Like a pink ball of lightning, Anya had been zipping to and fro the apartment- throwing just about anything she got their hands on into their suitcases. Loid had to remove nearly a kilogram's worth of peanuts from one- and found that another had been filled haphazardly with nothing but stuffed animals. As he loaded the last of the suitcases into their trunk in a tightly packed lattice, the spy wiped his head.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

"Yayyyy! Road Trip!"

"Be careful Anya! Don't fall!"

Speak of the Devil.

Loid watches as his daughter explodes out of the door, her backpack trailing behind her as she rushes around the street. She had found a sunhat and taken to calling herself a cowboy, and with Bond as her 'horse' - there was no stopping their mischief.

"Yeeha! Cowboy Anya!"

"Go Bond Go!"

"Careful!" Loid swings open the door just in time to catch both of them, the pair continuing to play and laugh even as he closes it behind them. The spy hides his amusement. Anya had been hyper all morning, and it took both him and Yor to wrangle the little girl as she bounced around their apartment.

The man sees his wife carrying the last of their bags, a monster of a suitcase three quarters of her height. Loid averts his eyes as he sees her effortlessly lift it with one hand, and compresses it into the trunk with enough force to make the whole car lurch forward. Sometimes, he wondered if Anya was going to turn out as freakishly strong as her mother.

"There we go." Yor rubs her hands together, satisfied at a job well done. "That's it right?"

"Did we forget anything?"

"I hope not." The man pulls out a collapsible checklist of their belongings from his coat pocket, unfurling it briefly to the bemusement of his wife. "But to be safe, let me refer to our list for a mome-"

"Wait. Loid."

Yor fidgets nervously, twiddling her thumbs. Seeing as it was a warm afternoon, Loid wondered why she had chosen to wear her sweater and beanie; not that he was complaining…

Focus Twilight!

"What is it?"

"I've never had a chance to go on this kind of vacation. " She blurts out, gesturing towards their car. "Especially when I was her age."

"I'm sure that you and Anya probably have done this with - her previous mother."

"But thank you. Really." She smiles sincerely. "It means a great deal to me that you've gone out of your way to do this for us."

For a moment, Loid is speechless.

He nearly breaks character, but the spy catches himself just in time. The man focuses his attention on the list, reciting it in his head.

"It's really no big deal." He says as flatly as he can. "I hope you enjoy the trip."

"As long as we are together, I'm sure I will."

Sensing a change in the air, Yor bows and mumbles a few more words of gratitude- leaving for the passenger's seat at the front of the car. Twilight takes one last look at the apartment. He counts three from the right and two up, looking into the closed windows of their home.

Despite how short his stay had been, he had found himself a changed man- straddling the line between Loid Forger and Twilight. Loid had been undercover for longer, and in much harsher situations. Places as remote as the Far East come to mind; but despite his experience, Operation Strix felt so much more personal than those ever did.

With a deep breath, he pushes the intrusive thoughts from his mind. Now was not the time for hesitation, he had to be focused. Loid kicks a pebble idly, lowering his hat. His spy equipment had been mostly disposed of, as per W.I.S.E protocol "Empty Nest", but what little he did bring with him had been layered beneath dozens of clothes and tucked into hidden compartments within his car.

Twilight had a job to do.

The trip hadn't even started and Yor already felt tired.

Loid had to navigate through hours of Ostalian highway traffic, and it did not help that Anya's energy had not tapered off in the least during the entire trip. While her constant chatter was initially motivating, in the slog that was a traffic jam it was borderline unbearable.

Yor huffs as the car slows to a crawl in front of another red light, she could have easily pushed the vehicle on her own and it would be faster. The tension builds inside of her, and her grip subconsciously tightened on the side of the car door.

She takes a deep breath, renewing her patience and pushing out the ringing in her ears.

Anya asks her some random question, one Yor answers with a "maybe".

The woman felt somewhat guilty for half-ignoring her daughter, though despite her attempts- Yor finds it more interesting to imagine herself running along the rooftops of the buildings they pass compared to Anya's latest "fairy tale". Ever since they watched the latest Gisney movie, her dreams of becoming a princess and living in a castle had returned with a vengeance. As they passed from city to countryside, she saw less and less buildings- the stone gothic walls of Berlint replaced by the endless countryside of rural Ostainia.

Anya quiets down. A miracle.

She checks on the backseat to see that her daughter had fallen asleep, peacefully leaning atop of Bond's soft fur. The dog lets out a quiet "borf", before huddling up next to her as a living blanket.

"Finally." She whispers, feeling the tension fade from Loid's sagging shoulders.

"How much further dear?"

"Forty two minutes."

"Are you going to sleep?" His gaze flickers towards her: Loid breaking eye contact as soon as he verifies that she is indeed looking at him. "Feel free to do so. I can handle it from here."

Briefly, Yor wonders why he had become so closed off lately.

Perhaps he was just nervous- it must have been the first time he and Anya had ever gone on a trip with her instead of their previous mother. A pang of melancholy. It seemed that she had big shoes to fill, but the assassin remained optimistic regardless.

Leaning on the windowsill for support, Yor lets herself relax- and observe. It was a talent she had picked up as an assassin for the Garden, to notice every little detail in the environment.

At each house they pass, Yor cannot help but imagine how she would infiltrate and kill a target if they were to be there. The lack of witnesses and numerous industrial equipment that she could see poking out in their backyards made for a wonderful sandbox for the assassin - maybe she could even try using one of those large industrial wood chippers to dispose of a body.

Is this normal?

Surely everyone has these thoughts right?

Winter and the first snow was far off, so the forest was still bustling with activity.

Yor was wowed by the countless redwoods and fir trees, it was something truly straight out of a fantasy show. Ostania had never been a big country, but it was certainly beautiful: and the woman was reminded indirectly of her caretakers at the Garden. When she came back, she would definitely ask them to find some of these trees for their meeting area. They made for good murder weapons too, one of those logs could probably kill four people at once.

Her acute senses can pick out, over the hum of the engine, the noise of wildlife. The chatter of squirrels, the chirps of the songbirds and the muffled footsteps of a deer in the undergrowth. Yor was not an animal person, but when all Anya could talk about was bears - she knew a thing or two about the locals. She notices the shifting of the foliage around something large, and something that clearly stood on two legs-

Huh?

She draws a sharp breath. The car suddenly feels a lot more constricting- the seat belt tight around her chest. Her entire body goes into fight mode: Yor reaches immediately for one of the Thorns that she had kept hidden within her hair. The metal is reassuringly cold to the touch.

"Are you alright?" Loid pipes up. "You look tense."

"I-I think I saw a person…"

Yor realizes how ridiculous it sounds after the words leave her mouth. Based on the way Loid tenses up, it is clear that he feels the same way. Already, Yor doubts herself. Did she really see a person, or was it just an oddly shaped tree? Then again, with her occupation, she could find a target within a crowd of hundreds.

"Apologies, I- I must have seen wrongly." The words come out less confident than she wanted, the woman a bit more shaken than usual. "It was probably a bear."

"A bear?"

Loid had the tact to look as calm as he always did, but it was clear from his tone that he thought her somewhat mad. She would rather have it been a bear than a person, at least then she would be justified in throwing it over the Salzburg mountains if it came near her family. Yor didn't know why the shadow made her so worried, she had killed bigger and stronger. But there was something - different about this one. Something unnatural.

"Don't worry, they don't come near the cabin. I made sure of it."

Flustered, the woman decides to busy herself with reading one of the many many booklets her husband had brought. Greeting her is Tammy Tarrasque, the mascot for the local park service. Yor had no idea what a Tarrasque was, it looked like a turtle with too many legs and spikes. But it's cartoonishly wide eyes and full-belly laugh makes the woman assuage her paranoia.

It was nothing.

It had to be.