Jonah and Lilly managed to cause a fairly big stir during their stroll, which he found confusing since he hadn't been told about the conversation the girls had had whilst he was bathing.
When they got to the guild to formally invite Lottie, Lucas and the guild-master, Jonah had no choice but to acknowledge the fact that everyone moved away or left like they were about to get caught in a tornado.
"Lottie, why is everyone backing away from me again? Were they too drunk to remember what I said at breakfast yesterday?" Lottie laughed as Jonah slumped onto the counter, completely exhausted and over being treated like high-nobility.
"Probably worried they are going to get caught in a battle between an angel and a vampire. Did you not know that one of the few well documented cases of an angel was them wiping out a family of vampires without hesitation?"
Jonah's eyes widened as the air was silently ripped from his lungs and he sounded like life followed after it. A scene that made Lottie laugh, since she knew Jonah better than most present, though Lucas could be heard joining her as he approached.
"Settle down everybody! I thought it was obvious Jonah isn't as high-strung as others..." Whilst Lucas settled everyone else down, Jonah apologised to Lilly and left Lottie giggling at the sight of him completely absent of composure.
"I'm going to get Roderick back for this one..." Jonah muttered to himself, making Lottie and Lucas cry with more laughter, before he introduced everyone and invited them properly.
"Sorry to be a bother Jonah, I thought you would have felt it instinctually or something..." Lilly's flustered apologising made the next part of their journey feel much longer than it actually was, but Jonah was still fixating on how she must have felt when Roderick told her about her new employer.
"Lilly, I want you to know that I don't hold prejudice against any race. I also want to say, and please keep this from the girls, you look so much like my sister it's terrifying."
"Your sister? I'm surprised that angels have a concept of siblings beyond the same creator."
"I don't know about others, but I do and my sister died when I was very young..." Jonah told her the story in hushed tones as they walked through the streets.
"I see. You are very sweet to see past my race, but I must respectfully say, I am not your sister Jonah and I would ask you to ensure you don't treat me as one." Jonah could feel her sudden unease and nervousness and apologised again as he clarified.
"Sorry, I know you aren't her... I just wanted you to know in case I ever get a strange expression or something disorienting happens. I just didn't want you blindsided by it." Lilly nodded in understanding, then they continued on to find Kieran, which was a wild goose chase they eventually abandoned in favor of just leaving a message at the gate.
From there they headed to Gregor's smithy, having to bang on the door when they found it locked and the chimney cold for the first time.
After a small amount of clattering, the metallic thud of a deadbolt sliding sounded and Gregor opened the door, already ranting about them not having read the sign stating they were closed for personal business.
"...Oh shit, sorry Jonah..." Gregor said when he looked through the crack he'd opened the door and heard Jonah chuckling. "...Sorry about that, not often I close shops and people have a habit of not believing the sign."
"No worries friend, I simply came to formally invite you and let you know you can head over whenever. I also wanted to introduce you to our new housekeeper, Lilly and discuss a few a couple of commissions that will require your expertise."
"Hahaha! I saw this coming, let me guess, a knife or something with your coat of arms on it for her and trusted allies?"
"Not quite, one for her for sure and a project that will need an expert's touch..." Gregor banged on the door he was swinging on and cheered, then he swung it open completely and held his hand out for Lilly to take it.
She stared at his hand in the light and Jonah could see she was struggling to ask him to go back and make room, or stretch it further out, so he shaded the area with a wing. "She's a vampire, Gregor. The sun doesn't agree with her."
"Oh my, apologies..."
"It's fine, most people don't guess as quickly as Jonah, he realised so quickly even I forgot that until now." She chuckled a bit nervously, then gave him her hand.
"...So, aside from the knife, do you want a weapon for protection in case our friend Jonah here gets burgled?"
"If Jonah permits it, I would be happy to wear the usual vampire vambraces and armoured gloves. Blessed silver would be my preferred material too, if he is willing."
"Blessed silver?" Jonah asked clearly looking for an explanation.
"Oh sure, to you I guess it's just silver..." Gregor laughed. "...Blessed silver, is silver that cannot be worn by any vampire that has drank from a vein or by anyone who has taken a life in cold blood."
Jonah nodded, then offered a feather to use in the process of making each item. That led to a continuation of their discussion about experimenting with his blessing and cursing of weapons and shields.
"Master. With all due respect, we should leave Master Mead-Shield to prepare." Lilly groaned, half-dutifully and half-clearly bored of the conversation, which was enough to make them chuckle and get them on their way to Dubio's.
By the time they were on their way from his, Lilly was clearly exasperated. "Sorry, I ge-"
"Sorry, but are you really an angel? You seem innocent, endlessly curious..." Lilly stopped and shuffled on the spot nervously. "...It's like you're a child, in the same sense that everything in the world is new."
Jonah chuckled and she clearly got a little annoyed thinking he was about to dodge the question, but he simply said "Not in public."
When they got home, they walked in on Orcette knocking gently on Kayla's door asking her to make a snack and being answered with complete silence. "Hey! Leave the poor girl alone and I'll make you a snack, we need to get Lilly up on our situation."
"Deal!"
Before they knew it, Jonah was making lunch for them all while they caught Lilly up on the situation, but even as she listened and responded it was clear Jonah's preparation was intriguing her as well.
"...So the first thing you both really remember is the courtyard? As your employee, I swear to keep this secret since it seems you desire it to remain so, I'll even keep it from the duke unless directly asked. My duties to him only go as far as issues pertaining to people trying to turn you against him, the kingdom, or our kingdom against Avalon."
"You are not a good spy..." Jonah laughed as she suddenly realised what she said. "...Don't worry I already knew, I can detect lies, remember? Thank you for showing how bad you are at it though, it's a good sign you're a good person. Now eat up, I'll go take Kayla hers."
As he knocked on the door and received no response, he announced he was coming in and opened the door, moving the plate through the gap before he followed it. He was a bit humbled by the focus she was giving her work, she hadn't looked up in the slightest or acknowledged the plate, so with a sigh he went to his own room before returning with an hourglass marked "3Hr".
"Okay Kayla, hate to put a limit on it, but you'll need to get ready for the party when this runs out."
"Roger."
"Wow, I actually got a word, I'm honoured." Jonah chuckled before giving a mocking salute and heading off to rejoin the others, pausing at the doorway and casting an eye back towards her. "I never was artistic, but I really like what you've done so far, just don't try to make yourself so easy to miss. You're as much a part of it as we, Kayla. Bringing your vision to life is the artisan's job, don't make it easy on them."
Jonah didn't get another response before he left, but she did hesitate for a second before resuming with renewed vigor. As the door closed behind him though, Kayla stopped and looked at her work so far.
She had been drawing based on the elongated triangular designs that the ones she had seen used. The three designs she had crammed onto the single piece of paper were, to her eyes, messy and uninspired. It made her feel like she was back in the real world, playing by other people's rules and conforming to their ideals and processes.
Even on the large sheets of paper she had that were about a metre high and one and a half times that wide, meant primarily for cartography and architectural concept sketches. The papers still felt confining and forced her to omit details she wanted to include.
"You aren't an artist, these suck..." Kayla suddenly abandoned them and turned the paper over. "...Don't make it easy, do what I want to do."
She started over, first moving to the floor for more space...
The large piece of paper now portrait rather than landscape and when she felt that still wasn't large enough, she grabbed another piece of paper which might have seemed excessive but for the fact it made it the same length as the ones now hanging in their lounge.
She started by dividing the paper into sections, then marking out the shape of the usual heraldry at actual size, then added a border line that ran from the top edge down to the centre point about one inch from the out edge she marked out.
It wasn't a straight line either, but intruded into the central spaces occasionally like a jigsaw puzzle. The inner space was then split into two, with both halves interacting the same with each other as they did the border.
She then drew a mark about three inches from top of the inner border on both sides out to the edge of the paper and cut those sections away. Then she drew a guideline across the bottom which made a rhombus shape.
At the halfway mark of that rhombus, she measured down about three inches and made another mark then did the same again then marked a point the same distance either side of the centre point and connected the with a circle before filling in the details of Jonah's shield.
She then made it look as though it were resting between his semi-furled wings that overstepped the barrier and ran along the outer edge. When she was happy with the positioning, shape and design, she cut away the paper around the wings outside the outer border then moved onto the next crest.
About six inches from the bottom of the shield she made another mark, then paused trying and failing to remember what Orcette's totem staff looked like but failed, so she ran down stairs and pounced on Orcette demanding it until she handed it over and then returned to her room.
From the centre mark, she drew the rough outline of the shape, a skull with four empty eye sockets and a short, flat snout. The skull was forcibly adjoined to a length of spine in a manner that made it clear that they were either made of different animals or simply altered to sit as they do.
Each vertebra had a horizontal spike like a straightened rib about six-inches long, coming from either side, except one near the top and one from the middle which was shaped as handholds.
Overall it looked like a mix between some kind of crocodile and a dog and she wished she could see the animal it came from, to find out for herself. She then remembered that Orcette was also multi-classed as a ranger, so she marked out the stereotypical crossed swords for them to sit on.
"Ugh! So boring!..." She erased them immediately then redrew one simply running up in front of the spine up to the base of the skull and then from the sharpened point at the bottom of the spine drew a heavily drawn bow with an arrow notched.
Then came the bit she had been left until last because she hadn't figured out what exactly to do to represent herself. She would be happy to settle for the background section, but she knew that the other two wouldn't let her omit herself from the design like that.
"What do I want to represent me on this? I was happy just having my knife and chain around the edge of the shield..." She sat up and on her heels, then let herself fall back as she gave it some thought.
"...I could just draw my classes like I did for the others, but I'm not really as good at playing my role as the others. I don't even really have a personality, I always only cared about trying to be free..."
She looked around her room, she had made her requests based on who she was, but now it all seemed redundant. The only comment she got on it was "Don't go too mad with the black paint."
"...I guess I am free now, they won't stop me from being whoever I want to be. They were even going to let me choose to leave and become someone they might be enemies with..."
Downstairs the others jumped when they heard her burst into laughter and began wondering if she might have actually focused so hard on her task that she lost her mind.
"Did we maybe put too much pressure on her?"
"She's a strong kid, I think she's just enjoying being given freedom for once."
"I can go check on her if you wish, it isn't my job exactly, but maids do sometimes assist with child rearing."
The other two laughed and stated how much she probably would have loved to be raised by a vampire, which made Lilly act with the same nervousness they'd seen before, but they distracted her from it by resuming their conversation about dishes from their world.
Up in her room, Kayla had stopped laughing and resumed drawing.
The same distance from the bottom of Orcette's as hers was from Jonah and repeating the same process as she had done for Jonah's shield, but turning it into a compass face instead and with throwing knives like the one Lucas gave her pointing in each cardinal direction.
She then drew a chain forming the circle of the compass and spiralling inward. The chain made a loop around both itself at the outer edge and the hoops at the base of the knives at each of the ordinal directions.
"...I don't really have anything to represent who I am, but what I want to do is help the ones who finally gave me freedom and the best way to do that is embrace what I am in this world."
She then added colour annotations for reference in absence of coloured paints or pencils and carefully moved it to one side.
Then whilst she was in the flow, moved on to her other project, which was an occult-looking symbol with a prominent, tribal style "S" in the middle. "Thought I had best do it now... Before I forget..."
Downstairs, the others jumped as another bout of hysterical laughter echoed through the house from Kayla's room.
"Err, Jonah, this is a quiet neighborhood..." Lilly started fidgeting a little bit again, twiddling her thumbs awkwardly. "...Not to be presumptuous, but would you like me to teach you how to do privacy glyphs like they have at the guild? Even if you don't have the skill yet, being a support type should let you learn naturally."
Jonah thought for a second, he had wanted to ask, but was worried about seeming suspicious, Lilly knowing the whole story made it more understandable that he would be interested.
"Sure, I have a feeling that might be good for several reasons. Out of curiosity, why was it so hard for me to see through it when I wasn't even trying to pry? The others seemed perfectly fine."
"Oh, they activate on highly perceptive beings like us regardless, some species have incredibly sensitive hearing and walking past or being close to noisy places like those can impact daily life. It's as much to do with courtesy as secrecy."
At that point, Kayla came bouncing down the stairs with Jonah's hourglass and announced to everyone they only had about an hour left, making Lilly gasp at having lost track of time.
"...Okay, guess that settles it. You two start getting ready and I'll go with Lilly to collect her things and get her out of the monitored living. When we get back, Lilly, Kayla and I can start preparing some food, but since we lost track of time we'll go to a bakery and pick up some bread too."
"Be quick, the plan sounds good, but I want to have a chat with Lilly before the party."
Lilly bowed in agreement and Jonah nodded, then they left and Kayla couldn't help but notice Orcette sink immediately.
"Sorry if this is rude, but are you a bit jealous of her?"
"No, I'm not jealous really. I'm just not sure how I feel and not sure how she feels, don't tell him I said this, but Jonah's become special to me very quickly and I don't want to miss my chance deciding if I want to take it."
"So you're going to ask her if she wants to take hers?"
"Not really sure... I get the impression she cares more about her position than her feelings anyway, but it's only a matter of time until Jonah's insistence on casual interaction removes that barrier."
"Maybe, but don't forget you already have a kid with him..." Kayla ran up to her room laughing as Orcette's flustered curses followed her.