The human looked about and shook his head. The place was a mess, his room-mate clearly not pulling their weight. He simply sighed, figuring that solving the problem himself was a significantly less painful task than trying to convince their live in companion to actually clean up after themselves. He took up his broom and swept away the countless old food crumbs which covered the floor This was simply the first step in a long overdue cleaning regiment, where he dusted, wiped everything down and worked to return everything to a more-or-less presentable state, where it would remain for a week, maybe two if he was lucky. In time, the dust and dirt would begin to regroup, advancing at a faster rate than could be overcome by the occasional quick sweeping or dusting, at which point the battle would begin anew.

The one thing that he didn't clean or even notice was the small pincushion set at the end of the table. It was a gift he had never used, often meaning to learn how to resew his damaged clothing, but it was always easier to simply replace such things. As a result, it was just there, surrounded by similar nick-knacks and items which looked nice enough at first but almost immediately just become unnoticed background details, serving no purpose beyond collecting dust which needed to be removed so that they could go back to being properly unnoticed. The young man paid no heed at all to the empty space upon it, where the missing needle once stood, much less the tiny, dusty footprints which had lead straight to it. Much like those on the floor below, they were simply wiped away as though they had never existed at all.

"No."

Jerin blinked, looking to her older brother with a confused expression. "What do you mean, 'no'? It wasn't a yes or no question!" she said. In truth, she hadn't asked a question at all, let alone a 'yes' or 'no' one, making such a response all the more baffling to her.

"No. This isn't happening. End of story." her brother replied, shaking his head.

The younger mouse bit her lip, hands balled into fists, looked back over her shoulder and cried out, "Mom!"

"What is it, honey?" an elderly grey mouse wearing a long plain dress and a bonnet asked, as she partially looked up from her knitting. Calling out so loudly was far from necessary, the room being a small one with the parent hardly a mouse length away from her squabbling children. One might naturally assume that she was well aware of the conflict, but sibling arguments quickly become simple background noise after a little while, no matter how noisy or urgent the subject matter seems to them. Still, it would have been rude to not offer aid when properly summoned. Normally one would consider white fur as lacking color, and wouldn't expect it to gray over time as one ages, as that usually represents a stage of transition between dark and white. It would be wrong for old age to pick favorites, however, so all mice tend to gray with time in order to remind them that while their lives aren't necessarily over, they aren't the same person that they used to be, for better or worse.

That one room made up a good half of the home, a round mud dome of thick walls, the scant furnishings of similar design. There were a few chairs, like the walls little more than lumps of clay which weren't exactly ideal for keeping clean, but the malleable material was good for shifting to meet the shape of the seated individual and similarly easy to move, remove, reshape or be used to create something entirely new as needed. The only other decoration was a small wooden square set into the wall (not held by pins or nails, simply pushed hard enough to stick) which, if one were to squint hard enough, they could recognize the etchings upon it to depict a group of four mice, two parents holding a small child in their stick-figure arms with a larger individual standing in behind them.

"Aaron's being a big, stupid jerk!" Jerin huffed.

"Aaron, please stop being a big stupid jerk to your sister." the older woman said in an apathetic tone, one barely opened pink eye raised in his direction, the other remaining focused upon her knitting.

"I'm not!" he replied..

"Whew, I'm glad that's settled. Now, if you'll excuse me..." the mother hummed, returning to her work, a small heart-shaped mass of red knitted yarn. The two siblings stared at her for a moment, expecting a more solid contribution to the debate which would never come. After a few moments of awkward silence, the older brother finally spoke up once more.

"Look, can you please tell that daughter of yours that she's not allowed to go off on a suicide mission?" Aaron asked in an exasperated tone. Half her height taller than Jerin and over twice as wide, the light brown mouse did his best to sound calm and patient, but he was clearly fighting a losing battle.

Marrun, The mother once again looked up from her project with both eyes this time, which meant that the matter was clearly a serious one, her brow just a little bit furrowed. "Now, Jerin, you know how I feel about suicide missions..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." the younger mouse said, rolling her eyes, apparently this being a conversation they've had many times before. "...but it's not a suicide mission! It's a regular mission!"

"It's a 'regular mission' that's going to get you killed." Aaron said.

"Maybe it would for most mice, but I have this!" she said smugly, pulling the sword from her belt, which despite being dragged through all manner of filth within the underground tunnels still has an almost unnatural gleam to it.

"My word! That's quite the nice magical sword you have there!" the gruff voice of her father said, leaning over her shoulder to examine it. It was a simple motion on his part, as he was already leaning on a walking stick. He didn't require it, of course, but it was all part of a clever retirement plan that he had concocted many months ago. His fur was of a similar grey to that of his spouse, body similarly small, if anything even more gaunt and thin, not quite matching the image that one would have expected from the strength of his voice alone.

"Nobody is denying that it's a nice sword. Still, she can't be going off on some ridiculous quest at her age!" Aaron said.

In response to this, his father smiled a soft and knowing grin. "If I remember correctly, you were no older than her the first time you picked up your sword and shield, and went off seeking adventure."

"I know! And it went terribly!" The older brother took a deep breath, lowering his head,, forcing a more diplomatic tone. It didn't come easily. He turned back to his sister. "Look, I understand, you want excitement, and want to make things right, but it takes a lot more than a piece of pointy metal and blind optimism to change the world. You don't need to change the world right now, either... the world isn't going anywhere, and one day, when you're older, stronger and much, much wiser, you'll be able to do whatever you want."

The younger sibling had similarly calmed down, just a little. "Older, wiser and stronger, huh?" she asked, paws folded about her chest, sword held under one arm and angled to rest against the floor. "Like you? You're older, you say you're smarter, and you're really strong. Why aren't you changing the world? Or are you okay with how things turned out?" she had added that last bit with a little extra venom in her voice.

The older brother slumped his unusually broad shoulders. He dwarfed the sibling in sheer stature, but now looked thoroughly defeated. "You know I'm not, and if I thought that there was a chance, any chance of success, I'd be right there with you, but there isn't. You'll just die for nothing. You said it yourself: I'm stronger than you, and if I can't do it, what makes you think that you can?"

Jerin looked him in the eyes, and coldly replied. "Because someone has to, and I'm the only one willing to try."

Darren, the silver furred father clapped his son on the shoulder, no small feat when one considered the height difference along with his naturally bent body. "Whelp, it sounds like that's settled. You gave it a good shot, but the heart wants what it wants."

"Are you crazy? What about you, Mom? Don't you care if Jerin gets herself killed?"

The mother nodded in agreement. For the briefest of moments Aaron had hoped that it was in agreement with him, but deep down he knew better. The world simply wasn't that just. "You don't know that will happen. None of us do. We could all die tomorrow. We can't let the fear of what might happen stop us from doing what needs to be done." she said, looking with a grin to her clearly ecstatic daughter.

"Really? I can go? You're the best, mom!" Jerin chirped, bounding over to give the small mouse woman a hug. She knew full well that her brother was bothered, and was similarly only trying to look out for her in his own blunt way. She briefly considered offering him some reassuring words. In the end, however, immaturity won out, as it so often does, and she instead looked over her shoulder to her dumbfounded sibling, sticking her tongue out at him.

"I swear, you are the worst parents ever." Aaron grumbled.

"Now, now, I know you don't mean that. You know we're doing our best." the father replied.

"Yeah, I do know that! That's the scary part!" The larger mouse shook his head, and turned to Jerin. "Okay, fine, you win. Get your things, and let's go. Dying might not be so bad. Right now, I'm practically looking forward to it."

The small white mouse slid the long metallic blade back into her belt and blinked. "What do you mean 'we'? This is my quest, and I don't need your help!"

"First off, I didn't say the word 'we'... but yeah, I'm coming along. Once you get bored and decide you want to come home, I need to be there to make sure you don't get yourself lost on the way back, or distracted by something shiny." This was about the time for the younger sibling to argue back, but in a surprising burst of maturity, she instead decided to take this as a victory. Plus, he wasn't entirely wrong. Sure, she had no intention of turning back without completing her mission, but the allure of shiny objects could be difficult for even the most determined mouse to resist. "Okay... but you'd better not slow me down!"

Jerin ran to the far wall, down the crude ladder made up of narrow wooden rungs embedded into the dirt leading into the lower level, the other half of the home, a cooler region where the beds, food and other manners of storage were placed. She gathered her adventuring supplies, which were much like her day-to-day supplies, although in considerably nicer shape, what with her having a day-to-day every day, and this being the first time she'd gone on an a true adventure (she didn't count the trip into the Makers shrine, since she didn't really get to fight anything). She returned to the living-room, the young white mouse having replaced her tattered cloak with a light blue vest, the cord about her waist with a proper belt which had space for both her red plastic knife, and the new holy blade, even it the bulk of both blade and handle stuck out rather severely..

Aaron similarly returned, albeit in significantly less of a hurry. With a wooden pauldron set on each shoulder, thin wooden plates strapped along his bicep and forearm which ended in a crude glove offering basic protection to the back of his paw and knuckles, and a great stone hammer set across his back, he certainly looked better prepared for a proper fight than the younger sibling. Ever unfashionable, he was dressed in his usual ragged tunic, which might have once been white but now more closely matched the shaggy light brown of his fur.

Marrun wiped away a tear. "Our little girl is growing up. Now, Jerin, try not to cause too much trouble for all the monsters and demons."

"I'm a knight, mom! I'm supposed to..." the young mouse shook her head, looking at her mother with the same baffled expression that Aaron had held for the bulk of the past conversation. "Okay, fine, I'll see what I can do."

"You should probably take this. Now, I know, it's not nearly as nice as that sword of yours, but who knows, it just might help in a pinch." her father said, holding out a large bronze disk.

"Wait, that's..." Aaron said.

"Yup, hasn't been used since the battle, and if it kept you safe back then, no reason to believe it won't again."

Aaron paused, looking at the shield which Jerin excitedly snatched up and slid onto her wrist. "You've got to understand how dangerous this is." he said to the father. "Even if she

doesn't get killed, she could be badly hurt."

"Well, you know what they say... 'whatever doesn't kill you'..."

"That's a terrible expression. I don't know why people keep saying it."

Darren just gave a light smile and shook his head a bit, simply not able to understand this younger generation. "You take care of your sister. Oh, and try to let her take care of you, too. I know that doesn't come easy for you."

Aaron didn't respond. He currently had a million different worries going through his head, and no room left within it to continue this futile discussion. Jerin, meanwhile, was admiring the shiny bronze colored shield, slightly rounded at the center is an image of a bright red hawk with spread wings, the edges of the shield serrated and bent inwards towards her arm, to catch any sort of blades or clubs. The inside of it had a crude plastic arm, fastened in place, clearly not a part of the original design.

With no more goodbyes to be said, and for Aaron, no more arguments to make, the two left their house. Had anyone cared to ask, Aaron would have expressed absolute certainty that they would never again return home, but despite the fact that he was clearly bigger and stronger, and could have dragged his little sister back, effortlessly, through sheer brute force, invariably saving both of their lives, the idea had genuinely never occurred to him.