When I awoke, the stars were out.

My body felt light, as if I were floating. Feeling slowly returned to my body. My back was sore against the cold ground, and my lungs burned. A fire in my lungs! Coughing and hacking wracked my body. It wrenched me fully back into alertness.

“Ah, shit! C’mon, here, here…” Someone helped me sit up, cupping water to my mouth. The last thing I needed was for someone to watch me choke on water. I turned my head away as the coughing slowly stopped. All I could do was pant heavily and try to determine where I was. It wasn’t so hard. Slowly, I recognized the now-familiar clearing. I sat on the edge of the brook, my back leaned against someone else’s chest. But who…?

“C’mon, try drinking some water anyways, will ya? Please?”

Elian. Why the hell was he here? Helping me slay a monster was self-defense. Sparing me was foolish, but not surprising that a fool would do so. But actively nursing me back to health after winning…? Why would he—!?

“D-don’t—touch—me!” I snapped, writhing away from him.

“Ya just woke up—don’t push yourself! You just collapsed—I think you overheated or something, what kinda channeling even was that? How does Crown Naruune let you do something so dangerous?” His tone was commanding, while his expression was anything but. Still, I moved myself as far away as I could. My muscles still ached with soreness.

“What the hell do you want with me?” I rasped, ignoring his barrage of questions. I was too damn tired to address them all right now. Elian only quirked an eyebrow incredulously, as though he could not believe my antics. What a fool.

“For you to not die? You’re the one who wanted me to come here today!”

He can’t have gone this far out of just the goodness of his heart. Think, think, why would he possibly want me alive…my eyes widened. “You want to capture me for your Sunset Festival!?”

“The Rite of Sunset—?” his own eyes widened in understanding. “No. Never. I swear up the blood of Crown Naruune. I would never do that to someone else.”

“...So why are you so insistent on me living. I don’t…understand. You’re Greshan. I’m Angran. We raid your fields, and you kill us for it…if not now, then someday on the battlefield. It’ll be one less enemy for you, someday.”

“Do you want me to kill you?”

That wasn’t an answer, or even a question, I was expecting. “...No. There’s someone I need to kill before I die.”

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“Me? Or a Greshan?”

“...No. Neither.”

“Then we ain’t really enemies, are we?”

I frowned. “...Aren’t you trying to become a warrior? Don’t you want to defend your home city?”

“Yes, and yes. But…killing and defending are two very different things, ain’t they? I don’t gotta kill people to defend my city. I just gotta keep them alive.”

“...You’re perhaps the strangest person I’ve ever met,” I grumbled.

He laughed. “Really? I don’t think we’re all that different!”

“I’m nothing like you.”

“The person you want to kill is the Sun Fiend, right?”

I froze, and looked at him in suspicion. “...How do you know that?”

“Really? Everyone hates her, Fifi. If your enemy ain’t a Greshan, then it’s probably her. It’s a lot more obvious than you think it is.” He scratched his cheek. “...Also you talk in your sleep.”

I relaxed. “Don’t get in my way. And stop calling me that name. And…I guess I have no reason to kill you. You’re quite determined to be harmless.”

“Tell me your name and I won’t have to call you that, Fifi!” he giggled, then sobered up. “But, uh…that ain’t the only reason we’re similar. I think you’re a lot nicer than you let on, too. If you really did want me dead…there were a lot of chances you could’ve taken, but didn’t.”

“I owed you. And I don’t need to cheat to win—”

“If you really wanted me dead,” Elian stressed, “I’d be dead. If you really hated me, you coulda insisted my claim to the phoenix had no grounds and rejected my duel. Or you could’ve rejected my offer for dinner and left with the phoenix. Or you could’ve let the beetle carry me away and left Nania abandoned in the forest. Or—”

A victorious smirk crossed his face. “Or you could’ve not treated my wounds last week. I don’t think you want me dead.”

The boy was ridiculous. I wanted to fight him to the death. To see his cunning mind pushed to its very limits, as I matched wits and fists with him. But, after that…what came after that?

If I won I would miss him, I realized with a jolt. I…I wanted to spend time with him. I didn’t want to kill him and be done with it. I wanted to see him grow, to fight him at his very best. Nothing else would count as a true victory.

For years, I had stumbled through the darkness, shunning the company of others. And then came this boy. This…Elian. By all accounts, I should hate him. I should want to destroy him, so I could return my world to silence and darkness. But the thought of doing so left me deeply uncomfortable.

No…it left me lonely.

“...I’ll tell you my name if we can spar again, here,” I spat out. “I passed out while I was winning. It doesn’t count. We still need to decide who deserves both weapons. We still need a definitive winner—where neither of us cheats or passes out.”

He laughed, and reached over to pinch my cheek. “Fi~ Fi~ that wasn’t the deal! You said you’d tell me this ti—hey!” I swatted his hand away, and he pouted. “Fiiine, I’ll see you here again. Next time.”

“Next time,” I agreed. “...My name is Talon. By the way.”

He smiled. “Then it’s very nice to meet you, Talon. It’s about time.”