Before he knew it, morning light came from the window over his face, waking him up.
He found himself on top of the sheets on Selene's side of the bed. She lay curled on the far edge, her back to him, blanket rising and falling with her slow breathing. Her hair spilled dark across the pillow. He stared at the curve of her shoulder for one long second, then slid out of bed without making a sound and slipped back to his own room to change.
Downstairs, Elara was already moving in the kitchen. Pans clattered, bread scent filled the air, and the knife in her hand chopped vegetables in quick, steady rhythm. She glanced at him the second he walked in, gave one short nod, and focused right back to work.
He poured himself some water from the pitcher and dropped into a chair at the table.
Mira came down five minutes later. She took one look at him, then at the hallway, then back at him. Her eyes narrowed hard at him, while he kept staring into his cup.
She sat down, accepted the bread Elara slid in front of her, and kept her mouth shut. It looked like it physically hurt her to stay quiet, without saying anything to him.
Selene came down next, dressed and put together, hair pinned up neatly. She sat at the table, said good morning to the room in general, and poured tea for herself.
Helga brought out the rest of breakfast. Mitsu walked in from the garden with dirt on her knees and mumbled an apology for being late. Elara told her she wasn't late at all; they all came now.
No one seemed to mention last night. Not one word. Though Lys could feel it in his bones that they all knew he stayed at Selene's room till now. The table just stayed busy with clinking spoons and passing plates. Lys felt grateful for their silence, feeling a little embarrassed himself despite knowing nothing had happened between the two of them.
Just like that, their morning passed without much conversation between all of them. Even Mira was silent as she ate her breakfast, which was rare given how chatty she was normally.
****
It was now noon.
The council hall felt different the moment Pell, the guild clerk, who came from the capital, walked in.
Mid-forties, lean, and moving with the calm efficiency of a man who had done this exact job in a dozen villages' guilds, and treated every one of them the same. He had his documents sorted before he even sat down. Everything in its place.
Sara had brought Lys with her to this meeting. Bezos didn't comment about that. Priest John sat at his usual spot, eyes fixed on Pell, face blank. But Clara shot Lys a sharp look the second he entered.
"Is there a reason he's here?" she asked.
Bezos didn't even look up from the paper Pell had just handed him. "We all agreed that from now on, guild work will include him. You were in the room when we decided yesterday."
"Yes, I was in the room when it was discussed," Clara snapped. "Being his fiancée's father's parishioner doesn't qualify him to…."
"Clara." Bezos set the paper down and stared at her. "We're starting, whether you like it or not."
Clara pressed her lips together and looked at Pell. Pell, who had watched the whole exchange with professional boredom, smoothly began the meeting.
It stayed quick and clean. Preliminary contracts, timeline, registration rules, checkpoint plans. Sara answered before Pell finished most of his questions, as she had thoroughly prepared for it. Two days until the main representatives arrived, maybe three. So, she had to be prepared for everything before then.
At one point, Bezos turned straight to Lys and asked his opinion on the checkpoint locations Sara had marked. Lys gave it straightforwardly, like he had taken note last night with Selene. Bezos nodded and wrote something down in his own note. Vivian just watched the whole exchange with narrowed eyes, then filed Lys into a new mental box, when she learned Lys plans to become an adventurer too, when the guild starts to take registration. The shift in her opinion showed on her face, clear as water.
-----
After the meeting ended, Pell caught Lys at the door.
"Hey, young lad, care to give me five minutes? Maybe I can register you right away, I have brought all the documents for that already," Pell said. He already had a smaller stack of papers ready by his side.
They sat at the now-empty table. Pell ran through the registration papers fast: name, no prior affiliation with any guild before or not, family members' names, etc. He made Lys fill many kinds of forms he had.
After the information about him was collected, he pulled a small mana-powered device from his bag, and fed a card through it, and the machine hummed once, something clicked inside, and spat out a metal guild card with Lys's name stamped in clean script.
Pell slid it across the table. "You are now an F-rank adventurer. Keep it on you when you come to work. Don't lose it at any cost."
Lys picked it up. His name was glowing a little when he touched it. The F-rank felt alive when it did.
"Thank you, Mister Pell," he said, bowing a little to him out of habit from earth.
Pell was already closing his bag. He gave a short nod and walked out.
Mira waited in the front yard of the council hall when Lys came through the gate. She stuck her hand out before he could speak. He dropped the card into her palm.
She turned it over and held it up to the light, trying to see if it really was real.
"Whoa, I still can't believe it, that's really yours, you are now an adventurer, an actual adventure," she said.
"Yeah, I am now."
She hovered it over his vision and said, "Don't lose it, okay?"
"Yeah, that Pell guy also said it to me. So, it seems they really can't make it twice!"
"Yeah, I also heard about that."
"Then I better not let you touch it anymore."
Mira gave him a flat stare like it were not a funny joke for her.
They walked back to their house, leaving behind Sara as her home was on the opposite way from here.
-----
Elara was at the door, and dried fish was in her hands. When Lys showed it to her, she touched the card after wiping her hands on her apron. She studied it for a second, lips pressed together in that tight approving way as if she was happy that Lys finally had an actual job now. She handed it back without a word, but her expression gave away how happy she was.
Lys went inside. He found Selene sitting on a chair in the backyard garden with a book, her back to the house. He stepped out, and she looked up, hearing his footsteps, eyes flicking from his face to the card still in his hand.
"Ohh, they made it that fast?" she asked the question, but before Lys could answer her, she went back to her book, as if that wasn't a question at all.
He felt like she might just have a split personality, which makes her act differently sometimes. Or, why else does she act differently at night then different at day? It just doesn't make sense otherwise.
But he let it be for now.