Hours came and went. A soft, grey light leaked into the tavern through its slatted windows. The sun rose from the east. The tavern had mostly cleared out when the first hints of dawn crept upon them. Those Aelurians who'd been enraptured in their game of tokens had left after their third playthrough of the game. And then, not long after their departure, the others started to file out. The last to leave was Petrious and Eligan. They didn't say anything as they left, or in Eligan's case as he stumbled out, though Petrious had given them a nod.

Margo had become the mouse equivalent of incredibly drunk after she started on her second jug of scrub, and feeling braver than normal, she raised her jug toward the Wanesguard captain, lifting it high and then giving him a salute, her other arm pounded into her chest. Eligan had snarled at her but Petrious had remained calm. Abby had just been happy they'd left.

She heaved her head into her palm and rested her elbow against the table."What are we waiting for?" She sighed.

Abby had asked this question many times throughout the night. And depending on the various stages of Margo's drunkenness had gotten varying answers. A sober Margo had told her someone, but nothing specific. A slightly buzzed Margo had answered the question by telling Abby it was one of her friends, who, she was certain had a crush on her since they were in first cycle together.

As the night went on, and the scrub continued to smoke and flow into Margo's mouth, her answers became more bizarre. At a point where Abby was convinced Margo was thoroughly drunk, Margo had answered the question saying, "Al' kabetz," while sitting on Sebbi's shoulders and tugging on his ears. It took both Lucy and Abby to convince him not to tear Margo's head off with his teeth.

But this hadn't been Margo at her most drunk. That had came later when Abby saw the sun bob above the horizon. She'd asked her question again, still wanting to know who they were waiting for, not really expecting an answer, but she'd gotten one this time around. Margo'd told them they were waiting on Hestor, that he came bearing news, and that one way or another, they'd proceed with the plan to put one of the Crescent Moon bloodline back on the throne."

This had been the truth. Margo had gone past mumbling gibberish and straight into revealing the truth. Lucy jumped at the opportunity to get the tiny mouse-woman to divulge all her secrets.

"Who's the most handsome creature you've ever laid eyes on?" he asked.

Margo grinned, her body slumped over the table. "The Wizard Kellog," she said without skipping a beat.

Lucy's face fell because it obviously wasn't the answer he wanted. Abby chuckled and patted his back. "I've seen his picture, he's quite rugged."

Lucy placed his head in his hand. "Sure, rugged works for some but," he ran a hand down his arm. "Have you ever seen fur as soft and shiny as this?"

Abby nodded toward Sebbi. "Well," she started, but Lucy threw his head down on the table.

"Enough," he said, his voice hushed. "I admit defeat."

The sound of the door being slammed shut gave them all a jump. Even the bartender who'd fallen asleep on the bar top, rag in hand, drool on the tips of his whiskers, jostled awake and almost knocked over a shelf of dusty brown bottles. They all looked toward the door, and backlit by the emerging sun, stood a young man who could have passed for Margo's twin. His skin was just as brown as hers, with that distinct golden shimmer. His eyes were brown instead of her blue, matching the sea of chestnut ringlets that framed his small head. He brushed something off the shoulders of his long blue coat before Margo raised a hand in the air, a gesture completely pointless given they were the only ones left in the bar.

"Hestor," she called, waving toward the other fairy-though-not-quite presence in the room.

Hestor smiled as his eyes landed on Margo, then he grew shocked, his eyes going wide as saucers as he bounded over to the table and caught sight of Lucy and Sebbi. He didn't really seem to mind Abby at all.

"Is that them?" he asked in a hushed voice of excitement.

Margo nodded.

"That's really them?" Hestor plopped himself down close to Lucy and leaned over and up, trying to get a good look under his hood. Gently, Lucy pushed the boy away with his hand. Startled, the boy sat back, his cheeks going red.

"I'm sorry," he said, placing his coat on the table. "But I..." he looked toward Margo, "When Liessie said she would find you, I never thought--"

Lucy's ears perked up. "Liessie? You call her Liessie?"

Hestor shook his head. "We've been friends since first cycle. She'll always be little Liessie the bookworm."

Margo cleared her throat. "I'm Margoliesse now, wizardess."

"Practicing wizardess," Hestor reminded her. She harrumphed. "Unless you found time to get your license at the Wizard Kellog's School for Magicks. You didn't though, did you? We were told to take this seriously."

Margo shushed the boy. "I didn't go to the school," she frowned. "It was too far away anyway. What did you find out?"

Hestor scrunched his nose. A very fine set of white whiskers bobbed up and down on either side of his nose. "I managed to get in," he whispered.

Margo leaned forward and Abby, Lucy, and Sebbi followed suit.

Hestor continued. "Calleighdia's there," he said. "With the fh'ang."

Margo played with the cuff of her sleeve. "You think they're working together? For the shadow king?"

Hestor shook his shoulders. "Maybe, maybe not. But, Liessie, he said," his shoulders shaking. "I found something out."

Margo was all ears. "What?"

Hestor looked back toward the bar. The barkeeper had gone back to his old position taking a nice nap on his bar top. Hestor turned back toward them and in the lowest voice he could, he whispered, "He's alive. They kept him alive."

Margo's eyes grew wide. She fell back like a gust had knocked her over. She didn't speak. Neither did Hestor. Abby watched Margo, watched her shoulders stiffen, her lips pull into a straight line. Who was still alive? And why was it such a big deal?

After a few minutes more of silence, Margo decided on something. "We need to fetch him."

Hestor, almost as if he knew this would come, shook his head furiously. "No, it's too dangerous."

"We need him," she said, her face grim. "Besides," she looked toward Sebbi and Lucy. "He'll protect them, he took an oath."

Hestor protested. "You think cycles of torture won't break a man's will? Or his mind? There's no way he'll help us."

"He will when he sees them."

Sebbi growled and slammed his fist on the table. "Enough already. Who's this he?"

Margo sat back in her seat. "He's Lain, former Delhen of the Octurian Wanesguard," Abby's skin prickled at the mention of another Wanesguard, but Margo continued, "He was the personal guardsman to your mother and if my history is correct, he's also the one who brought you safely into Exul and left you with Abby."

For the first time in her life, Abby wondered why she never really thought about the circumstances surrounding the night she'd found Sebbi and Lucy outside her window. At the time, it hadn't seemed all that strange. That night Abby'd sought comfort downstairs in the form of M,imi's homemade buttered biscuits. She'd fallen asleep by the hearth, her belly full and when she awoke again, it'd been because she'd heard tapping on the window.

She'd gotten up, checked the window, and heard crying. Abby would never forget the sound, animals crying themselves to sleep - it'd reminded her of the times she'd done this, when the thoughts of her mother became too much. Well, after that, Abby'd plucked a candle off the windowsill and had gone outside, disobeying yet another one of Mimi's house rules, and found two black newborn kittens lying in the dirt.

She'd waited with them for their mom to come back, but she never had and knowing what that felt like, Abby'd brought them inside, just as a bolt of lightning arched across the sky. Come to think of it, that night had been strange. Abby didn't remember a storm, just that single bolt of lightning racing across the sky as dawn approached.

And that'd been how she'd found Lucy and Sebbi. She never thought any more of it, until now. Now, there was this Lain, a guardsman, a Wanesguard, who had transported these princes to her land, who had placed them under her window. Why? Why her window?

"Why Abby's window?" Lucy asked, giving voice to the question that Abby herself couldn't speak.

Margo furrowed her brow. Something deep inside Abby told her the mouse-girl hadn't really been expecting this question. "Dunno," she said, curling a whisker around her forefinger. "Coincidence, I think." She shrugged.

"You're telling me this Lain tossed us under some window on a whim?" Sebbi snapped, running a nail along the wooden table.

Margo nodded. "Seems so."

Sebbi dragged his entire hand across the tabletop, carving grooves into the wood with his nails. They became part of withstanding portrait started by other restless patrons of the tavern. Most were grooves like Sebbi's, but others had more artistic flair, their gouges in the wood depicting flowers and trees, and few unflattering stick figures of other Aelurians. Abby could swear one of those drawings depicted their Aelurian waitress from last night.

"Then why should we save someone who left us to die?"

Hestor looked nervously at the door, at the light that came streaming into the dank room through the slatted windows. He shook his hand at Sebbi, pleading with the large and angry cat-man to keep his voice down. "Please, your highness, indoor voice."

Sebbi glared at the meek mouse-boy that could have frozen the sun. It gave Abby shivers and she wasn't even on the receiving end of such a look. If there had been a class that taught grumpy glares, Sebbi would have gotten top marks.

Abby tried to stifle her laughter, but a brief giggle made its way past her closed lips. All eyes turned on her. "Sorry," she said, placing her head down against the table. It felt cool against her cheek. "I know it's not the right time to laugh but Sebbi--" she paused to look at him, before continuing, "he made such a face. I couldn't help myself."

Lucy broke out into laughter. "He did, didn't he love?" he said between chuckles. "And the little mouse boy had chided him... oh, what did he say?"

Hands clasped together, Hestor raised his head to speak. "I told his Highness, to use his indoor voice, you other highness."

Lucy's eyes glimmered as he recalled the words. "Use your indoor voice," he mimicked. "Just great." With a large hand, he patted Hestor on the back. The boy blushed and eyed him in awe.

Sebbi snarled and hissed and dug his nails further into the table, almost as if he was threatening to cut it in half, or worse he was imagining someone lying underneath those sharp claws of his.

Abby sat upright and placed a hand over top Sebbi's. "It's alright," she paused to smile, even as Sebbi looked at her as though she was doing the strangest thing. She stroked his hand like she would have his head, or back when he'd been little and if he'd ever allowed her. "Mimi used to chide me all the time for never using my indoor voice."

She looked away. Traitorous little tears were threatening to fall. She could feel them building, rising over the dam she had built up until they would spill. Not here, she thought. Not now.

Sebbi yanked his hand from under hers and looked away. The silence was back, a looming presence that blanketed all of them in cold, miserable feelings. As always, Margo was the one to break it.

"We need Lain," she said simply. "So we rescue him."

Lucy raised an eyebrow, or more accurately, the fur above his right eye. "We?" he asked, pointing to himself, then Abby, and finally Sebbi. "Us? Help you?" He leaned in closer to Margo, a full head over her own, bathing the small woman in his shadow. "And why would we do that?"

Margo sighed, exhausted of always having to answer questions and never ask any. "Because we're going to put one of your big butts on the throne and we say that we need Lain to do that." She flashed just a bit of fang, something Abby had never seen her do until now. And though her fangs were much smaller, much daintier than what resided in most Aelurian mouths, the fact that she had done so, was a much bigger, more real threat.

"We don't want to be king," Sebbi said.

Lucy nodded. "For once, we agree. We want to go home with Abby."

The girl perked up at this. Yes, she thought. Go home. I want to go home, back to land with a green sea and a pale yellow moon. Back to Simon and the other dying persimmon groves. Back to Crum, hopefully, and Alfren too. She wanted to see normal sized flowers and regular beaches. Not the monster's mouths and grinning blossoms she'd found here. And with Sebbi and Lucy too. That's what she'd wanted. She'd wanted to find them and then leave. They wanted that too. And sure, they'd be a little hard not to miss considering their height, their width, and well, their everything, but surely there was a small place of the world, of her world, that could be theirs.

Surely...

Margo shook her head. "You might not want to rule here. But you will, it's your birthright. And one of you needs to claim it." She leaned in close. "Aelurus is not the same as it was when your mother sat in the throne. A shadow's fallen over this place." The last sentence she barely spoke above a whisper.

Her words echoed in Abby's mind. What did she mean? And why did it have to be one of Abby's cats? Why not another Aelurian? Surely there were a few who wanted to be king.

Margo grabbed Abby's hand and squeezed. "Please, Miss Abby. Whatever bad magick wove its way throughout your house, has its roots in Aelurus."

Sharp pangs stabbed at Abby's chest. How could she sit back and do nothing? But then again, how could she stand and do something? She was thirteen and half as tall as any average Aelurian. They had swords and teeth and all the sharp edges and she, she had her pair of muddied ivory slippers and they weren't enough. Not here, not when faced with real danger.

Margo tightened her grip. "We get one of your cats on the throne, whatever's poisoned Aelurus will weaken. I promise, Miss, afterward, I'll take you home."

The words were stuck in Abby's throat. Suddenly, she wished she'd drank some of the smoking scrub that had been on the table because she felt like she'd been trekking across the desert for days without any water. She didn't have to speak though, Lucy spoke for her.

"Fine," he said. "But nothing happens to Abby. If you can promise me that, and keep your promise, I'll agree."

"And if I can't?"

Lucy's lips parted into a wild smile. "Then I'll let my brother eat you."

To everyone's shock, Margo beamed at this. "What a poor promise maker you are," she said, taking up his hand and shaking it in her own, "I always meant to keep Abby safe. She's my favorite out of you lot. You just agreed to the terms I already had in mind."

Margo leaped up from the table, and stood next to Sebbi, arm outstretched. "And what about you? Have any demands?"

Sebbi shook his head and begrudgingly placed his hand in hers. "Just keep her safe," he said in a low voice.

Abby blushed at hearing her cats speaking up for her safety.

Before long, Margo was in front of Abby, hand outstretched. She looked at her with a bright, cheerful smile. "Well? Trust me enough to keep you safe?"

Abby did. In fact, she entrusted all of them to keep her safe. She grimaced. "You shouldn't have to keep me safe. I should be able to do that myself."

Margo grabbed her hand and placed it on her own. "We all have our strengths. Mine's magick. Sebbi's is his teeth and claws. And Lucy," she paused here for a moment and then, after taking a sideways glance at the cat-man in question continued, "Lucy's is his ugliness."

Before Lucy could mutter a word of protest Margo continued on, her eyes looking only at Abby. "I'm sure in time, you'll find your strength. But until then, let those people who love you, protect you. For now."

Abby stopped shaking Margo's hand. And before her mind could grasp what she was doing, she had a surprised mouse-woman caught in her embrace. For a second, for just a split second, Abby had forgotten she still had people who loved her. They were furrier now, and bigger, and one of them was much angrier, but there they were, all here. Alive.

Family. Abby still had a family.

And Hestor. He was nice enough, she supposed.

"So what's next?"

Margo slipped through Abby's arms and turned to face the group. "You," she looked at Hestor, "go home." Hestor couldn't hide his disappointment as a frown as wide as his head made its way onto his face.

"And what'll you do, Liesse?"

"We'll break into the castle."

Abbernathy Fun Fact 5: The people in Mirea really can't do magick. They mine the ground for what's called lyren stone, which contains veins of the last remnants of Exul's magick. They use these stones to have the appearance of magick. The stones are crushed and used to make potions and tonics, or inks so you can write minor incantations. There's also alchemy, which in Abby's world isn't transmuting two objects into a different one entirely, but more like altering an object's base state. Think, upgrading your wizard's intelligence and armor so she's even more powerful in rift runs.

Anyway, it works like that. The stones are worked into steel to make it even stronger, enhancing its durability to last ages. Trains in Mirea run on enhanced coal - one lump can fuel a round trip from Mirea to the Southern Continent and back again. This idea of magick being used in small doses and to enhance other objects, was present in the story the moment I thought of it.