-27-

[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]

A series of rapid-fire knocks pounded on my door, causing Akari to tense up and clutch tightly to my breastplate.

“Airis!? What in the Aether is going on with you? Your sister and Hailey have been besides themselves waiting for you to get back. Is everything alright?”

If only Julius hadn’t been coming down the hall in just that moment!

I hesitated.

What can I say that’ll get him to leave me alone so I could figure things out? Gah! I didn’t really come up with a plan at all.

In my haste to whisk Akari off to safety, I had made a few severe lapses in judgment.

The knocking continued, though this time it wasn’t Julius’ voice that followed.

“Airis?” Hailey’s sweet voice cracked, “Are you okay? We’ve been worried about you. Can you open the door please?”

I wrapped my arms around the trembling girl, pulling her close, “It’s okay. Those people are my friends. They’re being a little loud but it’s because they care about me. They won’t do anything to harm you, I promise.”

Taking Akari’s hand I led her to the bed, lifting her up onto the covers.

“Just stay put right here for a minute while I sort this out.”

I crept to the locked door and leaned my side against the wall. Placing my foot and left arm to brace the door, I turned the lock with my right hand. Almost instantly the knob turned and the door started to push open.

My foot caught the door, and I applied some force with my arm to keep it from swinging open any wider than a few inches.

Julius stared back at me from the hall. Hailey stood just behind him, with both Rias and Mei beside her.

“Airis?”

My heart was racing with anxiety, “Two things.” my voice wavered.

“Huh?”

“Before I let any of you in the room, you’ve got to agree to two things.”

“Of course,” Hailey squeaked, “I’ll agree to whatever. Just let us in, Airis.”

I eyed Julius with a skeptical look.

He sighed and relaxed his pressure against the door, “What are your two things?”

“One, nobody jumps to any conclusions. You enter with an open mind and we talk things out.”

“Okay.”

“Of course.”

“No problem, sis.”

“…”

Turning my head towards Mei, I raised my eyebrows in response to her silence.

“You’re our Empress, of course I agree to your conditions regardless of what they are.”

I shook my head and gave her a weak smile.

“Okay. And two, no sudden movements once you enter. Just go take a seat on the couch or grab a chair from the table.”

Another round of amicable responses followed and I slowly moved away from the door and stepped back, though I positioned myself to block the path to Akari.

I glanced over my shoulder to check on her.

She was still sitting on the bed, but had grabbed a pillow and was hugging it firmly against her chest with her little winged arms. A pain ached in my heart seeing such a frightened expression on her face again, after I’d told her I would take her somewhere safe.

[https://i.imgur.com/xoNTplc.png]

“This girl is called Akari, and I saved her from the city guard…”

----------------------------------------

Once I’d explained the situation, and calmed down the fiery-tempered Julius—who to my surprise was more upset that the elven patrols had been chasing Akari, than he was with the fact I’d been aimlessly roaming the city markets—we moved on to discuss our next steps.

It seemed obvious the guardsmen had thought she was a demon. But that prompted a series of concerns within our group. The most prominent being, what actually defines a demon?

As divisional soldiers, we had a number of bestiaries that had been published over the last few decades which detailed a number of different species commonly found encroaching into the territory near Axio.

Of those, the ones which were branded as “demons” were creatures that appeared animal in nature but had some varying sorts of twisted features, like the hounds that roamed the forests and mountains in the Commonlands.

Then there were the more grotesque abominations that seemed humanoid in shape, like the Capradaemns or the Ettin—Gigas, we’d fought in Tolin. Even the terrifying Archdemon Asteryith would fall into that category with its multi-jointed legs.

But none of those had faces that looked similar to a human or an elf. At first glance, Akari’s facial features gave the impression she could be half-elven half-human.

Really the only features that seemed they could be demonic at all would be her horns, as the majority of what we labeled as demons didn’t have tails or wings.

Off the top of my mind the only demonic beings or monsters that had tails besides the roaming hounds were the deadly chimera that often lurk deep in the forests and the siren that dwell in the darkness of the ocean. And the only humanoid creatures I’ve seen with wings were the Goddess Virgo and her two Alaetüs attendants.

The more I think about it, it seems more likely that she has to be connected with the Celestials somehow…

“So what are we gonna do about her situation?” Hailey questioned the group.

Julius leaned back in his chair, twiddling his thumbs. “There’s no way this plays out with the staff not noticing a new addition to our ranks. The city are likely still on alert, and that rules out being able to move around the streets freely…”

“Mei, you’ve been awfully quiet,” I goaded her into the conversation, “Have any thoughts?”

“I think… I think that I’ve killed a lot of demons.”

Her head was angled down, her gaze lost somewhere in the floor.

“Uh. What?”

We all turned to her with puzzled looks, prompting her to lift up her head and glance at us. She blinked a few times before becoming flustered.

“W-What I meant was, that I would recognize a demon’s presence.” She then pointed at Akari who was sitting next to me on the edge of the bed, “And she doesn’t have that. There’s no sense of dread, fear, or intimidation… If anything, I’m getting the opposite from her, I think. Though the whole speaking in my head thing is a little discomforting.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Agreed.”

A chorus of agreement sounded from the other three.

If I didn’t have the experience with Ignicorus or the Celestials talking in my head, I’d have to admit the whole ordeal with Akari would have been way more uncomfortable.

Hailey fidgeted in her seat, “What if we sent a message to Lady Aisling or Lady Elin? It sounded like it was the Astral Knights who were leading the search, right? Maybe we can convince them to call it off. I’d like to hear their version of events as well.”

My sister lit up in excitement.

“Oooh, yeah and maybe we can figure out how Akari ended up in the city!”

I glanced down at the small girl leaning against my side, to find her staring absently ahead of her.

“Akari? Are you alright, sweetheart?”

Akari finally blinked in rapid succession and her head drifted up in my direction. Her bright orange eyes locked to mine, sparkling with spirit.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and a shudder ran down my spine as the air pressure around us dropped quickly. A ripple of color ran across Akari’s skin leaving a familiar pattern underneath.

Did she just cast something using chaos magick…!?

A cute smile spread across her face, and she opened her mouth…

“Ahhh!”

“Ah?”

Akari pursed her lips and looked at me with a determined face. She opened her mouth again, but this time words in imperial common came out, “Can you… un-der-stand me?”

“She can talk now!?” “Now she talks?”

Julius and Hailey both jumped up from their seats. Rias leaned forward, speechless.

“Huh. Well isn’t that something.”

“Why are you trying to play it off like that’s no big deal?” Julius extended his arm out towards me.

“I thought she was tied to the Celestials somehow, and if she can adapt to our language that quick it’s hardly a surprise.”

Hailey fell back into her chair, “If that’s the case, I guess it’s more surprising it took this long.”

“Hey, Akari.” I turned my body towards Akari and lowered my head, hushing my voice so I wouldn’t be overheard, “Did you just do something to decode a language codex?”

If my suspicions were correct, then even without a runic interface to bring up a status window Akari should have seen a roll of words stream quickly in her vision, just like I did when I unconsciously unlocked the ability to understand elvish.

She nodded her head at me and gave me a toothy grin. “Yep! How did you know?”

“I’ve done the same thing before. But I did it with the elvish language.”

“You can chan-nel Ki just like me and momma then! I knew you were like mom.”

Ki, huh? Maybe that’s what she calls chaos magick. Oh yeah, just before that guard dropped down on us I was trying to find out if her mother was actually Capricorn.

“Akari, do you know who your mother is? Does she go by the name Capricorn?”

“Capricorn!?” Hailey exclaimed loudly behind me, “You think this is the Goddesses daughter? Can the Celestials even have children?”

“I’m not really sure, but Capricorn has told me she has a number of beings she considers her children. There are a lot of puzzle pieces about Akari that would fall into place if that was the case.”

Akari tilted her head, her expression twisted as she wracked her brain in thought.

“Momma is momma. She has horns and a tail like me! But her wings are big!” she stretched her arms out as far as they’d go, “Momma tells me I’m not done growing yet!”

Akari beamed up at me with bright eyes.

Ah, that’s right. I remember her saying I was just like her and her mom, but I was missing horns, wings, and a tail. Capricorn has horns… and you could maybe consider her whole lower body as a tail, but she one-hundred percent did not have wings, attached to her arms or on her back.

“That doesn’t quite sound like Capricorn then. That’s alright, we’ll figure it out. Until then I’ll keep you safe, okay?”

Akari hugged me around the waist and squeezed in response, and I felt a calming warmth flood through my body.

The party split up for a late dinner. Hailey and Rias had gone down to the kitchen to place an order for themselves, Akari, and I.

After about half an hour they came back upstairs with two trays of plates. The food was not quite as elaborate as our breakfast this morning, but I wasn’t expecting much since it was the middle of the night and well past the regular dining hours.

Our meals were pretty much identical; buttered and spiced corn, sliced brisket that was soaked in a pepper sauce, and a mix of veggies to make a simple salad.

Rias had opted out of the sliced meat and had a larger portion of corn and some bread rolls, which Akari eyed with an overwhelming desire. My sister giggled to herself as she handed one of the rolls to the little girl, who took it gleefully.

Akari placed the bread onto her plate, bowed her head, and held her hands together just in front of her.

“Bless-ed Lady, may your kind heart continue to watch over us. Bless this meal so that we may remain strong. Auhl’Sig. Celsi Furl.”

Without even noticing that we were staring at her in bewilderment, Akari hastily picked up her bread roll and chomped down. She squealed with joy, fidgeting in her chair as she devoured the rest of her dinner.

After we finished eating and Rias went off to bed, I’d been overcome by exhaustion. My head bobbed as I struggled to stay awake.

Hailey gently pulled me up from my chair by the hand and led me to the bed.

I flopped down and crawled my way into place, and slipped under the covers. Hailey gently stroked my hair and I began to drift off to sleep. I could hear her talking to Akari, and then the bed shifted a little as the two of them crawled in next to me.

Warm arms wrapped around my waist and Hailey’s forehead rested against the back of my neck.

----------------------------------------

Darkness.

Complete and total, unnerving, unending, darkness.

It felt like I’d woken up seconds after succumbing to my exhaustion, but I was now standing in a pitch black void. The air felt thick, as if Aether permeated heavily around me.

Every direction I turned was the same darkened emptiness…

Where in the Aether am I now?

“Momma?”

The perturbing sensation of Akari’s voice being projected through my mind gave me a chill.

Akari? Can you hear me?

“Mhmm!”

Where are we? I don’t see anything, just a lot of darkness everywhere I turn.

“This is somewhere near home, but still far… I was trying to find momma. I’ll come to you.”

A muted pink glow in the seemingly infinite black came into view ahead of me, and a moment later the small frame of Akari appeared out of the darkness.

“Hehe! Found you!”

With a kick of her legs and light flutter of her winged arms, Akari rushed towards me and grabbed me around the side.

“Do you know what happened? How did we get here? I fell asleep and the next minute I was here.”

“Oh, we’re still asleep! I can tell. My body is still in bed next to you and Hailey.”

I watched as she giggled and ran around the void.

“So, we’re still in bed. Is this some sort of dream world then?”

“Uhmmm, a dream? I dunno. This is where I know home is. Normally I’m here with my body, but I didn’t know how to bring it with me. I was looking for momma, because I know she could tell me how.”

Akari sat down, crossing her legs. I joined her and waved my arm around me in a wide motion.

“Is your home just like this? Dark and empty?”

“It’s not! It’s bright and colorful and full of others! But everywhere around home is like this. Momma made home to keep us safe. Momma says that nothing can find home unless she wants it to be found.”

“Akari, are you able to take us back to our bodies? Having my mind be separated in this other place makes me a little nervous.”

“I can send you back if you want. I’m gonna stay and keep looking for momma for a while though.”

“Will you be safe here?”

“Yup! Nothing in home would hurt me.”

“Okay. Well then if you’d please send me back.”

“‘Kay! See you soon!”

Akari’s cute smile faded from view and the darkness retreated from my mind. I felt my body stir, and the warmth of someone cuddled up close to me radiated through me.

I opened my eyes for a moment.

Akari was snuggled between Hailey and I. Her clawed fingers gripped tightly at the collar of my shirt and her shallow breaths felt hot against my chest.

I adjusted my arm so that it reached around her, and I pulled her close to me.

Good night, Akari.