Homeward and Comfort

The Peacekeeper HQ was an unusually average place, to John’s eyes. It was a converted office block, something he could gather from the fact that they hadn’t changed the universally dull and uninteresting decor when they’d moved in, leaving all the walls painted beige and every carpet the same ugly mottled brown throughout the building.

It was, however, clear that this facility catered to a large number of people. Despite its vaguely dirty appearance and uninspired decoration, there were dozens of indications that the building was in near-constant use: a coffee cup left on the table, the occasional scratch along the wall or through the carpet, certain doorways that were heavily scuffed, even one door that had a sock on it which he most certainly didn’t blush at.

Yet, despite all these small signs of use, and the active time of morning, John couldn’t have seen more than a dozen people walking through the corridors. It felt strangely like a ghost town. Once full of prosperous life, now reduced to a skeleton crew.

They reached an elevator, just as another pair came out of it, wearing an unusual medley of random gear. It reminded John somewhat of the raiders in the Fallout games. Their equipment seemed to generally follow the principle of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Even to John’s unknowledgeable eye, it was clear that they were mismatching different styles of armour and weapons as they wished. Eion nodded to the pair as he entered the elevator, John falling in behind him as the doors closed.

He looked at Eion. The man was entirely relaxed, calmly waiting. There were no signs that he was anything other than he appeared, but his mention of other titles had stuck in John’s mind. There was more about him than he had said, he could just tell, but John had no way to-

John took a deep breath, closing his eyes, to prevent the facepalm from happening in front of the other man. Somehow, despite it literally saving his life a half dozen times so far, he had somehow forgotten what was literally the only skill he knew how to use, and might have given him an edge when Moira got suspicious. ’Then again,’ he reflected, ’It would probably have had the opposite effect if I had known tons about her.’

Enough was enough. From now on, he’d not forget his new abilities again. With that decided… again, he went to cast Observe on the man he shared the elevator with.

Just as he was about to, the lift stopped with a small electronic ding, and Eion stepped through the opening doors into an underground garage and immediately began walking to an average-looking sedan. John followed him, looking around the subterranean space at the variety of other vehicles that filled the spaces. Dozens of other average cars were scattered throughout, but more notable were the collection of armoured vans and small trucks here and there, a selection of bikes and ATVs, and even a small reinforced bus in one corner.

Eion climbed into the car and started it, John climbing into the other door. When he was seated, he turned and cast Observe.

…What in the fuck? An assassin? The guy who runs the guild literally named ‘Peacekeepers’, with the cute innocent blind daughter? He stared at Eion, unable to stop himself, and there was a long moment of neither of them moving, then the other man sighed, and turned to face John.

“You really are an interesting lad. A late-bloomer, come out of nowhere just in time to be kidnapped alongside my daughter. Then, you manage to break the both of you out, killing your jailers, despite having no experience. And now you have a clearly powerful information spell? If I hadn’t looked into you while you slept, I’d have been very suspicious of the timing of it all.”
He turned back to the wheel and began to drive, taking them out of the garage and into the early morning sunshine. Smoothly joining traffic, he continued to speak, “Now, as it is, you protected my daughter, and I believe you were doing the right thing. But, lad, if I want you to know something about me in the future, I’ll tell you. Got it?”

“Y-yes, sir,” John stammered

“Sir?” Eion chuckled. “Nah, lad. Anyone who can do what you did calls me Eion.” He stopped speaking for a moment, and then asked with curiosity clear in his voice, “What did you get about me from your spell?”

John startled slightly with surprise. He briefly considered lying, but seeing the relationship information gave him some confidence that he could trust Eion. “Uhh… It told me you lead the Peacekeepers, and that you were an assassin in the past.”

“Anything else about that sort of thing?”

“Well… not really? It wouldn’t tell me how strong you are or anything. Oh, but you do have a title.”

“Oh, really? I wonder which one?”

“It called you the ‘Shadow of Noon’, whatever that means.”

Eion laughed. “Yes, that would be what it says.” He glanced over at John’s curious face and continued in a light-hearted and mocking tone, “It was what some called me, back then. They spoke of the mysterious assassin who was able to kill a high profile target in a public place at midday light without being seen or caught. A ‘Shadow of Noon’, you see?”

He snorted. “It was absolutely bullcrap, of course. The guy they were talking about? It was four in the afternoon, and he ditched his bodyguard to try and score a date. All I did was slip a knife in him as I pretended to drunkenly stumble into him, then stumbled onwards.” He put the car into park.

John looked out the window in surprise, seeing they’d reached his house. He’d not noticed them getting close, and he suddenly felt incredibly nervous. He couldn’t tell his mom about anything that’d actually happened without exploding or whatever happened to people who broke Gaia’s rules. “Eion, what-”

“Don’t worry, lad. We’ve done this before. All she knows is that you’re safe and sound. You can make up whatever story you want, honestly. Personally, I’d use as much of the truth as possible. You found someone being assaulted, and protected them, then called the cops. After that, and when you realised how late it was, and that your own phone was dead, you asked ‘us’ to tell her you were fine. Then, you fell asleep, you woke up, asked for a lift home, and here we are.”

John stared at him for a moment, prompting a grin, then said “That’s…a good story. I guess I’ll, ah, use it?”

The Peacekeeper Commander laughed, and was still chuckling as he spoke “I’ll see you later John. Don’t forget to talk to Vel. I’ll have her send you the young Warden’s address.”

“...and then I asked one of the policemen if he could give me a lift home,” John finished his story and looked at his mother.

She stared back for a long, hard moment. “John, sweetie, I love you. But you know you don’t need to lie to me, right?”

His blood ran cold. How did she know? What did she know? He must have looked rough, sure, but there’s no way she could have-

“I’m a little upset that you felt the need to hide it, and definitely not happy you skipped school and worried me, but if you made a friend and wanted to play hooky to spend time with them, that’s fine.”

…Huh?

“M-mom, I’m not- I mean, I didn’t-”

“Sweetie. I was young once too, you know. My best friend from college had just the best fake IDs, honestly. It’s how I met my boyfriend at the time.” She paused and looked closely at his face, narrowing her eyes when he flinched at the mention of a boyfriend. A sly smile slowly grew on her face as she spoke, “Sweetie, this friend of yours… they wouldn’t happen to be a girl, would they?”

“M-MOM!” John half-shouted, entirely confused at how she had managed to take such a serious situation and turn it into this.

“Hah. Knew it!” She bounced up and pulled him into a hug, fiercely wrapping her arms around him. Then she moved back, holding him by the shoulders, her face serious. “Now, listen to me, John. I don’t know what it is that you were doing with this girl to get the cops to pick you up, but I want you to promise me to stay away from any real ****, okay? A little bit of cannabis here and there never hurt anyone, but don’t go overboard. The same goes for ****, alright, young man?”

John felt like his ears were spontaneously combusting. “Mom!”

“Promise me, John!” She shook him very slightly.

“Yes! I promise! Oh my god.”

“Good.” Her face switched back to smiling, this time with a distinctly cheeky expression that instantly worried him. “I would warn you about keeping the funtimes in the bedroom, but, well… that’s very boring. Go wild, honey. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

Yeah, he’d been right to be worried. “MOM! I am not having this conversation right now. Nope. It’s not happening.”

She laughed and hugged him again. “Alright, alright. I’ll let you off this time. Now, since you’ve clearly had a very… ’busy’ night,” she winked, “I’ll let you have a nap. Do you have any plans today?”

He cringed, then sighed and accepted the teasing that would follow. “...Yes. I’m seeing a friend later.”

Brenda’s eyes twinkled and her smile grew again. “Oh, that’s very nice, sweetie. Have lots of ‘fun’, won’t you?” He turned and stomped away up the stairs, unable and unwilling to give a reply to that. About halfway up, he heard her call out to him, “Just remember to use protection, sweetie!”

He firmly closed the door behind himself as he entered his room, ignoring the gleeful, almost-cackling laughter coming from down the stairs, and leaned his forehead against the door. After a minute with his face pressed against the cool wood, he released a long, drawn-out sigh and heavily walked over to his bed, collapsing into it. Then he rolled over with a groan and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Or he would have, until he realised it wasn’t there, and popped it out of his inventory with a single thought, not even bothering to open the menu for it.

Almost immediately, he regretted doing so, as its removal was followed by a barrage of notification noises. Scrolling through them, the majority was texts from his mom, missed calls, and then right at the end was a text from Velvet. He saved her contact information, and gave her a reply explaining he was about to nap, barely remembering to ask for directions to Moira’s manor.