As we walked past far too many fanciful rooms for me to memorize, Emerald kept glancing at the maid that silently moved next to me. The Baronial princess looked like she was hoping that I would dismiss the human. Perhaps, she wanted to have a nice chimera-to-chimera chat without humans present. I wondered whether she actively disliked the servants of her mother’s palace or if she saw them as useless pieces of furniture that were getting in the way.

“Voltara is carrying my bag,” I nodded at the maid.

“You can’t leave it in your room?” Emerald asked. “Our Estate is very safe, secured by the most expensive hexagram rune arrays in the city.”

“Nah. My bag is an expanded Folding space full of expensive and dangerous… high-cendai experiments,” I explained. “The kind of stuff that can’t be left sitting on its own. That backpack is my mobile workshop.”

“Oh,” the little princess gaped at me.

She looked like she was impressed or perhaps jealous. I was younger than her and I already had a mobile lab.

My companion's emerald-silver eyes lit up with curiosity. She probably remembered that she was the daughter of a high-cendai and that I was equal to her mother in title.

“C-could you show any of your work to me?” She asked, running her hands through her hair. Her move had pulled her silver hair back and revealing her sharp ears fully. It was a sneaky attempt to showcase that she was almost as chimera as I was - someone to be trusted.

“When a project is ready for use, you’ll be the first to know,” I said with a wink. “Like I said, the stuff is dangerous and experimental. Could explode at any time and level a mountain or two if left unsupervised or meddled with.”

The little emerald-eyed princess frowned.

“Although,” I rubbed my chin with a thoughtful look. “You can enjoy one of my successful, less dangerous… experiments right now if you so desire.”

“Right now? Where is it?!” The princess exclaimed excitedly.

“Yep,” I nodded pointing at Dawn. “This is Dawn. She’s a depictomancy dress. The first of her kind, a demonstration of my skills.”

Emerald’s eyes became glued to the dress.

“Hrmm,” she stared at the ghostly girl, shimmering spirals and flashing flowers of the Astral Tree. “You really made… her?”

“Yep,” I nodded shamelessly.

“How?” Emerald stared at me, the gears of her mind turning. “You’re so… young.”

“She’s not made from scratch,” I laughed. “I crafted her out of a bunch of existing stuff I found sitting around. Stuff that humans made but weren’t using properly.”

“Hum,” the chimera-hybrid rubbed her chin. “Not… using it properly?”

“I’m an expert at crafting,” I nodded.

“Mother told me that expertise at something requires at least seven years of study,” Emerald mulled. “Are you not only four? How have you attained the necessary life experience?”

“That would be telling far too much,” I smiled. “Perhaps when our friendship levels up I can tell you a secret or two of mine… in exchange for some of yours.”

“Fair enough,” Emerald nodded. “You know, I had no idea what to expect of you. When mother told me that a new, very young chimera had been brought to our estate I was extremely excited.”

“What were you hoping for?” I inquired.

“I thought that I was getting a little sister,” she shrugged. “But this is nice too. Your crystal-mane is very pretty.”

“Thanks,” I ran a hand through my glittering hair.

“You’re the first genuine chimera I’ve seen, other than mother’s real body,” Emerald said.

“So, you don’t get to leave these walls often?” I waved my hands at the gothic hall around us.

“Not as often as I’d like,” Emerald sighed. “Mother says that most humans are stupid and dangerous. She doesn’t want her backup damaged.”

“Backup?” I blinked.

“She planned out our future decades ahead,” Emerald exhaled. “Aggie is to become Empress and if she fails at it, then the job falls to me. I’m engaged to the Second Prince… although I have never even met him and I don’t really want to meet him. I really have no interest in getting into a relationship with a human.”

She shuddered. The emerald-silver eyes of the human-chimera momentarily became filled with barely-concealed suffering and then returned to the depictomancy dress.

“So… what can this artefact of yours do?” She asked.

“Oh, she can tell you herself,” I replied.

“I am pleased to meet you, Princess Emerald of the Baronial House of Amadea,” Dawn bowed, her ghostly, silver-blue hair shimmering as if floating through the invisible currents of the Astral Ocean.

“She’s a self-sustaining, fully sentient, depictomancy-made assistant,” I sunk another hook into the little human-chimera.

“A sentient... assistant?” Emerald blinked. “So she has a fully-cognitive personality?”

“Indeed,” I nodded.

“Hrm,” she uttered.

Emerald tried not to show it, but she was practically drooling at the dress. She couldn't draw her silver-green eyes away from the shining Astral Tree in the background.

“S-she is… interesting,” she admitted after a minute. “There are a lot of depictomancy-made paintings in our Estate… but I’ve never seen one like her. She looks so... ethereal, otherworldly.”

“Thank you,” Dawn smiled.

“Are you really fully sentient? Can you do mathematics? What's twenty four times fifty five?” Emerald shot a question at the dress.

“I am. One thousand three hundred and twenty,” Dawn replied without a pause.

“Holy crap, she can do mathematics,” Emerald’s eyes grew wide. “No freaking way.”

She paused, thinking of another clever question to ask the dress. “What’s the richest Barony?”

“The Amadea Barony is said to be the richest, due to its ownership of the North-East Acadia gold mines,” the painting replied. “But, if we consider other factors such as resource wealth then the Georgia Barony is potentially the richest due to its energy farms.”

Emerald’s mouth fell open. “You’re not just giving me pre-trained answers, right?”

“No, my Lady,” the painting shook her head. “I am a fully capable assistant, a friend and conversation companion.”

“A companion?” The human-chimera tilted her head. “Tell me more!”

“I can do a lot of things,” Dawn purred. “I will aid you, if you own me. I know a lot about Nemendias. I can help you to polish your finesse like a prism, help you find the right path forward, offer you ideas for your noblesse oblige projects so that you can attain your crest by the end of your first year.”

“You know about the crest?” the princess blinked. “What is its function?”

“I know everything about it,” Dawn replied. “The Celestial Crest of the Chosen will help you gain access to the forbidden arcane archives. Wearing it will unlock the secret librariums and private workshop rooms of Nemendias for you. With my guidance you can rise higher than your sister. The Crest is the key to glory and power at Nemendias and even Illatius outside of it. The crest gives you discounts at numerous shops in the city. It shows everyone that the student wearing it is a very capable, skilled problem solver.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Emerald gulped.

She looked up from Dawn at me. Her eyes were wide.

“She knows things,” she whispered pointing at the dress. “...secret things.”

I raised my eyebrow at the bewildered-looking chimera-hybrid.

“The crest pin,” Emerald whispered. “Aggie never takes it off! Of course! It’s the key! The humans show her greater respect because of it, it all makes sense now.”

“Mhm,” I nodded, leaning towards the princess.

“Dawn is a future-seeing artefact,” I quietly uttered at Emerald, with a conspiratorial look. “Very handy for getting ahead of the game.”

“How much?” Emerald exhaled.

“How much what?” I pretended to polish the top of my pearlescent, black glove.

“How much do you want for the artefact dress?” Emerald said. “I want her.”

“Hrmmm,” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “There’s only one of her kind right now.”

“Can you make me one?” Desperate, gemstone-shaped irises looked at me. “Mother always sees me as second best. I… can’t go higher than her because I'm not the one engaged to the inheritor of the Empire. I don’t want to be second to everything Agatha has done. I don’t want to be bloody outshined in all that I do for the rest of my life.”

“Princess Emerald of the house of Amadea… the future isn’t set in stone. There are many paths, shifting and interchanging,” Dawn’s voice was cold and clear, resonating like a waterfall coming down from a glacier river. “The tides of civilization rise and fall. The Magitek revolution and war with Novazem is coming. There are forces at play that can drastically rearrange our world and the fate of the Empire.”

"W-what?" Emerald stared back at Dawn. “What do you mean?”

"A single wrong decision can act as a falling pebble that will trigger an avalanche that will topple the Basquenate Empire and set Illatius aflame," Dawn said. "The world seems lovely and safe now, and the tide is distant, but the future will come and when it does it will sweep away everything if you are not ready."

I looked at Dawn. What was her angle here?

"Everything?" Emerald gaped.

"Everything," Dawn affirmed. "A day will come when all highborns are executed and gold is made worthless."

"No," the little princess cried. "No, no, no… this can't be the future!"

"It's not The Future," Dawn shrugged. "But it is a possible path… a path where everyone in Illatius dies."

The expression of the starlight-woven girl became very serious. A dark fissure, an inverse of a stellar corona wreathed from dark shadows flared on her left shoulder.

The dark fissure burst with fluttering shadows, engulfing Dawn's figure in darkness. One by one every star, every celestial branch, every silver-blue flame on her body went out. The pinholes of magic winked out, illustrating the doom of Illatius and the end of Dawn.

It was my turn to look concerned. I didn’t like such dark prophecies.

“How?” Emerald asked, terrified by the painting's shift into near-total, grim darkness. “Do I have a part in this? Can I not stop it? Can you see MY future?”

“I can. Push your mana into the gemstone activator,” the dimmed painting instructed pointing at the framed gemstone array designed by Antoine.

Emerald reached out and touched the ruby necklace. When she did, the painted girl changed, colors returning to the artwork. An older version of the silver-haired, human-chimera princess stared back at her.

“Is that me… all grown up?” Emerald muttered.

“Yes. I am your future reflection,” Dawn shook her silver hair, staring back at the princess with stolen silver-green eyes.

“W-what do you see? Is there greatness in my future?” Emerald prodded.

“Greatness, if you make lots of friends and do exceptionally well at Nemendias,” Dawn nodded.

“Will I be able to rise higher than my sister?” The princess demanded. She definitely had a bit of a younger sister complex.

“Yes. You will make a great Skyship Captain. No… not just a Captain, although that is a good place to start. You could be an Admiral,” the painting smiled. Her outfit reshaped itself into a pure-white fancy suit with a white cap topped with silver wings.

“An Admiral?” Emerald licked her lips.

“An Admiral is the one who leads the Armada of Illatius and wields far more active power than the Emperor. As long as the skyship Captains respect the authority of their leader, an Admiral has far more freedom than someone who has to sit in Illatius all day signing paperwork. An Admiral has no requirement for a family to breed a progeny - they simply have to work hard to gain the respect of the navy. You could make a great Admiral, you know.”

Emerald nodded rapidly. I laughed inwardly. Dawn was good at selling skyship-related dreams, offering people what they wanted, motivating them to push forward harder.

“I’ll do it, painting!” Emerald said with conviction. “I’ll do what it takes to become Admiral. I will rise higher than my sister!”

Dawn nodded.

"Your path isn't set into being second best. It is set between a life of incredible achievement and death."

"D-death?" The chimera-hybrid paled.

"Nobody is safe from the potential, all-grinding advancement of the future," Dawn uttered. "If a wrong decision is made, your sister will end up the Empress of ashes and bones, a ruler of nothing."

The proud, motivated look in the eyes of Emerald turned to that of concern and fear.

"How… how can everyone in Illatius die?" she whispered.

"You wanted to impress us into submission, with that sudden appearance from a wall," Dawn shook her head. "I'm not so easily fooled. I saw you hiding in that corner, fiddling with that concealment artefact in your pocket."

"I'm sorry," Emerald said. "I didn't think it would upset you."

Being faced with her own mortality and potential failure was tough for her to deal with. Dawn was utterly brutal, even sharper than my knife in her approach at dismantling the little, pompous princess.

Emerald looked at me, putting on a braver face.

"My apologies, high-cendai. Mom said that you were dangerously sharp, but I didn't believe her… I wanted to test you," she muttered.

“No hard feelings,” I shrugged, sliding the black knife back in its leather sheath on my side.

The princess relaxed visibly. I wondered if her mother possessed a similar weapon, if she used it on her to carve little pieces of her soul away. I wondered if she was trained like me to see the Still Forest. I had overcome my fear of the ending-knife, understood, embraced its power, made it mine. I doubted that Emerald had the backbone, the opportunity and will to do the same.

“Can you tell me more?” Emerald stared at Dawn. “I want to know more.”

“Your future is full of dead ends,” Dawn said.

“Why?” The princess trembled. “What’s coming to threaten our Barony? Why will gold become worthless?”

“A revolution from beneath and the invasion from above,” Dawn said. “War is an inevitability and many will perish if we are not ready…”

Emerald gulped, her hands trembling.

“If you wish to avoid a dead end, princess… you must learn to cooperate with humans. Your first choice will be made… now. Tell me - how would you lead the Armada of Illatius against our dangerous Necromagi enemies from Novazem?”

“I will put Vows onto my Captains,” Emerald replied. “They’ll be run as efficiently as this Estate!”

“Wrong answer,” Dawn-Emerald shook her head.

“Why?” Emerald asked. “If Agatha is Empress she can codify Vows into law and I can enforce them from my end. If anyone wants to be a skyship Captain they have to make a Vow to Eunisii to obey our family…”

“No,” I said, moving like a dark shadow, my fingers wrapping around the ending-knife on their own.

Rage drowned out the rest of my rational thought as I advanced on the princess.

“W-what? Why?!” Emerald gasped, backing against the gold-flowered wall away from me. She had nowhere to run. My ending-knife was pointed at her throat.

“No,” I repeated coldly. “If you wish to follow this path, I will cut out your access to the System right here and right now.”

“You can’t just… cut the magic out of me!” the princess looked around, looking worried. “Activate defense!”

A diamond array on Emerald’s lace choker lit up, pushing against my armored hand. I stared at it in my Astral-sight, defined its function and slashed the knife across the fractal pattern projected into the air. The array’s defensive function shattered with a twinkle.

“M-my shield-artefact! H-how?” The princess gasped as my knife returned to her throat.

“I can cut anything,” I said coldly, staring at Emerald’s eyes that were filling with deep terror. “Anything I want to. I can cut your System out, if I so desire.”

Emerald gulped. She believed me.

“You lied about the wager, princess.” Dawn said. “You have no desire to uphold it. You want to put Vows on everyone in Illatius.”

The future-Emerald turned to me. “Show her how wrong she is, Juni. If we step on this path, everyone dies.”

“Here’s an interesting thought,” I smiled darkly, baring my sharp canines at the princess. “Are you of that much value to your mother? Will she rush in to save you now? Will anyone protect you, try to stop me? All it takes is just a snip of my knife and your future is gone. All of it. You won’t be able to level up without the System. You’ll be a cripple, live out your days in this lovely golden cage surrounded by pretty maids that you so despise. Don’t think I won’t do it. I’m not going to live in a world ruled by disgusting jellyfish ghosts. I won’t stand for it. If you want to be my friend, step away from this path.”

Emerald desperately looked at Voltara, her lips trembling.

"Help me," her voice trembled.

The maid didn’t move a muscle, didn’t come to her Lady’s defense.

“Choose your future,” I whisper-hissed into Emerald’s ear, my knife pressed hard against her throat. “Align yourself with Astral abominations, propagate the Vows and lose your magic forever… or take another path, one in which we stay friends. Accept my wager for real. Don’t try to trick me again - Dawn can see the choice you make. Make me a promise to never rely on Vows and stick to it for the rest of your life.”

The princess desperately looked around. She saw that nobody was coming. That not a single person really cared about helping her. She saw that a Vow-bound servant did not come to her aid. In that moment, she broke, snapped completely. Her eyes filled with tears.

“F-fine,” she sniffed. “I… won’t rely on Vows, anymore! I’ll try… to understand humans, learn how to lead them without the Vows!”

I looked at Dawn. The depictomancy construct nodded. I pulled the hexagonal-textured knife away from Emerald’s throat.

“Hrr-wy didn’t you help me?” Emerald glared at the maid, rubbing her throat. “You were supposed to defend me! What the shit is going on here…”

“You were relying on a Vow to protect you,” I said. “This is a lesson. Don’t put your trust into Still Forest phantoms. You live in a world of people, not ghosts. You’re half-human, embrace who you are.”

“I understand, high-cendai,” Emerald lowered her eyes again. She rubbed her throat.

“You don’t,” Dawn shook her head. “Not yet… but you will someday. You’re on the right path now, the first step towards the future is made.”

“You’re so fired,” Emerald hissed, sending the maid a glare.

Voltara, sent a glance at me, looked worried.

“Not a problem. I’m keeping her,” I hugged the maid with a smile.

Emerald’s silver-green eyes looked into mine, with fierce determination. She wiped the sparks of tears from her face.

“You’re a worthy Fidus Achates,” she said. “I wouldn't tolerate someone of a weaker constitution. Beating you in Nemendias will be lots of fun.”