to his façade when the intensity of his bravado left him and he calmed, cracks that you knew him well enough to detect, that he trusted you enough to let show.

The two of you had weathered centuries together. That would’ve been nothing remarkable in your old life, but now, you truly don’t have many you could say the same about.

He had succeeded so far in extending his lifespan far beyond that of the average human, but you both knew he was just delaying the inevitable. A human, even a very magically adept one, could not live forever. Every extra year now weighed heavier and heavier upon him. Resting his face now in his arm on the table, he looked so much more tired now, worn, deflated. 

You move quietly up next to him, and smooth your hand lightly over his hair. 

“I hate seeing you like this, you know,” you murmur. 

He looks up at you then. 

“You aren’t helping things, pulling stunts like this. Moving in with some random human,” He mumbles. The words were biting, but you knew him well enough to detect the exasperated fondness underlying them. He wasn’t nearly as angry as he had been before. 

“They’re not random,” you say matter-of-factly. “I happen to be very fond of this one in particular.”

“Hrmf,” he says.

“Anyways, I don’t think,” you continue, lightly teasing now, “that you of all people are in any position to be having many opinions on other’s unconventional relationships. We both know how well those have turned out.”

He groans. “Ugh. Don’t even go there.”

You chuckle lightly. “Fine, fine.”

Your hand moves from his hair to rest on his cheek, and your thumb moves gently over the tired skin. 

He leans into your touch, and sighs. 

You had become steadily more comfortable with physical contact throughout your relationship with the farmer, come to appreciate its ability to communicate when words weren’t enough. The Wizard seems to welcome this. 

“…You don’t have to fix everything, Rasmodius,” you say, softly. “I know you want to, but you can’t. You’ll run yourself ragged trying. Some problems just aren’t yours to bear.”

It’s quiet for a few moments, and you think maybe he had fallen asleep, that he hadn’t heard you, when you hear his soft, tired voice finally reply. 

“I have to try,” he whispers. “…Especially if it’s you.” He rubs his eyes. “Believe it or not, I actually don’t want to see anything terrible happen to you. I just wish you wouldn’t make things so damn difficult for me.”

You can’t help but smile a little. He must be very tired indeed. He rarely spoke that frankly about something as mundane as feelings, or sentimentality.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t help me.”

He sighs. “I don’t want it to get to that point, Krobus. Don’t put me in that position.”

“I don’t want it to either,” you try to reassure. “That’s why we’re careful. And why you really don’t have to worry so much.”

You don’t know, actually, whether it’s worth worrying over or not, but the fact remains that you don’t want Rasmodius worrying himself sick for your sake. You could do more than enough worrying by yourself on this particular issue. 

You continue to lightly stroke his cheek as his eyes slip shut again for a few moments. 

“…How much longer are you going to keep this going for?” You finally ask, voice as soft as you can manage.

“Need to find an apprentice,” he mumbles. 

Of course. The same hangup as he’d had for as long as you’d known him. 

You don’t know whether he really was just that picky in selecting his successor, or if it was that he didn’t want to let go of that last remaining excuse to hold on to this life. 

You hesitate a moment, before slowly pressing a soft kiss to his temple, and then withdrawing. 

“Get some rest, Rasmodius. Please.”

He waves you away sleepily. 

You pause by the door.

“It was good to see you,” you whisper, and you take your leave.

The Farmer

He seemed content to watch you go, if a little sad. 

He would be there, he assured you, when you wanted to come back. You had nothing to worry about. 

“There’s a lot out there for you to experience,” he had said, on the night you bring up the opportunity. He holds your hands in his. “Please,” he continued, holding his gaze on your eyes intently, “please don’t hold back on it because of me.”

You promise him that’s not what you’d be doing should you refuse, that you love the farmhouse, and their life together, and it’s the truth. 

But you know all too well there’s a part of him that is afraid of holding you back, that’s afraid you will come to feel trapped in this arrangement the two of you have. The knowledge that you’ve given your short life to him while he had no way to truly reciprocate the weight of the gesture hangs over his head. He’s happy with you there, but you’re also aware he feels guilty about it, like it’s a selfish thing to feel happy about, to appreciate fully. 

You know he tries just as hard as you do to accept and appreciate your differences, as species and as individuals. Just as you appreciate and try to nurture his quiet, introspective nature, his occasional need for complete solitude, his days of silence, his sensitivities, the quirks that make him him, he tries to appreciate in you your love of sunshine (that leaves you with an awkward, uneven farmers tan most years), your appreciation for sweet things, your long days out in the field, your trips to the mine, your sense of adventure. 

Taking in everything around you at the farm, you don’t think you want to go. Not this far. Not without him. 

But at last, you decide it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. 

“Are you sure you’ll be alright here by yourself?” You question him yet again, as you’re heading to the door. He just laughs and waves you on. 

“I’ll be fine, really.” 

As you reach the door, he holds you tight in a last embrace, lingering, before finally he releases you.

It sinks in that you’ve never been apart from him longer than a night or two since he moved in, years ago now. Something aches in your chest as you think about this coming distance. 

You force a smile and give him a last wave before setting out for the docks. 

---

Your time on the island is fruitful. 

The island’s scenery at night, you have to admit, is breathtakingly beautiful. You wish you could show Krobus, but have no idea how you could manage to get him all the way here. You don’t think he would want to go, either. You knew him well enough to know he was far more comfortable staying in one place, setting down roots. 

You swirl wine in your cup as you look out over the island farm you had been staying at these last few months. You take in the ocean in the distance, the sound of waves blending with the sounds of island birds, moonlight reflecting in ripples off the water.

The formerly abandoned piece of land you had been working these last few months was taking shape around you. Anything grew here, at any time of year, and it was a marvel to you. Additionally, you found new plants you had never had access to back in the Valley. Everything around here was new to you, filled with the promise of excitement and adventure. 

The volcano to the north offers you additional new challenges, new enemies, new battles to overcome. Your already impossibly strong sword you find out how to make somehow stronger. Enemies fall to you easily. 

You’ve become very good at killing, you know. The enigmatic and elusive Mr. Qi reminds you of this when you visit him in his so-called walnut room here on the island. Qi, it seems, is immensely pleased with you. He had taken an interest in you since early on in your fighting career, when the only fights you had taken on in your life were the odd creature in the abandoned mines for the Guild. He had always been a generous sponsor of your progress in the mines, in your development as a fighter. He praises you, and he pushes you. He is always quick to remind you that there’s more, there’s further for you to climb. 

You think back to the board in the Adventurer’s Guild, thoroughly marked up with tallies over the years as you had honed your skills. Part of you is aware it’s unlikely you would have become half as deadly of a fighter as you were without his gifts of shiny armour and sharp new blades, his encouragement of your progress, the lofty goals he offered up for you to chase after. You aren’t sure how you feel about it. He sees something in you, you know. You’re not sure you like what it is.

Now, on this warm island night, you weigh your options once again. In spite of everything, your thoughts are often drawn back to the Valley, back home. Despite all the progress you are making, you can’t help but feel somehow unsettled, unsatisfied. You consider such things often these days, and it weighs on you.

You hate the idea of disappointing Mr. Qi. 

But finally, the day comes, and you know you’ve hit a wall with a conviction that surprises yourself. 

The ocean waves sound beautifully as you sip your wine.

Tonight is the end. You’ve had enough. 

---

You’re dreading this conversation, but you know it must be done. It’s time.

You had come a long way since your early days, a fresh face in the Adventurer’s Guild, poking around at slimes in your hunts for scraps of metal.

You enter the walnut room, and Qi is there, as he always seems to be whenever you arrive, no matter the hour. 

“I’m finished.”

He says nothing, but turns around to face you. 

You gulp, and try to keep your voice from shaking as you continue. 

“Thank you for the opportunity, but I’m finished. I want to go home.” You take a breath. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow, and I don’t think that I will be back.”

He looks at you with an inscrutable expression. You could feel his eyes on yours, almost boring into your soul though they remained hidden behind his dark shades. You fight against the urge to break eye contact, hold your ground. 

Finally, he nods. “You’re finished,” he echoes. Then he smiles. “It’s been a pleasure.”

Somehow, you had expected more of a fight. For him to get angry, to offer you more challenges, to demand you live up to your full potential in chasing his elusive state of Perfection, to keep working at refining whatever spark it was that he saw in you and had nurtured over all these years. But no, he was letting you go now, without a fight, seemingly without ill will. 

It is surprising, somehow, but you take it. He is, as ever, impossible to read clearly. 

“Well.” You clear your throat. “…Thank you for everything, Mr. Qi.”

His smile brightens. “Not at all. I do mean it; it has been a pleasure.” He chuckles lightly to himself. “Always full of surprises, aren’t ya, kid.”

He still calls you kid, after all these years. Even now, as you’re pushing your sixties. 

He seemed, as ever, untouched by time. 

Just as you’re about to reach the door, he calls after you. 

“Give my regards to your friend back home then, will you?”

You freeze momentarily in your tracks, before forcing yourself to keep walking and throwing a hand up in your best attempt at a casual wave. “Will do.”

You never see him again.

The Farmer 

When you returned home, he was there, just as he’d said he would be.

You held him, and he held you, neither one of you wanting to let go. 

You had a lot you wanted to tell him. He puts on a kettle of tea and joins you on the sofa, and you catch him up with the months of adventures, holding him to your side.

You brought back with you a couple new scars, a mango sapling, and a renewed appreciation for this life.

Your days fall into an easy rhythm then. You had become quite the homebody, you knew, but it didn’t bother you. 

Home was where Krobus was. You knew now, unshakably, that was where you wanted to be.

Sometimes, you would take walks, in the forest, or to the beach, but for the most part you were content to drink in the scenery of the farm. Your fruit trees, ones you had planted so many years ago, had grown to magnificent sizes now, and produced well. Almost every season, there was some variety or other in bloom, flowers brightening up the crevices of the dark, gnarled bark, perfuming the breeze. The orchard was one of your favorite places to rest. You would sketch, or read, or simply sit and watch. 

Other times, you would sit on the porch, and on rainy mornings, Krobus often joined you. He loved the rain, and you had come to like it if only for seeing him so happy in it. You knew he didn’t often get to fully appreciate the scenery of the farm like you did, so you cherished these rainy mornings where you could both look out at the same view together. You sat on the top step and drank from a steaming mug of coffee, he stood, leaning on the railing, and you both stared out into the distance. The rain rhythmically drummed away on the porch’s overhanging roof, the mist in the air carried a wet, earthy scent. 

Sometimes, you would risk walking the grounds together at night, and you would take the opportunity to show him things in the moonlight. What was in bloom this time of year, how the crops were coming along, the birds nest up in the old oak tree, the new baby chicken that had hatched just the other day. 

Your days now were less hectic than the mad rush of your youth. You had time now to take in things quietly, notice the details, from the subtle way things changed day by day, to the dramatic sweeping changes of the seasons. You think you will never get tired of it, the life surrounding everything on the farm. 

You don’t worry about getting as much planted every season as you could. Your days of toiling over your plants from dawn to dusk were done. You maintain a modest crop every season of a couple favorite varieties, and a kitchen garden just beyond the house, surrounded by flowers and beehives, and you found that was plenty to keep you occupied with these days. 

You spend your evenings, as always, with Krobus. Sometimes you would talk, sometimes you would sit together in silence. Sometimes you both would work quietly side by side on your own projects, content in just each other’s presence (you were trying to take up knitting, while he still loved a good book). Sometimes, you would venture to strum a few chords on your guitar as he watched you intently, taking in your form bent over the instrument, taking in the music. 

Eventually the time came when your beloved animals became too much for you. Sadly, you decided it was time for them to move on to a new home, to enter the care of someone better equipped to handle them.

The daughter of Jas did much of the work running the local ranch alongside her mother these days. A bright, plucky young lady, she had clearly inherited the family’s characteristic love of animals. You tearfully hand over the care of your precious herd to her, with her assurance that they would be well looked after. She would do her great aunt proud. 

Krobus

You sat together on the small living room sofa, looking out the window with a view of the gardens.

They didn’t move around much these days, preferring to mostly stay in one place throughout the day. You don’t mind this, but it saddens you to know why it is.

They had once been very limber, able to singlehandedly cultivate great quantities of plants, descend the desert caverns easily, but over the years those long hours, those hard drops took their toll. It had been a while since they had given up mining and stepped back from the heaviest farmwork, but still the impact of the strains carried over, got amplified with age.

They were almost unrecognizable as the bright, energetic youth you had first encountered all those decades ago. The bright personality still burned within, but there was a weight ever present on top. Pain was a constant undercurrent to their life now, you knew, and though you did what you could to relieve it, nothing you could try seemed to have enough of an effect.

Birds gather at the garden feeder.

They sigh. “I’m tired, Krobus.”

You watch them quietly and listen, holding their hand in yours.

“Tired like I’ve never been. It’s strange... I used to have so much energy. I used to be able to run around this whole Valley, sleep for four hours, then get up and do it all again the next day. Can you believe that?”

You remember those days, of course. It didn’t feel so long ago to you.

The birdsong outside is sweet.

They laugh quietly. “We’ve had a good run, huh.”

You smile, squeezing their hand lightly. “We have, haven’t we.”

You winced internally. You know saying it means acknowledging the reality of the situation, means admitting that you knew time was almost up. But you know it is true.

Your heart breaks a little, but you don’t show it on your face.

It has been good. It has been so good. 

And that was what made this all so hard now, you knew.

Part of you was half amazed that the two of you had managed to pull it off. You had managed to live an entire human lifespan together, against all odds. It was something worth celebrating, you suppose, but the impending loss overshadowed any real sense of accomplishment in your mind for the moment. 

If you asked yourself whether you would do it all again if you had the chance, you knew you wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. Even with the agony you knew was coming, could feel lingering just outside the periphery, breathing down your neck; even though the beauty of it all couldn’t last forever, you knew you wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world.

You rest your head against their shoulder, and watch the birds with them.

Krobus

There’s a stillness to the evening.

The farmer had been bedridden now for a few days, withdrawing more and more into themselves.

They ate very little these days.

“Stay with me tonight,” they whispered. “Please. Stay.”

You always stay, but you reassure them all the same.

“I will. Of course I will.”

They were silent then.

In the early hours of the morning, you remain still at your chair by their bedside, their hand in yours. The window is open a bit to let in some air. It is cool, but not unpleasantly so. A light wind blows outside, rustling the leaves. The wind chimes on the porch play their sweet tones. Birds are chirping lightly in the distance. The curtains of the bedroom were drawn shut as usual, but flashes of pale early morning sunlight enter the room when the curtains are lifted lightly with the breeze, interspersed with shadows from the waving trees. The clock on the mantle, as ever, ticks steadily on. 

They don’t wake that morning. Their breathing is slow and slightly labored now. 

You hold their hand, let your fingers brush over their knuckles.

Their breathing slows, slows, until finally, they exhale. A long sigh, and then they breathe no more. 

And just like that, it is finished. 

They were gone.

Krobus

You thumb the pendant, twirling it in your hand over and over, meditatively.

The barn had certainly seen better days.

A lot had changed during the farmer’s tenure in this corner of the Valley, the landscape changed, molded under their careful attention. Now, in their absence, nature was once again taking it back.

It was a shame, really. You keep the house up as best you can, but actual structural repair for the outbuildings was beyond your capabilities, you were sure. 

You think back, only a few decades before, when the building had been fresh and new and full of life, when you could watch the farmer from the window as they weaved through their herd of animals, heading to this very barn. There was a time when a few decades were a blink of an eye to you. It amazed you now, how much could actually change in that period, how much was constantly happening if you made a point of paying attention to it. 

Suddenly, your thoughts are pulled back to the present and you freeze. You hadn’t noticed any sign of someone being around, and you were always careful about such things, but suddenly, unmistakably, someone was there behind you. Someone was there and there was nowhere for you to hide fast enough now. You fight down the well of panic rising in you and try to maintain your composure as you turn around to face your visitor. 

The man has an undeniable presence to him. He looks human, proportionally, but something about him screams other. 

Everything about him seems to shimmer somehow, right down to his skin, even here, in the dark of night. The almost electric coloring to him struck you as very much out of place against deep, earthy tones of the overgrown pasture.

“Greetings,” he says, and amazingly, he says it in your native tongue. 

He says it perfectly, easily, as if he’d been born speaking the language, but what throws you off further is that it’s a greeting used between old friends, not one customary with strangers. 

You recover from your momentary shock and confusion at all of this and hesitantly, you return the greeting in turn. 

You’re polite by nature, but even if you weren’t, you get the distinct feeling this isn’t someone it would be wise to offend. You pull together your best polite, mild look from your shopkeeper days, offer him that small, guarded smile. 

The man’s face breaks into a wide grin then, and he approaches the ruined barn you were looking at. 

He stands next to you, looking up at the sagging building. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says finally. 

You swallow, take a deep breath as you fight down a fresh wave of grief. 

“Thank you,” you reply simply, not looking at him. 

The two of you stand silently for a long while then. 

“…Is there anything in particular I can help you with?” You venture to ask as politely as you can manage, once you’d given up trying to figure out the purpose of the strange man’s visit. 

He fixes his gaze on you. Somehow, it feels hot, intense even though you can’t make out his eyes at all behind the dark glasses he wore. 

“I’m not sure yet. For the time being, I’m just paying my respects.”

“I see.” You aren’t sure what that’s supposed to mean, and you’re just grateful now to feel his burning, focused gaze finally slip from you. You’re too tired to bother questioning him further, trying to deduce any more meaning. You’re in no mood for mind games. “Well, thank you for that.”

He tips his hat, before spinning on his heel and walking the few steps back the way he came. “’Till next time, then.”

And just as suddenly as he had arrived, the strange man was gone, leaving you alone again in the still night with the old, ruined barn and the aching weight of grief rotting a hole through your chest.