It was nearly dinner time as Arthur exited the town hall building and began heading to his and Tess' apartment. He hated that he missed lunch with his family, but at the same time he felt working to ensure their safety was important too. Thankfully he was able to relay to them through Sylvie that he was working through lunch. As he approached the building, he saw Curtis laying back on the steps with Grawder laying there as well.

"Good evening Curtis," Arthur greeted.

Curtis shot up to a seated position.

"Finally," he said tiredly. "Just the person I've been wanting to see."

"Well this must be good, I would have thought you would just go to your parents if you needed help," Arthur replied with an amused tone.

"I can't go to them about this," Curtis said nervously. "It's about Lilia."

Arthur nodded in understanding.

"Quick Sylvie, what's the deal with Curtis and Lilia? Why can't he talk to his parents about her?" Arthur asked quickly, as he couldn't remember anything more than they were dating.

"They're dating, and his father doesn't approve of her because she isn't a noble," Sylvie replied.

"Go on," Arthur said, trying to get to the point.

"Well you see, after hearing about her nearly getting killed, and how dangerous things are getting. I was hoping you could possibly come up with some excuse to bring her here for her own safety? I don't care if she gets mad at me, I just want her here and safe," Curtis pleaded.

Arthur appeared deep in thought as he considered his options.

"Haha, Our little Prince is looking for a booty call," Regis laughed.

"No, he cares about her. Weren't you listening? He just wants her to be safe," Sylvie argued.

"I kind of feel like I have a devil and angel on my shoulders," Arthur replied.

"Ooo, can I be the devil?" Regis asked excitedly.

"You already are," Sylvie commented.

"Hmmm. You know," Arthur said as his plan to help the Prince was forming. "I'm planning an operation that I was going to present to the council tomorrow."

"What kind of operation?"

"I can't go into details just yet, but I was planning to bring everyone I needed here to prepare. Which honestly could take months till we could go."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Yes, but it's nothing that Lilia can't handle, that is if she can complete the training. If she can't complete it I'd have to keep her here."

"I get it," Curtis replied then winked.

"No, no you don't. I mean what I say. There will be training, and if she genuinely can't reach the goals set for her, I won't bring her."

"Could I get in on this operation too?"

"This isn't some date night for you and Lilia. If anything goes wrong either one of you could die!" Arthur replied with a tinge of annoyance in his voice as he remembered how this operation played out in the last timeline.

"I get it," Curtis said defensively as he raised his hands up in front of him. "I've just been benched for most of the war. I've just reached the light yellow stage, I can contribute. It's just, no one gives me a chance to prove myself. So if Lilia goes, not only can I make sure she's safe, but also prove that I'm more than just a Prince."

Arthur just stared at him. His reasoning was annoying, but he agreed it really was a waste to keep a young mage of his caliber from fighting.

"Fine. I'll add you and Lilia to the list. It may be a while before she gets here though. I'm not sure where she is, or how long it'll take to gather everyone."

"Thank you so much," Curtis replied as he gave his friend a big hug. "I owe you one." And with that Curtis and Grawder ran back inside.

In all honesty he had already planned to bring Lilia to the sanctuary for this operation, but there was no need for Curtis to know that. With the future so uncertain, it was a good idea to have the future king of Sapin feeling indebted to him.

"Oh Arthur," Curtis called as he stepped back outside. "I've got something for you and Tess. Call it an engagement gift."

He held out red covered book.

"Oh, thanks." Arthur accepted the book and noticed there wasn't a title. "Umm, what's this book called?"

"The book is only part of the gift," Curtis said with a smirk. "Open it."

Arthur did as he was told. The pages had been cut out to be used to hide things, in this case what appeared to be rubber strips. Arthur picked one up and froze as he realized they weren't strips, but sleeves.

"What is this?"

Curtis smiled proudly. "An artifactor at Lancer made them, he calls them pregnancy preventers."

"Hahaha! They invented condoms! Yes!" Regis laughed hysterically.

Sylvie remained silent with mixed feelings about this.

"I know elves have this whole deal about waiting till marriage, but if you two are sharing a room, at least this way if your urges get the better of you at least you don't need to worry about an unplanned pregnancy ratting you out," Curtis explained.

Before Arthur could even process this information, and elderly hand reached over and snatched the condoms away.

"They won't be needing these," Virion stated as he held the condoms, then glared down at Curtis. "Now I suggest you don't ever bring these up again, unless you want me to charge you with attempting to murder future members of the royal family?"

"Won't happen again commander," Curtis replied in a panic, and ran back inside.

"I want you to wait till marriage, but if you don't, I also don't want you to try and hide it from me. If Tess gets pregnant she gets pregnant, and both of our families will be overjoyed."
—————————————————————-

Arthur walked up the stairs to his apartment, as the recent talk with Curtis, and words from Virion ran through his head. Did he want to give in to his desires? Or continue the path he was following before turning back time? Ultimately he decided to just see how everything went. He wasn't going to do anything that could be seen as him pressuring her, but he wouldn't do anything to stop it if the mood struck them.

He arrived at the apartment and walked inside, only to find it was empty.

"Tess? Are you here?" Arthur called out.

"Brother."

Arthur turned around and walked back into the hall to see Ellie in the doorway to her and their mother's apartment.

"We're all over here making dinner, come on."

Arthur walked in to see a very wholesome sight, his mother and Tess working together to make dinner.

"Hello everyone," Arthur greeted.

Alice and Tess both turned around smiling. Tess put her spoon down and rushed to him. She had changed out from her armor that she was wearing and was now wearing a short sleeve grey and white dress. When she arrived she wrapped her arms around Arthur's neck and kissed him.

"Welcome back," she greeted with a warm smile.

"With that I feel completely recharged after having to work with the council all day," Arthur replied, then leaned in and kissed her again.

"So are we going to have to deal with seeing you two being all lovey dovey from now on?" Ellie questioned. "Because if so I think it's time you let me have a boyfriend."

Arthur gave a big grin. "You can have a boyfriend if he can beat me in a duel, or two days after I'm dead, just to make sure I'm dead."

"No fair! I have a sword wielding monster for a brother, there's no one alive that could beat you, let alone kill you!" Ellie shouted in frustration.

"Well then you'll never have a boyfriend. Oh, I like that."

"Tess, pry yourself off my son for a minute and come back here to help me. Arthur, be nice to your sister," Alice said with a laugh, completely amused with her childrens behavior.

"I'm just protecting her. Boys her age are disgusting little trolls."

"I recall you being her age once before," Tess chimed in from the stove. "And I don't think I would have described you like that."

Arthur started walking over.

"Well there's a reason for that. I was raised by an amazing mother." Arthur then gave his mother a hug and kissed her cheek.

"Haha, I feel like you're buttering me up for something," Alice said with a laugh. "Your father used to..."

Alice paused as tears started to well up in her eyes from thinking about Reynolds.

"Hey, why don't I take over," Arthur suggested as he placed a comforting hand on Alice's shoulder.

Alice shook her head. "No, I'm ok."

"Maybe so, but I recall telling you I would be making dinner tonight," Arthur replied.

"Yeah but if we waited on you to get back we would've fallen asleep before dinner was ready," Ellie chortled.

"She has just become my second favorite person," Regis commented.

"At least we can agree on something," Sylvie added.

"Arthur, you can cook tomorrow. I've been enjoying cooking with Tess."

"Ok," Arthur conceded, and went to join Ellie.

Instead of a table a blanket was laid out for them to sit on. Ellie was already sitting on the blanket, with Boo sitting behind her chomping away on a large hunk of meat with a bone sticking out. Arthur then sat down on the side of the blanket opposite her.

"You know this kind of feels like a picnic," Arthur commented as he sat down.

"That's what I was going for," Ellie replied with a proud smile. "Oh, I remember this one time last spring when mom and dad came to visit..." Ellie started sobbing. "We were..(sniff) going to have a picnic. (Hic hic) dad was trying to carry everything...(sniff). He dropped a pie and it...(sniff)." Ellie smiled as tears continued to stream down her cheeks. "The pie landed on Boo's head." She buried her face in her hands and she continued sobbing uncontrollably.

Arthur came around across the blanket and took her in his arms, and she began sobbing into his shoulder. Alice came over and held them both as all three of them cried.

Tess bit her lip as she tried to keep herself from crying also while standing by the stove. For the last few years the Leywin's had become like a second family to her, and she wanted nothing more than to help them all feel better. She wanted to go to them, but right now she felt like an outsider, and decided the best thing she could do right now was give them their moment to mourn.

A little while later everyone had calmed down, and Tess and Alice were pulling stone bowls from the counter and filling them with a beef stew.

"Here you go," Tess said to Arthur as she handed him his bowl and sat down. "We tried to make your favorite beef stew, but all we had was dried beef."

"Not even the kitchen staff had any?" Arthur asked.

"They didn't bring any meat since they didn't know if they could store food safely," Alice replied.

"Then how did Boo get fresh meat?" Arthur asked, eyeing the large bear.

"Somebody decided to go exploring," Alice replied, glaring daggers at Ellie.

"We didn't actually leave the town, we just happened to see a mana beast while we were walking," Ellie stated, trying to sound innocent.

"No, you were warned about the beasts. Yet you still went out there alone," Alice said as her voice started to crack. "What would I do if I lost you too?"

Ellie just looked down, unable to make eye contact due to how guilty she was feeling.

"Who knows how long we'll be stuck here, I just wanted to try and be helpful. And I wasn't alone, Boo was with me," Ellie replied, still avoiding eye contact.

Alice wanted to say something, but in her current state she found it hard to argue with her. When the war started she and Reynolds had left both of their children behind so they could in a small way contribute to the war effort. Despite Arthur not really changing much, Ellie did. She had become much more confident, as well as stronger. During their brief visits to the academy they didn't really notice, but now it was clear Ellie wasn't just a little girl anymore. She had grown into a skilled combat mage, who was far more powerful than most older mages were at that age.

Finding herself at a loss, she turned to Arthur who was on the other side of her.

"Arthur, how dangerous are those beasts?" Alice asked.

"Ranged attacking from inside the town, with Boo by her side she should be fine. But the problem is when you go to collect your kill. If that beast wasn't alone you would have been in trouble."

"But Boo..."

"Is only one. He can't necessarily protect you if you're being attacked from all sides," Arthur argued.

Ellie looked down sadly, having not realized the danger she could have been in. Tess put a hand on her back in a comforting manner, then looked to Arthur with a look that told him to do something to make her feel better.

"But, I guess that's stuff you really only learn from experience," Arthur said, as he tried to think of a way to make her actually feel better. Then an idea hit him. "You know, those beasts are a threat. We can't do much now, but a request for more guards was put out. So in a week or two we'll probably have the numbers to send out hunting parties to exterminate them." Arthur looked to Alice. "So if Mom is ok with it, when these hunting parties start going out, maybe I can arrange for you to go out with a properly equipped and manned team."

"Mom?" Ellie asked with a pleading expression.

Alice sighed.

"These guards will be able to protect her while doing their job right?"

"If not, I suspect Mica will be going hunting too. She's not much of one for devising strategies, or doing anything that doesn't have much to do with actually using magic. I could always ask her to join too if I'm busy."

Alice remained silent for a few seconds, building anticipation for her response.

"Fine."

"Thank you!" Ellie replied as she gave her mother a big hug.

"But only with the guards or a Lance with you," Alice reminded her.

"So Arthur," Alice started, wanting to think about something other than Ellie hunting wild beasts.

"When did you get a tattoo?" She asked in a motherly judgmental tone.

"Yeah, and did I see right? It looked like you stored my bag in there," Ellie added.

Arthur ate a bite of stew, and swallowed, building anticipation as his mother and sister stared at him.

"A little while back I discovered a remnant of the ancient mages."

At those words both Ellie and Alice were in complete shock with their attention completely on him. Tess was also listening carefully. Even though Arthur had already told her so much, she knew he probably skipped some details.

"Before the ancient mages died off some of them were smart enough to place their consciousness in crystals. I found one and it gave me this," Arthur said as he lifted his arm to show his rune. "It's not actually a tattoo. It's a storage rune that works similar to a dimensional ring."

"Oh wow," Ellie exclaimed. "Do you think you could get him, her, the crystal to give me one too?"

Arthur shook his head. "I was only allowed to find it, because I also have an affinity to aether, the magic that was used by the ancient mages." Arthur looked to his mother. "It seems our family had an ancient mage in it about a thousand years back."

Everyone looked at Arthur in disbelief at this revelation, even Tess, who was hearing this part for the first time.

"Anyway, on top of that he gave me an artifact to help me learn how to use aether."

"Is that how you created that portal? A spell using aether?" Alice asked.

Arthur nodded. "Aether magic is very different from using mana. Aether arts require understanding, insight into what you want to achieve. That portal requires me to have insight into space, but it's also not perfect. I can only create a portal to someplace I can picture in my head." Arthur pulled the black stone he used to check on his family in the last timeline. "That's where this comes in. If I channel aether into this artifact I can see anyone I think hard about."

There was more discussion about Arthur's new affinity and new spells. Arthur couldn't bear to tell his mother and sister the whole truth, they didn't need to know how much he suffered or the hell he came from. So he spun a series of half truths and complete lies to explain everything.

—————————————————————-

Back in their apartment after having dinner with Alice and Ellie, Arthur stood menacingly in the doorway to their bedroom with a sound dampening spell containing the room. The reason for Arthur standing there like that was simple, Regis. He sat in clear view of Arthur in his own room staring Arthur down.

Even though there had been no communication about it, Arthur could feel Regis' strong desire to go into their room as Tess was changing into her nightgown. It didn't take a genius to figure it out, Regis wanted to see Tess with as little clothes on as possible. Statistically Arthur knew it was inevitable, but he wasn't going to allow his horny sentient weapon to get what he wanted that easy. As for the sound barrier...

"Are you sure it's ok to lie to your family?" Tess asked as she changed her clothes.

"Trust me I don't like it. It's been killing me for years as I made up excuses for everything I could do, but my mom isn't in a good place right now. The last thing she needs is to know about the other timeline, or how I was tortured, and especially not how I'm now part Asura."

"I get that it would be kind of hard to explain that part without telling her about everything else, but why not especially that?"

"My mother knows about my reincarnation. It's been a long road to repair our relationship after I dropped that on her and my father. We're in a good place now, I don't want to lose that again."

"Again?"

"In the last timeline I skipped my father's funeral because I blamed myself and I thought she blamed me too. We didn't really get to fix all our issues before I ended up in Alacrya, and it became even worse after I came back part Asura."

"I don't understand how being part Asura changes anything? You still look the same."

"Though I may look like this now, in the previous timeline my appearance completely changed after Sylvie used her spell."

"What do you mean?" Tess asked curiously not believing how much Arthur's appearance could change.

"Blonde wheat hair, golden eyes, cream white skin and a sharp feminine face which was way cuter than you. Where do you think the nickname princess came from?" Regis chimed from his room.

"When I returned back to Dicathen No one recognized me at first. Though after some time of starring mom, Ellie and Gramps recognized me. Gramps and Ellie didn't find it difficult to accept, but the same couldn't be said for mom. After my appearance completely changed she found it difficult to accept me. She tried her best but she couldn't." Arthur paused for a second before continuing "In the end I had to distance myself from her and Ellie too, since if I wanted to protect them I needed to get in the last Relictombs. So I unwillingly distance myself."

Arthur's fists were tightly clenched remembering that time when his relationship with his mother was completely ruined. Suddenly he felt a warm feeling around him as Tess wrapped him in an embrace. Arthur could tell she was crying since he felt her tears on his back.

"I think I get it," she replied as she wiped her tears. "But be careful with lies. I get why you felt you had to before, but they already know about your past life, so maybe this won't be that big of a deal."

"First, Ellie doesn't know, and I'd like to keep it that way, at least for now." Arthur turned around to face her, and wrapped his arms around her. "And maybe you're right about my mom, but with just losing my dad, I don't want to add any more worry than I need to. I'll come clean one day, but for now I need to protect her."

"Ok, as long as you promise to tell her the truth one day," Tess said in a scolding voice.

"Yes dear," Arthur replied with a beaten down voice as he smirked.

He then kissed her as he swept her off her feet, and continued kissing her as he laid her down on the bed.

"I really hope these sheets will keep us warm enough," Tess commented after breaking the kiss, and getting under the covers.

"Then I guess I better hold you extra close," Arthur replied flirtatiously.

Tess' eyes widened as her cheeks burned a bright red. Arthur chuckled at her reaction.

"Well, in case that's not enough," Arthur said while walking to his trunk, and pulled out a mountain elephant blanket. "I'm sure you remember this."

"Is that the same blanket from when we were all adventures?" Tess asked in disbelief, while also remembering how in that dungeon they used that blanket, Arthur told her that he loved her for the very first time.

"The one and only," Arthur replied as he dropped the blanket over her.

Tess loved all of this affection, but it also made her heart ache. This was a very big jump for him, and she was confident she knew the cause. After losing everyone he loved in the previous timeline, he now treasured them all even more. In the case of Tess, this meant him expressing all the affection she could ever want. Knowing this, she vowed to herself that she would do everything she could to make him as happy as he can be.

Arthur canceled his sound spell as he climbed into bed and cuddled close.

"Goodnight, sweet dreams," Tess said as she snuggled close.

Arthur then held her even closer.

"You are my sweet dream."