[Regalis: in search of Peace and Quiet!]

•chapter four•

Hi, the chapter, as always, beta'd for you by Magikarp Karp. Thanks!
(Holidays are killing me. The lack of productivity and routine is killing me. I'm killing me. I'm the worst.)

Today's warnings: outside of a ridiculous Deus-Ex Machina pulled straight out of Isekai Protagonist's ass, none.

The song is 'Wanderer's Lullaby' by Adriana Figueroa

•chapter four•

Girl has a talk. Girl gets home. Girl blurts out the darnedest things.

•••

They make their way back with a two-day slide, due to the unforeseen wounded elf they found in the forest. Technically, they could have just have gone back the very next day, but Penelope wanted to keep the man in a stable bed for a while more and get some food and water into him, to get his energy levels somewhat up. Mostly iron-rich foods, and vitamin K, which meant a lot of liver and spinach, because those were the most readily available.

Anaemia wasn't fun, warfarin poisoning even less so, and Adetta was not on the receiving end of the treatment, but she'd die happy if she never saw a liver dish or spinach ever again—even if all the man could ingest was a disgusting-looking, foul-smelling paste that tasted like iron and meat.

(Cooked liver had this characteristic stench, and whether it was Mary or Adetta, it made her gag.)

They still had no idea who the elf was; he was rarely conscious, feverish, and cold. Also, probably because they were the ones who saved his life, if either Adetta, or Elijah, or both, weren't in the room with him in the case he woke up, he was prone to flying into a panic attack and wouldn't calm down until he either passed out or one of the kids came in.

It was understandable, as he was very weak, probably delirious, and most likely associated them with his current continuous survival.

His flying into an agitated state after such severe blood loss was a really bad thing, so Adetta just moved to the room he was in and slept the second night in the armchair. When she woke up, Elijah and Fenrir were sleeping on the floor by the chair, in a nest of pillows and blankets, and she had a bad neck cramp. The elf woke shortly after, still tired and maybe a bit delirious, but when she handed him a glass of water he looked at her, drank it, and laid back down.

He actually slept that time, instead of just passing out.

Slowly, his skin started to colour back into darkish tan from the previous pale-ashen. Or maybe that was Adetta's wishful thinking, he still overall looked like shit.

(Maybe she just didn't want another person to emotionally depend on her—two were enough, thank you. She really wasn't getting paid enough for this.)

Adetta, Elijah and Fenrir ride with the elf in the carriage, whole way back. Penelope told them that he's stable enough that he will manage few hours without her constant care, and he should sleep through the thing anyway. Rosaria insists she rides with them, and for a moment Adetta isn't sure how in the actual seven hells is the man supposed to rest in a carriage with a toddler, one small child and two only slightly bigger children, but then she remembers she took some fairy-tale books to kill time during the ride, so she cracks one open and reads it aloud until her throat can't handle any more speaking. She reads fluently, which would have completely pretty normal were she still Mary in modern world, but has her called prodigy in the late medieval/renaissance of the setting of [Regalis]. But thanks to her fluency, she doesn't stumble, and her voice lulls all the others into sleep