♢♢♢
As Zivas landed on the particularly wide balcony he had had people build to easily access his room from outside, one thought occupied his mind.
'How pathetic.'
Beating up a powerless Mortal as a 2nd Step Scion...
Getting led by the nose by both Amar and that scorpion in front of so many people...
“「Release」”
As Zivas let go of his Gift, the golden aura containing his wings slowly disappeared into the air. He grit his teeth and entered his room, his gaze now shifting from straight ahead to low, only seeing the location of his next few steps.
“That’s a bit excessive, don’t you think, Birdy? You haven’t even lost half an hour of your day to her.” Breaking the falconkin’s venting was a young male voice, the tone so gentle it seemed as though the speaker couldn’t harm a fly.
Yet, for the second time today, Zivas felt like a bucket of cold water had been dropped on him. Only this time, the sensation was dozens of times worse than the first.
Yet, for the second time today, Zivas felt like a bucket of cold water had been dropped on him. Only this time, the sensation was dozens of times worse than the first.
Abruptly raising his eyes, the falconkin was greeted by a fair-skinned lionkin with both prominent human and lion features—an individual whose appearance featured the varying extremes of both races, to the point where if one were to take each part of him apart, they would still classify as unique.
From the stunning golden, spiky lion mane, made of both beard and hair, circling his whole face and gradually attaining a silvery color at its ends...
To the equally breathtaking golden eyes, with a second layer of silver that spread from midway within the outer golden layer to completely cover the pupils, resulting in their unnerving absence.
And even with his height being on the shorter side, the young lionkin’s more toned and contained muscles, visible through his surprisingly plain grey clothing and exposed body parts partially covered by fur—the same color style as his mane—did not weaken the initial impression one would have of the lionkin, but rather reinforced it.
Despite the beard, his facial features were actually on the younger side, not much different from Aliyah’s, and appeared noticeably younger than the three Scions the scorpionkin had faced just earlier.
Sitting on the falconkin's bed, his legs crossed one over the other, the lionkin just happened to be a few hairs away from being bathed in the light coming from the now-open balcony whilst observing Zivas's flustered reaction to his presence from the shadows. His chin resting on his right hand.
But if there’s one thing to note in favor of the falconkin, it’s that he, like many before him, doesn’t tend to be at a loss for words because of the lionkin's appearance alone.
No, what truly makes people unable to raise their gaze higher than his wasn’t simple things like body features, but rather that sense of absoluteness he seemed to embody with every movement.
It was a stability of both body and mind that seemed to have been engraved into the lionkin long ago, but not one he was forced to wear. His way of being was entirely personal, a manner of existence that neither the prosperity nor ruin of those who ended up in his line of sight could make wane.
He operated only in his own personal manner, not in ways traditionally learned.
Noticing the falcon's silence and his frozen expression, the lionkin smiled slightly, and with an amused tone, addressed the falconkin in front of him.
“What's wrong, birdy? Are you not glad to see me?”
“Y-Young Master Niall, it’s an honor to receive your visit no matter how sudden! Forgive me for not—” Zivas, now panicked, answered, mustering the politest tone he had ever learned.
But before he could finish, Niall raised his left hand, stopping the falconkin from continuing into the lengthiest of greetings.
“You overstepped today, didn’t you?” asked the lionkin without a single change in his expression.
Zivas felt his blood freeze, his mind rapidly formulating dozens of explanations for his actions, powered by pure fear. His face and body were visibly sweating from many pores.
It was a kind of Zivas that Aliyah had never seen in her whole life.
A kind of Zivas that Niall could see by a mere snap of his fingers.
It could have been mere seconds or perhaps minutes later—Zivas didn’t know—but the moment he finally opened his mouth to speak, to say anything that could salvage the situation...
Niall beat him to the punch.
“It doesn’t matter.”
‘Uh?’
The falconkin doubted his ears for a moment.
‘But that doesn’t—’
The stupor was enough to make him forget his terror and loudly ask the lionkin for an explanation.
“This doesn’t make SENSE! What do you mean by "It doesn’t matter"?!”
The agitated voice of the falconkin had no effect on Niall’s expression, which remained unchanged from the moment Zivas had noticed him inside his room.
The lionkin’s eyes had never once landed on the falconkin, only looking towards the balcony he had just entered from.
‘Those damn eyes!’
Furious at the lack of an answer, Zivas saw red. He grabbed Niall’s collar and brought him eye to eye, raising his voice even more.
“Answer me! NIALL!”
“This is what you’ve wished for, isn’t it? Why lament it then?”
The moment he heard the lionkin's voice again, the room seemed to have shifted.
No, that wasn’t it.
He had been shifted.
The lionkin now stood on his two feet, his gaze still entranced by the balcony, only this time he was staring directly at the light while in front of it rather than from the shadow.
As for Zivas, he had unknowingly ended up sitting on the floor beside the bed, his head pointed towards the lionkin bathing in the light from outside.
“What you’ll do now is yours to decide, but know that no consequence will come from me, no matter the result.”
Not elaborating further, the lionkin instantly disappeared from where he had been standing, leaving Zivas with none of his doubts answered.
And yet, after a few instants, the face of the falconkin reflected in the window had completely lost its dazed look. It now showed only a deranged smile, pushing his cheeks upwards and making a show of the insides under his beak.
♢♢♢
'I don't get it.'
As her feet touched the rocky floor, Aliyah thought to herself.
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'I really don't get it.'
Around her were houses made—unlike the manor that used primarily first-rate materials—of stone mined from the nest itself, all divided by the sorry excuse of an uneven road she was walking on.
It was the worst of the worst, where even she, with the level of pain tolerance she had developed over the years, felt pretty uncomfortable walking long distances.
And yet...
“These damn beasts from above are at it again?!”
Aliyah heard these discussions every day on the way to her benefactor’s place, but despite her desire to ignore them and move on, the loudness of her fellow beastkins made the task impossible.
“Of course they are! I heard all of this from my neighbor, who had a friend that descended from above just last week!”
Aliyah quickened her steps, unwilling to have her head filled with more and more terrible news she could do nothing about.
But despite passing the loud group of people before more poison could enter her ears, another one—equally, if not more, loud—soon awaited her, less than a dozen meters later.
“Can you guys believe it?! Those furred filths from the Keziha stole another farm from a common foxkin mother of three!”
Aliyah further increased her speed, now fully running down the streets while resisting the urge to cover her ears with her hands to avoid drawing attention to herself.
But her efforts were fruitless.
“I bet those monsters from the Kakaku’s haven’t stopped doing their ignoble acts for a single day. They're just acting like they did so they don't lose more people to the other regions!”
Her legs moved faster and faster, but it was like trying to escape from the ground while running on it.
“Those Yoseph’s savages commit more violence than the people they should be apprehending!”
But no matter the corner.
No matter the angle.
The people of the nest were never-ending, their focus always on the same kind of topics...
And then, was it a foot put in the wrong place? Or perhaps the uneven ground finally getting the best of her legs?
Aliyah found herself falling headfirst onto the rocky ground, still barely halfway to her destination. Due to the speed she had been going, she ended up rolling for a few meters before her back landed on the ground, her gaze now forced to look up.
And just like all the others in the nest—unlike all the people from above—what she saw wasn’t the rumored "sky" she’d read about so many times.
Nor was there a giant shining ball in the far distance giving light to the whole world.
Greeting Aliyah was only the ceiling of a giant cave, about a hundred or so meters up.
As for what allowed her vision to reach so far in such a closed-off environment? She’d have to thank the numerous shining green crystals embedded in the center of the nest’s ceiling. It was the green light from them that gave all the residents of the nest their sight.
Coincidentally, the place directly under the largest of these crystals, right at the true center of the nest, was her supposed destination.
Abruptly, the image of a pair of antlers popped into her mind.
'Sir Wael must be worried.'
Thinking about the one thing she could still look forward to when not inside that manor, Aliyah quickly got herself up with the help of her tail and resumed her sprint, but this time, the scorpionkin wasn’t running to escape...
But for something she was looking forward to.
And like that, the poison that had been entering her ears was now coming out the other side without her realizing it.
Her legs were no longer frantic, now stably running on the rocky ground with decisiveness that hadn’t been there before.
Her eyes stopped darting around, now fully focused on the path ahead, gazing at the destination that was growing nearer.
The largest wooden house in an extended group of various farming fields with different owners, each growing diverse kinds of vegetables, sat right under where the light from the green crystals was at its strongest, empowered most by the larger one visible from anywhere in the nest.
♦♦♦
In no time at all, the sound of her feet striking uneven stone was replaced by the softer sound of stepping on dirt, which covered the whole field that had seemed so far just moments before.
And seemingly as fast as it takes someone to blink their eyes, she was at his door.
As Aliyah prepared to knock, the door abruptly opened inwards, and waiting for her gaze to land on it was a broad chest covered in clearly overused farming attire, exactly at her eye level.
Just as Aliyah was processing the events happening before her, a hand landed on her head, gently ruffling her hair, the sensation causing her to stiffen for an instant before realizing its owner’s identity.
And when she realized who it was, Aliyah quickly lost herself in the comfort of the large hand caressing her head—like a cat having finally found a cramped place it could fully occupy at its own discretion, her tail also swinging around in a similarly cat-like manner.
This was the "home" of her heart.
Immediately after that thought, the voice of the hand's owner reached her ears from above. It was a bit roughish but gentle.
“What's got you here so late, Ally? Is everything o—” The voice’s owner abruptly stopped speaking for a brief moment, seemingly noticing a mistake in his words. Then, as swiftly as he could, he tried to cover it up.
“-Oh, did you fall on the way here again? Your clothes are all ragged...” said the light-skinned adult beastkin as he bent his knees, ruffling Aliyah’s hair and bringing his face to her eye level.
And this time, finally, those brown antlers were not something she saw in her memory, but rather adorned the head of the deerkin who was gently moving her black hair around as he stroked her head.
The combined impact on her senses of touch, hearing, and sight was enough to fully distract the scorpionkin from the sloppy attempt to change the topic made by the deer.
“S-Sir Wael, I hope my tardiness didn't trouble you...”
As if expecting something along those lines as a response to his concerns, the deerkin, Wael, sighed before answering Aliyah with a smile.
The smile, just like the deerkin's appearance, looked rough, yet that gruff-like impression only made the kindness in his brown eyes shine all the more from Aliyah's perspective.
“For me, it's dozens of times more troublesome for you to keep calling me "Sir" after we've known each other for so long, but just as for that, I know you have your reasons. So don't worry at all!” Wael ended, letting out a laugh.
'That's what makes me feel all the more guilty...'
The scorpionkin’s gaze dropped low, and in a barely audible whisper, she tried again to take the blame onto herself.
“S-Sorr—” But that wouldn’t happen under the deerkin’s eyes.
No matter what.
And that’s why, stopping her from fully saying her apology and startling her by placing his large hands on her shoulders, Wael, looking at the young scorpionkin directly into her eyes, spoke again.
Just like his eyes, his short, unkempt hair shared brown as its main color, yet the approach of his advanced years had caused about one-fifth of it to slowly lose its color, turning grayish over time.
The sight made Aliyah feel the passage of time in a way the perpetually spotless manor and its ever-immaculate people never could.
'Did he even have grey hair back when we first met?'
“Listen, Ally, you being here to help this old man in the fields is already far more helpful than what most kids your age do around here, so really, don’t sweat it!”
Even against him, she couldn’t win, it seemed.
Yet, unlike with everyone else, this only brought relief to her heart, not angst.
Opposite to the people at the manor, he was easily capable of making her give in.
Give in to his kindness.
As such, after hearing Wael's words, Aliyah spared no time in raising her gaze to meet his, before flashing a wide smile—one none of the people living under the Governor would ever have the right to see—signaling her surrender to the old deerkin.
“Ok!”
♦♦♦
Aliyah grunted, putting strength into her legs and tail first, and then into her arms, before pulling out the thirtieth comically large root, more than twice the size of a normal potato.
And when she said "comically," she wasn’t kidding. Those things were close to reaching her neck before being successfully pulled from the ground. While she wasn’t the tallest person in the whole nest by any means, that was still very surprising...
Letting herself fall onto her butt—which, like any other part of her body, was now covered by her own farming attire that Wael always kept ready just for her—the scorpionkin let out a long sigh. Turning her gaze toward the deerkin, similarly engrossed in pulling oversized potatoes from the ground, she asked the question that had been bothering her since she pulled the third oversized batch in a row.
“Sir Wael, how the heck—Coof, Coof—I mean, how are these roots and potatoes so big?” Aliyah asked, abruptly correcting her "manor-toned" speech to something more appropriate for her benefactor.
“You're asking that only now? Anyway, based on what I've heard, the House of Leonidas struck a deal with the House of Yales from the surface, who then provided some of the nests with a new super-fertilizer still in its testing phase, seemingly able to make things grow not only in larger quantities but also in larger sizes.” Wael answered while not addressing her slip of tongue.
Wael wasn’t surprised by her doubts at all. Rather, it amazed him how it took thirty batches of potatoes to tire the scorpionkin enough to make her ask about it. He always thought she undersold her strength.
Surprising Aliyah, Wael had an answer after all—figures this wasn’t just a coincidence...
“But isn't this a bit too amazing? Even if it's the result of many Scions' powers, I can't believe there's no "but" at all in this, regardless of the actual cost...” Aliyah stretched her arms a bit to relieve her fatigue, then took a potato from the last root, holding it in her hands and examining its surface with one eyebrow raised.
“I was a bit skeptical too, months ago, when I first heard the news, but when our batch arrived about two weeks ago, I had the chance to see it work firsthand on a few neighbors’ fields, get some clarifications from them, and only later dug my hands into it. Surprisingly, there are no problems at all. The only thing is that the various vegetables still consume the appropriate amount of nutrition for how much they give...” Wael explained, letting out a dry laugh at the end.
“Ah, I see. So it boosts only production speed, and nothing at all changes about cost. That's far more believable then.” Aliyah crossed her arms, nodding repeatedly as she closed her eyes.
Soon after taking a breather, Aliyah resumed her work. With her one doubt finally resolved, her mind relaxed, and she was able to pull the absurdly long potato roots out of the field even without paying much attention. She only had to work her mind a little when testing whether some of the potato skin would come off by gently rubbing her finger across it—a crucial step in checking their maturity.
And while her body was busy with that, her much freer mind wandered on its own, pulling out one thought after another to entertain itself.
'It still feels weird, after all.'
Even though she’d barely spent a year exclusively at the manor after her mother’s disappearance, every single day she worked with Wael felt like a first breath of fresh air after being submerged in swamp water for years.
'Even then, I won’t ever give up there.'
'Nor will I give up a week from now, even if those bastards want to use me to progress their filthy bloodlines...'
She still remembered the last conversation she ever had with her biological father, the Governor...
★★★