Do you ever wonder what memories taste like?

No, no, just, wait a moment, follow me on this short tangent: what would a memory taste like if we could get one, eat it, and perceive the complexities of something so esoteric with our normal, human, tongues? I, myself, find this kind of mental gymnastics quite invigorating.

Let's take, for example, my favorite dish: a nostalgic memory. Imagine: you're sitting at a table, outside a small restaurant hidden away in a moonlit alley, savoring a fine glass of Pimm, a clocktower in the distance sounding midnight as the shadows of the night, barely kept at bay by the lights coming from inside the restaurant, twist and change into beautiful abominations that would make a cthonic entity proud. A server wearing the finest silks stardust can buy walks up to you, his face covered by a black and white featureless mask with no eye holes, or mouth holes, or... any holes. The mask is the face and the face is the mask and you should really stop thinking about it and instead savor the dish this being has brought you:

A small ballerina statuette from a carillon, the paint chipped away in many places, one leg broken. Only the ballerina isn't a woman, but a man. And the dress male dancers usually wear is mixed together with a military uniform.

You thank the server, raise a silver knife and a lead fork, for always there must be equilibrium, and you cut off a small piece of the statuette. The new imperfection makes it more beautiful, stoking your appetite, but you must savor the dish. You won't get another chance to taste such a wonderful thing, for memories happen only once, and tasting one means it will disappear forever in all the worlds.

So, slowly, you nibble on the painted bronze and you see:

An on old soldier walks into a theater.

The place has been abandoned for years now. Ever since the war had started.

The soldier walks among old velvet-covered seats that were once a bright red and are now a dull brown, in some places not only because of the years of abandon. He walks in the central lane, his eyes looking everywhere and seeing nothing, for it's his mind that sees and all it witnesses are past glories as his steps bring him closer to the dust and wreck covered stage.

The old soldier, who had once danced on that stage, walks in the central lane, and old memories of people greet him warmly, shadows stretching into smiles as faces begin to form whenever light hits them just right, color blossoming in the black.

Instruments and instrumentalists sit in the orchestra pit, testing strings and preparing lungs and checking tensions, while the lead goes over the music sheets one last time.

As the old dancer passes them, his clothes no longer those of a soldier, she looks up and waves a hello, before looking back down. She had always been a professional, one of the greatest of her age. She could've become so much more if not for the war.

The old dancer, finally, reaches the stage, his wounded leg screaming in an attempt to remind him it is there, that this is not real, that he is clinging to something that was and never again will be, that he is not the man who had once danced on that stage and that he will never again be. And still he walks, climbing onto the stage from the orchestra pit, a kind drummer helping him. Then, finally, he is on the stage.

And, for the first time in what feels like centuries, he smiles a smile of true joy, for he is back, for he has kept his promise, and they applaud him as he bows and smiles and wants to cry and... dance. He will dance. One more time. One last time.

And so he does.

The lead strikes the ledger in front of her three times with her wand and silence falls on the room. Then, she moves, the musicians following her like snakes with a snake charmer.

And, finally, the dancer dances.

The public watches in stunned, beautified, silence, and he can see each and every one of them.

The boy with stars in his eyes who, before tonight, had desired to become a politician, is saved from a life of cruelty by acquiring a new dream. Swiftly, he takes his grandfather's hand and whispers excitedly that, when he grows up, he'll become a dancer just like the man on the stage. The grandpa smiles and nods, saying he'll support his decision in any way he can.

Then there's the couple of lovebirds looking at him and remembering their own dances, whispering conspiratorially to each other, remembering their clumsiness and giggling like kids, time becoming meaningless to them as much as him.

And there, right at the front, a grumpy man looks at him in disdain before turning around and leaving his seat, a rival scorned.

The music plays, and the noise from outside is drowned out in old songs that will never be played again, for the sheets with their notes have been burned and the writer was killed by a falling bomb.

And then, it all ends.

The old dancer looks at the broken theater and cries for all that was lost.

Then, he climbs down and, slower than when he'd walked in, leaves, his old muscles and scars and bones taking their toll on him.

The memory ends, and now I ask you: what did the meal taste like to you?

To me, it is a sweetness mixed in with a background of bitterness, ever present and leaving behind a rather unlikeable taste that makes you desire to eat one more bite to taste the sweet again, leaving you feeling sad when the meal ends, for there is nothing left to keep the bitter away, but also satisfied because it was good while it lasted.

The worlds are filled with so many different emotions and memories, all with their own unique tastes.

If ever you'll be lucky enough to travel where I've gone, take some time to stop at that nameless restaurant at the edge of the Web, far away from old Anansi's rules on how a story should be treated, and take a bite.

As for Issekina, let us see what her memories will taste like to her.

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Albert knocked gently on the door to Isse's new room, waiting for her to give him permission to walk in, like any gentleman would. His days of entering inside rooms unannounced have long since ended, especially after the time he walked in on a couple of [Spies] really going at it. He had since come to hate soundproofed rooms.

When he heard no answer come from inside, he slowly opened the door, peaking in to make sure the girl, or young woman, or whatever age she was, was decent.

What he saw when he walked in actually surprised him, a rare occurrence after living for such a long time: a web that would be of titanic proportions for any normal spider had been woven in the room, hanging from the walls and ceiling, in the form of... a hammock?

Indeed, a hammock just like the one Isse had slept in since the day she was born, hugging or being hugged in turn by her soulmate, Anda, and then by Silfaria, her new smaller sister. It was a hammock just like the one in which she and Anda had made love so many nights after Isse had decided to tell her mind to fuck off and follow her heart.

And she was currently lying in it, her eyes wide open and looking at Albert as if she'd been expecting him, her dress now in the form of a white nightgown that left her spider half visible.

"I woke you up, am I right?" he asked.

The sma - no, not small, definitely not that; the young arachne nodded: "You're quiet, but you didn't see the threads."

Albert raised an eyebrow, looking back the way he'd come and, sure enough, there was a thread attached to the door, which he had broken when he'd began opening it.

"Hmpf, I'm getting rusty," he grunted, shrugging his shoulders and turning back to the girl, "Don't you fear someone other than me will come in and see you as you are?"

The arachne shrugged, a gesture that was surprisingly difficult from her current position, sprawled on a hammock that was clearly meant to be for more than one person.

"Then that's free food," she said, chuckling mirthlessly.

Albert said nothing to that, instead inclining his head to the side in what many would've considered a questioning way, but was instead him trying to get a better look at the girl's face, to see if she was joking or not.

She wasn't.

"Well, in my day they used to say that you should start with the buttocks."

Isse finally looked away from the ceiling and up at him with a horrified expression: "What?!"

"That's what they used to say in training. 'If, for some reason, you are stranded in a place where you are unable to scavenge any food and you have at your disposal only the corpse of one of your companions or enemies, start by eating the buttocks. They're the meatiest and softest part. Afterwards, pray to all the gods that may be willing to listen that you do not get a [Carrion Eater] or a [Cannibal] Class, for there is no turning back from that road'."

Isse's expression of horror had gradually grown as he had spoken, until at some point her facial muscles couldn't convey her internal disgust anymore so she had to resort to changing color, her face now a strange mix of ash gray and green.

"They teach you that kind of stuff in Spy school?"

Albert shrugged: "Yeah, sure. But there's an ocean between knowing how to do something and actually doing it. For example, I know the best way to gut someone so that they won't be able to keep all their entrails inside, but that doesn't mean I would do it, or that I ever had to do something like it."

He looked at Isse's face and saw that she didn't believe him, so he added: "Don't worry, I was always a clean killer. A knife to the spine is usually the most effective, although there have been exceptions."

For a moment the arachne wanted to ask how there could possibly be exceptions to dying by knifing to the spine and, subsequently, throat, but she got an answer from her headmate a moment before she could think about it.

High Level people are extremely difficult to kill girl. They always seem to have one more trick up their sleeve, an extra secret, some rite that can make the gods interefere, shit like that. At least he doesn't go for the heart like many idiots do. Hearts are extremely easy to repair, and they keep working for a while after you pierce them. A cut spine on the other hand... he's a professional.

Isse did not like the appreciative tone in her soul half's tone, but she wasn't surprised: she had been a [Warrior] once upon a time, and she'd seen how she could get if she got really into the fight. Without being able to control it, she licked her lips at the memory of all that blood being spilled, of all the death, even if it had all been in her mind, as real as imagination. They had deserved it.

"Anyways, you should go back to sleep. Tonight we're going out, and you'll be staying up late," he said, beginning to turn around and leave.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, suddenly guarded. She trusted him, but not that much.

Albert stopped, turning to give her a small smile: "Someplace that will help you heal that bleeding wound in your heart."

And he walked out, leaving Isse to wonder if he was trying to trick her.

In the end, she turned back in her hammock, closing her eyes and deciding to trust him.

In her sleep, she was visited by an old friend, but that's a story for another time.

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"'The Boneless Dancer'? What kinda name is that? No, better question, why did they name it that?"

Currently, Isse and Albert were standing outside Tedam's most famous bar, or café, or howhever you liked to call such places (I'd like to underline that statement since one time the debate had started a brawl so massive that Creanza had to basically rebuild her establishment). The outside was as hectic as the name implied, the plaster-covered brick wall having been painted a bright yellow with streaks of red, with an entire half of the wall being occupied by a silly wall painting of a skeleton whose leg bones were seemingly made of jelly, bending this and that way, while its arms waved around in what Isse thought was an approximation of a dance.

Ok, this will go one of two ways: either it'll be the worst experience of our lives and we'll get old men swarming us for a dance because we're the bright young thing, or it'll be the single funniest thing we've done so far, said Siidi, who was apparently very excited.

"The name was born out of a joke and a lost bet. The proprietess of this place loves to dance, but sucks at it, so much so that one of her friends once told her that watching her dance was like watching a man with slime legs wiggle around. I don't know the details of the bet, but she lost, and she had to name the place 'The Boneless Dancer' in honor of that joke."

After a few silent seconds of thinking, she said: "Why am I not surprised?"

To which Albert laughed: "It's a surprisingly common story, am I right?"

She couldn't contain herself and giggled. Indeed, it was.

"Now, take this," he said, fishing around in his pockets and taking out two small iron badges, handing her one.

On both sides were carved small, stilized, hearts and, underneath them, were the words 'Entrance to the Empty Hearted's Rest'. Hadn't it been for those words, she would've absolutely asked Albert if he was taking her to some kind of really expensive secret brothel and remind him why that would be an extremely bad idea. But those words... they changed her mind.

"Always keep your badge with you, even after you're allowed in, understood? If you lose it, believe me, the proprietess will find out, and she will boot you out of here, no question asked, no second chance, nothing. Understood?"

She nodded.

They walked forwards, and immediately Isse saw two people at the entrance. No, not people. They were... ?

Beastkin, hissed Siidi with displeasure and annoyance.

Yeah, right, beastkin, that's what they were called. They were some kind of humanoid animals. In this case, they looked like... she thought they were bears. So, bearkin?

I think, yes. I'm not sure. We didn't bother to ask when we were killing them.

And apparently Siidi had no fond memories of them. How unsurprising! Well, she had said once that there was some sort of rivalry between the arachne and the beastkin because most of the other species of the world considered them (wrongly) some kind of rogue spider beastkin variant.

It's not just that. When we were fighting during the Era of Hunts, the beastkin were our greatest enemies. Fighting armies of soldiers? Easy All they can think about is their formations and protocols and shit like that. The beastkin though? Their armies were made of 'irregulars', people who fought in strange, new, interesting and unpredictable ways. The Hunters wouldn't have been as much of a problem if they hadn't had the support of the beastkin in the beginning, before they left them to their own devices since they treated them as shit.

...You learn something new every day, am I right?

Albert reached the entrance door of the bar and waved: "Tip, Top, nice to see you're still working here."

The two beastking, one two meters tall, the other no more than a meter and a half tall, looked at the old man with recognition in their eyes. Still, they moved to block the way and the smaller one said, in a deep voice: "Badge please, or leave. This is a private event."

He didn't sound menacing, nor was there any hint of promises of violence and retribution in case no badge was provided, but there was a firmness in his tone that spoke leagues to how seriously he took his job. Something in the back of her mind was grateful that she was, apparently, supposed to be here and wouldn't need to fight them.

Is that a fucking Aura? What Level are these two that they'd have such a Skill?

Isse batted her eyes a few times, not understanding: Aura?

Yes, an Aura. Oh, wait, you don't know, right. Auras are... that's actually difficult to explain. Ok, like, imagine a mirror, no, a prysm, and imagine a ray of light being shined through it, refracting the light, expanding it. You following me so far?

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Erm... yes?

I'll take that question as an affirmation. Anyways, basically, imagine that you're the prysm, and the ray of light is your will, a part of you that is so you that it's like your signature. Something that defines you as a person. You take that aspect of yourself and project it all around you in a much stronger and, sometimes, even physical way. That's an Aura. Some people consider it a projection of the soul upon the world, but I always thought that was too generic.

That was... strange. And what use could it possibly have? Projecting your greatest characteristic on the outside? It didn't seem useful at all.

Oh, on the contrary, it's very useful. Imagine a [Soldier], one of the nutjobs that revel in the fighting and war. He could be a very bloodthirsty person and get something like an Aura of Bloodlust to scare the living shit out of those around him. Or maybe if he's really good he could get an Aura that helps him project his skill around him, supporting his allies. Auras can be about pretty much anything. For example, I remember a story about a band of arachne once encountering a Huntress who'd been a high Level [Prostitute] with an [Aura of Lust]. Apparently she sent them in some kind of horny frenzy and fucked important info out of them.

What the fuck Siidi?

What? It wasn't even me. For all I know it was all fantasy. But you get it: Auras can be about anything and everything.

Indeed, they could. Some were more powerful than others, naturally. A [King]'s [Aura of Regality] was probably more powerful than a [Farmer]'s [Aura of Growth] and could have many more applications but, always, Auras were powerful once one realized their true potential.

Now, Tip and Top (whose actual names were Riguin and Omris, but everyone in the business called them that and they didn't mind) weren't twins or anything like that. They had once been complete strangers, two [Bodyguards] who had both been hired to protect a wealthy [Merchant] during a meeting with less than savory people. Long story short, things had gone south and they had to intervene, finding out that they worked rather well together. Since then they'd always worked as a pair, to the point that they'd even gotten a very rare kind of Skill: a Sinergy Skill.

Its name was: [Synergy: Aura of the Professionals].

It allowed them to project upon the world the idea of their ability when they worked together, usually causing fear and wariness of them. If worse came to worse, they could empower their allies with some of their rather large repertoir of fighitng techniques, which had more than once resulted in some rather memorable brawls. Or, if things went really sour, they could attempt to sap energy and fighting knowledge from their enemies, turning them into uncoordinated messes, but it required an extreme amount of stamina and the potency of the effect varied from person to person. Safe to say, since they'd started working at the Boneless Dancer for these special nights, they'd seen their fair share of people who could outright ignore that last effect.

The tall bearkin, Isse couldn't tell if he was Tip or Top, took the badge in his hands and extracted a rather elegant monocle from a front pocket in his uniform, which consisted of a rather fancy black overcoat put on top of a black button up shirt and black trousers that ended just over the top of the knee.

He examined it for a few moments, looking through the... she inclined her head slightly and Looked, noticing the magic swirling around the lense. Yep, it was enchanted, although she couldn't tell exactly what this enchantment did, not without doing rather suspicious things like going completely blank while she concentrated and entered the Spell inside.

In the end the bearking grunted and handed the badge back.

"Very well, you may go in."

Then he turned back towards Isse and raised an eyebrow questioningly, asking her without words to hand over her own badge while at the same time wondering why in Airm a girl as young as her was here of all places. She knew that, after going through puberty as an arachne, she looked mature, probably in her twenties, but that begged the question: why was a twenty-something girl going to an event for [Soldiers] so traumatized that sometimes they went back to the battlefields they'd fought on?

Stil, he said nothing as the girl gave him her badge. For a moment, he hoped the monocle would reveal that the thing was fake, that she was just trying to sneak into the gathering against its rules.

Sadly, it wasn't.

"You may go in," he said with a grunt, giving her back the badge and motioning her in while his colleague asked him a silent question with a look. He only got a slight shake of the head as an answer.

And, finally, they were in.

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Creanza had a secret. Well, ok, she had many. Actually, she probably had or knew enough secrets to topple a few monarchies, or so she liked to joke with her clients. The [Barista], though, was known for being a silly woman with an easy smile and a contagious laugh, so everyone believed that she was, indeed joking.

But she did have a few secrets. One of them was that an ex-member of the College of Memoirs worked in her bar. Nobody knew Grazia, because every time she actually worked in these nights she wore an illusion necklace that changed her appearance.

Tonight she looked like a gaunt woman with high cheekbones, a sharp nose and thin lips that smiled in a rather predatory way. Her hair was black as a night sky without stars and the moon, while her eyes, which were the only part of her that never changed in her illusions, were composed of multiple rings, as if someone had taken a dozen frog eyes and stitched them together. One of them was red, while the other was green. It was always disquieting whenever one looked at her.

Another secret, which was a secret only by name because everyone who'd heard about her knew this detail, was that she had a soft spot for all beings non human and, especially, halfbloods, creatures that had been born from two different species, be it thanks to Skills or fertility treatments, which usually resulted in them being disliked if not outright hated by both of their original species.

An example of this was found in particular in two of her employees: her harpy [Head Server], and one of members of the serving staff, Acria.

Acria was the most recent addition to the bar after she'd immigrated in Tedam from Rodar, and she was a half devil. A daughter of rape. Hated by most of the living because of her infernal nature, hated by her mother because she'd been concieved after some piece of shit somewhere summoned a demon to rape her, hated... hated.

She'd found peace only here, in this bar, where Creanza and the rest of the staff treated her like a normal person, not caring for the small horns sprouting on top of her head or the spade-tipped tail sprouting from the base of her spine or even the off red color of her skin.

When Acria had first appeared in the woman's bar looking for a job, desperate for money, broken in body and heart after being chased away with words or fists from most other places she'd visited, the woman had calmly asked her if she wanted a health potion and a coffee ("On the house. First drink always is for a new client."). Then, after that small moment of peace, when Acria had made her request for a job, the woman had simply started asking questions about her past experiences working as a server and how good she was at talking with people and many other... normal things. Never once she'd asked about her race, about how she'd come to be, about her horns and skin and tail.

Acria had nervously answered that she hadn't had much experience in the work, but she'd spent enough time doing menial tasks in her noble mother's home to consider herself good. In regards to 'customer service', she'd just said that she was willing to try, but ultimately it was all about the client's reaction to her. By all standards she shouldn't have been accepted, she wasn't qualified enough for such an establishment, and yet... Creanza had taken her in.

She'd decided to take a gamble and train her, even if it caused many of her clients to leave her bar, some even for good ("It just means they didn't like this place that much to begin with," she'd said with a shrug before going back to polishing a glass), even if, initially, Acria made oh so many mistakes, she kept her, helped her.

And now, two years after that fateful day, here she was, beside the woman who'd forever changed her life, wearing her most elegant work dress, waiting for a client to need her.

Currently, the bar was... not filled, no. There were maybe just over a dozen clients, most of them old, grizzled, [Veterans]. At best. At worst... well, Tip and Top once had to get rid of a particularly bad case whose Class, apparently, had evolved into something quite nasty: [Veteran of the Endless Battle]. That had been the one and only time Creanza had revealed someone's Class. How she'd found out, nobody knew for sure.

She was broken out of her reverie when two clients walked in. Acria looked up and, since Lavia was busy with another client, an old man with gray hair and a short, salt and pepper, beard, she went to greet them.

"Good evening. Welcome to the 'Empty Hearted's Rest'. Let me show you to your table."

She looked at them only for a moment before she turned around and, following her [Perceive Client's Needs] Skill, led them to a small table away from the others.

That's not to say she wasn't surprised by the presence of such a young girl on this particular night, it was just that, like all the people working in this bar, she was a professional who valued, first and foremost, her clients' happiness. The questions could come later.

Still, as she let the two seat down, she looked at the girl, wondering for a moment if she was one of those people who liked to wear illusions to appear younger. She focused her sight and, for a moment, tried to use the one ability her demonic heritage had given her: Truesight. With it, she could peel back the layers of an illusion and see right through it to what lay underneath. Most basic illusion spells couldn't affect her in the slightest, and the most powerful ones she could quickly dispell if she concentrated for a moment.

She looked at the girl... and saw something like a faint sheen covering her, as if someone had cast an [Oil] Spell on her, but other than that there was nothing.

She mentally shrugged: "Good evening, dear guests. What may I bring you tonight? Have no fear, our [Teamaker] will be with you in a matter of minutes to prepare your personal infuse."

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Isse looked at the girl with horns and a tail and red skin and wondered if she was a succubus.

Then she remembered she had a reliable enciclopedia on this world and asked Siidi.

I don't know. Maybe? There are Classes that center around summoning things from other planes of existence, and I've heard tell that the most powerful can even try to grasp at things from other worlds. But she doesn't seem summoned. Her smell isn't right.

Smell? I don't smell anything.

Exactly. If she was a devil out of Airm we could probably smell the smoke from her, even if she was trying to hide it. So either she's a devil with Skills that hide her nature, or she's a halfblood.

...I don't want to think about the implications on that last one.

For once I agree.

Changing subject, are devils powerful?

Depends. Some are, some you can kill by literally spitting on them. But devils here don't work like in your world. There are no succubuses or prideful demons or shit like that. There's only a gerarchy of power from least to most powerful. Apparently, down there, all souls are tortured equally.

That did not sound reassuring at all.

She decided to put that out of her mind and looked down at the small menu the [Server] or whatever her Class was had given her. She looked through the many items and, after a short while, settled on steak from something called 'Krimou', rare.

Siidi?

I don't know. Never heard of it. Perhaps it's a new breed? Much can happen in a few thousand years, you know?

Well, apparently her enciclopedia wasn't up to date.

"What's a krimou?" she asked Albert, not noticing the half devil girl examining her as if she were some kind of exhibit in a museum before she hurriedly left.

"Hm? Oh, a krimou's just a mix between a cow, a reveler ant and a slime," he said nonchalantly.

Isse stared at him for a moment, not comprehending. Then, without prompt, Siidi spoke: Reveler Ants are these big ass ants found in the jungles of Eva that keep growing so long as they eat. Usually after a while the smaller ants resort to cannibalism on the big ones because they eat everything. Always hungry, the little shits.

"How would that work exactly? Like, breeding three things together. I guess it's more difficult than forcing them to do a threesome."

Albert snorted, then smiled: "Sincerely? I don't know. Story goes a mad [Breeder] and a drunk [Tamer] once decided to try to do it. Skills were used, unmentionable and unnatural things happened, and now we have krimous. They produce a lot, and I mean a lot of milk, and their meat is great, and that's all the people want or need to know."

This world was really filled with strange stuff.

Then their plates arrived.

Together with a strange lady with even stranger eyes.

Isse stared up in wonder and fascination and, not long after, a sort of fear, at the woman's ringed eyes as she smiled, her thin lips looking predatory and giving her a hungry look. For a single moment, a thought crossed her mind: she would make a great arachne.

Oh, if only Isse had known the truth behind that fake face, the story of her life, of her constant fear... well, it would've probably validated her assumption even more.

Two cups appeared in front of her and Albert as, slowly, nearly reverentially, the woman placed a ceramic pot filled with water that had been boiling for quite some time now but had yet to lose a single drop of water to the steam.

She looked down at Isse, her head moving lower at her level, making her feel small, unassuming, like a child looking up at her mother. Like she had felt on her first day in this new life, when she'd met Grandmother. Even the woman's hair was at the right length, although the color was all wrong.

Her smile became less predatory and more kindly as their eyes locked together.

"Sweet child, what brings you here?" she asked, her hand moving to touch her face but stopping a few inches short, the fingertips waiting in the air, as if asking for permission. That was the real question here: may I touch you? May I comfort you? May I help you?

And both she and Siidi thought... that they could trust her. Something deep in their hearts, both the human and the spider one, told them that this woman wouldn't hurt them, that she would never even think of doing something so heinous.

So they leaned into her hand and allowed it touch their face and hair, and they reveled in the calm that overcame them.

The woman's smile became slightly bigger and, if possible, friendlier, motherly even.

"Thank you, child."

Isse and Siidi didn't stop to wonder even for a single moment why this woman was calling them 'child'. They weren't. They were women by all standards. Grown ups!

But they also weren't. They weren't even a year old in this world. They were, what, seven months old? Stars, that had felt like an eternity.

The woman's hand moved to caress them, her fingers curling in their hair and beginning to comb them slowly. And, with each passage of her hand, something clung to her fingers: little colorful strings, like the ones Aru used to sew her masterpiece of a clearing. She combed and combed, and then retracted her hands, and Isse felt a little lighter, a little happier, a little emptier.

The woman, slowly, put the strings in her cup and snapped her fingers, making leaves appear and mix together with them.

"I never thought I'd see someone who could appreciate such a mix again in my life: rhododendrum, for elegance and majesty, and mint for strenght. You're a special little child."

Isse only half listened to the woman as she looked in amazement at the leaves appearing in between those colorful strings, She kept on staring with even more amazament as the woman slowly took the pot of boiling water in her hands and, nearly reverentially, poured some of the contents in the cup, whispering a Skill.

It wasn't her most powerful, far from it. It wasn't even a Capstone Skill. No, she had obtained this one at Level 34. Such a strange number to obtain the Skill that she used the most out of all the ones the System had gifted (or cursed, she sometimes thought) her. Its name was: [Tea of Remembrance]

The strings immediately began dissolving and dry leaves opened up, as if they'd been a mummy's hand but now the dead body was being brought back to life. The colors mixed in the cup, first swirling into a beautiful ranbow with bits of tea leaves appearing now and then, reminding her...

The water was rising, waves like hungry hands reaching for them, the colors swirling below and sometimes taking the form of moments of a life Isse could no longer remember because she remembered nothing, only that she was here and the arachne beside her was urging her to climb the tower, that she would help fix everything. But what was there to fix? There was nothing wrong. There was nothing there.

Isse and Siidi batted their eyes, the connection between them strenghtening for a few moments not for the first time that evening.

That had been very vivid.

They looked back down at the teacup, but the colors were gone. Instead, they were greeted by water black as night with bits of color at the bottom that were the leaves used to infuse this tea.

"Drink up, dearie," said the woman, her voice feeling the slightest bit strained, her eyes looking at her but also at Albert, who shook his head and raised an eyebrow.

"Would you like this same treatment, sir?" she asked with familiarity and formality.

Albert shook his head: "No. Tonight is for her. Just... give me a tea that you think would fit me."

Then Isse stopped looking and listening at them, not seeing what leaves the woman used, nor noticing when she left, her steps measured but her breaths deeper and noticeably quickening.

She only had eyes for the contents of the cup.

Slowly, she lifted it towards her lips.

And sipped.

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What did Isse's memories taste like?

Well, the first question we should actually be asking is: what memories did Grazia take from her?

You've probably already guessed it, I'm sure. It is pretty obvious: she took away her bad memories. The fighting, the death, the fire of that night, the ash, Grandmother's statue. Grazia had taken it all and, right now, she was in the back of the bar regretting ever laying her eyes on them.

But right now isn't about Grazia. This is all about Isse.

Isse, who was about to taste the single most tasteful drink of her life. A mix of the bitterness from her worst memories in this new life and some of the old, together with the strong sweetness of the mint and the poisonous sour and sweet of the rhododendrum, all working together to enhance each other.

All forming a bittersweet taste that was like... nostalgia.

Isse drank.

And, like most, no, all, customers did when they tasted the tea for the first time, she began crying.

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Grazia sat in the back of the bar on a chair that had been left there by Lavia in case someone needed to rest a moment.

She had fallen into the chair and, now, was breathing in and out heavily. She wasn't panicking! oh no, absolutely not! She. Was. Not. Panicking! What was there to panic about? There was only a motherfucking arachne in the main room! That was absolutely no reason at all to panic!

...Well, okay, now, jokes apart, she wasn't panicking because of the arachne. No, she trusted Albert with her own life: if he had brought her here, to this city, then it meant he had a good reason to do so or that, at least, he trusted her.

No, what had really caused her to end up in this state was what she'd seen in the girl's memories.

Burning. The whole forest was burning up. Her little sisters were screaming in fear while their [Carers] slowly cut their way through the coming horde of [Soldiers]. So much blood, so many dead. And even some of the arachne fell. Then, the warrior appeared, and he cleaved through them like they were made out of wax, his sword never once stopping. She shot them with her arrows because she had nothing else. Grandmother was teaching her how to touch and attack souls, not how to fight in the waking world. One of her little sisters cried out: she had accidentally left them and ran, and now another one of those big [Warriors] stood over her small form, sword raised to kill...

Blood. Blood everywhere. Makira laughed madly as she jumped from one man to another, leaving behind only corpses, her four arms (four? Where had the other two come from?) wielding swords, her mouth red with the blood she'd drunk since she'd changed, her eyes as red as the sweet and metallic fluid coursing down her throat, giving her a satisfaction bordering on the sexual. She laughed, and Isse wondered if she would remember who she was fighting for, if she was going to attack her and her sisters next once all the warriors were gone.

The fire! The flames! So hot! They burn! They... what's that little spider... no, please, not me... please, let me stay with them... please!

She stared at the white walls and green ceiling of her hospital room, respirator pumping air in her lungs thanks to a tube running right into her throat. She was alive, but she felt dead, because this wasn't life. Some days, she hoped her parents would finally give up and tell the doctors to pull that tube out and let her finally die. Some days, she wanted to do that herself. One time, she had tried, but her arms were no longer as strong as they'd been before all this had started. Now, the meds and the time spent in bed had eaten away at her muscles, leaving behind only bones and veins visible through the thin film of her skin. She wanted this hell to end.

Grazia breathed in and out. In and out. In... and....... out. In........ and..................... out.

All the while, she wondered what this girl had done to deserve to live in such an Airm.

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When Isse finally stopped crying, she looked around, and saw some of the [Veterans] and [Soldiers] giving her a sympathetic look as they raised their own cups of tea in cheers, before they began sipping themselves. Some of them, like her, began crying, while others simply sat down even further in their seats and began staring at a single point on the wall, remembering and smiling slightly with tears in the corners of their eyes.

Isse, too, felt like crying again. For a moment there, as the woman had been stroking her hair, she had forgotten it all. Now, after drinking, she remembered. All her sisters, younger and older, all lost. Anda, Makira, Aru, Grandmother, Pochi, even Iadara.

But, where once there had been only the sadness that came from comparing the days when she had everything and the day she'd lost it all, now her memories of the good days had... changed.

She couldn't tell exactly how she knew, but the colors felt duller, the smiles a bit larger, maybe a bit faker, the laughter more boisterous. Everything had been enhanced and at the same time, made... greyer. Unreal. A bit more distant.

And then she understood. The sadness was there, of course. It would never leave her.

But now it was tempered down. The bad was bad, but diluted into the good.

She felt... nostalgic.

"How does it feel, Isse?" asked Albert.

She looked up at him, then around.

Finally, she sighed: "I will never be alright. I can't be, not after what happened, all that I lost. But... I think I can be better. The wound has scabbed over, for now."

Albert nodded.

And she began eating.

The meat tasted so sweet.