Across the city, the guild hall carried none of the tension currently being beaten into Kaelid and Tatsuya at the south tower — just its usual midmorning bustle, boots on wood floors, the low hum of parties comparing notes on the job board.
Ana led the way to the postings, Eric and Aria trailing behind, Eric flexing his once-injured arm every so often like he still didn't quite trust it not to give out.
"Careful," Ana said, not even looking at him. "I can hear you doing that."
"Just testing it."
"You've tested it a hundred times since we left the mansion."
"Forty-one, actually," Eric said, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth.
Aria snorted, scanning the board with the particular focus of someone who'd rather be doing literally anything than standing still. "Nothing too exciting up here. Wolf culling, a caravan escort to Raichas, some noble's missing cat—"
"We are not chasing a cat," Ana said flatly.
"I didn't say we should. I said it's on the board." Aria kept scanning. "Oh — here. Frost hares, apparently overbreeding near the eastern farmland, damaging crops. Low danger, decent pay, and it's close."
Ana considered it, weighing the posting against whatever quiet calculation she was always running behind her eyes. "Low danger sounds appealing, after last week."
"Understatement of the year," Eric said.
"I'd like one boring job," Ana continued. "Just one. Before whatever inevitably goes wrong again."
"You say that like it's guaranteed."
"With this party? It is." She said it without much heat, more resignation than complaint, and pulled the posting off the board before anyone could argue further. "Frost hares. Kaelid and Tatsuya can catch up once Yami's done wringing them out."
Aria peered over her shoulder at the listing. "Ten silver a head, bonus for clearing the full nest. That's... actually decent for something this low-risk."
"I noticed." Ana tucked it away and turned back toward the counter, where Emma was already watching them with faint amusement.
"Back so soon?"
"Apparently rest doesn't suit us," Ana said dryly, sliding the posting across. "We'll take this one."
Emma logged it with practiced efficiency, glancing between the three of them. "No swordsmen today?"
"Captain Yami has them," Eric said. "God help them."
"Ah." Emma's expression softened into something like genuine sympathy. "Say a prayer for their knees, then."
They left the guild not long after, the eastern gate a short walk from the hall itself, morning light doing its slow work against the last of the winter frost. Ana walked a little ahead of the other two, posting tucked against her side, already running through the mental checklist she kept for every job no matter how small — supplies, terrain, what could go wrong even on something this simple.
One boring job, she thought, more hope than expectation at this point. Just one. Is that really so much to ask?
Somewhere behind her, Aria and Eric had started arguing again — this time about whether hare fur was actually worth anything, or if Eric just wanted an excuse to pet one before Ana inevitably told him not to.
She let them bicker. It was, at the very least, a familiar kind of noise.
The frost hares turned out to be exactly as advertised — fast, numerous, and thoroughly unthreatening, which after the week they'd had felt almost suspicious in how easy it was. Aria picked most of them off from range without breaking a sweat, her arrows finding their marks with the same lazy precision she'd always had, while Eric mostly stood around looking faintly disappointed there was nothing bigger to actually block.
"This is insulting," he said, nudging one of the fallen hares with his boot. "I brought a shield for this."
"You brought a shield because you always bring a shield," Aria said, already nocking another arrow.
"That's beside the point."
Ana worked the perimeter of the farmland with quiet efficiency, tracking down the last stragglers and marking the nest locations for the follow-up bonus, content to let the other two bicker their way through an afternoon that, for once, didn't require her healing at all. It was, she had to admit, a nice change of pace — nobody bleeding, nobody unconscious, nobody testing the absolute limit of what her mana reserves could handle.
This is what normal jobs are supposed to feel like, she thought, watching Aria drop another hare with an almost bored expression. I could get used to this.
By late afternoon they'd cleared the full nest — thirty-one hares in total, more than enough for the completion bonus — and started the walk back toward Avalon's east gate, pelts and the guild's payment both weighing pleasantly in their favor for once.
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"Told you," Aria said. "Boring. Exactly what you asked for."
"I'm almost suspicious," Ana admitted. "Nothing about this week has gone that smoothly."
"Don't jinx it," Eric warned.
"I'm not jinxing anything. I'm just saying it's strange."
It wasn't strange for long. They were maybe halfway back to the gate when they spotted two familiar, thoroughly exhausted figures trudging up the road from the opposite direction — Kaelid and Tatsuya, both moving like every joint in their bodies had personally wronged them, gear scuffed, expressions somewhere between grim and defeated.
"You two look like you got run over," Aria called out.
"We got run over," Kaelid said. "Repeatedly. By a man who apparently considers 'welcome back' synonymous with 'suffer.'"
Tatsuya said nothing, just gave a small, tired nod of agreement, clearly too spent to form full sentences.
Ana looked between them and the pile of hare pelts slung easily over Eric's shoulder, and felt the corner of her mouth twitch despite herself.
"We had a nice, easy day," she said. "Frost hares. Very calm. Very boring."
Kaelid stared at her, betrayed. "That's so unfair."
"Life's unfair," Ana said, falling into step beside him anyway, close enough that her shoulder brushed his without either of them quite acknowledging it. "Come on. I'll make something good for dinner. You look like you need it."
He didn't argue, and let the easy, familiar rhythm of walking home settle over the group as Avalon's gates came into view ahead of them.
Dinner that night was quieter than usual, less from tension and more from sheer exhaustion — Kaelid and Tatsuya barely upright at the table, moving through their food with the mechanical focus of people refueling rather than actually eating.
"This is incredible, by the way," Kaelid mumbled around a mouthful of whatever Ana had thrown together, some hearty stew that tasted like it had more care in it than the ingredients probably warranted. "How are you good at everything."
"I'm not good at everything." Ana didn't look up from her own bowl. "I just apply myself to the things that matter."
"That's the same thing."
"It's really not."
Tatsuya, for his part, had gone almost entirely silent, still methodically working through his portion with the single-minded focus of a man conserving every last ounce of remaining energy for chewing. Aria watched him with open amusement.
"You good?"
"Tired," Tatsuya said, which for him counted as a full and detailed report.
"Yami really did a number on you two." Eric leaned back in his chair, clearly still riding the high of a job that hadn't nearly killed him for once. "Meanwhile we caught bunnies."
"Don't," Kaelid said. "Don't rub it in. I actually can't right now."
"I'm just saying. Bunnies."
"Eric."
"Very fluffy, very harmless bunnies."
Kaelid put his head down on the table, defeated, and Ana reached over without much ceremony to pat him once on the back — more amused than sympathetic.
"You'll live," she said. "Probably."
"Comforting."
She chuckled. "I try."
The conversation drifted after that, easy and unhurried. Aria brought up something about the hare pelts being worth more than expected, Eric argued about whether he deserved a cut for "moral support," and Tatsuya slowly resurfaced enough to contribute a dry comment here and there, though most of his attention stayed firmly on his food.
Kaelid, still half-collapsed against the table, found himself watching the whole scene through the lens of pure, worn-out contentment — no plot developing, no crisis brewing, just five people eating dinner together like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Guess this is what normal actually feels like, he thought, letting his eyes drift shut for a moment. Could get used to this. Might already have.
Somewhere in the background, Ana was still lightly needling Eric about the "moral support" comment, and the sound of it — easy, familiar, entirely unremarkable — was somehow exactly what he needed after a day like this one.
By the time dinner wound down, Kaelid had all but given up on staying upright at the table. Tatsuya excused himself first, muttering something about needing sleep before his body simply forced the issue without his permission, and the rest of the group wasn't far behind.
Kaelid lingered a moment longer than the others, watching Ana clear the last of the dishes despite everyone's half-hearted protests that she didn't need to.
"Let me help," he said, already reaching for a bowl.
"You can barely lift your fork."
"I lifted it fine. I'm a very capable fork-lifter."
She gave him a look that suggested she wasn't remotely convinced, but let him carry two plates to the kitchen anyway, apparently deciding it wasn't worth the argument. They worked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the domestic rhythm of it settling over the room easy and unremarkable — the kind of ordinary Kaelid still hadn't quite gotten used to, three months into a life that used to consist entirely of survival and nothing else.
"You did good today," Ana said eventually, not looking up from the dish she was rinsing. "Both of you. I know it doesn't feel like it, the way Yami runs things, but I could see it. You're better than you were a week ago."
"Feels like getting run over by a cart is a strange way to measure improvement."
"Everything worthwhile feels like getting run over by a cart at some point." She set the dish aside, finally glancing over at him. "Trust me. I'd know."
He thought, unbidden, of the week before — her hands working over his ribs by firelight, the exhaustion she'd carried without complaint, the quiet way she'd kept giving long after she had any business giving more. Yeah, he thought. You'd know.
"Thank you," he said instead, simpler than what was actually in his head. "I don't think I say that enough."
Ana studied him for a moment, something soft and a little uncertain flickering behind her expression before she waved it off with a small, tired smile. "You say it plenty. Now go to bed before you fall asleep standing up. I'm not healing a concussion from you faceplanting into the kitchen floor."
"Fair point." He set the last dish down and lingered a second longer anyway, some part of him reluctant to let the moment end just yet. "Night, Ana."
"Goodnight, Kaelid."
He made it up the stairs on willpower alone, dropping into bed the second his door closed behind him, and was asleep before he could finish whatever thought had been trailing after him the whole way up.