Mint opened her eyes in someone else's home. A wave of warm, displaced air greeted her. It felt nice after the frigid spring winds that whipped off the mountains where Arche lived.

Reflex tightened her hand over her staff and checked for the familiar weight of her travel bag. But no enemy filled her sight, nor anyone else for that matter. It was peaceful here.

She didn't recognize the house. The air smelled of dust and magic, a bit like Morrison's mansion, but this clearly could not be. Much too small with old, once white paint peeling off the walls, the wooden furniture stood all too humble, and faded blue curtains hung closed off. Mint drew one set open. A beam of murky sunlight seeped through the cloudy windows, lighting up a thousand dust motes.

Did anyone still live here? A summer cottage, perhaps.

Let's go home, Cless had said.

Her house in the future? But why so quiet, so abandoned? Her future self could be out traveling or visiting friends, she speculated. Maybe Arche and her were catching up.

A sturdy old door caught her attention. She fumbled with the handle; it hadn't been locked initially, which she reckoned as peculiar. Who left their empty house and didn't lock? It didn't look broken into.

A sea of grass rolled before her eyes. She stepped out and found the tassels tickling her elbows.

Any notion of this being her own house drifted away with the hot summer breeze. She would not call a place like this home. Not when it stood so far from the barest hint of civilization. Only grass and distant hills on all sides. Mint could not even find a mailbox or address.

Lost wonder filled her heart. She remembered then, the first time she had fallen through the cracks of time to wake on an empty bluff. This feeling was the same.

Mint stood there for a time, feeling the sun on her skin and the wind in her hair, without the slightest idea of what to do. Her journey was supposed to be over.

She shook her head, and went back inside.

She roamed the one hallway, half uncertain whether she should enter any rooms. Then, a glimpse through an open door made her pause. A thousand sheafs of paper strewn about. Monster diagrams. Spell sketches.

She picked one up, wondering to whom this home belonged and what had happened in this place.

One did not leave his house in such disarray unless something important came up - or perhaps not. She wondered as she took a better look at the chart of runes. She found herself vaguely reminded of the glimpse she'd seen of Morrison's study. She had she knocked one time, burdened with questions and worries. He had tucked a few reams of paper under one arm and stacked books on the other before they left to the library.

It had been a brief glimpse of a mind lost in the chaos of magic, physics, time, and all number of high-minded topics.

This was a lot like that, Mint decided. Similar, but different.

She set the pages down, no more certain of where or what this place could be than when she had arrived. But the Eternal Sword brought her here on Cless's wish. Wherever it was, it was safe.

And it was with that thought that she padded back to the living room. There, she set her hat on the coffee table, fetched a spare blanket, pulled out a book and made herself comfortable on the couch.

Soon, an empty sleep stole her away.

Mint woke to the scent of sizzling eggs, sautéed vegetables, and fried ham.

Her book lie on the coffee table, page marked with a stalk of grass. She stared at for a moment, brushing aside the cobwebs of sleep in her mind.

Someone had remembered this seemingly abandoned place and returned in the night, Mint realized. She straightened her clothing, buckled her courage and nosed into the kitchen.

A young man busied himself at a stove. He looked sunkissed, bronzed in skin and pale blond hair licking his neck. He slid the food onto two plates, and turned to face her, one plate offered. "Good morning," he greeted.

Mint picked up her manners. "Good morning. Sorry for the intrusion, and thank you for your hospitality."

"Sure," he said, voice soft. His eyes didn't match. One leaf green, the other autumn red.

As strange as everything seemed to her, surely it was even more peculiar for him, Mint thought. He wiped the table and chairs clear before they sat down. He forgot to introduce himself, too.

Mint broke the silence to amend this. "My name is Mint Adnade."

"Emil Castagnier. Nice to meet you." He offered a hand and a sheepish smile.

"You as well." They shook and tucked in.

"Sorry about the mess," Emil apologized. "I don't really have much use for a house. Seems like other people are here more often than I am."

"It's fine," Mint assured him. "I didn't exactly come invited, and it doesn't look like you have been here in years." He must have been a half elf or something, she figured. He looked too young to have had a building sitting unattended for so long. Or maybe he had inherited it. "What brought you back?"

"Mana spike." He waved his free hand and forked a vegetable with the other. "You ripped a hole through time and space coming here. I try to notice these sorts of things."

They had barely told anyone about the whole time travel thing. Usually it was something one didn't talk about unless the other already knew or needed to. Emil definitely already knew. Instead, she nibbled on some more egg and ham while thinking over her words. Seasoned just right, she noted. She dredged up a smile. "So then, you arrive at home to find some stranger sleeping on your couch. You're cooking is very good."

"Thanks." He looked up. Mint could not tell if it was his mismatched eyes that gave the effect or a genuine spike of mistrust, but his gaze seemed all too piercing. "Were you trying to come here?"

"I was trying to go home." Mint looked down. He definitely hadn't interfered with her arrival, either.

"Home, you say." Emil's fork clanged as he set it down on his empty plate. He wiped his mouth. "Most people don't rip holes in the universe to go home."

Mint's heart drummed in her ears. A warning. Not a direct threat though, which meant this stranger was willing to play nice and give her a chance. "It's a long story."

He said nothing.

Mint picked at the last bits of vegetables, appetite waned. Nearly a year's worth of galavanting through three different eras stretched behind her, and how could she explain? "There was a man," she began, "He needed to be stopped, and he had time itself on his side. Following him meant doing the same."

She pushed her plate away. "I'm not sure why I'm here, much less how."

Emil drummed his fingers, and with that small normalcy, Mint felt she passed at least part of his test. "I'm not exactly the expert on time in particular," he said, "but I can think of a couple things that might have sprung you here. One is that this place used to be called a holyland. The first life to be born on this planet came from this area, and misplaced things sometimes return. There's a chance that something you're carrying reacted. The other... This question isn't the nicest, but here goes. Do you actually have a home to go to?"

Mint's heart fell.

A warm hand landed on her shoulder. "Sorry." He meant it; the piercing edge in his eyes softened.

"It makes sense." She never did see what happened after she and her mother were taken away. Just that it had been burning. Everything had been burning. "In that place in between times, I thought to myself that I didn't want to go back there. It was no longer home. It was the time I came from, though, and even though it's not home anymore, we meant to go back."

Mint pulled together her resolve, for a moment stumbling over a possibility that she could very well be in the right time, just the wrong place. She didn't have any answers, but she would find some. And this man knew things he should not have. Either way, if her faltering landed her in the wrong place, then she would steel her heart.

She straightened up. "I need to go back to where I belong." For Cless. He had been in charge of getting them home. She would not let him blame himself.

.o0O0o. .o0O0o.

The heap of rubble below Cless's feet stung more than he expected.

Chester appeared from his own ruinous mound next door, long hair tangled and a weariness creasing his face. "It's not easy coming back to this."

Cless glanced over at his long time friend, back at the charred timbers he had once called home, then down at the gleaming sword in his hand. The anger still simmered, just as raw as the day it happened. He agreed. "I still hate him. He's dead. Everyone's avenged. I remember his blood, the life fading out of him, and it's not enough. It doesn't bring anyone back."

His muscles ached from war hard won, but it didn't matter. He wanted to fight. Even if there wasn't a reason anymore.

Or maybe especially because he had no reason.

Chester let out a long, tired sigh. "The dead are still dead. Just us here."

Like a bucket of cold water, two things occurred to Cless. When he had fled for his life, Chester had stayed behind to bury the dead. And, "Where's Mint?"

Chester shrugged. "She didn't live here. Probably arrived wherever she used to live."

Cless grimaced. "She doesn't have anything to go back to either." They met eyes. They'd find her. It went unspoken, but they both knew.

A cold silence wrapped around the dead village. Cold and desolate.

Chester turned his back and started walking towards the south exit. The graveyard. He called back without looking. "Gonna pay my respects. You coming?"

Cless forced his legs to follow, each step half numb and heavy. His arms hung down like dead weights, fingers clung loose to his sword. Black coals rolled under his boots. It smelled different. Like spring. Like the forest. Shoots of grass poked up along the old paths, and over the graves, too. Led like a prisoner of fate, Cless found his family's resting place. He sheathed his sword. Knelt down in front of the stones. Ran a hand over the crude engravings of his mother's name. Then, his father's.

A lump rose in his throat, and he couldn't decide if he wanted to scream or cry or punch something. And in a disconnected moment, it caught up to him that he was doing all three.

Chester soaked in each of his punches, caught them all with he flats of his hands.

Cless swung at his face.

Chester's cheek folded with the blow.

He swung again, this time hitting a leather arm brace. Hook and block. Again and again.

He screamed for his father. Called him every name he would never dare say to his face. Good and bad both.

He cried for his mother. How he had wanted to see her walking again, healthy.

How he missed them both.

Chester took it all, mouth set in a grim line. Not a complaint.

Cless tripped over a gravemarker and bashed his knee on the way down. He beat the ground, tears running down his face. Salt and snot hit his tongue, dripped from his nose.

Until the weight fell off his heart and he had nothing left.