BY THE WINDS OF FATE, the sight of a weathered Zan leaves the scene.

Flopping as if by our ears, we leave through the ceiling of the command center. When we bounce onto the ground, no more are we with Zan and Company at their busy base, but back in time only a small time ago. Back to when the airship crashed.

Last we left, Zan had pulled Mentality from the wreckage against Jiehong's judgement. Then, Zan and Jiehong left Mentality where they pulled him, on the husk of the slain airship. Time passed. Hours. After Zan and Jiehong left him alone, he woke.

Now, we see what Mentality endured.

Or rather, what imperial engineer Rictus Dawson saw when he surveyed the wreckage under cover of night.

"Endless night, stars so bright. Oh, where at thee, my lord-commander?" Rictus asked himself.

Rictus searched the devastated landscape. With night's shadows abounding, the wreckage was hard to search. It made his task more laborious than it ought to have been. He was under contract, though. His lord-commander was out there. Where he was, he would find him.

"My lord? My lord?!" Rictus would yell. Though Rictus continued his search deep into the night, doubts about their safety wormed into his mind. 'He's dead. Move on. Report to the general. He's not your responsibility, he's--' but he would silence his nagging thoughts. He did so with a curt nail: "He's only a kid. He needs help. Freak or no."

With the grace of the gods on his side, Rictus eventually found the young master. He finished climbing up the shorn-in-half bow. Lopsided, the young man in the porcelain mask slumped. He stirred.

"My lord? Can you see me? Are you awake?" Rictus asked.

Rictus waited for an answer. He slowed even his haggard breath so he could hear a response.

"...yes..." Mentality said, his urgency hardly a whisper.

"Gods be thanked!" Rictus said, forming his hands and saying a brief prayer of thanks.

Rictus looked over the youth. His mask remained on his face snugly. His uniform? It was torn to shreds. Rictus thought of how to heal the many gashes and odd lumps.

"Hold still. I will heal you with what I have left," Rictus said, holding his hands over the young man, and releasing all of his magical reserve in the form of a healing aura. "I have no natural talent with healing incantations, but through my years of military-adjacent service, I learned. That should keep you," Rictus said as his boss's young body reacted to the healing magics by mending the blade cuts and pulling all the joints into their proper sockets.

More as a cough than a sentence, Mentality said, "That hurt," to an understanding Rictus.

"I know it. Advanced healing magic can be disorienting. And painful, yeah. Healing only means flesh repair. Motivation boost, maybe. It doesn't mean you will be feeling fantastic as your body repairs itself. That's a whole 'other phenomena. You're good, though. Take it easy," Rictus told the youth.

Slowly, the boy got up. Supported by Rictus, with great effort, they worked their way down the shattered bow of the airship. "Hold on to me tight," Rictus told the youth. "Let's rappel down nice and slow."

Finally reaching the ground, Rictus saw how they both sweated and huffed. Mentality remained sore and needed a lot of help. Even basic movement in the dark and in such a demanding manner as descending from a piece of wreckage, took effort. Rictus pulling double-the-effort to ensure the boy got down safely.

"Normally, I would say we should make camp here. Easily defendable position. Especially with your friends. Unfortunately, your buddies aren't here. And I am no soldier. We can't trust we will be safe in the night. We have to move," Rictus told the exhausted youth.

"I understand," the youth said, coming up from his partially at-rest stance. "I can manage. Don't worry about me."

Although the youth put on a strong face, he had trouble moving his body. On many occasions over their travel, his foot slipped, and he fell, requiring Rictus's aid. "There, you're fine," Rictus would say, pulling the youth up.

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"We are nearly to my encampment," Rictus said. "I built it on the margins of the border..."

Mentality, however, was not listening to Rictus and his explanation.

Rictus could not feel the pulsations. Mentality felt each push, every pull. Like ocean waves buffeting a shore. His mask heated, vibrated. Gave him pain...

Then, Rictus and he left the ruins. The Wizard Towers behind them, they soon found the camp Rictus had made.

"Did you not feel that?" Mentality asked.

"I felt nothing. What did you feel?" Rictus asked.

His boss could not answer. Rictus made up the camp. Intending on making for them a simple dinner, Mentality and he fell asleep right away.

"Raise and shine, milord. We have a full day," Rictus said as he banged a piece of cookware to wake his client. Rictus made for them a simple but hearty breakfast of meats and potatoes. If they did not make it back to a secure location, however, the scant supplies Rictus brought with him would not last them long.

For days, Rictus and Mentality walked the forested paths.

"Sublime, isn't it?" Rictus asked.

"It is incredible," Mentality said, keeping to himself throughout the duration of the trek. Very typical for a boy his age, Rictus said, his client's behavior reminding him of his own family's dynamic.

"It's easy to see why the Expanse wants the Kingship. Endless trees. Young and full of vitality. They would integrate well into the Expanse super-network," Rictus told Mentality, talking of the super-organism which lived within the borders of the Expanse and expanded with each new conquest.

Mentality only muttered half-baked responses. Rictus could tell the boy was distracted. He was tired of trying to engage his client on safe to speak topics. He went for broke and asked, "Is there something you would like to talk about? You've been very quiet. The airship crashing would spook anyone..."

"Not really. I hold high standards for myself. I let folly take control of the situation. Folly and my own hubris," Mentality said.

"You are hardly the first commander I've seen who makes mistakes. In the heat of battle, anyone can lead themselves astray. I know you don't want to hear it, but you are only a child. Give yourself some slack."

The youth said nothing more on that day of travel. Eyes ahead of them, the day filled with blending landscapes of meadow and forest.

On the second day, Mentality helped with camp, despite the heavy travel and soreness of his body.

On the third day, Mentality returned to foraging; squatting and rising and twisting still pained him, but he preserved through each touchy nerved jolt.

"Ready for hunting, then?" Rictus asked on the third day's evening.

"I am," Mentality said, who took his bow in hand, and was ready to hunt, kill, gut, and carve. Rictus heard his heavy breathing, which belied his labored body trying its best to pull itself back together after the crash landing it endured. Not to mention Rictus's healing aura which, although practiced, effected Mentality roughly, as if the spell had been cast by an amateur.

Has to be because he is a Mutant, Rictus declared one evening to himself. Mutants have trouble healing.

That night, they came back with a sizable game. Small but plump creatures rabbit-like in demeanor, but tasting of pork, it was hardly the best thing Rictus had eaten, but neither was it the worst. "We will be coming close to the contested zones. Once we cross into the conflict space, we will need to take it much slower. I pale to consider what our fates will be if the Kingship captures us," Rictus said.

"We are not crossing into the combat zone," Mentality said.

"What do you mean?" Rictus asked.

"We are going to pursue the boy. And his friends. Our target..."

Rictus could not understand Mentality. 'What was the boy thinking?!' he asked himself many times on the weary road they traveled.

"Sir! I demand an answer why you are displaying such reckless behavior. Come upon my knee! I will smack you like I do my own boy!" Rictus wanted to say to his client. Knowing most of his valor existed in keeping his mouth shut, Rictus bade his tongue silence. Irrational in the extreme! The boy is unwell...

On the fifth travel day, Rictus accepted his lot. If his client felt his skills would be best utilized in pursuit of an opposing warrior, their faction, then who was he, a simple engineer, to disagree? "An adult," Rictus wanted to say of his innate ability to disagree, but he did not.

"It has taken a long time, but we are here. What are your orders?" Rictus asked days later.

Mentality looked over where they were. Back in the province of Valeim, they stood upon the same overlook as they had at the invasion's beginning, overlooking the same center of operations. "We will wait and observe their people. Their departure. And then, we will follow."

Rictus nodded. He had to hand it to the little lord -- they survived.

Standing upon the same hill he had months ago, where the worst of his concern were the unusual behaviors of his client's bodyguard, felt bizarre. Rictus endured a twinge of Deja-Vu shooting through his body. Except this time, he wasn't endlessly starring through a telescope.

Correcting his misfortune, Mentality ordered Rictus to "Stay put. Observe the base. Report to me any movement of vital personnel in or out. Understand?"

Spoken too soon, Rictus drawled mentally as Mentality left the scene.

What Mentality would do now Rictus did not know. The little lord entered a tent Rictus set-up and that was it. Snoring soon after, then total silence. Sleeping at last. Good. Leaves me time to do the things I love to do, like...

Like, looking through a telescope.

Not wanting to wake the little lord, Rictus groaned under his breath. "Sleep well, milord. For tonight, I will be contemplating why I ever thought this mission was a good idea." Resigned to his fate -- he was under contract still, after all -- Rictus uncapped the telescope and leaned into it.

Nothing... nothing...

Just the base.

And his fate.