Author's Note: Hi everyone, sorry for the very delayed update. I wasn't really satisfied with this chapter, but I eventually figured I should just post it now so I can move on, and I can always edit it later. And I wanted to post this chapter this month, because Halloween.

This chapter has two more parts. I will post them sometime this month, and then take a month off, because I have decided against my better judgment to attempt NaNoWriMo again.

Thanks to anyone who has commented. Sorry I don't always reply to them. I usually open them, get really happy, and deliberate for thirty minutes about how to respond before becoming overwhelmed and giving up and then forgetting to do it for weeks and then feeling too awkward to actually reply. ...Yeah, my bad and I'm sorry but thank all of you so much anyway. 

"I don't have any more damned books," was the first thing Gaelker said when Didi walked into his shop.

"I don't blame you," Didi said cheerfully. "Clearly, with your limited cognitive abilities, you've had scant exposure to them and struggle to fathom their necessity. The lame, likewise, seldom become cobblers. What I seek is virgin stationery yet unblemished, and bound in leather, if you would."

He squinted at her and gestured towards the corner where the blank journal and spell book lay. "Over there. Urchin."

"My deepest gratitude, kind gentleman," Didi said, amusing no one but herself with her attempt at speaking formal Chondathan. Gaelker's nastiness truly wasn't bothering her today. She was still certain she could best him in combat, but she no longer had the desire to prove that to him. She was in too good a mood.

She was inspired.

Everything seemed right in her world. Even though it wasn't right and she knew it, it felt right. She felt happy, for the first time in a long time. She felt like she had a home. She felt loved.

She knew Dominic loved her, of course. He was her best friend and most reliable ally. But he'd never hugged her close and ruffled her hair. The knowledge of being loved was precious, but it was a different thing than the feeling of it.

And even though her heartbreak, her anxiety over her absent siblings was still there, it wasn't quite so overpowering now. Not to the point that it blocked out everything else.

She wanted to capture this feeling. She wanted to write.

She'd once been a avid diarist and budding novelist. Her first attempt at epic-length fiction, a partially finished romance-and-adventure story, that had been left behind when she and Dominic had left home in haste. She wouldn't have had the heart to try to rewrite what she'd lost, even if she'd had paper.

But now she was filled to the brim with all kinds of stories, none of them directly about her life, but all of them about nice things, all of them about love.

She got home with time to spare before the evening chores, and sat down to write at the humble desk in the lobby. The activity around her didn't bother her; rather, it reminded her of home – the nice parts of home, the windy days in the gardens with the younger children all playing together, herself and Dominic on the patio, as Didi wrote and Dominic studied his spells and every once-in-a-while one would interrupt the other, Didi to read him a newly-finished page or Dominic to show her a newly-learned cantrip.

She wouldn't have taken any interest in the small group of adventurers that walked into the lobby, except for the fact that two of them they were handsome young men who could serve as the inspiration for her fictional heroes. Sure, her romantic leads were an elf and a half-elf, and these adventurers were all human, but they were handsome in spite. One man had long, curled hair pulled back in tight braids – the half-elf could have hair like that, Didi decided. The other had soft features and green eyes and a very lean body – the elf could look like him, if she used her imagination.

Kaylessa came to speak with the group while she was admiring the young adventurers. Didi kept her face pointed at her paper, but glanced back at the men periodically as she looked for words to describe her heroes. But Kaylessa, speaking to them in a low voice, bid them to follow her to the kitchen.

This roused Didi's curiosity. She'd never seen Kaylessa invite a guest into the kitchen. Kaylessa kept her voice low, but the group of adventurers, not so considerately, echoed back some of her words in tones loud enough for Didi to hear, if she was still. She heard "something wrong," and "strange happenings," and "Lance Rock" before the men went to rest up in their rooms.

"What did you hire those bounty-hunters for?" Didi asked when Kaylessa returned to the lobby.

Seeming to not have expected to see Didi there, Kaylessa startled. "Not bounty-hunters; I didn't ask them to bring back nobody's head! Adventurers. And why were you eavesdropping?"

Didi's ears went slack. "I wasn't eavesdropping! I just overheard!"

"You shouldn't listen in when adults are speaking." Kaylessa gave her a stern look.

This time Didi defended herself. "My ears are bigger than yours; that's not my fault! Besides, I didn't hear that much, I just heard you say something
strange and something about Lance Rock. I was just curious."

Kaylessa hesitated. "Ain't nothin' for you to be worryin' about. Rumors, that's all."

"That little girl, the chicken girl – Pell Mandhyver – she was talking about seeing creepy stuff down there, too."

"She's – " Again, Kaylessa hesitated before finishing. "She's not the only one. Rumors have been flying around for years. I haven't been too worried about it, but lately – there have been other bad crowds hanging about this town." Kaylessa's eyes suddenly narrowed as she turned her head to look at Didi directly. "It's not for you to be worrying about or looking into, or even spreading around scary stories about. I only tell you so you can be careful. Stay away from that area, at least until we know what's going on."

Didi had had very little interest in Lance Rock up until now. Kaylessa's admonition had, ironically, sparked the temptation in Didi that it had been intended to quell. But Didi knew better to express this, so she simply said, "Okay."

"Good." Kaylessa's eyes fell on Didi's paper. "Whatcha got there? You writing a letter?"

"Not a letter; a book!" Didi said, excitement bubbling up in her as she thought of her newly-invented heroes. "A love story! It's about these two boys; one is a half-elf and the other one is an elf, and they're best friends, but–"

"Now, you don't need to go writing yourself another book to stick your nose into!" Kaylessa interrupted, hand outstretched in a halting gesture.

"It'll be a good book!" Didi insisted. "It'll teach about good versus evil, and love!"

Trotting casually towards Didi, Kaylessa wore a bemused expression. "You already know about those things, don't you?"

"There's always more to learn!" Didi pointed out.

"The best way to learn about something is to do it. Do good in your life; that's how you learn the value of good. You don't have to write a book about it."

"You can do both," Didi argued. She picked up her journal and held it close, as though cradling an infant. "You can read it when I'm done. You'll see."

"If you say so," Kaylessa said. She peered over at the pages. "Chondathan? I figured you'd prefer to write in Elvish."

"Mmm..." Didi said, thinking about it. "I wouldn't sell many books in Elvish unless I went to Elvish country."

"You're gonna sell this book?"

"When it's done," Didi said. "I'll make a copy and sell that, and use that money to hire some scribes to make more copies and sell the copies in the marketplace."

Kaylessa seemed to not believe her. "All right," she said, seemingly amused. "Anyway, s'about time for the dinner shift to start. Go get ready."

A few days passed. Dominic started feeling better, and started working around the inn again. Didi finished her book's first two chapters, and started a third.

Dominic still hadn't let go of the idea of becoming bounty hunters. Didi was still reluctant, but she had to admit they weren't getting any closer to rescuing their siblings by working as inn staff. And she knew it would be best to have some money saved, in case their mother ever found out they were in Red Larch, and they had to skip town.

Didi hated more and more the idea of leaving. She liked Red Larch. She liked Kaylessa. They almost felt like a family now. They spoke more often. Kaylessa asked her about herself more – not important things, just small talk, like "How did you sleep?" or "What have you been up to all day?" Didi wanted to talk about other things, too. She wanted to know what Kaylessa's life had been like before they met, but she didn't ask, because she was afraid Kaylessa would ask about her life. But it was nice, too, to just chat about things that were mundane but she knew Kaylessa cared about her answers because she cared about her.

After a tenday, the adventurers Kaylessa hired had not come back. Either they had stolen the small amount Kaylessa had given them in advance, or they had run into trouble. Either way, Didi and Dominic resolved that they would be the ones to track them down – and either rescue them, or make them pay back the money they owed. If they were going to be bounty hunters, this was as good a start as any.

And even though Didi hadn't been enthusiastic about the idea of becoming bounty hunters, she found herself in a cheerful mood as the duo set off on the winding path to Lance Rock. This was what Didi and Dominic had envisioned, all those years ago, when they'd first planned to run away. Back when it had been a daydream about a grand adventure, not a matter of life and death. Back when they'd planned to all leave together. Blurry memories washed over her like gentle waves: Didi and Dominic on their bellies in her old room, books spread all around the floor as if to make up a summoning circle. Outdated maps with crudely-marked paths, and scrolls with crudely-planned strategy.

The idea of becoming heroic adventurers, Didi realized now, had always been more of a mental escape than a real plan for a real escape. All the days when Didi and Dominic had met up in her room after midnight, when their mother expected them to be sleeping, were among her most cherished memories from childhood. "I just read about a book about a couple of humans who followed a map left by pirates to an island with buried treasure, but then the pirates found out that the humans found it, and the humans had to pretend their ship sank with the treasure to trick the pirates and get away," said Didi.

"That's a good trick," Dominic would reply. "Write that down." And Didi would write it in her "plan book," squinting in the room barely illuminated by moonlight. Dominic would continue, "What do you think the pirates will be like?"

And Didi would tell Dominic all about the pirate ships in the book - how the crews would be made up of every race from elf to orc, how they would have eye patches and spyglasses and missing limbs and talking birds. They'd continue on one subject until they got bored or until they discovered a gap in their plan they had no solution to.

Everything had been ruined when they tried to turn their daydreams to reality. At ages eleven and twelve, Didi and Dominic had gathered all of their old-enough-to-talk siblings in Didi's room and discussed the plan. They were going to run away. All of them together. And they'd be heroes and travelers and they'd begin their own adventuring guild. They'd been in the process of naming the guild when the meeting had been adjourned by their mother, coming to drag Dominic to one of his training sessions that only he got, because only he was old enough.

That was the end. They'd been having so much fun coming up with guild names that Didi hadn't noticed the look in Drayden's eyes. It must have been a nervous look, an aversion of eye contact. She didn't know. She hadn't been paying attention. She'd never have guessed that Drayden was going to tell their mother about what they'd said.

Didi, identified by Drayden as the mastermind behind the scheme, had been punished by being pinned down on the ocean floor while the waves waxed and waned above her.

And Dominic's punishment for trying to save her had been much, much worse.

Neither of them was quite the same after that. They had changed so much that those nightly secret meetings felt as though they'd happened to someone else altogether.

But the idea of saving someone, of doing something heroic, investigating a "cursed" rock or finding a nice lady's stolen money or maybe even rescuing some trapped innocents?

It made something stir inside her, awakening dreams that, it seemed, had been left on the seafloor when Dominic dragged her waterlogged body onto the rocky shore.

Dominic had been right, Didi realized. They should have done this sooner. What had held her back? Fear?