Elle hopped down from the pedestal, as carefree as though she had just squished a fly, and came before Miles. He looked at her, slack-jawed and uncaring of how unattractive his open mouth would be.

“Hello, Miles,” she said, energetically.

He couldn’t stay dumbfounded forever. In long reflections of his life, sitting up at night in the few grassy patches of the city, or on the slanted rooftop of his house, Miles had come to believe that every situation, no matter its oddity, has a perfect action to set into motion. And even though he missed countless opportunities to say or do the right thing, at the right time, and to right person, he was relentless in his attempt to make up for lost times.

Calming himself in order to discover this situation’s right action by denying his immediate impulses, was as difficult as denying his own nature. After closing his mouth, Miles looked left and right, ensuring there had been no one around to witness that it was Elle who had saved the day and not him. The streets were empty, luckily.

As she came before him, he stood straight and folded his arms, even though his mind replayed the horror of Kortez’s death and the destructive dragon. In order to seize the moment, he denied the impulse to shrink down and weep from fear, regret, and unearned relief.

Elle hadn’t a scroll in her hand, nor one tucked in any of her belts or straps. But the silver brace on her arm seemed ancient and intricate. “You have an Artifact, then?” he asked flatly, careful not expose surprise or wonder.

“You would have known sooner, Miles, if you hadn’t ignored me.”

Many questions eagerly crowded behind his lips, but other considerations took precedence. This was not the time or place for a casual conversation. Taking Elle by the arm he swiftly led her to a nearby alley. The walls, blocking the sun, provided ample darkness to enshroud them from curious citizens and city guards who would be arriving any moment to survey the sudden silence.

Her eyes almost glowed in the dark. Letting go, Miles bent to whisper. She turned her ear. “Now, look here,” he said. His voice lightly echoed off the damp walls. “We shouldn’t linger. It’s best that no one knows you and I took the dragon down. We don’t even belong to a Team, it’s a terrible insult especially to Kistador if two inexperienced, random civilians killed the monster even when Kortez could not. If they find out, the lords may have us arrested and your bracelet confiscated and given to an authorized Team.”

“You know,” she said in a tone that ignored his statement, “at first I was upset when you ran away from me. But then I found you here, and I just knew you and I were meant to be a Team.”

He huffed. “I don’t believe in Fate.”

“Neither do I.” Her imploring gestures exposed her idealism and passion. “But I believe in meaning. Two years ago, I decided to become an explorer, and six months ago, I finished making my clothing.”

“You made that yourself?”

“Last month, while exploring around my village and killing killshrooms, I found this.” Lifting her arm, the silver brace glinted from the ray of sun falling between the buildings. “And then the ship came, and Captain Heath offered to take some of us here to Sceindar City.”

He had to stop her there. “Wait.” Pinching between his eyes, he caught up to her story. “You are from Ineihelheim?” That newly discovered village scribbled on Pilgrim’s map. Shouldn’t she have an accent or speak another language entirely? That was the case for Dradle, another village discovered last year by Kortez (goddess rest his soul).

As if to answer his thoughts, she said, “Ish mein haum, Ineihelheim. Hart ov blod.”

So, she had her native language, but learned Sceindar perfectly in two or three weeks on the ship? Not impossible, but not easy to believe, either.

She continued heartfeltly, “And I found your poster, and then I found you. Then against all odds, as I came to kill the dragon, I found you a second time! Miles, I don’t believe in Fate, but I believe in the right time, the right place, and the right person. Don’t you see? That’s us.” She finished soft-spoken and with a hopeful smile.

Elle seemed to have a fiery desire for exploration and adventure. What she lacked in general worldly knowledge, being from a backwater village, she made up for in swift adaptation and imagination. Miles didn’t feel guilty taking advantage of her naivete. Better him than someone who would try to do her harm. He needed to ensure that he was the only one who knew about Elle and her incredibly powerful Artifact, and to get her full story.

“Alright, Elle,” he said, “I’ll go with you.” That was just his gut reaction, and he could change his mind any time he wished. Though, the mystery of Elle’s past tempted his impulses.

She lit up like a lamp. “Oh, Miles! You and I are going to have such fun!”

As charming as her happiness was, she was too loud. Firmly holding her shoulders, he shushed her and kept her vibrating excitement still. After quickly peering down the alley’s opening and ensuring no one had heard them, he whispered again. “We have much to talk about, but we can’t do that here. There are, ah, plans and things.”

She nodded, lowering herself from her tiptoes.

Holding up a stern finger between them, he said, “Meet me at the Bouncing Brick—”

“What a funny name!”

“Hush. Meet me there tonight after twenty-o’clock. We will get everything settled then.”

“I have so much to tell you.”

“I’d wager you do,” he replied. “Go out the alley this way. Can you climb the fence?”

Elle went swiftly to the back exit, gripped the top of the flat boards, and elegantly vaulted the barrier. Up and over like a rabbit. Standing on her toes, she looked over the fence and waved goodbye.

With a sigh of relief and then a pause of dread, Miles leaned against the cold brick wall trying not to faint or panic. Staving off the overbearing emotions of a near-death experience, as well as promising to form a Team – practically a death sentence – with a stranger caught up to him. He had to think this through, and the only place he could do so clearly was in his parents’ house. Preferably when both his father and mother were home and arguing with each other.

He strode out the opposite way of Elle so they wouldn’t have been seen together by a random passerby, put his hands in his pockets, and turned calmly past the wreckage and through three dark passages, and then away from the guards and cautious citizen’s that were making their way to the Lightning Bearer’s park.

They’ll have to place Elle on that pedestal instead of Quinn, one day.

He’d have to convince the Lords Kyle to fund a marble statue of himself in there too.

His parents’ house wasn’t in the cleanest part of the city. Having been built with shoddy materials fifty years ago, his mother did her best to replace the rotting baseboards, and sand and paint the chips that inevitably appeared on the doors.

All that upkeep required money, but Miles’ father thought himself above the toils of manual labor. In fact, even as Miles came into the house, with the fumes of lacquer resin singing his eyes, his father was pontificating. That was sure to start an argument with his mother who carefully coated the kitchen counter with an expensive gloss.

Mile’s father was the best dressed man in the Outer Slums. Even if his black suit was twenty years old, formerly worn and then discarded by a lord, and not quite tailored well enough to fit his round belly, he seemed to think himself a king in it.

Miles walked past them, unnoticed, as his father was in the middle of an oratory defense of his financial decisions, and his mother too focused on not spilling a viscous drop from her brush. He plopped down on the couch in the living room. Without a greeting or being greeted, he laid down on the red velvet and covered his eyes drowning out the light from the cracked chandelier above the coffee table.

Miles peeked occasionally through the open doorway to the kitchen. His father, holding his small oak pipe, waved it as he spoke, but ensured to keep his other hand planted on his side, unless it was to check the time on his broken brass pocket watch. “I tell you, Gertrude,” he continued with his practiced Upper Class accent. “The investment I made in Morgan’s bank will return tenfold.” Half of the upper and lower slums claimed they had distant relatives to lordship, but Miles’ father obsessively embraced the folklore of their great-uncle Spiro who is said to have been replaced by a commoner look-alike and having to work as salt harvester for the rest of his life. Miles’ father taught him how to speak like a member of the wealthy class, but unlike his father, Miles only indulged in that skill when the situation fit.

“Well,” returned his mother, interlaced in a sigh, “Mister Baily will pay a whole silver to make bricks for the new wall expansion.” Her hint didn’t seem to reach his father.

Their mild bickering generated the perfect white-noise to meditate to. His father’s proud babble, and his mother’s quiet logic together made all thoughts clear, it was one of the few constants in his life since childhood. Their back-and-forth would last as long as they didn’t acknowledge Miles’ presence and pester him with worry and questions about work or Celest, his betrothed. Or the dragon.

In the blackness of his closed lids, Miles reflected. Elle wanted him to go with her, to be an Adventurer just like Kortez had been before he got squished. In a way, it had been his fault, and now the world was one Adventurer short, leaving the balance tipped in the monsters’ favor.

It’s true that he had wanted to go out into the world and slay monsters and discover rare magic and treasures. But that was years ago, merely childhood fantasies, and he was twenty-six now. Then again, the silver mines wouldn’t need him again, at least not as miner, but perhaps as a protector. The farms, especially the new ones to be cultivated for new city project, would be the same. He had done his time as a sower and harvester. He would never sail again. And even though he enjoyed his daily routines of making deals with the docksmen and shop owners, and helping his friends, something gave him a sinking feeling amidst his cozy life.

Nyx was missing. She had gotten off the Lellium and hopped fearlessly onto the Black Swan to explore the Sand Deep Archipelago two years ago. The Black Swan never came back into port.

What a waste of a perfect human being. She had been smart, mysterious, driven, and like a cuttlefish could blend in anywhere. On New Year’s Eve, the Lellium made port in Sceindar City’s docks to celebrate, with both Miles and Nyx among its crew. Half a night of drinking later, Nyx effortlessly broke off from the sweaty, swearing crew, and inserted herself right into a group of thrill-seeking nobles who had blessed the shore’s bazar with their presence. She instantly became the center of their attention, adjusting her posture and sipping bashfully from a wine glass instead of gulping from a pint of beer. She charmed them with talk of politics and Tuvell’s latest novel.

She tied sea knots and navigated by the constellations. Quiet nights were often spent listening to her recite the tales of a thousand stars. She could have commanded the crew if the Captain Haab would have let her. And even though Miles accepted her death long ago, the thought that he wasn’t smart enough, skilled enough, or strong enough to have won her love and admiration haunted him, day by aching day. The honing of his skills and knowledge offered no significant distraction from Nyx’s ghost.

And then there was Kortez, that handsome epitome of adoration. He had it. Whatever “it” is. Cool, calm, driven towards greatness, maturity… experience. Nyx had a similar quality: on one of those blue nights on the open sea, she said, “Reach for the stars and you will grasp the moon.”

Miles opened his eyes. The knotted oak ceiling cleared from his blurry vision. The scent of lacquer carried the baffled mutterings of his father and the timid objections of his mother. If he were to reach for greatness, would Miles be able to achieve the life of an Adventurer that would be both admired by Nyx, and respected by Kortez?

An awful pit grew in his heart. Were friends filling that chasm? Generosity? Crotesis’ medical training, or Bernard’s smithing? How many steps would he need to walk ‘round the city’s slums and spires; how many jobs, how many friends and favors would it take to distract him away from Nyx’s spectral gaze, and harness his own satisfaction in the search for achievement?

The memory of taking Elle against his chest and cheating death by invoking a scroll of power blossomed. The flesh on his neck prickled, the hair on his arms stood on end, and Miles smiled. Therein was something new, something to prove himself by.

As if from far away, he felt his name being called, perhaps from the land of the dead. Perhaps Death was calling his name, just as it had called Kortez. Just as it called Nyx. He could pretend, like he had since he was sixteen when his first attempt at becoming an Adventurer failed miserably without him even being recruited to carry a sack of scrolls for a Team. He could pretend that exploration, magic, riches and fame didn’t matter and continue his little life here in the safety of the city, strolling the streets like an anxious dog locked in a room. Then again, if a dragon came once, then another could come again. And who would be there stand against it? Not Kortez.

Miles didn’t want to think about the things he would leave behind as an Adventurer, only what he would gain by expanding his horizons. If he didn’t regret traveling the sea, and exploring every seething alley within Sceindar City, then he would certainly find some fulfillment out in the wilds.

His mother wiped her brow with her wrist. Her eyes met Miles’ and she stood. “Miles! Where have you been? When did you get home?”

His father interjected, raising his pipe, “My boy, didn’t you know there is a dragon raging in the Eastern Octet?”

Even though they were complete opposites when speaking to each other, his mother and father were in tandem whenever chastising Miles. They came into the living room and waited, side by side for his answer as though he had been caught stealing sweets from the top cupboard.

“Yes,” Miles replied, “but I heard it’s dead now.” His mother sighed in relief. “Any rate, I’ve decided to become an Adventurer.”

A moment of silence was followed by his mother’s shoulders dropping. “Oh, dear. Again? Miles, I thought you were past that phase.”

“My boy,” said his father, lecturing, “don’t you see how your selfish life choices have affected your mother, already? It’s time to grow up, settle down and continue the family name.”

“It’s true, Miles, most other boys your age have a steady job, contributing to the city. I worry the nights you don’t come home, and they are ever-so many.”

Miles’ jaw tensed. Twenty-six years old, and still a boy. As if the city could produce anything better than children in adult bodies. Safe and soft within the confines of this city’s walls, Humanity had lost the strive for greatness and its search for wonder. Elle, a product of hardy lifestyle and steeled by the dangers of a small and remote village, was several years his junior yet already the bane of killshrooms in Ineihelheim. What would the world look like if every person were as restless and enthusiastic as Elle?

“And they are married,” his father emphasized, briefly rising on his toes.

Even though the life of an Adventurer terrified him, his parents painted one more protective gloss over his decision with every attempt to sedate his lifestyle. “I’m really going this time, mother. I’ll be leaving in the morning.” He hoped that stung them.

“But Miles,” his mother said, faltering as if to find yet another reason to keep him home. “You are supposed to have coffee with Celest tomorrow. If you really are considering this…this…” At a loss of words, her hands went in circles, “Fantastical decision again, at least talk to her about it first.”

“Verily,” agreed his father. “She has a drop of sense, and will talk as much into you.”

Coffee with Celest was a dire obligation. She had been an accomplice to many of his more illicit endeavors, despite being something of a noble herself. She had even bribed Captain Haab with a box of scrolls –much to her father’s wrath-- to let him on the Lellium. Having been absolutely smitten by Miles since they were six years old, she never ceased to remind him that their marriage one day was inevitable.

Still, he found Celest’s audaciousness and loyalty so admirable, he was compelled to offer her a proper farewell. Also, he may be in love with her. His dramatic exit would certainly have to be after coffee tomorrow. His father was wrong: she would side with Miles again and bid him farewell with a word of encouragement and a kiss of good luck.

“I’ll be going the day after tomorrow, then,” Miles concluded.

“Well,” his mother replied with a glance to his father, “we will see, I think.”

“Yes,” said his father, slowly, returning a slight and knowing bow of his head. It seemed to say don’t worry, no Team will take him Adventuring, anyway. “Who knows what the morning will bring?”

Miles sighed, and stood.

“Where are you off to?” his father asked.

Opening the door, Miles dryly replied, “I have a meeting with my Team.”

Coming into the streets, Miles looked into the sky. It wasn’t too late to change his mind, even after all the fuss he gave to his parents. Besides, two Adventurers don’t make a Team. The whole thing could fall through.

As the initial burst of rebellion against his filial oppression, and the exciting possibility of being the next Kortez faded, he felt better knowing that there were multiple exits from his decision. His natural magnetism towards speaking and acting on compulsion would offer enough justification to return to his normal life, and he could claim that his fervor was the result of passion in the moment.

The sun fell while making his way to the Bouncing Brick. By the time he arrived beneath its swaying sign, such a good mood alighted him that he decided that this was all probably a terrible idea and wouldn’t come to fruition anyway. Already, he considered turning Elle down.

But as came to the tavern door and gripped the brass handle, an overwhelming thought came like a raincloud over him. Would he be able to live with himself if he failed again? What greatness ever lies in the lack of action?