“Morgan, could you look after your sister while I go handle some business?”

Veronica asked this while Morgan was in the backyard sipping coffee. The request caught him off guard a bit. Certainly, a parent asking an adult to look after their younger sibling wasn’t a strange request by itself, but Morgan’s situation gave it a strange dimension. That being that he and Agnes were perfect strangers. The two had barely spoken in the brief time the hero had been living with them. Asking him to watch Agnes was just a step above asking a distant relative she had met once at a family gathering.

“Don’t be so weird about it,” Veronica said. “It’s only for a few hours.”

“Why can’t you just take Agnes with you?”

“I could, but she has homework she has to do. Also, it’s the type of business that it’s best she’s not privy to. Not yet anyway. Besides, this gives you and her some valuable bonding time. You both have a lot of unknown history to explore.”

Morgan sighed. Feeling like he couldn’t really say no, he got up from his chair and headed inside. Agnes already was in the living room. She sat at a small table doing some homework on her laptop. Tito was napping underneath the table, his little mistress’s legs dangling just a few inches above him. As Morgan headed to a couch with a fresh cup of coffee, he and Agnes made the first of several instances of unwanted eye contact. A stiff atmosphere pervaded the room, with Morgan sipping his coffee in silence while Agnes worked with earbuds on.

It was odd. There was a fifteen-year age gap between him and Agnes, soon to turn fourteen in another month or so. There was a decade of history between the two that neither knew about. Agnes had been told a few stories about him by his mother while he was in Validar, but nothing significant. While they both had intimate pasts with Chris and Veronica, they were complete strangers to each other. Maybe that was why Veronica decided to leave them alone together in the first place. She wanted to isolate them and force interaction and the development of a bond of some kind. That might of worked if at least one of them was a teenager, but Agnes was a nine-year-old whose only exposure to anything Validaran was her mother and Tito, while Morgan was a twenty-four-year-old veteran of countless battles who hadn’t set foot on Earth for longer than Agnes had been alive.

What exactly was there for them to talk about? Morgan hadn’t watched any television save for a few old reruns at the Atchisons’. He didn’t know any music, games, or media whatsoever from the past decade. He simply had nothing to discuss with Agnes. And regardless of all that, the thing that Morgan was most unable to bridge was that his younger sister just didn’t seem to like him much. He sat in his seat, his eyes mostly staring at nothing in particular. Occasionally, he would glance Agnes’s way. She and he would always time their glances perfectly to where they would exchange eye contact, at which point they would break their gazes and return to looking at whatever it is they were focusing on before.

It was easily the most awkward conundrum Morgan had found himself in since he came back to Earth. It seemed that the pair would just be sitting in silence until Veronica returned to the house. Eventually, all the coffee Morgan was drinking finally caught up to him. He got up to use the bathroom, and as he was walking past, he glanced at his sister’s phone. He immediately stopped once he saw the artist’s face and name.

His eyes widened. He had seen her before the first night he had spent at the Atchisons’ while watching TV.

“…Phoebe?”

He was just loud and close enough that Agnes could hear him. She peered back at him, an annoyed look on her face.

“Can you not talk into my ear like that?” she asked while removing an earbud.

“Oh. Sorry, it’s just… That artist you’re listening to. Her name’s Phoebe Nightingale, right?”

“Yeah? So? What about her?”

“What do you know about her aside from her music?”

Morgan’s inquiry caused a strange reaction from Agnes. And for good reason. Here was a twenty-four year-old asking his pre-teen sister about a pop star. It was odd, to say the least, but it got a reaction Morgan wasn’t expecting.

“…We can talk about it after I finish this assignment.”

“S-seriously? Great! Let me get out of your face.”

Morgan continued to the bathroom. When he returned, he waited patiently in his seat for his sister to finish her work. She would occasionally glance up from her laptop and notebook to see Morgan anxiously looking her way, before darting his eyes off in another direction. Once she finally finished, she took her laptop and walked over to where Morgan was sitting on the couch.

“Why do you even care this much about a pop star? Boys, especially ones your age, aren’t part of her audience.”

“Well, I have a feeling that I know her?”

“You mean from before you went to Validar?”

“No, after that. I think that she’s the same Phoebe von Thalia that I met while in Validar. She looks and sounds just like her, except a bit older. She even has the same given name.”

“Ah. So, this is just a conspiracy theory thing?”

Morgan cringed. “Don’t call it a conspiracy theory. With everything I’ve seen on Earth – hell, with everything you’ve seen on Earth – the idea that she’s the Phoebe I knew is super possible.”

“Well, she has a well-documented history here on her Wikipedia page,” Agnes said while accessing the site on her laptop.

She rotated her computer and let her brother see. Morgan leaned in close and read off bits of information about ‘Phoebe Nightingale’. She was apparently born in California and just recently had her twenty-fifth birthday a few weeks ago. She even had her latest album drop on her birthday to mark the occasion. Her twenty-second years on Earth prior to that point: Childhood, education, her early career while only thirteen when she joined a girl group that was pretty popular roughly a decade ago – it was all there. Not fully convinced, Morgan dug deeper into her life story.

It seemed like his sister was right. Phoebe Nightingale, by all accounts, was a bonafide Earthling. Maybe it truly was just coincidence; the looks, name, singing voice, and all.

“Are you sure your mind’s just not playing tricks on you?” Agnes asked.

“You saying my mind is showing me things that aren’t there? Because I already considered that.”

“Maybe you just really want to see the Phoebe you knew from Validar and you’re projecting that onto Phoebe Nightingale?”

“Please. Your mom and the Dragon King are the only Validarans I want to see again less than the Phoebe I’m talking about.”

Agnes gazed at her brother. “Is she an ex-girlfriend who dumped you?”

“What? Where’d that come from?”

“Well, those sisters from before that you beat up didn’t get you this bothered despite trying to kill you, so for you to feel this way about a girl, there has to be some emotional baggage there. Am I wrong?”

The Chosen One sighed. This annoying new little sister of his had inherited her mother’s shrewd talent for reading people with shocking accuracy. That was a scary trait for a girl on the cusp of her tenth birthday to have. One spoke thoughtlessly around her at their own risk.

“You’re half wrong. There was a relationship there that ended, but… it wasn’t in the way you think it was. I kinda wished things ended as simply as you say they did.”

Agnes hummed. “Hey, wouldn’t her being on Earth mean that you killed her? If she and you were dating or whatever, then why---“

“Look, forget it. I can’t prove that she’s the Phoebe I think she is, so just forget it. Chances are, if she’s a Validaran, we’ll end up crossing paths anyway. But thanks anyway for trying to help me.”

“Whatever. I just helped you skim a few websites. You could have done that yourself,” Agnes said.

Another uncomfortable silence passed between the two of them. Morgan stared at his feet for a while, thinking listlessly about something. Agnes decided to prod him with a new question.

“Hey, since I helped you with something, you have to answer a question I have now,” she said.

Morgan bucked up slightly. It was an odd way to ask a question, but Agnes was both a child and the daughter of a terrible witch, so concessions about her attitude had to be made.

“Okay? Ask away, I guess.”

“Those two girls before who tried to kill you, why didn’t you kill them?”

“You mean Renee and Quinn?”

“Yeah. And their dad too. Why didn’t you just let him die? Aren’t they evil people?”

Her brother gave a thoughtful hum. “Well, let’s see… They definitely were pretty remorseless about their behavior back in Validar; at least Quinn and Renee were. They were mercenaries who, when they weren’t on somebodies payroll, liked to act as extortionists and bullied reluctant customers to become eager patrons. They had a number of licks and were definitely a family of no-goods.”

“So, why didn’t you kill them.”

“Well, for starters, their crimes weren’t especially unique or even really criminal by the standards of where they operated. Barclave always had a bad reputation long before the Gray Company started making a name for itself there. A good number of crime guilds, brigands, and shady mercenaries came from every corner of that country. A friend of mine from there once said that if you threw a coin down a well in Barclave you would never hear it drop because somebody would steal it before it hit the bottom. Every noble, official, knight and even a good number of the priests were greasy in their own way and played their own dirty games. What separated the Danniths from their peers was just their level of success. They were playing the same game everyone else was, they were just better at it.”

“Sounds like you’re making excuses for them.”

“I’m not. They aren’t good people. I know that for sure, but they weren’t that much worse than anyone else in their neighborhood, including the good guys. Anything Marko and his princesses did was ‘just business.’ They’re pieces of trash, but not even close to the worst guys I dealt with in Validar.”

“So, you didn’t kill them because they weren’t bad enough?”

“Well, no. I didn’t kill them because… well, I just didn’t want to.”

Agnes’s brow wrinkled. “But you killed them before?”

“Yeah.”

“When you were younger and had way less experience killing people.”

“Yep. They were all some of the first kills I had. It was so new to me, taking lives that is, that it bothered me for a while afterward.”

“Then what’s the problem doing it again in self-defense.”

Morgan sighed as his eyes hovered up to the ceiling.

“I… just don’t want to kill anybody anymore.”

“Huh? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m completely serious. I might still be too old to say this but, I’m burned out on putting people in the grave. I thought I was desensitized for a while midway through my journey, but a few months before my final fight with Raikō, that steel I thought I had forged just kinda shattered. I guessed I just reached my breaking point, and I decided that the last person I would ever kill would be the Dragon King. I didn’t even kill any of his soldiers during the invasion of the Golden Palace.”

Agnes seemed thoroughly unsatisfied by her brother’s answer. “My mom has no problem getting rid of Validarans who’ve tried to attack dad.”

“And good on her. I’m glad those guys got taken care of, especially since they’re only coming after dad because of a grudge they have against me. Look, I’m not saying she was wrong to kill those guys. I’m just explaining to you where I’m at when it comes to taking lives myself. No offense to your mom, but people like her who can just rack up as many bodies as she has and still sleep soundly at night– they’re a rare breed. I might have been the Chosen One or whatever, but I was still just a kid from Seattle who never had been in anything worse than a fistfight until I was fourteen. I’m not a Conan the Barbarian who revels in all the bloodshed. I won’t deny that I’ve got a taste for combat over the years, but so far as killing for the sake of it is concerned – I’m good. Honestly, I could fill a few pages in that notebook of yours with the names of people I’ve taken out. So, unless it’s straight-up unavoidable, I’m taking the non-lethal route from here on out.”

Agnes shook her head. “Stupid. You’re just going to cause more problems like this.”

“Here’s what I don’t get, Agnes. You helped me convince your mom not to kill the Dannith sisters, so why are you so bothered by this?”

“I’m bothered because despite all your experience you still don’t have enough nerve. It’s just kind of pathetic. Heroes shouldn’t be pathetic; especially not the ones that I happen to be related to. I didn’t care about sparing those girls personally because they were weak. Weaklings who don’t pose a threat shouldn’t be bothered with. There were Validarans that tried coming after dad that were so weak and pathetic, mom told them to just go away because it would be a waste to feed them to the dragons. But just because that happened to be the case this time doesn’t mean it’s always going to be the case. You need to hurry up and get your spine back before you put yourself in a hopeless situation.”

Morgan gazed at his sister with eyes and mouth wide. Was this girl truly only nine-years-old? This shrewdness, this callous outlook on the value of life, this manner of branding things as ‘weak’ or ‘pathetic’ on a whim – it was all too intense to be coming from a girl so young; daughter of a witch or not. The things Agnes had seen or possibly even done alongside her mother, her brother had no idea, but he got slight chills thinking about the type of woman she would become when she matured. She might just put her mother’s reputation to shame.

“Anyway…” Agnes said, catching her brother’s attention. “Do you want to listen to some of Phoebe’s music?”

After a pause, Morgan gave a shrug. Agnes then went to fetch her mother’s Bluetooth speaker and connected it to her phone. She began playing a Phoebe Nightingale playlist while beginning her other homework assignment. While initially, it was awkward for Morgan to hear such a familiar-sounding voice again, he gradually found himself bobbing his head and tapping his foot along to the rhythm.

The voice may have been the same, but Phoebe Nightingale’s songs were definitely much catchier than the ones Phoebe von Thalia use to sing.