As we gathered outside I was still speechless with how badly I had misspoke. Evans, always a dutiful soldier, ordered the bow wielding woman to help cloak Rumble in the blanket. And so within a few minutes the formation was remade, with Evans, Rumble , and myself bringing up the rear.

The walk to the gates brought some questioning attention towards the lump of blankets walking through the streets, but nothing that slowed us down.

Upon leaving the gates and having made it a few minutes down the road past the crowd, Evans spoke up with a chuckling question. “So are your pick up lines as smooth as your hugs with Rumble?”

Within moments of Evans even starting his question, the entire squad burst out laughing. I even saw one of the heavily armored soldiers in front wipe his eyes from the laughter.

“It was a total slip of the tongue! I didn’t mean anything by it, for god’s sake I just got here!” I pleaded.

And all I got in return was a pat on the back by Evans followed by a phrase that went on to haunt me for years. “You have lived here for essentially 2 weeks, and yet you live with a pretty girl and have now publicly announced that you used a seconds’ bed… I’m sorry, but you will have to do something really awesome to make people forget about that!”

“I’m doomed aren’t I?” I asked no one in particular.

All I received in return was a burst of laughter from the squad.

The rest of the march home dragged by slowly with my face hot and my eyes glued to the ground as I thought about how badly my exit from town had played out. Within moments a better than expected trip to town, based on how I arrived there, had turned into one big regret. And so it was no surprise that I was the absolute last one in our group to notice a woman standing in the road up ahead waving at us.

With Rumble quickly discarding his cloak, he burst forward along the path towards the woman, whom had now caught my attention. Covered head to toe in dirt, both dry and wet, Mia was smiling and bracing for Rumble’s embrace.

Upon reaching Mia, Rumble quickly halted his charge before gently giving her a hug with happy emojis blotting out the top right of my vision. He then proceeded to bounce up and down before charging off again, but this time into the tall grass still common on my land.

Still quite a bit down the road and heading that way, more than one of the guards voiced a comment about how happy Rumble looked to be back, most of which went unheard as I crossed the boundary into my domain.

Having seen the box pop up in my vision I curiously opened it and was quickly overwhelmed by what I saw. There were notices about having had my domain established for more than a week, and for having an unselected domain trait to assign.

Opening the list of possible traits out of curiosity I was surprised to see only a few, all of which were great. With the knowledge that this choice was going to be a very important milestone in regards to my domain, I chose to select it later after having mulled over the options.

With the boxes minimized and my attention back on the walk, I noticed that we were barely 30 yards from Mia at this point. She shouted her greeting as she stood up from her seat on the small stones marking the boundaries of my land.

“I’m glad you are back! I wished Melissa would’ve sent word that you were being discharged today. She had said that she would…” Mia greeted as we closed the distance to within range of her running up for a hug.

“Well, I’m glad to be back! I am sorry that you had to deal with the business all alone, and especially since you had hurt your hands saving me.”

“I am glad that you came out of it okay. I would have been a mess if you had been more seriously injured than what you were! Not to mention that it has been quite the crazy week without my friends present.” Mia quickly asserted.

“Not to interrupt your reunion, but Ms. Mia, are there any monsters nearby that you know of? We are currently on patrol to help stamp down infestations, and we are more than willing to thin out any swarms nearby.” Evans quickly interjected as both mine and Mia’s mouths were open to continue our reunion.

As Mia started to speak, a torrent of sound started to crash through the tall grass towards us. As the sounds grew closer and the emojis in my vision started flashing, Rumble emerged carrying piles of dead monsters in both arms. Laying them along the path towards the shack like usual, Rumble turned around and charged back in.

“Well, yes there were. Those are the exact monsters plaguing me sir. The nasty creatures are venomous and poisonous! But as for anything that our little friend can’t handle? I do not believe that I have seen any.” Mia replied.

“I see, well then we better be off. We will head back this way in 4 days. Its our turn to do the long route for our patrol, so be safe and don’t be afraid to retreat towards town. With that said, Ms.Ashford, Mr. Wallace, I hope you both have a great day.” Evans said before turning to his squad and ordering his patrol to resume once again. With a final wave from Evans, they were off down the road.

“Remember, you are welcome here anytime!” I yelled at the unit as they briskly marched off to an unsung cadence.

Turning back to Mia, I was surprised by a tight hug and a joyful “I am so glad you are okay. I was really worried that night. You were all battered, bruised, burnt, and missing a significant amount of blood. I honestly thought you were going to die after the seeing the wall collapse onto you!”

“It still blows my mind hearing about all of the injuries I sustained. I really can’t wrap my head around it, I am glad that I had you to save me though. You really need more praise and rewards than I can offer, because after all that you still kept the farm up and running!”

“It is the least that I can do for you Brad. We are partners in business, there will be somedays that one of us can’t work and the other will have to bear the burden… It just came a little sooner than expected for my side of things. Besides, it is not like you do not pull your fair share. Rumble is your familiar and he keeps us safe for the most part and you prepared all the fields. All that I’ve had to do is to fight off a few monsters here and there while battling weeds and watering the plants. Our first major harvest is not until tomorrow and Old Sal had swung back by to help with fixing the shack with the boards he promised.”

“Really? I’ve been wondering about the home since everyone had told me that wall collapsed onto me and where you have been sleeping.. We should thank Old Sal later for his help. Its also a relief to know that I didn’t miss the harvest.”

“There have been small harvests, but this is the first major one. All of the plants will be ready with this one. And as for my sleeping arrangements, the first few nights after the attack I spent at the healer’s just like you did. But by the time I had gotten back, it was being taken care of by Sal. So for the most part I have been pretty safe. I wish we had known this before, but your home is considered a safe zone unless you lure the monster back to your home after having engaged them. There are apparently some exceptions to that, but they are mostly event related like storms.”

“I’m glad it seems that this has mostly worked out for the best, but I still wished we had known this prior to the attack. Well, now we know, and now we can plan better. I have been pretty passive since getting here, but now I have a goal and I plan to do better!”

“A goal? You mean farming was not your goal from the beginning?” Mia asked with her left eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Well I had goals, but nothing that really drove me. Now I have something that I must do. You saved me from the fire, so now I want to get strong enough to avoid that outcome in the future. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can save not only the farm from damage, but to be able to protect you from a larger threat the next time it presents itself.”