Quiet filled my mind, wrapping me in its unyielding embrace. Quiet I wished would last forever.

Lovely, to sit between comfort and void.

Parts of my mind felt broken, permanently lost. Memories and sensations I would normally be recalling on a loop until I wished this dim would swallow me into nonexistence, all of it I couldn't recall if I tried.

The silence stretched wide and long. Or at least, as such I felt.

Because this quiet wasn't mine alone.

In this dim, somehow, I knew that someone else's presence lingered, breathing over my shoulder and reminding me with utmost cruelty that even in this void, I wasn't alone.

A ray of golden light flickered in the loosely comfortable void—a weightless place where nothing was. In a blink, everything was set alight.

Warmth that wasn’t my own filled my chest, as I gazed over a long, seemingly endless horizon. Green and golden. Breezy and warm.

And it invited me in.

A large tree in the distance called my name. A grand and majestic oak, its sprawling crown brimming with restless leaves, each whisper carried by the breeze.

I left the dim behind me and approached its shadow, my small body seeking refuge from the light. My hands felt sticky, weighed down with something I didn’t want to name.

The trunk of the old tree was full of scribblings. Words I couldn’t read and shapes that meant nothing.

All but one carving drew my eye. My fingers hovered over it.

The breeze brushed against my skin, carrying the birds' far chirping, the grass's soft rustling, and distant laughter.

I glanced over my shoulder. The dim was gone, replaced by a marble white house gleaming in the sunlight.

Silhouettes moved in front of it, heading in my direction: young kids and their mother.

Right, I’d come here before them. I remembered now.

Their outlines shifted as if caught between two realities. One moment, they were strangers—the next, my siblings. I blinked, and the truth slipped away again.

“Penelope, darling!” The woman called out, waving her hand in my direction.

“Mother!” The word slipped from my lips unbidden, the voice my own but the feeling unfamiliar.

Maybe it was the distance that made Ma's silhouette so unfamiliar?

I stood where I was, the sun warming my face as I watched them come closer. I smiled, my hands curled behind my back.

The stickiness clung to my palms, each drop hitting the ground with a sharp finality.

The droplets fell one by one— thunk, thunk, thunk. The sound grew heavier, slowly transforming into the crunch of footsteps on dirt.

I blinked, the sunlight blurring into muted greys and greens.

Warmth faded, leaving behind an ache in my chest and the stiff weight of my limbs. My body rocked with each step, jostled as if carried by someone.

The world returned piece by piece, hazy and foreign until I realized where I was—or rather, on whom I was slumped.

It took effort to keep my eyes open. My body felt leaden, and my mind clung to the haze... unwilling to surface.

My head basked against something solid, my limbs leaden and unresponsive. Each step jarred my body, the motion both rhythmic and nauseating.

I grunted, the pain of the injury on my back faint, but present enough to send chills through my body. It felt cold, as if clumsily bandaged in wet tissue.

Roused by it, if only a tad, I caught sight of what my face lolled against; the silver single-shoulder armor.

For a moment, I was caught between the relief that he was alive and the confusion about where I was or what I was doing on his back. He is already well...

A familiar metallic stench loomed strong on my carrier’s body, yet given his sturdy steps, Truman seemed healthy enough.

The thought of being on his back, barely able to open my eyes made my heart clench.

All such thoughts left me grasping for the comfort of anger, but I was too drained to hold on to it.

The sound of chirping crickets and the dirt crushing under heavy feet, the absence of the fog, and the sound of rustling water nearby... we must have left Fokchik's hill.

That hill…

Images flickered in my mind—crackling fire, echoing laughter, whispers on the wind…

... why did it ache to think of it?

A third figure walked alongside us, her steps quiet, her gaze watchful.

Her eyes, a deep shade of pink, locked onto mine for a fleeting moment before my body gave in to the weight of sleep again.

~

A crunchy texture pressed against my cheek.

I adjusted my body with much effort. The rough chemise and the tight grip of my long coat gave me little warmth as I lay on what felt like plucked grass covered in cloth.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. Blurred shapes sharpened into the silhouettes of distant trees, their shadows mingling beneath a starry sky. They stood like silent sentinels, encircling the frost-bitten grass and skeletal branches. The air was still, devoid of the cricket song.

I groggily sat up, relieved by the absence of the hair length that would usually get caught everywhere. Yet somehow missing the heat.

The fire’s heat struck me from the side—its crackling glow pulling my gaze. Twigs and ripped grass fed the flames, surrounded by a barrier of jagged stones.

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I blinked, and the memories seeped in.

A hoard of monsters, swamping towards the giant fire. The sound of taken lives. The towering trees… The fall.

A stick stirred the flames, held by the knight who saved my life. Truman sat on a cloth-covered boulder, his high cheekbones and disheveled hair illuminated by the fire, gaze watchful of the fire. The golden in his eyes shimmered against the blaze’s dance, lips dry and face drawn with sleepless nights.

After that deal with the stranger and his little fox… Despite everything, I returned—to the blood, to the carnage.

My stomach churned as more and more memories flooded my mind.

Alice. Fars. And…

I glanced down at my hands. Dark, dried blood stained the pale skin, smudged with futile attempts to wipe it.

A soft cough resonated next to the fire again. I turned to find Alice seated there,

All of the scrutiny of her gaze had melted into an empty look lost within the fire’s flames. A light cloth was draped over her shoulders, and her breaths formed little white clouds in the air, her short silken hair partially reflecting the moonlight. She seemed untouched by the harsh night, serene as ever.

A striking migraine shattered my thoughts, making me refocus my attention on the present.

I was free.

My plan had come to fruition.

No sacrifices, no moral quandaries.

I was free… and everyone else was dead.

An inexplicable weight pressed against my chest, unrelenting.

I buried my face in my hands, feeling the fire’s warmth on my left side. Truman and Alice glanced at me, but neither spoke.

A soft thud beside me made me look up. Truman had tossed me a blanket I recognized. Our eyes met briefly, a silent message. Then he turned back to the fire.

He wore the clothes I had packed for him—a brown wool mantle over a black tunic, and woolen gloves. This knitted blanket was one of the things I’d packed.

I draped it over my knees, staring again at my stained hands.

The sensation of the blood gnawed at me. And as if on cue, the pounding in my head spread to my eyes, making them burn and water.

I shut them tightly. It’s from the cold.

The thought was laughable. Pathetic.

I wanted to scream at myself. To claw back time. All those years I spent building a noble sort of future, the kind I always admired, washed away in a matter of days.

And this is what’s left of me?

I had always been a despicable kind of person, but… it was never this bad.

Deep down, was I always the person she wanted me to be?

I knew the pain he would have inflicted. I knew it too well. That burning, helpless feeling.

He deserved every single hit. So…

I clenched my fists, turning to look at the two survivors beside me.

“Is he dead?”

The words left my lips in white, tense clouds, and the world couldn’t have gotten quieter as I waited for a response.

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

Through Alice’s gaze, the world had stopped as Penelope Ashdown, with all of the unexpected gall of a woman gone mad, swung that sharp tool up in the air behind Fars’ back.

Alice had been caught in awe, for moments uncountable.

She wondered if Penelope had meant to kill him. The rage in her eyes had been undeniable, but so too had the hesitation—the briefest flicker of something human before the blade fell.

All the fury with which she acted could not have been born solely of a desire to save her—indeed, why had she troubled herself to do so in the first place? Did she now regret it? Or did she regret failing to see the matter through to the end?

Sitting across from the woman she thought she’d understood, Alice hesitates. Penelope had always been an open book—a most predictable tale. But now, there were pages Alice couldn’t read.

“He’s alive,” She admitted, watching as the stiff posture of the blonde woman across softened. “That thing was still breathing when we left him. And the scouting party wasn’t far behind. We can only assume… But he has likely survived.”

Across the fire, Truman’s gaze met hers—steady, observant. He said nothing.

Penelope’s bloodshot blue eyes glimmered in conflicted relief. She tightened the blanket around her shoulders and cozied up to the fire, the slight frown on her face intact.

The flames’ occasional crackling echoed through the clearing, not nearly strong enough to break anyone from their stupor.

Alice took in another frosty breath, yet her insides felt warm.

Sitting with two simpletons and the isolating, ominous night breeze, Alice’s mind was strangely eased.

I don’t hate this as much as I should…

There had never been something more distracting to Alice than people. Than their constant, unending thoughts. No dream of hers, whether it was coin, comfort, or luxury, could ever top the impossible silence she yearned for since the moment she was born.

… Yet right now, facing a warm fire, no sounds were intruding upon her quiet.

Truman’s thoughts hovered at the edge of her awareness—simple, detached musings she could easily ignore. The simplicity of this man’s mind was his most attention-grabbing trait.

Still contemplating Truman's traits, Alice's gaze inevitably fell upon Penelope, whose disarray stood in stark contrast to the tranquility beside the fire.

Firelight reflected upon the jagged ends of her hair, now hacked into an uneven neck-length tangle, framing her face like a halo, its imperfection striking. The once-luxurious locks, a treasured source of pride, had been reduced to something utilitarian.

It suited her.

Her frame was frail and scarred: a thin line across her neck, a redness along her slightly swollen jaw, a faint scratch on her forehead, and lips cracked and dry from injury.

The elegance was gone, leaving only the raw, unpolished remnants of someone Alice wasn’t sure she recognized.

Alice’s fingers twitched, briefly tempted to reach out and neaten the ragged edges, before she stilled the impulse. It wasn’t her place. Not anymore.

Alice held her neck, staring into the fire as the memory of the day her mistress was gone came to mind.

That day, in the courtroom, standing before the prince, Alice saw the ever-so-dead gaze of her lady flash to life.

And since then, silence.

Alice hadn’t known what to make of it—whether it unnerved or soothed her, she still couldn’t quite decide.

Owls hooted in the distance, and Truman carefully stirred the flames once more…

The fear, the guilt, and the inhumanity of the day hadn't escaped Alice. Those emotions lingered in the quiet corners of her mind, lurking just beneath the surface.

But for now, she welcomed the stillness.

Alice had always hated listening to people’s minds. She hated their thoughts pressing into hers, no warning or consent.

Tonight, for the first time, Alice could sit in silence—no thoughts pressing against her own. And it unnerved her how comforting that felt.

“Shrewd move,” the Sinomian knight remarked at Penelope, breaking her out of her stupor. “The staged death, I mean.”

Penelope glanced up at him, a flicker of light passing through her gaze. She nodded politely, almost absentminded.

Alice had taken note of Truman’s demeanor. His posture was far from perfect: one leg stretched out before him, the other bent to maintain his balance as he sat. The warmth of his voice and the steady rhythm of his breathing conveyed a quiet ease.

His mind and body spoke the same language. A strange man.

This sort of thing Alice could only dream of before tonight. And yet here she was, able to experience the sort of peacefulness that people with eyes unlike hers could.

And it all started with her; the only quiet mind Alice knew.

“… Have you chosen a new name?” She asked.

“Right. That seems fitting after all this, doesn’t it?” Truman remarked, watching for Penelope's reply.

“No,” Penelope muttered, her voice strained. “Not yet.”

Penelope, or whoever she had become, grimaced against a pain that refused to relent. With a slow, deliberate motion, she picked up the poster boy hat from the ground and set it on her head, her eyes heavy and drooping, betraying exhaustion.

“I’m going to bed.” With that, she laid back down and turned her back away, tightening a blanket around her.

Truman gave her a lazy smile, though his gaze remained thoughtful. “Good night, then.”

Alice put out her hands to warm them against the fire. “That might be the least appropriate thing to say tonight, Sir Truman.” She said, her expression blank.

Truman stirred the fire again, "If you're alive to hear it, then I see no better time to call it a good night." He lightly grinned, eyes on the fire. "That, and if you're wealthier than you were yesterday." He gave a solemn nod.