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Penelope and Alois "Oh, go an' blow a flabby one, ye pinprick-pinteled wandought," the maid spat crudely. If looks could kill, she'd have speared him through already. Fortunately for Alois, he remained intact and whole. Unfortunately for him, the maid found her second wind shortly after. Fueled by frustration and anger, she used Alois's momentary lapse of attention to her advantage. The woman heaved the fighter off of her and regained her feet. "I ain't 'ave time fer ye two, so I'll jest be on me way. Ye gots yer answers, so leave me be, an' I'll do ye the same." The maid hared out the door, swerving around Penelope, the sudden motion causing a flurry of activity from the pigeons in the dovecote. It would be difficult to follow her through the hail of birds. Gunther, Citron, Raki, and Peaches Luckily for Peaches, with Citron leading the way, and Gunther, Raki, and the villagers helping, the operation went without a hitch. The arrow was out, and the biggest danger had passed. Despite the wyvern's body still being injured, sore, and weak, the sharp pain that had wracked her chest had lessened slightly. All that remained was to wait for recovery. The bandages would need to be changed out for fresh ones every so often, and the wound checked in case infection set in. But that was, at least, familiar territory for most of them. When Citron expressed her gratitude, Thile grinned. "Oh, t'was no problem a'all. Us Phar folks, we git things done." "Right glad I am t'see the wyvern's doin' all right. Wouldn't be right t'see one o'em go. T'would be a bad omen, 'em being so alike to—" Achos wiped his brow. "Aye," Pheodea spoke over him. "I'm sure it would. But for now, we should focus on cleaning up the area." The older woman turned to Raki. "I don't know how you got here, and I don't know what your purpose is, but anybody who would help a creature in need like that is somebody I'm willing to trust. If you do no harm to Phar, then no harm will come to you here neither." The weaver smiled momentarily at him before purposefully turning her back to the Isaurian and barking out orders to the other villagers. "Clean up the area. Any sharp pieces need to be cleaned up, sharpish. Make sure all the blood is gone, or it'll attract flies. Gather up all the cloths." When one of them gave her a sullen look, she shook her head. "Don't look at me! I'm just an old woman! You're lucky my old bones even made it over here." Link, Tsetseg, Cora, and Garinphasia Tsetseg's arrow struck true, and Gaston staggered with a cry like a wounded beast. "Oh, woe is me! Lackaday, for I have been besieged most aggressively by these foul ruffians." A mad glint came into his eyes then. "But ho, there is yet promise." He stumbled forward, angling toward his horse. Were Link or Cora to approach him, he would ignore both. Meanwhile, his horse, still galloping, veered to the side to avoid Garinphasia, running over her tail. Spittle flew from the horse's mouth as it turned, aiming away from the trees and toward open land. Where Gaston stood, arms outstretched, though one of them was bent at an odd angle. "You will cessate now! For your master! You are but a mere beast, and I, a hunter of beasts. I, Lord Pylauses Gaston, commendate you!" When it became apparent the horse would not stop, his brow furrowed, and with his good hand, he grabbed hold of the animal by the neck, forcing it to a stop in front of him. The man laughed wildly. "Yes! Yes! If you shall not acquiesce, then I must bring you to heel. Now, let us go!" Once more, he attempted to get back astride the horse.

Training was. Well. It was not going well. Belle was out of shape. And even worse, she was holding the others back. As she trained with the others, a decision she had been avoiding previously grew impossible to ignore. 'I have to leave.' The others would not approve of the decision. Part of her agreed with them. But it was necessary. She had grown to care (somewhat) for the other two. This was as much for their sake as it was for hers. By the time they arrived at the day care, Belle was dragging. She said little to the others, simply nodding her head when addressed. If anybody directly asked her a question, she would grunt, giving off an unapproachable atmosphere. And when both Nate and Quinn were suitably distracted by Billy, she took out a piece of paper and wrote, crossing out some words and wishing she had chosen a pencil instead of a pen to write with. Her chest hurt, and her eyes stung a little, but that was fine. Things weren't okay now, but they would be soon.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. -James 1:17 (NIV)It was better than Melissa had expected, at least. That could be said for a lot of things, but first and foremost it was for Fiona’s eventual reaction. She’d gone through a wide range of emotions, but she pretended to be a graceful loser, and in the end, her actions mattered more than what was going through her head. The same, of course, could not be said for Melissa herself, who was already mentally reprimanding herself for feeling so much pride over her victory. It didn’t matter what she did, because she knew she could potentially feel differently. The feeling did not dissipate, though. Melissa couldn’t help it. Both she and Fen had fought hard for their victory. “Good game,” Melissa said to Fen as well. “Like I said, you had to save me more than once there -- I’m sorry I wasn’t able to return the favor in the end. But that’s Duel Monsters- er, that’s Yu-Gi-Oh! and that’s how serious some people can get about it, including, I guess, me at the end there. Um.” Technically, she was an entertainment duelist in training, but in the heat of the moment, she had regressed into that old “get this over with as fast as possible” style. Maybe some of that had been purposeful. After all, she didn’t want to make it seem like she was slow-rolling a victory, pretending like she couldn’t see a line. “I hope you had fun through all of that,” Melissa said. “It was… It was interesting to see all these old cards again. I already have some ideas for what I want to do with my deck. Back on my world, it was more acceptable to purchase single cards instead of cracking packs and hoping, but let’s see what Fiona gave us.” She adjusted her chair and remembered her coffee, taking a sip of it before picking up one of the packs and examining it in her hands. Everyone she knew had a different way to crack a pack. Melissa’s preferred method was to tug at the little crease at the top and pull it apart like it was a bag of chips. It didn’t always work, but this one came apart easily enough. As expected, most of it was chaff. Vanilla monsters that didn’t even have better stats than the ones already in her deck, some spells like Moonyan Curry that were outclassed by, like, five other cards Melissa could think of off the top of her head (and she wasn’t about to play any of those cards either). There was one that did catch her eye, though. “Master of Ham… This could fit in your food deck,” Melissa joked as she pulled the card in front of it away. Then she saw the art. “Oh, it’s ‘Ham’ for ‘Hamster.’” It had an interesting effect, but she had neither the Polymerization nor the Beast monsters required to summon it. “I suppose we should hold onto whatever we can get right now,” she said. They stayed a bit longer there in the café together, finishing up their drinks and talking if either of them cared for talking more, but Melissa’s thoughts drifted back to their apartment in general and Bartleby in specific. “I hope he hasn’t gotten into any trouble in our absence,” Melissa said. “And Trevor is surely finished with his errand, maybe he went back as well if he didn’t have anything else to do. I’d like to explore the other parts of the city that Fiona mentioned, but that should probably be another day.” She stood up and pushed in her chair. “Shall we?”