In unconsciousness the pain is a dull thud, and also stitches that collide between the walls of the eye sockets causing bursts of orange and red light. Titania gasps and convulses, her face boiling and her body bathed in sweat. She calls her mother Valeria.

Feels small arms grab her and lift her up, then place her to rest on the dusty bed of the abandoned hut. The stranger wipes the sweat from her brow, and gives her fresh water to drink from a canteen made from the dried carcass of a big paprika as a child's head. Titania instinctively reaches for the hand of that unknown figure, and the figure reciprocates by interlacing her fingers. The girl digs her nails in and opens wounds on the figure's calloused palm, but it bears it without complaint.

After an hour of constant care, Titania finally regains the energy to open her eyes, and directs them towards the person holding her hand. Through the mist of her gaze she glimpses the figure that for an instant appears to be a scarlet-haired woman.

"Aunt...?" Titania murmurs and smiles, but the happiness vanishes from her face as the mist dissipates and the figure comes into focus, revealing itself as a boy close to her age, brown hair, black eyes, skin painted with a light tan that reveals many walks in the sun, and dressed in a thick fur cloak with bare arms.

Titania gasps and drops his hand as if it burns. She sits on the bed and backs up against the wall. Searches through her rags for the swords and discovers she no longer possesses them. But she has her claws, can use that. Confusion and doubt is the only thing that stops her from attacking.

"Who are you?" asks the girl with palpable suspicion.

"A friend" the boy answers calmly.

"I don't have any friends" Titania says through gritted teeth.

"Then what am I?"

"A stranger!"

"If you know what I am, why do you ask?"

Titania falls silent and feels the heat concentrate on her cheeks. Who is this cheeky boy? Now that she looks, could even swear he's a couple of years younger than her. A brat should never talk to a lady like that. Forgetting for a moment her situation and what happened in the kingdom, Titania bends down to reproach the boy's tone, but another whiplash in her heart makes her curl up and turns the whole world upside down. When the pain passes, and she opens the eyes again, she discovers the boy holding out a suspicious maroon sphere.

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"Berries of the Nomad King. Will good for you. Go on, eat it"

Titania reacts with instinctive wariness, until she remembers how the boy cared her, the claw marks on the boy's palm are proof of it. If he wanted to hurt her, wouldn't he have done the deed when she was unconscious and vulnerable? Titania sighs, her expression softens and, with a swift hand movement, she grabs the berry and pops it into her mouth. She chews and the berry bursts, the juice is cool and sugary. In a few seconds a revitalizing warmth spreads through her body and the pain disappears... Only to return seconds later with redoubled strength.

The heat of her insides collides with the heat of the king's berry and generates a powerful internal combustion. The young woman writhes on the bed fiercely, causing the flimsy wood to creak. She feels a cold liquid run down the corners of her lips. Slowly she tilts the face to the boy, and watches as he stands silent and aloof. Tears stream down Titania's face, and she curses herself for trusting again.

The cold black substance fills the girl's mouth and puffs up her cheeks, until it inevitably overflows. Titania hunches her back to vomit and expel the darkness for a minute that feels like an eternity. The dark matter is lost between the floorboards, and in Titania slowly dissipates the demonic appearance to make way for the usual purple-haired girl. She has a glazed look and pale skin, almost as if she were made of glass. Although her wounds from the battle against Raudo have healed, she is not strong enough to stand upright. Now only a weakened heart beats in her chest.

She falls head first over the edge of the bed, but instead of hitting the floor, her forehead hits a warm chest. The boy grabs her arms. Titania brings her hands behind the boy's back and squeezes him, unable to remember when she was last held.

"I am... Titania" she says in a trembling voice.

"I know. I've been spying on you"

"H-H-Huh...?" Titania slowly raises her face to the stoic boy.

"My name is Camui" says the boy, and after catching the girl's confusion, he opens his mouth to explain, but a sudden tremor cuts off his words.

Camui helps the girl to stand up, letting her lean on his shoulders even though she is taller than him. They leave the hut together, but they can't go far. From the threshold of the entrance they witness an ominous bubbling rising from the bog.

An entity rises out of the mud and moss. As soon as the mud falls due to gravity, the entity reveals itself as a black, lumpy cumulus raised by a narrow column. In the center of the cumulus, distorted faces swell and deflate, and in one of those amorphous faces the features of Raudo can be identified.

"Still... Burns... Buuuuuuuuuuuuurns!"

The scream echoes and makes the swamp birds take off in flight to escape. Titania pales as she faces the physical form of all the power and hatred accumulated during her revenge. She turns to Camui to tell him to escape, but the boy is strangely determined.

Camui lets go of Titania and with a leap he lands on a boulder, right in front of the entity. The creature's faces roar in his direction, but the young boy neither recoils nor flinches, and instead simply pulls a wooden carving from his cloak.

Back in the kingdom, Ivy explores the subway stone passages, illuminating the shadows with the face gems on her staff. Finally the light reaches a tall, starving figure who recoils and gasps, crawling away from the brightness as if she were the sun itself. From the child comes a prolonged whimper that is really a word:

"Ma...? Mama...?"