Chase

A few minutes before: 

“You think it’s a bad idea?” Mum said from the hallway. Chase forced himself to ignore the conversations she was having. He needed to focus beyond the sounds, beyond the living room and the house. Just like Gracie, Isabella, and the others taught him. He must get better at centring himself and sensing it just like they do otherwise…

“It’s not that it’s a bad idea,” Gracie said. He took a steady breath out. He must overcome this. If he cannot manage to find his power with simple noise around him, then he will never become a pentagon knight. 

“If they are in need of supplies, then the least we can do is prepare it for them as soon as,” Mother said. 

“Again, I’m not disagreeing with you.”

“But you still don’t trust us,” Flynn said. 

“It’s not about trust-it’s…” Gracie said. 

“You can’t even name the issue,” Iris said. 

“It’s hard to explain. I just don’t think it’s proper to ask them out of the blue,” Gracie said. Iris sighed. 

“Then just ask me, I can at least speak for myself,” Flynn said.

“But you’re already staying around here for our sake, making you run errands is…”

“Exactly, we are already here helping. No point in only committing halfway. I have not spoken to the others, but I’m willing to bet all of us feel the same.” Flynn said. Silence fell soon after before Gracie simply mumbled that she didn’t know. 

“We are at war right now. Though we are not on the front lines, we need to do our part. We don’t have the luxury of being fussy. If it means asking for help from strangers, then so be it. We will owe them-sure, but you can’t pay off your own debts if you’re dead.”

“Thought we had a fair trade going already,” Flynn said. 

“It’s not the asking for help that bothers me,” Gracie mumbled. Silence fell as Chase heard Gracie take a deep breath. 

“Are you ok?” His mum asked carefully. 

“I’m fine. Guess I have no grounds to stand on, it’s just… I’m sorry, I think I need time to clear my head.” Chase heard Gracie leave the kitchen. As she came around down the hallway, Chase opened his eyes as she stepped into the living room.  

“Working hard again today, Chase?” Gracie said. Chase nodded. He heard the front door click to unlock, saw the sunlight bleed through the hallways and onto Grace’s face.

“Call me if you need anything,” the big guy said. Grace watched him at the front door with conflicted eyes. And it was only when the light in the hall day dim as the front door gently closed did she let out a slow horsed breath. With only light coming through the blinds in the living room once more, the concern in Gracie returned with a vengeance. This hit Chase in a way that was hard to explain. It was like a part of himself had been seriously hurt but it did not make sense because besides missing dad he’d been fine. Ever since he left, they’d come and Gracie got more worried and so Chase had been training extra hard. Now knowing that was happening back at the village, he needed to train extra, extra hard! Everyone was fighting. He cannot afford to be weak forever.

“You don’t have to push yourself so hard,” Gracie said, breaking Chase out of his thoughts. 

“Everyone else is.” Gracie simply nodded at that. 

“Were you training all this time?” she asked. Closing his eyes once again, Chase nodded. 

“You know that you left me and mum to clean up your food,”

“Sorry, I just had to train extra, extra hard today,” he said, his eyes still closed. 

“I see, so… that means since you were training ‘extra, extra’ hard. You wouldn’t happen to have heard what me and mum were saying down the hall, would you?”

Chase’s eyes widened at this. Grace was already glaring at him from the corner of her eye, her lip an unamused line. 

Busted… 

“I did not hear all of it!” he spat. Grace maintained eye contact with him before giggling to herself as she leaned over and roughed his hair. Now Chase just looked at her with eyes of frustration. He still liked it when Mum did it. He used to like it more when Gracie used to do it. But more recently, Chase hated it when she did that to his hair. It was something that grown up did to kids and he was not a kid anymore. It was about time Gracie took him more seriously. He was about to protest until he caught the look on her face. Gracie was smiling. Besides the dinner table, this might have been the first time she’s done so ever since Father and the others left for the village. Sighing to herself, she gently smoothed out his hair. Although their eyes met, they did not see him. Instead, they saw something else far off in the distance.

“If only everyone’s intents were so easy to read,” she said. That left Chase both confused and spellbound. Gracie was very pretty. Her red hair reminded him of the willow forests in autumn. He did not understand all of what was going on, and he knew very little as to why she was so sad about everything. All he knew was that it mostly had something to do with having to look after and protect them. 

Because I’m not strong enough, she… his eyes fell to the floor. Gracie said that she was happy to be here, but maybe she really wants to go back and fight alongside her sister and friends after all.

“Are you upset with us?” He asked. Gracie flinched as if slapped. Soon, however, she hit her pain with a smile. 

“No silly, I’m just upset with myself, that’s all. More importantly, you shouldn’t distract yourself with all this stuff. You got to get stronger, right? Then concentrate.” 

“But if everyone is worried, I need to-” 

“-Without concentration, you cannot hope to tap into your power, and without power, you cannot hope to protect anyone. You must acquire the one to gain the other.” 

“That’s not fair,”

“Life ain’t fair.” Gracie snapped back, making Chase flinch. Realising what she did, she looked away in apology and held his shoulder. “Let that be the lesson.” She mumbled.  

“This lesson sucks,” Chase grumbled. Brushing her hand aside, he folded his arms. Gracie, however, did not react. That distant look was in her eyes again. Chase frowned. 

“Do you really think that they are bad guys?” he asked. Still looking away, Gracie’s eyes narrowed before she shook her head to herself.

“No Chase, but between you and me, I kind of wish that they were,” Gracie whispered the last part. Confused, Chase just looked at her, blinking. Before he could ask, however, that tired look he saw on her face vanished as she smiled at him. “Sorry… forget I said that.” Dazed, Chase just nodded. She likely saw the confusion on his face because her lip turned to one side. 

“Now I know that one of them said that he will train you, but if he doesn’t offer, then don’t bother him about it. They are good people and so I don’t want to bother them with more than we need to.
Already got them knee-deep in our trouble as is… if you promise to do that much, then I’ll train you extra once all this blows over.”

Chase wanted to protest, to tell her that he was doing this for his mother and father’s sake, for her sake… he felt in his heart of hearts that he was right, but what could he say? What words were there that could convince her otherwise? He had nothing. Too weak to fight and too stupid to explain why he needed to get stronger. Just a burden who cannot even fix his own shortcomings. With a burning lump in his throat, Chase nodded. Gracie left from the back door before Chase could say anything. He looked down at the end of the hall to the back kitchen door as he heard it close. He felt bad. Gracie had always been there for him. For as long as he had remembered, she had been coming to the farm and helping take care of things. 

I’m sorry, Gracie, sorry for not being strong enough to help you.

“Are you giving Gracie a hard time again?” Mum startled him. He did not realise that she snuck into the room. So much for his training. 

“I think Gracie hates me now,” he said bitterly.

“It’s not that sweetie. Gracie is just a little tense right now. A lot has changed, and the news we got was… well, it was heavy. In this storm of change, she is just trying her best to hold on to some form of normalcy.”

“But that means that I cannot train with Andrew,” Chase said. His mother hummed for a moment before looking back at him, a mischievous smile plastered on her face. 

“I don’t think that’s what she said. At least that’s not how I choose to hear it,” she said. 

“You were listening?” Chase said, shocked. 

“My son is not the only one blessed with keen ears,” his mother said as she pinched both of them. It was annoying, but not as annoying as when Gracie did the same to his hair, so he chuckled through it. 

“She asked you to promise that you will not be a bother to him. She thinks by asking him to train that you are giving him more work, but she forgets that this is a trade-off,” his mother said. “They did not stay and protect us purely out of the kindness of their own hearts, not at first. They came here to escape the guardians. Looking out for us is their way of paying us back for the gesture. Out of courtesy, I fed them this morning, and they responded by willingly going to the village to gather news. Sure, maybe that action benefits them, but you see, nobody is taking advantage of anybody here. It’s just simple… trade-offs. Do you understand?” Chase nodded. He thought he grasped it.

“They gave you something and so you want to give them something back in return,” he said. His mother nodded, which made him happy.

“A trade-off just means that you are using each other for the benefit of yourself and the people around you. Things may not look like an equal trade at a simple glance. This is why context is so important.” His mother continued. Chase understood it well enough. He’d once seen his father barter their cart of apples. He’d helped him pick them and so he was really invested in how father would sell the fruit. And just as Chase thought he could not be any more excited about seeing them be sold, his father promised him a small part of the fortune he’d make from the sale. This not only made him extra-extra excited, but it made him hyper-aware of things happening to the apple than he’d have even known was possible. And so when his father traded their cart for apples for bags of salt instead, he’d been confused. He’d asked why he did not trade it for money like normal. He’d known that apples were in season and they could have got them more money. It was not until he recalled that his father had also got an enormous amount of fish that summer did he come to understand his plan. By drying and salting fish over the summer, he could preserve and sell them in the colder seasons, where the fishing got tough. Not only did he sell them at a profit that winter, but Chase received twice the amount of money he’d have got if his father had only sold the apples that summer. Although he understood trade, that just left him feeling uncertain. 

“So what has trade-off got to do with training?” he asked. 

“Something can only be a burden if the person in question had no interest in doing it in the first place or had something else better to do. He’s not said it, but I get the feeling that he mentioned training because he welcomes the distraction. So you are not really asking him for a favour, but you’re doing him one. It just so happens that it is one that you wanted to do, anyway.” His mother winked at him. That twinkle in her eye sparked the light of understanding within him. He was barely able to follow on from that, but he was rewarded with a new way to look at things and the reminder that his mother was a genius. She never treated him like a kid… well, not as much as everyone else did. 

“Simple right?” she asked. Chase nodded emphatically. Soon, however, his eyes narrowed into slits. 

“So then… how come Gracie could not see it?” Chase asked. Mother nodded as if he’d asked a good question. 

“That girl has got a big heart. She holds a lot of honour, but I think she unknowingly puts more weight on other’s issues than she does on her own. When you put others’ needs over your own, nothing they offer will seem like a fair trade. Do you understand?” Chase shook his head. This time, his mother simply nodded to herself before looking out through the window. 

“Let’s just say that she is too blinded by her own problems to see that maybe training with Andrew might be as rewarding to him as it would be to you,” his mother said. Chase understood, but that only left him more discouraged. 

“And none of them are going to understand unless they talk,” Chase said. Seeing the dejected look on his son’s face, Iris looked to be thinking a while before her face lit up. Leaving the living room, she rummaged through the stuff at the back of the house before coming back with a three-hand sickle.

“If she doesn’t see that she’s blocking a fair trade, then make the trade anyway. Sure, she will be mad, but the worst she can do is say no.”