“Hey, wake up!” said Annette, her voice expectant and her blue eyes seemed to be sparkling with impatience.

Keziah opened his eyes drowsily, trying to blink out the sleep from his eyes and barely noticing her attempts to shake him to try to wake him up. “What?” He yawned.

“I said wake up. It’s almost evening so we don’t have much time and you promised you would train me.” she quickly explained, still trying to shake him awake.

Keziah stretched his arms and back, taking in their current surroundings. It indeed was late. He slept through the whole day. Lucia wasn’t in his eyesight, but by how Annette was acting, he surmised she must have been somewhere close. “How about the next day? It’s late already,” he proposed, not fully woken up yet.

“Get up, old man, it's not that late for you to be tired. Besides, you slept through the whole day!”

"What? I know that I don't look like a youngster, but 40? I'm only 27, for crying out loud." Keziah said, pretending to be offended by the comment, but he would never let something like that affect him. “Also, the last time I saw you, you were also sleeping, so don’t try to make it look like I’m the lazy one.”

"27 is still old, isn't it? So it still counts. Come on, old man. You promised you would teach me,” she said, ignoring his last remark. She shook him again. Keziah let her. Otherwise, he doubted she would be able to move him much, if at all. They would need to work on her strength.

"Really? Did I? I'm not sure I remember any promises… What's your name again, miss?" He acted confused, scratching his head.

"Jackass!" she pouted angrily.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming. Just let a man wake up, alright?" He yawned again.

Her pout quickly changed into a big smile as she said, "Okay" and jumped off the cart on which Keziah was still sitting, stretching his arms and back.

He took a look around. They were in a forest, off the road. It was late afternoon, almost evening, so Lucia must have decided that's where they were going to camp tonight. Lucia herself was sitting by the fire, cooking something. A very faint smell of the sea permeated through the thin but sturdy-looking trees. The sun's orange and red rays still reached them, but soon would be replaced by the moon.

Keziah jumped off the cart and headed first to Lucia.

"Smells good," he said. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but could you share a little of it with Annette? We don't have much in terms of food right now." He looked at her hopefully.

"Share? No way. I'm going to eat this whole pot alone. The whole pot, exactly 3 portions." She gave him an even stare and laughed after Keziah didn't immediately get the sarcasm. "Don't worry, boy. It will be enough for everyone. Go to your ward. She seemed excited about something. Oh — and you have the first shift, having slept through the whole day."

"Sorry about that. It was meant to be a quick nap." He scratched his head in embarrassment.

"No big deal. You shouldn't be this trusting with strangers, though. It could bite you in the ass in the future."

"Trust me. I'm usually not," he said and went to Annette, who was waiting in a small clearing on a hard, brown-reddish ground.

“What do we do first? Swordsmanship?” she asked excitedly.

“Hold your horses. We need to have a talk first.” He held his hand to stop further questions. “I asked you this before, and your answer was good enough at the time, but now that we have some time, I’m going to ask you again. Why do you need me to train you?”

She looked at him, slightly confused. “To fight monsters and bandits?” she replied, but phrased it like a question.

“That’s not good enough. It’s just a part of your reason. Give me it whole or otherwise, you won’t learn anything and I won’t be able to teach you anything beyond how to not get killed.”

“I want to be an adventurer,” she said, a little more determined.

“Better. Still not enough. Think more.”

Annette thought about her reason, still not sure what Keziah wanted her to say. She thought back to her days at the inn before her mother took her to Avinea in hopes of her father giving them money and a better life. She was used more as a bargaining card by her mother, but it didn’t matter now. She was dead. The happiest and most free people at the inn always were adventurers. Not merchants, not mercenaries, and not traveling tax collectors. It was hard to be happy being so close to the Blackwood, the largest forest on the continent. Also, the most monster infected, but the adventurers always seemed so… free, and confident whenever they came after a quest, ordering ale and being the loudest part of the inn. She wanted that freedom, not being confined to that blasted inn, cleaning and cooking for months on end.

“I… I want to travel whenever I wish to. I want to be strong enough to be able to make decisions for myself. I don’t want to be scared all the time.”

Keziah’s face softened a little, but he still continued on with questions. “Good answer. So you don’t need to fight monsters and bandits then?”

“That’s part of being an adventurer, is it not? Fighting bad guys?”

“A part of it, yes,” he agreed. “Though it is not always clear who is the ‘bad guy’ and who is the ‘good guy'. Sometimes you might be doing something bad because someone else did something even worse. Sometimes you will be the bad one, just because the contract or quest requires you to be so.” He looked her in the eyes. “Are you prepared for that?”

“... I don’t know. I don’t want to be evil. I would rather help people if I can.” She averted his gaze, unsure of what he would think of this answer.

“What about revenge? Don’t you want to kill your father after all he has done to you?”

“What? I mean, not really. I’m rid of him now, so I absolutely have no intentions of going back or hunting him or whatever.” She stopped for a moment. “Though if a situation arose where I would be in a position to do so, then… maybe.”

“Very good,” he approved. “A little naïve, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Hoped returned to Annette’s eyes. “Will you train me then?”

“Yes, yes, you can deactivate those puppy eyes. Let’s see first what you are made out of. Run 10 laps around this tree line.” He pointed around the clearing.

“Ten? That’s too much…”

“Chop, chop, we don’t have all day, as you said.”

“Ugh…” she muttered under her breath.

“I didn’t hear ‘Yes, sir!’,” he shouted.

“Yes, sir!”

With that, she went on to complete her laps. While he was watching her, Keziah could swear that Augustus was somehow smirking in his mind, despite not having a face.

Keziah asked.

Keziah grimaced.

Keziah sighed mentally.

Keziah couldn’t stop himself from smiling a little. Augustus was right. Finally, he had something to work toward to.