The Five Realms

Chapter 23: Steven IV

Chapter 23: The Inventor's Goodbye

The Parker kitchen smelled like nostalgia—cheddar, garlic bread, lemon dish soap. The AC rattled overhead, too loud for comfort, too familiar to fix. Steven sat at the dining table, elbow deep in a bowl of mac and cheese, watching cheese strings snap with each forkful. It was comfort food, even if none of them were truly comfortable.

His mom, Linda, leaned against the counter, arms folded, pretending to check a shopping list on her phone. His grandfather, Mason Parker, sat across from him—shorter than Steven but still broad-shouldered and bright-eyed. A cloth-wrapped bundle rested on the table beside him.

Ares lingered just beyond the back door, visible through the glass—a crimson shadow half the size of a small car, folded neatly against the garden shed, nose steaming faintly against the screen. They didn't even try to hide him anymore. Not really. Not after everything.

Steven cleared his throat.

"So... I'm leaving tomorrow."

Linda turned. "Camping again?"

Steven shook his head. "Not this time. It's Alagaësia. For real."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "That's not a real place."

His grandfather let out a quiet chuckle. "Only if you never got lost the right way."

Steven smiled tightly. "It's not a vacation, Mom. It's part of what I've been training for all summer. All those days at the Jacksons'... it wasn't just drills. We're going."

He let the silence breathe.

Linda looked between them. "You've known?"

Grandpa Mason gave a satisfied nod. "He's Parker blood. Metalliindra stock. Our people crossed realms long before the rest even knew they existed."

"I thought... you left because you were driven out," Steven offered, remembering something from his grandfather's stories.

Grandpa Mason shook his head. "No, lad. We left because the mines were dry and the sky was calling. Dwarves don't always dig downward. Sometimes we go sideways—into magic, into metal, into stars."

Steven glanced toward the wrapped bundle. "You brought it?"

With a solemn nod, Grandpa Mason pushed the cloth across the table.

Steven unfolded it slowly. A wide leather tool belt gleamed from within, its surface etched with arcane runes and tiny, glowing rivets. It smelled like iron and starlight.

"This belonged to the builders of Metalliindra. It doesn't hold tools," Grandpa Mason said. "It makes them. Whatever you can name, whatever you can picture—it conjures it. So long as you know what it's for."

Steven's fingers brushed the buckles, feeling a faint hum.

"It reads intent?" he asked.

"It reads blood," Grandpa Mason corrected. "And you've got enough spark in yours to light a forge."

His mom moved closer. She didn't say much, but she laid a hand on Steven's shoulder, her palm warm and steady. "You'll come back, right?"

Steven looked down at the belt, then out the window to Ares.

"Yeah," he said. "I will. Just... not as the same person who left."

She gave a soft smile, half-proud, half-worried. "I'm proud of you for doing something this big. Even if I don't understand it."

Steven stood, slinging the tool belt over his shoulder.

"You don't have to," he said. "Just know I'm not running away. I'm running toward it."