Cassius was trying to teach Archibald and Mary how to shoot a bow, but they had gotten into an argument and had begun whacking each other with their bows.

“Stop that right this instance. By the order of your Prince!” Shouted Cassius and then both toddlers looked at him and then Mary said something to him that made him step back.

“You are not my father! You can’t boss me around.” Said Mary, and she stuck out her tongue and then whacked Archibald with her bow who pulled at her braid, and then they were reduced to rolling on the ground and screaming.

Cassius stood there frozen. He was not her father, true. She looked like a mix between Theanore and Marinus and no matter how many trees he had planted these past days, no nymph had come out of them. He didn’t have a child to tie him to Theanore. He was an outsider to her family.

When Archibald began crying because Mary had bitten him on the hand, Cassius finally sprung into action. He took them apart and then swatted each of their behinds as painfully as he could. Which, considering he was only six, wasn’t that painful at all.

Archibald pointed at Mary as he cried and rubbed his behind.

“Why hits Archie? Mary bad!” Screamed the toddler. Cassius crossed his hands before his chest, similarly to how his father did when Cassius misbehaved, and stared the two toddlers until they quieted down.

“Theanore will hear of this.” He said when they looked properly guilty. “Why did you both begin to fight, anyway?”

Archibald pointed at Mary and then raised his bow.

“Mary stole my bow!” Said the boy, this time much more calmly than before. Mary pulled a face and raised her bow.

“Why does my bow have to be pink? I hate pink!” Said Mary indignantly. When Cassius had taken two practice bows for children from the rack, he had not paid any attention to how they looked. He hadn’t cared when he had handed them out, either. He had just wanted to pass on a valuable skill.

“When you are out in the field it doesn’t matter what color, your bow is! Only that it shoots!” Reprimed, Cassius and Mary deflated. He pointed at the target, and the two toddlers took their places before their targets.

“Nock.” Commanded Cassius and the two children clumsily nocked an arrow each. “Hold and breathe!” They began huffing and puffing as Cassius sighed. At this rate, if they hunted like this, they better hope they spend their entire lives at the grotto because if not, they would go hungry. “Release.”

Archibald’s arrow went backwards and hit him on the nose, and Mary’s flew forward for about 50 centimeters and then fell on the ground. It just laid there, not even piercing the soil. Cassius rubbed his forehead.

“Again.” He commanded as he took his bow and showed them how it was done again. His arrow hit the center, as was expected. Theirs…well, Archibald’s did fly forward this time, but it few next to his feet. Mary’s again fell about 50 centimeters and fell on the ground.

“Archery takes practice.” Said Cassius to encourage them to continue. “It took me a week before I started hitting the center.”

“Then how come you have never hunted in the forest?” Said Mary snidely. She didn’t believe it would be possible for her to hit the center in a week, and it graded at her. “Father is an excellent fisherman. When have you ever contributed to a meal?”

These words, coupled with her previous ones, were too much for Cassius. He placed his bow and arrow quiver down on the ground and walked away. He knew when he wasn’t wanted.

So, here he now was, sulking by the lake and trying to fish. It would have been easier with a net, but he didn’t have one and Theanore didn’t like nets for fishing.

Inside the lake Marinus swam with a merman’s tail, and he would throw big fish into a sack every so often, not missing even once. Cassius wondered why Mary had to be Marinus’ daughter and not his.

It was not like Marinus and Theanore had done the same things his mommy and daddy did. How did Theanore know that Marinus was the father? There were red heads in the Eomis family.

Well, not one in the last five generations, but there were redheads. And Mary had some characteristics Cassius saw in himself. When she got snappy, she mouthed off. She was slow to anger, but when she did boil over, she was not shy to come to blows.

More than one child had stopped playing with Mary because she was not afraid to get into a scuffle. Cassius supposed that if she ever became a dungeon core, she would be a semi-peaceful one.

Theanore was doing her best to raise her, but there was something headstrong about Mary. Something that Marinus possessed as well as Cassius. Oh, who was he kidding?

Marinus and Theanore and Mary were a family. Archibald was more a part of that family than Cassius. He looked down at his fishing rod that hadn’t moved in a while and came to terms with a hard truth.

Theanore was never going to remarry him. She wanted to be with her best friend, even though she still didn’t understand romantic love. And he, Cassius Casimir von Eomis, was standing in the way.

And that wasn’t fair, really. Just like it hadn’t been fair for Marinus to just leave Eliza Orlock with such harsh words as the ones he had spoken. Eliza was a pretty and nice girl who could sing and do embroidery, her stitches so precise she normally sewed his wounds closed after accidents so no one will find out.

And Eliza was from a noble house. The daughter of the second most important person in the empire. Eliza had deserved better than a short-lived arranged marriage.

Perhaps she was not Theanore, and maybe it was unfair to compare them, but she was a treasure in her own right. One that understood his current pain and whose pain he understood as well.

And Eliza von Eomis sounded just as good as Theanore von Eomis. Eliza would certainly not divorce him if they ever married. Yes. He was wasting his time here. It was time for a new beginning.