The roasted chicken sat in the middle of the table, plump and perched on a bed of greens as if still ready to take flight. The table was set, not a napkin or fork out of place, and Matthew pulled his chair in closer with a soft scraping sound. The meat glistened as Papa began helping himself, cutting out a portion and dropping it unceremoniously on his plate.

Mama looked up to a slow, steady knock on the door. Odd. They hadn't been expecting a guest that night. She rose from her spot at the table and pressed her face to the window as Papa scowled.

Mama's face went pale as the china plates.

She stepped over the door, which creaked as she opened it. She stood her ground, keeping the visitor shielded from sight behind the thick wood. "Are you insane?", Matthew heard her hiss.

The stranger answered in hushed tones, and for a moment all that could be heard in the room was the trading of whispered threats. The argument lasted several more seconds before ending with a sigh from Mama. She returned into view with a tall man behind her.

The man had long brown hair, past his shoulders, stubbly cheeks and dark eyes. His green cape hung draped over one shoulder, and a hefty sword like Papa's hung from his belt. His boots were very muddy, and his expression grim.

Mama held the man's gloved hand, and guided him towards Matthew. "Matthew," she began. "This... is your uncle. He's decided to drop by for dinner tonight."

Papa growled.

Matthew's uncle glared back.

"Felix," Mama said, "Meet your nephew, Matthew."

Uncle Felix's grim expression dissolved into a gentle smile. "Hey, Matthew. Pleased to meet ya." He dropped down on to his knees, looking up into Matthew's eyes. "It's been a long time since I've seen anything of you. You were - what, two? three? - last time, so... I guess now I have a chance to get to know ya."

Papa threw his fork down onto his plate with a sharp clatter. "Matthew, you don't have to talk to him."

Matthew's uncle ignored the jab and instead set out a place for himself at the table. "I came this far. I may as well get to meet him."

"So now you want to come say hello? After all this time?"

Uncle Felix stabbed his slice of chicken. "Would be a lot easier if I wasn't a blasted fugitive."

"How was I supposed to know they would still call you a criminal?!" A note of indignation burst through in his father's voice. "I thought, after fixing the world and all, they would have called that crap water under the bridge! I didn't know they were still willing to run people out of town after a soldamn technicality!"

"Will both of you," Mama interrupted, "Please settle down. In case you hadn't noticed, this is a dinner table, not a colosseum!"

Matthew shrank back in his seat a little. It had been a long time since he'd ever heard Papa so angry.

Uncle Felix didn't seem to notice. "Do you have any idea how much I risk tonight just coming to see you?" He leaned out of his chair, almost standing over the table.

"Well maybe if it's so much trouble, you shouldn't come!" Papa shot back.

"Matthew's my nephew." Felix glowered at Papa. "I ought to see him sometime or another."

Papa shoved his plate aside. "He's your sister's kid, not yours!"

"What's wrong with wanting to see my own sister!?" Felix knocked his own plate aside as well. It shattered on the floor into shards of glazed clay.

"Feeling incestuous, are we? Didn't you have that proxian bitch you were after? Oh right, you killed her!"

"Oh, you're one to talk, Mister I-killed-my-own-parents!"

"At least they came back!", Papa shouted.

The candle in the center of the table flared up dangerously close to the ceiling, singeing Uncle Felix's hair and setting the tip of Papa's beard alight. He patted it down quickly as the tall flame separated the two of them and they each stepped back from the table. Matthew stared, transfixed, at the tell-tale glow of psynergy radiating from his mother's hands.

"Boys!", Mama yelled, her voice booming through the small cottage. "This is a polite dinner, and you will be polite, dammit. Either take your idiotic in-law wrestling match somewhere else, or I will set fire to both your asses and kick you outside myself!

"I don't care who started it, and I don't care who plans to finish it. You two used to be friends, and I know that that's over, but the least you could do is to not fight it out at the table in front of Matthew!"

Both men begrudgingly returned to their seats, eyes filled with silent rage.

"Mama..." Matthew murmured. "Can I... leave the table?"

Mama put one arm across his shoulders, warm and gentle, and nodded. "Yes. You should be in bed by now."

Papa joined in. "Yeah, Matt. Uncle Felix and I are going to have a nice long talk later."

"More like three-way combat," muttered Felix.

Matthew crept up the stairs, then stopped at the stairwell, silent. Voices still filtered up from the table.

"I don't know what you see in him, Jenna."

"Listen, when I want you to critique my taste in men, I'll tell you."

Papa snorted. "Not like he's got any taste himself. Who was your last partner, that Lemurian weirdo?"

"So I like guys too, big deal."

"At least I don't flit from one girl to the next like I'm playing hot-potato."

"Really? I pretty clearly remember you making doe-eyes at Mia for years before you and Jenna wanted anything to do with each other."

There was a moment of shifting stone, then a solid thunk against the back wall of the cottage.

"Shut up!"

Matthew braced himself against the stairwell as the entire house shuddered, the walls twisting and warping behind him as if alive. Bits of thatch and dust rained down around him and caught in his hair as he clutched the railings.

"Dammit, Felix!"

The floor rocked again. Matthew heard chairs crashing and the windows rattling as the voices grew to shouts.

"That's it! Both of you, out! Now!" Metal clanged against a wall, and above the clamor and chaos he could just make out the sound the front door being thrown open. "Matthew?"

Matthew watched Mama climb the splintered steps, reaching out to him with one hand, gripping the banister with the other. He snatched at her hand and let her pull him towards her chest. Pots and pans clashed together like cymbals as she carried him down to the buckling dirt floor and under the table.

Outside, barely visible, two figures grappled and flung handfuls of stone and earth at one another in a furious rush. Psynergy sprung up around them in green tendrils and crashed down like landslides. Mama held him close and glowed a faint red as warmth rushed through Matthew's whole body, mending the little cuts and bruises from the debris he'd barely noticed until then. She sighed.

"Let's get you to bed."