No. 4
Ich dachte mir, ich lade heute mal eine Geschichte zu DnD:HAT hoch. Diese eine kleine fluffige Geschichte, die ich für eine Challenge geschrieben habe. Mit dem Shipping Xedgin natürlich, weil die beiden halt wirklich gefesselt haben. Sie sind halt so niedlich zusammen. Auch in der Geschichte noch mit ein wenig Familiensachen rund um Kira. :)
Feels like Home
Xenk was unable to argue with their logic. Even he had to admit that he usually travelled less during the winter months. Usually, he would find a place to winter. Somewhere near wherever his quests might have taken him. Maybe he stayed at a Harpers’ stronghold, maybe he stayed with just a friendly old couple on their farm after having saved their sheep from a drake, or maybe he stayed with one of the elven courts after freeing their princess from a curse. At times he had wintered in the temples of his gods. He did not have a permanent winter home. He had no permanent home at all. He never needed one, right?
Yet, their horses were carrying them towards the fishing down of Targos, he noticed that both his companions were tensing up. Edgin and Kira were sharing those gazes, and Xenk could not quite make sense of them.
He still felt wrong accompanying them. Because it was their home, right? He could not just stay in their home. He could not intrude on them. But Edgin had insisted and now… Now it seemed that he would stay here.
He had been to Targos once before. It had to have been about forty years ago. So probably too long for even Edgin to have been alive back then. Or if he had been, he was just a toddler. Because in the end there was more than a century between them. It really seemed strange to him how the last year had played out. But here he was. Was it okay for him to be happy about it?
Maybe Edgin could sense him pondering. Maybe it was just, that he was awkward himself. He cleared his throat. “But you must have had some sort of home, right?” he continued their conversation from earlier.
“Not really. No. The closest things I ever had to a home was the halls of Torm in Baldur’s Gate. Before I ventured out to help the people in need. To…”
“To be a hero and such nonsense,” Edgin teased. Their horses were riding so close to each other, that their legs rubbed against each other. And it was a weird feeling. Just to feel someone else so close.
“Yeah,” Xenk muttered. “Such nonsense…”
“It sounds sad, though,” Kira said. “To not have a home. To not have…” She stopped, before she could say more.
Somehow even Xenk knew, what she meant. To not have family. Even after more than a hundred years, Xenk would be lying if he said, that he did not miss his parents. The only family he had ever had.
Once he had found his path in the light of Torm, he had never really thought about having a family again. And maybe…
Involuntarily he found himself touching his chest, as he realized his feelings. Maybe it was actually something he had wished for.
“Well, you gotta put up with us now for the winter,” Edgin said. “But it’s gonna be nice.”
Whenever Xenk had heard Edgin, Kira or even Holga Kilgore speak about the cottage, he had imagined something else. The place was a ruin. The front door was outright missing and there were several holes in the roof. Leaves had been blown inside and the spiders had made quite a comfortable living inside. Probably some mice, too.
“We… have not been here in a while,” Edgin admitted.
“Didn’t you ever… pay someone to keep things in order?” Xenk looked at the man.
“I didn’t get around to that with me and Holga in prison and all those nasty things. And Forge…”
Kira was quiet for a moment. “Forge said, it was too small of a home for us. That we deserved better. And that there was better living done in the cities.”
“Still wonder, whether that bastard had made his plan all along…” Edgin closed his eyes and exhaled for a moment. “Never mind. It does not make any difference now, does it?”
Xenk tried to smile at him. Because he still did not know the whole story of what had once happened with Forge Fitzwilliams. “I assume it does not, no.”
Edgin dismounted from his horse, before helping his daughter to do the same. Together they went into the place, while Xenk still paused. A home. Even if they had not been here in a while, this place had once been a home. A home to Holga Kilgore, Edgin and Kira. A home to Edgin and his now dead wife before that, too. A home for a family.
“Say, Xenk?” came Edgin’s voice from inside of the cottage.
“Yes?” Now Xenk dismounted as well, going over to that open door. “Do you happen to have any skills in fixing stuff?”
Nervously Xenk cleared his throat. “I… I have fixed some roofs before.” But he did not like to admit that he was not a master at this.
“We really should’ve brought Holga,” Kira pouted. “Holga could fix this!”
“Sweetie, Holga wanted to stay with Ceran. You know that.”
Kira sighed. “I know. But I don’t have to like it.”
This little family of theirs was still so charmingly strange to Xenk. Holga Kilgore was neither Kira’s mother—nor Edgin’s wife. Yet, to Kira she was closest thing to a mother, wasn’t she? But Holga Kilgore had decided to still spend the winter with her fiancé in Neverwinter. And Kira was not at all happy about it.
“I am pretty sure I can fix this,” Edgin finally decided, looking at the largest hole in the roof.
His daughter just looked at him. “Dad, if you try and fix it, you are just gonna fall through the roof.”
“I am capable of fixing a roof,” Edgin protested. “It is not that hard.”
Kira grumbled something, before going over to the kitchen corner of the cottage. “Also, we do need new pans and pots and… basically everything else.”
Edgin looked into those empty cupboards and sighed. “So, ‘everything else’ shall be provided.”
Just in time Xenk reached out to catch Edgin by his cape and prevent him from sliding off the roof. He was surprised to find himself chuckling at that. “Well, it was not a hole in the roof you almost fell through.”
Edgin’s eyes were glistening with humor and something softer, when he looked at him. “Obviously I did not fall.”
“Because I was there to catch you.”
“Because you were there to catch me,” Edgin agreed and leaned in for a kiss.
Even these days Xenk could feel his heart beat faster, when they kissed. Because it was such a strange, but warm feeling that would fill him. For a moment he even forgot about the roof and that hole they both tried to fix. They had spent several days cleaning the cottage, putting off those repairs, but in the end the last rainfall had convinced them to try.
“Any progress?” Kira’s voice asked from down at he front of the house, forcing both men to pry their eyes away from each other.
“It will get fixed, sweetie,” Edgin promised, taking that thatch they had both been trying to secure into the roof.
Xenk was still of the opinion that it would’ve probably been easier to repair a wooden roof. He had even done that some times. He had not done it well, but it turned out there was only so much you could do wrong when it came to putting a plate of wood over an opening and securing it. This… was more complicated.
“Yes, because I can see you working so hard on it!”
Xenk as almost certain that has been irony in her voice right there, though he was not sure.
“Well, excuse me for taking just a short break,” Edgin replied.
“How many of the holes have been fixes so far?” she inquired.
Weirdly enough Xenk was almost feeling ashamed. He was no carpenter, so it should not be expected of him to be able to do these repairs. But somehow, he wanted to be able to do it. For Edgin. For Kira, too. Because the girl was kind, was sweet, and it seemed she looked up to him.
Now she rolled her eyes at her father. “Well, make sure it is fixed by tomorrow. Miriam said it is gonna rain again.”
“We are already on it, sweetie,” Edgin promised and once more looked at those thatches they had taken up with them. Only when Kira had gone back into the house he looked at Xenk. “Somehow I have the feeling we have to find someone who knows how to do this.”
Xenk smiled and for once dared to lean over to kiss Edgin himself. “I am still surprised you know so little. I always believed that bards have all this bardic knowledge.”
“Well, even a bard is no magic dictionary or something. I just know… some stuff.”
“Just always the wrong things, right?” Xenk tried to tease.
And Edgin understood. “Yeah, kinda.” He grinned.
They had gotten help with the roof and somehow it had stopped leaking by the time the next storm came around. There were still a lot of repairs to be done in the home though—and the beds needed new mattresses before the winter started.
Right now they were rather stinky from standing around so long—and probably had collected some bugs as well. Though it was not those bugs that kept Xenk up at night. Rather it was those nightmares he would still wake from again and again. He never had been good with sleeping. Not since that day in Thaymount, when he had just been a child.
Edgin, meanwhile, was happily snoring next to him, as he awoke. This made Xenk smile, given that originally Edgin also had woken too often during the nights. But it had gotten better over those last couple of months.
Xenk also knew, that Edgin wanted him to wake him, when he had a nightmare. But Xenk would not get himself to do it. Not seeing this man sleep so softly next to him.
Instead Xenk got up carefully, sneaking out of the half-closed off room, only to find the cottage’s main room not empty. Instead there was Kira, sitting on the kitchen table, sipping on a mug of tea.
“Oh,” she said, as she saw him. She looked at her mug, sighed, then managed a smile. “Cannot sleep either?”
“I…” He paused. “I cannot sleep either,” he then confirmed.
“Want some tea?”
“Yes, thank you, Kira.” He smiled as well now, sitting down at the table opposite of her, as she filled another mug, pushing it over to him.
There was a heavy silence settling in between them. He knew there was a reason for her to be awake at this hour—just as there was a reason for him as well. But he did not know how to ask. And maybe she knew that. Because she seemed so weirdly able to read him often enough.
“I miss Holga,” she said. “I… I don’t get… No. I get it. I want her to have her fiancé and be happy and all of that. But… I want her here. Not hundreds of miles away in Neverwinter.” There was a single tear that she did not manage to blink away.
“I am certain, she wants you to be happy, though. And…” He felt strangely nervous about those next few words. “I… I am no Holga Kilgore, but… I can do my best of looking out for you, you know that, right?”
Her smile was surprisingly warm. “I know that.” She sighed, drinking another sip of the tea. “You know, Holga taught me how to fight. Do you think you could show me how to use a sword?”
“If… If Edgin is alright with it,” Xenk said. “Of course.” He, too, drank from the sweet berry tea.
“What about you?” Kira asked. “Why can’t you sleep?”
He considered this question a moment. “Nightmares. Just… nightmares.”
“This still frustrates me, you know?” Edgin muttered, as he tasted the stew.
Xenk frowned. “What exactly is it that is frustrating to you?”
“That you can cook!”
Now, this did not entirely make sense to Xenk, who just looked at the man. “Why is this frustrating to you, Edgin?”
“Because I…” The man grumbled. “I cannot. Still am horrible at it. And I have been a father for thirteen years—well, minus two that I spend in prison. And you…”
“I have had a century more than you to learn it.” Xenk hoped these words were conciliatory to the other man.
This got Edgin to grunt. “I guess…”
They were so far eating alone, as Kira had not come back from Miriam’s place so far.
“I can teach you, if you want,” Xenk offered.
“Xenk, buddy, so many people tried to teach me to cook. And nobody has ever managed. I doubt you will manage either.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because everyone who tried to teach me got frustrated rather quickly. And then there would be arguments and then, suddenly, I would be banned from the kitchen.” He put his arms akimbo, though he did so with a laugh, clearly not taking as much offense in this, as he made it sound.
Xenk smiled, reaching out with one hand to beckon for his. And Edgin understood the gesture, putting his hand into Xenk’s. “Let me try,” Xenk said. “And I promise, I am not going to ban you from the kitchen.”
“By Tymora!” Edgin looked at him, making Xenk frown once again.
“What is it?”
“I think you just made a joke!”
Somehow it was more his surprise at this, that made Xenk chuckle. “I am not entirely incapable of humor.”
“Don’t ruin it with big words, please.”
“Big words?”
“Yes, you have a tendency to use those big words and that…”
The door to the cottage was opened and Kira came marching in. She sniffed the air and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Tymora, Xenk has cooked.”
Edgin looked at her. “Well, thank you very much, young lady.”
“It is no secret, that you cannot cook, dad.”
“Xenk has offered to change this,” Edgin informed her, making her scoff.
“Good luck with this.”
Xenk watched her, as she went around the table to sit down next to her father. “I have head many thick-headed apprentices in my life, Kira. I think I can handle your father.”
“If you say so.” She filled her own bowl with stew and tore a bit of bread from the loaf to dip it into the stew. “Maybe we should teach you something as well.”
Not quire sure he understood this, he asked: “How do you mean?”
“You said you gonna teach me sword fighting. And you gonna teach my dad how to cook. There has to be something we can teach you.”
For a long moment, Xenk considered this, before he had an idea. “The songs. Can you teach those?”
It turned out that Xenk was not very good at singing. But somehow it seemed that neither Edgin nor Kira seemed to mind, as they were sitting on the bed, in which they for now had replaced the old hay filling with just some animal pelts.
It had started to snow to nights ago and the cottage had gotten rather cold during the nights. As such it was only sensible to conserve their body heat, as they were singing together, as firewood, too, had a price.
But they were singing. And they were laughing. Kira was sitting at the end of the bed, while Edgin had drawn Xenk close to him and somehow… Somehow Xenk had dared to lean onto the other man, who was still playing his lute.
“Kira,” he said, and the girl would sing the next verse, before they would sing the refrain together.
With “Xenk”, he got Xenk to sing the verse after, and both of them laughed with how bad it was. And somehow Xenk did not even mind. He was used to being admired for his skills in combat and tactics, but weirdly it was kinda fun to be bad at something. It as fun to be at a place where they could laugh together about how bad he was at it, too.
He did not have that before. A place where he could laugh with other people, where he would sing with them, where they would sit under the same blanket to preserve heat.
But he liked it. He liked to have someone close, whose touch he would yearn for. He liked to have Edgin here, to be able to turn his head and earn himself a kiss just by this simple act.
As Edgin played the finishing notes, Xenk found himself sighing, closing his eyes and just letting his whole weight sink against that other man.
“Everything alright there?” Edgin asked, making Xenk just smile.
For a moment he just allowed himself to take in those warm feelings. The feeling of being welcome here. The feeling of being loved. It still seemed somewhat unreal to him, that he could be not admired by someone, but loved.
“Xenk?” Even Kira joined her father in the worry now.
Xenk looked from one to the other. “It’s nothing. It’s… I think I am just figuring out what it is. What a home feels like.”
These words got not quite the reaction he had expected, as the two of them changed rather gloomy gazes. Only then did Edgin sigh, smile and kiss Xenk’s forehead. “Well… I would say we are both happy to be part of that, then.”
Kira looked at Xenk. “You really never had that?”
Slowly Xenk shook his head. “Not since the day…” He stopped. “It does not matter. I…” He suddenly felt like laughing. “I just had forgotten what it was like.”
Edgin cleared his throat, pulling him close. “I will make sure to remind you of it.”
Kira smiled. “Me, too.”
