Raine and Nikolay weren’t strangers to farewells. After all, they’d been travelling all around Kosira, and met all different kinds of people that they’d likely never see again. Frankly, Raine would’ve liked if Irideis could also become one of these one-off characters, but it seemed like the white-haired trickster wouldn’t let them live their lives in peace.

But getting back to the point: they’d never taken anything personally, especially not the fact that these people would forget about them soon enough.

So, it came as a surprise when Raine found himself tearing up a little when they had to tell Tabitha of their departure.

“We’re leaving Aurelinne Village today,” Raine said. “There’s still a lot we have to do.”

Nikolay dipped his head in reverence. “Thank you. For everything.”

A friendly grin stretched across Tabitha‘s face.

“It was a pleasure to have you two helping out. I wish you the best in your journey forward.”

Nikolay sincerely placed a hand over his heart. “These memories… I’ll keep them for as long as I possibly can.”

“Missing me already?” Tabitha teased lightly. “You two haven’t even left the tavern yet.”

“I- Nevermind,” Nikolay sighed. “I’m going to load our baggage onto Rascal’s saddle.”

As Raine turned to follow Nikolay, Tabitha placed a hand on his shoulder. He stopped in his tracks and looked at her inquisitively.

“Look out for Nikolay as much as he looks out for you,” she whispered with a grin.

Raine smiled. “Can do, boss.”

—

It’d felt like ages since they were last travelling on the road — their stay at Aurelinne Village had lasted much longer than they’d anticipated. For a moment, Raine almost wished that they could’ve just stayed for a while more, if only to push away the looming responsibilities of the prophecy. However, deep down, he knew that lingering in one spot for too long would cause even more grief than constantly travelling.

Yet, despite the length of time that had passed, they returned to their normal routine as if nothing had changed. Rascal, who had been living a leisurely life amongst the other horses in Aurelinne Village’s stables, begrudgingly took their bags and carried out her duty as the pack mule.

When night fell, they had to face the reality of their sleeping situation. Staying in Tabitha’s extra room was a luxury that they hadn’t gotten enough of. All too soon, they were back to sleeping in sleeping bags and tents.

However, both of them stayed up late into the night before retiring to the safety of the tent. The campfire had dimmed to a soft glow, with only embers lying passively in the pit.

Raine looked over at Nikolay. The sorcerer sent blue sparks between his hands with a concentrated frown. Afraid of breaking his concentration, Raine stayed silent and continued to watch the display silently.

As he continued to observe Nikolay, he realised that the sparks weren’t just bouncing arbitrarily — each individual spark was following a set pattern of its own. Being able to control the path of countless sparks at once was an incredible feat, though it didn’t look the part at first glance.

There was one thing that still confused Raine, though: wasn’t Nikolay known as the ‘most powerful sorcerer’? Why would he, of all people, need to practise his magic?

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“What are you practicing?” Raine asked.

His voice startled Nikolay enough to make him jump, the sparks flying haphazardly in random directions.

Nikolay’s eyes darted up to Raine, then back down at his hands. “Magic.”

Raine couldn’t help but snort at his bluntness. “Yeah, that much was obvious. Care to share a bit more?”

“I’m training my technique. The lack of fine control has come to my attention recently.”

“When?”

Raine was pretty sure that every time Nikolay used his magic, it ended in an overwhelming success, albeit a little brutally.

“Looking in hindsight, I can name quite a few examples. All the way back when we first separated into our own bodies, and we encountered the sorcerer from the Order of Truth. I tried binding him with my magic, but he easily broke through by because of my weak technique. Then, there was the incident with Gremory, when I couldn’t use my magic to do anything besides restrain him. And two days ago, when you almost…” Nikolay dropped his head. “My magic was completely useless. All it can do is harm, not heal.”

He had no idea Nikolay had been sitting in these thoughts for so long — or maybe Raine’s near-death experience triggered such a revelation.

“That’s not true. Even if it isn’t apparent to you now, I’m sure that your magic is capable of anything you can think of. It’s an extension of you, after all. And anyway, I wouldn’t be too down if underhanded tricks are the only thing outside of your scope.”

“Being shown that I’m not nearly as powerful as I expected was definitely a first,” Nikolay smiled wryly. “But strangely, these new experiences don’t feel like setbacks at all. Walking around with a suppressed aura is the closest I’ve experienced to normal life as ‘Nikolay’.”

“That aura you have… when I was talking to the ‘Nikolay’ from your original life, his emotions showed through that magic surrounding you. That expressiveness seems just as ‘normal’ or human as you think suppressing it is.”

Unexpectedly, Nikolay’s cheeks flushed a bright red, and he looked away. “I grew out of it a long time ago.”

Was that really a source of embarrassment? Just because it went against his cold facade?

“It was cute, though,” Raine teased lightly. “I wouldn’t have thought that it was embarrassing.”

Instead of replying, Nikolay buried his head in his arms. Their conversation lapsed again, the quiet ambience of the night taking over. In the background, the embers left in the fire continued to pop occasionally.

After a long time, Nikolay cleared his throat awkwardly, as if he was about to say something. But as Raine awaited his opening sentence, he found himself waiting longer and longer. Even though nothing was being said, Raine knew that Nikolay’s mind was frantically considering and reconsidering his choices.

Eventually, though, Nikolay seemed to make up his mind.

“…You met all of my past lives?”

Raine thought back to the erratic and probably insane characters that he’d met in the Temple of Time. Suddenly, he understood Nikolay’s hesitance.

“Uh, yeah.”

Nikolay let out a heavy sigh. “You met Vivi.”

Unfortunately.

“…Yeah,” Raine repeated.

“She didn’t do anything, did she?”

Raine quickly shook his head. “No, no. she was just… very forward, that was all.”

“That’s relieving to hear,” Nikolay said with a sigh. “This situation is strange — I don’t know whether to take responsibility for her actions. I am all of my past lives, and yet I am not. Usually, I simply live the life that I’m born into, but since I have access to all of my memories, I’m just stuck with this… amalgamation.”

“Well,” Raine said slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I think that you’re all completely different people, if my opinion means anything. If not for the fact that they were speaking with your voice, I would’ve thought I was having a conversation with completely unrelated people.”

“You’re right. They’re completely different, each unconditionally following the sin that fate has assigned to their soul. As for me, I’m completely aware that this vessel — and I suppose, me, by extension — was supposed to be bound to the sin of Pride. Simply by knowing that my actions are somehow being influenced, I’m already deviating from my end of the contract with the gods. Deep down, I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt when thinking about how I’m essentially shirking my ‘full sentence’. But anyway, that’s all secondary conjecture.”

Nikolay stared into the dying fire with an unreadable expression.

“I just can’t tell where ‘they’ end, and where ‘I’ begin.”

The sobering statement dampened the atmosphere, completely eliminating any potential jokes that Raine had lined up.

As a substitute, Raine reached out and gently took Nikolay’s hands in his.

“It’s okay to not have all the answers right now. And I have to remind you-” Raine smiled. “You’re not alone. So if you ever have any questions, concerns, or even complaints about anything, you can tell me. I’ll always do my best to help you whenever I can.”

Nikolay flicked his eyes down to their intertwined hands, then to Raine’s eyes, and then averted his gaze to the side. “If that’s what you believe, then I’ll try to believe in it too.”