It was a fairly short night for Leon, mostly because of his conversations with the Thunderbird, Nestor, and starting his tutelage under the latter.  A lot had been given to him to think about and to practice, and now he was greatly looking forward to returning home and getting in some much needed rest.

One thing that he still had to figure out, however, was his relationship with Valeria.  Now that he and her father had made their peace, even if Leon wasn’t ever going to forget what Justin had done, there was little reason for their relationship to stay the same.  He knew that he was definitely attracted to her, and that the only real reason he’d stayed away from her was because of Justin.

Now, that obstacle was gone, and Leon wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to try and see where the two of them might go.  At the very least, though, he knew that Elise would probably be ecstatic, and even if he didn’t do anything immediately, she’d probably start to pressure him to make a decision.

As Maia began to stir beside him, Leon smiled in a self-deprecating way.  Here he was with a gorgeous woman snuggled up against him and another one waiting for him back in Vale Town, and yet his thoughts were filled with romantic notions about a third.

‘Maybe I’m a greedy person?’ Leon wondered half-seriously, which began to grow more serious the more he thought about it.

If neither Elise nor Maia minded, and Valeria wanted to explore their relationship, then Leon thought they could all make it work between them.  There wasn’t much of a reason to hesitate anymore.

And yet, hesitate he did.  As much as he wanted Valeria and as much as his greedy side—he briefly wondered if this was influenced by his draconic ancestor, though he hardly had any proof that that side of him had any great influence upon him—demanded that he go to her immediately and make her his woman, his calmer, more rational side was telling him to wait.  After all that had happened over the past couple of days, he wanted to know where she stood.  With her father back, she might want to devote her time to helping Justin heal and regain his lost power rather than being with Leon and his two other lovers; she hadn’t expressed much interest in Elise or Maia, after all, so she had fewer options for physical and emotional fulfillment than his other lovers did.  She’d have to give up a share of his attention to the others that she otherwise would have from anyone else, while potentially getting no attention from them in return.

Leon couldn’t help but frown as he considered that possibility.  He didn’t want her to leave, and he felt like he owed her a least a little bit for following him so far—despite helping her to find her father and paying her the salary that she’d asked for months ago.

“What are you thinking about so early?” Maia asked, her voice straining from just having woken up, her eyes squinting as they struggled to stay open even in the near-total darkness of Nestor’s unpowered lab.

Leon smiled at her as she stretched in his arms, and said, “Us.  You, me, Elise.  I had a question for you, though… when you think about our future, is it just us three that you see?  Can you imagine anyone else there with us?”

Maia froze for a moment, then turned her lake-blue eyes toward Leon, narrowing them slightly.

“I assume you’re talking about someone in particular?” she asked.

Leon, without hesitation, replied, “Valeria.”

Maia averted her gaze, and Leon thought for a moment that she was about to blow up at him.  Instead, she simply murmured, “You could do worse.”

Leon was silent for a long moment after she said that.  Through their connection, he couldn’t feel any rage or hatred, but he couldn’t feel much of anything else, either.  He sighed, supposing that this was probably about as positive a reaction as he was going to get from her, especially given how mistrustful and antagonistic Maia had treated Valeria over the past few weeks.

“Maia,” Leon whispered, feeling her tense up a moment as the power of him saying her true name hit her body, “that wasn’t really an answer…”

Maia pushed herself against Leon a little more, though Leon figured that was mostly instinctive after he used her name.  That certainty, however, was called into question when a moment later Maia responded, “I don’t mind.  She’s not bad.  You could do worse.”

“I’d prefer if you could look at me when you say that, and if you could be more specific,” Leon said, gently taking her chin in one of his hands and tilting her head up to look at him.  “This is a gigantic decision that will affect the rest of our lives.  I don’t want this to be a convenience thing, or a snap decision.  I get the feeling that you’re not totally sold on this, though, so I’ll wait for your answer.  If yes, we’d probably be adding another member to our family, because I know that Elise will say yes, and I’m coming around to the idea, as well.  If no, then our family will remain us and Elise.  Whatever happens next has to be unanimous among us.

“And if you do say that it’s fine, that you give your consent for this, I want you to know that you will never take second place to Valeria.  None of you will be ignored.  That, I’d swear on my soul realm, on my blood, and on my name.”

Leon had felt a few twinges of uncertainty and fear as he was speaking, leading him to need to affirm their relationship again.  No matter what happened, he wanted to take the path of greatest happiness and least regrets for everyone.

“While you think about it, we should probably get up.  We’ve got a long way to go before we get home, and I’d like to get going as soon as possible.”

Maia nodded and slid out of his arms.

The two were silent as they dressed and left the room they’d hunkered down in for the night.  Only a minute or two later, they were knocking on the door where they’d left Valeria and Justin the night before, and after a few seconds, the door slid open to reveal both silver-haired people dressed and wide-awake.

“There you are!” Valeria cried out as she opened the door, her face split in a huge smile that seemed completely at odds with her usual reserved stoicism and the terribly stressful few days they’d suffered through.  Her demeanor was so bright that it almost seemed to cut through the darkness of the powerless facility.  “I almost thought I was going to have come find you two and wake you up!”

“Sorry,” Leon said as he and Maia slipped into the room.  “Didn’t realize we were so late…”

“It’s not that late,” Justin said from the sofa he’d obviously slept on, his voice and appearance a little more energetic than it had been the day before, “my daughter is just eager to return to the Bull Kingdom.”  His face was illuminated by a small orb of light hovering over a sheet of spell paper which Leon recognized as a small candlelight spell that Valeria had clearly packed.  With the facility’s power crystal now in his possession, it was the only light by which the now-mortal Justin could see.

“There’s not much else for us to do here, is there?” Valeria asked.

“Not that I can think of,” Leon replied.  “I think it’s best if we leave as soon as we can.  Put all of this behind us.”

“I think that’s about the best idea that’s ever been had,” Valeria replied.

“I don’t know,” Leon said as he slowly walked over in Justin’s direction, “putting cheese on pasta was a spectacular idea, whoever first thought of that was a damned genius.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to at least approach its ingenuity with whatever we come up with to get you back south…”

Justin raised an eyebrow in amusement.  “I assumed I was going to walk,” he said half-sarcastically.

“No,” Leon definitively replied.  “There is too much awful, terrible, murderous stuff between us and the Bull Kingdom for us to be slowed down by someone as injured as you.”

“I’m aware, I was only joking,” Justin said, cracking a brief smile.  “Perhaps a litter with an air rune to make it float?  Tie me down well enough and you’ll be able to easily run without worrying too much about me keeping up.”

Leon nodded.  This was a fairly common tactic down in the Bull Kingdom, and he had no reason to think it wouldn’t work here.  Fortunately, since Maia and Valeria had trashed the room when the golems attacked and most of the furniture had been destroyed, they had no shortage of wood to work with.  Their only problem was finding enough of sufficient size and getting it all stuck together—the nails that had been used in the creation of the furniture all had strange twisted ridges that Leon could guess made them much better than straight nails, but they had no way to get them into the wood in a timely manner.  After about half an hour, though, they’d found enough wood to make a litter, used ice as ad-hoc adhesive, and Leon put the requisite glyph on the bottom, letting the litter float a little more than three feet off the ground.

It looked like crap and Leon anticipated it falling apart sooner rather than later, but for what tools they had available to them, it was about the best they could do.

A moment later, Leon picked Justin up and gently set him down upon the litter, testing its strength.  Once they were confident that it was as stable and secure as was feasible, they immediately set off for the entrance of the facility.

It was depressing walking through the place after having seen how majestic it was only twenty-four hours before, and the small group didn’t speak much until they’d walked out the front door.  Leon paused a moment to contemplate trying to take the eyes of the wrecked Thunderbird colossus, guessing that they would’ve made for great enchanting material, but decided against it; he just didn’t want to spend that much time here, and he figured that if the eyes were needed badly enough, he’d always be able to come back when he was stronger and get them.

It was barely even dawn when they exited the facility, which cheered everyone up a little.  It meant that they had plenty of time to move, and they spent it as well as they could getting across the grassy field.  Leon set a quick pace, but didn’t quite go fast enough to tax anyone’s abilities as he was keeping an eye on Justin’s litter.  Justin seemed a little uncomfortable, especially with the ice that had been used in its creation, but it remained aloft, and Leon didn’t care about much else.

As they made their way through the field, Leon had a brief thought about taking the corpses of the ice demons, but a quick inspection with his magic senses indicated that there would be little point.  Their corpses clearly still had some power in them since they were frosting over the grass around them, but the power was weak that Leon didn’t think it would be worth it.  Like the colossus’ eyes, he was sure they’d be waiting for him if he ever decided to return.

The Gorgon’s tunnel was thankfully still there, but no one relaxed until they emerged on the other side.

There was little conversation as they bolted into the trees.  They made no attempt to be stealthy since they figured that there was nothing they could do to escape the notice of the stronger beings in the Forest of Black and White, so their priority was to get east across the troll’s bridge as soon as they could.

In that, they made good time.  Their rapid pace had them passing the pillar and the lake where they’d encountered the Gorgon before noon, and by the time the sun was starting to dip low in the sky, they’d reached the troll’s bridge without any notable incidents.  Leon and Maia had managed to steer them clear of most threats, and they moved fast enough that they weren’t ambushed by any ice wraiths.  A few silvers then changed hands from Leon to the troll, and all four were able to easily cross the bridge.

From there, Leon led them on almost a straight shot north, making for the Heartwood Grove.  There were no other safe places to rest for the night, so even though he wasn’t sure if they’d make it or not, he pushed them on regardless.

It was a fairly hard journey for all of them, but especially for Justin.  Despite Leon’s well-crafted enchantment keeping the litter afloat in the air, it was still a ramshackle thing, and with Leon pulling it and being none-too-gentle, Justin was tossed and thrown around rather more than was comfortable.  But he wasn’t about to complain; he’d lost essentially all of his companions that had come with him to Aeterna in this place, he could deal with a bit of discomfort to reach safety before it got too dark.

Fortunately, the group reached the Heartwood Grove just before the last rays of sunlight vanished behind the distant mountains.  It had been a hard run of more than fifty miles through rough terrain and with the stressful knowledge that slowing down even a little bit meant likely death, but they had made it just barely in time.

None of them were in the mood to set up much in the way of sleeping arrangements.  They simply found a good place to collapse, and did so.  For all intents and purposes, their business was done in the Forest of Black and White, barring one last trip Leon wanted to make to his old home and Maia’s request to visit the Gorgon once more; everyone was eager to reunite with Elise—at least, everyone but Justin, on that front—and return south.

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