(( Small change, I changed Captain Vey's name to Rein. It was too close to Vale and being in the North I wanted something that sounded a bit different ))
The headquarters common room had become too quiet.
After hours, however, the place felt like it remembered it had once been an inn.
An inn after closing would always give a quiet reminder to what this place once was, people sat here, by the fire, exchanged stories. Instead, this evening Alric sat near the hearth and imagined disasters.
Seren sat opposite two seats over, hands folded neatly around a cup of tea she had not drunk from in several minutes. She had the composed look of a person prepared to wait.
Alric leaned back, then forward again because leaning back felt too casual for a meeting requested by Mara after hours. Mara did not request meetings after hours.
That was not an action. It felt more like an omen. He stared at the hearth.
She can’t be leaving for better pay at some inn, and it’s not a tavern either. Not regular pay or bonuses. Is the authority she has now too much? She effectively manages half the brewery now.
Alric rubbed one of his wrists.
“A noble, maybe,” he said out loud, then immediately disliked the thought.
Seren glanced at him in confusion.
No. That does not feel right. Mara is too practical to be dazzled by a title. Has she gotten an offer from a seamstress maybe?
Or there is a family issue.
He nodded to himself, that could make sense.
“We can’t lose Mara,” he said glancing at Seren.
Seren’s face softened very slightly. Seren did not reply to that.
Alric shifted again. The front door opened. Both of them turned.
Mara stepped inside quietly, closing the door behind her with more care than it needed. She wore her usual work outfit, trousers and tunic, though the apron was gone. Her hair was down, which was unusual. She looked smaller without the brewery around her. Mara belonged among steam, grain, shouting, and men suddenly remembering they had tasks elsewhere.
Here, in the common room, with the hearth low and the tables empty, she looked young.
“Mister Alric,” she said.
“Mara.”
“Seren.” She said forcing a smile.
“Mara,” Seren said, standing.
Alric stood too quickly. The chair scraped backwards. Mara’s eyes flicked to it.
“Office?” Alric asked gesturing with his thumb.
“If you don’t mind.” Mara said nodding while glancing around the common room
He minded deeply. No so much the office, rather the tone.
“Of course.”
They crossed from the common room, up the stairs into what was now, his office. It was probably a store room before, it was just outside his own private rooms. Alric considered the term office to be generous.
It had a desk. A real desk. Not a table he had stolen from another room and covered in calculations. There were shelves, a locked cabinet, a small side table with clean wooden cups and a kettle. Two chairs for visitors, placed at a sensible angle because Seren had arranged them.
It was an office. His office. What he did not like about it was that it was just his, in his previous life he would have loved this, but now, he would have preferred to have Seren nearby.
Mara sat in one of the visitor chairs. Seren took the other. Alric moved behind the desk, then stopped, a part of him would have preferred to lean or stand. He sat putting his elbows on the desk. There was an long awkward moment.
Mara sat with her hands in her lap, fingers wrapped together so tightly the knuckles had paled.
Alric’s stomach tightened.
“You said there were things you wanted to discuss,” Seren said gently.
Mara nodded.
“There are two things.”
Two things were never harmless. One thing could be simple. One thing could be a request, a mistake, a staff disagreement, a delivery problem, or someone setting something on fire in a small but recoverable way.
Two things meant the first thing was being used to soften the second.
“Alright,” Alric said, trying to sound calm and producing something that sounded like calm had been described to him by an unreliable witness. “Go on.”
Mara drew in a breath.
“The first is not for me. It’s for Lessa.”
Alric stilled. Seren did not, which meant Seren had already begun thinking faster than him.
“Lessa?” Alric asked.
Mara nodded. “She asked if I would speak for her.”
“Is she alright?”
“She is not hurt.”
That was not the same answer. Alric waited.
Mara looked down at her hands. “She would like to be transferred. If possible.”
The words landed with a clean, cold weight.
Alric sat forward. “Transferred to…?”
Mara glanced at Seren, then back to him.
“She would like to work here. At headquarters. As a maid for you.”
Silence entered the room.
“A maid?” Alric asked tilting his head.
“Yes.”
He looked at Seren. Seren’s expression had shifted to a frown.
“Why?” Alric asked, turning back to Mara. “Is she unhappy at the brewery?”
Mara’s fingers tightened further. “I don’t think it is quite that bad.”
Mara’s mouth twitched faintly, but the expression did not last.
“Since… since we have more staff now,” she said. “There are more men now. More workers. More people from outside coming in and out. Guards, drivers, men delivering things.”
Alric waited.
Mara swallowed. “People stare.”
The room changed. Nothing moved. But Alric felt the shape of the problem alter, an uncomfortable warmth came into his ears.
“At Lessa?” he asked.
Mara nodded.
“Who?”
“I can’t say it like that.”
“You can.”
“No,” Mara said, and there was the old firmness for a moment. “I can tell you if someone says something they shouldn’t or if someone tries to touch her. I can tell you if someone blocks her path or follows her that makes her afraid. That is not this.”
Alric’s jaw tightened.
“It is looks,” Mara continued. “Little things. They go quiet when she passes. They watch too long. Some of the younger ones showing off. Some of the older ones pretending they are not looking but doing it anyway. Nothing I can put my finger on and say this man did that thing. But she feels it.”
Seren’s eyes lowered slightly.
Alric felt something unpleasant move through his chest. Both anger and guilt too. The brewery had grown because he had grown it. Buildings, workers, men. More everything. He had treated it as a problem of space, flow, cleaning, barrels, shifts, and grain.
People were not barrels. They did not become safe because one arranged them better.
“She said,” Mara added carefully, “that you have never done that.”
Alric’s mind stopped. Then, because his mind hated him, it restarted in the worst direction possible.
He had never stared at Lessa because every time he looked at Lessa, an important part of his brain shut down as if someone had thrown the brakes. Lessa was pretty.
Lessa was the sort of pretty that made men forget how doors worked. Alric knew this because he had once watched Henry walk directly into a doorframe while carrying two empty casks after Lessa smiled at him. Alric had been prepared to laugh until he realised he was meant to be showing Mara how to work the scales at the time and lost his place entirely.
He had never stared because he had developed the survival instinct of looking at her face, then at the nearest neutral object, then speaking very carefully.
His brain chose this moment to become particularly useless. Alric had the kind of brain that would be burning its fingers with hot food, then urge him to put the overly hot food in his mouth.
It chose that moment to supply an image of Lessa in a maid outfit.
Not the sort of maid outfit she would actually wear. A sensible headquarters maid would wear practical cloth, an apron, sleeves that could be tied back, and shoes suited to the stairs.
His brain did not supply that. It was too traitorous. The image was one of the overly small cute maid outfits of his previous world. Alric shook his head once, sharply, as if dislodging a fly.
Mara looked down at once.
“No,” Alric said quickly. “No. Sorry. That wasn’t. No.”
Seren’s eyes slid toward him. He ignored her with the desperation of a man stepping around a hole in the floor.
“That is fine,” he said. “I mean, if Lessa wants to work here, I have no issues with it. None. But this is more Seren’s decision than mine.”
Mara looked up.
Alric gestured toward Seren. “I don’t know how to run a household. Seren would have to train her. Seren would know what work is needed here.”
Seren studied him for half a breath longer then she nodded.
Then she turned to Mara.
“If Lessa wants to work here, I will take her,” Seren said. “We are going to need maids but this is not simply sweeping floors and carrying trays. We will receive messages, merchants, staff, and guests. She will need discretion, timing, and to know how Mister Alric does things.”
Alric watched as Mara’s shoulders dropped the tension she had been carrying. It made her look smaller, vulnerable somehow.
“Thank you,” Mara said. “I will speak with her tomorrow,”
For one moment, Alric thought the meeting might be manageable. Then he remembered Mara had said two things.
He could see it in her hands. They had not unclenched. The first matter had been difficult, but it had not made Mara look like this. This was the real thing. The first had been the step before the edge.
“And the second?” Seren asked.
Mara’s lips parted. No sound came out. She looked down.
“Mara,” Alric said softly, “whatever it is, say it.”
She nodded once. Then she did not say it.
Her throat moved. Her eyes flicked to Seren, then away. She opened her mouth again, closed it, and pressed both hands against her stomach as if holding herself together.
Seren leaned forward. “Mara?”
“I’m pregnant,” Mara blurted.
The words struck the room and knocked everything out of place. Mara looked immediately at Seren.
Seren frowned. Mara saw the frown. Her face broke.
Alric stood so fast the chair went backwards and hit the floor.
“Congratulations!”
The word left him at full volume. Both women flinched.
Alric did not notice in time to stop himself. He was already moving around the desk, his whole body overtaken by relief so sudden it became motion.
“You’re pregnant? Mara, that’s wonderful!”
Mara stared at him. Alric gestured for her to stand.
She stood because shock had apparently taken command of her body.
He hugged her.
It was a huge, brief, wholehearted hug from a man who had spent the evening believing he was about to lose someone and had instead been told the world had made more family.
Mara froze completely. Alric felt it one heartbeat too late. He let go and stepped back so quickly he almost hit the desk.
“Sorry,” he said at once. “Sorry. No wait? How are you not…”
Alric looked at Seren in confusion. Seren was staring at him as though he had just solved a problem by walking through a wall.
“What?” he asked.
Seren rubbed her forehead.
“Mister Alric,” she said carefully. “Is Mara in trouble?”
Alric stared at her.
“No, but how are you not overjoyed?” Alric frowned heavily at Seren.
Seren lowered her hand. Mara made a small sound and covered her mouth.
Alric looked between them. “Why would she be in trouble?”
Neither woman answered. He looked at Mara. She was crying now. Quietly, but definitely crying.
“Mara,” he said, more gently, “how are neither of you happy about this?”
Mara wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, but the tears kept coming. Alric’s mind finally caught up to the missing piece.
“Did you think I was going to fire you?”
Mara nodded. It was a small movement. Barely there.
Alric sat down on the edge of the desk this time and did not care what Seren thought of it.
Mara looked at him, then down.
“Mara,” he said. “Absolutely not. Not even close. When did I ever give such an impression?”
Her shoulders trembled once.
“You asked for a private meeting after hours, I thought something had happened with your family. Or you were leaving to become a seamstress or something. Maybe some noble. I’ve been sitting out there imagining half the brewery collapsing because you decided to go somewhere else and shout at better people.”
Mara stared at him. Then she laughed. It was not a clean laugh. It came through tears and broke halfway. But it was a laugh.
Seren’s face shifted first into disbelief. She exhaled and shook her head.
Alric looked at both of them before frowning heavily at Seren. “I am glad everyone else is catching up to the obvious part. I’m still disappointed you aren’t happy for her Seren.”
Seren laughed then. Mara pressed both hands over her face and laughed again, harder this time, still crying.
The tension went out of the room so quickly it almost deserved a noise.
Alric looked down at the fallen chair.
“I think,” he said, “we need tea.”
Seren gave him a look.
“What?” he asked. “This is clearly a tea type misunderstanding.”
The tea helped.
Tea often did. Not because tea solved anything, but because it gave people something to hold while they waited for words to return. Alric had learned this from Moreen, who treated tea as a social tool, a comfort, and somehow a weapon.
Mara held her cup in both hands.
She had stopped crying, though her eyes were still red. Seren had taken the other chair again, angled slightly toward Mara now. Alric sat behind his desk.
The office felt different.
The first part of the meeting had been sharp with dread. The second had burst open. Now the room had settled into something fragile and warm.
“So,” Alric said, carefully this time, “do you want congratulations?”
Mara looked at him then she looked down at her tea. “Yes.”
“Good,” Alric said. “Then congratulations.”
Her mouth trembled, but this time she smiled.
“Thank you.”
Seren took a sip of tea. “Have you seen a midwife?”
Mara shook her head. “Not yet. I wasn’t sure if I should before…”
Before telling him. The unsaid words sat there.
“Look, I don’t know how other employers are, but this is a cause for celebration. I don’t know how you’d think otherwise.”
He hated that Mara had spent any amount of time frightened of him. Frightened that his practical world had a place for her only while she remained useful in a particular way.
“I made my offerings,” Mara said glancing quickly at Alric before turning to Seren properly.
Seren’s expression shifted.
“I did everything properly,” Mara continued. “I keep count. I made the offerings. I prayed. I wasn’t careless.”
Alric did not know what to say to that although he got the distinct impression this was a conversation he should be aware of but not included in.
The brewery had become a place where impossible things happened. Beer could be divine. Buildings could glow. Kings could arrive for inspections and leave laughing. A woman who had made her offerings could still become pregnant, and when searching for why, her eyes naturally moved toward the man at the centre of several other impossibilities.
Alric shrugged.
Seren looked at Alric. For once, there was no accusation in it. Only weary astonishment.
“Somehow,” Seren said, “you were the only person in this room with the right reaction.”
Alric scoffed. “Of course I was. It was obvious.”
“It was not obvious to ....” Seren began.
Alric pointed at Seren. “No. This one is not me. Babies mean congratulations, you have also not once shown a shred of happiness for Mara, she’s going to be a mom.”
Mara stared. Seren stared too.
“Mara, I know this is strange but… I’m happy for you, genuinely and truly.” Seren said before reaching forward to give Mara an awkward hug Mara with both of then sitting down.
When they parted Mara looked down into her tea. Her smile had become small but real.
“I didn’t think you would be pleased.” Mara said glancing at Alric.
“I am,” he said, “are you?”
Mara nodded. “I think I am.”
“You think?”
She let out a breath. “I am scared.”
“I would be too.”
“And happy.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“And sick most mornings.”
“That seems less fun.”
Seren gave him a look as her jaw tightened.
Alric lifted both hands slightly before returning a flat look back at Seren. “I am not a midwife. I am contributing what I can.”
Mara laughed softly.
Alric leaned back. His mind, having survived the emotional disaster, immediately began doing what it always did when faced with reality.
“Alright,” he said glancing at the wall. “We need to plan for this.”
Seren’s eyebrows shifted to meet in the middle.
Alric noticed. “What? There is going to be a baby, Seren. Planning is the correct response.”
Mara’s cup paused halfway to her mouth.
Alric looked at her. “The first question is what you want.”
“What I want?”
“Yes.”
Mara seemed unprepared for that.
Alric counted on his fingers, because fingers were available and the desk did not have errant paper.
“Do you want to stay here at headquarters? We have space here? Do you want to keep your current rooms? The brewery isn’t safe for a baby. It would make the most sense I think if you and Hal came to stay here. I should have thought of that a while ago actually.”
Alric looked between them.
“What now?”
Seren’s voice came slowly. “You are already planning around the baby.”
“Yes Seren, it’s a baby, it’s not a surprise. It is still Mara’s decision, I just want her to know what is available.” Alric said giving Seren another flat look, having not forgiven her for earlier.
Mara stared at him before pressing one hand over her mouth and having silent giggles.
Alric felt his anger flare. Not at Mara.
At whatever system had made her think she would need to beg to keep food, work, respect, and a roof because she was pregnant.
He pushed the anger down.
“Can… Can Hal and I live here? With the little one?” Mara asked.
“Yes. Lessa will already be here,” he said. “We can reduce Mara’s brewery floor work and shift her toward records, training, perhaps overseeing from safer rooms. She knows the process better than anyone.”
Mara stared at him.
Alric frowned. “What?”
“You’ve thought of all that already?”
“I have had enough time.”
Seren made a small sound into her tea.
Alric ignored her. “Also we need a midwife. A good one. Not the cheapest one. The best one we can get without accidentally hiring someone who reports to a noble house. Seren?”
Seren lowered her tea. “I know of a few.”
“Stromni will ask if it needs a cradle,” Alric continued. “Just let him make one, it’s easier than fighting him on it.”
Seren’s eyes narrowed. “Does it need a cradle so soon?”
“Eventually ‘the baby’ will need a cradle Seren, not ‘it’. Seren, you do know babies do not arrive with their own furniture?”
“Mister Alric.”
Mara shook her head, smiling now, although her eyes were still puffy.
For a while, they sat in the office while the headquarters settled around them. Somewhere in the building, a board creaked. Outside, the evening had deepened.
A baby. There would be a baby.
Not his, but somehow near enough that his mind had already begun rearranging the world around it. A room with better light. Downstairs apartment for sure. Babies liked stairs the same way barrels did.
He also decided, with absolute certainty, that headquarters would need a nursery eventually. He did not say that aloud. Some ideas deserved time to mature before being placed before Seren. He’d also need to speak to her about giving Mara three months off as maternity leave, which too, could wait.