The Beaver King, Cautionary Tales of Medieval Dysfunction

There was a time—before the noise, before the meddling, before Beaverton did what Beaverton always does—when Mills Creek House was something rare.

It was warm. Not the kind people put on for show, and not the kind that comes with conditions or quiet expectations. The real kind. The kind where the door was open before you knocked, the kettle was already on, and no one kept score. You could sit down and just be, and that was enough.

Nanwen and Jimerson of Mills Creek built it that way. Not loudly, not for credit, and not for recognition. They didn’t announce it. They just lived it. Small things, quiet things, the kind no one notices unless they’re gone. A chair pulled out without asking, a plate made without comment, a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable. People came as they were, and for a while, that was safe. That was steady. That was home.

Because that’s the way of Mills Creek. It didn’t change all at once. It never does.

As was told in Jimerson’s own account, Nanwen fell ill—crown-bound marrow rot. And though Mills Creek held as long as it could, it could not hold forever. Nanwen passed quietly, and with her, something essential in that house went too.

Jimerson stayed, of course he did. But truth be told, he had always been a drinker, and what followed wasn’t new, it was more. More often, more needed, more consuming. And then came the fading. Lantern Fade. Slow at first, easy to excuse, until it wasn’t. Because there comes a point when a man isn’t just grieving, he’s disappearing.

So he was moved. Out of Mills Creek, out of what remained of it, and into the care of Nanwen’s sister, Brynda, the Dowager Queen.

Mills Creek House was left behind—not abandoned, not destroyed, just…left.

It remained as it had been: maintained, clean, and full. Hoarded, some would say, but not in neglect. There was order to it, a system only Nanwen had ever fully understood, and she had understood it perfectly. She had been an excellent homemaker. That much never changed. And so the house stood exactly as she had left it, holding its shape, its quiet, and in its own way, the last trace of what Mills Creek had been.

But the worst thing you can do for a house is let it sit. So a decision was made.

Baylor (then still the Bound) was given the keeping of Mills Creek. Not as an inheritance, but as a responsibility. He was young, but steady, neat, and clean, a hard worker in ways that mattered. And Jimerson, even as things faded, knew that much.

Baylor could live there if he maintained the house and respected what Nanwen had built. In return, he would pay a small stipend each month, 300 Virecrowns. Not much. Just enough to keep the arrangement honest. It was a practical decision. A reasonable one.

Little did Jimerson of Mills Creek know, this would be the beginning of the end of the home he once shared with his sweet, late wife.

And so it began.

Baylor moved in, and for a time, things were good. The house was not just maintained, but cared for. Floors were swept, windows opened, and the quiet felt settled rather than heavy. It wasn’t Nanwen’s touch, but it was respectful, and that mattered. Baylor understood what had been left to him. Not just a place to stay, but something to keep.

He didn’t do it alone. Often, his closest friend, Jaekin Sumnet of TexaPike, would stay there with him. And though “stay” might not have been the right word, he was there more often than not. Together, they filled the house in a different way, not with the same rhythm as before, but with something that, for a time, kept it from going still again. For a while, Mills Creek held.

Of course, if things were going well, the Beaver King had to meddle.

What exactly was said, or how it started is unclear. It rarely matters. There was an argument, and just like that, Jaekin Sumnet of TexaPike was gone, back to his birth home with his parents.

That could have been the end of it. It should have been. But it wasn’t.

Not long after, it became clear that Little Lord Brentin—ever the practicing Beneficianarian—had been given leave to move into the little house on Mills Creek. Not by Jimerson. Not by Baylor. By the Beaver King. And not alone. With him came his then-girlfriend, Whinyth the Forever Wanted.

And if you were paying attention, it wasn’t hard to see what was really happening. The Beaver King had decided he was done with Whinyth—just as he had been with every girlfriend or wife before her—and wanted her out of the Log Cabin Castle. Mills Creek, it seemed, was where such decisions were carried out. Conveniently. Quietly. And never by accident. Because whatever the argument had been, whatever words had been exchanged, it was clear in the end that the outcome had already been decided.

Jaekin out. Brentin in.

And for a time, it settled into something that almost made sense. Not right—but workable. Sadly, things did not last long between Brentin and Whinyth. After a miscarriage, and Brentin choosing his family over leaving and returning to Solmere with her, Whinyth was gone.

And just like that, it was no longer a couple in the house. Just the two brothers.

Lord Brentin was messy. That much was clear. But Baylor felt it was manageable. Not ideal, but manageable. The kind of thing you tell yourself you can keep ahead of if you stay on top of it. For a while, he did.

But then Zeb Warthog came around. At first just visiting. Then staying late. Then staying often. Like most things that don’t belong somewhere, he didn’t arrive all at once. He just kept showing up.

Then, to add insult to injury, Brentin did what Brentin always did. Not long after Whinyth was gone, he moved in Faylee of Frankleton. He had never been one to be alone for long. That much was well known. Brentin had…appetites. And they rarely allowed for much time in between.

So the house shifted again. What had already been crowded with imbalance now had another presence, another set of habits, another rhythm that did not match the house it had entered. Yet still, Baylor tried to manage it. Because that’s what you do when something matters. You adjust. You compensate. You convince yourself that if you just stay ahead of it, it won’t get away from you.

But by then it t wasn’t just his to manage anymore. At this point, Baylor was still the Bound and didn’t yet know how to assert himself. Brentin had always been messy. That much had been manageable. But with the arrival of Faylee, manageable slipped into something else entirely.

They weren’t just messy. They were slobs. Food left sitting too long. Plates stacked and forgotten. Things beginning to turn before anyone bothered with them. Mold showing up where it never would have before. Mud tracked in and not cleaned up. Not once, not occasionally, just left. Clothes everywhere. Not put away. Not even gathered. Just dropped where they landed and stayed there.

The worst part wasn’t that it happened. It was that no one seemed to notice. The system of the house was still there. But no one was following it, and Baylor, still trying, still compensating, still telling himself he could manage it—began to fall behind.There comes a point where you’re not keeping a place anymore. You’re fighting it. Mills Creek was no longer steady at all.

Baylor was sad. Sadder than sad. Not the kind of sadness that makes a scene, but the quiet kind, the kind that comes from watching something good turn into something you don’t recognize anymore. He saw what was happening. He understood what it meant. And he knew he couldn’t be part of it.

So he left. Not loudly. Not in anger. Just…left.

He returned to the Dowager Queen’s country property—the original home of Irenna and Matthias of Stonewake, the original matriarch of the Beaverton clan, and the place that had become home base for anyone who needed somewhere to land. Mills Creek, for the first time since Baylor was left without anyone trying to hold it together.

There was a time when even Zeb Warthog had been a regular presence. Zeb, who was known for not bathing as often as he should, who carried with him a certain odor, who was, by all accounts, the gross one. Even Zeb stopped coming around. That’s how far it had gone. After that, it was just Brentin and Faylee—left to their own devices. Neither of them were suited to the challenge.

There was no effort to maintain anything. No attempt to stay ahead of it. No awareness that it had already gotten out of hand. Things weren’t cleaned. They weren’t corrected. They weren’t even noticed. They just continued.

Without anyone to check it, without anyone willing or able to step in, Mills Creek didn’t fall apart all at once. It simply stopped being kept, and what happens to a place when no one keeps it—is something else entirely.