House of Cards

( Thumph! )

( Thumph! ) 

The man carrying a baby quickly ran through the smoke. In his arm, he held a baby and his left arm held the torch to light the way. 

Running to the nearby town as quickly as possible, the man reached the town gate before being comforted by one of the two soldiers guarding the entrance. 

"Welcome back Heart, how was the alcohol adventure?" Asked the guard on the left side of the entrance. 

"Same but different, sorry but I must go as I can't lose this opportunity." mumbled Heart as he quickly ran past the entrance. 

"I hope to see your creation before you sell it next time." Yelled by one of the guards in the distance. 

Heading towards the houses in the town port he reached one of the bigger houses on the port. 

( Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! ) 

Knocking the door aggressively Heart waited until someone answered. 

"Who is it? Don't you know it is the middle of the night?" yelled a voice from inside the house. 

"Shut up Clover and open the door it's me Heart." said the man holding the baby on the other side of the door. 

In the motion of opening the door Clover asks "Now what do you want and it better be good for you to wake me up dead in my sleep.". 

To Clover's surprise, he saw Heart holding what looked like a baby. 

"Say hi to your nephew," said Heart.

While running towards the town Heart stopped to check if the baby was alive and to see if the baby had any extra belongings inside the blanket. Inside was an envelope and a necklace with a clear capsule as the pendant, inside the capsule was emerald-green sand. 

Opening the envelope, the letter inside wrote, "I hope this letter reaches you Mr. Golden Eyes from the capital of Suncrest. I don't know how I'm supposed to find you with only this necklace you gave me but I have no one else right now so I will try to come meet you. I have your child and I want you to see and name it. If this letter doesn't reach you and someone finds this letter. Please help my child, as I wrote this letter beforehand if it is a girl I want to name her after my mom Isabelle but if it is a boy I always loved the name Brune. Good fortunes to you Isabelle/Brune. - Sincerely your mother Sofia Kove.". 

"Wait wait, can we go back a little bit here??" said Clover confused as to what was going on. 

"During my adventures for inspiration, I met a girl a few times and we did some stuff and she left me with him without saying a word and disappeared." said Heart in a serious and cold tone. 

Knowing his brother is not a man to lie Clover didn't pry any further.

"Alright come in," said Clover. 

Heart also knows his brother well, and knows that Clover wouldn't accept the baby knowing the real story. Clover isn't as kind-hearted as Heart. 

Getting a closer look at the baby's face and especially the eyes, the eyes were an unusual purple color. Clover asked, "Are you really sure this is your son as his eyes are not a common color." 

"His mom was an Elf, you know how most of the time cross-breeding is not possible, but somehow here he is the great halfling Sir Brune Cards." said Heart dramatically. 

"God damn you, not only do you not know if the baby is yours it has to be a damn halfling," said Clover in a rude tone. 

Walking towards the lounging area of the house the two later sat down with intentions to further the conversation. 

"I know you and your wife just had Mo but can yall also help me raise this kid as you already know I have nowhere to raise him and I obviously can't feed him," said Heart as he used his other arm that wasn't hold Brune to cup his chest. 

"You know how hard it'll be to raise three boys. Don't even mention the fact that my wife will have to tend to two babies!" said Clover as he raised his voice. 

Feeling the hostility, Heart replied, "The youngest has to listen to the oldest, and let me mention the fact that I have been providing for you before you even knew your left from right so please as your older brother help me raise my son, your nephew." said Heart as he went from an angry look to puppy eyes very quickly. 

Without even getting a word out to rebuttal Heart, a voice from outside the conversation says, "Your brother is right honey, we owe him so much so it wouldn't hurt helping him for once.". 

"Baby, I told you to stay in the room and watch the boys," said Clover. 

"The boys are sound asleep and with how loud you snore I think they are being trained to be deep sleepers." scuffed Clover's wife as she replied. 

"See! At least someone here is reasonable and not rude. If Alina didn't marry you, you would be the loneliest and rudest man in Tep." joked Heart. 

"Shut up both of you! Since she agreed to your proposal I guess there is no point in arguing with you, now are we going to do this, and let's make this quick as I have a long day on the boat tomorrow," said Clover. 

"I was thinking the boy stays with you while I visit here and there making sure to be here on important events like birthdays and first day of school, stuff like that." said Heart. 

"What did we get ourselves into?" Asked Clover. 

(Wahhhhhhh! Wahhhhh!) 

"This shit sucks!" 

After a few days of being in a new body and place, Bruno now known as Brune, shat his pants. 

Crying for attention because a grown man shouldn't have to deal with basking in his own feces. 

( Sniff! Sniff! ) 

The odor from Brune was noticeable. 

"Awww, don't cry Brune aunty will help clean you up," said Alina as she came to pick up Brune.

A few more days passed before the ringing went away for Brune. 

"Won stel ees fi ybab enurB si yrgnuh??"

Brune could hear the voice of a lady in some foreign language. 

Seconds turned to hours turned to days turned to weeks. Brune could finally see clearly. 

Watching the actions and hearing the words of the Cards family, Brune slowly understood their language. In his observation, Brune realized his name and the names of others. 

The father of the house was Clover Cards, his wife Alina Cards, and their two sons No and Mo Cards. Clover Cards had short scruffy hair with no facial hair. All of the Cards had tan skin, black hair, and black eyes. 

During the time that he got to go see the outside world, Brune noticed the difference and was sure that the world he was now in was different from his original world. Instead of guns and wearing new fashion clothes. People were carrying around swords and dressing in plain and simple clothing. In his words, Brune called it "This look like I'm back in the bronze age,". 

On rare occurrences, Brune would sometimes hear about his father Heart, being mentioned in the Cards household or when they go outside. His father Heart was a drunkard who would go on these "Alcohol Adventures" to find inspiration for his artwork. Heart was a very famous artist from the capital before moving back to Tep, he would sometimes paint, draw, and even make sculptures for profit. Most of the profit made is given to Clover and his family or gets used to help fuel another "Alcohol Adventure". 

In Tep, Heart has no home the only thing that he owns in Tep is his studio where the magic happens. Heart either sleeps and eats in his studio or outside as he rarely bothers Clover. 

( Ahhhh! ) 

The voice of a woman shouting echoed through her room and beyond. 

Far away from Brune, inside a large temple, another strange occurrence will set off the dominoes of fate and turn the world upside down.