Victor

I sat in my office and forced myself to focus on my chosen reading materials for the night. It was almost never difficult for me, but a lot had happened recently that ate away at my attention. By all appearances, it was another quiet Firstday evening. Even more quiet than usual, since it was typical to relax in the week following the Hunt. The only fellow who keeping himself busy was Mr. Smith, the cool twilight breeze carrying the solitary clang of hammer on metal through the open window of my study.

But within that tranquil peace boiled a silent tension over the looming conflict. The word had spread, and people were constantly whispering speculations and predictions about the upcoming fight. The whole village was like a barrel of Firelily power, filled with latent potential for conflagration. I was trying to take my mind off that and focus on my book, Nature’s Masters: A Bestiary of the Truly Extraordinary.

The cursed thing was almost more myth than fact, and I glared at it with some chagrin as the author admitted that the nine-horned flying lizard it had been detailing for some length of time now hadn’t been seen in centuries. Just as I was about to start berating the man under my breath, my lovely wife quietly opened the door and glided into the room. I watched as she sat down on the chair across from me, smiled in greeting, and started reading silently as well. Now I was really having trouble focusing.

Eventually, though I wrenched my eyes back to my book and forged onwards. I omitted the tongue lashing I was about to unleash and simply flipped to the next creature, shaking my head slightly at fools who failed to obtain reliable sourcing. I was still half distracted as I read onwards but something eventually caught my eye. I kept reading but the more I read the more I started to feel anxious. My breathing got shallow, and my eyes widened slightly.

It wasn’t entirely sure that this new entry was even real, of course. But if what Corona had told me about her dreams had any basis in reality-

“Vick, what’s wrong?” Lynn interrupted my train of thought, gazing over with naked concern.

I took a deep breath before answering:

“I’m not entirely sure, love. I would tell you more if I had anything definite but right now, I’m probably just jumping at shadows.”

I close the book and go to retrieve something a little lighter from the shelf. Hopefully one that was not full of very real looking shadows, this time.

…

Ann

The Secondday sun beat down on me as I was finishing up my morning exercises. I sliced through the air more viciously than usual, doing everything I could to give vent to my frustrations. I do a front flip through the air and finish off my imaginary opponent with a downward slash. Flashy but not terribly practical. I didn’t care. I was already moving to engage the second opponent who had come to replace their fallen comrade, blocking their imaginary first strike and counterattacking with a quick stab.

Steve and Father had disappeared into the family training hall for the past couple of days. A couple days probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference, especially since this was a situation that they had known about and planned for a while ago, but every little bit counted. It sucked that I couldn’t use the training hall myself, but it sucked even more that I couldn’t help Steve train. Aurelius was a Strength-based fighter, so training against Agility would be a waste. I still wasn’t used to being unable to help in a fight, though.

Sheathing my saber a little too hard, I ignored the people on the edge of town who were giving me confused looks and strode back to the house. They probably thought I was a freak for training when I was on break, but it was a good stress reliever. Usually.

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At the end of the day, I knew more than they did. I knew that something terrible was going to happen soon enough. Even if the whole village had decided to sit on their butts and wait for a blonde-haired psychopath to take over, or for some other catastrophic disaster to happen, I wouldn’t.

I would be ready. Ready for whatever was coming.

…

Corinna Argentum

Hope watched me as I washed off the dishes from dinner, the water obediently moving from the barrel outside the window and moving around the plates that I was scrubbing. When the water got too dirty, I would let it fall into the pipe below and flow into the basin. I could filter it immediately, of course, but that would leave the muck left over in the sink. Better to just filter it en masse later and get Adrian to carry out the waste.

Hope always enjoyed watching Purifiers work, her pretty blue eyes happily tracing the various jets of water that looped languidly to complete their task. She resembled her father more than she did me, her jet-black hair in the single ornate braid that was popular with the girls these days, face possessing all the angular lines and strong features that Ann’s and Steve’s did. Only her sky-blue eyes had deviated from that program, and I thought it suited her. Sometimes I worried for Ann. Silver was a nice color for a man, but it tended to make her look too severe and less feminine. I wondered if there would be a good man who could look past those rough edges and see the woman beneath.

My musings on my daughter’s marriage prospects were interrupted when Hope piped up:

“Mom, is Steve going to be okay?”

That question sent me back to the anxiety of Seventhday evening, and I almost lost control of my little bubble, its’ edges rippling and warping before I brought it back under control. With a slight sigh in my voice, I responded:

“I think Steve will be just fine sweetheart. He and Daddy are planning right now to make sure that he is going to be okay.”

All three of my family’s Fighters had gone back to training right after dinner, which was unusual even for those hard workers. It wasn’t exactly a mystery why, though.

This comment put Hope into a thoughtful mood, a cute pout spreading over her face as she furrowed her brow.

“I’ll go train too!” she announced, hopping down from her chair, and running to her room to grab her quarterstaff. She was rather talented with that thing, though she was quite averse to bloodshed.

“Don’t forget to be back by sunset!” I called after her, before going back to washing, my own pensive frown marring my face.

I trusted both my son and my husband, and I knew that they were tougher than almost anyone else. I had learned to do my best not to worry, but their serious attitudes signaled that things were different this time. Steve was in real trouble.

I had no choice but to believe in them.

…

Anna Corona

“I’m telling you Antonin; the village needs to be prepared for possible attack.” I was berating Hapsburg over the central table of my home. I had asked the man to come to my house later this Thirdday to make sure that the village was as prepared as it could be. Unfortunately, that was proving more complicated than I would have hoped.

“II knknknow that, but you’re ggggoing to need to give me more than jjust a bad premonition as evidence, Anna.” He stuttered out his protest while wringing his hands, beady black eyes darting everywhere but at me.

It was a reasonable complaint, of course. How many people would take the notion of prophetic dreams seriously? I myself almost didn’t believe in them, but experience told me that what I saw in those vivid dreams had a tendency to come to pass. Admittedly, the dreams themselves were cryptic and symbolic enough that they were hard to totally trust, but the overall message had always been reliable. And this message was simple. Danger.

The appearance of the source of blue light meant that at least one of the major pieces was in place. Probably. Argghhhh. It was hard to convince another man when you weren’t totally convinced yourself. I took a deep breath and tried anyways:

“Haven’t my premonitions always been proven correct before? Does no one remember that?” Before I even finished my sentence, he was already shaking his head sadly.

“There aren’t enough tttimes that this has happened in the past that people will just take your word for it!” He was looking pleadingly at me now, begging me to understand, “I bbbelieve you! But no one trusts me when I tell them. What should I tell them?”

I had been standing and pacing while I spoke, but now I sat down across from him, my bones suddenly growing even heavier. I sighed:

“I understand Antonin. I appreciate that you tried your best. But I don’t know many of these people as well you do. I’ve convinced as many people as I can on my own, but I need your help. It’s hard when we have such little to work with, but is there anything you can think of? Anything you didn’t try yet?”

He shook his head sadly, eyes downcast, “I’m sssorry Anna. They just don’t trust me. And it’s hhhhard to blame them.”

That evoked a wellspring of pity within me, and I reached out to hold his had as we sat there in silence. Outside, the late afternoon sky had begun to transition to the fading rays of twilight.