Outside their sanctuary, the grey light of Varnmoor began to fail… bled dry by the approaching night. A palpable shift occurred in the city's rhythm, a changing of the guard felt in the bones before it was heard. The heavy… rhythmic tread of the Day Inquisitors… their armor clanking like a death knell… retreated down the basalt streets, their sanctified presence withdrawing. In their place came a new sound… or rather, a lack of one: the silent, gliding tread of the Night Inquisitors taking their posts. They were phantoms in polished obsidian… their faces hidden behind featureless helms, their movements unnervingly fluid.
With a soft, pervasive whoomp~ of witchfire the street lanterns flickered to life, casting a sickly, phosphorescent blue glow over the black basalt. The light did not comfort; it revealed the city in a new… macabre tableau. This was the most dangerous time, the interregnum… the fragile space between the defined shifts of the holy guardians. It was the hour when the city held its breath and prayed it would not be the last.
All across Varnmoor, the rituals of dread began. Windows were not merely shuttered but sealed with cold iron bars… each rod a silent scream of paranoia. Complex locks, masterpieces of metallurgy forged in fear, were turned with final… echoing clicks that sounded like the cocking of a crossbow. Behind those fortified doors, families did not huddle around hearths for warmth… but around reliquaries containing saint's finger bones and the guttering flames of blessed candles. Their prayers were not a hopeful murmur, rather a constant… desperate whisper against the oppressive silence outside, a fragile shield against the coming dark. They could feel it… a pressure change in the very air, as the ancient foundations of the city stones soaked in millennia of blood both holy and profane began to breathe. Varnmoor itself was a watchful, hungry thing, and the night was its domain.
But within the Hearth's Respite, a different kind of magic held sway. In the quiet sanctuary of their room, the lingering ghost of Betty's stew and kindness seemed to hover like a benediction… a tangible ward against the encroaching gloom. The cheerful noises of the inn were now a distant, muffled murmur from below… a world away. Aamon sat at the small wooden table, uncharacteristically still… his usual vibrant energy subdued into a deep, contemplative silence. He stared at his hands, at the pale bones of his mother that clinked together with a sound like falling pebbles as he flexed his fingers.
Ciel watched him from her perch on the edge of the bed, her own hands folded neatly in her lap like resting birds. She had learned to read the subtle lexicon of his body… the eager wag of his tail… the curious tilt of his head… the droop of his wings… This stillness was different. It was a profound quiet after a storm of new, difficult feelings… the calm that asks for a reckoning.
Finally, he looked up. His eyes, usually bright with demonic fire or simple unadulterated joy, held a new… unfamiliar emotion… a profound and confusing tenderness so acute it bordered on pain.
"Hey, Ciel…"
he began, his voice softer than usual.
"Betty is really nice. I don't know how to feel about it... My mother's hands were always… sweet. But Betty's were warm."
He struggled with the dichotomy, his brow furrowing.
"I know my mother loves me… loved me… but Betty's hands don't feel painful like my mother's sometimes did. Am I wrong for saying that?"
The room was silent save for the pop and crackle of the fire in the grate… a sound that only deepened the intimacy of the confession. Ciel considered the boy… the demon… before her, a creature navigating the complex, uncharted geography of the heart for the very first time. She thought of her own roots, buried deep in cold suffering… how his own blundering, innocent kindness had been the first true warmth she'd known since her own mother was taken.
"Ciel thinks friend is okay thinking that."
she whispered, her voice a low, steady murmur in the dim light… an anchor in the sea of his confusion.
"He can think others are able to help… But she understands what friend is saying."
She took a slow breath, the memory a cold stone in her chest…
"Ciel had a mother once… she's long gone now. Her touch was nice, compared to slavers. Ciel still remembers her touch. She remembers how her hands got colder… till the slavers took her body away."
Aamon's whole expression changed at her words, the confusion in his eyes sharpening into a shared… poignant ache. He stood suddenly… the motion fluid and silent, a shadow given intent. He waited a moment, as if giving her space to retreat, before crossing the room to her. His clawed hand, capable of shredding steel and sundering stone… came up to cradle her face with a terrifying, absolute gentleness. He stared into her sapphire eyes, seeing the old… frozen grief she had just confessed, before leaning down and pressing a soft… lingering kiss to her forehead.
"Ciel,"
he whispered, his voice rough with an emotion too vast and raw for words.
"You are… my first. My only. Before you… there was only the dark and my mother's bones. I did not know how lonely I truly was until I had you and finally learned what it was to not be alone."
The words left him not like a confession but a vow… pulled from the deepest… most untouched part of his soul. Every syllable was unwavering, etched in certainty. He leaned his forehead against hers, his ruby eyes glowing like embers in the dim light… seeing only her.
"I do not know what our future is, but I know I do not want one if it is a place you are not. They call me a demon... They call you abomination... Let them! My arms are the one cage that will never hurt you. I will break the world before I let it break you. I promise."
As he pulled back slightly, the dangerous… spiked length of his tail… each point a blade of bone… did not withdraw from her side. Instead, it coiled gently around her waist, pulling her closer against him in a motion that was both a claim and a protection… an embrace from the Abyss itself.
Before Ciel could draw a breath to process the vow, his massive bat-like wings snapped forward with a soft rustle of membrane, a curtain of living shadow cutting them off from the world. They were encased in a sudden… intimate darkness, the white silk of her hair stark against the black membrane of his wings… her unusual eyes wide not with fear, but with a stunned, breathless anticipation. In their self made cocoon, the outside world… with all its terrors and judgments, ceased to exist.
Time became meaningless within their sanctuary. They eventually emerged, the world outside the window now fully claimed by the deep night… the witchfire's blue glow painting faint stripes across the floor. The door opened without a sound, and Betty stood there… a silhouette against the lantern light from the hall. She took in the scene: their closeness, the peaceful quiet that clung to them… the way Aamon's wing still partially sheltered Ciel.
"Awe, look at y'all two. Ain't it too sweet."
Betty chimed, her voice a soft, rolling warmth that held no judgment, only a deep… abiding kindness. She entered, carrying a tray which she set on the table before them. Steam rose from two bowls of rich stew, filled with tender rabbit meat, carrots, and strange, earthy mushrooms from her cellar that Aamon had never seen before.
"Well, don't go to bed too late. Tomorrow is your last day here."
she said, and with a final… maternal smile. she left, seeming to take the sweet, safe air of the inn with her… leaving them to the night's embrace.
When Aamon took his first real bite of the meal, his face froze in astonishment… It was a flavor that held no association with cages, cold, or despair. It was pure… undiluted comfort. His tail, independent of his stunned expression, continued its happy… unconscious movement, thumping against the chair leg with such powerful, rhythmic sway that it began to chip away at the old wood. Ciel, however…ate with a little more quiet enthusiasm than usual, savoring each bite with the methodical appreciation of one who had known true hunger.
Throughout their few days in Varnmoor, Aamon had mostly eaten dry bread, too busy ensuring the once starved elf beside him had the better portions.
"Friend, this is freaking delicious!"
he finally exploded, his voice a hushed shout of delight that seemed to startle even the shadows in the room.
"Way better than the cell's moss!! I…I can't believe this is real. I didn't know food could taste so good!!!"
He ate fast, almost too fast for a demon who didn't truly need to eat, fueled purely by the joy of the new sensation.
"Yes."
Ciel agreed softly, a faint… almost invisible smile touching her lips, a rare crack in her impassive facade.
"Ciel thinks food is good, friend. Maybe we ask Betty to pack more for the trip to the succubus…"
Tomorrow, their journey will begin. Aamon and Ciel would set out for Mavis Village, the bustling, raucous waypoint on the path to the secluded Temple of the Succubus of Sloth… It was a world away from the silent, ancient places they sought… Mavis thrived on noise and motion, a densely populated hub teeming with adventurers from every corner of the realm… all clamoring for glory, gold, or simply a good tale to tell. They would face it not as a demon and his maid… but as two souls, bound by a promise made in the dark, stepping into the unknown together.
The first light of morning… pale and tentative, crept through the window of their room at the inn. It painted soft stripes across the floor, illuminating dust motes dancing in the silence... Aamon woke slowly, the deep… abyssal rhythms of his sleep receding like a tide.
The first thing he was aware of was warmth... A weight on his chest… and the second one, a soft and steady rhythm of breath against his neck.
He looked down… Ciel was still asleep, curled against his side. Sometime during the cold night she had sought out his warmth, and in sleep he had responded. One of his great… bat-like wings were stretched over her like a living blanket, the membrane shielding her from the draft of the room. In the vulnerability of sleep, all her careful observation was gone... Her face was peaceful and untroubled by dreams or memory. One elven ear… pale and delicately pointed, peeked out from beneath a snow-white strands of hair.
The sight of it, so fragile… had struck a chord deep within him. Without thought, moved by a tenderness that felt both foreign and familiar… he reached out a hand. His fingers adorned with the rings carved from his mother's bones… were smooth but capable of immense violence. Yet now… he traced the elegant curve of her ear with a touch so feather light it wouldn't have disturbed a breath of air.
Then like a sudden death… the pale morning light seemed to shift, deepening into the familiar… hellish glow of home. The scent of woodsmoke and bread twisted, transforming into the sacred… comforting aroma of brimstone and petrichor. The soft mattress beneath him became the familiar… cruel stone of the cell.
The world dissolved.
The weight on his chest was no longer Ciel… no, it was the beloved weight of his mother's hand resting there... He was back, his head cradled in her lap... He was larger than her now, a man grown… but in her embrace, he was forever her child. The immense… comforting pressure of the Abyss pressed down on him, a familiar blanket that made the gravity of the mortal world feel like a weightless… terrifying void.
Her voice, more beautiful than any mortal melody… filled the space around them, a lullaby that resonated in his very bones.
"You look at her and see that… elf?"
his mother murmured, her long, cold fingers rubbing slow… loving circles just behind the base of his horns.
"This story is called… Elara of the Sunstone Woods."
Aamon didn't pull away. He leaned into her touch, the greatest comfort he had ever known… His wings relaxed, settling around them both.
"In the dappled sunlight of the Sunstone Woods… where the air hummed with ancient magic and the leaves whispered secrets of the old, lived a young elf named Elara."
A note of sorrowful pity entered her voice.
"While her kin found profound joy in perfecting their ethereal art, composing songs that echoed through the glenns… and tending to their secluded paradise, Elara felt a restless pull. Her heart beat not only for the beauty of her home but for the well being of all living things beyond its borders. She was a peerless archer, her aim as true as the north star… but her greatest gift was a deep, empathetic connection to the very soul of the world..."
Her fingers stilled for a moment, a gesture of poignant regret.
"For centuries, the Elves had lived in peace, protected by a mystical tree known as the Heartwood. Its roots purified the land, its luminous branches wove a protective barrier that hid the forest from evil… But one autumn… a change came. A creeping, silent shadow began to poison the woods. Vibrant leaves withered and fell prematurely… the streams ran dark and silent, the magical creatures grew sick and fearful."
She shook her head slowly, her touch becoming comforting again, as if soothing the memory itself.
"The Elf-council discovered the source: a lonely, bitter Nether Shaman… cast out from her own kind, had taken residence in the nearby Ashen Mountains. In her anguish, she was siphoning the life force of the land to fuel his dark power… her corruption was slowly reaching its venomous tendrils toward the Heartwood itself."
Her voice held a whisper of admiration… quickly tempered by grief.
"The council argued. Some advocated for strengthening their barriers and waiting out the threat. Others called for a swift and deadly assault… But Elara, my sweet, foolish child… listening to the desperate pain of the forest itself, stepped forward. She volunteered not to attack… but to heal. Her quest would not be one of destruction, but of understanding. She vowed to find the source of the Shaman's bitterness… to break the cycle of corruption at its root… so, armed with her bow, a quiver of arrows carved from Heartwood branches that held purifying properties, and a single vial of water from the forest's last pure spring… Elara ventured into the blighted lands. She journeyed with compassion, avoiding the corrupted beasts instead of fighting them… using her magic to create small, defiant pockets of healing growth. She was leaving a trail of life in her wake through the overwhelming decay."
His mother's hand cupped his cheek, her touch icy and perfect.
"She finally reached the Shaman's desolate mountain cave. Instead of drawing her weapon, she entered with hands open. There… she did not see a monster… but a lonely, twisted creature… her malice a mirror of it's profound pain. The land's suffering was a reflection of her own. Enraged by her presence, the Shaman attacked, lashing out with coils of darkness. Elara stood her ground… parrying with light… refusing to strike back. Instead, she knelt and poured her vial of pure water onto a single… dying flower at the cave's entrance. A tiny, defiant speck of light bloomed in the overwhelming darkness."
A single, perfect tear… cold as a diamond, traced a path down her cheek.
"The Shaman hesitated, shocked… No one had ever answered her malice with an offer of healing. In that moment of stillness, Elara spoke to them not with threats… but with empathy. She offered the shaman a choice: continue on her path of isolation and shared suffering, or accept the chance for redemption and belonging. Touched by a compassion she hadn't known for over a lifetime, the Shaman's bitterness finally broke… He fell to her knees and relinquished their stolen power. The shadow receded from the land like a tide… the poison lifting instantly. Elara did not bring the broken Shaman back to the Elf-wood… that trust would have to be earned slowly… Instead Elara promised that the Elves would help the shaman heal the land she had harmed, giving her a purpose and a path away from the darkness..."
She leaned down, her forehead touching his… her presence the entirety of his world.
"She returned home as the vibrant colors rushed back into the woods… the streams sang once more, and the Heartwood blazed with renewed vigor. Elara was hailed as a hero… not for a victory of strength, but for a triumph of heart. My Shadow, she had proven that true heroism lies not in the sword, but in the courage to offer kindness instead of vengeance… in the wisdom to heal the root of evil rather than just cutting it down.."
Her voice was a heartbroken whisper.
"She saved her home not by slaying the monster… but by forgetting that a monster can never be anything else. Her empathy was her masterpiece… and her failure. It is a mercy this world cannot afford. It is why they need us to be strong. It is why I need you to be strong."
"Mother? wh-"
Aamon blinked.
The crushing, loving pressure was gone… The sacred scent of home vanished, replaced by the simple smells of the mortal inn. back in the warm bed… the morning light was a little brighter.
Ciel stirred against his chest… nuzzling unconsciously into the warmth he provided. His wing was still draped over her. His finger was still resting gently on the point of her elven ear.
He looked down at her… his heart aching with a profound and terrible love. He saw Elara in her, a living testament to that "beautiful foolishness," that "tragic empathy." His mother's words were not a warning from a tyrant… they were a heartbreaking lesson from a goddess who loved him too much to see him succumb to the same beautiful weakness. She was teaching him that love was protection… was strength… was the ruthless elimination of any threat.
As Aamon continued to hold Ciel, she felt both beautiful and perilous… till…
CRASH!
The sound was followed by a resonant BANG! that rattled the door to their room. It was the unmistakable sound of an expensive ceramic pot meeting its end on the wooden floorboards of the hall.
Aamon's head snapped up. His long… bone-spiked tail, which had been lying still against the bedsheets, gave a single… involuntary thump of anticipation. He knew that sound. It was the prelude to a specific kind of chaos.
Three sets of small… pounding feet pattered at a breakneck pace down the hallway, accompanied by gleeful, high-pitched shrieks. They were arguing.
"pushed me!"
"Did not! You tripped on the rug!"
"Mama's gonna be so mad about the flowers…"
The doorknob jiggled violently. Then, without further ceremony, the door burst open… smacking against the wall with another less dramatic… but still significant thud.
Aamon's first instinct was to rise, to intercept the incoming hurricane before it reached the bed. But he was pinned... Ciel had shifted in her sleep at the noise, letting out a soft… sleepy sigh. She had curled herself more tightly against his side… her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest. She looked more peaceful and comfortable than he had ever seen her. The frantic calculations of her waking mind were silenced… leaving only a profound and trusting rest. To move would be to shatter that. He couldn't!!
He stayed perfectly still, a statue trying to ward off an avalanche through sheer willpower. It was a futile effort… The kittens were in… They flooded into the room, a tumbling wave of fiery hair, round twitching ears, and long lashing tails... Their green, slit pupils zeroed in on the bed with the unerring accuracy of tiny… fuzzy missiles.
"Uncle Aamon! Aunt Ciel! You're still in bed!" Millow declared this obvious fact with the gravity of a supreme court justice.
"We heard a super big noise!" Marlow yelled, not to be outdone, already launching himself at the foot of the bed. The mattress dipped violently.
The third crash was the sound of three small bodies launching a full-scale assault on the bed. Willow, usually the shy one… was swept up in the excitement, scrambling up beside her siblings.
Aamon's carefully maintained stillness was obliterated. The bed became a battlefield of kneading hands… giggles… and flying pillows. A small foot connected with his ribs. A tail smacked him across the face.
"We're hungry!"
"Is it breakfast time?"
"Why is Ciel still sleeping? Is she broken?"
Ciel's eyes flew open.
There was no slow… groggy awakening. One moment she was deep in the void of sleep, the next her pink eyes were wide open… instantly aware, processing the sudden sensory overload of three excited demi-human kittens crawling over her. Her body tensed for a fraction of a second, the old… hardwired instinct to assess for danger.
But the danger was Millow trying to use Aamon's horn as a handhold to climb onto his head, and the threat was Willow poking her cheek.
"You're awake!" Willow cheered.
Ciel blinked, her gaze shifting from the kittens to Aamon's face… which was currently a mask of long suffering affection. He met her eyes, his own expression a silent apology mixed with amusement… His large wing, which had been their blanket, was now half lifted… a futile shield against the kittenish bombardment.
"The… noise has increased significantly…"
Ciel stated, her voice husky with sleep but already slipping into its usual tone. She slowly pushed herself up on her elbows, dislodging Pip from her stomach.
"The noise appears to be… triplicate."
"They've breached the perimeter!"
Aamon rumbled. He reached out a large hand and gently scooped Marlow off his chest… setting the giggling boy down on the bed beside him.
"There was no stopping them."
"We're hungry!" Willow says, now tugging on the edge of Ciel's gray blanket.
"Mama said to come get you for breakfast! There's honey for the bread!"
At the mention of food, all three kittens began chanting "Honey! Honey! Honey!" with increasing volume… bouncing on the mattress with enough force to make the bedframe groan in protest.
Aamon looked at Ciel, the last vestiges of the painful… beautiful memory of his mother finally scattering under the relentless, joyful assault of the present. The warring loves in his heart were momentarily quieted… replaced by a simpler… more immediate affection.
"It seems. we have our orders."
He said, a real… unreserved smile finally breaking through as he watched Millow attempt to pounce on his swaying tail…
The warm, yeasty scent of Betty's famous bread was a tangible force… a welcoming cloud that enveloped them the moment they left their room. It was a smell that promised safety and sustenance, a stark contrast to the grim… watchful world waiting beyond the inn's heavy doors. Here, within these walls the light was golden, the air was thick with the perfume of baking, and the shadows were soft… holding no hidden threats.
Betty herself was a flour-dusted monument to that promise. Her face… a roadmap of laugh lines carved by a lifetime of kindness, lit up as she saw them… her rich earth colored eyes softening. She set her knife down with a decisive thud that echoed in the suddenly quiet room and marched over to them, her sturdy frame moving with purpose. She bypassed all propriety, grabbing Aamon's large… clawed hands in her own strong, work roughened ones.
"Look at y'all cuties. I'm almost done with breakfast, just sit back and ignore the eyes."
she chimed, her voice gentle… rolling warmth that felt like the hearth itself.
It was a necessary instruction. The common room of The Hearth's Respite was never truly empty… the presence of a full blooded demon and an Abyssal elf was a spectacle that could not be ignored. Whispers… sharp and sibilant… slithered between the forced clatter of cutlery. Nervous glances were thrown their way, then quickly averted if Aamon's gaze, glowing like red rubies, so much as drifted in their direction. The air was thick with a tension, the kittens were too young to parse…
Blissfully unaware, the triplets immediately began their own negotiations.
"So! Where's the honey?" Marlow demanded, his small body vibrating with restless energy.
"Remember brother, bad kittens don't get honey." Millow retorted with the grave gravity of a high court judge, her slit-pupiled green eyes narrowed in warning.
"That is what Betty said. So get off Uncle Aamon," Willow added quietly, her voice barely a whisper as she tried to disentangle Marlow from where he'd begun to scale Aamon's suit like a small… determined mountaineer.
Ciel observed the exchange, her large… sapphire eyes processing each interaction with the deliberate care of a strategist assessing a battlefield.
"Ciel will get coffee…"
she stated, her words emerging slowly… each one chosen with precise intention.
"…and warm milk for Aamon and the kittens."
At the mention of the sweet… warm milk… Aamon's spiked tail, which had been swaying in a slow, cautious arc behind him like a metronome of unease, gave a sudden… swift swoosh through the air. It moved faster than the three kitten tails combined. Purely instinctive burst of anticipation that was almost a blur. He immediately stilled it, a faint self-conscious rumble echoing in his chest, aware of the many eyes upon them.
As Ciel moved away toward the kitchen, a silent… white haired ghost against the inn's warmth. Aamon found himself alone with the triplets… He leaned down, his large, curving horns making the kittens tilt their heads back in awe.
"Now that we are alone… We should go on an adventure together! My mother says people do that."
The kittens' eyes went wide with delight… their earlier mission forgotten.
"Ooo… An adventure? What should we do?" Marlow breathed, his ears swiveling forward.
"Let's sneak into Betty's cookies!!" Millow whispered, her own tail lashing with excitement. "She just made a fresh batch."
"The ginger-snap ones…" Willow added, her voice hushed with a mixture of desire and dread.
The four enthusiastic tails stilled, then lowered, switching into a synchronized sneak mode. They slid off their chairs with a practiced silence that was unnerving in ones so small. Aamon, caught in their spell, ignored the lingering stares from the other tables. He dropped into a low crouch, moving with a predator's grace that was utterly at odds with the childish mission, his large form making the maneuver look like a shadow detaching itself from the floor.
"Where are her cookies?" Aamon whispered, his voice a low rumble from the floorboards.
"They are on the high shelf at the back of the kitchen…" Marlow informed him, pointing a tiny… claw tipped finger.
"Yes, we might have… borrowed… some already," Millow confessed.
"She's on high alert."
"Be cautious," Willow warned, her green eyes wide.
"or you will get your hand smacked… WITH THE SPOON!"
At the reminder of THE SPOON… a legendary instrument of justice in the kittens' world, Aamon gave an audible gulp. The threat of a physical blow was nothing to him; the threat of disappointing Betty was everything.
"Well, let's be quiet about it,"
Aamon plotted, his demonic mind applying ancient tactical principles… from stories… to the cookie acquisition.
"We have both Betty and Ciel to watch out for. We go slow and swift. Marlow, keep an eye out. Millow, be ready for a distraction. Willow… you are with me."
The kitchen door was old, its hinges notorious. As Aamon pushed… it let out a long… agonized creak that seemed to scream their betrayal to the entire inn. Aamon didn't flinch… He raised a hand, his bone rings glinting dully. "Silentium Circum." he chanted. A small… intricate sigil… the color of faded twilight, flared to life upon the rusted hinges. The sound died instantly, swallowed by an unnatural… absolute silence that felt heavier than noise.
Slowly, they infiltrated the kitchen. It was a realm of heat and shadow, dominated by a great… black iron stove and hanging copper pots that gleamed like stolen moons… The air was rich with the ghosts of a thousand meals... And there! on the highest shelf, just out of a kitten's leap… sat a large, ceramic jar painted with little blue flowers… The promised land.
Aamon moved with a silence that was deeply unnerving, a void of sound in the room's warm clutter… The kittens were his tiny, furry shadows. He reached the shelf, his clawed fingers stretching toward the jar.
He never touched it.
A shadow fell over him.. smaller and far more formidable than his own.
"And just what in the empty hells…"
Betty's voice boomed, devoid of its usual warmth, filled instead with a tone that could strip paint from wood,
"Do you think you're doin' with my good cookie jar, Aamonith?"
Aamon froze. The kittens instantly scattered, abandoning their general to his fate… vanishing under tables and behind sacks of flour with a series of panicked squeaks.
Slowly, Aamon turned. Betty stood there… arms crossed over her flour-dusted apron, a heavy wooden spoon held loosely in one hand like a scepter of judgment. Her expression was a masterpiece of maternal disappointment… more devastating than any scowl.
"I… we… the kittens…"
Aamon stammered, his ruby eyes wide with genuine guilt, his tail tucked so completely between his legs it nearly disappeared... He looked every bit the chastised child.
"I don't care if the Queen of the Abyss herself put you up to it…"
Betty said, her voice low and stern.
"You do not sneak into my kitchen. You ask! Understood?"
Aamon could only nod, utterly defeated.
"Hand." Betty commanded, not unkindly… but with an iron resolve that brooked no argument.
Aamon, a demon who had faced down power hungry swordsmen and terrifying queens… meekly extended his hand, palm up. Betty's own hand, strong and calloused from a lifetime of work… took his. Then… with a swift, precise motion, she brought the wooden spoon down.
Thwack.
The sound was crisp, sharp… final in the quiet kitchen. It didn't hurt him, not truly… the shock of it, the sheer mundanity of the punishment reverberated through him. It was not violence; it was consequence… It was care of a different, stricter kind.
"Now,"
Betty said, her demeanor shifting back to warmth as if a switch had been thrown… She reached up, grabbed the cookie jar and pried off the lid. She pulled out four perfect… golden ginger-snap cookies and pressed one into Aamon's still stinging hand.
"If you'd asked, I would have said yes. Now get out of my kitchen. And take these to your little partners in crime."
Clutching the cookie, his hand tingling, Aamon slunk out of the kitchen… a humbled Prince of the Abyss, bearing the spoils of a failed mission and the profound… confusing lesson that sometimes, the gentlest hands could wield the most effective spoon…