“What do you call a fish wearing a tie?” Lunia asked, lying down on her bed under the sheets, and reading from the joke book she had bought.

Freshly bathed, and still faintly smelling of soap, I intently fiddled with a key ring puzzle.

“What do you call a fish wearing a tie?” Lunia repeated.

Frustration welling up at not being able to solve the puzzle, I threw the 3 ringed object onto the desk, before finally turning around back to Lunia.

“I don’t know.”

“So-fish-ticated.”

I blankly stared at her.

“Get it?”

Turning back around to the desk, I picked the key puzzle back up, and continued trying to solve it.

“Come on!” Lunia aggrievedly yelled, “That was good.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Finally completing the puzzle, I leaned back in satisfaction, holding the metal rings up in the air.

“Why did you buy these, though?” I asked, resting my cheek on the desk, and examining the wooden monster sculpture, "A metal ring puzzle, a joke book, and a carved wooden monster."

“What, do you not like them?”

“No, they’re fine, just really weird.”

“Then does it matter why I bought them?” Lunia immediately retorted.

Not able to find anything wrong with her sentiment, I could only acquiesce.

With tired eyes, I turned back, tossing the completed puzzle onto the bed.

“Can we go to sleep?” I asked, “I haven’t gotten a good night’s rest in 2 days, and I think the walls are beginning to move.”

“Sure,” Lunia nodded, sitting up to turn the room’s lightstones off, only for me to interrupt her.

“Actually,” I began, “Could you leave them on?”

Head tilted in confusion, Lunia’s face lit up in realization, before gradually taking on an air of haughtiness, and superiority.

“Awwwwww,” she cooed, “Is widdle Soly scared of the dark?”

Visibly shrinking in embarrassment at her words, I opened my mouth to protest, but Lunia left no room for me to do so.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she reassured, copying the way in which an adult would speak to an infant child, “I’ll leave the light on, but that makes you what, 6 years old?”

‘No,” Finding an opening to speak, I tiredly answered, “I’m 12, actually.”

“Wait,” Lunia exclaimed, finally speaking in her normal voice, “I’m 13; That means I’m older!”

“Congratulations,” I sarcastically commented, getting under the bed sheets, “You don’t act like it, so color me surprised.”

Resting on my side, I immediately closed my eyes in an attempt to go to sleep as soon as possible, when I suddenly felt a dull pain coming from my butt, courtesy of Lunia.

I turned to the other side, and faced Lunia, an expression of discontent plastered onto her face, and silently daring ne to respond.

I abruptly kicked forward, foot landing on the white haired girl’s stomach.

Lunia gasped, more from shock than pain, before her eyes narrowed, and she responded in kind, kicking out with all her strength at me.

Feeling the pain that resulted from Lunia’s kick, I recoiled in surprise.

There was a disjunction between her size, and her actual power; the latter was much greater than what the former indicated, to the point where Lunia knocked the wind out of me, though that was mostly because I hadn’t prepared myself and she had actually had a magic circle, or at least, that was the line of thinking I used to justify why a twig I had a minimum of 30 lbs on managed to somewhat injure me.

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Blinking in surprise, I steeled my gaze, and as if a fire was lit underneath me, I retaliated, kicking Lunia again, to which she responded in turn, and we continued on, the two of us even beginning to work up a slight sweat from our mighty battle.

Feeling my clothes begin to slightly stick to my skin, I decided to change the way in which I fought, such that our conflict would reach a quick end, and so that I wouldn't have to sleep sticky with sweat.

Completely turning such that I was perpendicular compared to Lunia, I pushed out instead of kicking, causing Lunia to fall out of the bed, taking most of the blankets with her.

Shooting up, and visibly burning red hot from the outrage she felt, she pointed accusingly at me,

“That’s cheating,” she yelled, incensed.

“All's fair in love and war," I pointedly stated, "Besides, we should go to sleep, it’s probably already midnight.”

Huffing and puffing in indignation, in the end, she relented, entering the bed, though we had our backs to each other, and we slept on opposite ends of the bed.

With a slight smile on my face at her immaturity, I closed my eyes.

Yet, despite the fact that I was exhausted, despite there being a proverbial fog clouding my mind such that I could form no coherent thought, I was unable to fall asleep.

Rolling around, laying on my back, laying on my stomach, turning the pillow, nothing I did worked, to the point that the thought of turning off the light stone briefly flashed across my mind, before I definitively ruled out doing that.

Previously, barring the morning after my final battle in the Baron’s army, I was able to ignore the faces and the shadowy figures I saw in the drakness.

Still, as time passed, my reaction to the presence of shadows had grown drastically worse.

My heartbeat would quicken, I would break out into a cold sweat, my knees would grow weak and begin to shake, and a crippling dizziness and nausea would envelop me.

Whether or not the apparitions were growing worse, or if I had grown softer as a result of Aurelia's bottomless love, I didn't know; what I did know, was that from the shadows under the desk in Lunia's room, I had seen and heard terrible, horrible things.

The face of the lieutenant, as she was met with the cruelty of the apathy of the world, she wept, and cried, tears of blood running down her cheeks, finally letting out the pain she had kept bottled inside of her even in her final moments.

The face of the last tribesman I had killed, just as serene and at peace as when he died, he whispered to come join him in death, where that which tormented me every waking moment was nonexistent and true quiet, both external and internal, existed.

And the most recent addition, my father, gone before I was even 6 years of age, his face completely blank, and featureless, yet I could still tell, that was him. Even if he didn't have his scruffy beard, his eyes that seemed to shine like stars in the night sky, or his crooked nose, by some unexplainable instinct, I knew, that was him.

If he and I were to be reunited, would he be proud of what I had become?

Would he embrace me just as heartily as he did everyday when he came home from a hard day's work in the field?

Would he still love me, who had been so distorted, and warped, that I bore no more semblance to his son, and came to more resemble a living, breathing sword?

Shaking my head to rid myself of these thoughts, I forced myself to think positively.

At least, when I was cultivating in my room earlier in the day, even as the sun began to set, and my room was plunged into darkness, I was able to stay calm and continue to restore my dead channels.

As sleep continued to elude me, I turned to Lunia.

“Are you awake?” I asked.

Time passed, and assuming that the answer was no, I turned back around, when Lunia finally answered.

“Yeah, I can’t sleep.”

Biting my lip, “I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“For what?”

“The light, you probably can’t sleep because it’s on.”

Lunia turned to face me, before faintly smiling.

“No,” she finally replied, “I don’t mind sleeping with the light on. Back in Frosthelm, my room faced the eldest moon, and I always loved the way it shined onto, and illuminated my bed.”

I paused, briefly considering whether or not I should genuinely ask the question in my mind to Lunia, in fear that she would consider it rude, until finally, too tired to properly weigh the corresponding pros and cons, I went through with it.

“Back at the bakery, when we first met ... did you genuinely not know that you can’t pay for bread with marbles and buttons?”

Her face beginning to redden, “... Shut up,” she quietly murmured, “I was very sheltered back then.”

“... Still, buttons?” I teased.

Lunia began to lightly kick at me in irritation, only stopping as I mock begged for mercy.

Silence descended upon us, and on the verge of falling asleep, I yawned, when suddenly,

“What did the ocean say to the beach?”

I stayed silent, waiting for her next words.

“Nothing, it just waved.”

Hearing the punchline, a faint chuckle, a snort at best, escaped my throat.

“That was a laugh,” Lunia immediately stated, “that counts.”

“First of all, no it wasn’t,” I retorted, “second, we’re not even keeping any kind of score, third, go to sleep.”

“Fine,” Lunia agreed, “... But you still laughed,” her last words quiet, a mere whisper.

But I had already lost consciousness, no longer able to resist the sweet temptation of sleep.