The soft wind blew through his brown hair as they walked towards the city. Wesley had been very quiet on the trip. He still responded to Hana and kept a smile on his face but otherwise, he didn't say much. His mind had been full of thoughts and questions that he'd been avoiding for a long time. Flashes of guilt would run through his eyes before being hidden away. He did his best to pretend nothing was wrong and that this was just a normal quest. Wesley trusted Hana with his life but this was a can of worms he didn't want to open.

When Angela mentioned a strange magic in Jayou and requested that they go seek it out, he just smiled and nodded. He knew many of the folks back in Jayou and genuinely wanted to help them. If the magic was strange enough to catch the eye of someone as strong as Angela then it was serious. The city was quiet during the day but at night is when it truly came alive. During the day it was peaceful, without much of the hustle that other cities had. There were still people out but they were mostly families, kids, or the elderly. Memories of playing with other kids as a child crept into his mind. Wesley didn't even know if those kids were still in the city. The last time he saw them, they were still young teens. Maybe they grew up and left? Or they might still be there.

There were so many folks he'd left behind. People who were kind to his family and to himself. An old woman who lived next door would always offer treats to the local kids and give out knitted clothes during the holidays. There were noisy neighbors who would never stop fighting. And there was a family across the street who were just starting up a family business. Wesley wondered if anything would be the same when he returned. He didn't even know if his own father still lived there.

Another can of worms….

"Hey Hana." He said to her finally, "There's a small restaurant by the river. I used to work there part-time when I wasn't hunting. After our mission is over, maybe we can visit it?"

Wesley was trying to bring up some conversation. But he wasn't ready to talk about his old home. Not yet.

They had been called into her mother’s office rather unexpectedly. Hana had never even seen the inside before that moment. She was skeptical and honestly a bit worried. This time of year always made her mother a bit of a workaholic. However, what she had to tell them wasn’t anything she had ever heard of before. This was a job for both of them that would pay handsomely. All they would have to do is observe and if anything bad were to occur they would try to bring it down.

She had only ever been to Jayou a handful of times to help her sister Yucca. Out of all of their siblings, Hana tended to be more on the tomboyish side with a select other few like Basselina. “Sure, that sounds nice. I can take you to meet my sister and her beau too. She opened a restaurant here called the Bramble and Ivy.”

A memory went back to Angela’s words just before they left, “Should you come across Cassia… Tell her I will not hesitate to rip her throat out should she hurt you kids. That should keep you safe from her. I worry about sending you to Jayou because of her but… She should heed that warning.”

“Ma said that Cassia is here somewhere. We don’t really talk about her… she’s even worse than Gale. Mother never admits that Cassia is one of us at least Gale gets called out by name most of the time.” She had noticed how quiet he was as well but decided not to pry into it too much.

Though she had a feeling that she would have to poke that bear soon enough. “We’re almost to our destination now. It’s a little hamlet of Jayou at least that’s what Mother’s instructions said.” Little did she know how much that little hamlet and Wesley had in common. “I know you are uneasy… but I am here,” Hana’s bi-colored eyes held concern for the first time since she had noticed how awkward he was being. “If you want to talk about it that is.”

He wasn't surprised when he found out that Hana's sister and her beau lived in Jayou. For all Wesley knew, there were a thousand siblings of Hana that he had yet to meet. The Rose family was massive and he only knew about Hana's close relatives. There was also someone called Cassia, probably another child of Ang, who was even worse than Gale.

The fact that Cassia was the black sheep of the family said a lot. Angela even told them that she was worried about this person being a problem. Hopefully they wouldn't run into her. Wesley didn't mention it yet but he knew exactly where they were going. Every second they drew closer, he began to remember more and more about this little hamlet of Jayou. His eyes then turned to sweet Hana and he gently smiled.

"Thank you." He said giving her a kiss on the cheek, "I've been here before. It's where I grew up. I guess its…nostalgic."

Wesley realized that he never mentioned much about his past. He had mentioned that he had a baby sister once and he was cursed for a long time. But his old family life, it was something he'd chosen to forget. Regardless, they had a mission to think about. A sort of magic that they'd have to observe and maybe fight. A longbow hung on his back and he had a dagger sheathed on his belt. Ranged weaponry was always his favorite to use in battle.

"I don't suppose you have a strange magic sensor?" He jokingly asked, "But seriously, what should we be looking for?"

Wesley knew little of magic. He'd never been trained and the bits of magic he did have came from his cursed form. Perhaps they were looking for weird illusions or some magical flying fish? Were flying fish even a thing?

Hana was taken back for a second before she nodded. “Mother must have known and sent you here for a reason. I’m sure this won’t take a long time,” she spoke softly as she moved her hand to his. Hana had her own weapons strapped to her. A sword on her belt, a set of daggers on her thighs and belt, along with a bow and quiver full of arrows on her back. Her long blonde hair was blowing every which way depending on the breeze. She wore a corset in a plum shade and a pair of traveling pants and boots. Angela had fixed her up in new traveling clothes after looking at the ones she had come in.

“Nothing like that,” she laughed a bit and came up behind him putting her arms around his waist. “Magic feels weird though. It feels like a pressure, like this.” She lightly hugged him and continued to up how tightly she held him. “Dark magic feels like its strangling you but I don’t feel anything like that here.”

She put her forehead into his back for a moment and thought about it. “What should we look for…” Suddenly there was screaming from people not far. “WELL! That is a pretty good sign,” she dashed towards the screams after letting go.

“They were all dead… ALL OF THEM,” a man laid on the ground staring at a small group. Hana looked up at the new people. They didn’t look undead… They felt unnaturally real to her.

“Hey Beau, I think we found them… I don’t know what we should do though. Do you know any of them?” She gestured towards the group.

When he felt her arms around his waist, he embraced her hug with a smile. Wesley wanted to stay there forever. Suddenly a scream pierced the air, indicating that was where they needed to go. He ran at Hana's side and reached a man who was lying on the ground and staring at a group. Wesley looked towards the small group and his own jaw dropped. The group of people were dead. He'd known of some and had been to the funerals of others. Yet they didn't look like a group of undead. They weren't rotting corpses.

"Yeah. I know some…" Suddenly he stopped speaking.

There was one person in the group who had caught his eye. A woman with dark brown hair and a simple white gown. Without saying another word, he dashed towards the woman at top speeds. She barely had time to turn around before Wesley grasped her in an embrace. The woman was surprised but instead of shouting or getting angry, she wrapped his arms around him.

"Wesley? Is that you?" The woman asked.

"Yes." He said letting releasing her.

"You've gotten older." The woman placed her hand on Wesley's cheek, "What happened? Where's your father? Where's Charise?"

"I don't know where father is." Wesley admitted before growing silent.

"Did your father-"

"No. It…it was my fault. I looked away from her for one second and…." Wesley's eyes began to fill with tears.

His mother grabbed him and pulled Wesley into another hug. For a moment they stayed there, forgetting about the rest of the world. Just a mother holding her baby boy. After a few moments, the woman backed off to look at Hana.

"Now Wesley its rude to leave a lady friend without an introduction." She instructed, "Come on now. Stand up straight and introduce me to her."

"Oh this is Hana Rose. She's my girlfriend." He said with a bit of an embarrassed face, "Hana Rose, this is my mother Cadence."

"About time you found yourself a nice girl. My little baby boy deserves having a gal in his life." She said before turning to Hana, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Hana watched the whole thing as Wesley left her side. It was the first time she had ever seen him like that and she knew that this was possibly why they were sent here. Slowly Hana came over and put her hands behind her back watching quietly. There was a curious look on her face that normally wasn’t there at all and that was something funny to see.

She grinned a bit when Wesley introduced her, “It’s a pleasure to meet you! Wesley and I haven’t had a lot of time to talk about his family… With everything going on.” It was true that they had been quite busy since they met and got together. She was twirling a piece of blonde hair looking just as embarrassed as he was.

She had gained a few cues from the conversation. “It looks like other families have shown up to take hold of the others.” Everyone was talking about miracles and Hana looked at Wesley. “Show me where your house is~ We shouldn’t be out in the cold.”

She started to push him forward. “No one is going to bite you while I’m here Beau.” She cracked her knuckles a bit and walked with the two of them. “Like my ma said we’ll have to stay here to observe everything…” They got to the house and it didn’t look like anyone was home.

“It’s small,” Hana said it as a matter of fact. “It’s not like the tents of my father’s people but it’s no mansion like Mother’s…” She wasn’t trying to be rude. “Though my tent with my father is huge though you remember that.” It had even been dyed an orange color for her and they had been staying in her big cot.

She pulled on the door and made a face as she realized it was locked. “I’m not used to locked doors~” She made a smile as she pulled out a few tools and started to mess with the lock. “Not that I’ve ever let locked doors stop me~” It only took her a few moments before she pushed the door open and stood up. “TADA! Picking locks comes in handy when… you are hunting down thieves and stealing stuff from them.” …And stealing from unsavory folks too. “Lets get her inside and cozy. You can’t leave your ma outside like this. In my tribe, our women get to sit in fancy tents around big fires and feel safe while the warriors are out.”

Wesley went back to Hana's side as Cadence began to inspect Hana. It seemed that Hana was well armed and more importantly, she wasn't dying of hunger. Neither was her son. So all was well in her eyes. Meanwhile Wesley was a bit concerned about how his dead mother came to life. If this was magic, he wanted to know who was doing. Perhaps some benevolent spirit or wizard? Suddenly Hana suggested for Wesley to show where his house was and began pushing him forwards. He chuckled then began leading his mother and his girlfriend back home. The house was small and had a flat roof so they could utilize it. Only the wealthier homes could afford the flaring roofs. Everywhere else, flat roofs were more practical. Wesley tried to laugh when Hana was processing the size of the house.

The mother reached for her key but was surprised when she realized it wasn't there. In fact, she didn't recall wearing this dress either. Hana had a solution and she quickly began messing with the lock. Cadence gave Wesley the, you better have not married a pirate, look. He quickly shook his head to let his mother know his girlfriend wasn't a pirate. Not really. And Wesley silently decided to never tell his mother the bits of stealing he'd done either. His mom wouldn't mind stealing from thieves but she would hang him by the ear if she got word of him stealing from anybody else.

"Yes. Ma come on in." Wesley quickly said, gently guiding her in.

The house was technically a two room house but there wasn't a door or a doorway. Instead it was a short hall that connected the second room and a curtain to hide it when guests came over. The first room had a fire pit in the center, cabinets on the wall, a tiny circular table with two wooden chairs around it. The walls were bare without a single bit of decoration. Around the fire pit were little worn pillows so that people could keep warm during the winter. There was also a counter against the wall, underneath the cabinets. A pile of folded blankets were in the corner. And the ground was littered in empty beer bottles.

"Your half brained father has made such a mess." Cadence said with a frown.

She began to pick up the empty beer bottles but Wesley quickly stopped her.

"I'll do it." He said, "You can relax next to the fire with Hana."

"You always were such a sweetheart. Alright. Besides, I shouldn't be cleaning up in this dress." His mother said looking over to Hana, "Its my party dress. I wore it for my wedding, for festivals, and for any important occasion. I don't recall why I was wearing it earlier…. Anyway, my other dress is what I usually wear."

The dress Wesley's mother wore was a cotton white dress. It was simple and plain, barely even went down to her ankles. The sleeves were short to save on fabric too. Cadence sat by the fire, beckoning Hana to do the same. Meanwhile, Wesley was quickly cleaning the place. He managed to pick up the majority of the empty beer bottles and tossed them outside in a bucket they used for a trashcan.

Behind the curtain, the second room held a bed for two people and a singular mattress in the corner. A cradle was in the center of the room. They had a shared chest up against the wall and an old brown rug in the center of the room. The room was shared as a bedroom. The curtain used to hide this other part of the house was nothing more than a wooden poll with a long grey sheet attached to it.

When Hana saw the inside of it she was circling around and around looking for more rooms. “This is it Wesley? Is this like a hunting cabin?” She was checking everything out. Slowly she was coming to a realization about something but still, she was checking for other doors and she would look at his mom and smile at her before sitting.

“The floor is all covered in dirt,” she was kicking a little before the look on her face dropped. No, the floor was dirt. Her mother had told her that poverty was different in all other countries of the world. It wasn’t like her tribe or Sularia. Her business never took her to the poorest parts of the cities she visited and she was too young to know better. “WAIT, THIS IS THE FLOOR.” She threw herself off the chair she had been on and put her ear to the ground. “There’s no cellar under here. This is the floor.”

It looked like the pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together. “WESLEY, is this the reason why you don’t ever want to do bets with me? I thought you didn’t like gambling but is it cause you can’t? Ma always told me that poor looked so different in other countries but I’ve never seen it before.”

Her eyes were wide as she looked between his ma and then to his bed and everything else. “I’m going to go get us some food.” It was the first thing her mind jumped too. No wonder Wesley had that strange habit of dividing everything out and making sure they had enough. It wasn’t like her brother who was conservative and wanted to make their fortune last. She ran out of the house and she was sure it worried Wesley but within twenty minutes Hana was hefting a large cut of beef onto the table and she had a basket of all sorts of vegetables with it.

“Yucca said if you didn’t know how to cook it that she wouldn’t mind coming by and doing it. It should be all cut up into different cuts as well. It took me a bit to run to her store~ She owes me for helping her put the floorboards in. She also threw in this,” Hana opened up the bag she had and pulled out a huge jug of juice. “She made it herself this morning. It has a variety of different exotic fruits in it.”

Hana was rubbing her neck. “She also told me to apologize for being rude. I didn’t realize this was what being poor actually looked like,” her face was flush. “Ma always kept us away from those distracts whenever she took us with her to other cities. She was afraid we would get kidnapped because Jet had a huge mouth and always said who we were. So we always stayed with the nobles while she went and did her thing. Even our tents for our tribe have rugs and furs for all of them even the ones who can’t fight. Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked at Wesley and put her hands on her hips.

“Is the twenty silver on you all you have?” That would explain why when they could have taken the easy way Wesley had them sleep outside. It didn’t bother her but whenever it was his turn to pay they had conveniently voted to sleep outside because it was pretty. Hana wasn’t mad nor was she being rude – she was just finding out things about her beau. "You know that Sularia is different from the rest of the world. Our women who can't live together opt to live in group community homes with several different families. The buildings are all funded by the city and look nice. Everything is traded for with things we need or jobs we have to have done. From the time we are young we decide what we want to do with our lives and depending on what it is we go out into the fields and help the harvests. Everyone has a purpose and everyone has a job to do because the desert is scary and unfair. That isn't like that in the rest of the world I was aware of that… but seeing it is different."

Wesley watched as Hana circled around the room, trying to piece the puzzle together. He knew that she would find out about his poverty eventually but he didn't think it would come out this way. And a part of him hoped she wouldn't notice. But it was adorable to watch her throw herself off the chair and realize that the floor was the dirt. Meanwhile Wesley's mother was politely hiding her grinning face as she watched his girlfriend freaking out. Cadence could tell by the girl's clothes and fine weaponry that she came from a family with wealth. But the shock that Hana had was a bit of a surprise. She assumed that his girlfriend would be more aware of the poverty levels.

"Maybe." Wesley shyly responded. "I'll be honest, I only have that 20 silver you always see me with."

Suddenly Hana dashed out of the house in search of some food before Wesley could stop her. He let out a sigh and plopped down next to his mother who burst out with laughter. Cadence had never seen somebody so shocked! If she knew that her poverty could bring that reaction, oh she would have a blast everyday. After her laughter died down, she turned to a worried Wesley.

"Oh its alright my dear. I doubt she's going to get into trouble or leave you behind." His mother said stroking his hand, "Now, tell me honestly. What happened to me?"

"Nothing happened to you." Wesley tried to say before he was interrupted.

"Don't give me lies." His mother said sharply, "I was deathly ill and I know our family couldn't afford doctors. I'm dressed for either a wedding, party, or funeral. Sick people don't go to parties. So it must be for a funeral. And you have grown so old in my absence. Something happened."

"You died." Wesley admitted with a quiet voice, "The illness won. I was afraid of what dad would do to us so I took Charise with me. Then…"

"Then my baby died." Cadence said with a frown.

"Yes." Wesley said, fighting back the guilt inside his mind.

"Wesley, sweetie what you did was what I hoped you would do." His mother said.

He looked at her with confusion. For years he'd believed that she would be pissed off once she found out and yet, she seemed fine with it.

"Your dad would have hurt you both without me." She explained, "I knew of your plan to get us out. If I ever died, that was my hope. That you both would make it out. If you had stayed….I'm certain he would have beaten you both to death. In all honesty, I'm just glad at least one of my children is alive."

Tears formed in his mother eyes as she reached out to hold her son. After some time, they went back to the table and waited for Hana's return. They both were flabbergasted at the sight of all that food. For them, it was a feast of gods. Cadence quickly dashed into the bedroom area, closed the curtains, and changed into her regular clothes before returning to the food. This outfit was a simple deep green dress, made to last a long time. She rolled up her sleeves and had a big smile.

"Don't worry sweetie. Cooking is one of my specialties." She said with a confident smile.

Cadence took the beef and vegetables to the counter to begin cutting things up. The mother began cooking the beef at the fire pit then worked on the vegetables on the counter. Meanwhile Hana apologized for being rude and explained herself. Wesley kinda guessed that she didn't know much about being poor, even though she was often on the run herself. But he never thought less of her for that. He always thought it was a good thing since it meant she lived happily.

"Its hard to mention that kind of stuff." Wesley said, "And I never really planned on coming back here. This place was always just something of the past for me. My plan was to work on the side as we traveled so I wouldn't be taking up your money all the time."

He never really liked the idea of using somebody else's money, regardless of who they were. Its why he never mentioned his lack of wealth to anybody. Another part of him was embarrassed by his lack of funds. Like there was something wrong with him. In almost every place, the poor were made to believe that being in poverty was their own fault, either they were too lazy or too stupid. Wesley didn't want to make Hana believe he was either of those.

"Yeah…its all I've earned so far." He said.

Meanwhile his mother, who had been listening in on their conversation, finished with the beef dinner. She had put it with vegetables and mixed in some of the provided spices in the recipe. She reached into the cabinet and put them in wooden bowls before serving it up on the table.

"Sweeties its alright." Cadence said to both of them. "Its always a shock to see how different people live, whether they live fairly or not. And Wesley, there is nothing wrong with admitting to being poor. Now this Sularia place, I've never been there but it sounds like they treat the poor better. Do you suppose they would accept a middle-aged woman? I've heard stories of their women warriors and healers but haven't heard about anybody else."

Hana got excited and nodded, “That reminds me of my ma! She is really good at cooking and she tends to kick all the cooking staff out into the dining room with us.” Angela was a kind woman and that was why Hana wasn’t looking down on them. “If I said one bad thing about you guys I’m pretty sure she would beat me… Empty my bank account and make a donation in my honor.”

The half-werewolf crossed her arms and looked at Wesley, “You had to tell me eventually. We are practically married in my ma’s eyes.” Angela adored Wesley and thought he softened Hana quite a bit. “Also, you can’t take all of my money because I get a monthly stipend from my ma and my pa.” She realized that she hadn’t told him her situation either but they had never really talked about their money.

She listened to Cadence for a moment and nodded, “We take everyone! As long as everyone is willing to do their part they are welcome to Sularia! We have common houses for people who are new arrivals and want to apply for a district to live in! There are many different jobs to take and we always need help!” She was so proud of her homeland.

“By the way,” from the way that Wesley was going on… Did he know how much they were getting paid for this job? “Wesley, how much do you think we are getting paid for this job?” This was a high ranking job even for her. Most jobs paid her one hundred silver but this one was an exception.

After she got his answer she had a blank look on her face, “Wesley… Ma is giving a five thousand silver reward for this job because of its nature.” She pulled out the contract between them and her mother to show him. She put her finger by the silver amount. "I guess you never saw it when we both signed it."