The Bewitching Hour

✧ chapter three: the merry band

Plaht is often a sleepy sort of place to live. Lively when tourists are around, sure, and the festivals are to die for. But most days, Lance's neck of the woods is just another farming town, and he's gotten very bored of that lately.

He's not the only one. His best friends have similarly restless spirits, he's learned, and they decided that it was best to stick together in search of excitement than to risk being apart. That's how their exploration crew, their guild, came to be. They call themselves the Paladins of Plaht, as if that means anything. Hunk just thinks it sounds cool. Which it does. Lance isn't denying him that.

Katherine— Pidge, they call her, because she reminds Lance of a fidgety little bird made up of hollow bones and a total lack of awareness of its own meager size— is mostly responsible for the formal things. The acquisition of treasure maps and bounty posters and local secrets falls upon her narrow shoulders. It's rare that she gets to put any of the information she acquires to use, but it's fun just to gather and talk about it, and she sometimes earns herself some pocket money for selling her secrets. They'll have their adventure one day. Lance knows it.

Their little guild is "official" enough that they sometimes meet with another one. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are making their traditional trek together to the closest neighboring town of Yalexia, which sits right on the edge of Lake Carthia, on a strangely humid night. Once every few months or so (the schedule is not terribly consistent, as the life of a rogue is not easily regulated), Lance and his friends visit the Plummrose Inn and Tavern there. It's a popular spot for travelers, even if some of the visitors are on the shady side, and serves an incomparable mug of ale. Lance is always quick to remind Pidge that she's still too young to have any, to make a show of drinking more than he probably should. And then she ends up laughing at him when he makes a fool of himself. It's a cycle that is only fair. Things tend to work themselves out in the end, and she'll be old enough very soon, anyway.

When Lance finally has his hands against the heavy door of the inn, he hears a loud clanging of a bell announce their arrival. He shouts for the bartender. They're regulars by now. They get their drinks at a reduced price because Lance's father supplies them with so much of the grain they need. Hunk pushes past Lance into the building, and he has an easier time of forcing it open. Hunk is not worried about drinks. Lance smirks, knowing full well what his friend is looking for. Hunk has had an eye for the innkeeper's daughter for as long as he can remember. Since the first time he went to Yalexia, he bets.

"Shay!" Her older brother shouts, wiping his hands off with a dishrag. "Your friends are here!"

And just like that, the three of them get their usual greeting. Lance has yet to visit any place where he's greeted quite as warmly. It kind of feels like getting back home after a long trip away. Shay has them seated at a table with a bowl of fresh bread in no time at all, and they're promised the drinks are on their way.

She's a very tall girl, Lance has noticed. She's taller than Hunk is, and broad at the shoulders with a strong jaw, but he doesn't seem to mind any of that. The things that villagers had allegedly once teased her for are things that Hunk either likes or doesn't even notice. Shay works hard at helping her family business, as the three of them also do. Pidge isn't expected to do quite as much— she does still have her schooling to worry about— but that hasn't stopped her parents from teaching her basic first aid and plenty about medicinal herbs.

Shay, unlike Pidge, never complains about family work, or about family in general, even when it seems it would be warranted. Her brother Rax is still apprehensive of Hunk and makes dismissive comments from time to time that Lance is sure must get under her skin. But he's slowly coming around. Lance thinks that Rax is just overprotective. His own mother tends to be the same way whenever he's got a new girlfriend. She always has a thousand questions about where they met and what she's like and what her goals are for the future. Sometimes the overwhelming size and nature of his family chases those girls away.