Awakened communities where multiple families or Holdings interact are governed by Keepers. They are almost always the strongest Awakened within the community, or who have the most power of other forms.

  Their role is mostly ceremonial, Arbiters handle the majority of ruling and day-to-day operations. For a Keeper to need to step in implies a failure of the society, or a gross violation of propriety.

  Those new to the area may only ever know of the Keepers by their title and have no actual knowledge of their Holding or Family name, or not realize that they are speaking to a Keeper if never introduced as such.

  ~ * ~

  Seb slipped his arm around Anya as they waited for Fay to finish saying goodbye to Briana. It was clear neither truly wanted to go their separate way but in the end Fay moved to join them at one portal while Briana headed over to another, bound for the center of Deep Earth.

  "She could have come over," he said.

  "She- she works in the morning," Fay stammered, blushing slightly.

  "Fay, did you want her to?" Anya asked.

  "Yes, but I don't know."

  They stepped through the portal, the lingering sounds of the convention vanishing in a moment even as his awareness was finally able to distinguish everything without strain. Seb straightened slightly, the tension fading as Anya glanced at him, sensing his relief.

  Too many Energy signatures in my aura.

  "She seemed like she wanted to spend more time with you," Anya said.

  "I know, it's just…"

  "Is it because we're home?" he asked.

  "No!" Fay said. "A little? I wasn't sure if you liked her."

  "She's-" Anya began.

  "-a lot," Seb finished without missing a beat

  "Oh." Fay said and started to frown.

  "Fay!" Anya said. "She's a lot for us. We like her. How often do we socialize, do we go out of our way to spend time with larger groups?"

  Fay thought about it for a moment then nodded. "You don't. You're either Diving, or pretending to train just so you can-"

  "Fay!" Anya gasped.

  "Pick a fight with him, not me. Unless he tickles you first."

  Seb took a step away, hiding both his smirk and blush from the pair.

  "We-" Anya said.

  "Don't worry," Fay interrupted. "You've both dropped too many hints without meaning to. It's nice."

  Seb cleared his throat. "She's nice. She's definitely a fan of yours."

  He caught her blush before she hid behind her hair, looking away from both of them.

  "She's welcome for dinner with us if you want. When we go out I mean," Anya said.

  "We've had dinner."

  "Oh?" Anya asked.

  "I cooked. The food wasn't great but she said she liked it."

  Seb glanced at Anya as she bit her lip.

  "We sat on the couch talking for hours. I gave her a tour of the house, except your room. She had wanted to see where I lived, asked what it was like to have a suite to myself."

  "Fay," Anya said. "You showed her your bedroom?"

  "Yes, she really seemed to be interested. But the she had to go home because it was late. We had dinner at her house a week later."

  Don't say it, he sent.

  "Was it nice?" he asked.

  "She's a good cook. Better at making coffee though."

  "The date," Anya blurted.

  "Oh, it was just dinner. Her roommates were there, they all have rooms but have to share the bathroom. We all talked while Bri was cooking. I thought they were going to stay but right as food was ready they all got called in to help out with night shifts?"

  "Fay!"

  Anya!

  Seb. She can't have.

  Seb saw the moment Fay realized what they were reacting to. Saw her start to curl up on herself the way she used to when she realized she'd overstepped, saw her blush as she realized what she'd missed.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Oh. She- I-"

  Anya? EDN.

  On it.

  "Fay, will she be home yet do you think?"

  "She lives a block or two from the main terminal."

  Found her, Anya sent.

  "I think we're going to go train a bit tonight, as you put it," he told Fay as they moved to join Anya near the EDN terminal

  "You just got back though, we didn't catch up."

  Anya stepped away from the terminal right as Fay came into range, the connection establishing at the same moment.

  "Hello?" Briana's voice came through, tinged with confusion.

  "Briana?" Fay answered while glancing between them both.

  "We'll be back the morning of the day after tomorrow, we haven't had a chance to really stretch since we leveled up," he said, pitching his voice so Briana would hear him as well.

  "Fay? Is that you?"

  "Briana, they-"

  "You have the place to yourself Fay. We'll see you in a day and a half," Anya yelled right before Seb pushed her into the Staging room and down into the depths, barely pausing long enough to grab their tent and basic supplies.

  "You know she could kill us by accident right?" Anya asked with a grin as she hugged him.

  ~ * ~

  What do you think we'll find, Seb asked as they stood in front of the Staging Point.

  Fay waiting to throw us back into the depths? Waiting to hug us?

  Both? he said as he stepped through.

  They'd spent most of their time in the depths resting. Between the last several months spent pushing themselves and the chaos of the convention they had been desperately in need of a break. They'd trained enough to stretch, tested themselves against one another at low intensity to ensure they had no surprises, but otherwise they had had what amounted to a vacation.

  Seb looked around the empty room with a hint of disappointment. He'd known Fay wouldn't be there, they'd told her morning but nothing more specific. If she was waiting for them it would be up in the house proper.

  I guess we're safe? Anya said.

  The moment they opened the door into the house Seb was struck by the smell of breakfast, and more importantly, the smell of good coffee. Their machine made decent coffee, how was he smelling good coffee? The sight of Briana in the kitchen answered his question, of course a barista would find a way to make good coffee.

  "About time you arrived, the eggs nearly dried out."

  "Good morning?" he said.

  "Good morning to both of you. Fay'll be down in a minute, she was waiting for you but you took your time."

  "Do I smell coffee?" Anya asked.

  "Of course you smell coffee. Can't have breakfast without coffee. But you're not getting any until I have my say."

  "You're in our house," Anya argued.

  "It's my coffee."

  "What kind of friends do you think you are? Laughing at her when she tells you about all the clues she missed. When she's being open with you. Instead of being supportive you grin and point out to her how I all but rolled out the red carpet?"

  "We weren't laughing-" Anya began.

  "I wasn't done. You call me up as I'm trying to settle for the night. Do you know how hard it is to fall asleep in an empty bed? Of course you two don't. But that didn't matter, you go and take your impromptu vacation and assume she'll watch over the house for you. You promise her that you won't be home, that there will be no interruptions and then you vanish while I'm on the line hearing all of it? You truly are horrible horrible people to do that to her."

  "Bri!" Fay nearly yelled from halfway down the stairs, still drying her hair as she did. "They are not horrible people, they-"

  "Fay," Seb said, cutting her off gently. "She was saying thank you."

  Fay took another step down the stairs, glancing between them all as if she didn't quite understand.

  "She- Oh."

  "You look like you slept well, bed more comfortable than usual?" Anya teased.

  "Yes?" Fay answered before blushing and throwing the hair towel she was holding at Anya. "Anya!"

  "Four coffees, eggs and bacon. Sit down everyone," Briana said with a smile.

  ~ * ~

  Fay shifted her chair a bit closer to Briana's as the four of them finished breakfast. They were finally catching up, finally talking about all the small details they hadn't managed to touch on at the convention. They'd agreed from the start that talking about the wall and what reaching level 10 meant would wait until they were talking with Seer Phelann, but everything else was fair game.

  Anya had tried once or twice to tease her about yesterday, about how nice it had been to not be sleeping alone, to not be nervous about whether Briana actually wanted to stay over. She couldn't believe she'd missed it, that she'd ignored the hints and actually said goodnight more than once when the offer had been there.

  Her job was to see patterns, her expertise was in putting details together and realizing what wasn't said, and she'd missed obvious clues for more than a month. Even worse she'd realized how patient Briana had been at her shop, how many times she'd let herself be turned down before finally suggesting they go have dinner.

  Was she that clueless about relationships? What else had she missed over the years?

  "-didn't even order. She just let me bring her food, then give that cute little smile of hers."

  "You think that's bad?" Anya said. "This one would let me slip under his arm on the couch while watching a movie and curl up against him, and still took weeks to realize."

  "Fay?" Seb said. "Want to leave these two horrible people trading stories about how clueless we are? I had a Seer question that has nothing to do with Diving."

  "Oh? But I wanted more coffee."

  "Fay, just fill your cup up," Briana said with a smile. "I'll make more if we run out."

  Fay nodded, then, scarcely believing her own actions, leaned in and gave her a quick kiss before all but running for the Holding door and down to her office. Seb caught up a minute later, carrying the coffee pot as well as his mug.

  "You didn't get more coffee."

  "Thank you," she said. "You had a question?"

  "Two. One for Fay, one for Phelann."

  She filled her mug and set the pot on her desk. "Fay first."

  "Are you happy?"

  Fay blinked, what did he mean? Was she happy? She thought about the last few months, how lonely she had felt. She thought about how badly she had missed the two of them, her family. She thought of how she felt with Briana, how the last day and a half had been.

  "Am I happy?"

  "Briana. She makes you happy?"

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Briana was, was, she was Briana. She'd been there before Fay realized it, she'd waited, she'd been patient.

  "Good," he said.

  "Phelann," he continued, his tone shifting away from family and towards the intensity he brought when he tried to understand how the WidePond worked. "Why is Weregild six months and not a year?"

  "Because of the wall. I can explain better later but as we've discussed Energy doubles with every level?"

  He nodded.

  "At level 10 it doesn't, it has a larger increase. It was supposed to be a year, but then someone realized how that wouldn't work at the wall and made it six months one level higher."

  "Do Seers just know this?" he asked.

  "No. I'd wondered about it years ago and finally got all the details to fit together while you two were in isolation. The change was a long long time ago."

  "As Anya would tell me, Seer stuff."

  "It wasn't the Seers actually, it was the Arbiters."

  "Fay," he smiled and held up his mug. "Seer stuff is what she says when I ask a question that only our Seer would know the answer to."

  She smiled, taking a sip of her coffee and settling into her chair across the desk from him. Their Seer, their friend, their family. She'd missed them.

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