“Breakfast?” Varus asked as he watched the sun crest through the window and spread its light first across the floor, then slowly up the leg of the table and over the surface.

  Tuesday was awake, though barely. She was stretching out her slender little arms, her fox ears twitched about as if in search of danger, but her eyes were as shut as her mouth was open. Her sharp little teeth were bared in a massive yawn before she began smacking her lips together.

  Her tail was wrapped around to her front as she did this, and when her luminous eyes opened after hearing his question, she glanced at Lithia and then at her still sleeping sister before she spoke.

  She didn’t speak at once, though her lips opened to do so, she grasped for words, searching the deep recesses of her childish wisdom for a way to turn her thoughts into words.

  It came quickly enough that Varus believed she had been deciding whether or not she wanted to eat right away.

  But that was not what she had to say.

  “How come you’re so nice to us?” She had a child’s innocent voice sure enough, but to Varus’s ears the question betrayed far more than the curiosity of a handful of words from a little one’s limited understanding of the world.

  In that moment he wasn’t really able to answer her. He really didn’t have a clear answer, and it was a rare moment of relief for him that he had no real ‘face’ to speak of that would betray his inability to answer her properly.

  She, though, did not leave that moment empty, she filled it with more words of her own, her little hands clenched into tiny fists as she said, “We’re not your children, we’re not your nieces, or cousins, or sisters, you don’t even know our parents. And we weren’t very nice even after you saved us. So… why?” She couldn’t hide that her eyes were welling up with emotion, and she looked over to her sleeping sister, a light snore passing her lips as she lay curled on her side with a peaceful, contented expression on her face.

  “Why teach us… why feed us, why give us a place to sleep, why…?” She pressed in a quiet, distressed and confused little voice.

  ‘I wish I still had a lip to chew on.’ He thought, recalling the habit of his living years that often helped him to think.

  “Does it matter, really? Who cares about the why? You’re alive and safe and fed… and I wanted to do those things, and you needed those things…in the face of that, you shouldn’t care about the reason.” Varus replied, but Tuesday countered at once.

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  “But I do. And I am asking.” She answered. “You’re undead, and you have no master. Everybody knows that the undead are supposed to be dangerous to the living if nobody guides them. Even the Dark Mother, she in the shadows, tells us to beware the unguided unliving.”

  Varus could not lie to himself. That stung. It stung enough that he reflexively flinched.

  It mostly stung because she wasn’t actually wrong. ‘I’ve slain enough undead when I was still alive to know she’s right. By the Dark Mother’s hand, it was why I chose to live in isolation all this time. First to make sure I wouldn’t harm anyone, then so nobody would bother me. It’s still hard to believe it’s been five thousand years-’ He shook his head, ‘Focus, don’t get distracted now!’ He rebuked himself and drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Varus admitted. “But maybe I didn’t really have a reason? I have all my memories from being a living man, I still see myself as myself. Even though I am no longer a knight, and all my friends have been gone to their rest for thousands of years, I am still me.” Varus put his skeletal hand over his chest. “And the me that I see, flesh or no flesh, wasn’t and isn’t the sort to leave two children in danger.”

  He looked away from her and inhaled deeply, “You’re right though.” His red eyes fell on the sleeping Lithia, “She said something similar yesterday. Even if she is a bit of an idiot, she isn’t wrong. The truth is that I don’t really know why I am how I am, when all conventional wisdom tells even me that I should be out to dominate the world.”

  Now was as good a time as any to tell her…

  “And that’s why I’m sending you and Hannah away with Lithia.” Varus finished, and her mouth dropped open in shock.

  “I can’t take proper care of you here by myself. I’m an undead, and alone. I know nothing of the world as it is. I have enough food but…” He spread out his hands, “I don’t know how to teach you to be adults.” Varus explained, and the welling up in Tuesday’s eyes began to trickle down her cheeks.

  “You’re getting rid of us…?” Tuesday asked, “You don’t want us around?”

  “It’s not that-” Varus tried to say, but a little choked fox whine began to come from Tuesday, cutting him off until he raised his voice a little to continue.

  “It’s that I have to do the right thing. This is what’s best. You won’t be poor, I’m giving books to Lithia to sell to provide for you, you’ll have good lives! She can find you good parents and a good house with normal, living people around you to grow up with and take care of you and teach you how to get by!” If he had a heart still, it would have been racing, as it was, leaning toward her from his seated position, he tried his best to convey with pleading, outstretched hands, that she hadn’t done anything wrong and he just wanted what was best for her and her sister…

  But her keening sound awoke her sister, and Tuesday’s little cry of, ‘He’s getting rid of us!’ set Hannah to letting out a feline yowl of distress that woke up Lithia in turn. She scrambled into action with surprising speed, rushing over and shouting, “What happened?! What’s going on?!”

  Varus answered Lithia’s question as best he could, the young valkyrie’s hands were lightly placed on the shoulders of the two young girls, her blue eyes pierced deep into Varus’s red as she listened, until she knew it all. “That was the moment you chose to explain things? Idiot.” She snapped.

  And he was hard pressed to argue she was wrong.

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