Luther's Adventure Log

Good Morning, Luther

"Dad! Dad, get up! It's morning!" Gillian laughed, jumping on my chest. I had been punched through solid marble by demons, thrown into mountains by Dragons, and once, famously had my heart torn out of my chest. A six year old girl jumping on my chest was only a mild annoyance.

"I'll get up when I'm ready." I grumbled, rolling over.

"Mom! Mom, wake up! It's morning!" Gillian said, crawling over me to shake Monica awake.

"Gillian, sweetie, we've talked about this." Monica said groggily, grabbing the little girl and holding her close. "Mommy and Daddy need their sleep."

"But it's morning!" Gillian protested in her shrill, childish voice, pointing at the sunlight filtering through the window.

"The crack of dawn isn't morning." I groaned, covering my eyes with my hand. "Go back to bed, Gillian."

"But I'm not sleepy!"

Before either of us could reply, somebody knocked at the door. "Fine. Guess I'm getting up." I hissed, getting to my feet and pulling on some pants to answer the door. "What do you want?" I demanded, throwing open the door.

"Hail, Ser Goodfisher!" It was a knight from Gran Soren.

"Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?" I asked grimly.

"I'm afraid I don't, ser. At any rate, Duke Gunther would like to extend his formal invitation to return to the court, Arisen, ser!"

"That's real nice of him. Now piss off." I slammed the door in the knight's face, stumbled back into my bedroom, and flopped back into bed next to Monica, who was stroking Gillian's hair.

"Sweetie, why don't you go play with your Aunt Selene?" Monica suggested lightly.

"Okay!" Gillian replied joyfully, stepping on me again as she made her way towards the basement. "Auntiiiiie!"

"Selene is going to be pissed when she finds out you're the one who sent her." I said matter-of-factly.

"She lives in our house, eats our food, and she has strange boys over at odd hours of the night. She can kick in to help take care of Gillian once in a while." Monica cuddled close to me, then started to walk her fingers up my chest. "You know... Since we're already awake, why don't we--"

"Not now, Monica. I'm exhausted."

"Suit yourself." Monica kissed my cheek. "But you don't know what you're missing."

"Sure, I do. It's sleep, Monica. I'm missing sleep. And something awful, too."

"I love you, Luther." Monica whispered affectionately.

"Yeah, thanks." I mumbled, drifting off to sleep with my arm draped across her shoulders.

The world had changed in six years. Not a great deal, but society had started to recover. Apparently, old Grigori had done a lot of damage that I'd just never noticed, because towns began to pop back up all over Gransys, claiming they'd been there before the Dragon attacked. Cassardis, now known as the home town of an Arisen, had boomed lately. It had expanded significantly, now roughly the size of Gran Soren, albeit less refined and still reeking of fish.

Monsters were few and far between, and the region near the Shadow Fort was being colonized now. Duke Gunther was trying to juggle the colony effort, petitions to the throne on the Mainland, and the war with Voldoa and being fairly unsuccessful at keeping all the plates spinning. I didn't give half a fuck about any of it, though. I had my hands full with Gillian and the tailory. Iola still technically owned it, but I had to do all of the actual work involved. Selene worked down at Inez's alehouse now, where she mixed her own brand of booze. Valmiro and Mercedes still hadn't tied the knot, but Valmiro insisted he wanted to, he was just waiting until the economy improved.

My days were pretty routine anymore. The time when I fought monsters and lifted curses and slew Dragons seemed long past. If not for my scar and Monica, I could even have believed I'd dreamed the whole thing up. But according to my routine, the tailory stayed closed until I got around to waking up and dragging myself in there. For the Goodfisher family, morning started at twelve.

"Come on, Luther. It's noon already." Monica voice said softly in my ear. "It's high time you opened the shop."

"Ugh... Right." After I was dressed and I'd eaten something, though I was still too groggy to remember what it had been, I headed down the street and opened the doors to the tailory, slipped inside, then flopped down in the chair behind the counter. "Alright. Open for business." I said to nobody in particular. Life was good. Boring sometimes, but good. The delightful and ever-novel pleasure of a useless occupation.