I let Dash continue to watch Tigra the next morning as I went to the training grounds to go over what I had learnt with dad, but dad had beaten me to the grounds. I entered to see him practising with Zekon’s new form, letting off short burst as not to raise suspicion from those who may be passing by.

Dad grinned as he saw me. “Don’t you have a princess to guard.”

“I haven’t gone to see her yet, she doesn’t know am back,” I replied.

“Oh, she’ll know, she’s just giving you some chill time,” he let out a chuckle. “I suspect she had every knight keeping an eye out for your return, so I wouldn’t stay away too long.”

“I won’t.” I rubbed my head, feeling nervous about leaving her for so long. “Dad, can I run something by you?”

“Sure.” He nodded, Zekon returning to his original form and being sheathed. “What’s on your mind.”

“I wanted to do more against the darkness, and I don’t believe we can do it on our own, just the Fang clan isn’t enough considering there are so few of us now,” I began. “The Rattus Warriors are already on our side, and so are others I’ve helped, perhaps we can have their help with chasing the darkness from other places, we’re spread too thin.”

“Hmm.” He seemed to be thinking about it. “Sounds like the wisdom of a leader to me, sounds good.” He nodded. “But doing such talks with allies within the castle would be too risky of being heard, we’d need somewhere else.”

“I already have such a place in mind,” I grinned.

“And where might that be.” He was intrigued.

I took dad along with my fellow Guardians who were still adamant in helping me against the darkness to a place outside the castle, an inn called the Trees Hollow I had spotted for sale, it had been a while since I’d passed and luckily it was still available.

“You want to buy this dump,” remarked Arata.

“Perfect,” smirked dad.

“Do you earn enough for that,” commented Dash.

“Well, I have paid accommodation for being a Guardian and I can go to the kitchens when I want something to eat, so really don’t have any need to spend my coin,” I responded.

“Needs a major upgrade, this place has been going downhill for years,” said Zack.

“A resistance like the stories.” Link gazed at me.

“Exactly,” I nodded.

“Now you are acting like a real Fang.” Dad patted me on the back. “Good luck rennervating it.”

“Aren’t you going to help me,” I said.

“I do have a bakery to run and a king to keep from falling any deeper,” He took a deep breath. “Mind having so many clan members about have softened the darkness, even Dumah struggles to keep his control.”

“Guessing King Alton is causing you trouble again,” I said.

“Indeed. I think he’s up to something.” Dad shook his head. “Well, have fun.” And he headed off.

“Run down, but you guys will help me, right.” I glanced back at the others, who gazed back as if I had asked a stupid question. “You really going to let me do this all on my own.”

“We have a princess to watch,” snorted Zack. “Like you should, she’s missed you.”

“Alright,” I sighed. “I’ll go see her as soon as I’ve finalised the sale.” I headed in to check the place out. The inn wasn’t that big, advertised as having ten rooms for guests, a bar, lounge area and three back rooms for the owner.

The main entrance had wooden floor, gladded walls, decorated with paintings of Feles warriors and a lot of cobwebs. An Ursus Americanus stood at the main desk, this was Marko, the current owner, he was similar to Brendan, a cousin of the bears, his fur black and smaller than Brendan too.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“Hear your selling,” I responded.

“And what would a Guardian want with my run-down inn,” commented Marko.

“Allow us to discuss this somewhere more private.” I brought out from my pocket, a pouch full of gold coins. “As I will be the new owner.”

“This way.” He moved aside, lifting a hatch to the back. “You’ll need to sign the deed.”

“Thank you.” I headed to the first door on the right, this was where it would all start.

I spent the next hour or so discussing with him what I had planned, the first thing I checked was if he had any dark influence over him, he did not. He expected that he would have to move out of the Inn, but I stopped him, he would need to still run the place, I would simply hold owner ship, get the place up and running again, my wages as a Guardian would cover everything.

The first thing was to give the place a new name, Tigra was an Album Tigris which was related to the white tiger, so I went for The White Tiger’s inn. The back rooms weren’t too bad, one already had a bed and desk, perfect for my future activities here, planning things against Dumah, right under his nose. The more darkness I wiped out now, would surely weaken him and I was sure dad would help too, but he had yet to go on any missions since returning back from Cathopia, was he worried about leaving King Alton again.

Next were the other rooms, where most of the furniture wasn’t even salvageable, not even the chairs and tables in the bar, most of the floor panels had woodworm, which meant the whole place would need to be fumigated, a specialist would be expensive, but no problem.

“Sounds like you have huge plans for my…our little inn, Master Fang,” commented Marko.

“Master?” I gave him a weird look. “Why did you call me Master?”

“Would you prefer prince?” he responded.

“Prince?” I blurted out. “Me?”

“You are the son of the chief of the Fang Clan, are you not?” He seemed to be quite the curious type.

“I am, but a prince, please just call me Fang.” I patted him on the back. “I may own this place now, but we are partners, and you’ll know all my plans.” He nodded. “Hard work ahead of us, are you ready.”

“Yes, to see this place thrive again would be a dream come true.” He smiled.

-

The next coming weeks I sorted out the woodworm problem, replacing all the damaged boards and strengthening damaged beams, then brought in all new furniture, managed to get a good deal because of my status as a Guardian and I knew a few of the Animalia I had helped before, hand crafters from Dagan and Renen with kind regards from a less grumpy Yuuma.

Out in the back room I was going over the plans for all the rooms, it wasn’t really my day off as a Guardian, but Marko had insisted on me getting my decisions done on the theme and colours, such a nuisance, had wanted to show Tigra when the place was finished, so I had no choice but to show her the place in its incomplete state.

“You brought this place.” Was her first response before I had explained everything to her, after all we no longer kept secrets from one another. “This is so boring,” she moaned laid out on the bed in my room, while I sat at the desk going over the themes and colours.

“I told you, you didn’t have to come,” I responded. “And I wouldn’t have come till tonight, but Marko was adamant on the fact it needs to be done within the hour before the order for the necessary materials is sent off.” I sighed.

“Can’t he decide.” She also sighed.

“He claims that he has no style when it comes to picking out this sort of thing,” I answered. “Just wait a minute and we’ll go do what you want, almost done.” I moved a sheet, catching sight of some of my notes, mentioning about the condensed dark crystals that Cutter and Scorlax had used to transform into monsters.

“Oh, come on.” I was suddenly pulled back into the chair, Tigra coming round the front, sitting on the table, pushing me with her foot. “You are my Guardian and I the princess, I deserve some of your attention too.”

“The royal putting on a temper tantrum.” I moved her foot away and stood up.

“You’ve been away for a while and then come back to be more interested in this place,” she snorted.

“Oh, jealous.” I grinned. “Attention seeking.” I moved closer, coming in against her, so she couldn’t move. She huffed, but soon changed her tune, when I kissed her. Her arms around my neck, her tail around my waist. She’d been missing me and had given me the cold shoulder on return for taking so long with my training, then I had moved on to this project without paying her attention first.

She rested her head against my shoulder. “You could have sent me a message through Larana.”

“Sorry, dad said no talismans allowed,” I apologised, hugging her tightly.

“As long as you don’t do that again,” she demanded.

“I won’t.” Tigra might seem the tough type in front of other Animalia, but really she was a real softy.

“Master.” Larana spoke up alert. “We need to return home. Lin is in labour.”

“What?” I pulled away from Tigra. “You coming?”

“You’re the only Guardian on duty today, what do you think,” responded Tigra.

“Let’s go.” I grabbed her hand and rushed through the door, passing Marko in the corridor. “Sorry Marko, just send off for the materials I sorted, we’ll order the rest during the next batch.” Tigra and I were out of the door before he could get a word in, heading straight to the bakery.