The cloistered hall was an open-aired atrium fashioned from small groves of connected outdoor gardens at the very peak of the mountain.

It was like the Athenian temple of the old world, The Parthenon, yet many times larger. There was a vast space of green and blue in the middle while towering pillars surrounded it in all directions.

Thundham was sitting cross-legged on a ledge of stone, a broken pillar which had toppled down, on the far end of one grove. He was speaking with a younger man, one hand lazily poking the dirt with a splintered yellow stick.

‘A relative?’ Elrhain wondered. ‘He looks a lot like the big guy and grandpa.’

Blond hair but no beard, with cryptic violet symbols on his exposed top. The young man was not as stocky as Bromwyn, but his muscles still pulsed with power. He had a giant axe strapped on his back, the bronze-ish edge tied to the crystal rod shimmered sharp in the sunlight.

“Cousin Morys!” Bromwyn shouted with a full-faced grin, walking into the garden in gigantic steps.

“Glad you could find time despite your watch duties!”

The young man turned towards them, his expression almost as pleasant as Bromwyn’s, if one ignored the clever glint in his eyes.

“Bromwyn, my brother! Why be so distant? Of course I would find the time.”

One burly and one lean, the two giants clasped their hands into a loud booming shock wave.

Elrhain would have clamped his ears if the loud sound in such proximity hadn’t left him practically paralyzed.

He was avenged when Cyra huffed between the two brutes and punched them both in the guts after removing Elrhain from Bromwyn’s irresponsible hands.

“Can’t you Kaloxen-heads be more prudent?”

“Argh, s-sister-in-law. As violent as ever I see.” The man, now squatting on the ground, laughed despite the pain visible on his face. Bromwyn, on the other hand, just wobbled for a bit before steadying himself.

Elrhain shot him his meanest glare, making the apologetic giant fidget his fingers.

“What did you say?” Cyra’s voice had the chill of a glacier.

“Nothing! This fool didn’t utter any words, my lady chieftainess.” Her victim cowered. A wise decision.

It was then that Elrhain heard other footsteps, accompanied by the joyous laughter of children coming from the other entrances of the grove.

Dhionne of all ages, having some degrees of resemblance to Bromwyn, Thundham, and even Agwyn, walked in from the other paths opening into the cloistered hall. There were adults, elders, and even kids whom Elrhain definitely did not want to meet.

About fifty-odd people, making him feel stuffed despite both the large open space and the dhionne’s merry mood.

The laughing, clapping, and boisterous dialogues attracted Agwyn’s attention, too.

‘Great, now she can make some friends.’ Elrhain scrunched up his nose, remembering all the times the little girl made him practice self-introductions and first impressions with her.

She now gawked at each of the newcomers curiously, especially at the fifteen odd kids. While the other side also sent stares their way, their childlike chatter muting to soft whispers.

By then, Cyra had walked to Thundham, sending some slanted glances towards the newly arrived crowd. The elderly man immediately took charge of Elrhain, gently putting him on his lap with a chortle, the polar opposite to his utterly bored expression from before.

“Why the long face?” He booped Elrhain’s nose, “Did the fish-gremlin think of another fun conundrum without grandpa?”

Despite the weird nickname, Elrhain always wondered if Thundham liked him more than Agwyn.

The Grand Elder adored his own granddaughter a lot, sure. Yet the otherwise straight-faced old man would break into praises whenever Elrhain was with him, his enthusiasm overflowing in their talks.

To be honest, Elrhain actually enjoyed spending time with Thundham more than with Bromwyn, Cyra, or even Dofnald. Not counting Agwyn and his mother, Thundham was the only one who took his opinions seriously, as if they were talking not as a junior and a senior but as peers of equal standing.

The other three were idiots, as far as he was concerned.

“I don’t know if it’s fun, but it’s a conundrum for sure. Do you want to hear it?” Elrhain grabbed Thundham’s beard as revenge for the earlier nose boop, but his voice betrayed his anticipation.

“Well, it is interesting either way. But we can talk all about it later, and we most definitely will!” Thundham replied, “For now, let’s have you and Gwyn meet your house brothers and sisters. Sometimes, it’s better to mingle with children your own age than always keeping an old man like me company, no?”

With that, old Thundham cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the clamouring mob.

Elrhain didn’t even have the chance to deny his absolutely preposterous proposition and could only sulk while biting his lower lip.

Alas, he could not escape the unavoidable. So with an annoyed groan, he turned his sceptical eyes towards the dampening chatter.

He saw some of the children scrambling to hide behind their parents the moment Thundham made a sound. The younger ones peeked out with big glossy eyes, while the older kids put on a brave front, standing at attention with chests puffed like little soldiers.

‘Kids.’ Elrhain mused, thinking how fun it might be to pick on them. ‘This is how kids should really be.’

“Morys, Cadwell, Meridith, and everybody else,” Thundham spoke; he had their undivided attention.

“I am delighted you all could come, even with the steadily mounting duties of the house and clan. For those who could not, such as cousin Croneira, relay my understanding to them after the gathering so that they do not fret. Clan matters are to always be put first before my selfish irrationalities.”

“Grand Elder, enough of the formality! We are all blood family here.” A homely woman with midnight black skin piped, the dhionne around her nodding in agreement, “You didn’t actually think we would give up the chance to meet our future chieftain and chieftainess, did you? The ones not here simply don’t know when to relax. Isn’t that right?”

A loud cheer was her reply.

“I blame brother Bromwyn!” Morys continued where the woman left off. “He had the gall to keep them hidden away like goldfur rodents hide their treasured nuts. If not, we could have called for a proper house banquet ages ago. This is an unforgivable abuse of his chiefly authority, and I call for punishment! Let him not return today until the aged fruit saps make him faint!”

The cheering stormed up a notch, and Elrhain wondered if he could join in on forcing Bromwyn through this… punishment.

“Well, there were good reasons, I assure you.” Thundham laughed. “The blessing this time should tell you of that, at least. But I admit, I have delayed this encounter long enough.”

He then stood up, placing Elrhain on the ground with a last pat on the boy’s head. Agwyn quickly squirrelled her way beside him, waving ta-ta to her mother.

“Elrhain, Agwyn. These good people are your uncles and aunts. Grandpas and grandmothers.” Thundham spoke gently. “The little ones are your cousins. They will be the pillar of the main house of our Earthloch Siorrakty, your closest allies, and most importantly, your dearest of friends. So how about you two spend the rest of the day getting to know them? I’m sure the last month was a bore for ones such curious as yourselves, stuffed inside that one courtyard.”

Elrhain rolled his eyes, not even deigning Thundham with a response.

***

“Is it true that the ancestors have eleven legs and a hundred and nineteen eyes?”

“Were the spirits scary? Did they try to eat you? Are spirits tasty?”

“Are you already at peak mortal, heiress Agwyn? My momma told me you are! Are you?”

The moment Elrhain and Agwyn were left behind alone with the flock of children, they swarmed the two like a landslide of nosiness before flooding them with an avalanche of questions.

One adult, the dark-skinned homely woman named Meredith, had led the kiddy group down a side path that opened up inside a beautiful garden of blooming lilac flowers. The cracked stone floor, the fresh grass, and the glistening pond in the middle were reminiscent of the picnic parks back on Earth, like the one where they found the….kitten?

Elrhain shook away the ridiculous thought and looked around. The large pillars could still be seen all around, proving that he was currently inside the same humongous, cloistered hall in Lochuir, not a park in Bern.

Meredith then went back after telling the group to get along, and that lunch would be served in a few hours.

‘Cursed archaic society!’ Elrhain complained inside, the smell of roasted meat already tickling his nose. Judging by the direction of the scent, the adults in the previous garden already had food served for them. No doubt because of some house rule that the filial young must not dine before the old.

He could think of no other reason for such blatant age discrimination. That, and maybe the adults will discuss clan matters a child should not be privy to.

‘Whatever.’ Elrhain clicked his tongue, bringing his mind back to the current predicament.

Without adult supervision, the kids let entirely loose, trying to get along as bloody hard as they could.

Gone were the fake displays of discipline and fear of the Grand Elder. Out came their hyperactivity that knew no bounds and had no bottom line.

It reminded Elrhain of exactly why he both hated and loved dealing with kids.

On the one hand, they made him feel suffocated with their unending questions about everything, all touchy and grubby as kids tend to be, before backtracking to ask the same questions again and again.

On the other hand, their absolute purity and innocence were among the few reasons Elrhain even kept a tiny bit of faith in humanity hidden in his subconscious mind. Children could be taught, while adults rarely learned.

Right now, he absolutely hated it.

Elrhain tried to push Agwyn in front of him to shield him from the peril, but the girl was at least ten times stronger than him.

She pulled an excellent switcheroo, hiding behind Elrhain like a bashful kitty.

Reluctantly, Elrhain could only face the twinkling eyes, childlike volcanic energy and untoothpasted breaths with the expression of a martyr.

But right before he pretended to fall over faking a heat stroke, an older kid with massive wings broke up the army of noisy chipmunks.

“Break it up! Come on now. Yes, I am talking to you, Cati. Quit pulling on the heir’s robe this instant!”

““Okaaaaaay~ lord Busyfish!””

“It’s Vesiphis!” The boy yelled, and the rest giggled, at last giving Elrhain and Agwyn some room to breathe.

Elrhain realized his legs were wobbly. Agwyn was actually supporting him from behind this whole time, not just using him as a wall to block the onslaught.

「Ey, thanks…」

「Don’t mind it!」

Elrhain saw her rub her two tiny hands together. Strangely…Degenerately.…

「These kids are pretty interesting, right?」

「Girl, stop licking your lips! Are you a cougar?」

「How rude! They are just cute, is all. I just wanna be friends with them. I still love you the most!」

Elrhain rolled his eyes for the nth time that day.

‘I should tell the big guy to get her a pet. Alleigh’s too big to curb her maternal instincts.’ He grimaced. ‘Dammit, her desires from our past life keeps leaking. At this rate….’

Elrhain looked at the children with a strange gaze, recalling all the tabloid articles he read in his last life that warned how many a time, desperate spinsters resort to committing even the most gruesome of crimes to just fill the void of being childless.

Sure, many of them were sensationalism. But at least one out of those hundreds of thousands should have been true.

Right?

Agwyn picked up on the thought and stepped on his foot. Elrhain wanted to cry out but held himself back, seeing the winged boy suddenly bow down in front of him clumsily. The bat-like wings draped over his body, white and furry and black and leathery.

The tattoos on them resembling Agwyn’s in design, and his chalk-white skin like her’s too.

“My Name is Vesiphis Cadwell Earthloch, son of the hunt leader Cadwell, the Fanged Eye of the Shire, and the chieftain’s closest advisor! It is my greatest honour to at last meet you, my heir and heiress.”