Disclaimer:
I don't own anything!

Author's Note: God this chapter took me a long time. I have the next several chapters almost entirely done, but this chapter was fighting me.

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other thing."
-Abraham Lincoln

Three nights after they formed the pact with Origin, Yuan was stirred awake by his fiancée shifting in their bed. Mithos and Kratos had put their heads together and found a way to lower the intensity of a wind spell so that it would just circulate the air in the room, which was already cooler thanks to Mithos' Icicle.

Yuan was still sleeping on his left side so as not to aggravate his still-healing shoulder. He grumbled and snuggled into his pillow a bit more as Martel moved away from him. Martel's internal clock woke her at dawn pretty much every day. He heard her chuckle and felt the gentle press of her lips on his temple. He was nearly all the way back asleep when he heard a scream.

In an instant, Yuan was on his feet, Kratos and Mithos fumbling for their weapons while Yuan moved towards the bathroom.

"Martel?!" Yuan gave her a moment to respond before slamming the door open with his good shoulder.

Martel stood naked in front of the long mirror, hands covering her mouth in horror.

"Sweetheart, what—?"

The wind was knocked out of Yuan when Kratos and Mithos skidded into his back. "Are you okay?"

"Guys, I think I'll handle this one," Yuan said slowly, gingerly shifting his injured shoulder.

Now that their suddenly-awake minds were processing the situation, Mithos and Kratos obeyed, glancing back warily.

Yuan shut the bathroom door behind him. "Martel, honey, what's wrong?"

When he reached for her, she flinched. Yuan froze. She'd only ever reacted to him like that when she was in the middle of a nightmare, which Yuan had rapidly learned not to wake her from.

Martel fixed her eyes on him. "I don't know what's wrong." Her voice was quiet, hoarse and terrified. "Look at me."

When Martel dropped her hands, Yuan stared at the odd bluish tinge to her skin. It was all along the bony edges of her, collarbones, elbows, edging around her forehead. Upon closer inspection, Yuan found that they were textured, a little rough, almost like scales.

"What on earth?" Yuan breathed.

"What am I?" Hysteria crept into Martel's voice.

"Hey—no." Yuan wrapped his arms around her. This time, she didn't flinch away. "You're not a what. Understand me?"

"Those are scales, Yuan. That's—that's monstrous."

Yuan cupped her face in his hands. The scales were on the ridge of her brow too, but they were a little harder to see due to her eyebrows. He felt them beneath his hands along the edge of her jaw. "There is no universe where you're a monster. We're going to figure this out, okay?"

A moment. She was resolutely not looking at him.

He gently tipped her head up, kissing her forehead, her nose, her lips. "Have I ever been wrong?"

She snorted.

"About anything important, smartass."

Her lips twitched, her eyes not as wide. "No."

"Exactly. And there is nothing and no one more important than you. So therefore—you're gonna be just fine."

Yuan felt her shoulders shake with an inaudible chuckle as she buried her face in his chest, her arms tight around his waist. Yuan waited until Martel drew away to let her go.

Martel pushed her loose hair from her face, taking a long, stuttering breath. (Yuan has never doubted the strength and unwavering determination in Martel's bones. He hopes that she knows she doesn't have to be strong for him, but he knows that there is no point in telling her that. Changing Martel's mind on something is near impossible)

"I'm gonna finish my bath," she said.

Yuan smiled wryly. "Start it, you mean?"

Her lips twitched again, the closest she could get to a smile right now. "Calm the others down for me?"

"Yes ma'am."

Kratos almost dropped his precious mug of coffee—they've had it sparingly since leaving the military.

"Scales?" Mithos repeated.

Yeah. Neither of you have ever heard of anything like this, right?" Yuan sighed when they shook their heads. "I thought not."

Kratos said nothing to Martel about her affliction. But as she stood in the doorway of their room, hesitating, Kratos offered her his hooded cloak. She'd covered up as much as possible, with long sleeves and her shirt with a higher neckline, but the ones on her face were still visible.

"It won't make you invisible," Kratos told her. "But it'll help."

Martel drew the cloak around her thankfully. His wasn't as thick as hers, so at least she wasn't as likely to die of heatstroke.

Yuan had already sent a note to Myra, asking for her expertise. Noishe had been hesitant to go, which was an indicator of how serious this might be. Noishe was protective of all of them, but he had never hesitated to leave before.

"Excuse me," Mithos asked the innkeeper. "Where can we find a Healer?"

The innkeeper glanced between the four of them. Elves were terrible gossips, they'd found, and therefore, all of Heimdall now knew about the half-elves who'd managed to forge a pact with the King of Spirits. It had improved their interactions with them but not a lot.

"The House of Healing is near Undine's Altar."

"Thank you."

While Martel sat in an examination room, Mithos paced the main room where they'd been given explicit instructions to sit on their hands so that they didn't touch anything.

Bunches of herbs tied together hung from the rafters of the House of Healing. There were a few pots simmering on stoves, rolls of bandages neatly organized on shelves beside books on anatomy. Charts cross-referencing height and body weight for dosages were nailed to the walls. Containers of gels were neatly labelled alongside jars of salve.

How nice they had it, Mithos sneered mentally. A surplus of supplies and space for the few longtime patients, a rotation of Healers so that they actually had a few days off. The floors here were not bloodstained, there were no desperate prayers whispered so fervently that the very walls remembered them. Patients were not screaming themselves awake, their eyes were not haunted with horrors, staring at their missing limbs. The elves were sitting in peace and luxury while others were sacrificing everything to try and end this war.

Mithos jumped when he felt Yuan's grip on his forearm.

"Leash that temper, boyo," Yuan murmured. "'Anger has no place in a healing room', remember?"

(Mithos wants to snap at him. Can he not see what Mithos sees? But then he looks again at Yuan's face, at the tension in his jaw and the tightness around his eyes that is more than simply concern for Martel's health. Yes, Yuan sees it too, and of course it enrages him, but Yuan won't risk Martel's health)

Mithos took a seat between Kratos and Yuan. Kratos was eyeing the gels and bandages. Mithos wondered if, somewhere inside, Kratos wanted to steal them. Kratos didn't get outwardly angry about a lot of things; he was more of the 'don't get mad, get even' type. Stealing some of their abundant supplies was petty, but the elves obviously didn't need it as much.

"…Is Martel gonna be okay?" Mithos asked finally. His voice, even when he spoke quietly, sounded too loud in this room.

Yuan looked over at him, and at Kratos over Mithos' head. A lot of times, it was easy to forget that Mithos was only recently thirteen. He usually acted so much older.

"Honestly, I don't know," Kratos said gently. He tucked loose strands of Mithos' hair back. "But it is Martel we're talking about. If anyone can out-stubborn whatever this is, it's her."

After another twenty minutes, Martel came out of the exam room, pale and looking not all there. The boys were on their feet immediately, Mithos' hand slipping in hers.

"Well?" they asked in unison.

The Healer shook her head. "I've never seen something like this before. I've never even heard rumors about it. I'm afraid I can't help you."

They waited in Heimdall for five more days until Noishe came back. The letter that returned was a bittersweet one.

I haven't heard of anything like that myself, wrote Myra, but I consulted with Alstan and the others. There have been some curious cases of odd monsters roaming the hills where soldiers disappeared. I'm unsure if they're related. We are investigating it, and Alstan is reaching out to any dwarven contacts he has in case they know something of this phenomenon. Stay in Heimdall. I will send word there when we consolidate what we find.

"A dwarven mining sickness?" Martel repeated two weeks later as she read Myra's next letter. "I've never even set foot in a mine."

"Outside of Gnome and Shadow's Temple, none of us have. But if you caught it then, why didn't any of us catch it too?" Mithos pointed out. "And I was in Gnome's Temple longer than you guys were."

"Perhaps females are more susceptible to it? But don't you think it would've been mentioned to us?"

"Maybe it only occurs in dwarven mines because of the extended exposure," Kratos suggested. "The dwarves might have a resistance to it, so they didn't even consider it a problem. Did Myra write about a cure?"

Martel scanned the letter. "No. Looks like she's going to consult with their dwarven contacts to get more details. She wants us to stay put again."

"It's like she wants us to get burned at the stake," Mithos grumbled. "We're starting to overstay our welcome, and we haven't even found Ratatosk yet."

"Well, we can do our own research while we're here," Yuan said. "The elves must have some kind of library, and they used to do trade with dwarves and humans. We might be able to find information on the illness, or the powers of the human monarchy."

"I doubt that they would let half-elves into their libraries."

Yuan smirked at the Yggdrasills. "Don't worry. Kratos and I are old hats at breaking into libraries."

The library in Heimdall was a long building built higher than the other surrounding ones. The shelves reached the ceiling, with ladders on rails to get around easier. There were cubbies with scrolls and maps. Tables and chairs were spread around with pots of ink. There were very few windows, so Mithos conjured some low-level witchlight to guide their way.

The security had been very lax, just a simple lock on the door that had taken a little bit of fiddling to pick open. Then again, there were no half-elves in Heimdall anymore; who else would be kept out?

Yuan went to the first bookshelf and took a book at random, opening it to shove his nose in it, inhaling deeply. "Mm. Smell that?"

Kratos moved first, mimicking his best friend. He smiled widely. "Wonderful."

Mithos snorted. "You two are such nerds."

"Hey, hey—you can't shame us for loving the smell of books." Yuan sniffed. "Uncultured kids."

Martel quickly smothered her laughter. "C'mon, focus."

(Martel forgets, sometimes, how much Kratos and Yuan appreciate learning. They are scholars in the truest sense. Martel hopes that, one day, they don't have to sneak in to libraries to learn. That they can enjoy their old books and yellowed pages in the full light of day)

They spread out, each with their own little ball of witchlight. They squinted and scanned the pages. It took Kratos and Yuan longer, not being as fluent in elven script as the Yggdrasills. Martel had taught them the basics, as had Alstan and Myra, but they were far from fast readers.

When the witchlight began to run out—as Mithos had only put in enough mana in them to last five hours—they quickly closed and replaced their books, slipping out the door and locking it behind them.

After the third night of doing this, Martel suggested that perhaps the elven Storyteller could help them. "Supposedly he's recorded all of elven history."

The Storyteller's hut was located on a rise overlooking the Toret Valley. The young elf who met them at the door—well, he sounded young—said that the Storyteller refused to see them.

"Refusing to see us?" Yuan repeated in outrage. "This is an emergency!"

"There's no trying to talk him out of it," the elf said apologetically. He glanced between them and shut the door behind him. "What is it that you need?" he asked lowly.

"My fiancée is ill," Yuan said. "The Healer said she'd never heard of it, and the only information we have so far is that it could be a dwarven mining sickness. The elves and dwarves were united at some point in history. We were hoping that the Storyteller's records would show some sign of this sickness."

The elf's gaze flicked to the door. "Look, honestly, my master won't want to help you. He doesn't like half-elves, even more than usual around here." The elf pushed his round glasses up his nose. "But I can help you. Just—give me a list of symptoms and I'll help you research what I can."

Kratos blinked at him. He hadn't even used the word 'half-bred' like other elves did. "Why would you help us?"

The elf looked Kratos up and down before settling on his face. It was probably his first time meeting a human. "Because you guys are right. We've done nothing but hide and it's helped no one. This is how I can fight back."

The elf introduced himself as Kunir, apprentice to the Storyteller. Martel let her hood fall back to display the scales.

Kunir's eyebrows hit his hairline. "I've never seen anything like this." His long hair swept to one side as he tilted his head to study the scales. "But that definitely doesn't mean it's nonexistent. I must go soon, or my master will become suspicious. I can bring what I find to the inn tonight?" The question appeared to be directed at Kratos.

"Yes, please," Kratos said. They still had their own research to do in the library. "Thank you. We appreciate the risk you're taking for us."

Martel made a list of ingredients to see if the boys could find them around town or in the nearby area. She wanted to run some experiments with medicine. Yuan hesitated at leaving Martel alone, but Mithos dragged him out the door.

"She needs her space," Mithos hissed at him. "You're gonna smother her."

Yuan opened his mouth to protest, but Kratos' hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Mithos is right. Let her be alone for awhile while we try and find these things."

Privacy was a hard enough thing to come by, constantly on the road as they were. And though she knew he meant well, if Martel had to spend another moment with Yuan treating her like glass, she was going to scream.

She was so out of her depth. Martel had spent her bath this morning studying the scales along her knees and the ridges of her ankles. They weren't thin and semi-transparent like fish scales. They were tougher than that, rough like a lizard's.

There was no use crying about it, Martel reminded herself sternly when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Tears would solve nothing.

Still. Martel bit the inside of her cheek until she felt the tightness in her throat ease. There was a plan; research and experimentation. No point in despairing when there were things she could do about it.

What was that saying? When you're going through hell, keep going?

It wasn't like she had another option anyway.

When the boys returned, it was to Martel curled under blankets that were tucked up to her chin. Her hair was loose and tangled in the sheets.

They set the pouch of mushrooms and herbs on the floor by the door. Without talking about it, they all slipped their socks and boots off and slid into bed with her.

When Martel awoke nearly two hours later, it was to Yuan's arm slung around her hips, his nose in her shoulder. She was half on top of Kratos, who slept on his back and Mithos was curled in a ball near her stomach, the curve of his spine pressing against Kratos' hip. She smiled fondly at the three of them, this wonderful family of hers.

(There is a part of her that believed that they would be afraid of her, that they would reject her. But here they are, cuddled closer than they have been in weeks due to the heat and they're so familiar against her)

Kunir came that evening with an armful of scrolls. The four of them had awoken from their nap feeling steadier and less panicky.

Martel summoned balls of witchlight for them to read by. Kunir had brought medical journals to start. While they'd been out getting the herbs, Kratos had also purchased a new journal. They took sheets of paper from it and took notes on what they found, reading aloud some of the more ridiculous medical procedures to start.

Kunir's assistance was paramount, since the older scrolls were written in a dialect that neither of the Yggdrasill siblings had ever learned, Kratos and Yuan were a bit slower at reading them, but they were managing fine.

Kunir snickered good-naturedly at Kratos' pronunciation. "You're speaking through your nose," Kunir explained. "The sound is from your stomach, so it comes out stronger."

Kratos tried again. Kunir shook his head. "Use your diaphragm."

Another try, and this time Kunir nodded a little. "Better. Not quite, but better."

The most promising thing they found was from almost two thousand years ago, when Unicorn Horn was used to cure a plague that struck a military encampment. "It used to be used a cure-all," Martel read. Or at the very least, a catalyst for some powerful healing spells."

"Protozoan blood used to be used for healing too. It was used in many vaccines, according to my uncle."

"Protozoan blood?" Kratos repeated.

"Yes. As I understand it, since they are constantly evolving, their DNA actually has protection against a wide variety of things encoded into it. They were hunted pretty heavily some centuries ago. According to our records, they're extinct by now. No elf has seen one in four hundred years."

The four of them exchanged significant glances before Kratos asked, "You've never seen one?"

Kunir shook his head. "No. It was before my time, I'm afraid. My three hundred and twenty-second birthday was a few months ago."

They narrowed down the historical era of the use of the Unicorn Horn, and Kunir promised to return with more in depth research on the area tomorrow.

They did this for three nights, cross-referencing medical records with historic journals.

"I'm finding a major problem—where do we even find a unicorn?" Mithos asked on the third night. "I'm betting there's no convenient map pointing straight to them."

Kunir shook his head. "Nothing. Not even in my master's records. It's like they've been removed for some reason."

"To protect them perhaps?" Yuan suggested. "Perhaps one of the former Storytellers didn't want people to keep going after the unicorns."

"Unicorns are essentially immortal. It's why they're symbolic of rebirth and revitalization. But we have a starting point," Kratos said. "Unicorns are well-documented. They certainly existed."

"Everyone knows they existed, Kratos. They're everywhere in fairy stories," Yuan told him. "Those aren't fact. And any facts that we have are pointing to them either being very well hidden, or the loss of mana has been killing them off, hunters notwithstanding."

"Every story starts somewhere. Combined with what we have in the historical journals, if we find enough commonalities in the stories, they might give us a clue as to where to look."

"I guess I'll go search the children's books," Mithos said. Kunir was quite certain he'd grabbed everything possibly involving unicorns from his master's libraries.

"I'll check encyclopedias, and anything on natural history," said Martel. "See if those can point me in a direction."

It wasn't long before Mithos returned with a stack of thin children's books. "Anything I could find that mentioned unicorns."

The boys set to work, Kratos' notebook out so that they could write down any similarities. All the books agreed on general descriptions—one spiral horn, an equestrian animal with hooves, and white colored. Those checked out with descriptions in the journals.

"They always mention a 'pure maiden'," Yuan noted. "The person talking to the unicorns in the stories is always a pure maiden."

Kratos scribbled that down. "Um. That might present a problem if that means what I think it means."

"What do you—oh, gross." Mithos wrinkled his nose. "Didn't need that mental image of my sister, Kratos, thanks."

"Maybe it's metaphorical," Yuan suggested. "Like, pure of heart, or something."

"That could also present a problem. Being pure of heart is a subjective thing." And all of them knew that they'd all done things that, to outsiders, weren't exactly on the north side of the moral compass.

"We have to try."

"Do any mention a location?" Kunir asked, unfolding a map of the area.

Mithos looked through the stories again, flipping pages and pausing at illustrations. "Forests, mostly. Or woods. Ponds, sometimes."

"Is it always still water or can it be like a river too?" Yuan asked, scanning some of the journals. They were less than helpful much of the time, nondescript as far as their environment was concerned.

"I don't see any mention of rivers or streams. Ponds or lakes."

Yuan tilted his head to study the map. "We'll check the surrounding area since we can't really leave Heimdall until word from Myra comes back."

"There are dozens of forests in the area though," Mithos pointed out. "It would take forever to search all that."

"Yes, but pair that together with still bodies of water and it's considerably less area to search. We can also assume that unicorns avoid people in general, since no one's ever seen one. So we remove the areas on the usual guard patrol routes too." Yuan brought his witchlight closer. "And they would be further from the borders, where the refugees are gathering."

"That's assuming that unicorns still exist at all," Kunir said. "It's possible that they could have been hunted to extinction."

"If they're immortal, how would they go extinct?" Mithos asked, then thought about it. "Wait. Their regeneration process likely takes a lot of mana. And with the amount of mana in the world decreasing, then their regeneration process is either slower or nonexistent."

"Does he always do that?" Kunir asked Kratos.

Kratos just grinned a little. "Terrify people with his intelligence? It's a family trait." He studied the map. "The Ymir is out. Too close to people."

"Right. And this—on the other side of the Toret Valley—there's a little pond, but that's still too close to Heimdall."

"Wait—" Mithos pointed to a larger forest. "What about here? A large area, plenty of space and it doesn't look like too many people go near it. It's at least a day's travel to Heimdall to even get to the outskirts of the forest."

"What about the water?"

"It's not mentioned in all of the stories. Maybe it's not as required." Mithos scanned the forest. "There are little pockets of ponds here and there. Enough fresh water that a unicorn wouldn't have to be dependent on a single water source."

"Which makes them less predictable," Kratos said. "It makes sense. It's a day's travel to get there, but there's no guarantee how long it would take us to search that area."

"Noishe could help us search from overhead."

Kratos nodded. Even if the canopy was thick, Noishe had very sharp ears. He might not be able to track them very much, but any sign would be better than nothing.

Before Kunir could ask who Noishe was, Martel came with a book in one hand, her finger holding her place. "This is a medical text. I've noticed in a lot of their medicine, the elves use something called a…" Martel opened the page. "Mana leaf herb? It's supposed to be a powerful herb, used to help cure a plague a few centuries back, some lung and heart sicknesses. Maybe it can help with this too."

"We might have a lead on a unicorn."

They explained what they'd found. Martel nodded, eyes flicking across the map. "That makes sense."

"We thought so."

"And this forest that Mithos found, it's a large one. It's supposedly neutral ground for the elves. They won't build settlements there, won't even chop down the trees for wood."

"Why?"

"Well, according to the stories," Kunir answered slowly. "When the elves first came, they brought with them a seed. The seed that became the Giant Kharlan Tree."

"And you're saying that this Tree is in that forest?"

"Well. There is a section of the forest known as Kharlan Wood. It's…" Kunir scanned the map. "Here, a bit further north. Since it's the source of mana, none of us will go near it. Theoretically, our presence corrupts the mana, but I think that's a bit crazy."

"Wait wait wait," Mithos said. "Isn't Ratatosk the Spirit of the Tree?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't he be there? How could Alain have gotten the pact otherwise?" Mithos looked at Kunir who only shrugged.

"Alain has been the keeper of Ratatosk's pact since my grandfather's time. I don't know how he did it. Ratatosk's priests are notoriously secretive."

"Maybe he has a Temple somewhere," Martel said. "On the edges of the forest. A place where the elves can worship, but not step into the Woods. Can you copy out the map, Yuan? Your artistic skills are better than ours, and we don't need to be wandering around blindly."

Yuan nodded as Kratos handed him the pen. It was hard to scale such a large map down into such a little notebook, but it would have to do. Besides, they didn't need as much precision for something like this. He passed the pen to Martel so she could translate the names of the areas. The calligraphic script on the map wasn't making it any easier for him to understand it.

"You were right, about the mana leaf herb," Kunir told Martel, cleaning his glasses on the edge of his shirt. "It's not terribly rare, but it is hard to get to. It thrives on less oxygen, you see. For generations, it's been a tradition to weave the history we take on cloth made from mana leaf."

"So you know where to find it?"

"The area where we get ours is in the mountains, at the source of the Latheon River."

"While we search for the unicorns, would it be possible to get mana leaves?"

"You want to experiment with them?" Kunir guessed.

"Yes. I don't know if a cure for this sickness has been found, but I'll try anything."

Kunir sighed. If there was one thing he'd learned about this group—and Martel Yggdrasill in particular—it was that trying to dissuade them when their minds were made up was nigh impossible. "I'll do what I can."