“Hello, Miss Lauka,” the spectacled boy said, bowing as he did so.

Lauka stared at him for a moment, her eyes drifting off towards the Minervan standing beside him.

“Hello,” she said, bowing as the boy gestured towards her.

“This is my sister, Pallas,” he said, the metallic frames of his glasses glinting in the lantern light of her house’s entrance.

Lauka had to peel her eyes off of the MInervan’s pale skin, the lustrous jet blacks of her hair approaching a perfect contrast to their brightness.

“And my name is Soleiman. Nice to meet you.”

He extended a hand, a gesture Lauka hesitantly responded to with her own.

“Likewise,” Lauka responded, stumbling slightly over the word. “I’m Lauka. Sahlbaridi Gunsmith.”

Though she said she was a Sahlbaridi, the striking azure blues of her eyes found only in the Hundites of Oldenburg told the two siblings otherwise. She may not have had the floppy ears or wagging tails typical of her kind, but such a complexion was difficult to mistake for anything else.

“We found them on our way back,” the man accompanying the two newcomers said. He had gone out of his way to see that the four fellows had safe passage towards Lauka, and he wasn’t going to stop until they were at her doorstep itself. “They defeated the Fiend we were having trouble with, and they say they want to help control the beast populations out here.”

“Oh, okay,” Lauka said, her face lightening slightly. Now that was something she could work with. “Alright then, come on in.”

The man waved them farewell, and the two siblings followed the Owl into her warm abode– the howling winds of the outside falling silent as the door closed shut.

“So, are you two under a Shrine?” Lauka asked, the feathers of her thin wings trailing behind her as she beckoned them over to the dining table across the kitchen.

“Uh, yeah,” Soleiman responded, his eyes not quite having fully taken in the reality of what stood before him. “Shirobanegawa, specifically.”

“Shiro- seriously?” she asked. “That’s quite a ways from where we are now, no?”

“It’s a special expedition,” Pallas chimed in. “They suspected the fringe Shrines weren’t doing their job keeping tabs on the beasts, so they sent us to go and gather whatever information we could.”

“Right, okay,” Lauka said, pulling back a pair of chairs and inviting the two of them to sit down. “Want some coffee?”

“Ooh, yes please!” Soleiman responded.

Pallas shook her head.

“Got it,” Lauka said.

She headed back into the kitchen, pulling open a drawer and fetching one more mug from within. She picked up the lower chamber still filled with steaming coffee, careful to hold onto the non-glass portion about its neck to avoid burning herself, before heading back to the table.

“You’re lucky,” she said, filling his mug for him. “I just brewed this.”

“Thank you very much,” he responded.

Setting the lower chamber in the middle of the table, Lauka took a seat for herself, facing the two siblings from across the table fit for five.

“So,” she began, shifting about her seat as she adjusted her wings. “It’s just the two of you that Shirobanegawa sent?”

“Oh, no,” Soleiman said. “We have two more with us, but they’re not here right now.”

“Oh, alright,” Lauka responded. “I would’ve been really impressed if the two of you managed to take down a whole Fiend on your own. Where are they?”

“They’re back at our tent, cooking dinner,” Soleiman responded. “The kind Mister that brought us here told us you weren’t too fond of large groups, so we decided to go as just the two of us.”

Lauka’s eyes widened a bit, and a very brief blush flashed over her cheeks.

“I… see,” she managed, avoiding eye contact as she tried to collect herself. “I apologise for the inconvenience.”

“It’s alright,” Pallas said.

“So it was the four of you that took down the Fiend?”

The siblings nodded.

“That’s still really impressive, all things being said,” Lauka responded, taking a sip of her coffee. “Would you mind telling me how you did it?”

“Well, actually,” Soleiman said. “It was really more like only two of us took down the Fiend.”

“One,” Pallas added. “I was only there at the very end. Qingxi, who isn’t here right now, did most of the work.”

Lauka’s jaw dropped.

“What is she, the Soteira?” she joked, smiling to herself before disappearing behind another sip of coffee.

The two siblings exchanged glances.

“Funny you say that,” Soleiman managed. “Because…”

“She’s actually the Soteira?” Lauka responded, slamming her mug back down onto the table as she leaned over the table.

“I’m, the Soteira,” Pallas said.

A red ripple of blood flashed over Pallas’ right arm as she clenched her fist, forming a temporary crimson gauntlet before disappearing back under her skin.

Lauka looked at her. Then she looked at Soleiman. Her eyes flickered between the two of them, her mouth frozen in a perpetual state of preparing to gasp. The two siblings didn’t even know if she was breathing anymore.

“You…” she struggled, almost knocking over her mug of scathingly hot coffee as she brought her arm back to herself. “What… what are you doing out here?”

“Ah, well,” Pallas began, averting her gaze as her mind ran through the few months of memories since their arrival at the gates of Porthopolis. “We had to run from the Gravitas first, and then from the Hashashiyyin. Then we came into Houzen to try and find somebody…”

She exchanged glances with Soleiman.

“Our mom,” she corrected herself. “But then we found out that none of the Shrines knows where she’s at. More Hashashiyyin came, we moved further north, then realised we’d need to do something to finance ourselves. Bringing us here.”

“I… see,” Lauka said, very slowly nodding as she did so. “And so the work you chose was beast hunting?”

“More or less,” Soleiman replied. “We should say that we’re also trying to kill Al-Muqayad.”

Pallas gave him a sideways glance.

“One of our friends might have to kill it so that she can return safely to her home in Xiafa,” Soleiman added. “And the Artefact of Avarice would probably help us too.”

“I mean… fair enough,” Lauka said. “It seems our interests may be quite aligned, then.”

She picked her mug up with both hands, bringing it to her lips as if to down it. After a few gulps, though, she set the still half-full mug of coffee back down, a pained expression on her face.

“Still too hot to down,” she said. “Nevermind. Shall we go over the records, then?”

“Ohh,” Qingxi moaned.

She and Rumi sat in a large, circular wooden tub, filled almost to the brim with warm water the Yusheed had kindly offered to painstakingly heat up.

“Like this?” Rumi asked.

She pressed her thumbs into Qingxi’s shoulders, running them over her stiff muscles before tracing them down her shoulder blades.

“Yes,” Qingxi said, her chin touching the water’s surface as she hunched over slightly.

The tent they were in was warm too, filled with incense and lowlight candles whose trails of perfumed smoke melted into the air to mingle with the thick mist of warm water vapour that rose from the tub.

Each time the two girls moved slightly, a little bit of water spilled over the tub’s rim, sizzling as it struck the bed of hot coals it rested upon.

“Honestly,” Qingxi began, pausing afterwards to close her eyes and sink deeper into the pleasure of Rumi’s massage. “I don’t know what we’d do without you, Rumi.”

“Aww, there’s no need to think about that,” she responded, splashing a little bit of warm water on Qingxi's neck before continuing with the massage. “You three are the ones who saved me, after all. I should be the one thinking that.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Mmm,” Qingxi hummed. “It’s a bit crazy, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“How all this happened,” she said. “What if I had been sent out a day later? What if we had gone to a different restaurant?”

Rumi stopped for a moment, breathing in the warm fumes of the bathtent as she pondered the question.

“Makes you think about what might happen in the future,” Rumi said.

“Hm?”

“What if we’re doing something right now that’ll forever change our fates down the line?”

The sound of the tent’s thick canvas rippling slightly against the outside wind was the only thing that filled the air for a while.

“There’s no way of telling, is there?” Qingxi asked.

“...I guess not,” Rumi replied.

Qingxi huffed.

“Don’t worry, Rumi,” she said. “We won’t let you get hurt again.”

“Thank you, Qingxi,” Rumi replied. “For everything.”

…

“Should we get out, by the way?” Qingxi asked.

“Nah,” Rumi replied. “I’m sure the stew can cook for a little longer.”

Pallas nodded, the muscles of her neck fighting to keep her head from resting on the beckoning dining table. She didn’t know how long they had been talking for, and she felt as though she couldn’t remember a thing from when the conversation first started.

Were they talking about beasts still? Or were they talking about Fiends?

She recalling very vaguely the difference between the two– that a ‘beast’ was simply a flesh-and-bone creature with limited capacity to control mana, whereas a ‘Fiend’ was a living creature with a much greater hold on mana, often to the point where it plays an integral role in their survival.

At least… that was all she could recall.

At some point, though, the conversation must’ve taken a turn. The two of them had gotten to rambling on about guns and weaponry, talking about vague battles in history where firearms played a significant role in deciding the winner– such as Merkez’s failed conquests into the Silent Valley–, and about the different mechanisms Lauka had come up with.

Matchlock, wheellock, flintlock. The only thing she could think about was the time on the clock and how much longer she would have to hold out.

To be fair to them, they had talked a little bit about Al-Muqayad. Though Pallas recalled little aside from Lauka’s ominous premonitions on it breaking free from the Great Wheel, she was sure she could ask her brother anytime to clear things up.

Not without shame, though. I mean, she knew she wasn’t nearly as good as him when it came to picking up new information, but this was frankly appalling.

Perhaps it was the drowsiness.

Perhaps she should have drunk the coffee.

Slowly, Pallas leaned over. Submitting to the call of the dark, she rested her forearm on the table, lying her head atop her bicep like it was the fluffiest pillow in all the land.

“Yeah, so I’ve been thinking about this new system,” Lauka said, leaning forwards slightly to present the drawn prototype from amongst the pile of papers and books– logs of beasts, gun designs and random historical chronicles all piled together chaotically. “And the way it works, is that instead of ramming the bullet down the muzzle,” she said, pointing to the end of the gun’s barrel.

“I could try to have it such that the round goes in from the back of the gun,” she said. “From the breech!”

“I see,” Soleiman said, eyes widening slightly as he took a closer look at the drawing. “So the back end can rotate out of the barrel?”

“That’s the idea,” Lauka responded. “It’ll probably be a hell of a pain to forge, but if I figure it out…”

She whistled.

“The beasts won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“Dang,” Soleiman huffed, leaning back in his seat. “How do you come up with stuff like this?”

“It just comes to me sometimes,” Lauka said. “It sure helps to have a forge built into your home, though. Makes it a lot easier to execute your ideas, no matter how bad.”

“Right,” Soleiman responded. “Yeah that-”

Pallas was asleep.

“Oh dear,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she laughed. “I think we got a little carried away, to be fair to her.”

“Pallas,” Soleiman called, his gentle voice doing little to rouse her from her slumber.

“Pallas,” he tried again, this time dragging it out and raising his voice a little.

Still, no response.

“Was the ride here tiring?” Lauka asked.

“It was pretty bumpy,” he said. “Come on, Pallas, wakey wakey…”

He placed his hands on Pallas’ shoulders, preparing to shake her gently.

But he recoiled, a mixture of fright and surprise suddenly spreading across his face.

“What’s wrong?” Lauka asked, placing her arms onto the table’s rim.

“She’s… really cold,” he responded.

Lauka rose from her seat, circling the table as Soleiman put a hand to Pallas’ neck.

She was pulsing, but she was cold. It almost felt as though he were touching a statue.

“Should we bring her to the nurse?” Lauka asked, herself recoiling as the chill of Pallas’ once warm skin greeted her fingers.

“Absolutely.”

The winds just outside the encampment’s infirmary were less forgiving. They bit into Soleiman and Lauka’s arms, and the latter’s feathers began to separate as the snow and dust pelted them.

They two of them were sitting on a log just by the tent’s entrance, their eyes transfixed on the sliver of golden light that shone from within, occasionally disappearing as the nurses inside moved about to tend to Pallas.

“Is this the first time this has happened?” Lauka asked, smoothing out the ruffled feathers on her forearms.

“N- no…” Soleiman responded. “But this is the first time she’s passed out without having done anything.”

“Mmm,” Lauka hummed, frowning slightly. “Has there been anything else weird going on with her?”

“Well, aside from the drowsiness…” Soleiman began, trying his best to recall every oddity about his sister in the months since they left Minerva. “She’s had bouts of inappetence every now and then.”

“Okay…”

“There have been times where she gets really cold for no real reason,” he said. “Even when we’re inside and sheltered from the cold. Though I suppose that could just be because we’re not used to this kind of weather.”

“Alright, I understand that.”

“She sometimes has strange episodes of soreness,” Soleiman added. “Soreness and stiffness. Especially after a workout, though not all the time. I remember after we were attacked at Hibara she was more or less perfectly fine, but just earlier that week she got sore after a good bit of typical exercise.”

“I see,” Lauka said, nodding slightly. “Has she ever complained of confusion or memory loss?”

“I…” Soleiman struggled, his gaze slowly rising off the ground to meet Lauka’s furrowed brows and worried eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Hmm,” Lauka hummed. “Have you come into contact with any blighted corpses recently?”

“Blighted… you mean the ones that die of Deathblight?”

The image of the crumpled pile of ceramic masks being hoisted into the air of the forest outside Kardia by an ebon spire flashed through his mind.

“Yeah, the ones with black thorns and all.”

“I mean, the last we saw was in Minerva,” he responded. “And that was a few months ago.”

The image of the burly face-bodied, headless beast surfaced from his memory, the sting of alcoholic fire on his right hand as Rumi blasted it away following soon after.

“Very strange…” Lauka said, resting her hand on her mouth.

The image of the Protoataphoi’s twisted, broken body rising from the tar-soaked earth greeted him. How its separated body had somehow returned to life even after it had been pierced by the spire that was supposed to mark its death.

How Pallas collapsed when it did so, clutching at her chest.

“Soteiras… Do they usually get sick?” Lauka asked herself.

The image of the Protoataphoi returned once more. This time, it roared indignantly against the rag-tag team of spearmen and archers they had rallied outside of Naphthalia, charging and chomping and slashing at anything in its path.

And stabbing Pallas in the heart.

“She got stabbed,” he whispered.

“Sorry?”

“She got stabbed by an ataphoi,” he repeated, the horror on his shadowed face soon reflecting off of Lauka’s. “Right in the heart.”

She wasn’t… was she?

“I…” Lauka struggled, still staring him dead in the eye.

Her eyes flashed over to the tent, and then she sank slightly.

“I don’t think you have much longer with her, Soleiman.”

“Wh… why?” Soleiman asked, Lauka refusing to meet his pained face even as he leaned closer to her.

“She has Deathblight.”

The winds howled, and this time there were neither doors nor walls to shield them from its calls.

Of celebration.

“What?” Soleiman asked again, almost yelling in refusal to let the winds cheer on again.

“Look, okay,” Lauka said. “She’s a Soteira. I don’t think there’s ever been a case of one of them catching the Blight. So, considering that it’s been this long since the infection, and she’s still only showing minor symptoms, then she probably still has a while to live.”

“...What?” Soleiman asked again. It was almost as if he didn’t want to accept what she was saying.

“Two years,” Lauka said. “I give her two years.”

Two years. He had already spent seventy five percent of all the time he would ever spend with her.

“...Cure?” Soleiman asked.

“I’m… sorry, Soleiman,” Lauka responded. “But you know there isn’t a cure for the Blight.”

Maybe it would be different for Pallas. It had to be different. She was different after all, no? There had been no cases of Soteiras getting the Blight. Maybe she would survive. She would survive. Yes, she would. There was no way she wouldn’t.

…Right?

Two years to free Minerva. Two years to prepare the country to stand on its own feet before the next Soteira came– if it would come at all.

Two years to be with her.

Soleiman closed his mouth. He looked down at the earth and snow that lay at his feet, the very tips of the dull and depressed blades of the grass buried underneath just barely showing.

But showing nevertheless.

“What can we do to kill Al-Muqayad?” he asked, rising from his hunch to look Lauka dead in the eye, catching her off guard.

“Oh, well,” Lauka began. “I’m going to need some time to come up with something. It’ll take a while to organise the tribes.”

Soleiman continued to stare at her.

“But not too long,” she responded. “For now, just go with the Yusheed when they leave. I’ll arrange for them to head northwards to check out the abandoned settlements by the frozen marshes that hold Al-Muqayad.”

“...Alright.”

Fuck.

“I’ll be quick, Soleiman,” Lauka tried reassuring him, placing a hand on his cold, bent back as he sank back down. “I promise.”

“...And I’m sorry.”

Soleiman whimpered.