"I wonder if they're okay. They've been gone for a two whole months now…" Forte whispers while he dines with everyone else. Hymn, Jade, Luke, Tear, Natalia, and Guy were all crammed in the same dining table at Baticul.
"Oh, Anise is okay." Jade says while pouring himself a cup full of tea.
"Could you shut up?" Forte asks while throwing a piece of bread at him, Jade catches it without giving it a glance.
"Your turning into Arietta, are you not? How would your other lady friends care about that?" Jade smirks while taking a sip and looks over at Hymn. She just shrugs casually.
"He's not my child." Hymn just takes a bite of her udon.
Tear clears her throat. "How about we talk about something actually important." Luke just smiles at her.
"We obviously missed a lot of… things." Luke says, not knowing what was going on one bit.
"Oh sorry, I should never let Forte's ignorance distract me ever again." Guy just awkwardly smiles. "Didn't you say that to Arietta?" He clears his throat and begins on what happened. "We went to Keterberg to follow Arietta's group, we ended up fighting when they used nightmare on us. 2 people got badly injured, Hymn and Forte. We worried about Forte's health so after a few weeks of trying to get in contact with them we finally got to them and told them to meet Hymn, who was improving and was let out of the hospital." Guy lets Jade finish the rest.
"They met Hymn but then Grand Chokmah was attacked by unknown forces. Many innocent lives brutally killed and they threatened us that they were going to kill a small child, most likely around the age of 5, with a knife to his neck." Everyone seemed surprised and Natalia gasped.
"Who would do such a thing?" She says in a hush voice, her hands over her mouth.
Jade pushes up his glasses and continues on. "We ended up getting the boy but 2 of the bandits escaped our grasp. One used flame burst on Arietta, Guy, and the Liger she brings around. Arietta and Liger were put on fire while Guy followed him, shortly ending his life afterwards. Liger was badly injured as from being hit by flame burst on the face, so Hymn tried using her healing mystic arte on him, it healed his burnt fur but not his eyesight. As you know he's gone blind." Jade points at the Liger in the corner, curled up in a ball, not facing anyone.
"Poor thing." Tear whispers.
"Meuiii, I feel bad." Meui squeaks out, remembering the destruction of its home.
"They ended up kidnapping Anise and Viola and told us that they kidnapped Tear and threatened the life of her and the child if they didn't take Arietta, Florian and the small boy from earlier. We ran back to Grand Chokmah to get the Albiore and to tell emperor Peony what happened. Half way there Liger went limp and completely lost his eyesight, so there wasn't anything we could do. We looked for them for a while before coming over here and telling you lovely women what happened."
"H-hey!" Luke yells out.
"But I'm a boy!" Meui yells out hopping off of Tear's lap to get a little piece of bread from the loaf by Forte. He sees Meui and grabs him, making Meui squeak.
"What the hell is this thing?" He says while poking Meui's face, Hymn just face palms.
"I swear you can't stay focused for a minute…" Jade chuckles at this.
"What?"
"Oh, Nothing." Hymn gives him a fake smile before turning to look at Luke and Tear.
"I heard from a few villagers from days ago that they saw people who matched their descriptions heading off towards Grand Chokmah. They took a coach so it won't be long before they get directed to here." Hymn says while eating small bites of sushi.
"I guess we just have to wait." Natalia says while looking at Forte and Meui.
Meui is stuffing food in his cheeks while Forte is giving him a weird glare. "Don't be mean to cheagles, you're supposed to be one to worship them, right?" Guy says with a laugh. Forte freezes, "This things a cheagle?!"