“Pallas!”

That squeaky voice reached her ears, shaking her from her stupor as she stood alone by a clear forest pond.

She blinked a few times, her eyes taking in all the golds, greens and glittering sparkles of the scenery upon the pond at once. The trees around her stood tall, their canopies ever unreachable, yet the light that creeped through them landing on her face all the same.

“Pallas!”

She turned around, the wet blades of grass embracing her bare soles as her child-sized chiton flowed in the air.

And from the forest a young Saracenic boy, his metal-framed glasses shining in the skylight, ran out to greet her.

“Soleiman-”

She had the wind knocked out of her temporarily, the feeling of the boy’s soft arms wrapping about her waist as he buried his face into her chest interrupting her before she could do anything.

Where… was she?

Feeling as his arms tightened about her, she giggled softly, putting her hands through his short, spiky hair and gently scratching his head.

“Don’t break your glasses now,” she said, watching as he peered up at her through clear lenses, all the golds and greens and glittering sparkles of the sky above head shining off of their meticulously shaped forms.

“Why did you leave us?”

Us?

Pallas’ expression dropped.

“Mom?” she looked dead at the forest from which Soleiman had come from.

“Yeah,” Soleiman let go of her, taking her small hand in his equally small hand. “She was just behind me, come!”

Pallas didn’t know where she was going. Where she had come from. Where Soleiman was leading her.

She didn’t know how she’d ended up at that pond, when the last thing she remembered was lying still a corpse in the encampment’s infirmary, trying her painstaking best to fall asleep.

Was this another one of those memory dreams? Like when she saw through the eyes of the Hashashin, Shabil. Or when she was privy to Lauka’s life in Rosenlund’s industrial complex.

If so, then this would’ve been a first.

“Come on, Pallas!” Soleiman tugged on her, the two children stumbling through the towering trees and nearly tripping on their gnarled roots the faster they ran.

For she had never peered through her own eyes before.

A light in the distance came into view, one she recognised as the soft glow of her mother’s guiding lanterns.

She tensed up slightly.

She knew how these dreams went. How most, if not all, of them ended in some horrible trauma. The spilling of blood, the rolling of a head, the snapping of bones.

All were sounds and sights she recognised all too well in this sadistic dreamscape of hers, and she shrunk back at the thought that it may be using her own memories against her in some sick, perverted attack.

Soleiman pulled on her arm yet harder, dragging her along.

“Mom!”

She wasn’t ready.

“I found Pallas!”

No, wait. She wasn’t-

Pallas stumbled into a clearing after Soleiman, rogue strands of shoulder-length hair sticking to her face and cheeks as she stared in frozen fright and unspeakable awe at the sight before her.

The sight of her Mother.

“Pallas,” Rei tilted her head.

“...Mom?”

The bleeding grin of the ataphoi in Manarat flashed briefly behind her mother, and it was as if the dream she had had two months ago was melting into this one.

But, her fears were put to rest.

For a bell had rang, Rei’s hand moving in tandem with it.

“We’ve been looking for you, little miss,” Rei smiled.

Nothing mattered anymore. Not her fear, not the infirmary, not the cold of the North. Not Al-Muqayad, not the Hashashiyyin or the Gravitas, and not the rot that writhed inside of her.

She was with her mother now, for the first time in half a year, and she was safe.

Pallas bolted forwards, wrapping herself so tightly about Rei’s torso that her mother stumbled back slightly.

“Oh- dearie me,” Rei put a hand on her head, stroking her gently.

“Mom,” Pallas cried softly, pushing her face into the soft fabrics of her gi. “I’m sorry.”

“Promise not to wander off again?” Rei said, kneeling down to draw Pallas into a full embrace; the feeling of her fluffy sleeves wrapping about her young body enticing her to hold on even tighter– to never let go again.

“I promise,” Pallas said, feeling as Soleiman joined in as well.

“Another one,” Rei smiled, drawing in Soleiman as he walked up to join them.

Pallas didn’t know what was happening. She had never had a dream like this before, and she had never seen anyone from her life in her sleep excluding the dream she had outside of Porthopolis.

Perhaps her subconscious had learned to pity her? What with the weight of her illness, the reality of how short of a life she had left to live, and the impossibility of the tasks she had at hand.

It didn’t seem entirely implausible.

“Alright, come on now,” Rei eased up her embrace. “We still have a bit more to walk before we can make camp.”

“I found one!”

“Where?”

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Pallas hurried on ahead, rushing to catch up to her brother as she stood behind a smooth brown log, patches of light grey dotting its peeling bark.

“Here,” he picked up the red leaf, holding it with two fingers by its stem. He presented it to her, tilting his head and half-smiling in excited anticipation for her approval.

It was a brilliant specimen.

The red leaf was near perfect in almost every aspect. It was of a desirable length, being about the length of one and a half of her hands; where it was just about as straight and prominent as it could get before curling back awkwardly. Its edges were firm and solid, waving only slightly– enough to give it a slight personality, but not enough to completely overwhelm the structure and appearance of the leaf.

Its veins were symmetrical and evenly spaced, running true and brave down the entire leaf, its dark maroons contrasting beautifully with the more crimson reds of the leaf’s spotless flesh.

The only issue Pallas had with it was its stem; which was crooked, bending at an awkward angle that irritatingly detracted from the natural masterpiece that was the rest of the leaf.

Though, with Soleiman’s fingers covering it up, she could hardly see it.

“That’s… so… nice!” Pallas said, lighting up as she analysed, in closer and closer detail with each successive word, each and every facet of the leaf’s construction. “Thank you Soleiman!”

The boy beamed back at her, placing the red jewel within her palms.

It had been a long time since she had last cared so much about red leaves. They used to be an integral part of her and Soleiman’s pastimes as they wandered the Minervan forests alongside Rei, trekking from city to city and accompanying her on her diplomatic ventures.

And yet, she couldn’t even remember the last time she held one with as much awe and admiration as she had just now. Perhaps six, maybe even seven years ago?

All those red crowns, decorated with berries and flowers all woven together by hand by the three of them, all left to rot on the forest floor. All left to return to the earth from which they were grown from, as if they had never even existed at all.

“Mom, look!” Soleiman pointed, Rei skipping forward slightly in response to his little excited hops. “Look what I found!”

“Oh my,” she covered her mouth, folding the edges of her gi in as she bent forward to examine the leaf. “Wow, that’s very nice.”

She smiled at Soleiman, raising her eyebrows in genuine interest. It was quite the specimen, after all.

Soleiman beamed right back at her.

She stood up straight again, pulling a bag slung onto her belt around and opening it.

Pallas moved without thinking, carefully placing the red leaf inside it; joining the myriad other shades of red stored within.

“Looks like we’ll all be getting crowns tonight, hm?” Rei joked, before returning to her usual pace of walking.

Pallas nodded, smiling as she and Soleiman walked beside her.

“Are you done yet, Soleiman?” Pallas asked, looking up from the two crowns resting on her crossed legs.

The two of them sat huddled together behind a few trees, separated from Rei and the rest of the camp as she handled their dinner.

“Almost…” Soleiman struggled, fighting with that one singular word almost as much as he did with the crown in his hands. His tongue began sticking out of aggressively pursed lips, as if the muscles of his face were doing anything and everything they can to somehow funnel energy into the monumental effort that was constructing a flower crown.

At least, monumental for him.

“You need any help?” Pallas got onto her knees, shuffling over to-

“No! It’s okay,” Soleiman jolted back.

Pallas sighed, sitting back down.

He was always so eager to do things on his own. Evidently, that eagerness had come pre-built into his personality.

“I’m almost done, see?” He half-presented the crown to her, not once pausing to take a break from meticulously weaving the stems of the leaves and flowers around the twine-base that served as the skeleton of the crown.

“Mom’s going to be done any minute now,” Pallas dragged. “I’ve done two already, and you’re not even finished yet!”

“Then I’ll wear this one,” he jolted away again, adamant to make sure the crown he made was sculpted from his hands and his hands alone.

“That wouldn’t be fair, Soleiman,” Pallas said. “I can’t let you wear an unfinished crown.”

“But…”

“Look, I’ll just make the back end, okay? That way the focus will be on what you’ve done on the front.”

“But then you’ll have helped me,” he pouted, no longer moving as Pallas shifted closer to him. “Then I wouldn’t have made it by myself.”

“That’s okay, Soleiman,” Pallas cooed, scooching up next to him and placing the crown he worked on on both of their legs. “Mom always says that we’re supposed to work together, right?”

“Because we’re siblings…”

“Mm!” Pallas nodded, taking one side of the crown in her hands and picking up a nearby leaf; its stem attached to a short piece of twine. “Because we’re siblings.”

“But I don’t want you to do it,” Soleiman said, looking Pallas in the eyes. “I want to say I did it all without your help, like how you did with yours.”

Pallas exhaled, letting her eyes drift as she thought up a response.

“But I didn’t,” she eventually said. “You helped me pick the leaves, didn’t you?”

Soleiman stared blankly at the tent wall.

“If it weren’t for your help, I would’ve never found that nice leaf, or so many others for that matter.”

Soleiman paused for a moment.

“Hm,” he hummed. “Yeah.”

Pallas’s face lit up.

“See?”

Soleiman smiled back.

“Yeah!”

Some time later, the three of them had gathered about the campfire to fill themselves up on the dinner Rei had prepared.

The meal was simple, a hearty vegetable stew made with chicken stock paired with a helping of sourdough bread and jam to go along with it. It was pleasant, sure, but nothing overtly delicious.

Nevertheless, though, it was one of the best things Pallas had had in a while.

The warmth of the soup, the smell of its wafting fumes, the tangy sweetness of the jam and the chewiness of the bread– all were inferior in some way or another to what Rumi regularly made. But, that being said, there was something different about this meal.

Perhaps it was the weight of the matching crowns on their heads, or the pleasant surprise of being able to relive long forgotten memories she had made with her two most beloved people in the world.

Perhaps still, it was the feeling of utter security she felt.

She was on no wagon, nor was she shivering under a coat. She was not lying on a rickety bed, nor beating the life out of her clothes in a river to clean them.

She was sitting by a campfire, with her mom and her brother, enjoying a nice meal.

She knew no Gravitas who might chase them out of Porthopolis, no Hashashiyyin that may terrorise and abuse her peoples on the continent, no ataphoi that would poison her with the plight upon life itself.

She knew only that she was safe, protected by the loving gaze of her mother and accompanied by the earnest mannerisms of her brother.

Her crown slipped slightly, Soleiman’s rushed, slipshod construction causing a singular red leaf to almost fall off as it dropped from its position.

And, when she moved to adjust it, she saw as it had already begun to wilt.

Nevertheless, though, she adjusted it anyway, proudly presenting it alongside the rest of the crown.

Their crowns would not last, that was for sure. They would wilt, without a doubt, yielding their reds to return to the soil from which they came.

But Pallas felt no remorse in that.

They had sprung into being, grown from the forest’s branches, bathed in the light of the sky. They had fallen from their places, been found by her and Soleiman, and had been woven into beautiful crowns of crimson and maroon and scarlet and burgundy.

They may wilt sometime in the future, but in the now they were yet crowns.

Worn on the heads of the three of them, as they sated their stomachs with stew.

This moment would not last, that was for sure. There would come a time when Pallas would not be able to look to her mother for comfort anymore, and there would come a time when she and Soleiman would have to brave the uncertainty of the world on their own.

But… Pallas felt no regret in that.

She had made the most of the crowns of the past, for she had worn them proudly while they were still fresh.

And even if the crowns she once wore wilted away, she would always make more.

Crowning, fighting, being. Until she too yielded her reds to return to the soil from which she came.

She would make the most of what time she had left, for she was still alive.