Cid stood up and accepted Benjamin’s warm hug.

  With a few sps on the back, Benjamin released him and stood back, smiling, “It is good to see you!”

  Cid smiled back, just that smile of his uncle’s and those words put warmth into his lonely heart…

  Weeks had gone by, and Cid never knew how cold his heart had gotten. It wasn’t the first time Benjamin had left with his wife and son but…Why was it that this time that smile, and those words, meant so much to him?

  “Have you been well?”

  Cid nodded, still a bit too emotional to talk at the moment but he did not lose it and cry. He was a man after all!

  “Ah, no…I can’t find any food!” Cid snapped to look at the other voice and saw that David was going through the small number of cupboards in the house…

  “Nothing!?” Benjamin asked in a disbelieving manner, looking at David.

  Cid put up his hands and tried to quickly come up with something, “I…I ate…It.”

  Both of the other men now looked at Cid and narrowed their eyes…

  Ah, both father and son…

  Cid looked away from both of them and came to see the hot water over the fire was ready, so he had something else to worry about!

  “…Back with us!”

  As Cid put down the hot water safely, he quickly looked up and said, “Please, I don’t need to! I have everything I need here!”

  “Except food.” David bluntly said.

  Gring at David, Cid then looked at Benjamin, only to be gred at by him too.

  He really did have food earlier! He just…Ate it! He wasn’t starving! Why are they gring at him so fiercely!?

  “You need to be somewhere where you can make your ring.” Benjamin stated, sighing, “That’s why here isn’t the pce to be.”

  Cid went silent and didn’t understand, “…What ring?”

  “The Princess is going to marry the person who can make her a specific ring. I’m guessing it’s the one you gave her, so you should know what it looks like.”

  “More than that! He should know everything about that ring!” David stated, making a face to the dirty wall that he had just leaned against.

  “She’s…Going to marry the person who…” Cid was stunned!

  Was this how the Princess stopped her engagement? It can’t be!

  “What about her engagement!?” Cid asked.

  “Prince Elton helped the Princess dissolve it into nothing.” David stated, frowning to saying ‘Prince Elton’…How dare that friend of his so openly talk about what he does away from his father!

  “Nothing?” Cid asked, quite stunned, “They aren’t…”

  Benjamin came to Cid then and put a hand to his shoulder, smiling like an idiot, “Yes, Cid. They are no longer getting married and…I assume it’s you and the Princess that will be getting married instead!”

  Cid backed himself against a wall, holding himself up. Shock, excitement and happiness went through him like it had never before!

  They, Steven and Bethany, weren’t going to marry and…And he had…He knew how to make the ring that she…

  Before now he was wondering just how much he had to prove himself to be someone worthy of the Princess but with this happening…

  “…Left Earlier, remember?”

  “Right, well, doesn’t matter now! What matters now is to get Cid to a pce that will help him make the ring! Come on boy, come to your senses!” Benjamin spped Cid on the shoulder and Cid nodded, his eyes still gzed over in wonder, but he got off the wall and started to nod.

  “Can we use your father’s shop?” Benjamin asked. “What’s the state that…”

  “No, I was locked in…” Cid started to say.

  Benjamin widened his eyes, “Right…No…We mustn’t use…”

  Cruel people! They had absolutely no right to take that pce!

  Benjamin felt so angry that he forgot why they were talking about a bcksmith in the first pce and even put a fisted hand into his other opened hand. “They deserve much more than a…”

  “Father! Focus!” David stated. Even his father was trouble!

  Benjamin immediately remembered and dropped his hands, “Who else then? What about…No, that would be silly too…”

  They couldn’t use a bcksmith that was directly connected to those cruel people! Even if the bcksmith was not someone used by Leonard, there was one that was friends with him…Which doesn’t leave very much left now in the capital!

  Cid looked at them then, and said, “Don’t worry yourselves, I have a new supplier, and I will ask them to help me.”

  “New? Then you haven’t used them for long?” Benjamin stated, narrowing his eyes.

  David let out a huff, “Cid will only have to let them know a secret and they should be fine!”

  Benjamin turned and looked at his son for a moment, reminded of something said to him just earlier this day, “Did your friends tell you this, uh?”

  David frowned and shook his head, “Not the time for this, Father!”

  No, ‘never’ was a good time for this conversation!

  Talking about his pce in the bck market was something that even he himself didn’t care too much for anymore!

  After all, it was the bck market’s fault for opening his mind to the ever so deep scheming of people…

  David quickly turned to Cid, who went back to cleaning his coat, and said, “Where is this pce?”

  “Capital.”

  With a look from Cid, asking silently, and David raising his eyebrows and nodding, the conversation seemed over, “Need help then?”

  Cid sighed, “Does Pauletta know how to clean the coat better?”

  Benjamin smiled and said, “Call her Aunt, my boy!”

  Not only was Cid finally asking for help, but Benjamin understood what seemed to have been agreed upon! Cid was coming home with them!

  “Let’s go!”

  ***

  The days that followed were hectic for Cid.

  He did indeed spend the next few days at his aunt and uncles, and after a long conversation with the bcksmith, Cid was finally able to use it to make the ring.

  If the bcksmith was great, it would be under his stepfather but…The bcksmith was not. It was a business that a rich noble had, and he did not look after it well, nor cared for who worked there. Cid didn’t want to use him too much and only when absolutely necessary but right now there wasn’t much other choice!

  Not only would any other bcksmith be a stranger, where their work and materials were unknown of quality, but they would have to be outside of the capital as well.

  The bcksmith had work from people so, strangely, it stayed afloat, the problem was…Cid felt like he had given away too much!

  It was understandable that they did not think that the ring that Cid was making was the real one, but they still wanted so much, even if it wasn’t! The Princess really helped bring a new type of marketing to the people here!

  The bcksmith wanted profit and they absolutely persisted that this project has their name written all over it! Not only that but Cid had to pay them extra, not just for the materials but also for ‘making’ it…When they weren’t even making it!

  It was a total rip off, but it was to be done in silence, and that was where David came in…

  David had not shown what he was capable of until the bcksmith had the urge to speak to someone and then…Not only David’s father became fbbergasted, but also that of Cid and the poor person, the bcksmith, was practically scared out of his wits that he now even bows to David upon seeing him.

  To David, it wasn’t much of a trick, he just went to the bck market and pced the bcksmith as someone that needed to pay a rge sum of debt in a month. The job was to ‘watch’, be discrete to others…And the actual working bcksmith, who had wanted to talk about Cid and his work, nearly wet his pants to how many bck clothed eyes would stare at him and…And weapons…

  David thought it was absolutely hirious, but his father thought otherwise…He was going to have to have a good stern chat with his son!

  It was in these days that Cid finally felt like he had gone back to normal.

  He had depended solely upon himself, surviving and having to do everything on his own but now…Now, Pauletta had cleaned his coat, making it look like new. Any other type of materials needed for his ring, that the bcksmith didn’t supply, were supplied without cost or question by Benjamin and he felt warm…

  Food, that was meat and vegetables, he was able to enjoy eating it with others. To see a made bed with warm bnkets, clean tabletops and water easily to get to…Even Pauletta washed his clothes so that he didn’t have to do it…

  Yes, Cid felt like he had missed these things and felt quite grateful to have them once again, even if it was for a little while. Well, some of them anyway…He’d always done his own clothes washing but at least he was eating better once again.

  …What had not changed though, was his step family…