The next morning, Elizabeth woke in a cold sweat. Her fingers trembled, caught in the thin hospital blanket that was tangled around the rest of her body. The images from her nightmare still danced in her mind, warping her sense of reality.

There had been a thousand corpses littering a bloodstained battlefield and she alone stood in the middle. She knew they were all dead because of her, yet she did not weep. She merely waited. She still had one man left to kill.

Lucian Fende.

As she sat clutching her blanket close, Elizabeth tried to recall other details of the nightmare. A kind-looking young man with silver hair pulled into a tight ponytail and a woman with a severe expression and long, curly brown hair had warned her against leaving alone, but she didn't listen. She had known it was her duty to handle Fende alone. She couldn't ask them to risk their lives for her any more.

"Are you all right?"

Elizabeth looked up and found a young man with short silver hair peering through the door uncertainly. He looked uncannily like the young man from her dream.

"Er, yes, I'm fine," Elizabeth replied, letting go of her blanket. "I just had a nightmare, that's all."

The young man's nervous expression relaxed and he stepped inside. "I'm Brigadier General Aslan Frings. Colonel Curtiss told me you had expressed an interest in becoming a Malkuth citizen. Before we can get started on the paperwork, I need to ask you a few questions, just to make sure you aren't a spy for Kimlasca or anything like that."

"You actually think I could be a spy?" Elizabeth asked incredulously. "Wow. You guys must really think highly of me. I don't think I could sneak around the corner without getting caught!"

Frings smiled. "Well, even so, I do have to ask a few questions. It's part of the process, after all."

Elizabeth nodded. She was used to procedures that made no sense.

"First of all, were you born in Kimlascan territory?"

"No."

"Do you have family or loved ones in Kimlasca?"

"No."

"Have you sworn loyalty to Kimlasca?"

"No."

"Are you willing to side with Malkuth, regardless of the situation?"

Elizabeth looked at Frings questioningly. She knew she had essentially sworn to the same thing when she had joined the Navy, but it felt strange to hear it out loud. Before she thought about it any longer, however, Frings broke out into a huge grin.

"I'm just kidding. You don't have to answer that," Frings said, bringing a sigh of relief from Elizabeth. "Don't worry, we wouldn't ask that of you unless you were joining the military."

Elizabeth laughed. If only he knew that, where she was from, she was an active member of the military.

"Yeah, I guess I'm not doing that, am I?"

Later that afternoon, after receiving some spare clothes from one of the healers, Elizabeth went for a walk around Grand Chokmah. She passed the Emperor's palace, trying not to show just how impressed she was by its beauty. She had, of course, seen it in the game, but the artists had simply not done it justice. She wondered what it looked like inside, if, like the outside, it was even more beautiful than she remembered.

Her stroll took her along the outer edge of the city, along the waterfront. She recognized some of the buildings that she had been allowed inside in the game, passing the pier and eventually reaching the bridge to the outer world. She wondered if she could simply leave now, if there would be some sort of invisible barrier preventing her from exiting the way the game would sometimes do. Perhaps some stranger would tell her it was unwise to leave and she would have no choice but to turn back.

Elizabeth laughed to herself and stepped onto the bridge. But, as soon as she did so, she recalled the walk from the beach to the city. Without the proper supplies, she would likely end up the same as she did that day. And, of course, she had absolutely no gald to her name to purchase said supplies.

With that in mind, Elizabeth headed back to the hospital, where she was directed to the military base to meet with Jade and Frings. Her citizenship papers were ready to be signed.

Upon her arrival, Elizabeth found that only Jade was waiting for her. He wore his usual unreadable expression and Elizabeth suddenly felt herself become afraid. Had they changed their mind? What if Jade had decided she was actually a Kimlascan spy?

Jade, however, merely stood from the desk in the center of the room and moved to hand her a small stack of papers. As soon as Elizabeth took them, he turned away from her.

"Are these the citizenship papers?" she asked.

"Yes. I've marked the places you need to sign."

Elizabeth looked down at the papers. Despite the unusual writing system used in Auldrant, she found she could read it easily. Taking a pen from the desk, she quickly skimmed through the papers and signed.

"Is that it?"

Jade didn't respond for a while and Elizabeth grew nervous once more. Just as she started to consider leaving, he turned to face her, a puzzling expression on his face. On one hand, he seemed to dominate the room, his eyes watching everything. Something deeper, however, seemed to suggest he was afraid, something Elizabeth hadn't thought possible.

"I have a favor I would like to ask of you," Jade said finally. "However, before I can ask this of you, I need to know that whatever is said in this room is completely confidential. Is that understood?"

Elizabeth nodded, trying to think of what he could possibly want from her.

"I would like you to escort a messenger to King Ingobert of Kimlasca. You see, we are on the brink of war and His Majesty, Emperor Peony, has expressed a desire for the conflict to end before it begins. To do that, however, we need a neutral messenger, one who is not of Kimlasca or Malkuth."

"The Fon Master," Elizabeth said softly and Jade raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"How did you know that?" he asked sharply, stepping toward her with such a fierce aura that Elizabeth grew weak in the chest.

"W-well, he's the only one that could possibly match your description that the King would listen to," Elizabeth answered, hoping he would buy her response. She didn't want to explain that she knew all about the message to Kimlasca and how Ion and Anise were in Malkuth even though the rest of the Order thought they were missing.

Jade still seemed uncertain, but continued to explain the situation. Of course, she wouldn't be going alone. He would be with her as well as the entire crew of the Tartarus and Ion's personal guardian.

"But why have me go with you?" Elizabeth asked, genuinely confused. "I'm not anyone important. There are so many other people you could ask to accompany you."

"The Fon Master might know something about your condition," Jade explained. "Unfortunately, this is an urgent matter and takes priority. However, if you were to accompany the Fon Master to Baticul, you may be able to speak with him throughout the trip."

Elizabeth thought she saw something else play behind Jade's eyes, a darkness tinged with what appeared to be remorse. She wondered what had triggered such an odd look, but didn't dare ask. It hardly seemed tactful and, besides, Jade likely wouldn't answer honestly to a stranger. He rarely opened up to his closest friends. Which brought up another question.

"Wait, why are you going out of your way to help me? You barely know me." Elizabeth fidgeted slightly. "Not that I'm ungrateful or anything, but it just doesn't make sense. People don't help people for no reason, you know?"

"I have my reasons," Jade conceded. "However, until we reach Baticul, I would prefer to keep them to myself. There are still some things that are still unclear at the moment. You understand, of course."

"Yeah, of course I do. Thanks, then." She turned to leave, still puzzled by Jade's words. How could he have reasons for bringing her along with him if he truly believed she was a typical sailor? Of course, Elizabeth considered the possibility that he didn't believe her, which did seem to her typical of Jade. Still, the thought was troubling.

"Before you go, I think it would be wise to prepare for a journey on foot."

Elizabeth froze, startled out of her thoughts by Jade's voice. Of course, she had thought the same thing when she thought of running, but she didn't have any money or a weapon she knew how to use.

Jade smirked, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking and reached into his pocket. "This ought to cover some basic travel items and a few spare clothes, maybe something a bit more durable."

"Ok, this is just plain weird. I mean, you're being so kind," Elizabeth said, taking a small pouch filled with coins. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but this just doesn't seem like something you'd normally do."

Jade raised an eyebrow. "Seeing as we have just barely met, I wouldn't think you would know what I would normally do."

Elizabeth blushed, looking away from his face. Something about his gaze seemed too piercing and she struggled to come up with a decent excuse, stumbling over her words the way she did back in high school when she had a crush.

"Meet back here by sunset. We'll depart tonight as soon as the sun goes down."

After wandering around town for an hour, Elizabeth soon realized there wasn't much that she could buy in terms of armor or weaponry. She did manage to find a kind elderly woman who gave her an outstanding deal on apple gels and even gave her a leather knapsack to carry them in.

Clothes, on the other hand, proved to be quite the challenge. It seemed that Grand Chokmah didn't cater to women of her shape any more than the malls back home. Women in Malkuth, it seemed, weren't very curvy, either. She wondered if Tear ever had problems finding clothes in her size, too. Granted, Elizabeth didn't have the chest Tear did, but their hips seemed pretty similar.

Eventually, Elizabeth settled on a pair of low-heeled tan boots that came up to the middle of her calves, forest green pants with an almost Celtic-looking design down the sides, and an off-white blouse that clung tightly to her arms, but hung loosely everywhere else. She wore fingerless leather gloves on her arms that laced all the way up to her elbows.

She was about to head back when a small shop caught her eye. At first, she thought it was a simple jewelry store. When she entered, however, Elizabeth saw that they were, in fact, capacity cores. Curious to see just what there was, she soon struck up a conversation with the owner, a middle-aged man who had just inherited the shop from his deceased father. He said that his father had made capacity cores all his life and had left more than he honestly thought he could sell and had reduced the price on all of them as a result.

She browsed around for a while before something caught her eye. It was a small pair of earrings shaped like tiny stars. She turned them over and was shocked to find she could read the words burned into the backs. One was strength and the other was agility. If things turned out the way they did in the game, she might end up needing them. With all her remaining gald, Elizabeth bought the earrings and immediately put them on. She didn't feel any different.

Elizabeth just barely made it back in time. As it turned out, Grand Chokmah was a very large city. Though she wouldn't have guessed it under normal circumstances, she thought Jade looked very uncomfortable, fidgety for a man who so rarely made a move that wasn't carefully calculated hours in advance. That wasn't to say Jade was slow; far from it. It just always seemed as though he knew everything before it happened.

"Ok, I'm ready."