The night that Sarah's life changed forever followed a day much like any other. Her older brother, James, had left in the morning for his apprenticeship with Jared, the village smith. Sarah herself didn't see the appeal, but James seemed to love smithing. Other than whatever James had done to upset their parents so much on his Class Choosing Day, things had been peaceful. James and her parents had been awkward the first few days, but eventually they relaxed and the household had started preparing for Spring, which meant preparing the fields for sowing.

Long shadows crawled slowly across the ground as the sun sank towards the horizon, and Helen, Sarah's mother, called out to her.

"Sarah, has James come home yet?"

"I haven't seen him," Sarah replied.

Another hour later and dusk was upon the house. Sarah's father, Stephen, returned from the fields and was washing up when Helen practically pounced on him.

"Stephen, has James come home yet?"

"Hmm?" Stephen grunted and looked over his shoulder from the washbasin. "I don't know, I was out in the field all day. Sarah, have you seen James?" He called out to Sarah, who was in the dining room setting the table.

"No, I haven't seen him since this morning," she called back.

Helen dropped her voice to a whisper, leaning even closer to Stephen, close enough to smear the dirt from the fields on her kitchen apron. "It's far too late. I'm getting worried."

Stephen grimaced. "Helen, please, it's probably fine. I'm sure he's just running a little late. Let's just wait-"

"Stephen!" Helen whisper-shouted at him at precisely the loudest volume that wouldn't reach Sarah's ears, using one of her Homemaker skills.

"Helen, think about it from James' perspective." Stephen retorted with a slightly quieter whisper. "How do you think he'll feel if he's a few minutes late one day and his mother comes looking for him to escort him home? He'll never live it down, not with the rumor-mill in this village…"

"I don't care Stephen, you know-" she was cut off by a freshly towel-dried finger pressing on her lips.

"Helen, we're just going to w-" he was cut off by his feet being swept out from under him and a shove pushing him precisely out the back door to the garden.

"I'm running an errand!" Helen shouted as she raced through the dining room and out the front door. "Go ahead and start dinner without me!"

By the time Sarah managed to look up from the plates in her hand, her mother was already down the path, the door left ajar behind her.

Helen raced down the path barefoot in an all out sprint until she approached the village outskirts, where the houses grew closer together, with cramped little gardens rather than wide open fields. She slowed to a quick walk and smoothed out her hair as she approached the door of one of these houses and engaged in a little [Gossip]. With a precision bordering on rude, but not quite, she learned that Cynthia hadn't seen James since this morning.

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Neither had the women at the next three houses on the route James took between home and the village smithy.

Helen was in a panic as she approached Jared's house, built as close as possible to the smithy itself without being at risk of catching fire. Beyond the smithy was an open field leading towards a place where the river meandered closest to this part of the village. A small footpath was barely visible in the fading light as the sun dipped fully below the horizon.

Helen dispensed entirely with her facade of calm.

"Jared! Jared!" she called, knocking on his door forcefully.

"Hang on a minute." she heard him grunt from deeper in the house.

"Jared, please hurry, it's Helen!"

She heard a thud, a bang, and a muffled swear, then footsteps quickly approached the door. Helen took a subtle step back as the door flew open forcefully.

"What is i-" he started and was immediately interrupted by Helen.

"Jared, is James here?" she asked as quickly as she could get the words out of her mouth.

Jared blinked, not entirely understanding what was going on.

"Jared, please, is James here?" Helen repeated, stepping closer.

Jared's brow furrowed. "Er, no, he's not. I sent him home a while ago."

Helen inhaled sharply. She stepped forward again. "Did he say he was going to stop anywhere, run some kind of errand? Where is he?" she asked desperately.

Jared's [Warning] suddenly kicked into overdrive, overtaking the passive [Danger Sense] that had activated once he heard the knock on his door.

He took a measured step back, opening up the distance between them, and raised his hands in front of his chest, showing his palms.

Showing he was unarmed.

"Helen, I sent him home at the usual time, I- ...oh."

He paused, remembering the chore he had asked James to take care of.

In the span of a breath he felt deceptively slender hands grab his shirt, and Helen was right up in his face.

"What?! Where is he?! Where's James?!" she half shouted in his face, growing hysterical.

Jared was tempted to grab her wrists, taking advantage of his greater strength to loosen her hold, but raw instinct stayed his hands. Instead, he raised his hands a little higher, making a show of not resisting.

"He, er, that is, after we finished for the day, I sent him down to the river to refill the quenching barrels. Hell, we finished a bit earlier than normal. He shoulda gone home after that-"

There was a small gust of wind as Helen whirled around, racing towards the smithy.

She didn't know what a quenching barrel was, exactly, but she knew what a barrel looked like and if she just looked at all the barrels, she'd figure it out.

Jared was just starting to react to Helen dashing towards his smithy, and was getting ready to chase after her, when he heard her shout.

"They're not even half full!"

He nearly stumbled, but regained his footing and ran after her, significantly slower.

"What d'ye mean they're not full! And don't go running around my smithy, ye manic woma-"

The look on Helen's face cut him off. She'd found the quenching barrels almost immediately, given that they were up against the outside of the smithy, and she had actually tipped one over partway so he could see it in the fading light as he approached.

"Well damn, yer righ- I mean, what're you, wait, ah, huh?"

Helen cut through Jared's confusion with the most important question:

"Jared, when exactly was the last time you saw James?"

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