“You’ve never stayed in Raglan’s Road?” Keto asked, finding her heart beating faster.

“I’ve walk through it a few times but you continue to misunderstand my preference for where I sleep,” came that landian’s answer. Despite his joke, even his voice had a hint of tightness about it.

“Well, I suppose that makes sense. I’m sure if the Last Landian had stayed at Traveller’s Rest then my grandmother or her grandmother…” Keto looked over at Quartes.

“I wouldn’t think the town has been around long enough to go back anymore than that, not without very short generations.”

“Right, so at least you know the place,” she waited for him to confirm, he didn’t, only giving her a side-eyed glance in the silence.

“You are coming home to a family that I’ve taken appreciates stories and the topic of those stories. Forgive me that I don’t understand why you feel so nervous.”

Keto gave out a heavy breath, and forced herself to take a deep one. Last night sitting around the campfire, explaining that he shouldn’t be offended if his mom didn’t seem to like him, and that her uncle may challenge him to to a duel but what the man would actually want is a drink, it had seemed a simple enough thing. After all, she had gone out to travel to find stories and the man walking besides her was the literally a legend. “Going out and being an adventurer,” Keto started, doing her best to keep herself from talking fast, “or even just a minstrel, is a rite of passage for many in the Provinces. Most of us do a season or two and then settle back into our actual lives, some make or join bands that make a living out of it but…” She stopped and looked over at Quartes, “I’m preaching to you something you already know.”

The landian shrugged, “It’s good to know the tradition is indeed still going.”

Keto gave laughed, feeling some of her tension drain away. “I love home, but every time I visit I think they’re expecting it to be the time that I finally decide to stay. I get it, I am their only child.” She shook her head, the tension returning, “And to be fair some of the times I have returned I have not been at my best but…” She took another deep breath, “Now, I’m here with a figure out of the stories I learned growing up.” Keto hovered on that statement for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. “I’m not entirely sure how they’re going to react to that. Will they be dumbfounded? Will they be afraid? Will they think I’m crazy to be travelling with you?” Keto looked to the landian, hoping to see some reaction on Quartes’ face but his stoic mask was in place, his pale eyes watching the wilds ahead of them. She sighed.

“I have received all of those welcomes, and others,” Quartes answered, “but I never dealt with family dynamics.”

“That…well that sounds like a bit of a boring family.”
”I’ll explain that one some other time,” Quartes answered, holding up a hand as Keto’ opened her mouth to protest. “We don’t have time for that story.” Quartes pointed ahead, to where the road curved about, passing a marker stone only partially covered in moss. The road came out from behind a hill and up ahead was a sight familiar to both travellers, though Keto figured this was one time where the sight was more known to her than her companion.

“Well,” Keto started, blue eyes darting over the buildings of the village, as she found a smile spreading across her face despite her nerve, “might I formally welcome you to Raglan’s Road, hometown of the greatest bard in the Provinces.”

“I named you bard, you could probably claim in all of Illithiust.”

Keto, having darted a few steps ahead and now walking backwards as she faced Quartes, shrugged. “I figured I’d grow into that title as we grew into our great deeds.” Quartes gave a simple ‘ahh’ and Keto gave him a glare for a moment before her facade broke and she laughed, letting a few more of her nerves out. Still facing the landian she stopped, her expression growing serious. “We could just keep going, we don’t have to make this stop.”

“We are already here,” Quartes responded, stopping and looking at his bard. An eyebrow was raised but his brow had furrowed, a look of him trying to solve a riddle. “We have enough time.”

“I know, it’s just that…” Keto stopped. Quartes’ stance had shifted, his brows smoothing out as one of his hands rested on the hilt of his old sword, the other on his hip. It was a pose she had seen him take in the face of a challenge.

“Do you want to see your family,” he asked flatly. Keto felt her face grew red under his gaze.

“Yes, it’s just that…”

“You’re worried that they’re going to make me feel comfortable, because they’re going to be worried and more focused on you, and if anything likely to be worried about the dangers I’m dragging you into.” Keto nodded sheepishly. “I have fought many things, I can handle a protective family.”

Keto stared back at him for a bit, Quartes’ gaze light, a hint of a creeping smile on his face. Eventually the bard rolled her eyes and turned back around, heading towards her home once more. “Okay, but again my uncle is probably going to try and fight you.”

“If I kill him how upset will everyone be?”

~ 𓏢 ~

They had reached the village, Keto’s eyes darting about. A fence had been put up in a yard. A door looked different, painted maybe. A room had been redone. Trees had new growth, though at least one was gone. A thought occurred to her, that this was some small portion of how Quartes must’ve experience returning anywhere. She’d grown up here, its changes were stark to her just as the landian’s memory would make everywhere that he had been. Many things had not changed, the bakery may have had a new sign but it was still there. Chuck still ran his shop of oddities when he wasn’t out hunting.

Most central to all those steady landmarks though was about a third of the way into the town. It had a wide front porch, spanning the length of the building’s front, a pair of steps at its center led up to a porch and to a pair of doors beyond. A sign hung from above those steps. Someone, probably her father, had put a new coat of paint on the sign since she’d last been home. The white of the foam head of the painted beer nearly shined in the midday sun.

Quartes stopped next to her, pale gaze looking at the sign and then the door. “Should we…” he begun.

“Just give it a moment,” Keto answered. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She heard the rustle of the grass and leaves as a wind blew down the road. She heard the squeak of the fittings for the sign as it sway in the same breeze. There were some bird chirping, she even heard the shuffle of boots as Quartes shifted to look about them.

Then she heard it, a first few strums that led to something more. The notes and chords grew in volume but were still muffled, drowned out by the doors. Quartes shifted again and Keto smiled to know that he had caught the new noise. ‘Here we go,’ she thought as she opened her eyes, looked towards the door and finding a smile on her face despite any of her earlier trepidation.

The man who came through the door was older, gray coming through his red hair, but the large smile on his face was unmistakable. Just like his daughter’s, the man’s smile was contagious and Quartes found himself smiling as the chords of the lute welcomed Keto back to her home.