Transmigration of the Domain Bearer

Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Percy and Dana

Percy stepped forward.

So did Dana.

The children around her turned, following her eyes, and found him standing at the edge of the gathering. The nuns looked too. A few of the smaller ones tugged at the sleeves nearest to them, asking questions that weren’t answered because the adults were already looking.

Sister Mara’s face broke into a wide smile.

"Percy," she called out warmly across the small crowd.

Dana didn’t wait for the gap to clear. She came through it at a jog, weaving between two smaller children without looking, and Percy opened his arms just in time.

She hit him at full force. He took a half-step back with the impact and steadied, both arms wrapping around her, and for a moment neither of them said anything.

"Brother," she said into his coat, her voice muffled and slightly uneven.

Percy held on.

"I’m here," he said.

She pulled back after a moment and looked up at him. Her eyes were bright and a little red at the edges. She was taller than he had expected. He made a note of that and said nothing about it.

The rest of the crowd had drifted closer by then. Several of the smaller children were looking up at him with the particular curiosity of people who had heard about someone many times and were now conducting their own assessment. Percy looked back at them with equal seriousness and one of them immediately hid behind another’s shoulder.

Sister Mara reached him last, which felt deliberate. She was a woman in her late forties with the presence of a loving mother, that suggested she had spent decades ensuring other people stood up straight.

She had an unchanging smile plastered on her calm face.

"Percy Valemont," she said. "You’re late."

"The carriage was slow," Percy said.

"They always are when you need them to be fast." She looked him over once. "You look better than I expected. Considering."

"Considering what?"

"Considering you, generally." She said it pleasantly. Percy accepted it in the spirit offered.

Sister Mara turned to Dana and smoothed the back of her hair once.

"Go get your things. Don’t leave him standing here forever."

Dana nodded and disappeared back through the cluster of children, who parted for her and immediately regrouped into a tighter knot.

Three of them attached themselves to Percy’s coat in the meantime. He looked down at them. They looked back up.

"Do you work with knives?" the tallest of the three asked. He was perhaps eight, with a gap where his front tooth should have been.

"I work with needles," Percy said.

The boy considered this with visible disappointment. Then, apparently deciding needles were adjacent enough, he nodded and kept hold of Percy’s coat.

Sister Mara had moved slightly to his side.

"She’s been ready since this morning," she said, low enough that only he heard it. "Had her bag packed before breakfast."

Percy said nothing to that.

"She didn’t sleep much," Sister Mara added. Not an accusation. Just a fact, placed where he could do something with it.

"I’ll make sure she does tonight," Percy said.

Sister Mara looked at him for a moment. Then nodded once, apparently satisfied.

---

Dana came back with a moderate-sized suitcase, carrying it with both hands, bumping it gently against her leg with each step. Percy stepped forward and took it from her before she could argue. She let him, which told him she was more tired than she was showing.

He set it down beside him and checked the weight once. Light enough.

"Is this everything?"

"Yes," Dana said. She paused. "I left the shelf ornaments. They were for the room, not mine."

"That was the right call."

She nodded, hands folded in front of her. She was wearing her better coat, the gray one Percy remembered from a few years ago, though it had been let out at the seams since then. Someone had done careful work on it. He recognized the stitching.

He didn’t mention it.

The farewells had already started without them. The smaller children swarmed Dana from all sides at once, several of them talking simultaneously, one crying in particular.

Dana crouched down to hug each of them one by one, saying names, saying she would visit, saying everything she needed to say.

Percy stood with the suitcase and let her.

One of the nuns , who was young, barely older than Dana herself , came and pressed something into Dana’s hand with both of hers and said something too quietly for Percy to catch. Dana nodded and held on for a moment before letting go.

Sister Mara waited until the smaller children had been gently peeled away before stepping forward.

She looked at Dana for a moment without speaking.

Then she put a hand on the side of her face.

"You came out well," Sister Mara said.

Dana’s composure, which had held through the children and through the younger nun and through the general noise of the last ten minutes, chose that exact moment to give.

Her eyes went teary.

She pressed her lips together and looked down. Sister Mara didn’t move her hand.

"Stop that," Sister Mara said, but gently. "You’ll set them all off again and then I’ll have an entire afternoon of it."

Dana laughed once, sharp and a little wet, and pressed the back of her wrist to her eyes.

Percy stepped forward and reached into his coat. He produced a folded cloth and held it out without comment.

Dana looked at it. Then at him.

"You carry one of those?" she asked.

"I work with fabric."

She took it and pressed it to her eyes. Sister Mara glanced at him briefly and he thought he saw something close to approval in it, though it passed quickly and her face returned to its usual composed authority.

"Right." Sister Mara straightened and looked between the two of them in. "You’ll write."

"I’ll write," Dana said, her voice only slightly uneven.

"And visit. When you’re settled."

"I will."

Sister Mara looked at Percy. "And you’ll make sure she eats properly."

"She’ll earn it," Percy said.

Dana turned to him immediately with an expression of profound offense.

Sister Mara’s mouth twitched. It was the closest thing to a laugh Percy had ever seen from her.

She patted Dana’s shoulder once and stepped back, Dana stood beside Percy.

She looked back once at the church, at the well near the wall, at the low roof of the orphanage visible over the hedge. She took it in for a few seconds, her expression quiet and difficult to name.

Then she turned forward.

"Alright," she said, more to herself than to him.

Percy picked up the suitcase.

"There’s a carriage on the main road," he said.

Dana fell into step beside him. After a moment she reached out and took the handle of the suitcase with one hand, walking alongside him with it between them.

Percy let her.

They walked in easy silence for a stretch. The sounds from the orphanage faded behind them. The road ahead was ordinary. Two suns, a quiet street, the distant sound of a carriage somewhere past the church wall.

"Brother ," Dana said.

"Mm."

"Is your house clean?"