Maiden of the Sky, Master of the Tower
By CrimsonStarbird
-A Reason to Live at the Point of Convergence-
August, X784
Summer came to Era.
The climate here was a temperate one, and as such, even the hottest of the seasons was fortunately moderate – not that you would know it from speaking to an inhabitant of the city. Every year, regardless of how average the official meteorological data insisted the temperature was, the citizens would spend the entire month of August complaining about the atypically unbearable heat. Then, as soon as autumn had settled in, they would remember the summer as cold and wet, surely the most miserable on record, with only a day or two of actually being able to wear summer clothes and work on their suntans. Era's shopkeepers complained endlessly about the influx of tourists, while simultaneously using the accompanying increase in profits to plan their own trips abroad.
For one of Era's Rune Knights, the answer to which of the seasons was the worst to patrol in likewise depended entirely on when you posed the question to them. If you asked in winter, then the cold season was the one to dread: standing still on guard duty in sub-zero temperatures for hours on end, forbidden from even grabbing a warm drink with which to unfreeze their hands from the frosty metal of their weapons, was by far the worst part of their job. If you asked in summer, then it was the perpetual heat, the absence of shade, the longer days, and above all, the lack of any summer adjustments to their uniform that might have permitted them to remove some of their sweltering armour that made their job hell. Then spring was too wet, and autumn too dreary, and the days on which patrolling the city was anything other than a nightmare apparently boiled down to a couple of dry mornings in May.
Only to Lahar did the season make little difference. The scorching heat and the unforgiving cold were such minor things compared to the shadow hanging over his life that they made no impact at all on his enthusiasm – or utter lack thereof. For over a year now the months had all blurred into each other, one after the next. He got the vague impression that the world was changing, but he was no longer a part of it, and so the evolution of the seasons slowly passed him by.
As always, he walked the same route, in the same stony silence, with the same amount of disinterest towards his surroundings. The market, as loud and indomitable as ever, ignored him, as it had slowly learnt to do, and he ignored it in return. The other Knights he passed on his rounds always nodded respectfully to him, in deference to his rank, but nothing more than that. Even those he had once considered friends as well as colleagues had learned a long time ago not to bother trying to start a conversation with him. It was better for all of them that way.
So his patrol went by without incident, as it always did, and he had almost reached the safety of the Council Headquarters when, through sheer coincidence, his gaze fell upon her.
"She's here again?" he murmured to himself. There was a street packed full of people between him and her, and he could only catch the occasional glimpse of her through the crowd. "It's the start of a new month already? What is it now? July? No, August. That must be it. The first of August."
The calendar was of little importance to a man who had removed himself from any and all social commitments. In fact, it was only by her regular visits that he was aware of the exchange of months at all. Ever since January that year, she had been there on the first day of every month. She didn't go sightseeing, or meet up with acquaintances, or even visit any of the shops or cafés she had loved dragging Siegrain to back in the day. She just sat there with Carla, on that bench outside the main entrance to the Council Headquarters, and waited. And at the end of the day, the two of them got up and returned home, and that was it until the next month restarted her strange clockwork vigil.
He hadn't spoken to her once during any of her visits. Initially, merely setting eyes upon her had triggered memories he didn't want to think about. It was the first time he had seen her since the day they had done jobs together for the Council – the day that Matthias had died. There was a part of him that wondered how she was getting on, and what she was doing in Era, and why the person she was waiting for never appeared – but that little compassionate voice in the back of his mind was always drowned out by the paralyzing fear that had come to characterize his daily existence: fear of anything that would bring back the guilt his self-imposed isolation was holding at bay; fear of other people's pity, that would only be more poignant from a person who had once had strong ties to him and his brother.
He didn't want to talk to her, and if he didn't want to, then he didn't have to – just like he didn't have to go to the training ground and interact with the other Knights there, or chat with the people in the market, or think about anything other than just putting one foot in front of the other. He knew she knew he was there. With her gift for sensing magic, she'd have spotted him long before he had her, as usual. And he also knew that if he did what he always did and pretended he hadn't seen her, she wouldn't give any indication that she had seen him either. Perhaps she could tell he didn't want to talk to anyone right now.
So he walked past, as he did every time, with his head turned away from her and towards his destination, the main entrance to the Council Headquarters. And he almost made it. Only, as luck would have it, a sudden breeze caught the oversized floppy hat of a tourist walking in front of him and carried it past him into the air. Reacting to old instincts he hadn't known he still possessed, he turned automatically, jumped, and caught it in his fingertips – and his gaze fell once more upon the young girl sat on the bench.
Fortunately, she wasn't looking at him, but as he stood there with the straw hat hanging limply from his grip, he couldn't help but notice that she was on her own.
The large figure of the tourist, as comically oversized as her hat, appeared in his vision, but as she thanked him profusely for his help in a thick accent, praising the hat-saving heroism of Era's Knights, he wasn't listening to a word that she was saying. His thoughts kept drifting back to Wendy. Why wasn't Carla with her today? Was she really there all by herself?
He didn't want to talk to her. So what if she was on her own? It wasn't his fault. She was obviously waiting for Siegrain, so if it was anyone's fault that she was alone, it was his.
But…
She looked so lonely, waiting forever for someone who was never going to show up. And he thought he might have understood.
Making his automatic excuses to the overexcited tourist, he began to walk slowly, and with growing dread, towards the girl sat on the bench. He was just doing his job. That was all this was. If he encountered an unaccompanied child left alone in the middle of the city, it was his job as a Knight to ensure that they were alright, and that there was an adult or guardian coming back for them. He couldn't overlook his lawful duty, just because he happened to know her. That was the thought that forced him to keep putting one foot in front of the other when all his instincts were screaming at him to turn around and flee before she saw him.
And before he knew it, he was stood right in front of her. It had been well over a year since he had last seen her up close, and though he had not cared for the passing of time, it had left its mark nonetheless on those swept along in its tide. She was older now, and that was always easier to spot in a child than an adult. She had grown a little, though she would always be short, and her hair was longer; it tumbled freely almost to her waist. She had always loved to wear dresses, and today's one bore lively yellow and blue stripes – reminiscent of the patterns preferred by her guild, rather than the current fashion trend in the city.
But rather than her clothes, or her height, or her hair, the thing that jarred the most against his memory of her was her posture. She was sat demurely, with her hands placed together in her lap, staring at the ground in front of her. The Wendy in his memory was always laughing, always smiling, always trying to understand the world, always full of wonder, and always so very alive. He had prayed for the happiness and the determination and the liveliness to vanish from the world around him after Matthias had died, and they had stubbornly refused to do so, so why instead had they disappeared from this one beautiful girl?
"Wendy…"
He hadn't realized he had spoken aloud until she jumped at the sound of her name. She glanced up and her eyes widened at the unexpected sight of him – and then a flash of that beaming smile he remembered crossed her face. He felt great sadness at that moment, because that brilliant smile, so full of life, brought back an echo of better times now gone forever, when he had had a reason to live alongside his family and his friends. But there was also some part of him that was relieved. If Wendy could still smile like that, then not everything from that time had yet been lost.
"Lahar!" she exclaimed. She jumped to her feet, clumsily brushing herself down and then standing up straight.
"You don't have to get up…"
"Ah! Sorry!" She shifted her weight slightly between her feet and clasped her hands bashfully behind her back. "I guess I'm just not so used to being around Knight Captains any more, and you looked so stern…"
"I did?"
"Not in a bad way! In, uh, a cool, authoritative way. Like a proper Captain. Are you out on patrol? Because I don't want to disturb you if you are…"
"No, I just finished. I… wanted to check that you were okay."
"…Okay? Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"Well, you know, a girl of your age left completely alone in the city for hours is the sort of thing that would bother any Rune Knight out on patrol."
She gave a slightly embarrassed smile. "Yeah, I often get Knights and other people asking if I'm waiting for someone. I'm okay though. I'm used to coming to the city on my own."
Something about how easily she could say that bothered him. "You're not usually on your own, though, are you? Where's Carla today?"
"She… she decided she wasn't going to come this time. She said I was being silly. She said Siegrain wasn't going to show up again, and that he obviously didn't want to see me, and that I was just wasting my time by coming every month anyway…" Then Wendy seemed to shake herself, and her downcast manner was banished in an instant. "But it wasn't a waste of time at all, because I got to see you! I haven't seen you in ages. I guess you've been really busy, haven't you?"
"Busy…?" he mumbled, as if he didn't understand the concept. Or, rather, as if he didn't understand why she was coming up with excuses for him. "Yes. I suppose that's it. I've been busy."
"You're always working hard," she marvelled. "Oh! Are you busy now? I don't want to interrupt anything! I'm fine waiting here on my own!"
"No," he found himself saying. "It's alright. I'm not doing anything."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I was on my way back to Headquarters when I saw you."
It was the end of his shift; he had the rest of the afternoon off. Under normal circumstances – that is, circumstances as they would have been over a year ago, when the world had held some meaning – he would have used the free time to train with his unit, coordinating optional group drills that almost everyone had attended every week, or he would have trained privately, to maintain his level of physical fitness or gain more combat experience in practice bouts. Under current circumstances, as had become habit, he would have skipped out on training altogether and gone home – or at least gone to a place where he wouldn't have to interact with other people. That was exactly what he wanted to do right now.
But he wanted to be alone. That was his choice. Wendy didn't have a choice in the matter. In fact, she had come here to try and find Siegrain, even though she knew he didn't want to see her, precisely because she didn't want to be alone. And it wasn't any of his business what went on between the aloof councillor and the girl who continued to love him dearly… except somehow it was. He looked at her and she looked back at him curiously, and it was every bit his business, because he cared about her. No matter how much he tried to push it all away and cut himself off from everyone, he just couldn't let this girl sit here on her own.
So, he added, "Actually, now that I've finished on patrol, I was thinking about getting some lunch in town. If you haven't eaten yet, do you want to join me?"
Her eyes lit up immediately. "Can I? Are you sure that's okay?"
"It is," he reassured her, and even though the perpetual dread in the pit of his stomach had intensified once again at the thought of going back into the town centre, somehow the bright smile on Wendy's face made it a little more bearable than usual. "Is there anywhere in particular that you want to go? What's your favourite thing to eat?"
It didn't take her long to come to a decision. "Crepes are my favourite! Can we get crepes? Please?"
"Of course-"
He had spoken without thinking and the words caught in his throat and a tremor ran through him and it was another moment or two before his conscious mind caught up and he understood why it was such a repulsive idea. The last time he and Wendy had gone to that café and eaten crepes together had been the day that Matthias had died.
And he wasn't the only one who remembered. Any hope he may have harboured of hiding his reaction before Wendy could pick up on it was instantly dashed when her eyes widened in horror. And she said, quickly, bravely, "On second thoughts, maybe it'll be better to try somewhere new. There's this really cute cat café between here and the station that I've always wanted to try, but Carla thinks it's weird so I've never had the chance before, but since she's not here this time-"
He knew she was doing it for him, and her well-intentioned pity only opened up old wounds. For a child to be pitying him – it was more than he could bear. He should never have approached her. He should have stayed well out of the way, just like he always did.
But she was still talking, still going on about nothing, still trying to help the situation in the only way she knew how; doing all she could to restore the tenuous bond of companionship between them. And just detectable above the pain that her words brought him was a twinge of guilt deep inside. He knew that his standoffishness was the cause of her discomfort. He had come over to her in an attempt to make her feel less lonely, not more so; he couldn't possibly leave without making things better.
"No, crepes are fine," he said. "I haven't been to that café in ages. Let's go there."
It was the complete opposite of what he was thinking, and he was certain that she knew it. There was a lengthy pause as she tried to work out whether it would be politer to argue, for his sake, or to go along with what he had said. "Okay," she conceded.
The Knight set off towards the shop. He could still remember the way – he walked a similar route every day that he was on patrol, but he hadn't done it once in his free time for over a year. Wendy walked tamely by his side. Occasionally she would glance at him, as if she wanted to say something, but she decided against it every time, and they reached their destination in silence.
He stopped outside. It wasn't because he was scared, or because he was upset; rather, it was that he felt nothing at all, despite his distinct certainty that he should be feeling something. Wendy hesitated, and then rather than asking if he was still okay to go through with it, she took the lead, taking his hand and leading him through the door.
The owner of the café had redecorated since last time; Lahar wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. It mattered little anyway, because the cashier was the same lady who had worked the weekday lunchtime shift for as long as he had lived in Era, and she recognized him immediately. "Well, if it isn't Captain Lahar! Good afternoon!"
"Afternoon," he mumbled, an automatic response.
"I haven't seen you in ages! I thought you must have moved away. Either that, or the Council had started enforcing a strict diet plan for all its Knights…"
A forced smile was probably the right way to react. "Nothing like that. I've just… been very busy, that's all."
"Well, at least you've managed to get out and about today! What can I get for you and your friend?"
"Wendy?" he prompted her.
"Hmm. I was thinking I might try the salmon and cream cheese one this time."
"Really? You said last time you couldn't comprehend why anyone would put those things in a crepe!"
"But you said that apparently it was a thing normal adults did."
"Well, it is, but… do you even like smoked salmon?"
"I'm not going to know until I try it," came her bright response.
"You…" In face of her unending optimism, he had no choice but to surrender. "Well, if that's what you want, then that's what you can have. I'll get a sweet one, so that if you don't like it, we can swap."
It was probably best to be on the safe side, despite Wendy's insistence that she wanted it. She was still a child, after all.
Although, on second thoughts, was it still alright to call her a child? How old was she now? Twelve? She was young, but given the sensitivity with which she was trying to approach him, and her kindness…
In the time since Matthias's death, he had become so used to people acting differently around him – trying so hard not to upset him – that he could identify every trick in the book, and he had become numb to them. He barely even noticed their pity any more; that pain was simply normal. Yet Wendy wasn't acting differently towards him. No, this was just how she was all the time: more sensitive, more tactful, and more compassionate than most adults he had met. Age had nothing to do with it.
Being around Wendy was just as painful as being around anyone else, but this pain was honest and real, and that made it somehow more bearable. She wasn't just a child he was looking after out of a sense of duty – she was a friend.
And just as he was trying to protect her and cheer her up, she was trying to do the exact same thing for him; not as a dependent child, but as an equal. It wasn't just that she was trying to understand him – she really did understand. She had been battling loss, loneliness and abandonment her entire life, and it had made her so, so kind.
Kind enough that even though she knew Siegrain wasn't coming to meet her, she still turned to Lahar the minute he had paid for their crepes and requested, "Is there any chance we could go back to the bench opposite the Council Headquarters to eat? Only, I did promise Siegrain that I would be there, and if the one time he happened to pass by was the one time I wasn't there…"
"Of course," he agreed, and they began to walk back.
"It's kind of a shame you haven't been able to get out much recently, though," she commented, picking up on what the shopkeeper had said as a means of breaking the silence. "You work far too hard. Far harder than anyone works in my guild, anyway. It must be tough being a Knight."
"Actually, Wendy… I was thinking of leaving the Rune Knights."
This was enough to make her stop dead in her tracks and spin round to confront him with her hands on her hips. "What?" she demanded, in a strangled half-shout that drew far more attention to them than he would have liked.
"Wendy…" he tried to placate her, already regretting having opened his mouth.
She repeated, "You're going to leave the Knights? But you can't! You've always been a Knight, ever since I've known you! And you're the youngest Captain and the best person to have on missions, even Siegrain said so, it's just… You're serious, but also kind, and I feel so much safer just knowing that there are people like you looking after us." She shook her head in firm denial. "You're the ideal Knight and the best Captain and if you leave, then the Rune Knights won't be the Rune Knights any more-!"
It was at about this point during her unrestrained outburst that she realized it might not actually be helping. She gave a sheepish glance around the street, mumbled something unintelligible, and began walking on quietly. Only when they reached the Headquarters, and were both sat on the bench staring up at the high wall and the palatial building towering above it, did she ask, "Why? I guess you must have a good reason for wanting to leave. Though, if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay, I understand."
There was a pause, and then she added, "But if you did want to talk about it, it might help."
Why did he want to leave?
On the surface, it seemed like an easy question to answer. In fact, when he thought about it, the harder question was in why he hadn't left already. He had stayed at his job all this time solely because it provided him with a routine. It was a means by which time would be forced to pass. At first, surviving each successive breath had been an achievement, then surviving each minute, and each hour – and then getting through a patrol, and then through a whole shift, and then an entire day had gone by and the past was that little bit further away. Continuing to work as a Knight forced him to get out of bed in the morning. It gave structure and a firm goal to each day, and if that goal was utterly meaningless and meant nothing more than just surviving another day in the wake of his brother's death, then it made no difference; that wasn't the point of it. He was looking for a coping mechanism, not a purpose.
And it had worked. He had kept on living, and living had become tolerable, and time had gone by in the way that it always did, and before he knew it he had survived an entire year. He was even beginning to feel pride that he had been able to deal with his grief and carry on.
But he had only been kidding himself. The grief hadn't gone away. He didn't deserve anything like that. While he had wallowed in misguided complacency, it had simply evolved into a different form: stagnation.
Things didn't just get better on their own. It would be more accurate to say that, left alone, things didn't change at all. His hope that working at the Council would someday return to 'normal' had been naïve. The old meaning he had once found in this day-to-day life was lost to him forever.
If anything, he was moving backwards. He was exhausted, and it was a true exhaustion; the kind that never went away, no matter how much he slept, for it was a symptom of the burden of guilt he had carried with him all this time. Trivial, everyday tasks – not just patrolling around the town centre, but having to talk to his unit, reporting to his superiors, walking between his home and the Council, putting on his Knight's armour, even just dragging himself out of bed in the morning – they were all so tiring. Yet for all the effort it took, he wasn't making any progress. If things weren't getting better, then what was it all even for? He was fed up of going nowhere, trapped in this cycle of resentment and despair.
And the truth was, even if he left, had no idea where he was going to go or what he was hoping to find there. There was every chance that another future, one he didn't already have a coping mechanism for, would be a hundred times worse, and the shock of the transition would destroy whatever was left of him.
All he knew was that if he stayed here, in this numb, unchanging, meaningless life, forever waiting for one who wasn't coming home, there would come a point when struggling to stay alive was no longer worth it, and he would quietly die alone in a corner and no one would even notice.
But how could he say all that to Wendy?
"It's… it's because of Matthias," he said, in the end. "How can I be here, when he isn't? It's not right. I'm just going to keep moving round in circles, waiting for him to come back and tell me how to make things better, and nothing is ever going to change."
Wendy turned her downcast gaze towards the pavement. Undoubtedly, she had guessed his answer was going to be along those lines, and she didn't know what to say that wouldn't make the situation worse.
The awkward silence was as painful to him as it was to her. "You know," he continued, for the sake of having something to say, "Matthias was the reason why I joined the Knights in the first place."
"I thought you'd always wanted to be a Rune Knight."
"I did, but there's a little more to it than that."
She gave him a quizzical look. It was an invitation for him to keep talking, if he felt up to it.
For some reason, talking – or, more precisely, putting his emotions into words and sharing them with another human being – wasn't as bad as he had expected it to be. Wendy was so easy to talk to. She was a good listener, she had an attention span that the most patient adult would have envied, and, most importantly of all, she wanted to hear what he had to say.
And before he knew it, he was telling her everything.
"You're right; I don't remember a time when I didn't want to join the Rune Knights. It's been my dream ever since I was a child. I know a lot of children go through a phase of wanting to become a Knight, but they usually grow out of it, and I never did. It was all I wanted. I attended a school of magic alongside my normal studies, and I convinced my dad to teach me how to fight at the weekends, until I was old enough to enrol on a proper combat course. I had a goal in life, and I was absolutely set on reaching it.
"Matthias, on the other hand… he was the complete opposite. He was much older than me; if either of us should have had this sorted out, it was him, but he didn't have a clue what he was going to do with his life. He tried a lot of things, but his heart wasn't in any of them. He started learning magic at the same time I did, and though he had a talent for it, he dropped off the course pretty quickly. I don't even know where he was half the time, and neither did our parents. He took some jobs as an independent mage, did some part-time work in local businesses, even joined a street gang at one point – but he never took any of them seriously, and he never settled down. He just drifted, unmotivated and mostly unemployed. At some point, I guess Dad just decided he'd had enough. Either Matthias had to get a job, or Dad was going to kick him out of the house."
"That seems a bit harsh," Wendy interjected, frowning.
"I guess, but the ultimatum provided my brother with the focus he had been lacking. One of his friends at the time was applying to join the Rune Knights, so he thought he might as well do the same, just to get Dad off his back. So he did. He passed the entrance exams and joined as a trainee.
"He didn't really care about it, though. It was just a job; I think he only planned to stick with it until he had earned enough money to move out of the family home and become fully independent. He kept it up for a few months, which was longer than he'd ever held down a job before… and it was then that one of those incidents happened; a fluke moment that changes the course of history. I don't know the details, only that a training drill in the mountains had gone very wrong, and when the lives of his colleagues had been put in danger, he stopped taking things half-heartedly and actually tried… It was the first time he'd ever used his ability in front of them, for one thing. One of the Captains noticed his skill – and, more importantly, the way he had remained calm and dealt with a threat that had immobilized the other trainees and their leaders. She immediately pulled him out of normal training and found him a personal mentor amongst the Council's agents.
"And, well, it was as if he'd found his calling. Not only was he exceptionally good at it, but it was also something he enjoyed. In no time at all they were sending him out on dangerous solo missions. He was popular; he was incredibly successful; he was gaining quite a reputation; for the first time in his life, he was considered reliable. And I couldn't stand it."
Wendy shot him a sharp look in response to the sudden bitterness that had entered his tone. "Why? Wouldn't that have been really inspirational?"
Reluctantly, his expression softened. "Ah, but you forget I was a teenager when that happened. Well, you might not know since you haven't really been a teenager yet, but… in short, it's an age where you do stupid things."
"Stupid things? Like what?"
"Well, for one thing, the more successful my brother became, the more I hated it. Becoming a successful Knight was my dream, not his. He hadn't been remotely interested in serving the Magic Council, or helping society, or anything like that; he had only joined up in the first place because our parents hadn't given him a choice! I knew that if I signed up, everyone would just think I was following in his footsteps, when it had always been my dream in the first place. And not only had he just stolen what I wanted to do, but he was so good at it without even trying. I'd constantly be compared to him. And I knew that no matter how hard I worked, I was never going to be as good as he was. What was the point in me aiming for that any more?"
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth in response to Wendy's look of outrage. "I did tell you it was stupid," he pointed out. "And unfair, as well. Matthias may have had a lot of talent and an exceptional magical ability, but once he found the role that suited him so well, he worked hard to keep it. To complete his missions, he not only had to be good in combat, but he was also expected to have a lot of theoretical knowledge about magic – well, you know, you've been on enough of those jobs with Siegrain – that he was simply lacking. He had a lot of catching up to do, and for a man who had never applied himself in his life, it wasn't easy.
"But I couldn't see that at the time – or perhaps I simply chose to ignore it. Whatever the reason, I became more and more disillusioned with my lifelong dream. By the time I was old enough to sit the entrance exams to join the Rune Knights, I no longer cared. I took the exams only because my parents had already entered me for them… I scraped a pass in the physical tests, but failed the written paper."
"But… you're here now, so…"
"The theoretical paper – which examines knowledge of things like the law, magic, and current affairs – is considered far less important than the physical and magical examinations, so anyone who passes those but fails the written exam is permitted to retake it within a month. I had no intention of doing so, of course. As far as I was concerned, I couldn't care less about working for the Council, despite the best attempts of my parents and friends to talk me into resitting the paper. Then Matthias caught word of my stubbornness… and he marched into the house, dragged me upstairs, and proceeded to explain exactly why me joining the Rune Knights was a terrible idea."
"He- wait, he told you it was a bad idea?"
"He did. He said I wasn't suited for it at all; that I wouldn't enjoy it and that I'd certainly fail miserably as a Knight. Failing the test was a sign that I wasn't good enough. He insisted that if I was intent on a career as a mage, I'd be better off joining some mediocre guild, but that really, I ought to give up on magic altogether, and settle for a desk job in the civil service. He said joining the Knights was pointless; that I'd never be able to accomplish anything with my level of skill; that I'd just be wasting my life."
"So… you gave up?" Wendy asked, utterly bewildered.
"Not at all. The very next day I applied to retake the exam. For the next month, I studied as though my life depended on it, and I passed the test with the highest score anyone had achieved in over a decade."
She stared at him and he stared back; when she saw how serious he was, she couldn't stop a slow grin of pride from spreading across her face – as if, really, she had expected nothing less from her friend. "But why did you go back, after Matthias said all that to you?"
"Spite. I wanted to prove him wrong." He couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud at the look of astonishment on her face. "Of course, it's obvious to me now that that was what he intended all along. That's just the kind of person that he was, you know? Helping in his own way. He made me realize that working for the Magic Council had nothing to do with me or him. By playing Devil's Advocate; by baiting me into breaking through my apathy and fighting for the side I should have been on all along, he forced me to remember why I had wanted to join the Knights in the first place."
And Lahar hadn't noticed the fondness that had crept into his voice while he had been talking. He wasn't aware that a smile had gently broken down his emotionless exterior while he had spoken unguardedly and truly to this girl who was willing to listen. It didn't occur to him that this was the first time he had genuinely laughed in over a year; or the first time he had been able to sit down and speak about Matthias without becoming aggressive or clamming up or running away; or the first time he had been able to perceive those memories as they really were, precious and beloved, allowing affection to pierce through the guilt that for months had been his shroud.
But Wendy noticed all these things, and gently pretended that she hadn't, and resisted the urge to hug him, and instead just smiled and let him remember and asked, softly, "What did you remember? Why did you want to join the Knights?"
Lahar thought for a long moment – not because he was trying to find a way of answering that wouldn't stir up old memories, but because he was trying to put into words a concept that was completely alien to the person he had become.
"When it came right down to it, I think it was about wanting to help people," he said at last. "There are a lot of mages who don't understand why the Rune Knights even need to exist. We have the King's army for enforcing the law in the secular side of society, and the mage guilds to keep an eye on the magical side of things. On the whole, the guilds are a lot more powerful than the Knights, and would be more than capable of policing the dark guilds and catching the criminals of the magical world under the guidance of a body like the Council. All they'd have to do is tighten up the guild regulations a little, and they could make it work. Even when it comes to the crucial jobs that the Council can't afford to distribute to the guilds, we've always got the powerful individuals like Matthias or Siegrain to take the lead. The best we Knights can do is back them up; often, they're better off going in without us. So I guess when you look at it like that, the existence of the Rune Knights is a bit strange.
"But that's because people have this idea that all we do in peacetime is catch criminals, and that's not true at all. There's so much more to our job than that. We support the agents and the guilds not just in combat, by securing the area and ensuring that civilians don't get dragged into it, but in the fallout too. We're the ones who handle and repair the damage done to the environment. We're there to ensure that the law is carried out – that when a suspected dark mage has been captured, they're not just killed by an agent taking the law into his own hands, but they're safely imprisoned; they get a fair trial; and they're dealt with appropriately, whether that means execution, incarceration, or even helping them through a rehabilitation process.
"When there's a natural disaster, sure, it's the powerful guild mages who are going to run in and rescue people, but we're the ones liaising with the civilians involved, keeping them up to date with developments, reuniting survivors with their families, and investigating how we can prevent it from happening again. These things don't end when the fighting stops. When the battle is over, and the agents and the guild mages have gone home congratulating themselves on a job well done, we're the ones that remain involved until everything is as it should be again for all the citizens affected, not just for the battling mages."
He paused for a while, staring up at the Council building and seeing something entirely different. Wendy said nothing and let him think.
A small, rueful smile touched his lips; genuine, and all the more beautiful for it. "I know little things like that aren't going to change the world. I'll happily save that for the people like my brother. But, the thing is… to most people, especially to those without magic, and who have never learned to fight, the fact that there are such powerful mages out there isn't at all reassuring. It doesn't matter whether or not they're on our side. The very existence of people so dangerous – capable of such effortless, even accidental, devastation – is alarming to those of us who just want to live our lives in peace. What do mages like that care about ordinary people?
"Those like Siegrain don't understand that concern. They've never been ordinary. They don't know what it's like. But we do. Because we're not heroes, or Wizard Saints – we're just ordinary people, doing what we can to help. And that is so, so important."
Again, he paused, looking up to the sky above. Perhaps he sought guidance; perhaps he was checking that it was listening.
"For me, being a Rune Knight… it's about making people feel safe. It's being there in uniform, out on patrol, a part of the city, and having people know that they can rely on you, no matter what happens. And so what if we can't save the world? If we can just make society that little bit better, or the city a little more welcoming; if we can just bring a little bit of reassurance to everyone's daily lives… isn't that also something worth doing?"
Only then did Wendy break the silence, saying his name in a quiet, wondrous voice. He looked at her sharply, as if he had completely forgotten that there was another living human next to him.
But before he could speak, she demanded, "How can you possibly be thinking of leaving the Rune Knights, when you can say something like that?"
He stared at her and didn't understand. "I… but…"
"How you feel hasn't changed, has it?" she asked him gently. "Matthias might not be here, but that just means you have to fight harder, and help enough people for both of you. Don't give up on the things you care about; they're more important now than they ever were. You need to live for two people now."
"I…"
Watching him, her eyes suddenly widened. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed inexplicably. "I wasn't trying to… I didn't mean to make you cry…"
"I'm… crying?"
And he found with amazement that he was. With one hand, he clumsily removed his glasses; with the other, he tried to wipe away the tears, but they just kept coming. "Look at me," he said, with a trembling smile. "And I'm… supposed to be the adult here…"
"Adults are allowed to cry too," she told him sincerely. Then, unable to hold back any longer, she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around her friend. He froze; the warmth of human contact, of compassion, was at first unfamiliar to him. But she didn't let go, not for the stares of passers-by or the pain where the rough edges of his armour dug into her arms, and before he knew it he was sobbing uncontrollably.
"I miss him so much, Wendy."
"I know," she murmured back. "I know."
And she said nothing more; just waited there for as long as he needed. It might have been an hour that went by, or it might have been only a few minutes. Time had stopped for the two kindred souls, and it resumed again only when he managed to mumble, "I'm okay now, Wendy."
"I'm glad."
She let go, and the two of them looked at each other. Aware that he must have appeared a complete mess, Lahar tried a self-conscious, apologetic smile. His eyes were red from crying; his hair was dishevelled; there were still fresh tears glittering on his cheeks; and yet, as far as Wendy was concerned, he looked more alive than he had in a long time. That was enough for her. Smiling, she settled down to sit next to him again.
There was a moment or two of silence as they both tried to get their feelings in order without bursting into tears again. Wendy swung her feet slowly back and forth. Absently, she reached for the foil-wrapped crepe that sat on the bench beside her. It was ironic, after the stress of going back to that café, that both of them had completely forgotten about their lunch. Wendy prodded it without much enthusiasm.
A smile, raw but genuine, creased the Knight's face. "I can't help but notice that you've hardly eaten much of the salmon and cream cheese, Wendy."
"That's because I was distracted listening to you."
He saw through her evasion attempt in an instant. "You don't like it, do you?"
"It's a bit… umm… different."
"Do you want to swap?"
"…What kind do you have?"
"Banana and toffee sauce. I haven't touched it, so it's all yours, if you want it."
"I do like toffee sauce…"
"I know you do," he said, holding out the wrapped-up parcel temptingly.
She gazed at it for a long moment, deliberating, and then gave in. "Thank you," she muttered sheepishly, and the two of them swapped lunches. Not seeming to care how the sauce had grown cold and congealed into a mushy, bananary mess, she took an eager bite, and then another, and then she had polished off the entire crepe in an instant.
"You really do like sweet things, don't you?" Lahar observed.
With a rueful grin, she admitted, "Yeah, I do. I was just trying to be more sophisticated, like a proper mature adult, you know?"
"Wendy, I really don't think a lack of maturity is something you're ever going to have to worry about. You're already more empathetic than most adults I know."
Wendy thought about that for a moment. "I don't think that really has anything to do with being an adult or not, though. I've lost people too. I know what it's like. But when my mother disappeared, Jellal was there for me. And when he left me too, without warning, Master Roubaul looked after me and gave me a home. And even now, when Siegrain won't see me any more, I've got you, and Carla, and everyone back in the guild. I don't think I could have got through any of that on my own, and that's why I don't want anyone else to have to do so either."
"Wendy…"
"So, I want you to promise me that you're not going to give up. Promise that you'll go back to training, and you'll start having lunch in the city again, and that even if you're busy, you'll make time for the people who need you, like you always used to do for me." She had been ever so earnest up until that point that he was surprised when her gaze slipped from his and turned towards the ground. "I need you to promise because I won't be able to check that you're keeping it. After today, I don't think I'll come back to Era."
"Why not?" A startled response that came out far harsher than he had intended.
"Because Carla's right. I'm just being silly. I know Siegrain's not coming. I know he doesn't want to see me. I'm being childish, and it's just inconveniencing other people: Carla, and Master Roubaul, and even Siegrain, if he's got to go out of his way to avoid me…" A sad smile; heart-breaking and wonderful at the same time. "He made his choice, and as his best friend, I have to respect his decisions, whether I like them or not. He wants to move on, and I need to do the same. So, this is the last time."
"Wendy…" That one word, again, because what else could he say?
"So I might not see you for quite a long time. But, if you're ever sent on a mission near Cait Shelter, then come by the guild, okay?"
"I will do. Thank you. But, Wendy… please don't think that all you're doing is inconveniencing people. I'm very grateful that you came to Era today."
"So am I," she told him, with that beautiful honestly. "If I could help a little, then I'm glad."
"Were you… planning on staying for a bit longer?"
"My train back doesn't leave for a few hours still," she shrugged. "Do you want to talk some more?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Then I'll listen," said Wendy, because sometimes, to save someone, that was all that was needed.
It was about a week after that encounter that Lahar and Siegrain met for the final time.
After his discussion with Wendy, it had taken the Knight a day or two to pluck up his courage, and he had almost been unable to go through with it at all. But he had made a promise, both to her and to himself, and his resolve to keep it was stronger than his fear of rejection, so he returned to the training ground.
The first few hours had been awkward, painfully so, but he had pushed through, relying on the Knights in his unit being too polite to comment on his sudden reappearance – or his prolonged absence – if he didn't bring it up. They left him to get on with it, and he did the same to them, and once a few days like that had passed, the polite greetings made and returned to those he met there had developed into short but voluntary conversations, and the Knights no longer stared at him like he was out of place, but treated him, at least in passing, as one of them again.
By the end of the week, he was back to running training drills, and though he was sure that most of his Knights attended only out of a sense of duty, things were finally starting to become more relaxed. A couple of them had stuck around afterwards to ask his advice on a particular matter of discipline, which had evolved into the most natural conversation he had had with anyone other than Wendy in over a year, with the result that the working day had long since ended by the time he left the premises, walking side by side with his colleagues. It was as they approached the gate in the wall ringing the far side of the compound that he spotted the councillor standing in the shadows.
Siegrain was alone. If it had been anyone else, Lahar would have assumed he was merely waiting for a friend, but that was far too out of character for the aloof councillor. Their eyes met. Siegrain gave no visible indication that he wanted to talk – his casual posture didn't shift at all; he just kept staring. But he didn't need to give a signal. There was no other reason why he would be here.
The two of them hadn't conversed beyond the absolute minimum necessary for their jobs since the day that Siegrain had accused him of causing Matthias's death. Seeing him here, not in an official capacity but as another human being, brought back the memories of that encounter in a rush. He felt once again an echo of that urge to run and hide and do everything in his power to not have to face that guilt again-
But it was only an echo. It told him nothing he didn't already know; hadn't already accepted. To his surprise, rather than avoiding the councillor's gaze and hurrying home, Lahar found himself staring calmly back. Did a flicker of a smile cross the other's face at that moment? At this distance, it was impossible to tell.
To his companions, Lahar said, "I'm very sorry; I've just remembered something I need to do. Go on without me. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
Surprised, the young Knights accepted it without question, saying farewell and leaving the training grounds. Only once he was completely alone did Lahar turn back towards Siegrain. The councillor was still waiting. If he hadn't been sure whether or not that was an invitation before, then now he held no doubts.
It was early evening in the height of summer; the sun was still a long way shy of the horizon, and the world was golden-bright, yet Siegrain managed to have found the only patch of shadows in the vicinity to stand within. As he approached, Lahar noticed that the councillor was holding something in his hands. It was wrapped in a dark green cloth, with enough loose folds in it to completely obscure the shape of whatever small object lay beneath.
"Good evening, Councillor." Lahar gave the expected formal greeting, pleasantly surprised by how steady his voice was.
"Good evening," came the courteous response.
He said nothing more, so Lahar picked up the baton. The abnormality of the entire situation permitted his abruptness. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm not entirely sure." There was a curious look in Siegrain's eyes. Lahar had expected hostility, and yet this gentle bemusement seemed genuine. "I suppose I came to say goodbye."
"Goodbye? Why, are you going somewhere?"
The other was silent for a long time, thinking. "In a way, perhaps I am."
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you, Councillor."
"No, I imagine that you don't." The barest hint of a smile touched the other's lips. "I have something that belongs to you. I came to return it."
"What would that be?"
Without a word, Siegrain drew aside the cloth – and Lahar's blood ran cold. His heart forgot how to beat. In the councillor's hand was a knife. And it wasn't just any old knife – it was a unique weapon, powerful and deadly, created for the hand of one man and one man alone. Lahar would have recognized it anywhere.
In that moment he wanted nothing more than to run and hide and scream and never come back to this place. But even as he stared down at the knife he thought had been lost forever, he felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, and he focussed on that feeling, because it was okay to cry. Wendy had granted him that. The sadness he felt was a sign of humanity; a promise that it was okay to go on living. He held on to that promise, and he stood his ground.
Siegrain's unblinking gaze was fixed upon him, taking in every last detail of his reaction, though his voice held the same emotionless calm as before. "It was delivered to me shortly after Matthias went missing. I imagine it was Jellal's idea of a joke… or perhaps a warning. I kept hold of it all this time because I thought returning it to you would only cause you more pain, but since we've reached the end, I feel as though you should have it… if you want it, of course."
And Lahar looked up and met his gaze and said quietly, firmly, "Yes, I would like to have it. Thank you for bringing it to me."
There was an instant in which Siegrain couldn't conceal his surprise, and then, upon realizing the Knight had noticed, he gave the first genuine smile Lahar had seen him use in a long time. "There is something left of you, isn't there?" murmured the councillor to himself. "Perhaps I should be dismayed, or angry… but I simply cannot bring myself to be. Even I am allowed some sentimentality at the end of everything, aren't I?"
Carefully, Siegrain took the blade's sharp edge in his hand and offered it to Lahar hilt-first. The Knight took hold of it without hesitation. And in that instant, he felt-
-something.
He felt raw magic against his palm – not his, but someone else's; alien and uncomfortable. A tremor raced through his entire body at the contact, and if his hand hadn't clenched reflexively, he would have dropped the knife. Still, that was nothing compared to the flicker that ran through Siegrain's body. A ripple of white light, visible even to the naked eye, shot across the other's form, making him appear momentarily insubstantial… like an instant of static interference disrupting an otherwise perfect projection.
The moment he felt it, Siegrain had let go of the blade with a curse, but he hadn't been fast enough to stop it, and the motion had only drawn more attention to the anomaly. He knew full well Lahar had seen his moment of alarm. His eyes narrowed. Before, there had been some semblance of familiarity in that gaze; now, there was only hostility. He half-raised his hand as if to call upon his magic, but then, as if he thought better of it, he let his hand fall back to his side. Some of the tension drained from his stance.
"Well," he said, again to himself. "It's too late for it to make a difference now, anyway."
And with that, he turned on his heel and strode off.
Dazed, Lahar called after him, "Siegrain, wait!"
But his shout only prompted the other to summon his magic and fly in the direction of the Council chamber. In an instant, he had disappeared from view.
Lahar was left alone on the edge of the training ground, clutching his brother's knife numbly in his hand. What on earth had he just felt? What had bothered Siegrain enough to break through his usual perfect façade, and cause him genuine alarm? Questions bubbled at his lips, but there was no one around to ask them of.
He glanced down at the weapon he held. Already, it felt uncomfortable in his hand; it had been designed for someone far stronger than him, and the balance along his arm was all wrong. Even so, his grip around it only tightened. "You would have known what it meant, wouldn't you, Matthias?" he murmured, feeling once again the painful, wonderful prickling at the back of his throat. "What is it that you're trying to tell me?"
The knife in his hands didn't speak. Of course it didn't. It didn't contain any magic of its own, let alone any kind of sentience. After all, it was the weapon of one who had possessed more than enough power within himself. It was merely a tool designed to better harness that magic, acting as a channel through which he could conduct it-
And that was exactly what had just happened, wasn't it? The blade had reacted – whether it was to his power, which would be closer to his brother's than that of any other mage in existence, or to Siegrain's, the only other person he had met whose sheer volume of stored energy could compare to Matthias's, he wasn't sure, but in that brief moment when he had held one end and Siegrain had held the other, it had done exactly what it was designed to do, and conducted the Wizard Saint's power through to him.
But it shouldn't just have acted on its own. It was an inanimate object. It could only have done that if Siegrain was actively pushing his magic out of his body and into the knife, as Matthias used to do when he fought. Siegrain's power should just have stayed securely within his body… unless his entire body had been made up of magic in the first place. Unless the flicker he had seen wasn't some anomalous magical effect he couldn't place, but really had been exactly what it looked like: a disturbance in an entirely illusory form.
Was it possible that Siegrain had been a projection? Surely not. His body had been completely substantial. He had picked up and carried the knife. He had used magic; the power radiating from him had been just as strong and familiar as Lahar remembered. And until that moment, there hadn't been the slightest indication that Siegrain's body wasn't real. Lahar would have been the first to admit that he knew nowhere near as much about magic as his brother had, but he was certain that that was impossible, even for the greatest mages of this age. It couldn't be right.
And yet Lahar glanced once again at the blade in his hand, and found himself shaking his head. As outrageous as it seemed, he knew what he had felt. And Siegrain's panicked reaction seemed to confirm that Lahar had indeed stumbled upon something he shouldn't have.
"What the hell is going on here, Matthias?" he whispered.
If Siegrain's illusion magic was that incredible, he could have been doing this for years and none of them would be any the wiser. He wouldn't have needed to be in the Council Headquarters at all. In fact, he could easily appear to be in two places at once.
And there was an even more pressing question that this threw up in the air: if Siegrain really was a projection, then who was the one projecting him?
"No. Don't jump to conclusions," he berated himself fiercely. "He's still a member of the Magic Council, and a Wizard Saint. Just because we're no longer friends doesn't mean I can suspect him without good reason."
But…
"I suppose I came to say goodbye."
"Even I am allowed some sentimentality at the end of everything, aren't I?"
And then, when he had discovered the Wizard Saint's secret: "It's too late for it to make a difference now, anyway."
And no amount of reasoning in the world could quell the anxious feeling welling up inside him.
There was every chance that the Magic Council knew full well Siegrain was an illusion projected in to Era while his real body was elsewhere. For all he knew, the Wizard Saint could be on some top-secret mission in a foreign country, and he had to keep up appearances here with an illusion in order to maintain his cover.
But if that were true, then there was nothing to be lost by telling the Chairman about it, was there? Best case scenario, the Chairman confirmed that Siegrain was acting under orders, made the Knight swear an oath of secrecy not to repeat the information, and that was the end of it. But if it turned out that the Chairman didn't know… there might be something very, very wrong going on here.
Before he knew it, Lahar had tucked the knife into his belt – it would do for the time being – and he was sprinting in the direction of the Council chamber, following the path Siegrain had taken through the sky. The members of the Council would probably still be in the building at this time of day. With any luck, they might even be in session. He tore down corridors, ignoring the disapproving glances the Knights he passed threw him, skidded along polished floors, and finally came to a halt outside the entrance to the main Council chamber, where all their important business was conducted.
Two Knights stood outside the grand double doors, spears in hand. On one hand, it was a good sign – it meant that the councillors were still inside. On the other, though he outranked both the Knights, they had absolute authority while on guard duty, and they did not move an inch as he approached them.
His heart was pounding in his chest, but he still managed to say, "I need to speak with the Chairman at once."
The two guards exchanged glances. "I'm afraid the Council are not to be disturbed," one of them offered.
"It is a matter of the greatest urgency."
"That is irrelevant. I'm sorry, Captain, but we can't let you past. That is the law."
Lahar glanced from the two resolute Knights to the grand set of doors behind them, thinking furiously. He had come this far on an impulse; backing down, when worry was thudding this hard and fast in his chest, was out of the question. It was time to do something reckless. Resting his left hand on the hilt of the knife in his belt, and drawing courage from it, he snapped, "I have reason to believe that the Chairman and the Council are in grave danger. I will fight my way into that room if I have to."
This time, the two guards shared looks of alarm. "If the Chairman's life is in danger, doesn't that mean…?" the first one murmured.
"I'm afraid not." The second guard regarded Lahar with a new wariness – as if he were starting to side with the Captain on this matter – but his words were grim. "If I could help you, Captain, I would, but you may not enter this room. The Council is in lockdown."
"Lockdown? But that means- they're voting on whether or not to use Etherion?" A vote so important that the Council could not, under any circumstances, be disturbed while reaching their decision.
"Indeed so."
"But…" He gave his head a quick shake to clear it. "Who proposed the vote?"
"Apparently, Councillor Siegrain did."
"And their target?"
The guard gave a shrug. "Some tower, or something. I didn't recognize the name, and once Etherion had been proposed, we were both forced to leave the room sharpish."
Lahar was no longer listening. "Siegrain proposed firing Etherion at the Tower of Heaven?" he repeated to himself. "But why? Because it's an R-System? But… he's been protecting his brother for years. Why would he suddenly turn on him? And with Etherion, nothing less. It doesn't make any sense. What the hell is going on here?"
And then he paused. He couldn't make sense of this situation, but there was someone who might be able to: someone who knew Siegrain better than anyone. He had to find Wendy.
He was halfway down the corridor when he stopped in his tracks once again.
This had happened before, hadn't it?
An accidental revelation. A feeling of uncertainty. Him, not knowing what to do, going to the one person who he thought might be able to help, and sending them alone to the Tower of Heaven… a place from which they would never return.
And he had just been about to do the same thing all over again.
The strength suddenly vanished from his legs. He swayed, fell to his knees, and then slumped sideways against the wall. Nausea rose up within him; he clapped his hands to his mouth in an attempt to stop himself from vomiting. How could he have thought, even for a moment, of repeating the events of that day? Hadn't he learnt anything?
The dim shouts of the two guards reached his ears, as if across a vast distance. They had run over to him and were trying to help him to his feet, a valiant effort foiled by the way that the world kept trying to turn itself upside-down.
So, you're just going to sit back and do nothing?
That scornful thought cut into his mind as a sharp pain burst at his fingertip. The world snapped back into place with a sudden clarity. There was blood dripping from his finger, where his flailing hand had caught the edge of the naked blade tucked into his belt. One of the guards was shouting something about fetching bandages, but Lahar paid him no heed.
"Wendy has a right to know," he muttered feverishly. "Whatever else is going on here, the fact remains that Siegrain is trying to use Etherion to kill Jellal. They're both Wendy's friends. For me to know, and choose to keep it from her… I can't do that."
But if she went to the Tower, and if she died as well…
Wasn't it just going to happen all over again?
Wendy had promised him that it was okay to move on from the past. Rather than remaining locked inside the cycle of what had happened before, shackled by his guilt, he was allowed to live, and do what he believed to be right without fear.
"I have to tell Wendy," he whispered, unaware that he was speaking out loud. "She deserves to know what's going on."
Is that what his brother would have done? He didn't know the answer to that. He would never know the answer. And the thing was, that didn't matter.
What mattered was his answer to that question; what he was going to do about it right here and right now. The decision was his alone to make.
"If it were the other way round, I'd want Wendy to tell me what Siegrain is about to do. And if I tried to stop him, and something happened to me, I wouldn't blame her for a moment. No… I'd be grateful that she gave me the chance to try and do the right thing. I wouldn't ever consider it to be her fault. I'd be thankful that, rather than trying to shield me from the truth, she believed in me enough to tell me everything. And I believe in Wendy."
"…Captain? Captain!"
The words of the anxious Knight reached him from a world that had finally stopped spinning. Everything had fallen into place. He knew what he had to do.
"Captain, you're talking to yourself," came the guard's unhappy muttering. "I think you hit your head when you fell, and have concussion. I'm going to take you to the infirmary."
He reached down to help the Captain up. Quick as a flash, Lahar's hand shot out and seized his wrist. "Captain-!" the Knight protested.
"No. I'm not going to the infirmary. I'm going to the mage guild Cait Shelter."
A/N: This chapter makes me so happy. I think what I like about it is that neither Lahar nor Wendy knows how to help the other, or even themselves. They're both sort of blundering awkwardly around in the dark. But because they're not alone, they keep on trying, and they're able to slowly stumble upon a way out. Lahar doesn't have the motivation to try and save himself, but the kindness that drives him to try and help his old friend forces him out of his cycle of isolation. And it's because Wendy understands exactly how he feels, and sees herself in him, and listens to him, that she's able to reach her own conclusion. Her kindness and her empathy have made her so strong, and I think she's ready now to face her best friend.
Speaking of which, as you'll have noticed, the Tower of Heaven arc has started (which will bring with it a return to shorter chapters...!). Obviously I'm writing from Jellal's point of view, so everything that Natsu et al do will go on in the background for the most part. The majority of the arc will play out according to canon, and I'm only going to focus on the bits that are different. I hope you enjoy it! ~CS
