As the carriage rolled up, Queen Anastasia walked up to us with the companions in tow. I recognized most of them immediately. Immediately next to her was Tybalt, bald head gleaming in the sun. He looked ready to kill, and he kept his hand on the hilt of his outrageously large sword constantly as he shot daggers at me. He looked a little worse for wear since the last time I’d seen him. Canonically, Tybalt was supposed to be the Hero’s closest friend and ally (and potential love interest) so it wasn’t surprising that Sally’s ‘memory loss’ had hit him hard.

Behind him walked the other three, the ones whose names I couldn’t remember. One of them was the most generic-looking wizard I’d ever seen, an optional companion from the base game that I’d never gone for. He had stars on his robes and a long white beard. What stuck out to me was how tired he looked. I figured he’d probably tried to ‘cure’ Sally and found that not a lot of what he’d done to restore the Hero’s memory had worked. He might have even anticipated a situation like this. Among the others were the Paladin, a young woman with white hair in white armor with a fur trim and a large scar on her forehead. She was nice, I remembered, albeit a little timid. The other one was her polar opposite in almost every way. Dark hair, darker eyes, a permanent smile on her lips, with light armour and sharp wit. Most of that wasn’t on display right now, of course; she looked at me with the same amount of suspicion as the others, the quiver on her back full of arrows ready to be let loose at a moment’s notice.

I tried to look as unthreatening as possible with what they thought was their friend in my arms. Tybalt approached me with barely contained fury, his heavy boots trudging through the field. I knelt down to bring Sally closer to him.

“What did you do t--”

“She didn’t do anything, Tybalt,” Queen Anastasia cut him off. “I told you that.”

He grunted and looked at the unconscious face he’d had so many adventures with and I wished I could say something comforting, that he’d have his friend back soon, but I’d always been a terrible liar. “I can help,” was all I could manage. That would’ve been weak to begin with, if Sabine hadn’t chosen that exact time to open the carriage door. Time froze for a second as she and Tybalt made eye contact, and his hand flew to his sword again, but Sabine was faster, putting a shimmering barrier between them. Tybalt turned to me.

“You kept her? As a trophy?! How did she even survive? Did you turn her into one of your shambling servants?”

I started stammering an apology, but Sabine took charge of the situation.

“She didn’t do anything of the sort, Tybalt. She acted in self defense and I died. She is the one who brought me back, to give me a chance to do more good. You are the one who made it clear I would never be welcome again back home.”

Tybalt stared at her, dumbfounded. “Y-You can talk? You’re not one of her puppets?”

Sabine rolled her eyes. “Of course I can talk, you absolute dunce.” She dropped the shield barrier and hopped out of the carriage, walked over, and slapped him so hard I was getting hot in the face myself. “It’s me.”

“But…” he began. She slapped him again.

“She saved my life.” Pause. “Sort of. Now she’s going to do what she can for… the Hero.” She’d clearly been informed by Kazumi that the Hero and I shared some important similarities. Tybalt only looked at her with confusion. He’d clearly imagined the situation differently. Originally, he’d been a kind of comic-relief character, who felt he had to compare himself to the Hero, which led to ‘wacky’ hijinks. Clearly, with the Hero out of the picture, he’d tried to step up. He wasn’t exactly up to snuff.

The other companions watched the whole interaction with various degrees of shock and interest.

“It’s really you, isn’t it, Sabine?” the Paladin said. She seemed to be the most willing to believe that things might not be what they seemed, that Sabine might be telling the truth. She walked closer. “What… are you… are you dead? I don’t know of any magic, holy or otherwise, that can bring someone back. Not entirely.”

Sabine nodded. “I’m fairly certain I’m a lich, now. But I’m still me, Lily.”

Lily, that was it. Paladin Lillian Dance. Lily cocked her head. “Not feeling the urge to enslave mankind just yet?”

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Sabine snorted. “Not yet, no.”

Lily smiled. “I’m glad you’re not de-- I’m glad you’re still here, Sabine.” She offered her hand.

“Me too,” Sabine said happily, and shook Lily’s hand. There was a sizzling noise and Sabine jerked her hand back with a yelp.

“Oh! Sorry!” Lily said, just as startled. “My armor it’s… it’s blessed. You… You remember.”

Sabine nodded and shook her hand like she’d just put it on a hot stove. “Yeah. It repels… the undead.”

There was a moment of silence.

“This is awkward,” the Archeress said. Sabine and Lillian both laughed softly. It was probably good that way, having a way to relieve the tension somewhat. I stood up to my full length again, and seeing Tybalt, who was only a few feet away, crane his neck to look up at me was a little satisfying. I’d never liked him much as a character and I hadn’t exactly had a lot of positive experiences with him.

“If you’re certain, Sabine,” the wizard said. He looked at her from under the rim of his pointy hat, but he seemed slightly less tired. Hopeful, perhaps. She nodded at him, and it seemed to be enough for him. I’d feared that Sabine’s presence would have been problematic, but she was clearly better at conflict resolution than I was, and having more of a personal history with each of them clearly helped. I didn’t think I could’ve defused the situation quite like she had.

We all piled into the carriage and I put Sally on one of the benches. Queen Anastasia sat down next to her, still convinced this person was her old friend. I wasn’t going to tell her what to do so I just sat in my own, comically oversized chair. Everyone else took a seat opposite from Queen Anastasia, except for Erza, who made the petite queen seem miniscule by comparison, and Kazumi. Her bulk of a tail didn’t fit onto the couch with this many passengers, and so curled up next to me. I worried it might make me look even more like an evil queen, on her throne, cute snake girl curled up next to me, waiting for pets.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, which Anastasia finally broke by turning to Erza. “What’s your name, if I might ask?” she asked courteously.

“Just Erza, your highness.” Erza’s bearing reminded me of how she’d acted around me at first, although she seemed to be missing that spark in her eye that gave you the feeling she knew more about you than you’d ever know about her.

“If I could ask… what is the stake of the Orc in this conflict?” Queen Anastasia, despite her manners and kind way of speaking, clearly wasn’t scared to cut to the chase with a directness that probably put some noblemen on the back foot. Erza, however, seemed completely at ease.

“We simply wish access to our ancestral lands, your highness.”

Queen Anastasia frowned. “I was under the impression that your people had migrated north, Erza?”

Erza shot me a meaningful glance. There was that spark, and I was glad it wasn’t at my own expense. “This is in conflict with our own people’s interpretation of history, your highness. Perhaps this is something to be discussed at the peace talks.”

“Quite,” she said, with the air of someone who has much to think about, and who might have been lied to for quite some time.

“Queen Anastasia?” I interjected. She looked at me and nodded. “Out of curiosity, why do you think the ‘monstrous races’, as they’re called, have come to my banner?”

She shook her head. She was clearly a clever woman and I could tell she was putting the pieces together before we could even present her with a picture. She answered through gritted teeth, reciting rehearsed lines which she was starting to see for what they were.

“Monsters invaded Wydonia in the time of my grandfather, they lost, and they have themselves to thank for their statelessness.”

“That’s not--” Kazumi began, but the queen held up her hand.

“Yes, I imagine this is too... simplified. I think we’ll have much to discuss, indeed.”

Silence fell again. I heard a soft hissing noise to my right.

“Kazumi, stop hissing at Tybalt,” I whispered.

“He keeps looking at you funny,” she answered, a little too loudly.

I nodded, but also tried not to look at Tybalt myself. “I wouldn’t trust me either, if I was him.”

“Well, he should!” she said with indignity. “You saved his friend’s life!”

“You killed her first!” Tybalt said angrily and jumped up. The shock of his action got to me, but I was surrounded by people I had to impress. I went to grip the edge of my seat, so I had something to hold on to, something to keep me from crying, and accidentally grabbed Kazumi’s hand. I looked over and our eyes met in mutual shock. She relaxed from it first, and gave my hand a soft squeeze and nodded. It felt good to be able to hold on to her, though part of me wanted someone to hold me. I hadn’t gotten much better with people yelling at me.

Sabine stood up, grabbed him by the collar and pushed him back down. “She didn’t, you self-important ass! I told you!”

He looked up at her angrily. “Maybe she just brainwashed you after we left! She could have used any number of spells on you when she had you! Just like she did with Daniel!”

I didn’t have an answer for that and I could feel my throat closing up, and it was only because of another squeeze from Kazumi that I didn’t start crying then and there. Sabine rolled her eyes. “If she wanted to infiltrate our group, and there was one succesful infiltrant, why send one that looks undead? Why just wipe Daniel’s memory? She could have done so much more damage instead of inviting everyone here where they can defeat her. Nobody’s that stupid, Tybalt.”

I was taken aback at her fierce defense, and looked sideways at Kazumi. She nodded, confirming that I was, indeed, not that stupid.

“Now sit your bald head down, and let the queens at least try to make peace before you try to kill the person who’s going to try to save someone’s life.”

I sat there and could only smile sheepishly. Sabine sat back down with a huff, ready to hit Tybalt upside the head if he tried something again, and I heard a satisfied little giggle come from my right as Kazumi reveled in Sabine coming to my defense.

“I’m not brainwashed, for the record, Tybalt. I still remember that time we had to go fishing for your breeches…”

“All right! Gods…” He looked embarrassed, which I vastly preferred.

More awkward time went by, and the fields of Innshire shone emerald and gold in the sun. It was almost noon, and with the help of Sabine’s new rule over the area -- with a little bit of help from Erza -- and some magic, Innshire had regained some of its old luster. It helped that a lot of its standing army had already been disbanded, making the fields alive with hustle and bustle. It was something we were quite proud to have achieved in such a short amount of time.

Queen Anastasia looked out the window and just raised an eyebrow. I hoped that, perhaps, we’d impressed her somewhat. When Whitehallow came in view, I was absolutely certain we had. Most of the companions, and evidently, the queen as well, hadn’t seen the beauty that was Whitehallow on a warm summer noon, shimmering in the sunlight. All of them gasped, and Sabine and I smiled at each other. This was her castle now and people thought it was cool. Although she probably would have used a different word for it.