i proudly looked at the three surviving trainees, raccoon not in their number. i didn’t bother with a fancy speech, they didn’t need one, they probably wouldn’t register it anyway.

    “congratulations. you’ve done it.” i told the three malnourished, sleep-deprived, shivering - well, i couldn’t call them trainees anymore, could i? they were rangers now, through the same hellish initiation i’d gone through.

    two of them passed out on the spot, and i gently caught them with my [mantle], lowering them to the ground. sticks for a pillow? sharp rocks in their side? didn’t bother these two new rangers. the third one staggered slightly, and slowly turned his head towards auri.

    “does that mean we get food?” he blearily asked. i gave a sharp jerk of my head to auri, who put a big flaming ! over her head before rushing over with her baked goods. he sank gratefully to the ground and started to mechanically eat her soft buns.

    i discreetly put away the badges i’d prepared. they could wait until another day.

    i was jumping the gun a little. ‘properly’, there should be months of training, classes, and drills before making the final selection in a grand ceremony. it’d increase the weight of the title and the event, which would help with class quality.

    at the same time, i was already down to three people. any fewer and i’d have to axe the entire thing. i couldn’t call one person a one-man ranger team, that wasn’t how teams worked. there was also the obvious lack of senior rangers to show them the ropes on the job, how things actually worked, and i suspected between iona, nina, and myself, that we’d be helping the rangers out for the first few years, showing them the practicalities of being in a community, helping out with various problems and disputes, and the biggest task of all: slaying monsters, no matter what skin they were wearing.

    i’d had time to work on the classes needed and the curriculum. a lot of sparring and team building at the start, the ‘fun’ stuff after the hell months they’d been through. a few of the easier classroom learnings to help show them what was next. ease them back into ‘yes, it’s alright, you made it’ before getting into the more difficult topics.

    they were going to have it the hardest. no matter how much i tried to hold their hands, no matter how i worked on helping them, they were still the first, and would need to blaze their own trails, defining what it meant to be a ranger in this new era.

    i couldn’t be prouder of them.

    i paused halfway across my farm as i headed home, spotting a letter on my bed.

    how the fuck did everyone but me have access to paper!? and enough paper to waste on an envelope!? it was such bullshit!!

    as most of my mind railed against the inherent unfairness of life, part of me was curious and serious enough to actually read the letter. every word filled me with greater and greater joy, no matter how short it was.

    elaine,

    it’s susan and night! we’re absolutely delighted to see you thriving and doing so well! we’re obviously alive, and we simply couldn’t pass by without saying hello. it’s so exciting to see what you’re doing with the rangers! night blessed the whole activity, and with a little bit of luck, that should bump the survivors’ class quality up.

    on to the part of the letter you’re going to enjoy less.

    we can’t tell you what we’ve been up to, what we’re doing now, or what our future plans are. need-to-know basis, and as much as we adore you and iona, you don’t need to know. you know both of our specialities, and how a secret shared is no longer a secret.

    in the short term, i don’t see us staying near orthus or settling down anywhere. i do apologize that we couldn’t stay and meet you or chat. events are dictating our actions.

    long term? who knows! it’s a lovely place you’re all building here, and it’s entirely possible we’ll end up settling down here. it is close to the home we had for millennia, and more than a few of our caches have survived. if [treasure hunting] becomes a thing, know they are welcome to anything of ours that they find, except the purple vial. you’ll know it when you see it. the pekari are likely to stir and become more active in the next six months. if they stick to their usual pattern, they’ll be doing their level best to help you for around a decade, before resorting back to their ‘normal’ behavior. with what you know, simply go to the second layer of chambers and tell anurak to knock it off. he usually respects such requests.

    night was touched by your memorial, and has added a few protections of his own to it.

    once again, we are thrilled to see all of you surviving and thriving, and i simply can’t wait for the day where we can all properly sit down over a meal again and catch up!

    yours,

    susan webweaver.

    i [teleported] over as fast as i could, grabbing the letter then zipping off to find my wife. the plants bent and waved under the sheer air pressure generated by my passing, our bees buzzing angrily at the shock.

    the author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on amazon.

    julius.

    why did it have to be julius? one of my oldest friends and mentors, the gruff man who’d told an idiot teenager to go home. the one who’d seen the spark in me, the potential, and whose single decision had changed the course of my entire life.

    dead. just like that. hopefully artemis was still alive, it was clear she’d survived whatever had killed julius and made the gravestone.

    i drifted in my grief, allowing myself to go down memory lane. julius, laughing around a campfire. julius, the stern leader, shouting orders. julius, protecting me in perinthus. the way he smiled, the way his eyes lit up when he saw artemis. how time had started to wear on him before i snatched him away from white dove’s claws.

    a crunch of gravel and a loud fake cough caught my attention. i belatedly realized this was the seventh or eighth cough, i just hadn’t registered the rest of them. i turned, praying to all the gods - and ciriel extra hard - it was who i thought it was.

    i turned and saw the most beautiful sight.

    “artemis!” i screamed, throwing myself at her.

    “healy-bug. you made it.” she said tiredly as i slammed into her arms.

    we talked for what had to be, gods, days. sitting in the witch in white’s garden, eating the bounty that she was so generous to share, catching up. mostly what i had been up to - artemis’s story was far more boring. i sensed there was more to it than what she was saying, but we all grieved in different ways.

    “... there was this big-ass fight that we were running straight into.” artemis said. “third one that day. stupid fucking flying island, can’t ever stay still. we’re about to skirt through it as usual when this huge fucking lightning bolt comes out of nowhere and smashes through every shield we have. overloaded every array, broke every barrier. i got seven levels just seeing the thing, and i don’t fucking level just from looking at lightning. it all went to shit then. anyway, skip forward a few years, and my little healy-bug’s back!”

    there were volumes in what she skipped over. i suspected an entire trilogy could be written in the one sentence of ‘it all went to shit then’. i wasn’t going to poke at artemis’s grief. i couldn’t imagine losing iona, auri, artemis, or anyone else so close to me. i was still trying to process the hole julius was leaving.

    we talked, we laughed, we rustled up enough alcohol to get rip-roaringly drunk. we cried, we mourned, we discussed inanities and the future.

    i focused very hard on my words, pretty sure they were coming out right. i wasn’t one of those drunks slurring their words when they were sure they were correct, no that wasn’t me at all. “come with me. we’ve got... we’ve got a whole town!”

    artemis didn’t immediately answer, taking another swig of the witch’s brew. it was so good. it had to be magical in a way, it got better the more i drank!

    “what would i even do there?” she asked. “it doesn’t sound like you need a [teacher], and just... what would i do? at least here i feel like i’ve earned my keep over the decades teaching.”

    that was a good question, and i was embarrassed at how long it took me to think of the very obvious answer. i might’ve been a little more drunk than i thought. i purged a little bit of the alcohol sloshing through my veins.

    “you know...” i said slowly, like leading a cat onto a boat. “you kinda got robbed in remus.”

    artemis finished her drink and threw it at me before i could say another word. i simply teleported it past my head, making it look like it flickered through me.

    “you should’ve been a ranger team leader.” i said. “they were assholes about women though.”

    “assholes.” artemis agreed with feeling.

    “i’ve got three brand spanking new rangers half trained up. they need someone with experience to show them how to not die, and fight dirty.”

    “no way.” artemis said, in disbelief more than denial.

    it took me two hours to convince her, but in the end, i was going to live with my mentor once again.

    with enough time, everything comes around full circle.