Hello! Long time, no write, wow!

Life has been ridiculous, but I'll spare you the details. The important thing is that I'm getting back in the swing of things! I thought I'd drop this quick chapter in here to kick myself in the butt.

I'm also working on a couple of little Passing Silhouettes side projects. Some are 5+1 prompts around specific characters, some are missed moments from the original story, and some are collections of skits. I'll also happily take requests if you have any - I'm trying to keep my creativity up. If you're interested, please keep an eye out for those in the coming weeks and months as well!

Thank you to Centurious the Azure, CallmeCrazylol, Dove, and An Old Friend for reviewing! You guys have no idea how much it's meant to me to be able and go back and read these responses to my dumb little story. It's been everything. I love you guys.

Dove - Thank you so, so much for your review! I know it's been a ridiculously long time sine I've updated this story, but I hope that you're still around to read this dumb little story about a dumb little girl and her adventures with some dumb friends!

An Old Friend - I can not thank you enough for all of your reviews. To have someone go through chapter by chapter like you're doing - even though it's been more than a year since I last updated - is the most uplifting and reassuring thing. It's been so encouraging. Thank you so much. Really, you don't know what it means to me. Sending you all of my love!


"Do justice and punish the unjust."

I smiled softly to myself. Estelle had a way of making the guild laws sound so official.

"All for the guild and the guild for all."

We'd set off toward Heliord as soon as morning broke through the darkness, splitting open the night without much effort. The plan was to travel for a bit until things in Dhangrest calmed down, but to do that we needed some supplies. After stocking up Heliord, we'd eventually return to the den of guilds to officially register The Super Ultra Courageous Braves and join the Union.

Well, that was the tentative plan, at any rate. I had some suggestions.

"Alright, can we just quickly talk about this name you've picked, kid?" I said, sliding up next to Estelle. I'd been trailing behind, fiddling with my puzzle cube while trying to think of a good way to bring it up for the better part of the morning. It was early afternoon now, and we'd be in Heliord soon. If I didn't bring it up now, he'd start telling people, and once people knew, there'd be no going back.

Karol immediately looked defensive. "What about it?"

'Be gentle with him,' Khana warned softly. 'Don't break his spirit.'

I tossed the cube in to my left hand and held it up to the sun, inspecting it carefully. "It sort of sucks sucks. A lot."

The boy tripped over his own feet and Khana sighed.

"Oh, I don't think it's that bad," said Judith as Karol regained his footing and composure. "It has character."

"Yeah! Character!"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, and you'll only attract characters with it. Nobody is going to take you seriously with a name like that."

But Karol was indignant. "Nuh uh! They'll take us so seriously, especially once we do some really important jobs and get bigger!"

"I'm pretty sure you've got those steps mixed up." It usually went grow bigger, then go on jobs. Not the other way around.

"Well you aren't even in the guild, so why does it matter what we call it?" Karol said hotly, crossing his arms. My nostrils flared. He didn't have to say it like that. "Judith likes it and I like it, and Yuri likes it, too. Don't you, Yuri?"

Yuri, who had been walking a few paces ahead of us, only waved a hand. "You're the boss, boss."

I let out a breath, disrupting a few stray hairs from where they had fallen from their place and into my eyes. I didn't feel like backing down today. "It matters because I don't want to be associated with a guild who's name nobody can even remember. Especially if I may want to join said guild later."

'You're trying to guilt him into changing it,' Khana said flatly. 'That's manipulative.'

I silently told her to shut up as Karol turned his attention to the princess.

"You like it, don't you Estelle?" He looked up at her with wide, innocent eyes.

She hesitated before answering, and I knew immediately that she was on my side. "I don't dislike it, but, Karol, it is a bit of a mouthful." She shrugged helplessly. "Maybe something without so many words would be better?"

"I mean, you want to be like Altosk, right?" I chimed back in. He nodded almost desperately. I held up a finger. "One name. No room for confusion."

"Even the five major guilds have short names, don't they?" Judith asked, hand placed delicately at her chin. "Ruins' Gate, the Soul Smiths?"

Karol seemed to wilt a bit before his eyes hardened, determined. "Okay, well, it's still three votes to two, so Super Ultra Courageous Braves it is!"

Khana's wind chime laughter sounded in the back of my head, which sparked a thought. A small smirk found itself growing on my lips.

'No.'

"Khana agrees with me."

'Do not drag me into this.'

He wilted again. "Aw man, does she really?"

'Isadora, do not drag me into this.'

I shrugged unapologetically to both. "Sorry."

'You are dead to me.'

"Alright, well then I suppose it's all tied up now." Judith hummed, tilting her head at Karol. "What now?"

But Karol was shaking his head. "If Khana doesn't like it, we should change the name."

I raised my chin a fraction, smug.

"But it's your guild, Karol?" Estelle's brows had drawn together in confusion.

"Yeah, but Khana is a spirit. I think she knows better than we do." He dissolved into thought, obviously trying to come up with a new name.

Estelle and I shared a look before I shook my head and looked off into the trees. Delta had disappeared a while back, and while I wasn't concerned, I was starting to wonder if she had found something interesting. I was also wishing that I had joined her. I was quickly reaching my day's quota for socialization.

I eventually tuned back out of Karol and Estelle's brainstorming session and slipped back to the rear of the group.

"I want to go after that talking monster."

But a princess's voice was made to be heard.

"Gosh, is she serious?" I groaned under my breath.

Khana sighed in the back of my head. 'Wouldn't you do the same?'

"I don't know," I huffed. "And I don't want to find out. Please don't sic one of those things on me."

"If it was me that he was after, I want to know why," Estelle said over Khana's response - likely a laugh.

That was fair, I suppose. But her logic was still off.

"Shouldn't you be running away from the big scary monster that was trying to kill you?" Karol had gone pale when Estelle had started talking, and his voice shook.

There was the response I was expecting.

But Yuri was nodding. And not with Karol. "Don't feel like you'll be able to rest easy 'till you find out, huh?"

The princess gave him a relieved smile, happy to have somebody who understood. Judith only hummed, serene smile on her full lips.

Karol must have caught on to everyone else's opinions because he immediately changed tune. "Well, I guess it's not the worst idea."

Apparently I was the only one who thought it was the worst idea. We had no idea what this talking monster was. We had no idea how to go about finding out what it was. We didn't even know where to find it, let alone where to start looking.

Even if we knew where to walk, we'd be walking in blind.

Not to mention that it wanted to kill Estelle, and probably the rest of us, if we crossed it, and had the raw power accomplish it without batting so much as an eye.

"Okay, okay, okay," I finally cut in. "Fine. Great. Go after your monster." I spread my arms out to my sides, gesturing to the sprawling spaces around us. "Lead the way."

While I knew I had a well thought out and logical argument, I also knew that it would fall flat with my particular group of companions. Logic had to be carefully buried in layers of sass to get across to this group, I'd found.

Yuri caught on, and turned to raise an eyebrow in Karol's direction. "Well, boss? You're the resident expert on all things monster, where do we start?"

"Don't ask me!" he laughed breathlessly, holding up his hands in surrender. "I've never even heard of something like that, let alone seen one."

Oh. Great.

"How am I going to look for a monster if I don't know where it is?" Estelle murmured. She was deflating quickly. Good. Staying away from the things trying to kill you was generally a good way to not die.

"Hey, Isa, does Khana know anything about this?"

I shrugged at Estelle's question. "Probably." What she would say about it would be a different question with a different answer.

While Khana and I did occasionally trade secrets, we weren't what I would call close. She knew much more about me than I did about her, which was hardly fair. That said, it still wasn't clear to me just how much I could share with the others about what I did know. I hoped to discourage the conversation entirely until I could ask the thing in my head just what was free game and what wasn't. Or until she did something drastic and found a way to tell them herself.

Estelle waited for a few moments, sharing a look with Yuri before taking a step toward me. "Could you ask her?"

I huffed and crossed my arms. "She wants your help, your Highness."

'You're particularly sassy today, child.'

"Yeah, well," I said low enough to keep the others, "they just want to talk to you." Not me. "What else is new."

'Interesting.' Khana hummed. She'd heard my unspoken sigh, i could tell, though I appreciated her choice to not comment on it. 'Though I'm not sure that they are prepared for this knowledge. Some secrets are best kept to the self.'

I'd figured as much. She chose not to tell me everything, and we shared a body - why would she want to tell the others?

I cleared my throat and waved a hand dismissively at Estelle's expectant stare. "Yeah, I don't think she's going to be very helpful right now. Try again later."

Estelle's face dropped, and I tried to hide my relief. I seemed to be the only one without a death wish today.

Judith, who had been rather quiet for the better part of the afternoon, hummed in the casual way that demanded attention. Once she was sure that all eyes were on her, she clasped her hands behind her back and smiled thinly.

"That was no monster. His name is Phaeroh."

Khana buzzed, low and hot in the back of my mind. Angry. Seems as though she wasn't the only one who shared in that particular secret. Judith could just tell everyone. That was fine. That worked too.

"I saw him earlier when I was traveling with my friend - it was my friend who know his name."

Wait, what friend? Not that I had been intentionally social with the Krytian, but this was the first I'd heard of her travels before meeting my companions at Ghasfarost.

Karol threw his hands in the air. "Uh, why would your friend know the name of something like that?"

'I would like to have a few words with this friend of hers.' Khana's anger was still simmering under a demeanor of forced calm, but she was just as curious as I was.

"We saw it in the Sands of Kogorh, out on the Desier continent," Judith was explaining.

Estelle looked taken aback. "That's to the south of Yurzorea. Judith, that's all the way across the world from here."

Judith only smiled. "Yes, it is."

"You've travelled quite a ways." I said the words evenly, but my mind was reeling. That wasn't an easy trip to make. "How long ago was this?"

"Oh, a while ago now, I guess," Judith said.

I rolled my eyes. What a casual non answer. Turning back to the others, I could already see the gears were turning in our princess' head. I sucked in a slow breath and held it in my cheeks, allowing them to puff out briefly, then releasing it in a steady stream. She now had a destination.

"Now hold on." Yuri held up his hand, expression hard. He must have seen those gears turning too. "You don't just go charging across the world, in to the desert, because somebody saw a monster."

I hummed. At least someone was thinking rationally. "He's right, you know. And I'm not responsible for you any more so you'd be going on your own - which makes your already bad idea considerably worse."

"You know, there was this fairy tale I read when I was little." Estelle pressed on as though neither of us had spoken. I blinked a question at Yuri, who just rolled his eyes and let her continue. "It spoke of a monster that lives in the Sands of Kogorh, one who spoke the languages of man."

"That doesn't mean it's the same monster." Karol had put on his monster hunter hat. "There are always stories like that. Have you heard about that one monster in the sea? Rumors say it could talk to people too. But the Hunting Blades have been searching for it for a long time and haven't found anything."

'That's absurd,' Khana scoffed. 'Of course such creatures exist.'

I groaned and rubbed at my eyes before relaying her information to the rest of the group. Karol paled a few shades.

Judith nodded. "They're out there, alright. Over the years, they've just become the things of legend."

"Which means the stories are true! There is something in the Sands of Kogorh!" There was something about the look in her eye that made me uneasy. She was planning on traipsing through the desert to find Pharaoh.

For a healer, her sense of self-preservation could use a lot of work.

"Sure, but, come on!" Gone was the monster hunter hat, replaced by the scaredy cat one that Karol usually donned. Although, this time he was the only voice of reason. How the tables had turned. "You can't be thinking about going to a place like that all by yourself."

Before Estelle could come up with a lame excuse, Yuri put a hand on his hip. "If we don't keep an eye on her, she really will. Hey, Scout."

I blinked. No.

"What?"

He smirked. "You mind if we take over your babysitting gig for a while?"

Oh. I flashed him a toothy grin. "I thought you'd never ask." Thank goodness that burden was officially on somebody else's shoulders. Flynn had relieved me of that post, sure, but that had essentially gone out the window when we ditched him in Dhangrest.

There was a nod over to Karol. "What do you think? We can take this as our first official assignment as a guild."

"You're right!" Karol was glowing. "We'd be breaking our own laws if we let her go alone."

A clever way to make sure that Estelle was looked after without making her feel like a burden. I had to applaud Yuri and his underhanded way of getting exactly what he wanted.

"But if this is a real job, we'll have to charge Estelle the fee."

As the kids - because, really, Estelle was still a child at heart - started debating cost and payment, I lengthened my strides until I was walking alongside our resident dark haired swordsman.

I nudged Yuri in the side. "Hey."

He grinned at my straight face. "Hey yourself."

"You guys are going to get paid to babysit the princess."

"It looks that way."

"Do you think Flynn would pay me for babysitting her for so long?"

It was the first time I had ever heard Yuri laugh so hard.


"I've been thinking," Estelle said some hours later.

"Dangerous," I murmured.

'Precious few conversations that begin this way end well,' agreed Khana.

Over the course of the journey, Yuri and I had effectively switched positions in the marching order. Yuri was now watching our backs while I pushed the pace toward Heliord.

Delta, who was a few yards ahead of me, stumbled over a rocky patch in the path. Blinking slowly, unsure of what I'd seen, I raised a questioning hand in her direction.

"Are you serious?"

She huffed in response and stuck her nose in the air before walking faster.

"Dumb cat," I called after her as Estelle continued on with her thoughts on a guild name.

"How about something like Brave Vesperia?"

I looked back at the thoughtful looks on the rest of the group's faces. There was a sound like wind chimes I knew only I could hear, and I turned back forward while schooling my expression into something neutral. That would do nicely.

Though the tone was level, I could hear the smile on Judith's face. "Vesperia, that's the brightest star in the sky, isn't it?"

"Yes, and it's the only one that is always visible in the same place in the sky each night. Sailors would use it as a reference point for navigation. It's quite beautiful, really." Ever the encyclopedia of useless knowledge, our Estelle.

"Brave Vesperia, huh?" came Yuri's two cents. "I like it. Let's stick with it."

"Wahoo!" cheered Karol. "Is? What about you?"

"Well I think the guild has already decided, so it's not really for me to have an opinion on," I said over my shoulder.

Karol pouted. "Well, what does Khana think about it?"

'It sounds like the name of a guild who will one day save the world.'

I laughed. "You're kidding me."

"No, I really want to know -"

I waved a hand to cut Karol off. "Not you. Khana thinks it's great."

The kid cheered. "Woohoo! Did you hear that, Estelle? Sounds like Brave Vesperia is official!"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, let's just get to Heliord before dark, yeah? We've been moving slow all day." The sun would set in another hour or so, and even though we could just make out the city was on the horizon, we still had a bit of a trek before we got into Heliord proper.

"Hey, hey, Is!"

I turned away from the city to meet Karol's excited face and hummed a question.

"We've got a new name - will you join our guild now?"

I didn't dignify him with a response, only shook my head and kept leading the way to Heliord. The others dissolved into a light conversation about the politics and the ins and outs of their new guild. I happily left them to their own devices for a while. After all, it had nothing to do with me.

'Hmm.'

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and grinned to myself. "What's up, parasite?"

She scoffed. 'I thought we were past this, child.'

"We are. For now, at least. I'm just teasing." A bird flit its way down from a tree a ways in front of me. Delta launched herself at it, snapping futilely at its feathers. "Something on your mind?"

'I am just a bit surprised that Yuri went through with starting the guild,' she murmured.

"Why do you say that? He's not exactly a rule follower, so ditching the Empire? Becoming a part of the Union? Sure, he's technically under the rule of the Don, but he can forge his own path from there. Choose his own rules to follow." It made sense for him.

'I suppose.'

I waited a few moments. "Is that all you wanted? To comment on Yuri starting a guild?"

'That will be all for now,' she said after a brief hesitation.

I reached up a hand to rub at the back of my neck. Of course. "Alright."

The silence that followed was almost uncomfortable, but neither of us made a move to break it.


Even moving at the pace I'd been pushing through the afternoon, it was nearly dark by the time we entered Heliord. We'd gotten held up when a small group of monsters attacked from the thinning forest just outside the city - two bird type creatures that Karol identified as Honkers. An unfortunate name, to be sure, but a fitting one. The things had beaks that resembled trumpets. I'd snagged a couple of small feathers from their bodies when we'd finished with them, but they had been annoying as hell.

The walk into Heliord was more anticlimactic than I was expecting. The last time we were here, there was organized chaos - people bustling around to get the young town up and running as smoothly as possible. It was alive.

But now?

"It's so empty," breathed Estelle.

A quick glance at Yuri showed that he was on alert. "Yeah. This place has gotten a lot more ... ghost-towny."

Even at dusk, it was eerily silent in the town. It was strange.

'Strange.'

It didn't mean anything. It didn't have to mean anything at all.

"Maybe those rumors are true after all," Karol said, eyes wide.

Rumors? Fucking peachy.

"What rumors?" It hadn't been too long since we were last in town, and I hadn't heard of anything happening in that time.

"That people have been mysteriously disappearing from here." Yuri sounded skeptical, but he was carefully scanning the area, fingers tightening on the ribbon around his scabbard. "Heard about it around Dhangrest while you were playing politics."

I nodded. That checked out. Politics were a bore, but they'd consumed all of my time and attention while in the city.

"She has to do something about it."

Yuri had turned his back to us to speak. I looked from him to Karol, who looked more confused than I felt. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I looked back to Yuri. Then to Estelle, who had a faraway look in her eyes.

Son of a bitch. This wasn't going to be a quick trip after all.

'Are you at all surprised.' A statement, not a question.

Still. It would have been nice to have a plan go the way we'd intended it to for once.

Judith cocked her head to the side, a finger placed delicately on the side of her chin. "You can see it on her face."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Estelle had returned to us, and was now glancing between us.

"They mean," I sighed, "that our little road trip to Desier is on hold for now. Figure this thing out first."

No rest for the wicked, it seemed.

The words 'none indeed' floated through my head on a gentle breeze.

"We should check in at the Inn and have a strategy meeting." Big guild boss Karol was taking charge. That was new. "And we can check in on the blastia and see how it's doing too."

Not that any of us really knew anything about blastia theory or formulas or literally anything other than the fact that they used aer and made fighting more interesting. Without Rita around, we'd have to rely on the diagnostics given by the city. If they would even release that information to us.

We did follow Karol's lead, however, and booked two rooms at the Inn - one for the girls and one for the guys. I let out a breath as I eased my travel bag from my shoulders and let it fall on the bed closest to the door, and I sat down hard not long after it. Delta jumped on to the bed and curled around my back with a huff of hot air. I'd forgotten how exhausting traveling was.

Estelle and Judith followed in to the room not long after, chatting idly about something that I didn't bother to pay attention to. I shifted Delta to the side and laid down to close my eyes. She let loose a low growl, but moved with me until she was pressed against my side.

Estelle and Judith kept talking. And talking. My eyes rolled open and immediately set themselves to stare blankly at the two chatterboxes. They kept talking. I finally interrupted with a cough and a wave of my hand.

"Hey, are we having a pow-wow now or are we going to wait until morning?"

Estelle looked taken aback, but regained her footing rather quickly. "Oh! We decided to get some rest. We'll figure out a plan tomorrow."

I pushed myself off the bed. "Perfect." That meant I had some time to disappear for a while and find some peace and quiet. Hopefully they would be asleep, or at least have quieted down, by the time I got back. I poked Delta in the stomach to see if she wanted to come with me, then blew a raspberry at her when she snapped at my hand.

"Whatever," I said fondly.

On my way back outside, I noticed that the lobby of the Inn was just as empty as the rest of the town. The Fortune's Market trading stall was closed, as was the small bar across the way. Even the attendant who had given us our rooms had disappeared.

After closing the door carefully behind me, I set off to wander the empty streets. Darkness had finally fallen, and while it wasn't late, the absence of any activity along the main thoroughfare gave the impression of deep nighttime. I walked in peace through the streets, idly admiring the stonework around me.

From what I could gather, Heliord was a military town, built out of necessity. Once officially completed, it would serve as a sort of base of operations for the Imperial Knights on Tolbyccia. They had chosen to plant the town over the convergence of two rivers in the middle of the continent, and resulting waterfall from where the two bodies of water met was within easy view of the eastern entrance.

It was there, staring at the power of nature, that I chose to settle in. The city was built as a set of connected towers - the main thoroughfare being a series of connecting walkways between them. I climbed carefully along the raised platform that acted as a guard rail until I found a spot where I could lean back comfortably and just enjoy the peace.

It was maybe an hour or two later when someone cleared their throat and woke me from the light sleep I'd fallen in to. Khana had been humming in the base of my skull the whole time, and I was confident that she would have alerted me if we had been in any real danger - whether that be falling off the tower and into the river or whoever this stranger was.

I blinked awake to meet the dark, smiling eyes of Yuri.

"Scout," he said, as a way of greeting.

I nodded back, pushing myself up into a siting position once more. When he didn't make any move to initiate a conversation, I went back to watching the water fall.

We sat together in a silence that wasn't quite uncomfortable, but wasn't the most companionable. Neither Yuri nor I were too keen on wearing our hearts on our sleeves, but I had learned to read him in the past few weeks. While I couldn't tell if he had intentionally sought me out or if he had just happened upon my quiet place, I could tell that there was something going on in his head.

"Something on your mind?" I kicked at the cobblestones, burying my nerves under a sigh. Conversations with Yuri generally went one of a few ways. They could be light and teasing. They could be stern and sassy. They could be deep and mysterious. They could be brutally up front.

Yuri's expression was as calm as it was unreadable, as usual. So it was a bit of a toss up as to how this would go.

After a moment of prolonged silence, he nodded at the sky. "Brave Vesperia," he announced dramatically. I raised both of my eyebrows at his theatrics. Not quite what I was expecting. "Do you know which one it is?"

I leaned back, pulling my attention from the crashing water to take in the dark expanse above us. The light from the town's barrier blastia was polluting the natural glow of the stars, but they were easy enough to make out once my eyes had adjusted.

"I'm pretty sure it's that one," I said after a minute of scanning, pointing to a twinkling light to the west.

He hummed, trying to follow my finger. "Didn't take you for the stargazing type."

"It's kind of hard not to be, don't you think? They're always there. It's almost more effort to not look at them."

"Guess that's fair." He shifted positions against the stone. "Do you know the stories Estelle was talking about?"

"Estelle tells a lot of stories." We shared a quick laugh at that. The girl had something to say about everything. "Do you mean about the star?" He nodded, and I sighed. "I don't know much. My father used to tell me stories, but it's been ages. I don't remember if he ever spoke of stars."

He hummed again. "And Khana?"

I bristled a bit, then turned to look at him closer. Though I was pleased that he respected my privacy enough not to ask more about my father, he'd never really cared about what the spirit queen had to say. "Why are you so curious about this? Didn't take you for the stargazing type," I tried to tease.

It came across as forced, even to my ears. I fought the urge to wince, settling instead on a scowl. I was frustrated, and I was more comfortable showing that than my disappointment.

Yuri didn't shift his gaze from the sky. "I must have been born under one unlucky star, to have had all of this happen to me. Maybe this one, this star, is it."

I shot him an incredulous look. "You think you were cursed by Brave Vesperia?"

Khana, who had been quiet for the majority of the conversation chose that moment to cut in. 'What nonsense. The Son would not curse any living thing.'

A scoff found its way past my lips before I could stop it. "Khana says that's dumb."

I'd let the Son thing slide for now. It probably had to do with the stories about the star that I definitely hadn't been paying attention to.

"You know, we put a lot of faith in that spirit in your head. You trust it that much?" Yuri's tone was light, but something about the words stung.

I crossed my arms, openly fuming now. "Bold of you to say that to my face," I spat, "considering you're the one who asked her in the first place."

For a moment he looked almost guilty; his brow furrowed and he blinked several times at the before he asked again. "Do you trust it?"

He didn't even have the decency to look at me.

"I do. She hasn't gotten me killed yet."

His gaze finally lowered to pierce mine. The resulting silence hung heavy between us with his obvious, unspoken response.

Yet.

I breathed out harshly. I was too tired for his mind games, and I wasn't in the mood to be manipulated.

"Look, it's just a fucking star. Stars are not sentient things. I don't think it can do much blessing or cursing, either way. You're reading a little too closely in to your own misfortunes, which I'm sure you have had no hand in causing because you're just so innocent."

"Hmm."

Well, consider that conversation effectively closed. With a sigh, I stood up, brushing dust from my pants. "Alright, well. I think that's enough awkward socialization for me for a while. I'm going to head back to the Inn."

"See you in the morning, Scout." There was no malice in his tone, and his eyes had drifted back to the stars. I turned, leaving him to his thoughts.

"See you."


So much talking in this one, wow. And to think I used to hate writing dialogue.

Guys. Guys the seduction scene happens in the next chapter. I'm stoked.

-Han