Dear diary, war is crazy.

“How can you have so much stuff already? We have been here for barely three days.” I say as I try to close the massive trunk with Anna’s clothes.

“Well, I made sure to get enough clothing and supplies for my travel back,” she says in a happy tone.

“Yeah, back to where? the moon or something?” I say while observing the five massive trunks of stuff.

“No, of course not. That is where the graceful lady lives.” She says while giggling.

“Who?” I ask, a bit confused by the term.

“It's out of one of the books in the library. It says that people used to be uncivilised and fought a lot, almost destroying the world. So the graceful lady descended and gave us peace and prosperity.”

“That sounds unlikely, but magic does, too, so I might as well give it a look when you leave.”

“Wait, you're not coming with us?” Anna asks with big eyes.

“I thought so, yeah.”

“But you are my fiancé. You should always be with me”, she complains.

“I would love that, but there is still a lot I have to do, like learn magic, invite my family and so on.”

Anna starts to pout. “I don’t like that. How long would I have to wait for you to come back then?”

“Uhm, not sure, but apparently, I can travel in time, so it won’t be that long.”

“So, like, a week, I can delay my father that much, I think.”

“Maybe, but I am really not sure. I don’t have that much control over it.”

She frowns. “You better be back before I become of age, at least.”

“I am sure that I can manage that,” I say with a smile. Then, I pick up one of the trunks. “So where does this need to go?”

“You know that we can ask the knights to carry heavy stuff, right?”

I pause for a second, then put the trunk back down. “Right, well, let's get some knights then.”

The whole farewell ceremony took a lot longer than I would have thought. Apparently, Anna’s father and Gilford had a lot to discuss, and then there was lunch and getting all the horses settled with the gear and stuff. All that to say, two hours later, we are saying our goodbyes at the gates.

“Thank you again, Traveller, for rescuing my daughter. May you always be welcome at our home,” Duke Blanch tells me.

“You are more than welcome, though some of the situations were unpleasant. I had a great time being with her,” I say, trying to keep to the same amount of formality.

“Good, well train hard under Gilford, and we may see each other in the capital once again,” he says before stepping back a bit.

Then Anna walks up, throwing her arms around me. “I am going to miss all your crazy talks”, she says.

“Just the way I talk?” I ask with a sly grin.

“No, I am going to miss you too,” She pulls her head back to look at me and kisses me.

I feel the whole world stand still for a second as I hear a collective gasp in the background. Then she pulls away, blushing deeply before running off to her carriage. Her dad is frowning at me, so I give him a small smile, not knowing how exactly I should deal with this situation.

If he thought anything of it, he does not share it with us, and after one last goodbye to Gilford, he turns around, and that is how they leave the city. When they have disappeared out of sight. Gilford doubles over, laughing loudly.

“What is so funny?” I ask, frowning.

“You got the daughter of a duke to kiss you in front of her father; that just does not happen normally. They would try to strike you down or challenge you to a dual, but somehow, old Edgard over there decided that you either were not a threat too much of a threat or good enough for his daughter.”

“And which one is it, then?” I ask, curious.

“I don’t know, but if you want to know, you might want to run after them and ask,” he says before he starts laughing again.

“You, you are a child!” I shout before I storm back inside.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Once I am back inside, I head back to the training room to practice my magic. I want to be at least somewhat competent with it, after all. This is the reason why I spent the rest of the day there before heading to the dining hall for food.

“Traveller, we should talk,” Gilford says when there is a bit of quiet.

“About what?” I ask, a bit confused.

“You should probably should start travelling again. Make sure you get to where you need to be.”

“I know, but I have not mastered magic as much as I wanted to yet.”

“I know that is why I am giving you this,” he says while handing me a book.

The script of the book is in an ancient Runic language that I translated to the elements of Pyra.

“This is a spell book. Are these not extremely rare.” I ask incredulously.

“Yes, they are. That is why I want you to bring it back once you are done with it.”

I smile at him. “Thank you. I will make sure I will.”

“Good, and don't forget, if you find any interesting magic, bring it back to your teacher.”

“Yes, I will. No problem in that way.”

We enjoyed the rest of the evening just chatting about hypotheticals of magical development. Once that is done, I grab my stuff and head to a special room Gilford has in his castle.

“So what is this again?” I ask while looking at all the scribbles on the wall.

“It is a monitoring room. It is used to detect all the effects a spell might have. I thought using your device in here might give us some insights into how it works.”

“I see, so are you ready?’ I ask him, getting excited again.

“Ready when you are,” he says as he stands behind some barrier.

“Gilford, thank you for everything.”

“It has been my pleasure, and I look forward to your exploits.”

I smile, then get out the metal plate, green, blue, purple, green. The quiet hum of the wind against the sones and the whooshing of the candles is replaced by the deafening sound of an alarm. I look around in confusion. All around me are all kinds of dials and pipes that are letting out steam.

I am in some kind of machine or factory, I guess, but what kind? I am really not sure. I slowly start walking through the corridors, trying to figure anything out about where I am. The alarm still seems to be urging me to find some exit.

As I round a corner, I stumble upon two people. At least, I think they are covered from head to toe in white-grey armour, including some weird oblong helmet. As soon as they spot me, they point their rifles at me. I quickly raise my hands above my head, trying to appear non-threatening. Then one of the things points some kind of device at me that shines this horizontal blue light from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head.

“Result. Pure human,” the device says.

Both of the creatures pause and look at each other, then they drop their weapons and bow to me. Well, now I am truly confused.

“Can anyone tell me what is going on?” I ask.

“Yes, ma’am,” the left creature says. “We were raiding a Catolasis slaver ship looking for any survivors and capturing any criminals.”

I nod. “Then could either of you tell me where the exit is? I would like to get off, please.”

“Most certainly, ma’am,” the same thing says again. “The two of us would be more than happy to escort you to safety.”

“That is great. Shall we go then?”

They both pick their weapons back up and stand up, and then one starts walking forward, gesturing for me to follow, so I do just that. The other one falls in behind me. Either to protect me or to make sure I don’t go anywhere.

They take me to a glass elevator and get in. The front soldier? I think that is what they are: grab a device out of his belt and put it into the control panel. Then, press some buttons, and the elevator starts to move.

We slowly head up. Through the glass windows, I can clearly see our progress from the pipes and gear onto a floor that I assume is more used as living space, but currently, it is covered in blood, and I need to stabilise myself. I think there are corpses as well.

“What happened here?” I ask.

“Catolasis put up more of a resistance here. We lost a lot of good men here today.”

“I see I am so…” the rest of my words never come out as I see the most amazing sight: the living quarters give way to windows that allow me to look outside. And it is one hell of a view, infinite darkness as far as the eye can see, only broken up with the sparkling light of the star. A blue-green planet hovering below us.”

“Ma’am, are you okay?” one of them asks, dragging me out of my reverie.

“I am in space on a spaceship,” I say with a big smile.

“Yes, you are. Are you okay? Did you hit your head or something?”

“No, I just, it is so pretty and cool,” I say, not even having the ability to come up with a good lie.

“That it is, ma’am space is a bountiful but deadly thing.”

I look up to see only a bigger spaceship hanging above whatever we are in.

“Yep, it's wonderous,” I say

They seem to leave me alone after that, content in waiting for the elevator to reach its destination. Once we do make it to the top, we disembark. There are a lot more people walking around here in the space suits. They take me to some kind of pneumatic airlock that connects us to their ship.

Once we finally enter their frankly massive ship, I am surprised once again by the sheer size of it. This is some kind of hanger with multiple smaller spacecraft docked and several of the armoured personnel walking around and inspecting stuff.

Then I see my first creatures without helmets on their are cats. But like capable of walking on two legs and their hands, or are they still called paws, they seem smaller and capable of more dextrose tasks. But they still got their fur and whiskers and their big eyes. What concerns me is that they are all in cages.

“What is that?” I ask while pointing at them

“You don’t know?” one of the guards asks, confused.

“Pretend that I am really new here,” I say

“Those are the Catolasis.”

“So there are actual cats. That is good to know, and why are you fighting them?”

“They believe that all humans are is a plague. Their ability to procreate with most races disgusts them,” he explains.

I give him a confused look “That sounds awful, so they're some kind of purist. But why care about another race then?”

“It's complicated. We have been fighting each other for a long time now.”

“I see. Well, you got to tell me sometime then.” I say “Anyway, where are you taking me?”

“To your room. Usually, we would take you to command, but they are organising the rescued slaves and would like to talk with you tomorrow if that is not too much to ask.”

I shrug. “That is fine with me.”

They take me further inside past several colours in this mace of a ship. It is way too big for anyone to remember what way it is up or down in. The room they gave me is very nice. I have a clean bed, a private bathroom, a fridge with food and wine and some more comfortable clothes.

“Thank you so much. This place is amazing. I can’t thank you enough… I don’t think I know your names.” I say a bit awkwardly.

“It is fine, ma’am. We are just low-clearance grunts. No need to concern yourself with us.”

“Hey, none of that. You helped me, so who are you?”

“I am Derk, and this is Simon,” the left one says.

“Well, Derk and Simon, thank you so much for bringing me here safely.”