Chapter 2: SERENA

The talk of the Targaryen and his six-eyed dragon was wildfire in the town. Serena had more than once lurked by stalls to feign interest on the quality of fish and produce to catch the conversations. It had been nearby, they said. South, where the bannermen of the river lords rode at once with torches lighting the Red Fork like a marching mob. Travelers on the Kingsroad brought it as rumors first when it had been just a giant shadow, like how all tales and gossips of the magical begin. When more word came from the south, claiming farmers seeing a dragon, then people became more engaged to discuss the origin of the story. The rest of the conversations were muddled by jargon Serena could not piece together. "Blood of the dragon," they keep saying, and in low tones, add, "the usurper."

The vendor hissed at her with a nasty look when she had not stayed for more than ten seconds. Serena must not be as subtle as she thought she was, and being alone in a cloak with the hood draping over her eyes had earned her wary looks on every wall or corner that she lingered. She ignored the man – woman, she never bothered to look – and moved away only by chance when she didn't feel like listening to more stories. It had been interesting, but it helped her in no way of finding what to do.

She would go where her feet would take her and in circles it brought her into with uninteresting results. There were no schools, no parks; no open facilities that would make it easy for her to gather information. She remembered the streets but she could not distinguish the buildings. Most of the time, she could only surmise based on the rowdy voices leaking through the open windows.

And when she does enter, the eyes find her much faster. Her stay is always brief. A quick scan and she is given no reason to believe that a duelist is present, or the duel disk she had been waving around on her forearm would have gotten her the attention she wanted. She doesn't say a word or make the slightest eye contact, but when she turns to leave, Serena feels they would remember her the most.

At the port where there were the smallest ships she'd ever seen, rowed with dozens of oars by many men, a lanky woman covered in a glittery red robe had been staring at her from the corner of Serena's eyes. On the outside, she ignored her. Truthfully, the attention pestered her into an internal debate. There were even less things to hear in the harbors but there were at least a lot to see. She didn't want to leave yet. She didn't want to go back, cooped up in a room, seeing the familiar sight of a stretching sea through the lonely gaze of a window. She wanted to leave this town. She wanted to find Reiji and get to Synchro Dimension as they had planned. There were no duelists here or anywhere, she knew. There was nothing here for her no matter where she ran.

Serena hated the red woman. If she wanted to say something, she should speak up her mind. Unable to enjoy her peace, she stood up to make her leave. In that precise moment, a man, armored and armed like the men they'd seen on towns, gates, and roads, approached her with a jolly smile.

"Watching the ships again, my lady?"

Serena stared at him. The man was drenched in his own sweat that his face was glistening under the sun like the big blue sea. His face was mottled in red except on the large burn-like birthmark on the side of his forehead up to the temple, mud brown on a pale skin like a mismatched patching on a torn cloth.

"How fares your brother? Jord's daughter says he's still living off honey and water. How many days has it been? Three?"

Four, thought Serena. He talked about Kurosaki, though she didn't recall making a claim that he was her brother. He was the girl Ruri's brother, not Serena's. Was it Yuya?

"Who are you?" asked Serena.

"Of course, we've yet to exchange names," the man told himself aloud, "I am Tristan Dogwood, a knight in service of House Mallister. I was one of the guards on the gate. Without the helmet."

Serena remembered. "Which one?" On the night they arrived in the town, their legs and shoulders were aching numbly, and the hunger and thirst left them feeling as cold as a corpse. Since they came, the knights have been as inquisitive as the others, but they were more confrontational and did not stop at asking, as the chase that forced Reiji to split from them proved. The sight of another pair on the gates would have made them them wary, but they dragged forward and called for their attention regardless. Her unaccustomed eyes stung from the torch they brought out, but she forced them open to glance at her right. Kurosaki's head lolled to the side, his arms swung around hers and Yuya's shoulders, his chest inconspicuously rising and falling, and his face still as asleep as when he had fainted. One of the guards ushered them through. The other tried to leave them on the road.

Ser Tristan scrunched his eyebrows in confusion.

"Never mind." It didn't matter, she supposed, but maybe she would have thanked him if he had been the kinder knight. "Kurosaki hasn't gained consciousness. The doctor you sent us said he couldn't find anything wrong with him...other than the obvious..." It made Serena sad just thinking about it. Maybe it wasn't the window and its square of sea that she didn't want to see.

"The doctor? The septon?"

"Is that what they're called?"

"A man of the Faith, yes. Perhaps if you could call the Maester, your brother would have better luck."

Serena's mind whirled. "That wasn't a doctor?"

Ser Tristan laughed. "What in seven hells is a 'doctor'?"

Serena ignored him. "Who is the Maester? Where can I see him?"

"The Maester of House Mallister is Maester Senerio. He serves my Lord and his family. If you wished to speak to him, you would need a letter of introduction... From a knight, another lord, the king..." Ser Tristan shook his head in pity. "Shouldn't have said it. Your brother will wake up. It may be in the morrow."

Again, Serena ignored him. "So I have to go to this lord then? Tsk. Why weren't we told of this sooner?"

Ser Tristan's eyes moved behind Serena. The red woman came up to them, holding her slender hands underneath her bosoms. "Good day, Ser."

"To you too, my lady. You seem familiar. A trader?" asked Ser Tristan, locating the crates behind her where she had been standing moments ago.

The red woman gave a very white smile. "From Lys. Westeros is my homeland though. The ship is my house and the sea is my land."

"A woman on a ship? Asha Greyjoy isn't one-of-a-kind then. By chance, you're not Ironborn, are you?"

The red woman shook her head. "My father was a man of the North. He traveled through the Kingsroad once and met my mother. He never went back. Where in the North, I'm not sure. He talked only of snow and winter."

Ser Tristan nodded in agreement. "That's what the North is. And weirwood and wolves. Apologies for the queer question. The Ironborns are part of the Seven Kingdoms but they made themselves enemies to it not too long ago, and we stood to protect the realm on the onset of their treason."

"Greyjoy's Rebellion." The red woman nodded. "I am aware. I've come and gone in Seagard for ten years, worry not. Patrek has become one of my recent patrons, in fact. Were you talking about him? I have overheard bits of the conversation."

"Oh no, not at all." Ser Tristan dismissed it quickly. He didn't want to bring up Serena's foolish idea. "May I have your name, my lady?"

"Gretel. And no 'my lady,' ser. I'm a commoner. See," - she showed to him her right hand - "I'm missing a nail. There on my pinkie. No highborn to see, I'm afraid. What of you and your daughter, ser?"

"Daughter? No, do I look that old? Not yet five-and-twenty. Tristan Dogwood, my lady – Gretel. The young lady is Serina? Her and her brother have a mouthful of a name."

"Serena," corrected Serena absently. The castle must be where the lord was, and the maester Kurosaki needed. She had a feeling Ser Tristan wasn't going to be of much help. She turned to leave. "See ya."

"A moment, Serena," called Gretel. Serena halted and turned. "Where are you going?"

"To get a maester for Kurosaki," she answered plainly.

"A maester? Hm, child, I'm not sure what your parents have taught you, but commoners can't ask for the services of a maester. They work for their lords."

"I'll talk to the maester's lord. Is that all?"

Gretel touched her earring. "You really know nothing? Patrek is the son of Lord Mallister. The guards will not forcibly remove you if I make you my company. Unless you intended to fight your way in."

Serena hadn't thought that far ahead but she would see it that it would be done anyway. But if there were a more convenient way, then she would take it.

"I'm in a hurry. Get a move on," she ordered crisply.

Ser Tristan looked at her disapprovingly. "You're more of a lady than this one," he told Gretel.

"Appearances are deceiving, aren't they?" answered Gretel, red in the face like her robes. "But I'm not the child's mother. A man would have hit her, especially a man from the North..."

When they came upon the castle an hour later, Serena had a sudden flutter of anxiety. They would have reached it faster had Gretel walked a lot less slower. She often vanished behind Serena to blabber with people, smiling with her white smile and in no certain hurry to end it. Serena impatiently waited from a distance until it became apparent that Gretel was doing it on purpose. It had been half her mind to go ahead and leave her behind. She was going to talk to the lord whether she was there or not. But... She had to remember it was for Kurosaki. If she did not succeed once, she was unlikely to succeed again. They would kick her out and could get Yuya and Kurosaki in trouble too.

Begrudgingly, she followed Gretel and made her distance from behind. Gretel's interruptions grew less and their walk remained uninterrupted halfway through. Serena didn't notice that she'd caught up to Gretel, or that Gretel had been walking by her side until the two of them shared a conversation for the first time.

"What's your brother's name again?"

"His name is Kurosaki," said Serena, eyes straight ahead, her back straight, her shoulders even, and her hands curled into fists on her sides. "And he's not my brother."

Gretel was intrigued. "Oh? He's not your lover, is he?"

"No." Serena's answer belied nothing.

"Who is he then? Why are you going so far for him?"

She wouldn't call this as "going so far." Wasn't this a natural course of action? "He's a comrade. Along with him, Yuya, and the others, we're working on a common goal. I...owe him something too, I guess. I want to repay him on behalf of what we did to him. I want to help him get justice."

Was that how she felt? She never thought hard about it. Hearing it from herself was the first time she did. She might be avoiding a lot of things in her head. What point would it be to ponder on them if she could take action? Nothing in your head could become real unless you act on it. The Professor had been lying to her all these years. She would have none of lies anymore. She had found out the truth thanks to Yuzu, and she was going to do what she should have done years ago.

Maybe she should thank Akaba Leo for keeping her imprisoned in the castle. Had she known the truth, there would have been little she could have done about it. He considered her existence important. She could not say he viewed her opinion in the same light.

"It sounds like a long tale," commented Gretel. "Did he give you that bracelet?"

"Huh?" One moment, she was thinking about Academia, and then, all of a sudden, a bracelet? She followed Gretel's intense gaze and lifted her wrist. "Oh, this? No. I've had it with me since I can remember."

Gretel fell quiet, absorbed in the deep violet gem of her bracelet. "May I hold it?"

Serena didn't mind and handed it to her. It was just a bracelet, she thought. But why did she feel uneasy? When Gretel returned the bracelet, Seren realized she had been intently watching Gretel, not blinking or breathing. She tried not to put it back as hurriedly as she wanted to.

"Keep it with you at all times," advised Gretel, still looking at her bracelet. "Never part with it."

"Why?" she asked hesitantly. She didn't want it to bother her. It was just a bracelet.

"It's important, I can tell."

Serena had forgotten about the bracelet when they entered Seagard castle. Gretel introduced Serena as a friend and hadn't lied about her intention to ask for the maester. The knights didn't pay Serena any mind. She didn't know if that were a good or a bad sign. Asking for a maester's help was apparently uncommon or had they been exaggerating?

Maybe there were more kind knights like the guard in the gate. The men were like the buildings of the town. Serena could not distinguish them by look or tell what kind of people they were.

"Are we meeting him now?" asked Serena when the squire had left to give the message.

"If he wished. I was not to see him until later, in the docks. He is not expecting me either. Just so you know, not many can have an audience with the nobility at a moment's notice. Perhaps only the king would have such right. I'm far from a king."

Serena waited. The castle overlooked the sea much like the town, but from this height, she could see beyond the ships and watch a full view of the sky and the sea, imagining its depths of hundred feet depths where she would drown while the fishes swim with big balls of eyes and stupid open mouths. Having grown in Academia's castle, the sight had been the only thing she saw most of the time from her room. How should she put it? What she was seeing now was different. The sea looked brighter. Serena never saw the sunlight dance the way it did on the waves. There was something freer about it.

It hadn't been long before the Mallister heir emerged into the room. She thought they were going to be summoned by the squire.

"Patrek will not see you." The elderly man who entered was clad in gray wool robes. Though his skin was wrinkle and spotted, he stood straight and tall, his steps strong and steady. The man looked at Gretel. "Not until later, correct?" Gretel nodded.

"I need to speak to him now. It's been days. Kurosaki needs to see a real do – maester now," demanded Serena heatedly.

"Hush!" hissed Gretel, sounding terrified.

The elderly looked at Serena evenly with sharp blue eyes. "So I've heard. To borrow the services of his maester, correct? You're not even from Seagard. You're one of the outsiders the castle guards brought in, along with some unknown illness if we're unlucky. Diseases oft get transported in port towns. Sick men in ships don't survive the travel, but rats survive, and stones and carpets don't cough. Lord Stannis lost all hope of marrying his daughter because of a doll. Did they thought it were safe if it came through the gates?"

"Kurosaki isn't sick," said Serena. "But he isn't waking up..."

"You should have been contented with the septon then. Reciting prayers isn't a maester's job."

Serena grew angry. "He's alive! He's breathing and we're barely keeping him alive! We don't know what happened to him – I thought he looked unnaturally tired but he didn't say anything. I thought it was strange, but I didn't ask. I didn't want to hurt his pride."

During the first day they arrived, Serena confided to Yuya the same thing, minus the part with the pride. She felt guilty. Kurosaki was a battle-hardened veteran. She'd seen that herself. Between the three of them, Kurosaki should have been the last to fall.

The elderly looked at Serena sympathetically. "Come. You have to tell me everything you know. What he ate, which water he drank, when he started showing symptoms." Serena opened her mouth, but the man raised a hand. "Not here. We do it while walking." When Serena stayed nonpulsed, he rolled his eyes. "I am the maester, child. Patrek sent me."

Serena fought embarrassment as they made their way outside the castle. The maester refused a horse when a knight offered to get it summoned. "And break my back? I can still walk." No one payed attention to Serena again, but she felt like the world had seen her stupidity and every person had heard the gossip. The maester hadn't asked questions yet. She swore not lose her cool a second time.

"Serena!"

Recognizing Yuya's voice, Serena searched for him from afar and found him running toward her. When he caught his breath, he appeared exasperated.

"Geez, what are you doing all the way out here? You've been gone for hours!"

"Did something happen?" asked Serena, secretly getting nervous. She'd finally gotten a maester. If something happened to Kurosaki... But Yuya smiled.

"It's Kurosaki. Serena, he's awake."