The burned hand teaches best.

- Olórin

Keira sat with Raziel in the relative dark. They’d both fallen silent a while ago. He’d gone back to laying on the floor while she sat by the door but he kept his eyes open. It wouldn’t be good if he fell asleep in his condition. A roiling mixture of emotions burbled inside her.

Keira was frustrated by her performance against Daichi. She had thought she’d been clever but he’d come up with such an easy way to avoid the best attack she had. She knew it was probably for the best and that, if she had managed to hit Daichi, Raziel might not have been able to even get into Hiro’s school. But the frustration was there all the same.

Beneath that was a longing to stay right where she was mixed with a desperate need to escape. For so long she’d dreamed of being on this ship again.

Keira loved the Azure Blossom. Basil’s ship was beautiful, gleaming white and sky blue. Where so many ships were clunky things that moved through the sky with all the agility of a brick, the Blossom was as graceful as a songbird. It wasn’t just a ship. It was freedom.

When she’d first come to Peritura she’d longed to see that ship every day, even more than she had in her first home. She’d often found herself looking up at the sky hoping that it would come soaring down and her brother would take her away again, back to where she was meant to be. But that had been years ago. When he had finally come for her she hadn’t been ready to leave. When she did leave, she’d left a piece of her heart behind in that broken, burned city.

The Blossom didn’t remind her of home now. It reminded her of how she’d left her home.

Memories of that last night in Peritura swelled in her mind. Memories of Mask and Alban. Memories of what they’d done, the homes that burned because of them. Memories of what she could have done differently and of the secret she’d allowed Mask to take from her.

You certainly are your father’s child.

Keira’s hands clasped tight together as anger filled her. She felt the magic rising up in her and took deep, long, slow breaths to press it back down. Slowly the blazing light inside her faded to a glowing ember and a little while later she was able to let it go.

Footsteps sounded in the hall and Keira saw Raziel’s eyes snap to the door as he recognized the sound of those boots. Keira was standing before she made a conscious decision of it. She looked out of the room and confirmed what the sound told her.

Her brother, Basil Tydan, walked down the hall towards Raziel’s room. He had the same sharp, angular features as her but his eyes were a stormy gray he’d gotten from his mother unlike the deep green Keira had from hers. But he was tall like their father, if not so broad. He was leaner and had none of father’s warmth.

Basil stepped up to the door and turned his cool eyes first on her and then on Raziel.

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“Congratulations,” he murmured in her direction.

“We were all accepted,” Keira said quickly. “Master Hiro just didn’t have uniforms for Raziel, Miles, and Hoeru.”

“I know,” he said, a slice of a smile appearing briefly on his face.

“Wait, how?” Raziel asked.

“Because of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I knew you’d been accepted because you don’t look like you’re not sure where you’ll be sleeping tonight. And I knew the others passed because you don’t look ready to fight me over where they will sleep tonight.” Basil paused, presumably to give Raziel time to catch up. “So, I say again, congratulations.”

“Uh, thanks,” Raziel said with a look on his face like he was still running behind.

“Keira, I’d like to talk to you in private.”

Keira felt something in her chest tighten though she wasn’t sure why.

“Of course. Raziel, go upstairs where the others can keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Raziel said and laid back down making it clear that he had no intention of doing that at all. Keira bit down on a sharp response. She knew commanding Raziel to do it wouldn’t do any good. She decided to try a different strategy.

“Please?” she said, trying not to grate her teeth. To her surprise, Raziel’s eyes popped open and found hers. He looked… embarrassed. That was unexpected.

He got up immediately, though he was still clearly sore.

“Yeah. Sure,” he said again, more genuinely. “I just need to pack.”

She felt like she was being tricked. But he stood and started stuffing his few things into a small bag without a further word.

Basil watched her. Keira ignored his look and gestured down the hall.

“You don’t want to talk here do you?”

“No.”

They headed down the hall towards the captain’s quarters. Basil’s room was meticulously clean and neat. Nothing was out of place. The room wasn’t full of pictures or nicknacks.

In their place, Basil kept maps and weapons. The room was still sparse. It wasn’t as though he had a great deal of space even in the captain’s quarters. But none of it was wasted. The only place that seemed neglected was the bed. It was precisely made and did not seem like it had been slept in recently, if ever.

“How did it go?” Basil asked once she shut the door.

“You know how it went,” Keira grumbled, waving towards her uniform. Basil didn’t answer. Instead he just folded his arms and leaned against his desk, waiting for her to actually answer his question.

Keira stared back hoping that he would get the message that she didn’t want to talk about it. Basil stayed right where he was, patient as old stone. That was a trick he’d learned from their father. At first she intended to simply wait him out or to just leave. But with each moment she felt more childish, more petulant. It wasn’t truly Basil’s question that created the mounting pressure inside her. It was her own expectations of who she ought to be. She was better than the silent treatment.

“It went fine,” she said at last, moving about the room and pretending to examine the weapons that hung on the walls.

“Ah. That’s why it took you so long to answer, obviously.”

She flung a glare at him but it was hard to intimidate a man who survived regular assassination attempts with just a look.

“I mean it. It went fine. I did the test, I impressed one of the masters, I got in. That’s as close to fine as it could be.”

“So, why are you angry?”

Keira slowed, then stilled.

“You know why.”

“I do. I know you. So there’s no use in avoiding saying it.”

The endless patience of his calm voice was infuriating. But even worse, he was right.

“I can do better than fine. I have to do better than fine. Fine is failure.”

“And why is fine failure?”

Keira felt her nails digging into her hand. She had to consciously will her hands open, actively take control of her breathing. She could see Peritura on fire.

“Because if I can’t do better than fine, people will die.”

“No,” Basil said. She looked up at him, something like hope in her chest.

“If you can’t do better than fine, more people will die.”

Peritura’s fires burned hotter in her chest. Basil’s cold eyes watched her with something like satisfaction.