“Do you think they’ll continue to hunt us down, now that Ark City’s left the Five Lands?” Lieutenant Marie whispered to Sergeant Aziz, as they walked down a crowded street.

“I don’t think so,” replied Aziz. “But there’s no harm in playing it safe.”

The two of them were still in the Northern Continent when news about an entire city being teleported away came in. It was, to the sergeant, nothing short of mind-blowing, a term that he’d picked up on in his time at the Northern Capital, Elysium. The North’s Summoned didn't just stop there, either — he was apparently having a ball of a time in Orb, even going so far as to open and participate in a circus to entertain the commoners.

It was shut down after an eagle-eyed fan spotted his trademark monocle, but the damage had been done. Soon afterwards, the upper-class of Northern society began to engage in similar activities, as though as some charming piper had influenced them to partake in activities of the less fortunate incognito.

Sergeant Aziz, however, could see the good that these people brought to the lower echelons of society, because a day after news of such activities broke, multiple political parties immediately voted to pass laws to step up order in the slums and offer charitable services to the needy.

And it was precisely these slums that Marie and Aziz were hiding in now. The two had tried to leave for Ark City the moment the war concluded with the collapse of the Central Continent, but the other observers moved to pursue them immediately. Only with the help of Aziz’s experience in concealment did the two manage to evade capture and death. They had been living off charity ever since.

Marie pulled the shawl that had been covering her hair closer to her shoulders, having kept anything that looked like part of military attire into her backpack. The same went for Aziz, who had gone a step further to look like one of the ubiquitous construction workers that were omnipresent in Lower Elysium.

“But we’ve spent two weeks hiding here. They should be long gone by now,” said Marie. “They probably returned to their own homelands a week ago.”

“True,” said Sergeant Aziz, “but where do we go anyway? We’re left behind, and the chances of us making it to the Wildlands, even with the Dynamo, is too slim.”

“The Southern Continent is, by and large, in turmoil,” said the lieutenant. “You told me before that there are small conclaves of beastfolk in the Southern Wastes, right? Why not head there first?”

Aziz rubbed his chin, which had gone prickly from days of no shaving, and nodded. “Eke out a miserable existence in a foreign land, or with our kinsmen. Not much of a question, is it?”

“Goes to show that you just need to consider all your options, sergeant,” Lieutenant Marie rebuked, a trace of tired humor in her words. “How should we depart?”

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“1 p.m., when everyone’s heading into the countryside for their mass lunches and picnics,” said Aziz. “We enter the woods, and then lay low until sundown to make our way back.”

“That’s a good plan. Cautious, even.” Marie popped her head into a nearby shop, looked at a clock hanging on the wall, and withdrew it before the shopkeeper could do anything more than a nasty glare. “Thirty minutes before we move…can we go get some skewers first? I like the teriyaki chicken ones.”

“I don’t see why not.” The sun beat down on his cloth-covered head, and in an epiphany, he added, “We’ll be eating them after we get out of Elysium. Carrying some food out makes us less suspicious.”

The lieutenant made a small pout, which he ignored. Passing by a neatly-dressed patrol of guards, they soon brought some skewers with the few bronze coins they had left.

A bell chimed once as the two made the way towards the city gate. “Anyone suspicious to our left?”

Lieutenant Marie tilted her head slightly. “None I can see. You?”

“The same. Looks like we’re in the clear.”

The fields outside the city were filled with mushrooms…or rather sticks with a rather large dome of cloth on top. People were lounging under the shade that these mushrooms provided, eating and chatting with other people.

These items were apparently an invention that had seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Aziz was quite sure that the North’s Summoned had something to do with it, but he was in no position to pursue this question. The two made their way to the cluster of ‘umbrellas’, as they were called, closest to the forest that they intended to hide in until nightfall.

It didn’t take long before they slipped into the foliage, and after an hour of cautious movements, Aziz began to dig a small shell scrape, the kind that the Northern infantry dug when they were outside the trench and needed to hunker down on the field. The Northern military didn’t see a need to do so in the Battle of Centoria, but he’d seen them do drills. Digging shell scrapes were one of them.

It was a good idea, and he didn’t really need to dig too deeply either, given that there was shrubbery above them. No one should be able to spot them from afar, or even above, and the two completed their wannabe shell scrapes within minutes.

Sergeant Aziz looked at the lieutenant’s shell scrape, and then back at his dismally. Shaking his head, he slithered into the small dent, as did Marie, and then arranged their watch.

Lieutenant Marie fell asleep in a matter of minutes, leaving it to the sergeant to keep watch. He glanced at the admittedly beautiful woman beside him sleeping, and then smirked at the thought. The others would have been jealous at this sight, eh? I wonder how the Wildlands is treating them…

Lost in thought, Aziz only remembered to wake Marie by the time the sun was approaching the horizon. There was little point in falling asleep at that juncture, so instead of closing his eyes, the sergeant simply admired the sunset with the lieutenant.

The two of them stirred as the last hint of orange vanished from the twilight sky, and winced in tandem as the pains of sleeping on hard ground snuck up on them. After a minute of stretching, Sergeant Aziz glanced at Lieutenant Marie, who nodded back. They scanned the skies one last time, and then soared upwards, streaking across the heavens.

It was time to go home.