A/N: Thank you for the follows and favorites, my lovely readers! I'm quite surprised anyone outside myself is enjoying this ridiculous fic.

Thank you to my longsuffering betas, xXLiquidSugarXx and sarahannmarie.

~3~

Golden light streamed in from between ratty curtains. Yuri groggily cracked open his eyes. He was still muddled from last night's excitement. It had been close. He didn't want to think about what could have happened to him if he'd been arrested clutching the secret documents of a noble house in his hands. He still couldn't figure out how the hell the knights had known. Had someone eavesdropped on his and Flynn's conversation? Or had that man from Dahngrest been the one with the follower?

Repede sniffed at the door before he looked up and barked at Yuri. Yuri got up to let him out, but stopped when he spotted what Repede was examining. A small stack of letters sat just in front of the door of his room. He never got mail. He lifted them up before opening the door so that Repede could leave. The letters almost slipped from his hand when Yuri saw who they were addressed to. Three were written to Ragou Furlan and two to Wendy Furlan. There was only one person who could have slipped these under Yuri's door, and Yuri was uncomfortable with the fact that Raven had so easily found where he lived.

The oldest letter was dated for four months ago, and the newest was only a week old. Yuri skimmed through them and found that Ragou Furlan was the governor of Capua Nor. From the missives it sounded like Ragou had a stranglehold on the town and was quite proud of the fact. The councilman was taxing the people to the bone and claimed to be planning a way to shut down access to the harbor town whenever he saw fit.

Yuri scowled at the papers. Nor had been fine when he had last passed through it, but a lot could change in a couple of months, as Yuri himself had often experienced. The most noteworthy information was subtle, but when combined with the more detailed letters from the Randell estate, Yuri was able to surmise that the majority of the stolen blastia were being moved through Ragou's personal dock.

Flynn had only left a day ago, and Yuri didn't have any reason to stick around Zaphias now that he had so much evidence. He would leave the city, catch up with Flynn, and travel to Capua Nor. Ragou's boasting had made him ill, and he could hardly allow the councilman's gross abuse of power to continue. He could do some more digging as well. The conspiracy didn't end with Ragou. There was still the thief from the Union, and that strange man named Raven digging around in the middle of this. Yuri planned to uncover each link of the chain and take care of anyone he needed to along the way.

~3~

Yuri was a couple of miles from Deidon Hold when he and Repede stopped for the night, and there had been no sign of Flynn or his unit on the road. The world had been reduced to shadows and brilliant flashes of silver moonlight. Stars stretched across the sky, and he could hear the hooting of owls. The fire at the center of the camp burned a brilliant orange as Yuri finished off his dinner.

The hooting of the owls stopped as a sliver of light appeared in the black of the forest. Yuri's eyes were drawn to it in an instant. He grabbed his sword but hesitated when he saw that the light was a person. An incredibly pale person who glowed silver in the moonlight. Yuri blinked a couple of times to clear his vision, but the tall silver entity didn't disappear. It only continued to glide across the forest floor while making Yuri question his own sanity.

Long silver hair trailed behind the elegant apparition as it walked just outside of the camp. Yuri didn't move a muscle, as the miraculous sight wasn't paying him or Repede any mind. It walked forward with a purpose, its head held high. Yuri noticed that it had red eyes that glowed just as terrifyingly as the rest of it. A heart stopping moment passed before the silver-haired person passed back into the thick woods, their brilliant glow becoming a faint outline in the distance.

Yuri's heart was hammering. This was the sort of thing a merchant in the Public Quarter would rant about after a couple of drinks to entertain their city friends. Yuri had never believed any of those stories about ghosts and nymphs and giant monsters. Yet what else could that thing have been? With the way it had glided through the woods, Yuri didn't even know if it had been corporeal.

Repede was still lying down.

"Did you see that?" Yuri whispered.

Repede stared at Yuri for moment before turning his nose to the sky and barking.

The dull sound of wings beating filled the previous silence, and a wind blew Yuri's hair back. A massive black shape was immerging from the top of the nearby trees and filling up the night sky. Yuri drew in a sharp breath at the sight. It was an enormous dragon and atop its back was the glowing being, dwarfed by the sheer size of the beast it rode. Yuri almost fell over as he tried to crane his neck to keep the fantastical pair in his sight, but in the end they flew beyond the edge of the trees where Yuri could no longer see them.

"Tell me you saw that," Yuri said breathlessly.

Repede whined as he walked over to Yuri. He leaned against Yuri's leg, and Yuri put his hand on Repede's head.

"It's alright. They're gone."

In all the time he'd spent traveling with Clay, Yuri had never seen anything quite like that.

~3~

A tree with luscious pink petals guarded over the sleepy town of Halure. Petals coated the street and the rooftops of the buildings. Yuri was quite sure he'd never seen so much pink in his life. The sun was setting, lighting the petals and the wooden buildings of the town with an orange tint. Yuri and Clay had never actually stayed in Halure during their travels, as the small town was full of gossipers and watchful eyes. Clay had told Yuri that keeping a secret in a place like Halure was impossible, and that if you had something to hide it was best to camp outside of the city.

Yuri was glad to not see the place under siege by a horde of monsters, but he was disappointed that Flynn was nowhere in sight. He had thought that he would have made better time than Flynn. His friend was traveling with an entire unit of knights, while Yuri only had Repede with him.

Halure's gossiping locals would come in handy as Yuri had no doubt they would practically line up to tell a stranger any exciting news about a wayward unit of knights.

As Yuri stepped further into Halure, he could feel eyes watching him. Repede even started growling, though Yuri calmed him with a hand on his head. If Repede scared off the locals then Yuri would never hear the story of where Flynn had gone.

Yuri wandered up to a storefront where a man with messy brown hair and a fake smile waited.

"Hey," Yuri greeted, "I heard the barrier around here was down."

The man's smile morphed into something more genuine. "It was, but this amazing young woman healed the tree!"

Amazing young woman? That didn't sound like Flynn. Yuri had a thought cross his mind that something had happened to Flynn and his knights on their way to Halure.

"What about the unit of knights that was dispatched here?" he asked.

"The knights were here. They were protecting us, but there just wasn't enough of them to fight off the monsters with how aggressive they've been lately. Until that young woman cast that miraculous spell of hers, we all thought we'd have to evacuate to the Capital."

It sounded like Yuri wasn't the only one who'd seen something supernatural.

"The knights swooped right in after the tree was healed and carried off that young woman and her mage friend. The whole lot of them were headed west, probably off to Capua Nor. I really wished they would have let her stay longer, we didn't even get to learn her name."

Flynn had gone to Capua Nor? That didn't make any sense. He would have had to report back to Zaphias after finishing his mission in Halure. The mysterious woman that the shopkeeper was raving on about might have had something to do with Flynn's break in conduct.

"Now there's these strange—"

"You have any gels for sale?" Yuri cut in. The shopkeeper was successfully distracted and saved Yuri from gossip about the next-door neighbor and who knows what else.

After buying a couple of apple gels, Yuri and Repede made their way to the inn. The inn was a quaint little building, just as coated in petals as the rest of the town, yet the sight in front of it was jarringly out of place.

A group of peculiar people were having an argument in front of the inn. A sneering man with a green hood covering his eyes stood next to a monster of a man who had a gigantic sword strapped to his back. The two were observing a girl with a massive curved weapon yelling at a boy with puffy brown hair. Some of the locals had stopped to watch, as if the group was putting on a show.

"You're finished!" The girl's voice was like ice.

The boy clutched the strap of the large bag he carried with him in a white knuckled grip. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" he choked out.

"The Boss has already decided that you are no longer a member of the Hunting Blades. No amount of whining will change his mind. Now shut up! You're causing a scene!"

The boy was almost in tears. "Please, Nan! I'll do better next time, I promise! Boss, you have-"

"I thought Nan told you to shut it!" the sneering man snapped, stepping forward aggressively.

The giant man began to walk away, his steps heavy and measured.

"Come on, Nan, the Boss is leaving," the hooded man growled before storming off as well.

"Nan, please," the skinny kid begged.

Nan gave the sniveling boy in front of her one final searing look before turning around and walking away with the others. She didn't even look back at the boy's loud cry of, "Nan!"

The boy fell onto his hands and knees and began to sob as quietly as he could. The group walked past Yuri on their way out of the town. The large man was expressionless, the hooded man looked pleased, and the girl's face was a storm of emotions.

Yuri had hardly expected to see such drama unfolding right before his eyes. He noted with disgust that the locals were going their separate ways, some of them even stepping around the crying boy as they went on their way. They were probably doing so because the kid and his ex-associates were obviously Union members from their speech and style of clothes. The people of the Guilds had a bad reputation in the Empire, and the stigma against them was so great that the locals weren't even moved by the sight of a crying child.

With a shake of his head, Yuri walked over to the kid. It wasn't often that he stuck his nose into other people's business, but it would be plain cruelty to just leave him like he was.

"Hey, you look like you could use a drink." Yuri almost kicked himself. The skinny boy was hardly old enough for alcohol. This was exactly why he shouldn't try comforting people.

The boy shot up onto his feet the moment Yuri finished his awkward statement. He turned to face Yuri, his large brown eyes glistening. His mouth was moving up and down as if he was trying to say something.

"We could at least get out of the middle of the street," Yuri muttered to the gaping child.

The boy was even more surprised that Yuri was actually speaking to him and quickly turned away and rushed off to hide behind a nearby tree. Yuri resisted the urge to sigh. He should probably quit while he was ahead. He turned away from where the boy was hiding and began to leave.

"W-wait!"

Yuri turned back to see that the child was peering out from behind the tree and looking right at him. "I-I like s-soda," he stuttered as he slowly stepped out from behind the tree.

Yuri almost started laughing. He couldn't believe his terrible attempt at comfort had actually reached the kid. "Sounds good to me," he said as he met the nervous boy halfway in the street.

The two of them awkwardly stood in front of each other for a few moments before Yuri said, "I was going to go get a room at the inn. There should be a place to get food and drinks inside."

The boy nodded more times than was necessary and charged toward the entrance of the inn. As Yuri followed at a more sedate pace, he noticed Repede still lying by the stairs of the inn. The dog had his eye open and was giving Yuri a look that clearly said, "You've got to be joking." Yuri simply glared back at the dog and continued trudging up the stairs.

The jittery kid was standing inside the inn's restaurant and peering at everything. He was biting his lip and clutching the strap of his oversized bag in a death grip. When Yuri entered, he jumped a little and stared at the dark haired swordsman with wide eyes. Yuri couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at the kid and went to go sit at the small bar.

Once the two of them had sat down and the boy managed to stutter out his order, Yuri introduced himself, "Name's Yuri Lowell. You look terrible, kid."

The kid put a hand on his face. "Y-yeah, I know. I-I m-mean, it's p-pretty embarrassing to cry in p-public like that. M-my name is Karol C-capel, b-by the way." The boy had gotten red at the reference to crying in public, though he spoke and acted like he was doing his best not to start crying again.

"Glad I could help," Yuri grunted inelegantly.

The two of them sat in silence until Karol's drink arrived. The bar tender was scowling at the two of them for only ordering a soda. Yuri just scowled back at the man while Karol looked as if he might faint. After recovering from his fear of the bartender, Karol began to slowly start drinking his soda. Yuri didn't want to start drilling the kid with questions, though he was curious. Karol was a bit young to be left on his own, and Yuri didn't want to leave a scared kid from the Guilds in the middle of Imperial territory.

"Are you heading back to Dahngrest? I'm heading over to Capua Nor, but it's just going to be me and my dog, Repede. I could use a little back up and some company on the hike over, if you'd like to come." Yuri and Repede honestly didn't need any backup, but Karol might feel better if Yuri made it out like he needed the boy's help.

Karol's eyes were impossibly big again. He was gaping up at Yuri with the strange mix of terror and excitement that he seemed to regard everything. "I-I hadn't even thought about what to do next, but I p-probably should go back home." Karol scrunched up his face in confusion. "H-how did you know I'm from Dahngrest?"

"'The Hunting Blades' sounds like a guild's name to me. It was a little obvious," Yuri said.

A stricken expression crossed Karol's face at the mention of the guild, and Yuri half expected him to start crying again. Instead he straightened out his expression before puffing up his chest in a ridiculous effort to look confident.

"I would be happy to help you out on your travels. A master swordsman like me will make every battle a piece of cake!"

Yuri fought the urge to grin at the kid, or even laugh. It was incredibly obvious that his arrogant façade was a poor attempt at hiding how completely terrified he was of pretty much everything. Well, at least Yuri would a have a source of entertainment on his way to Capua Nor.

"I'd be honored to have you come along," Yuri replied with a wry smile.

Karol just puffed up even more at the statement. It was getting incredibly hard for Yuri not to break down laughing at Karol's antics. He supposed ridiculous arrogance was better than crying. He could deal with it a lot better, for one thing.

"Now finish up your drink," Yuri said before getting off of his bar stool and leaving a couple of pieces of gald on the counter. "I'm going to go rent a room. You can bunk with me if you want."

"W-wait!" Karol exclaimed for the second time that night. "T-thank you," he stuttered quietly, looking down.

"No problem, kid."