The entrance to the dunj isn't too much of a hike at least. It looks like a twisting, shimmery gash in reality, spinning around itself slowly. There's three monsters lounging outside near the entrance, which look like someone crossed a cat and a dinosaur and added spikes, with some dramatic differences in size. These ones are all small-ish, no bigger than a large dog, but there's been reports of ones as big as horses.

They turn to stare at her once she starts making noise, spiny tails whipping about, large golden eyes fixed firmly. 

She draws her sword when she sees the dunj entrance.

She has, in fact, ever practiced with her sword before, but this is her first real fight. She'd kind of hoped it wouldn't be against a group. Too late to do anything about it now. Step, slash, lunge— and that's one badly injured, but it's not out of the fight yet, and now the other two are about to close – jump back, swipe, kick—

Her sword gleams a bit, sending slashes of wind out from its edge, catching one of the monsters hard in the side. The monster shrieks as a disabling gash opens through its ribs, one shoulder, and the other forelimb, falling to the ground.

(There's a sense, almost like someone yawning, shifting, mumbling, and sinking back into sleepiness.)

!!!

She tries to do that swipe again, the one the sword seemed to like, at the least-injured remaining monster.

(Dodge, jump back, slash. Keep moving.)

A swirling eddy with an effect somewhat like a tornado of knives sweeps from the edge - not quite as far, and it hits shallowly, but the damage it does even at a surface level is impressive.

The sword groans and mutters 'five more minutes.'

...she tries to send a sort of apologetic feeling at the sword, and sticks to less magical kinds of moves for now. She'll fall back on the magic if she gets into a tight spot, but there's no point getting off on a more antagonistic foot than necessary. First impressions are important.

He mentally stretches, yawning - and spontaneously sends a cutting edge of wind at the last and largest of the monsters as it throws itself at her.

'Sorry,' he says, still making a sort of murmuring noise. ''m tired.'

'Yeah, sorry about that. That's the last one down, now, though, so if you wanna take a while to... I dunno, sleep in or something, you could.'

'Think moving helps. Been sleeping a lot.'

'All right then.' She takes a couple of swipes at the air, paying attention to how the magic feels. 'Like this?' And a couple dramatic flourishes, why not.

He likes the dramatic flourishes a lot! They're fun! 

His blade's humming happily, the details gleaming a bit. He can only do variations on 'wind swipes' so far, and not super powerful, but being aware of what he's doing is super neat.

Looks like he's more into slashing than stabbing, then. She tries a dancey twirl thing, spinning him around her in a full-circle arc.

'By the way, I dunno if you can see it but we're actually just outside a dunj, if you want to try going in. I think that real fights are better for – waking up – than just practicing like this.'

' - Oh I think I remember what a dunj is. Yeah, let's do it! Those monsters won't stand a chance!'

All right then. (Actually, first a swig of water. And wipe the monster gunk off him.) But then: into the dunj!

Exploring!

The dunj is craggy sandstone and cliffs that extend past her eyes' ability to discern. There's a few lizard-cats climbing the walls, though most not near the entrance, and they don't seem to have noticed her right away. There's ravines through the cliffs, and the shadow of a cave in the distance. The floor is smooth, and feels like a long-dry river bed.

The sword hums in her hand.

...shoulda brought a flashlight. You always forget something. She could use her phone, maybe, though she'd have to keep an eye on the battery.

Probably better not to light herself up right now, anyway. Make the most of stealth while she's still unnoticed.

She points at the nearest lizardcat with her sword, as she quietly edges closer to it. 'I wanna try and sneak up on that one, do the windy thing when we get close enough. What d'you think?'

'Works!' he sort of loudly whispers back. It's unclear why he's whispering when she's the only one who can hear him. 'I'll try to make the wind super quiet!'

Grin. ...She actually has no idea whether he can see her grin. Whatever.

Sneak sneak. ...and they're just at the edge of wind range when it twitches and starts to turn toward them— she half-lunges forward, swipes—

Swoosh!

...That was maybe an attempt at being quiet. Luckily they caught the monster's neck, and he doesn't sound much different from the wind whistling through the ravine already. Unluckily it still manages to make a sort of dying gurgle, and a thump when it falls.

She turns her back against the wall, scans the ravine for monsters that look like they might be suddenly coming toward them – does she need to make a run for the exit so they don't get swarmed –

There's some stirring and moving closer - they don't seem able to see her, though.

'I think there's kinda a tunnel over there,' the sword whispers. 'I can feel the wind moving down it. Might be less monsters in there.'

Tunnel it is.

Are the monsters blind? No, they do have eyes... maybe they can only see motion? If she weren't too busy going for the tunnel, maybe she could've paid attention to how they reacted when she started moving. As it is, she only manages to think of it after they're no longer out in the open.

It's darker in the tunnel; she won't have as much warning if something comes at them. 'How well can you see in here? I think I could spot one of those things coming in time, but...'

'Same as before, but the outside's fuzzier since the wind's moving weird,' he replies. 'I don't think what I'm doing is what you mean when you say 'see,' I'm feeling the air.'

'<nod>. All right. Let's do this.' She makes her way, cautiously, softly, down the tunnel.

It zigs and zags and occasionally forks - the sword's pretty good at identifying which path goes farther or doesn't dead end. There's smaller monsters patrolling the corridors, some of which can be gone around (they don't seem hampered by the dark at all). The sword feels and then steers her away from a massive grouping in one cavern. 

He does alert her well in advance if there's an unavoidable monster, at least.

It – feels good, in a way she didn't expect, having him with her. Warm.

'I should tell you about my granddad, sometime,' she tells him during a lull, as she makes their way up a longish corridor between branches. 'The one time I came home from school smelling like cigarettes, my parents were furious, but Granddad sat me down and looked me in the eye and talked to me like an equal. Told me about how he'd started smoking when he was in the army, and spent the rest of his life trying to quit. Didn't try to order me to do anything, just – asked me, please, not to make his mistake. And said he'd give me any help I wanted to accept.'

'I don't wanna say I didn't already love him. I did. But I think that was when we really started to be friends.'

Is that oversharing? Well, too late to do anything about it now.

'I dunno if it's weird to say that you remind him of me, a little. I hardly even know you, yet. But – he did always say, the strongest bonds are the ones you make in wartime. Your buddies on the battlefield. Maybe that's what this is, that we're in this together.'

'I guess that's a roundabout way of saying that I really appreciate that you're here.'

And then they reach the next branch, and there's two lizardcats up to the left—

'Oh - wow, thanks. I like having friends! You're nice!'

He then warns her about the lizard-cats - they might be too close to get away from, even as something almost like halting air begins to turn in the back of his mind which would be so useful for stealth if it would just click - and 'I don't feel anything close enough to come running for a short fight, but their hearing is good and I can't muffle the sound. I don't know how well we can sneak past them.'

And there's no way she's firing a gun in a dunj full of monsters that to all appearances track them by sound, so the Indiana Jones option is out.

'Yeah, I think we might have to fight our way through. I think we can take them, though. What d'you think?'

'I think we're Team Awesome!'

Heh.

Sneak sneak sneak... sweeping slash, swipe, hop back, stab!

Looks like that second one grazed her leg before she put it down, though. It's not a deep cut, but she takes a minute to wipe it down with alcohol and tie a bandage around her calf. No reason to take chances when she doesn't have to.

'What'cha doing?' the sword asks.

'–right, sorry. Bandaging up my leg, one of the monsters got me. I don't think it's serious, though, just the surface really. Stings a bit. I'll be fine.' She tries to send him a mental impression of what she's doing, what the cut looks like and what the bandage looks like and how her arms are moving as she bandages it up.

'Why are you red, are you okay?!?!'

'I'm okay. The red is blood, that's one of the fluids in my body. When my skin— my surface got damaged, some of the blood leaked out. My body can heal – uh, repair itself – over time, though, and I hardly lost any blood, so I'll be fine. This is mostly just to make sure I don't get dirt and germs inside my body. Uh, germs are – well, if they got inside me, my body would have to spend energy fighting them off, so I'd be more tired for a while, while that was happening.'

'I don't think I really realized how complicated human bodies were, before now. You're just solid metal all the way through, and we're – bones and muscle and tendons and nerves and skin and all sorts of different bodily fluids, we're these squishy bendy things with all these internal parts, breathing and sweating and shedding little bits of skin and constantly growing and regrowing ourselves...'

'...uh. Sorry if that's rude or something. I don't mean to say you're – less. Just. It kinda catches you off guard, realizing – it's something you don't really think about, and then kinda, seeing it from the outside?' She wiggles her fingers. This must be why people stare at their hands when they do drugs. Heh.

'It's cool! I didn't think you meant that. Humans have a lot of stuff going on! I hope you don't get hurt too bad though...'

'Thanks. I hope so too.'

And it's time to move on. Further down and further in.

He'll continue guiding her, chattering some about odd things he senses, until during a more boring stretch he asks, 'Do you know where I came from? I only kind of remember stuff.'

'I inherited you when Grandma died. I dunno where she got you, I don't think she and Granddad had metalworking stuff. Originally you woulda been forged and tooled by someone, but I dunno who that was. Woulda been a long time ago.'

'They used to have you hanging over the kitchen door. Maybe you remember the wallpaper... no, you can't really see, can you. The air in there was usually humid in the afternoons, with Grandma cooking. The air in there was never really still, not like an empty house, even at night. I don't know how they did it, but you could always tell from the, the sound and the warm and the smell and the I don't even know what it was, but the house always felt – like it wasn't just a house, it was a home.'

'It was different, after they died. Even when it was just Grandma, you could still tell there was someone living there, but it felt... half-empty, I guess. Like the house was too big for one person. And then Grandma died, and it was empty, and cold, and you were there over the door –' she sends an impression of the steel shining in the sunlight from the window, just beginning to gather dust, with faded yellow wallpaper behind. 'And I couldn't stand to let you stay in an empty house like that. You belonged in a proper warm alive place, like you had been all my life. I took you home with me the same day we buried Grandma.'

'I guess when I say it like that, it sounds obvious why you remind me of him. But before you woke up, I think you mostly reminded me of her. And it's not really the same kind of reminding at all. A – memento, not a friend.'

'I miss them.'

'I want to hug you. I remember that, I think... Hugs, and that place. It was - nice. Like sunlight.'

'Yeah. That's a good way of saying it.' She sends a mental impression that's more a feeling than a specific sensory experience, a warm hug and a warm smile and a warm bright home.

The wind sort of wraps around her in response. (He can't really do stuff on his own - which kinda sucks - but that seems to have counted well enough.)

Aww, he's a sweetie. She sends an impression of pulling his wind around her like a blanket.

And then – an impression of being outside, under the open sky, the same sunlight from her memory of him hanging over the doorway, and the same wind wrapping around her. The fresh open outdoors.

!!!

He wants to go there!

...After this of course.

But that seems nice. He wants to see it - wants to feel that blue -

I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. A memory of hopping from stone to stone across a stream, almost dancing – picking out the way across, avoiding the stones that would move if she put her weight on them – the cool green light filtering through the leaves –

(He might recognize that half-dancing half-jumping motion in her combat footwork.)

He does.

'That's really neat!' This is making him want to move, jump around, more than he can just by controlling the wind...

She tries to listen to his impulses, let herself be directed. She shares what she's seeing in the moment, and the sense of where her feet are falling and the sensation of how her weight falls with each step.

The wind around her in real life still, sounds becoming muffled then louder then muffled, as he explores the thought-memory, exhilarated. 

...that's interesting.

She tries to share what she's hearing, too, but she doesn't actually have the ability to focus on that many things at once; she ends up just sharing her hearing, and the feeling of how her weight lands as she steps, and a vaguer sense-memory of fresh air, the smell of wind and its touch on her face and arms.

'Do you feel that? The sound is – changing –'

It changes a bit more as he startles at the weird double input.

'Yeah. Uh. I was trying to do a thing? I can feel the sound but I can't really - do much - with it...'

'Is there anything I can do on my end? Like, moving a certain way, or remembering sunlight, or... I dunno.'

'Actually, can you send me what it feels like, for you?'

He does.

It's more touch than anything, something halfway to warmth - moving air is warm, still is cold, sound is a weird fluctuation in temperatures that's too fiddly for him to do much with - 

He doesn't see so much as feel the warm-cold spots all around him, until details grow too fuzzy to be sure of with distance.

Oh, that's interesting. She sends him a vague amalgam of different sensations, trying to convey an intuition-ish concept of texture – the feel of rough burlap in her hands, the sound of a purring motor, the rough look of sidewalk chalk on concrete, and an echo of the air-fluctuations of sound to his wind-sense as he shared it with her. 'I don't know if you can do anything with it, but it might help if you try thinking about it like this—?'

'Ooooh maybe.' He plays with the feeling - it's still not quite there, still not quite controllable, but he's less likely to make their own noises suddenly louder. 'I think I mostly need practice, though?'

'Practice we can do.' And she continues deeper into the dunj, sharing her hearing and proprioception and the feeling of the air on her skin, and giving him an experimental sweep or twirl or flourish whenever one occurs to her to try.

Movements help! He does sweeping movements best, likes the twirling, but the flourish makes him stutter a bit. He gets better at increasing incoming sound slightly, but not so much at muffling outgoing.

Also the monsters are getting bigger, closer together, and harder to avoid, and the bare excuse for a floor - which isn't really distinct from the walls in the first place - gets to be less of an acceptable substitute for a walking path.

Broad sweeps, then. Big simple motions rather than little fiddly things. Makes sense with how he feels sound, when she thinks about it.

'Looks like we're getting closer to the center. Not thrilled about the footing, here – if it gets bad enough, I'll be doing as much climbing as walking, and I won't have my hands free to fight. It's already getting to the point I can't move and dodge as well.'

The next time they're at the end of a narrow hall, she pauses just inside. 'I'm kinda thinking I wanna try to lure them to a chokepoint, like here, so we can take 'em out one at a time. Dunno if this is the right place for it, though. What d'you think?'

'That sounds smart! But, hmm... I think this isn't as good a spot? Air moves a bit weird, and there's some cover and stuff. I can kinda feel one over thataway, though, I think that hallway has a dead end but it's really regular and long - we couldn't run but we'd be able to cut in a straight line well and stuff couldn't sneak up behind us. If I was a monster and someone tried to get me to go into a chokepoint I'd go around them and attack from behind.'

'I'm not sure they're that smart... but yeah, that's a good plan. Let's go take out that one, and see how the dead end feels from up close.'

'Cool!' He very enthusiastically helps with slashing at the thing!

And then it's dead. Time to see if this is a good spot.

Hallway's clear. Footing's not too bad. Enough room to maneuver, but not so much that a bigger monster could get around them, though one of the smaller ones might.

'Looks okay to me. You?'

'Yeah! This is really workable - man, there's so many cool powers I could have that'd be great here...'

'I don't suppose we're particularly close to figuring out any of them?'

'Don't think so. I think there's stuff past the sound thing but I don't have a good feel for even just that yet...'

Nod. (Wait, can he see feel that?) <Nod>. 'All right then.'

She draws her gun.

'Let's make some noise.'

'...I think I can make it louder if we wanna do that.'

'Perfect. Do you know how you need me to move?'

'Hmmm I think, like, a thrust? Sharp and forward.'

'Gonna do a couple practice thrusts first—' thrust! lunge! stab!

'—and this time for real.' She points her gun at the ceiling, angled towards the far side of the room toward the center of the dunj; disengages the safety; and thrusts—

!!!BANG!!!

—and scurries back into the safety of the dead-end tunnel.

It takes a few moments - 

And the monsters begin to swarm.

The sword hums in her hand.

She shares her sight, and lets him guide her whenever he seems to have an opinion, and offers what she can in return. Her movements aren't consistently graceful, yet, but they are more confident, more sure.

It wouldn't be accurate, yet, to say that the two of them act as one, but perhaps they act as one-and-three-quarters.

And so together they dance.

There's some adjustment, with a fight this long, little discontinuities becoming more obvious, places they stumble more important - 

But Naruto likes people easily. He likes her, and it's almost second nature to sort of mentally wiggle around - 

The first attack's getting more powerful and more refined, and he's adding an almost percussive force to it, the sound manipulation turning out to be far easier to use with a sort of sonic attack.

She notices the discontinuities, and tries to see if she can— if they can get those transitions smoother. Carefully, though; it's more important to keep up what they have than to eke out that tiny bit of improvement.

And then he's doing something new, the air itself sort of slamming at the monsters, and she's focusing on that, figuring out how to give him the strength for the attack, firm decisive thrusts, and the occasional "hyah!" of her own.

The decisive thrusts and the 'hyah' both actually help it. It's loud enough to draw a few more, but they seem to have thoroughly gotten the attention of every monster in the area.

What's more, they get agitated by the noise, angry and screeching, and begin climbing more recklessly over each other - damaging their comrades.

Okay. She can do this. They can do this. She's going to be sore all over tomorrow from the exertion, but she's not flagging yet. (And she promised her parents she wouldn't die.)

'The monsters are starting to get in each others' way, hurting each other even. I think we should be able to use that somehow. I think the noise makes them crazy, sort of.'

The next time she sees one trying to crawl over another, she aims a sonic attack at the one on the bottom – hopefully, it'll flail in a way that injures the one on the top?

'That's a good idea!'

It does indeed work like that; the one on top is badly injured but not dead, and now attacking other monsters, apparently angry at its injury.

Nice. She takes up a defensive stance – no reason to draw attention by attacking, as long as they're infighting – and waits.

It's not long, though, before they have a giant lizardcat – dragontiger? – coming at them again, and they're back in the fight. She'll use that trick again at the next opportunity, of course.

It's a pretty effective trick, and Naruto likes it - and he slowly manages to alter the pitch ever-so-slightly so it makes them even angrier. 

The swarm slows, thins, and then they're down to only a handful of monsters coming at them.

Promising. Though it does mean they have to fall back to single-enemy tactics.

And eventually it's clear, at least for now. Lennah takes a minute to catch her breath.

'How're you holding up? Do swords even get tired like humans?'

"I'm not sure? I think I could get, like, thinking tired? But I'm not right now."

"That makes sense."

All right. Time to head for the center.

"Yeah."

It gets harder to navigate - the floor only kind of exists in that it has a river ravine aesthetic, and rivers usually smooth their beds out, but there's a lot of areas with horrible or narrow footing - it's not designed for conventional walking in the slightest. But they did manage to clear out a lot of the monsters, so she'll have time to pick her way through.

And so they make their careful way, watching and listening.

The footing gets steadily worse.

"I'm starting to wonder if drawing them out like that was a good idea. If there's any more in here, I won't have any experience fighting in this terrain." She tries a couple of experimental slashes; the grip on her boots is good, but it's hard to know how she should be aiming.

"Hm, yeah. But it'd be kinda worse having to fight them all like this?"

The path's starting to join with others, getting bigger, even if the surface is more jagged. It's also sloping down, and there's trickles of water across the rock.

"Yeah, that's true. At least it's looking like we'll have the high ground." The water isn't enough to make the rock slippery, yet, but she's keeping an eye on it.

"Yup. And stuff's narrow enough they shouldn't be able to swarm too well."

He pauses, senses, "Though I think we're getting close to an opener area."

"Good to know. Let's try to stay quiet until we know what we're dealing with." This involves slowing down even further, but they can afford to take a few extra minutes.

When they get there, she stays by the mouth of the narrow pass and looks around. Are there monsters?

A few, here and there. Not nearly as many as there could be, but the cavern curves out of sight pretty quickly. It seems to be the bed of an underground river, and there's the sound of a waterfall in the distance.

Hmm.

She bounces her vision. "Do you think we can draw their attention one at a time?"

" - Probably not, they're all kinda aware of each other I think."

"All right then. In that case I think I'd want to do the chokepoint thing again, but without the big bang this time. What d'you think?"

"Yeah, that was a really good strategy last time."

So she backs up into the narrow path, and stops trying to be quiet. If they don't react right away, she'll gradually start making noise on purpose – stomping, calling out – getting louder until they do.

A few of the closer ones twitch her way, and as they make small chittering noises and look for her the alarm sort of spreads through the others.

That's more or less what they were expecting, yep.

Since this is not an RPG, they don't have a battle theme. Instead, there are only the sounds of chittering monsters, and metal on flesh, and Lennah's and the monsters' footsteps, and the occasional grunt of effort or cry of pain.

Are the lizardcats coming in simultaneously enough to use the sonic irritant trick, or will they have to fight them one at a time?

There's probably at most two or three trying to get through the chokepoint - and there's few enough of them they aren't tripping over each other nearly as much. 

The sonic irritant trick, if tried, seems to summon more.

Maybe let's not do it again, then.

Luckily, they have plenty of practice with "pointy end goes in monster". Soon enough, the way is clear again.

"I think the next little bit's clear, but - there's a lot more large openings ahead. Might be hard to do the bottleneck trick much."

"Hmm. I'm not thrilled by the idea of fighting them from all sides... we could try to draw more of them out to here, have the next bit be clearer, or just go for it."

"I'm tempted to just go for it, but I don't know if that's actually a good idea."

"I think we can take them! We're a really good team!"

<Grin.> "All right then. Let's do this."

They do, in fact, make a pretty good team.

It's an increasingly tough fight as they go on - 

And then the sword sort of hums, says, "Something feels really weird. Out of place."

She has a brief moment of panic, before – "That'll be the dunj core. Can you tell where it is?"

She's also looking around for it herself, whenever she can spare the attention.

"Uh - that side passage thing. It opens up into a really weird space. There's a - thing floating in the air."

The side passage is little more than a jagged gash in the wall, and will be difficult to get through while fighting.

"Thanks. It looks like a tight fit, I think we'll have to clear these guys out first, but – yeah. We're coming up to the end." It's a good feeling. She bounces it, then wonders if that was necessary – it's probably not a human/weapon thing. Oh well.

"!!!" That's a very nice feeling! "Yeah! Let's! Team Awesome, go!"

oh no he's adorable you know what, she can get behind that sentiment.

Team Awesome, go.

And eventually it's clear.

Working her way through the passage is pleasantly tricky, figuring out where she can rest her weight that will let her reach the next handhold or foothold, and occasionally she has to backtrack a bit when a promising lead turns out to be a dead end.

Eventually, though, they reach the end of the mazelike twisty little passage, and emerge into—

It looks like the room was expanded more violently than by water and erosion. Almost cut away, entirely unlike the rest of the maze.

Hovering in the center is a shimmering red cube, the sides perfectly smooth.

"That's it. It's - wrong."

"That's the anchor stone, the dunj core. We destroy it, and the dunj dissolves."

And with a grand sweeping motion, she brings him down on it, hard.

The wind whips and swirls around them, slashing down with her stroke - 

And it shatters before his blade even touches it, the winds blasting it apart - 

And the dunj wavers, twists, and breaks.

And they're back.

"We did it. Team Awesome!"

...

"So what do you think of the sky?"

"!!! It's so big! There's so MUCH!!!"

She holds him up high over her head, pointing upward to the sky, and holds him there for a moment before swinging him down and around in a grand sweeping pirouette that has more resemblance to stage-fighting than to real combat.

(His enthusiasm is catching, and it's hardly any effort at all to share her exhilaration with him.)

The wind dances with her, and he is distinctly cackling delightedly.

And so, once again, together they dance.

(There's something quiet and animal inside her that wishes she could hug him properly, but she doesn't really wish he wasn't a sword. (Her mother drilled it into her, years ago, that trying to change a man never works out well.))

He laughs, and dances, and the wind swirls - 

And he really wants to hug her - 

And then he can!

He has arms!!! They are great for hugging!!!

...Walking is not super intuitive! He might fall on her!

She grins delightedly at him ­– he's cute and he's smiling at her and she can process the wish fulfillment thing later –

—and he's stumbling but that's she already has her arms around him and she can catch him – (oh, of course, he wouldn't have any practice at standing up) – that's okay, she's strong enough for both of them, she can lift him from the waist and twirl him around – (heh, she was just twirling him around before, wasn't she) –

– she really wants to kiss him and she doesn't know how to bring it up, what even are the rules for this? – but it sure is nice to think about – she presses a little closer to him –

This is great!

He's a lot heavier when person-shaped, but not too bad, and he'll laugh and do his best to twirl with her.

She feels, vaguely, that this scene ought to have a soundtrack.

As it is, she just hugs him and boops the tip of her nose to his.

Nose boops! 

He very uncoordinatedly tries to nose boop her back!

She's more than happy to assist in this operation.

(Her arms are getting tired; she sets him down, but keeps hugging-supporting him.)

He laughs. "You're great! The sky's great! Having a body's great, though being a sword's neat too!"

"I'm glad you like it! Glad you like them both. And I'm glad I get to share this with you."

She idly wonders what it would be like to be a sword herself.

He keeps smiling. "I wanna try walking more - I think it shouldn't be that hard, I was just excited."

"Of course. And I can catch you if you start to fall."

It takes him a bit - he's not actually naturally coordinated, and keeps getting distracted - but soon enough he's running and jumping around, laughing loud enough to echo.

Cute guy is cute, news at eleven. She runs around with him for a bit, but eventually they get tired as humans do and have to stop.

"Do you wanna start heading back?" she says after they've had a minute to catch their breath. "My car's over thataway."

"Sure!" He spins a bit, considers whether he wants to be sword-shaped or human-shaped for the ride. Seeing what landscape looks like through human eyes wins out.

Hike hike.

And here's the car. She shows him how the seatbelt works, and they're off.

She puts on the radio.

Music's great! He doesn't know any of the lyrics but he'll hum along (off key).

He's not the worst singer she's ever heard.

There's not much of a transition, as they get back to town. The occasional buildings get less occasional, and then the buildings are mostly on the right, and then they turn off the highway and they're driving past homes and a playground and a church, and then she turns in to a driveway and parks.

"Welcome home."

He squirms until he gets his seat belt off then bounces out of the car. "Have I been here? I think I've been here, but - senses are really different like this."

"Yeah, for – about two years, I think. Something like that."

She gets out of the car just as the front door is opened from the inside, revealing a woman of around forty in a powder-blue dress with a white sash.

        The woman raises an eyebrow. "Hello, Lennah. I assume you have a good explanation for bringing home a boy I've never met?"

"Hi Mom, I love you too. This is Grandma's sword. He woke up just outside the dunj. He's been a big help to me."

         "And you didn't think to mention this to me before? You didn't call the entire time you were out—"

"—I was gone for six hours, Mom, this is not the first time I've been out of the house—"

        "So you should know by now they invented this thing called a cell phone—"

Lennah hugs her, rather than answer.

        "Oh, I'm only teasing. Your father and I will always love you, you know that, right?"

"Of course, Mom. I love you."

        "I love you too. Now come inside, both of you, tell me all about it." She turns to him as she steps back out of the doorway. "I'm Livia. It's so good to meet you; thank you for taking care of my little girl. Do you have a name?"

"Hi! It's good to meet you too, and she was really awesome! And uh, I don't think so?"

        "Well, there's no hurry about it." She pulls him into a quick hug. "Lennah, could you check on the quiche in the kitchen? There's a few things I think that he and I should talk about."

"I'll have you know he's been a perfect gentleman, and if you want to threaten him you can do it in front of me."

        "Spoil all my fun, why don't you." She turns back to him. "So, do you know what a condom is?"

"...I'll be in the kitchen."

"Uh. No? What's a condom?"

"You'd need to wear it if you were going to have sex with her," she says frankly, "which you're not. But that's beside the point. I can't sit here and tell you everything you need to know. The point is this: there's a lot you don't know, and that you need to know, and you don't know what questions you need to be asking. You're not ready to be dating my daughter, and if you try it anyway, someone is going to end up getting hurt."

"If you want to be her friend, you have my blessing. But if you're thinking of being her boyfriend, you'd better think again."

"Are we clear?"

That is a very bright red sword-person!

"Ah! I don't - even really know - why's a boyfriend different from a friend who's a boy - "

(Is he even a boy? That feels like a weird question, sure he's - a boy - but he's not really sure that's any more permanent than being human shaped or sword shaped, and it's kind of a silly thing to divvy up - )

"A boyfriend would be someone who was dating her. You are not allowed to date my daughter. Is that clear enough for you?"

"I'm really not clear on what dating is!"

Sigh. "If you need to be given The Talk, you'll have to wait for Jack to get home. In the meantime: no kissing, no getting undressed, and nothing that's even a little like sex." Pause. "On second thought, you probably shouldn't be alone with her at all."

She stands up and walks to the kitchen.

"Lennah. Your new friend claims he doesn't know what dating is. I hope you understand why I'd be concerned?"

"I'll be careful."

        "You'd better."

"Yes ma'am."

"Why is this something to be careful about?!?!"

"You wanna let me take this one, Mom?"

        Sigh. "All right."

She turns to him. "Dating is – a type of relationship, that – tends to involve very strong emotions. Even when the people in the relationship don't intend for that to happen. And that means that, if something goes wrong, people can end up getting hurt. Emotionally, and otherwise."

"There are other risks, relating to – certain activities commonly associated with dating, in addition to that. Physical risks, of various kinds. I'd rather not go into detail in front of my mother. But the feelings are the one that's about dating itself, regardless of – specific activities."

"Between the two of us, I'm the one with a lot more information than you about the risks. Not all of them are easy to explain. So – it has to be my job, to make sure that nothing goes wrong."

And I have to think about whether you're just playing dumb to try to get away with something, she doesn't say.

"Why are the emotions stronger than friendship?" He's very clearly really confused by this! "...Uh, I think I know how to read, maybe, if you don't want to explain it?"

"It's not a thing that can be explained in words. One day you'll have a feeling toward someone that is stronger than friendship, and then you'll understand."

"Might help if I hear it from another weapon? Since, uh, 'stronger than friendship' doesn't seem like - a... Concept? To me? Friendship's not a thing at a strength."

"I don't know where to find another weapon in this town. But... maybe I can show you." She holds out her hand.

        "Lennah."

"Not a demonstration, Mom. We can sort of – talk to each other, and not just in words. Weapon/wielder thing."

        "...fine. But you're doing it in front of me."

"Fine."

He'll take her hand.

"Feels like it'll work even when not touching, eventually."

And she closes her eyes, and – sends –

—her first crush, bright and desperate, on a boy she hardly knew, and the struggle of not understanding her feelings or what they meant or what to do about them—trying to work up the courage to talk to him, and when she finally managed to approach him she bungled it, pressing shame heart racing feeling blind and dizzy, hardly able to think—months later, the realization that he had never been who she had imagined him to be, the directionless teetering uncertainty—

—her first kiss, with a different boy, furtive and clumsy and eager and scared—a later kiss, warm and intense, and embracing—finally daring to ask if he would be her boyfriend, and the mixture of relief and vertiginous terror when he said yes and she realized she had no idea how to be girlfriend and boyfriend—the dark hot passion in her chest as she pinned his wrists to the wall to kiss him—the unexpected nameless elation when he returned the favor—

—discovering him kissing another girl, older and prettier, the screaming sense of betrayal like her heart being ripped out of her chest, leaving her empty and cold inside—

—she startles, opens her eyes – her mother has just put her hand on her shoulder – she takes a sharp gulp of air, lets go of his hand –

– takes his hand again, and sends again, the long slow recovery, regrowing the hurt place, scarred but not broken, hugging her parents, her grandparents, learning to be warm and soft inside again. (It's not the same kind of love. It doesn't have the same intensity. But it's there, and it lets her know that she's healing, that she's healed.)

— Her second boyfriend, and their amicable parting when his family moved to Wichita Falls, bittersweet, a meaningless sadness that she couldn't even feel angry about.

— and her feelings, now, for him, warm and solid-stable-safe and laughter-joy-exaltation, the joy of friendship, not the fierce need of desire but wanting to be with him, to have him in her life, to share life with him — and the familiar uncertainty-confusion about her own feelings, about this strange new thing not quite like friendship and not quite like her love for her parents or even her grandparents and not like romantic love at all —

"– that's why I said you can't explain it in words."

"..."

He bounces back - what he feels. For the people he half-knew as an unawake weapon. For her. For her mom, and the glimpses of people reflected in her memories. For the concept-of-humanity.

It's all the same emotion. He likes them. Sees little bits of himself reflected, wants to know them better and share their pain and their joy and every moment in between. Wants them to be happy and secure and the best themselves.

His brain does not, in fact, seem to distinguish between types of love. It's all a big jumbled mess, and he likes everyone with the same intensity, it's just - like sometimes there's specific people he's looking at, and some people he gets frustrated or angry at even as he likes them. He's frustrated with her mom. He's mad at that first boyfriend. He wishes neither of them poorly.

His feelings to her are more trust and admiration than a more intense like. She's nice, and he's getting to know her. She's reliable and heroic and smart and does the right thing even when it's hard. She makes him happy, too, just to be around.

(It's still not really clear to him why kissing's a restricted thing, but he recognizes it's important to her, and that since it's important to her if someone's in a restricted-kissing relationship with her they shouldn't break that promise. His brain's nebulous on whether he wants to be in a restricted-kissing relationship with anyone.)

"I think we're good."

"Good!" He laughs kind of awkwardly.

There's the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. Lennah goes to get the door.

He'll... Wait. Kind of awkwardly. But -

To Lennah's mom: "Is there anything I can - help with?"

        "Well, aren't you sweet. You don't have to do anything, you're our guest." Pause. "I suppose if you really want, you could help me set the table; Jack'll be in in just a minute."

And indeed a man comes in, wearing shirtsleeves and loosening his tie; he puts down his briefcase, hugs Lennah – "I'm glad to see you're all right. You know your mother and I worried—" and then he spots the newcomer.

    "Have we met before? I'm Jack." He holds out his hand to shake.

"This is Grandma's sword, Dad. He woke up when we were at the dunj."

    "Well. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Hi! I'm a sword! Nice you meet you!"

        He smiles indulgently. "And I'm a human. You don't have a name yet?"

Lennah rolls her eyes, but she's smiling too.

"Nope! I don't think 'sword's a name."

"Hmm."

He exchanges a series of meaningful looks with Livia.

"It seems to me," he says slowly, "that you've been in this family longer than I have."

Oh.

Oh.

She takes his hand, so that she can share what she's feeling, the same feeling for him as before but clearer now that it has a name.

Brother.

Jack takes his hand, clasping it between his own. "You're family," he says, "and you'll always be welcome in this house."

Livia comes around to stand beside her husband. "Always. And – I hope you'll accept – I'd be proud to call you my son."

Lennah is beaming at him.

"Oh - oh wow - thank you!!!" Hug?

Hug. So much hug, all four of them together.

Hugs! Are great! Family hugs are even better!!!

They really are.

(She feels a thought creeping in around the edge of her mind, retroactive mortification at having overshared at her brother about her love life. She pushes it down; she can deal with it later. Right now, hugs.)

He's not going to be the one ending the hug, even as more questions bubble up in the back of his mind.

"So who wants dinner?"

! Food!

"Oh me! I've never had food before, what're we having - "

"Oh, you're in for a treat, Mom's quiche is great," Lennah says.

        "You need to eat some vegetables too, it's not healthy to go without. That's asparagus," she points, "and that's broccoli, and the salad's a salad."

"Do swords get unhealthy like humans do?"

        "Not helping."

"Sorry, Mom."

        "Anyway, that quiche has bacon and onions and mushrooms and Swiss cheese, and that one has spinach and red peppers and cheddar. You can have four slices all together."

"She usually only lets us have three," Lennah stage-whispers to him. "I think she likes you better than me."

"Those sound good!" He's going to try some of everything!

To Lennah, whispered really badly: "Being a sword's a lot of energy!"

"Well, that is what eating is for."

Grace is short and to the point, and everything is (as advertised) delicious.

He's very complimentary, albeit a bit confused about grace!

Lennah is completely unqualified to explain theology to a sword, but she can hold his hand and share her sense of gratitude and awe, of living in a world that was made for a purpose, and of having been given the chance to enjoy these simple pleasures, and how the world seems a little brighter when she stops to remember it.

Livia accepts his compliments gracefully.

That isn't very clarifying but he's not going to push it right now.

He's still energetic and pretty bouncy after dinner, but now he's interested in Family Things that he only vaguely remembers the barest sensory impressions of. What are some Family Bonding Things?

...wel~l, they could start in in the project of inducting him into the family favorite movies. How about The Lion King?

!!! What is a lion and why do they have kings?

A lion is that thing! And they don't really have kings, in real life they're just animals, but this movie pretends that the animals are people because otherwise it would be hard to tell a story about them.

Oh! Okay! That makes sense.

(He turns out to be really terrible at sitting still through movies. He has so many questions.)

Talking about the movie is one of the advantages of watching at home with the family. They'd have to be quiet if they went to the theater. (Also the theater usually doesn't have classic movies like this, only new ones.)

And at home they can pause and rewind if he doesn't understand something, that's important.

He's probably going to have to watch it again at some point when he gets all of the references!

For now he really likes the colors, and the acting, and he gets super into the film, gasping at dramatic scenes and sniffling at sad ones and cheering at triumphant ones.

Yep! And next time he can sing along with the music.

(Watching with someone who's seeing it for the first time is its own kind of exciting – like seeing it fresh again, vicariously.)

Music! Is great!

Friendship! Romance! Dramatic fight scene!

Exciting!!!

(Movies: such a good. Human senses for enjoying things like movies: also such a good!)

And then the story comes full circle ("The cii~iircle of liiife!"), and the credits roll.

"That was amazing!" he expresses, yet again.

"You see why we wanted you to see it."

"Yeah! Are there more movies?"

"So, so many."

"But we shouldn't stay up trying to watch them all tonight. It's getting late, and it's been a long day. I need to get to bed."

"Do you think you want to sleep in human form, or sword?"

"...I'm not sure I - sleep? I'm not... Feeling less energetic?"

"...huh. It might just be that you woke up later than me today, but... it might be that you just don't get tired like a human."

        Livia pokes at her phone, and "Google says weapons don't need sleep, but you do need downtime. Mental rest."

"There you go, then. The rest of us do need sleep, though, so I'm sure we'd appreciate it if you kept it quiet during the night. You can play with my phone if you like, I'll plug it in by the couch so you don't have to worry about running down the battery."

"Okay! I'll be super quiet!"

"Then I'll see you in the morning." And she hugs her brother(!) goodnight, and heads upstairs.

        Livia shows him how to use Google and Wikipedia, and warns him about the reliability of both, and admonishes him not to download or install anything, and then she heads off to brush her teeth and to bed.

        And then he's alone with Jack.

        There follows an excruciatingly awkward (at least for Jack) conversation, covering the very basics of what sex is, and likewise condoms, STDs, pregnancy, and masturbation. Sex and masturbation are not allowed in this house. —nor outdoors, in case that needed to be said. All of these things are not to be discussed in polite company, and in particular not in mixed company, nor around children should he meet any.

        Jack is, despite his obvious discomfort, at least patient with answering questions.

What does mixed company mean? Also who's polite company? - Does he know if weapons can even be involved in that stuff?

He seems more confused than awkward.

Mixed company means men and women together; for his purposes, this works out to "around women".

There's no hard-and-fast definition of polite company; you just have to learn to tell. If you're not sure, you should assume you're in polite company. Until he learns to tell the difference, let's go with the rule that if no one else is talking about it then he shouldn't bring it up. Likewise, if people are talking indirectly, vaguely, delicately, or euphemistically, then he shouldn't be more direct or explicit than them.

He shouldn't have any cause to find out if weapons can be involved in those things, since he won't be doing them.

He's still kind of confused about why he's automatically and entirely counted in 'men' but, eh - he thinks his human-shape might not be like entirely set, what if he turns into a woman? That doesn't feel any weirder than the idea of turning into a guy?

(And that sounds like... There's information that might be useful? He also isn't sure he appreciates being told what to never do like that... He doesn't say this though, he can use google he guesses.)

Jack needs a minute to digest the idea of his son turning into a woman.

"...I think that, in that case, you'd need to talk to your mother," he eventually manages.

"Oh, okay then."

Jack nods.

"Any other questions?"

He thinks for a few moments. "Probably not? For now at least?"

He nods. "In that case, I'm heading to bed."

"Goodnight, son."

"Goodnight!"

And then he is alone.

He does a lot of looking things up. On weapons and gender (he finds a very long blog post about weapons with multiple human forms, usually of different genders, and how the registration and ID laws need to be updated to account for that), on how weapons work in general, on magic, on dunjes and regulations about dungeon delving and reporting things, about what he needs to do to get an identity since that's apparently important...

He also gets knocked out of his hyperfocus on research when he discovers online games. A lot of these are really fun! He likes the story ones, especially with characters, best, though platformers are fun too.

He'll still be at the computer when the family wakes up.

Meanwhile, Lennah has been having a bad time.

She'd told herself, earlier, that she could deal with it later. Now it's later, and she no longer has an excuse to put it off.

She let her brother see what it was like, pinning Matt up against the wall, kissing him roughly, feeling the rough masculine texture of his stubble, pushing her tongue into his mouth, the darkness in her heart and in her eyes... that's not, at all, a thing she wants her brother to have been anywhere near being a part of.

But he didn't distinguish – why does that feel like a but?

...he didn't feel awkward about it, so there isn't the – reflected embarrassment. Only hers.

She still doesn't feel comfortable about the whole thing. But if she's the only one who feels about it, then in a sense the awkward doesn't have to be out there in the situation. She can... she doesn't have to... she's not obligated to feel any particular way about it.

So how does she want to feel, and how does she in fact feel? If she's free from worrying about how she should feel.

...if she'd had him around, to talk to, back then... then she might have confided in him, to an extent. Not with so much detail. But... he's someone she can talk to, someone she can be comfortable with.

And he won't judge, won't mind, so she doesn't have to be embarrassed or ashamed. She doesn't have to share more than she wants to, but she doesn't have to worry about accidentally sharing too much. She doesn't have to worry about making him uncomfortable, doesn't have to second-guess herself about being appropriate.

...she might need to think about what her parents will think is appropriate. But that's just a matter of what they find out. —she'll have to make sure he knows not to share.

Wait. Shit. Does he know not to tell Dad about the thing?

How long have they been down there talking?

—that'll be Dad coming up the stairs now. Too late to do anything about it, either way.

She breathes a sigh of relief when she hears him go into his and Mom's bedroom and close the door.

She has a little trouble falling asleep.