Chapter Text

Yuri watches the door and waits, a game he has never been good at not once, not ever. He hates waiting. This horrible in-between yawns as loud as the crickets around him and through it all, he cannot do a thing. The worry and anxiety that have built in his chest augment until finally, a baby’s wail pierces the air. Yuri’s fists clench at his sides hard enough, the jagged edges of his fingernails cut into the heels of his palms.

The door opens.

A tousled blonde head appears and immediately, nothing seems quite as dire as it was before.

Yuri hurries to the base of the weathered stairs. His dark eyes shoot up to the door of the elevated shack and then back to the clear water blues of his best friend’s gaze. “Flynn. Is she all right? The baby--”

“Mom says it’s a good thing we got her when we did. They’re both going to be fine,” Flynn murmurs. “Mrs. Abano...and Ted.”

“Ted.”

Eyes wide, Yuri tastes the name on his lips. Ted. Slowly, he smiles. “Good. Not a bad name.”

Flynn nods, smiling back soft and small. He slips his hands into his pockets and with rolling steps, descends the ladder down to the mud. He stands next to Yuri. “We should probably let them rest. They’ve had a long day.”

“Yeah, well. So have we.” Yuri falls into step beside him as they plod slowly away from the Abano’s shack. “I can’t believe we did that.”

“Yeah.” Flynn tries to stifle the laugh that shakes out of him with a jittery edge. The flutter of his shoulders betrays how fast his heart must still be pounding. “It almost doesn’t feel real. But we did it. Somehow, we managed to get them home and get them the help they needed.”

“Now the Lower Sector’s population has just increased by one.”

Flynn nods.

Yuri smiles and jerks around to stride backwards as they squelch eastward through the Lower Sector’s thin thread of slumped houses and crude lean-to’s propped up on wooden stilts. With his fingers threaded together behind his long, dark hair, Yuri casts his gaze to the starry sky and catches sight of the swirling violet gasses of neighboring nebulas, overlaid with their aquamarine shadows. “We saved not one person, but two people today. You know that, Flynn? Two people.”

Flynn hums.

“Which means I was right. Those brands they give us don’t mean shit. We are capable of great things.”

“I guess so.”

Flynn kicks a clump of swampy mud ahead of their pace. Then, without warning, he breaks out into a run, racing left towards the rising hill that marks the northern border of the slums.

“Hey!” Yuri calls and yanks his body back around to give chase. “Flynn! Wait up!”

When Flynn finally comes to a stop, it’s at the foot of the gate-point wall on the crest of the hill. His hands have placed themselves carefully flat on the smudged, seafoam plexiglass surface of two floating panels, eyes set on the sprawling jewel of the capital city just beyond in the valley below.

Yuri steps up behind him, eyes alight on the inked eye tucked back on the right side of his friend’s neck. “Starin’ at Zaphias won’t change anything, you know,” he mutters.

“No,” Flynn agrees. “But I’m starting to get an idea on what might.”

Yuri turns to look at the capital city with its bountiful waterways, pearly white buildings, and it’s many security systems and floating cabs and gleaming lights and monitors bigger than his own home that display the latest styles from Fortune’s Market. The zip-up nylon sweatsuit the featured redhead was modeling would no longer be trending come morning.

He looks to Flynn and sees the light from Zaphias reflected in his eyes. “I’m listening.”

“Helping people,” Flynn breathes the words as if in prayer. When he turns to Yuri, the shine from the technicolor lightways seem stamped in his eyes. “Like how we helped Mrs. Abano and Ted. If we could do that--all the time--if we could help people no matter what their problems were, think about how much better everything would be.”

Yuri’s long hair dangles over his shoulder with the tilt of his head. His eyes slip to the right side of Flynn’s neck again. “Okay. I’m not going to say you’re wrong. But how would we do that?”

With a wince, Flynn covers the brand of the empire’s eye. His own clearwater blues dart to Yuri’s matching mark before him. “I don’t know yet. But I do know that I want to keep this feeling. I want to keep making people smile, in any way that I can.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

Yuri turns to look down at Zaphias. A brush of wind brings up the cloying smell of mud and feces and garbage and filth. It lifts his hair from his back and his bangs from his face. “That goes for me, too. I also want to keep making people smile. I mean…” he laughs and it’s breathy and bare, “...if I’m being honest, it’s the one time I’ve finally felt--”

-- good for something.

He wants to say it, but the words don’t come.

“Then it’s a promise. We’ll pledge our lives to making people happy, no matter what it may cost of us.”

Yuri scoffs. There’s something too earnest and serious in Flynn’s voice and gaze that turns him away. “That’s not how promises or pledges work. You can’t just say it’s a promise after the fact. You’ve gotta say it’s a promise before hand.”

“What do you know? You’re just looking to pick a fight.”

“Is it working?” Yuri looks to his friend and sneers.

Flynn sighs and rolls his eyes. For a moment, he shakes his head and straightens his shoulders, as if to turn away and walk civilly back down the hill. But then he leaps and tackles Yuri to the clingy soil and together they roll, tumbling down one over the other until they reach the lowland swamps of the slums.

Their laughter is as loud and bright as the brightest star above.

 Ten years later

The cuffs get slapped on each of Yuri’s proffered wrists and are slammed together by an electromagnetic pulse. Yuri admires the handiwork, but really, this was almost too much for a run-of-the-mill guy like Yuri. Not the cuffs; he’s talking about the batons.

Judging from what he can see of their faces beneath their open visors, Adecor and Boccos are well aware of it, too. After all, he’s only really being caught on trespassing in the Upper Sector and breaking and entering some rich fuck’s “house,” which is over five stories tall, by the way, and there is absolutely nothing to be said for the fact that this asshole has more square kilometers than half the Lower Sector combined.

Cumore, however, just loves to make anything into a theatrical spectacle, like he’s the star of a long-running improv show. To be fair, there was a tele-series a few years back that showed the Knights as paragons of virtue no matter how violent, so maybe he’s trying to get a feature episode.

Cumore eyes his men’s handiwork with an admiring gaze, like he’s viewing a piece of art in the Empire’s National Museum and not evidence of battery. “This is what a criminal like you deserves, Yuri Lowell,” he muses in his smooth, deep voice. Usually, Knights wear a full helmet that gives their voice an odd, processed effect, but Cumore is too proud for it. He’d rather the whole world know who he is. “If I thought you were worth the trouble, I’d just kill you here. But oh, the amount of paperwork that would bring is enough to make my head hurt.”

Yuri would roll his eyes if he wasn’t certain that would tip Cumore’s favor against him. “Come on, already,” Yuri says, biting back all of the smart remarks that come to him. He’s already dropped his pistol. “Send me to the lockup, let’s go, let’s go.”

Anger flashes across Cumore’s face. “You do not give orders to me, Mireborn.” His eyes glance to Yuri’s neck, no doubt referencing the dual brands across it. On the right, the Watchful Eye of the Empire, for being born into his low estate; the left, tally marks of the petty crimes Yuri’s committed.

Heh. Yeah, Yuri can’t exactly argue with that insult.

Doesn’t stop him from socking Cumore in the face, though.

Cumore brands him himself. It’s a breach of protocol, but Cumore’s known for being a sadist.

He presses the gun to Yuri’s neck, and Yuri swallows. He’s restrained for this, hands magnetically bound to the back of the chair. He wouldn’t run, anyway. Couldn’t, with all the injuries he’s sporting. And he’s been branded so many times by now that he knows exactly what to expect, which takes away what fear he once had.

Still. Yuri can already feel the heat of the laser within. His heart rate spikes. His teeth grind, his fists clench. Cumore watches all of this with an amused smirk on his face, and as tempted as Yuri is to piss him off, he knows Cumore could easily “miss” with this, and that would be…

Just do it. Just fucking do it.

The searing heat hits him before Yuri hears the pull of the trigger. He hisses in pain, biting his tongue to keep from crying out.

Another mark.

“You know,” Cumore says, his transceiver-processed baritone irritating Yuri’s ears even as he tries to block it out with pain, “that is just the first. How many is it this time? Three? Trespassing in the Upper Sector, breaking and entering, stealing … and, ah! Resisting arrest. Assault of an officer. That makes four, doesn’t it?”

Yuri is going to murder Cumore in his fucking sleep if he keeps this up.

“You know,” Cumore says casually as he centers the gun next to the spot he just branded. Fuck, it hurts . “This is… not your first petty assault, Yuri Lowell.”

The next brand penetrates deep into his skin. Yuri is more than used to this kind of pain. He’s gone through this nearly ten times before.

“I think it’s about time we considered taking you on an extended vacation.”

But fuck, he hasn’t ever had four at once. He’s going to be sick. He wonders if at some point, his entire neck will be etched in that black, raised skin. If brands weren’t permanent enough, weren’t visible enough, the Empire makes damn sure your sins are known to everyone by embedding vantablack ink into it.

He feels it all the way through to the other side of his neck, feels it crawl up his throat, and if pain has a taste, it tastes like heat and bile. Like his tongue is cooking in his mouth.

The last brand hurts the worst.

Prison sucks. And not just because Yuri’s got more broken bones than he has whole ones, not just because his stomach is so empty it’s started to devour itself, not just because the “bandage” they slapped on his neck is doing the bare minimum to keep out the elements. Not just because his neck feels like it’s about to separate from his body.

The clock, blaringly bright in this dim room, counts down to the milliseconds. Yuri has to resist the urge to break the damn thing every time he hears the tick of a second.

Yuri scowls and stares up at the ceiling as he lies on his bed, which is really just a slab of metal that pops out of the steel wall at ninety degrees. He’s fairly certain it’s steel; they only use the anti-electromagnetic chromium in the Chamber, which is Zaphias’s semi-accurate nickname for the Felon Detention Center on the border of the Upper and Lower Sectors.

It’s only semi-accurate because, of course, the FDC is much worse than whatever imagery “the Chamber” can evoke. Yuri’s seen some of the few people lucky enough to make it out of there, knows what becomes of them. No one will hire someone with the brand of a felon. You might be free, but you waste away from starvation and social isolation.

Yuri might end up there someday. Might be sooner rather than later, actually, if Cumore decides to land him with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. Even though Cumore had it coming, and Yuri didn’t resist.

What would Flynn say, if he could see him now?

Probably something self-righteous. Probably something about how Yuri’s making his job harder, or how Flynn can’t protect Yuri like Yuri seems to think he can, or how Yuri should have a better hold on his temper by now.

Fuck you, asshole, Yuri screams at him in his head as he nurses a particularly black bruise on his cheek. Damn, that hurts.

… Wait. What the hell is he getting mad for? Flynn isn’t even here .

“So the way I hear it is that the upper echelon is tryin’ their damnedest to keep the whole thing quiet!”

“Oh, you’re pulling my leg.”

Yuri rolls his eyes and immediately regrets it for the searing headache he gets. The only other prisoner in here is one of the chattiest people he’s ever heard, and the only guard they have stationed in here is a bigger gossip-monger than Hanks. He wants to wring both their necks.

“Swear on my life, I ain’t! So the thing is… supposedly, there’s this guy, riding a dragon--”

“Dragons aren’t real. Now I know you’re lying.”

“I’m not! This guy rides a dragon, and takes out blastia using only a gun! And I’m not talkin’ the kind the Knights have, I mean like an old school one, the kind that still uses gunpowder. I’ve heard you can smell it even after this guy flies off.”

“Do you mean an actual dragon, or are you talking about an alien species that some idiot layperson mistook for a dragon?”

“Ah- ha. Gotcha interested now, didn’t I?”

Yuri is seriously going to kill this idiot. Who the hell gossips with the guard? That’s asking for attention, and there’s no such thing as good attention when it comes to the Knights. They’ve got guns and aren’t afraid to shoot when they’re bored.

When the conversation dies, the laidback guard goes back to his post near the front entrance. Probably to take a nap at his desk. Well, now Yuri doesn’t have to listen to that drivelling, processed-sounding voice again. Maybe he can drift back into sleep until someone shoves some slop through the bars.

“Hey, fella. You’re awake, right?”

Yuri decides, in this moment, that he absolutely doesn’t like this guy. Also, how the hell can he know that, when there’s absolutely no visibility from one cell to the next? “You sure talk a lot for someone who doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying,” he snipes back. “A dragon. Honestly, you’re lucky the guard didn’t shoot you for wasting his time.”

The man a cell down laughs and laughs, and Yuri would kick the wall between them if he didn’t know he’d get shocked for it. The electric shocks that the walls and bars sent were far from pleasant, in a room that was designed to conduct electricity. Yuri’s had enough pain for a lifetime. “I’ll have you know,” the man says at last, “that my information is verified. I’ve got eyes and ears all over the world -- all over the universe -- and they report to me everything they see. They’re trustworthy folk.”

Yuri snorts. “Right. So that’s why you’re stuck in the palace prison, which is only used for drunkards and idiots: because you’re a compulsive liar.”

“It’s true!” He actually sounds indignant. Yuri shuts his eyes and ignores him. “I’ll tell you anything you wanna know! Anything about anything on this good, green world of Ilyccia! Or Tolbyccia! Or the desert planet of Desier! Or--”

“I just wanna know how to get out of here.”

Yuri isn’t expecting a response. The words sigh out of him like a confession. For how desperately he’d like to escape, to focus on figuring out what the hell happened to the core of the aque blastia that keeps the Lower Sector’s water clean, this prison is impenetrable. After all, it’s in the palace; the Knights would have to be idiots to give even someone brought in on drunk and disorderly the chance to escape, this close to the Imperial family.

That was actually the only reason he was in the Upper Sector to begin with. He was with Repede, and they tracked down the bastard who stole it down to that skyscraping mansion.

Fuck, he’s thinking about that fucking house again. He wants to kill someone.

“Sorry, can’t help ya there. Anything else on your list of need-to-know information? I’m just tryin’ to pass the time, bud.”

“Yeah? Then answer me this.” He isn’t expecting an answer, but Yuri throws the question out anyway. “Who the hell is Mordio?”

Mordio. Mordio. Yuri has to remember that name. Has to take it with him out of this cell. Hanks told him Mordio was the man they hired to fix the broken aque blastia, and right after that, the core to it goes missing and the guy’s abandoned a five-level estate.

“...Mordio?” his neighbor repeats, sounding almost dumbfounded. “You’ve never heard of Mordio? The researcher from Aspio who’s supposed to be the ‘gem of a generation?’”

Aspio… Yuri frowns. It’s been nearly half a decade since he left Zaphias, but he’s pretty sure Aspio is to the north, past Halure. “Yeah,” he says in reply, “guess I’ve been a bit busy, you know, doing anything else.” Because who the hell takes the time to learn about shit like that? “Any other info you can share?”

“Uh…” There’s some wavering hesitation. “Somethin’ about… some kinda discoveries that have to do with aer. And blastia.”

“That’s my guy,” Yuri whispers.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

“Now maybe you can answer my question. What the hell did you do to wind up in here? I heard they gave you four.”

Yuri winces and reaches for his tender neck, pain pulsing at the mention of it. “Yeah,” he says, after a moment. “They did. They said they’ll let me out in a week, but…”

But if Cumore really does decide to send Yuri off to the Chamber -- that’s a death sentence for the entire Lower Sector. Yuri won’t be able to track down Mordio and retrieve that core, and that means no one will get clean water, and--

Yuri pushes himself up to his feet, forcing his brain to work beyond just processing pain. He has to figure a way out of here, and he has to do it now. Even if this lands him with a jailbreak charge. He just can’t risk Cumore following through on that threat.

Then there’s the soft shing of the door sliding open, and Yuri lifts his head. He is surprised to see, on the other side of the bars, a man in full Knight regalia. Sleek, fitted titanium armor colored in the deep, blood red of the Royal Knights. A fur collar sits upon a broad chest, and the right shoulder displays the full rays of the Sun. A split cape descends from the back like wings, spread in four on each side.

And Yuri realizes who it is, blanches at the idea of being in his presence. But Commandant Alexei does not acknowledge him at all. He marches beyond Yuri’s cell to the one who would probably be best friends with Hanks. There’s the affirmative beep of the keycard reader, and then another shing of the door. “Out.”

It is not the first time Yuri has heard the Commandant speak, but last time, Alexei had taken his helmet off for the Initiation. His voice through the transceiver is crisper, colder than he remembers.

Alexei turns on his heel and leaves the prison with as much indifference as he entered it, steps quick and measured. There is power in his movements.

He didn’t become Commandant for shits and giggles.

Behind him, a beat later, exits the person Yuri presumes is his neighbor. He doesn’t look at all like Yuri was expecting, which has less to do with his features (dark skin, strong jawline, crow’s feet) and more to do with… his everything else. A gaudy, almost neon purple coat with orange accents, a hot pink shirt underneath, baggy pants. His fashion belongs in another decade. And his long brown hair is in an unkempt ponytail, which provides Yuri an unobscured sightline to an clean, unmarked neck.

No brands.

They make eye contact for a split second, and then he ‘trips.’ Yuri steps closer to the bars of his cell, careful not to directly touch them, and he kneels down next to him. “What the hell does the Commandant want with you?” Yuri hisses.

The man only smiles and shoots something across the floor to him. It passes right through the bars and lands at Yuri’s foot. “Look for the red one, the one with burnt orange.”

“Now.” The Commandant’s voice carries a threat, and without another word or hesitation, the oddly-dressed gossipmonger hops to his feet and follows after him.

Yuri waits for the sound of the door shutting before he finally looks down. At his feet lies a keycard. He frowns and picks it up, spinning it between bruised fingers to read the translucent letters.

This guy stole a Captain’s keycard. Why the hell didn’t he just escape on his own?

“Well, my gain, I guess,” Yuri mutters to himself. He listens for the sound of the guard, and hears only a soft snore. If that guy didn’t wake up for the Commandant, then he’s probably losing his job within twenty-four hours.

Yuri looks to the bars. The space between is just barely wide enough for an arm. He knows just how powerful that electric shock is, and he knows just how awful it will be to have that on top of everything else Cumore did to him.

He inhales. One, two, three, four. And on the exhale, he releases every hesitation he has, every reluctance, every reason to back out. The Lower Sector is counting on him. Hanks, Ted, Mr. and Mrs. Abano, the Daglieri’s…

He gets to his feet, shakes himself out. And then Yuri makes for the bars.

Chapter Text

The pristine white floors of the palace halls pass quickly under Estellise’s flats. She is glad heels went out of style when they did a few days back; they were not made for running, and she does not need her task to be any more difficult than it already is.

“Leave the security feed and alarms to me. But you--you must go, Estellise. Find Flynn. He may be the only one who can help.”

Find Flynn, her cousin encourages, when there is the entirety of the Empire’s reach and all of the Terca Lumireis solar system to look?

The more studied part of her wants to argue the fallacies in their entire plot. Flynn is one Lieutenant. She is one princess. And there are many planets with many more moons pulled in to their orbit and that doesn’t include the wayposts and knight stations. How is she to search all of them, find Flynn, and then bring him back in time? How is she even supposed to get off of Ilyccia, let alone out of the imperial palace? She would need a ship. She needs a ship.

She doesn’t have a ship.

And despite all of the articles she has read and books she has scrolled through, she doesn’t know how to pilot a starship, let alone the proper customs and embarkation and disembarkation procedures that are required at every imperial port.

I’m never going to get off of Ilyccia. Her stomach swoops. I’m never going to be able to find Flynn. I’ll never be able to help the--

“--your highness?”

Estellise gasps high in her throat, half-born out of her near trip and surprise at hearing the tinny, clicking voice of a patrol guard behind her.

She hoists up her narrow, tapered skirts and picks up her pace around the next corner.

“Your highness! Wait! Where are you--?”

She cannot explain herself. She knows this, no matter how much she may wish to be able to take the time to convince these guards to let her go. They wouldn’t understand.

So few people do when the Branded are involved.

The guards give chase. Estellise can hear their loud bootfalls in her wake, clomping down the hallways. She’s close to the throne room and the throne room could mean a clear exit, but that would be through the palace front and that's one of the most securely-held places in all of Zaphias, with their high amount of posted guardsmen and feeds and bots. It is second only perhaps to the security system in place at the Felon Detention Center.

But maybe if she cuts across the throne room--

Estellise’s next gasp jumps high when the door in front of her slides open to reveal another guard. She cannot see their expression through the synthetic plates of their helmets--but by their body language and half-step back, she can tell they are as shocked to see her as she is to see them.

She skids to a stop. “Oh no…”

There is only one exit now and that is to her left--down the hall that leads straight to the throne room. She slowly backs up a step, then two. The guards who had been chasing her come to a stop behind her. The one in front of her steps beyond the door and with a whispering hiss,  the white metal slides back shut. It clicks.

The studied part of Estellise knows it is foolish to try, but the anonymity of the helmets allows the naive part of her to hope.

“Flynn?” she asks with a sad twist to her gut. “Is that you?”

The guard before her tilts his head. His hand hovers over the retracted alloy spear clipped to his hip like the hilt of a saber. She knows as well as he does that he would never draw it on one of the royal heirs unless deemed necessary.

Estellise has never before intended to make drawing weapons necessary.

“Lieutenant Scifo hasn’t been part of the castle guard for months now, your highness. Surely you remember when he was promoted.”

She does. It had been such a scandal despite how quietly they hosted it.

“He’s no longer here. He’s probably on his way to Halure with the rest of his new squad.”

Halure.

Halure!

“Wait, are you sure?” Estellise can hardly believe her own luck. Halure is planetside; far north of Zaphias, but in the canyon of the greenlands, where their elevation is higher and the air is cooler and the soil is rich and fertile for agriculture. No need for the man-made canalways they have forged through and around the buildings of Zaphias to let the water from the surrounding lake reach the further mainland parts of the city. They say Halure has trees as big as skyscrapers--perhaps bigger--with sprawling branches covered in pink petals as fair as her hair. There are flora and fauna found in that region the likes of which the giant metropolis of Zaphias has never seen--the likes of which Estellise has never seen--

The thought of finally seeing a real tree sends a thrill of hope through her. Delight. However selfish it may be considering what’s at stake.

The guard’s voice when he finally speaks again, conveys his confusion. “Your highness, are you feeling well? Perhaps you should rest.”

It occurs to Estellise very suddenly that she should lie.

That’s what the clever heroines do in all the stories, right? They are quick on their feet. They can fool their pursuers easily into a situation that would allow them a window of opportunity to escape. It’s funny, even, when they do it, because it’s so unexpected. It’s thrilling. It’s probably the product of the same kind of adrenaline rush that she herself feels right now.

“N-no.”

But Estellise has never been good at lying.

She shakes her head and takes a step back. “I’m fine.”

“But you ran away from us, earlier. You look like you’re in a hurry--and at this odd hour of night? What’s going on?”

Estellise steps back again. “I...um…” What could she say? What should she say? What could she do? What options did she have ahead of her that would allow for her to get where she needed to go? To find Flynn?

She feels like she is playing chess with her cousin all over again. Ioder gently teasing her over the holographic board in the same breath as he softly encourages her, Don’t overlook the Rhybgaro in the foyer, Estellise.

“I--”

The door behind the guard hisses open.

For a minute, everyone at the intersection freezes. All eyes jump to the stranger who’s just strolled inside:  a dark-haired young man who looks as if he has seen better days and would very much like to go back to them at any minute. He has a strong, slender build under his thin, rumpled garments. His clothes look as if they have been tossed into a drawer unfolded and then dragged back out to wear with no care for steam-ironing. There’s the dark vantablack mark of the Empire’s eye across the side of his throat--and on the other, a messily-applied white bandage, which can only mean one thing.

The Rhybgaro in the foyer.

“--I’m being kidnapped!”

Estellise’s frantic shout echoes down the white-washed halls and stuns guard and criminal alike into a still silence.

Yuri Lowell has had one shitty-ass long day. By this point, he just wants to get out of the city center of Zaphias and back to its Lower Sector before he thinks about what he should do next on the whole Mordio front-- and how he’s possibly going to get to Aspio without a credit to his name. And for a split-second, when he stumbled on to the strange scene of a handful of Imperial Knights surrounding the one and only Estellise Sidos Heurassein, he had thought his day was about to get a whole lot worse.

How could he not recognize the princess when her and her cousin’s faces are plastered on each of the giant plasma monitors lining the tall stretch of buildings in the capital? Her pale hair is pulled back into a bun with ornate hairpins arrayed out like the rays of a sun and her long, gradient blue gown has draping sleeves to brush against the floor. The ivory column of her neck is framed by a white, high-collared cape. She's dressed as he's always seen her on the screens.

So when said princess sees him and instantly shouts, “I’m being kidnapped!” he registers that one of two things must be true.

Either she is being kidnapped by these knights (for whatever reason) and needs his help.

Or she needs his help to be kidnapped and get away from the aforementioned knights. For whatever reason.

Either way, he understands instantly the moment that her clear blue eyes--bright like the mid-morning sky--meet his--brown and entropic dark--that she needs him. Ironically, that’s all that he needs in order to be spurred into action.

“Aight.” He huffs out an exhale and reaches for his pistol he’s been able to regain for himself when he found his clothes. “This might as well happen.”

Damn. Flynn is going to kill him.

“Princess, run!” he shouts and he opens fire.

Instantly, she turns for the side hall and books it. One of the guards behind her shouts, “Hey!” and he’s the first unfortunate soul Yuri shoots at with the pistol cocked to ‘stun.’ The guy barks out a shaking cry, body jerking from the electric shock. His body crumples to the ground with a weak thud and clang of armor.

“What, no barrier?” Yuri tsk’s with a smile and shakes his head. “Thought the Zaphias palace guards would be a bit smarter than that.”

As if reminded that these things exist and should probably be activated, the two remaining instantly press a button along the inside of their wrists. Yuri’s already moving before they can both return fire. His booted foot crashes against the the side of one on the right’s head, connecting hard through the barrier in place. The guard stumbles to the side and Yuri takes that opportunity to swing his pistol around in his hand for its opposite side.

With a press of his thumb, the blastia in its handle glows.

The fore-arm’s length blade of light that extends on the other side of the pistol slides right through the guard’s barrier and with a loud crack and prismatic refraction, the shield is shattered open. Another flip of his pistol in his hand, another stun shot fired, and the second guard shakes and hits the ground.

The third one’s firing by the time Yuri turns his attention to him. Immediately, he’s forced into an odd dance, leaping backwards from foot to foot and hand-over-head to avoid the lasers.

“Tell your friends no hard feelings, okay?” Yuri says. He holsters his pistol and salutes with a lazy smirk. Then, he turns around and bolts down the same hall as the princess.

The guard gives an indignant cry behind him. “Security! Alert the other guards! We have a code 20-0-8! Repeat, a code 20-0-8! The princess Estellise is getting kidnapped by a damn Mir--a Branded! They’re headed for the throne room!”

Well, this’ll look good on my criminal resume.

Yuri rounds a corner and catches up with Estelle quicker than he expected. The princess stands carefully still, with her left fist clenched around one of her long, white gloves; her other hand, bare, is pressed to the scanner next to the large panel door in front of her. His hand snatches out to grab her arm before she can finish the identification check.

The princess screams.

Immediately, he presses his other hand to her mouth and pulls her away from the door. The rapid-pound of feet coming around the corner behind them jerks him into motion. He sees the outline of a closet door to the side and drags the princess over.

There, in the dark, they breathlessly listen and wait for the sound of the guard’s voices to pass over.

“So,” Yuri whispers when it’s finally quiet enough out in the hall. He wants to give it a second more before they chance venturing back out. “You mind telling me what the hell all that was about? Might be good to warn a guy before you suddenly make him your kidnapper.”

Princess Estellise jerks away from him. In the tight space of janitorial equipment and vacuums with long noodle-necks and buckets, there’s not much room for her to navigate in her full dress and cape. Which brings up another question that he doesn’t have the time to really ask:  why the hell is she running away from the palace in such an obvious gown ? Couldn’t she have picked anything that was less princess-y?

“I’m--I’m sorry,” the princess whispers back. Fuck, she sounds genuinely sorry, too. He didn’t expect such a soft soul behind the get-up and lauded status. “It was the only thing I could think of in the moment. I didn’t mean to drag you into my mess…”

Yuri shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s fine. I tend to have that effect on people.”

“W...what?”

“Never mind.” Yuri clears his throat and strains his ear. He can’t hear anyone outside in the hall. “Do me a favor and answer me one question before we continue this escape of ours, yeah?” He turns his gaze to her; it’s a little unnerving how bright her baby blues are even in the dark. “Why the hell is one of the two heirs to the Empire trying to run away? Call me ignorant or whatever, but don’t you have it a bit cozy up here?”

“I’m not--” Estellise winces. “--I mean...I’m not really running away. Not for good. There’s someone I need to find. It’s very important that I get to him.” She takes a deep breath folds her hands before her chest--one gloved and pristine--the other bare and shaking, just the slightest. “I believe he’s on his way to Halure. Could you help me? You don’t have to take me there, but I just need your help to get to the palace’s garage. Would that be all right with you?”

Garage.

Huh.

Garages mean hovercrafts. Hovercrafts mean the ability to travel on Ilyccia freely. The ability to travel on Ilyccia freely means potentially getting to Aspio and chasing down Mr. Mordio. Chasing down Mr. Mordio means returning the Lower Sector’s aque blastia before people start getting sick and dying over filthy water again.

“Sure,” Yuri finds himself saying before he’s even fully aware of it. “I mean, I have conditions to being your kidnapper, so this ain’t a free deal. But yeah, I’m game.”

The relief in the princess’s face is so heart-meltingly earnest that Yuri doesn’t know what to do with how relieved it in turn makes him. “Really? Thank you,” she says. “Whatever conditions you have, I promise I’ll fulfill them to the best of my ability.”

“Cool. Noted.”

Yuri slides open the panel door and peeks his head out. A glance up and down the hallway has him tentatively easing outside. Only when he’s certain the coast is clear does he reach out a hand behind himself for the princess to take. Together, they head for the door and scanner.

Once Estellise’s hand is pressed to the gridscreen again, Yuri asks, “So. Out of curiosity, who is it you’re looking for? Why is it so important to find him that you’ve decided to run away from the palace, anyway? Can’t you just ask for your knights to fetch him for you? I would think that would make it ten times easier.”

The princess jerks to face him. Her eyes are wide for a fraction of a second, but then they fall to his neck and he knows precisely what it is she’s looking at. For some reason, instead of making the tension in her form augment, it does the exact opposite:  it makes her relax.

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

She doesn’t say anything more, so Yuri raises an eyebrow. “Need-to-know basis, huh?”

“It’s a delicate situation.” Estellise takes a deep breath. The scanner beeps green and a pleasant ching sounds. “All I can tell you is that it’s of utmost importance that I find Lieutenant Flynn Scifo. There’s a great danger coming and he’s one of the only people who could--and would--help.”

Yuri chokes. “I'm sorry. Did you just say you’re looking for Flynn Scifo ?”

“Yes.” Estellise’s gaze snaps to his again; her eyes are wide now for an entirely different reason. “Why? Do you know him?”

“Uh…you could say that...”

Damn. Flynn really is going to kill me.

The door to the throne room slides open.

Chapter Text

Perhaps Yuri’s “Mireborn” status is showing, but when they walk into the throne room, he doesn’t expect the throne to look like that.

It sits atop a dais with stairs leading up, pressed against the wall. The throne itself is sleek, almost slender, with hard, sharp edges. There is no cushion, no adornments that cover its bright, marbled white texture; Yuri would think it was actually made of stone if he couldn’t see the neon lights shining from within, a sign of the power that keeps the entire Empire running. Not just in Zaphias, not just on Ilyccia, but across the Terca Lumereis solar system.

Out of place above it sits such an oddity, such an anachronism, that it takes Yuri a moment to identify it. “Is that a clock?” he asks, and realizes he sounds like a fucking idiot before the Princess turns to him with a stunned expression. He waves a hand towards it. “I mean -- it’s… acoustic.”

“Analog,” Estellise corrects, in such a sincere, genuine way that it doesn’t immediately annoy him. “You are correct. That clock is a relic from an ancient era, before the foundation of the Empire. These devices did not use aer to function, but cells that converted chemical energy into electrical energy.”

She sounds as if she’s reading from a textbook. Yuri frowns and takes another look. The clock is set into the wall above the throne, with two brightly-painted, extravagant wings spread wide on either side of it. Like this, with its near-silvery background and nearly-invisible numbering, it looks almost like the full moon.

Subtle.

“Doesn’t look like it’s using anything right now,” Yuri says, pointing up to the… what are they called? “Neither wands are moving.” They were both stuck pointing upward, toward the ceiling.

“Yes.” Estellise almost sounds fond as she confirms his observation. “I have never seen them move. It is simply decoration, an artifact of a time millenia ago.”

Yuri considers suggesting they replace it with a functional clock, a digital one, but then, he gets the impression that would ruin whatever aesthetic they’re going for. And besides, they should pick up the pace a little, before any other guards get nosy.

“All right, c’mon, captive,” Yuri says as he moves ahead of her. “I’m assuming you know the way to the garage. Be my compass.”

“Oh! Right!”

The garage is huge . The ceiling is at least six times Yuri's height, and he isn't short. There are rows upon rows of hovercrafts, in a rainbow of different colorations, but for a moment all Yuri can see is the millions of gald that's gone into this place, and for a moment he's pissed.

It passes as he concentrates on the task at hand. What are the chances that what the old man said would be referring to a hovercraft?

“Look for the one with burnt orange and red,” Yuri says, scanning the vehicles. And then he notices an oddity: navy and near-white blue fur, a tail sticking up in the air in the shape of a lightning bolt. Yuri grins at the same moment Estellise shrieks.

“An alien!” She cries, stepping behind Yuri. “How did a Xenobeast get in here?”

Yuri can only laugh. He presses two fingers to his lips and whistles. The “Xenobeast” immediately comes to his call, and then Repede appears before him, barking once in greeting.

“Hey, Repede,” Yuri replies and scratches the back of his ear, careful to avoid the mechanical blastia at the top of his head. It begins on his right and comes down to the side of his jaw like a deadly headset, and the gun in position there is no joke. Repede's tail wags slowly in response.

Even if Repede wasn't sending it to him, Yuri could tell clear as day how happy he is to see him. But then, maybe that's why Yuri can read him so well.

“Uh.” Estellise reminds him of their audience. She sounds significantly less scared after seeing Repede heel. “Is… is that a companion? Is that your companion?”

That’s a more complicated question than the young princess probably realizes. “Repede is Repede,” Yuri says, which is about as thorough as he can be right now. Then he turns back. “Hey, did you find a hovercraft with red and burnt orange?”

Repede nods once before he swivels around, and Yuri falls in step after him. It only takes a beat for Estellise to overcome her hesitation, and then she moves in step behind him. Yuri could roll his eyes, but he doesn’t, keeping his gaze on Repede until he leads them right to what they were searching for. The vehicle, like all the rest, has no top or cover, but Yuri figures there’s probably a way to activate it. He slides the keycard into the reader, and it gives an affirmative beep before the doors slide open.

“Fucking sweet,” he says, to which Repede only hops in the back seat. Yuri chuckles and slides into the driver’s side, unable to believe their luck. He glances over to Estellise, whose brows furrow, though whether confusion or worry, Yuri can’t say.

“You’re not a Captain,” she says, as if that’s what’s wrong here.

“Nope, but I'm kidnapping you, so what does it matter if I add auto theft to my list of crimes?”

Estellise's frown deepens, which means that was probably the wrong thing to say, but they don't have time to argue. There's probably something else in there, too -- impersonation of a military official, maybe, but he was just handed the keycard, so it would be ungrateful not to use it. He gestures for her to sit in the passenger seat, and she does with great reluctance.

“Two wrongs don't make a right.”

Yuri barks out a laugh, because that has got to be one of the most overused cliches in the book, but he's too distracted to respond.

Let's see… which one of these makes it go…

“Yuri,” Estellise says, something urgent in her voice as he presses a button.

Nope, that one closes the doors. This one… oh, nice. It gets radio.

“Yuri,” she says again, tugging on his arm right as he flips a switch. A/C? This thing has the works! “Do you know how to drive?”

Oh, wait. Flynn told me a bit about this. He grins as he pulls the lever, and immediately the hovercraft pulses to life, aer flowing through it and creating a soft hum.

There's the too familiar sound of a door sliding open, a stampede of feet; “Stop right there!” shouts a tinny, metallic voice as Knights swarm the garage. The opening, large enough to fit a row of fifteen hovercrafts, begins to slide shut.

He turns to the princess and offers her a wry, cocky smile.

“Nope.”

Then he slams his weight on the pedal, and the garage becomes just a vision in his rearview mirror.

Yuri has never before been so grateful that all of Zaphias--including the Lower Sector--was situated on an island in the middle of a wide lake. Their harried escape had a greater chance of success when the only mode of transportation their pursuers could choose would have to utilize flight. He chances a glance behind them towards the capital city, and watches as the tall ivory white of the buildings, glowing in the night, grow distant and small.

“Huh.” He muses. “Never realized how easy it was to just...leave.”

In the silence after his words, Yuri adds with a chuckle, “I mean, when you have access to a hovercraft, anyway.”

Repede has curled up in the backseat, attempting to sleep. The princess is still suspiciously quiet while the green murk of the swamps on the northern side of the Zaphias lake fast approaches. The large, hunchback trees, wrapped in vines with swollen purple-blue orbs, swell into view.

Yuri presses his lips together. It is the same kind of terrain the island Zaphias itself sat upon, but the capital city had long since altered theirs for the convenience of their upperclass residents. The Lower Sector, meanwhile, was as mushy and wet as the land before them. “Having second thoughts?” he asks.

“No.”

There is something in Estellise’s voice, something that Yuri has never quite heard before when someone looks at the kind of environment he’s grown up in. Something that quiets the wary self-consciousness always haunting the back of Yuri’s mind whenever his home is involved.

It sounds a lot like awe.

“Not in the slightest,” Estellise breathes.

Yuri smiles.

With a press of his hands against the controls, he guides the hovercraft into the northern swamps.

They cut through it in less than an hour and watch as the thicket of trees eventually sparses out and drier grass stretches across the ground. The plains open up around them--flatlands, marked by little trees and the occasional pond, a pocket of blue, dotting the midst of green, darkened in the night.

“Trees!” Estellise cries. She sits up in her seat and curls her hands over the passenger door. Repede opens an eye to watch her. Yuri’s glad he’s not the only one who gets a momentary burst of worry when she makes the hovercraft wobble. “Real trees!”

“Yeah…?” Yuri spares a glance to the princess. “We’ve been seeing a bunch of those this entire time, Estelle.”

“Yes, I know, but I’ve never--” Suddenly, the princess cuts herself off. She turns to look at Yuri with wide blue eyes. “Wait, what did you say? What did you call me?”

Yuri worries he has said something wrong. “Uh--”

“--say it again!”

“...Es...telle…?”

The princess sags back against the passenger seat with a dazed look. Her eyes are still wide, but softer somehow. Distant in their thoughts. “Estelle,” she repeats, as if tasting the nascence it. “That’s another thing I’ve never had.”

It strikes Yuri as strange to hear someone who was literally in a position in which she could do anything she wanted say that she ‘never had’ something. Was there a list? “What, a nickname?”

Estelle shakes her head and looks to Yuri with a small smile. “No. But I like it. Could you call me that more often?”

Yuri has known this girl for less than a handful of hours and he already knows she could probably ask him for anything and he’d hand it over. She’s too damn earnest and hides nothing. A terrible quality for someone who could potentially be empress.

But what a wonderful quality for a friend.

“Sure,” Yuri says and rolls his shoulders. He looks ahead to the horizon. “So, Estelle , have you ever seen a sunrise?”

“Estelle,” she repeats and giggles. “Oh, a few times! But always from behind a window.”

“Then look ahead. I promise you, whatever you’ve seen won’t have been anything like this.”

The sky lightens its hues. It pinkens and burns into a flaring orange and red. The open plains color with licks of vibrant gold. By the time the two suns rise over the horizon, the furthest reaches of the heavens have melted into a soft and pearly blue, nearly identical to the princess’s own eyes--wide and mystified, taking in the view. Estelle’s pale face is slack with wonder.

When the water building in her eyes eventually runs over, Yuri politely doesn’t say a word.

Then, just as as the plain begins to dry out, they spot Deidon Hold in the distance.

“Oh! What’s that?” Estelle chirps. Her frown pinches in thought. “It’s north of Zaphias, but south of the Quoi Woods...is that Deidon Hold?”

“Very impressive, your highness,” Yuri rumbles with a smile. “You got an Encyclopedic memory or something?”

Estelle giggles. Pride loosens her shoulders. “No. I was just never permitted to go much of anywhere, so I did a lot of reading in my spare time. There’s this tablet my cousin Ioder gave me for my birthday one year. It has access to quite the database of impressive e-readable materials...and I just happen to retain things that I’ve read very we--oh! What’s that?”

Estelle has asked that question so frequently in the last couple hours that Yuri doesn’t put much thought into glancing to her object of wonder.

It strikes him, with all the filmy surreal quality of a disaffecting newscast, how strange the scene Estelle’s pointed out should be. The giant, grey-furred alien beast with two long, angry, blue-to-yellow horns, probably should not be ramming into one of the gate-posts that encircles the popular trading market.

The creature’s next charge tilts the gate-post to a slant; the light inside the apex bulb and the plexiglass light of the barrier, flickers.

Estelle gasps. “W-what’s that Xenobeast doing? Why’s it attacking the Hold?”

“I don’t actually know,” Yuri mumbles.

“Those people are in danger!”

“Probably.”

“‘Probably?’ Yuri!”

“What?” Yuri jerks his head to the princess, baffled. What, was she angry with him? “What do you expect me to say? We’re kind of escaping for our lives here, if you forgot.”

“I--” Whatever determination had filled her a moment ago deflates. Estelle looks meeker, subdued; she drops her gaze. “--I know. But I also know I can’t just stand by and watch that alien creature kill citizens of the Empire! Running away or not, I’m still their princess! I have to help them!”

“I mean, you don’t know there’s any citizens there. Diedon Hold’s always been a little neutral. Could just be filled with Guild members.”

“It doesn’t matter! We have to do something!”

Yuri hates knowing she is right. His own damn conscience has never learned to be quiet, even after all these years. “Fine. What do you propose we do?”

“I…” Estelle looks uncertain again. There is a pinched look to her brow, like she is trying to visualize something. “I don’t know…”

Yuri gives a long and drawn-out groan that is more exaggerated than he feels. “Here’s a tip, princess:  if you’re going to try and play hero, then think quickly. Once we engage that thing, it’ll start coming after us instead, so we’ll need an escape plan if we want to live. Start thinking.”

“Th...thinking?”

“...oh boy.”

Yuri changes direction with a rough jerk and points the hovercraft straight at the Xenobeast.

The giant creature does not see them approach. It is barely aware as Yuri shakily guides the hovercraft over its flank and then somewhere over its broad shoulder. Estelle’s screaming does nothing to draw its attention; neither does Repede’s low growls. So Yuri draws his gun from its holster and fires once, twice towards its dense, ashen-grey coat. The hovercraft veers to the right at an odd, side-heavy angle, but the stun lasers strike true.

“Yeah, didn’t think it’d actually stop the thing,” Yuri murmurs as the Xenobeast roars.

“Yuri, you did it!” Estelle cheers.

The beast turns its mighty head towards them; their hovercraft is barely as long as the width of its horn. Yuri lurches the hovercraft around one of the horns and away from its snarling muzzle.

“Don’t celebrate just yet, Estelle!”

Yuri shoves his pistol back into its holster and with both hands on the controls, yanks the hovercraft into a sudden loop, hightailing it as fast as he can push it to go away from the Xenobeast.

The giant creature gives a thunderous chase.

“Oh!” Estelle gasps. “I’ve got it!”

“Got? Got what, a plan B?”

“No, that Xenobeast! I know what it’s called. It’s the Lord of the Plains.” Estelle yelps when her glance back reveals the creature is rapidly gaining on them. “It’s extremely territorial! Once it fights to be the Alpha of its land, it can’t stand other creatures sharing the same space! It will hold it until another Lord challenges it and kills it to take over!”

“Huh.” Yuri hums, idly impressed. “Maybe that’s why it was attacking the Ho--”

“Yuri, look out !”

Too late.

One of the Lord’s horns collides hard with the driver’s side of the hovercraft, ramming it to the side. Repede yelps.

“Shit!” Yuri hisses and veers the craft further right and up.

“Oh my gosh! Are you okay?” Estelle cries over the thunder of pounding hooves. When Yuri doesn’t answer, her shouts turn more urgent. “We need to get out of here! We need to leave the plains!”

“H-how?” Yuri gasps through his teeth.

“There! The Quoi Woods!”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“It’s the only way!”

At least the girl was thinking quickly. That’s all Yuri could ask of her; in fact, when he thinks about it, that’s all that he did ask of her.

He turns the hovercraft with a dangerous wobble for the forest and for a moment, it seems like they might make it. For a moment, they are breathless with how close they are to the woods’ edge.

Then one of the Lord’s horns gets under the tail of the hovercraft--and shoves it skyward.

Crumbles metal and gears together like a blanket and pitches their car end-over. Estelle screams; Yuri curses. Their craft tumbles into the woods, smacking left and right against protruding branches until finally crashing into the earth with a burst of smoke and steel.

Chapter Text

The hovercraft is dead.

Yuri tries resuscitation exactly once, but the smoke and sparks that fly in his face warn him from further attempts. He’d offer it a proper funeral, but even a moment of grief seems too much to spare. Especially as Estelle stares at their surroundings with wide, terrified eyes.

“They're just trees,” Yuri says as he steps away from the remains. “Remember?” Estelle looks at him, and for a moment Yuri wonders what she sees. He's still beat up from what Cumore's lackeys did to him, he hasn't eaten since the day before last, the bandage for his new Brands still hasn't been removed, and now he’s probably got grease all over him and cinders still cooling on his clothes. But if she notices any of that, she doesn't say it.

“They're not ‘just trees,’” Estelle insists. “It's the Quoi Woods. Surely you've heard of the curse?”

“Curse?” Yuri echoes, incredulous. “Curse?”

What is this, the twentieth century? Hasn't society grown past such superstitions?

But not Estelle, apparently. “Yes! It's said that once, this area was part of the plains. But this was the site of a great battlefield, millennia ago. The blood of fallen soldiers soaked deep into the earth, and became as water for the seeds here. Though the battle is long over, the trees still crave the blood that nursed them…”

“Oh, come on.”

“Ridicule me if you like,” Estelle snaps, “but consider, Yuri, that there is a reason the Lord of the Plains does not also rule over the Quoi Woods.”

“That's because he's an animal, and he responds to scent. So there's probably another creature here that's marked the Quoi Woods as its territory.” Probably. Right?

Estelle frowns, clearly unconvinced, and Yuri sighs. “Either way, right now, this is the quickest and safest way to Halure. And I don't know about you, but I'm tired and hungry. So let's head in, find a good spot to set up camp and catch some breakfast.”

“Camp,” Estelle murmurs, as if in awe of the word. Yeah… she's probably never slept on any kind of floor in her life, much less the dirt floor they're gonna have to sleep on tonight. Halure is still a day or two through the woods, even if they don't stop to catch up on last night's sleep.

“Just follow my lead,” Yuri says. Estelle's gaze focuses on him again, and she nods. He hopes that was comforting, but if it wasn't, at least she knows he'll handle most of the labor.

Yuri doesn't know about any “curse,” but one thing's certain: the Quoi Woods are crawling with Xenobeasts. Just as they -- well, he manages to kill a flightless bird-like thing with a beak sharp and wide enough to be mistaken for an axe, and Yuri starts considering how they're going to pluck it or if they even should, another one bursts into the scene, this one is hideous. A beast that stands nearly double Yuri’s height on its hind legs, with a bear-like maw and muzzle and ferocious claws.

Yeah, they abandon that axe-beak quick. Yuri knows when he’s on the bottom of the food chain, and they quickly make for further into the woods, searching for an easier target.

“There’s got to be normal birds around here,” Yuri mutters as they make their way. “Or foxes. Or, hell, I’ll take a squirrel at this point.”

Estelle’s brow furrows as she looks to Yuri. “If there are, they will be well hidden. They’ve got to survive amongst the Xenobeasts, after all.”

Yuri knows she’s right. Maybe meat isn’t what they should be going for.

It’s just as the sun starts to set that Estelle spots a fruit tree. The fruit proves too bitter for the young princess’s refined tastes -- and for Yuri’s. So Yuri sets up a trap, and before the light is gone, he’s snared two massive, overgrown hares.

Estelle doesn’t seem too used to such unseasoned food, but she swallows it down easier than the fruit, which is good enough for Yuri. As long as she’s eating and can keep up the next day.

“We’re going to have to find a place to set up camp,” Yuri says. Repede gives a soft whuff . Yuri can’t help the proud little smile on his face as he looks to his companion. “Yeah, I’ll take first shift.”

“Shift?” Estelle’s attention piques at the word.

“No.”

“But… but I can help, too!” Estelle insists, pushing forward in order to grab Yuri’s arm. Repede growls, short, just enough to be the kind of protective that makes Yuri think, Aw, it’s nice to know you care. “I can stay up and wake you up if monsters show up! I’ve stayed up late before!”

“What, reading books?” It comes out meaner than he means it, and he winces at the same time Estelle does. “No, listen. It’s harder than you think.” Forcing oneself to stay awake in the wee hours without anything to do but remain alert… Yuri’s had to do it before, and it sucks pretty hardcore. “Repede and I are used to it. Besides, you don’t have any combat experience, which means that if you get caught by surprise, you’re on your own till we’re awake and ready. So just let the two of us handle this.”

Estelle scowls. “So… so you’re telling me Repede has combat experience?”

“Yep.”

“But…” she starts.

“No ‘buts,’ princess.”

Two nights pass like this. Two nights of them sleeping, hunting, scraping by. By the time they reach the far end of the Quoi Woods -- and Yuri considers himself lucky to have been here to guide Estelle, because he has learned firsthand just how deeply she lacks anything resembling a sense of direction -- they look like they’ve been recreationally mud-wrestling.

In a forest.

Yuri hates to admit it, but without a hairbrush, it’s fucking impossible to get any of the twigs, leaves, or dirt out of his hair. Repede sometimes likes to groom him -- something Yuri got used to a long, long time ago -- but Repede is even struggling to keep himself clean. It’s definitely worse for Estelle, who seems to be grieving her dress every time he turns to her.

It’s a nice dress, sure, but she probably has tons of others just like it. Also, Yuri can’t help but think it’s better this way. No one would take a look at their dirt-covered selves and think Estelle could possibly be the princess, just someone who looked very much like her.

Hopefully.

“Is that the end?” Estelle says, hope swelling in her voice like a musical crescendo. “Oh, thank goodness! How much longer to Halure, Yuri?”

“Uh…” Yuri could tell her that he’s never exactly walked to Halure. Hell, he’s never even been out of the capital, even if he joined the Knights as a dumb teenager. “...a half day’s walk?” It was as much a guess as it was an estimate, but it was all he had.

“That long…”

Just like that, all the hope was gone. Damn. Yuri felt a pang of guilt. “I mean, we still have to head down from here,” Yuri points out, approaching the edge of the Woods. Estelle moves too quickly after him, and Yuri holds out his arm to stop her from falling off. She gasps as she looked down into the canyon below.

Below them, even more trees.

“See,” Yuri says, pointing. “That big tree, in the middle of all the others. That’s the center of Halure.”

“Wow…” Estelle breathes. “If only we had some sort of shortcut. It seems so close.”

Yuri laughs. “Yeah, right. If there was an easier way to get to it, we would’ve been there by now.” Right. As if Yuri could possibly know about any hypothetical shortcuts. Because he’s the kind of guy to prepare for a journey before he jumps ship.

Well, with any luck, Yuri’s face isn’t plastered all over Halure. Halure supposedly doesn’t have as much of a technological focus as the Imperial Capital -- after all, it’s in the trees, and tech and nature can be incompatible enough to be risky -- but that doesn’t mean it has none. If the Knights are smart…

Well. If the Knights chasing him are smart, then that’s what they’ll have done, is make sure every city within a 100 mile radius and every port city on seven planets has seen Yuri’s face. He has ‘kidnapped’ a princess, after all.

“Wait…” Yuri scowls and covers his nose -- he sees Repede gag, out of the corner of his eye, and he knows he’s not imagining that smell. “Do you smell that? Ugh, it reeks.”

What the hell is that? It isn’t like anything he’s ever smelled before -- and he’s smelled plenty of foul scents in the Lower Sector. Estelle makes a sound of disgust and covers her own nose, pinching it shut.

Then there’s a rustling to the right, the sound of a branch snapping. Yuri doesn’t turn -- better not to give away your awareness of a beast’s presence -- but Repede does.

That in and of itself is curious. Repede glances over his shoulder to Yuri, clearly fighting through that foul stench, which must be a thousand times worse for his faithful pooch. Stay.

So Yuri stays put. Repede carefully slinks forward along the forest floor, far enough from the edge of the forest’s cliffside to not be in plain sight.

“What’s going on?” Estelle whispers, but Yuri just shakes his head.

Repede sniffs loud enough to be heard. His butt, poised in the air, wriggles. And then he pounces, barking so loud Estelle covers her ears. Yuri almost doesn’t hear the scream that intermingles with Repede’s.

Almost.

“G-get away from me!” A child’s voice shouts. No, not a child; a preteen. Someone young enough and stupid enough to wander into the Quoi Woods, but old enough to know better. Yuri watches as Repede drags out a boy by the scruff of a bandana around his neck. Kid’s probably a few years older than Ted but not much more than that.

“I-I’m not tasty! I have… I have lean muscles and, and no fat!” The kid is still struggling and crying while he writhes in Repede’s jaw. Yuri wonders if he’s aware he could just yank his bandana off and sprint the other way. “I would be h- horrible lunch for--for an Eggbear!”

“What the hell,” Yuri says, and he’s trying not to laugh. Repede snorts. Not a threat. And then he opens his mouth and drops the boy in front of them.

Yeah, no kidding. ‘Not a threat’ is a generous way to word it.

The kid finally looks up. His bright, wide, amber-brown eyes strike Yuri as somehow an even bigger reminder of how young this idiot is. He scrambles to his feet and dusts himself off, and even though he’s got some dirt in his reddish-brown hair, he’s clearly not been in the wild as long as Yuri and Estelle have.

Also, he’s got a very particular kind of jacket on, with goggles resting on his forehead. He screams pilot, or maybe it’d be more accurate to say he screams pilot costume, because there’s no way this kid is an actual pilot. But then Yuri notices the over-large rifle this kid has slung over his back -- the thing is nearly one and a half times his size! -- and if he knows how to use it, then that means he’s probably capable of more than just shooting a gun.

Another important note: his neck is bare.

“H-hey,” he says, still stuttering as he turns to them. “Uh… you… you two aren’t wildlings, are you?” His eyes swerve between the two of them, and Yuri almost laughs.

He’s scared of them?

“No, we aren’t,” Estelle says, tilting her head. “Are you okay? We are so sorry that our friend tackled you! Yuri!” Yuri jumps as Estelle spins on him. “Apologize to him!”

Huh?

“I didn’t tackle him.”

“Repede is yours!”

“Repede is Repede’s.”

“Then… then…” Estelle huffs and turns to Repede. Repede turns to gaze at the cliffside, suddenly very interested in the landscape. Yuri bites back a snicker.

“U-uh…” The boy speaks up. Still stuttering, but he sounds a bit more sure of himself as he looks to them. “What -- what are you two doing all the way out here, then? In the Quoi Woods?”

“Could ask you the same thing,” Yuri says, right as Estelle answers him with, “We’re on our way to Halure.”

Yeesh. Yuri knows that Estelle’s probably had a sheltered life, but just because he’s a kid doesn’t mean she should trust him. Even if, for some reason, this guy reminds Yuri a bit of himself when he was that age.

Never dressed up like a pilot, though.

“Halure.” The boy blinks. “So… you came through the Quoi Woods?”

“Yeah,” Yuri says, to encourage pacing. “We’re trying to reach Halure by nightfall. Can you help?”

“Huh? Uh…” The kid looks behind him.

Maybe he is a pilot.

“I… guess I could,” he says slowly, turning back to them. “Um, I’m Karol, by the way. Karol Capel of the Hunting Blades.”

“Ooh, the Hunting Blades.” Yuri’s heard of them. Pretty impressive. Even people born outside of the Empire’s influence don’t just get handed a guild membership. “What’s a member of the Hunting Blades doing all the way out here, on Ilyccia?” Ilyccia’s the hub of Empire activity, so while it wasn’t unheard of for guild members to make appearances here, it was certainly rarer. Tensions between the Empire and the Union always seemed strained.

“I’m not by myself,” Karol huffs, crossing his arms across his chest and puffing up his shoulders, as if that seriously might make himself seem bigger. “The whole guild’s out here. We’re all working together to track down monsters.”

“The entire guild?” Estelle echoes, a note of awe in her voice. “Really? They’re here, in the Quoi Woods? I read that the Hunting Blades has hundreds of individual members.”

“Uh.” Karol shifts his weight in a way that almost makes Yuri laugh. Kids. “Not… not all of them. Just me and Nan and Tison and the Chief… And actually, I’m the only one out here in the Quoi Woods. The rest of them should be back in Halure, but we’re all here on official guild business.”

Official guild business. Did that have anything to do with the awful smell?

“Oh.”

Estelle is disappointed. Yuri bites back a snicker, because of course she is. She would have expected hundreds of people working for one semi-political organization to just be out here in the Empire’s backyard, and would have hoped to be able to personally meet them herself.

It’s cute.

“So, Karol. What exactly is a member of such an esteemed guild doing out here on his own?”

“Oh, yeah.” Karol sparks to life, as if he’d totally forgotten Yuri asked him that. “I’m hunting an Eggbear. Like I said, official guild business. I’ve just gotta bring one back to town, and then usually Nan and Tison are the ones who…”

Blah blah blah. Too much talk when the air’s still foul. Yuri gestures with a finger in the direction Karol had been looking before, over his shoulder. “You got a ride?”

Karol nods. “Yeah, I do, but… you guys will have to ride in the back.”

“That is more than enough,” Estelle replies with all the sincerity in the whole world. “Thank you so much for your help. You’re doing us a world of good, and we do owe you.”

“We do?”

But Estelle’s words press just the right buttons on this kid to make his face turn as pink as her hair. “N-nah, it’s nothin’,” he says, kicking the ground a bit. “Um, I was gonna head back soon, anyway. So it’s fine.”

He turns. “Follow me.”

“I wonder what sort of vehicle he has,” Estelle murmurs, curious, as they fall in step behind him.

Yuri snorts.

The bed of the trailer is all hard, metal edges, with the only object to act as a buffer for Yuri’s poor ass being a large and scraggly stretch of canvas with the inked words, “The Hunting Blades” stamped at angled intervals. There’s a coil of rope near his booted feet in the corner--entirely too little of it for an Eggbear, really--which makes him frown. His eyes flick up to the back of their little helper’s head and the way the wind whips his brown hair wildly about. Karol’s red scarf flaps up at his jaw, like the red tongue of a companion creature.

Then, suddenly, brightly, like she’s had a great revelation, Estelle gasps and thrusts her finger out over the edge of the trailer bed. “Halure!”

Yuri sits up.

Karol has already dropped their speed long ago to carefully navigate around the wide tree trunks. The trees in this forested canyon are the biggest trees Yuri has ever seen. Bigger than any building in Zaphias. Bigger than the imperial palace. But at the center of this giant cluster is a bare-branched tree, sick-looking and ashen. It towers over its brethren.

Halure, the City of Blossoms, sprawls across the sides of these giant trees in the center of the canyon forest. Its numerous round huts and buildings are either built into the trunks themselves or elevated on round, wooden platforms protruding from the sides. Each round dome is covered in ivy and roots. The dangling gate-points marking the city’s border and barrier remain dark. Unlit. Despite the warm glow of lights and energy in the windows of the city within.

“Huh,” Yuri drawls. “For a City of Blossoms, there sure ain’t a lot of flowers.”

“Where’s the barrier?” Estelle’s murmur is easier to hear after Karol has dropped their speed to carefully navigate around the wide trunks. “The gate-points...why aren’t they active?”

There had been the same unpleasant twist to Yuri’s gut when the thought crossed his mind a moment prior. He looks to Estelle and meets her worried baby blue gaze with his own. “With luck, maybe that’s what Flynn was here to find out.”

Hope surges in her eyes. Estelle nods, jaw set, and turns to look upon the forest city they are fast approaching.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean he’s not here?”

“I meant what I said, my dear.” The Mayor’s twin white, fuzzy brows furrowed. He paused for an uncomfortable stretch of time, reflected, and then asked, “...what was your question again?”

“Flynn,” Yuri deadpans. “Lieutenant Flynn Scifo. You were the person he and his squad are supposed to report to in town, so if he had to leave for whatever reason, you are the person he should have told. We’ve told you this three times already.”

“Have you?” The Mayor’s brow lifts. “Oh dear…”

“Please.” Estelle folds both of her hands in front of her chest and gazes at the man with her by now characteristic puppy-dog earnestness. “Try to remember. Where did Flynn say he was going? Why would he just up and leave a town which so clearly needs his help?”

“W-well…he was helping, if I recall. There was...hm. An engineer he was trying to find…”

“Engineer?” Estelle gasps with hope.

“...he thought maybe...hm.”

“He thought...what?”

“Hm?”

“What did Flynn think?”

“I’m sorry. What were we talking about again?”

Estelle sighs. Yuri places a hand flat against the all-wood desk carved in between them and says with every word painstakingly slow, “Flynn. Scifo. Why. Did. He. Leave?”

“What? How am I supposed to know?” The Mayor huffs--a rumbling and distinguished sound deep in his chest--as he adjusted himself in his plush seat. “I can’t very well see into the young man’s mind and know why he was headed to Aspio, now can I?”

“Aspio!” Estelle straightens. “The City of Engineers! Scientists! Of course!” She turns to Yuri with a wide smile. “Maybe he thought someone from there could help?”

With an exhale, Yuri straightens up and shrugs. There was a certain kind of relief to being able to see the light at the end of this long-winded, redundant conversation’s tunnel, so to speak. “Sounds like Flynn, all right. Always running errands all over the place.”

Estelle turns back to the Mayor across the desk from them. “Thank you for your help!”

“Not a problem, my dear.”

Yuri wound an arm around Estelle’s shoulders to guide her out of the office. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, watching as the Mayor went from one moment, wide-awake and alert--if not totally present--to asleep, softly snoring. His whiskery chin pressed to his chest.

“He’s quite a strange man, isn’t he?” Estelle whispers to Yuri on the stairs.

“Works in our favor. I’m just glad he was too forgetful to recognize you.” Yuri gives a quick once-over of the princess at his side. “Speaking of which, if you’re wanting to move around as freely as you have been, you probably should get a change of clothes. Right now, your gown just screams heir to the imperial throne.”

“Does it?” Estelle glances down at herself.

Once on the wooden platform outside, Yuri puts his fisted hands on his hips and glances about at the treetop city of Halure at sunset as its warm-orange rays filter in through the leaves. It would be beautiful and serene if not for the lifelessness of the great tree at the center. “So,” he breathes, looking out to the horizon line, uneven through the canopy of trees. “Once again, you’re always a step ahead of me, aren’t you…?”

“Did you say something, Yuri?”

Yuri shakes his head and turns to the princess watching him with a pinched frown. “Nothing. It just seems a little funny to me. Aspio is where I need to go, too.”

“Really?”

It shouldn’t affect him--how much her face lights up at that information. It shouldn’t make him smile as much as it does.

“That’s wonderful! Do you think we could go together?” Estelle blinks and flushes. “I--I mean, would you mind if we went together? You’ve been great to travel with, Yuri.”

“Sure.” Yuri shrugs and doesn’t comment on the fact that he feels like with Estelle’s limited exposure to the world outside of the imperial palace, she’d be a little lost trying to explore the planet of Ilyccia without his help. Even if he did manage to crash them in the Quoi Woods. “I’ll be your kidnapper for a little longer. But we need to find a way to get to Aspio first. I don’t know if you remember what happened to our hovercraft…”

“Oh.” Estelle winces. “That’s right. And Karol still needs to hunt that Eggbear, so he probably couldn’t take us.”

A fact that Yuri’s ass was relieved by, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you could just tell a princess.

“Well, c’mon, then. We won’t get anywhere standing still. Let’s see if we can find some sort of passenger service to Aspio,” Yuri mutters and turns to descend further into town. “As well as some new clothes for our resident imperial heir.”

Estelle hurries to his side. “And a hotel for the night!” When Yuri sends her a weird look, she adds, “It is getting dark, and I was thinking that it’d be rather nice to sleep in a real bed tonight instead of the forest floor again...”

She had a point.

His ass was definitely agreeing with that.

“All right. Better hope the imperial purse has some gald credits,” Yuri murmurs. “Because I’m not covering all of this.”

Estelle’s new outfit perhaps is a little too fitting to have been found in the City of Blossoms:  white and grey legplates and boots with gold, swirling trim, under a short-skirted pink dress resembling flower petals. A white-collared and long-sleeved waistcoat on top. The only artifact from her old wardrobe she reuses is her white gloves. Turning herself side to side in the wall-mirror, she pauses and begins to put up her hair again.

Yuri stretches out a hand.

“No. Keep it down,” he says. “It makes you harder to recognize.”

“R...really?” Estelle murmurs and turns to look at her reflection again. “Do I really look that different with my hair down?”

“You look different enough. That’s about all that matters.” Yuri waves a hand at her old clothes still in a pile from where he can see outside of the dressing stall. “Now hurry up and let’s check out of here. I’m both tired and hungry enough to eat a Xenobeast and that’s not a Yuri you want to be around.”

“You don’t mean that…!”

“No. I don’t.”

“Oh.”

Estelle looks reassured, somehow, like for a moment she had actually wondered if he would eat an alien monster. Then she turns and hurries for the dressing stall.

That afternoon, they cross a long and wobbly, vine-roped bridge and unexpectedly find Karol again, just outside of the inn that is built into the wide trunk of an outskirt tree. The boy has his knees pulled up to his chest and his face hidden away in them, his red scarf peeking out by his cheek. His red hoverbike is nowhere to be seen, which make Yuri and Estelle share an odd look.

Yuri pokes his calf with the toe of his boot.

Karol looks up.

“Hey, kid,” Yuri greets and places his hands on his waist. “Why the long face? Weren’t you looking for your friends?”

“Yeah, but…” Karol sighs and presses his face back into his knees, incomprehensibly muffling the rest of his speech.

Yuri and Estelle share another look.

“I’m sorry,” Estelle says. “Could you say that again? We didn’t quite hear you.”

Karol lifts his head again. He crosses his forearms over the surface of his knees and rests his chin on top of them, sherry brown eyes downcast. “I said they already left. Nan and the other Hunting Blades. I don’t know where they went...and I don’t know who’s driving the ship, but I guess they decided wherever they were going was important enough to go without me.”

Yuri’s frown pinches into a hard, disapproving line.

Estelle’s eyes widen. “You mean...they just left you?”

“It happens sometimes.” Karol slides his face down to hide it away again and shrugs--a small, half-hearted motion with his shoulders.

“I...thought you were their pilot,” Yuri murmurs.

Karol sighs, more exaggerated than before. “I am, but I’m not the only one. Tison can pilot, too, so he can take the Guild wherever it needs to go.” He puffs his cheeks out and looks away. “Even if he can’t make point-turns as well as I can.” After a moment of pause in which everyone waits awkwardly for someone else to say something, he leans back against the tree and sighs once more. “Oh, well. I guess I’ll just keep going after that Eggbear, then…”

Yuri thinks of the too-short length of rope he saw in the bed of the trailer and sighs. “Let me guess. They sent you to go after it?”

For some reason, that makes Karol squeeze his eyes towards them. A frown stretches across his young features. “What’s with all these questions? Why do you care?”

Yuri’s about ready to shrug and say, “Okay, fair,” but then Estelle beats him to it. With her hands clasped before her chest, she leans forward and says with such an earnest look to her baby blues, “Is there a reason why we shouldn’t ?”

Karol blinks at her, taken aback. “Uh...I...guess not.”

That seems to satisfy the princess. She smiles and nods, letting her clasped hands fall to rest in front of her skirts. “Okay. So then, did your friends send you to go after an Eggbear?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Why?”

Karol blinks and then turns to look past them to the giant trunk of the ashen-barked tree in the center of the forest. He raises a grease-gloved hand to point. “Because of the dying blossom tree. It’s what powers the barrier’s gate-points, though I don’t really know much about the bioengineering behind it. Nan dared me to try and fix it.” He shrugs and lets his hand fall. “But I don’t know. I thought maybe I could impress her if I did…so I accepted the challenge.”

Estelle gasps.

Yuri turns back to Karol so fast, his raven-dark hair fans out around his shoulders. “Wait. You know how to fix the barrier and turn the gate-points back on?”

“Uh.” Karol’s face scrunches up, like a vague ‘ duh ’ look. “Yeah? It’s not that hard.”

“But you have to catch an Eggbear.”

“Yeah, uh…that’s pretty much the only hard part.”

“What if we helped you?”

“What?”

Estelle looks to Yuri with bright blue eyes. “Yuri?”

Yuri can’t help the small, smug smirk that plays on his face. He holds out his hand for Karol to take. “What do you say, kid? We help you catch that Eggbear. We’ll help you fix up that tree and the barrier around Halure. But in return , we’ll need you and your hoverbike’s help getting to Aspio afterward. Sound like a deal?”

Karol jumps to his feet, foregoing Yuri’s hand entirely. “Does it sound like a deal?” he repeats with a large grin. Compared to the dejectedness of before, his face is as bright as a sun, now. “Of course it does! That’d be great! Thanks, guys!”

“Cool. No problem.” Yuri nods and tries to fight the way his own smile wants to spread wider. What’s with all these dumb idiots making his face stretch like this? First Estelle, now this kid… “But we gotta shake on it, you know. A deal’s not a deal until it’s shaken on.”

“Oh! Right!”

With enthusiastic gusto, Karol clasps his gloved hand around Yuri’s bare one and shakes it up and down hard.

Yuri winces.

Damn. This kid’s stronger than I thought.

It isn’t until later that night, once everyone’s washed up, Estelle’s already asleep, Karol’s claimed the second bed, and Yuri’s settling out some blankets on the spare floating cot the inn staff was able to bring them, that Karol asks it.

“Hey. Yuri, right?”

“Yeah.” Yuri turns to look over his shoulder at the kid perched cross-legged on his covers. The scruffy brunet looks smaller, somehow, without all the bulky pilot clothes he wears and dressed in a nondescript plain tee and pajama shorts for sleep. It reminds Yuri how young the kid is and how Karol probably should have been a little more resistant to sharing a hotel room with a pair of traveling adult strangers than he had been. “What’s up?”

Karol tilts his head with a careful squint of his eyes. Yuri doesn’t miss the way they fall to his neck before settling back on his face. “Can I ask you something?”

Yuri kind of already knows what the kid is going to ask just by that glance alone but he nods and lets his ass fall back onto the floating cot good-naturedly. He turns to face him and sets his elbows on his knees and his dangling hands in his lap. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Those tattoos on your neck.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That...wasn’t actually a question, kid.”

“Oh!” Karol blinks and flushes in a way that’s still easy to see even though the lights along the perimeter of the ceiling have been dimmed. “Right. Uh...can you tell me about them? Those tattoos?”

“What do you want to know?”

“I just...I see people with them, sometimes. Different kind of markings. And they’re all people who have been part of the Empire at one point.” Karol shrugs. “Um. Some are the same, but there’s also a bunch of different markings. Are they on purpose?”

“We don’t choose them, if that’s what you mean.”

“Who does?”

“Honestly? Don’t know. The Empire’s law, I guess.” Yuri tilts his head and pulls his long, dark hair over one shoulder to expose the left side of his neck. “This eye here is probably the one you see most often. Am I right?”

“I--I mean--” Karol’s flush deepens. “--it’s not common . But...I guess?”

A small smile stretches on Yuri’s face. “You really were born into the Guilds. Grew up completely outside the influence of the Empire. You have no idea about any of these markings or what they mean...”

Karol shakes his head.

Yuri chuckles to himself, a soft sound. Must be nice. He points to the eye across the side of his neck again. “Ever seen the imperial crest? With the eye and the rising bird?”

“Oh!” Karol’s eyes light up in recognition. “Yeah! I see it everywhere.”

“That’s what this eye is from, that mark. Supposed to represent how the Empire’s always watching.” It’s hard not to let his tone grow bitter, his voice resentful. He pictures something else, something easy. Repede, perhaps. Whatever that lightning-bolt tuft of blue fur is doing right now at this odd hour of night. When, exactly, did he plan on coming back from his hunt he had wandered off to while he and Estelle first went shopping? “It means I’m a Branded. I’m the lowest of the low in the Empire’s eyes in their stupid hierarchy.”

“Lowest...of the low?”

“I was born in the slums of Zaphias. The Lower Sector. Everyone who is gets one of these marks. Just so everyone knows we’re scum.”

Karol’s face pinches tight. “That’s awful.”

Yuri nods. He bends his head the other way, moving his hair over to the other shoulder so he can show off the right side, now that the brands have mostly healed. Last he checked in the mirror, the skin was still irritated and pink, but no longer an angry, hissing red. “These marks are different, though. I earned these.”

“Earned them? How?”

Yuri entertains the idea of setting up some elaborate story for the kid, just to make his copper eyes go big and round. He toys with ideas that could work, some crazy and hilarious tales he could weave up--because Karol would probably believe them, whatever they were.

But he doesn’t have the energy for it right now. “Petty crimes,” he murmurs. “The tallies are for each time I’ve been arrested for what they call a ‘minor infraction.’”

Karol’s copper eyes go big and round anyway, even with the truth.

“That’s a lot of tallies…!”

“Only about fifteen or so.” Yuri huffs with a frown. “Don’t exaggerate. There’s a lot worse out there.”

Karol tilts his head as he thinks. “Minor infractions,” he repeats. “So that’s like...what, stealing? Is that stealing? Or maybe it’s smaller, like breaking and entering. Are those the same things? Wait! That doesn’t mean you’ve, like, murdered anybody, right?”

Yuri has to turn away to hide his smile as he gathers up his long hair to twist and wrap into a bun.

“Yuri?” Karol calls again, voice anxious. “C’mon. You haven’t murdered anyone…”

Hair up and off of his neck, Yuri finally turns back to the kid with a wide and wicked grin. “ Yet. ”

“That’s not funny!”

Yuri thinks it is. He laughs anyway and finds out that thankfully, the princess is a pretty deep sleeper. She doesn’t even flinch when Yuri and Karol descend into a petty, feather-filled pillow fight nearby her bed that, five minutes later, tuckers them out enough to fall into an exhausted heap of sleep of their own.

Chapter Text

Once everyone is up and has eaten their fill of breakfast -- provided very courteously by the inn’s staff -- they set out, once again, on the hoverbike-trailer combo to the Quoi Woods.

Yuri hates the trailer with every fiber of his being. Especially his ass. His ass especially hates the trailer.

“So.” Estelle glances between Yuri and the back of Karol’s head, clearly trying to make conversation in a desperate attempt to distract from the discomfort, despite the noise of the wind whipping around them. “How are we catching the Eggbear?”

Yuri’s just desperate enough to bite. “I think we’re leaving that to the kid, aren’t we? He’s the one who, you know, has actually been trained to hunt monsters. In that monster-hunting guild. He’ll lure it into a trap, and then I’ll, uh.”

It became apparent to Yuri that they actually didn’t have much of a plan. Or rather, if Karol had one, he hadn’t bothered to share it with the class.

Estelle’s frown is more pensive than disapproving. “It seems rushed, to just charge in without any thought at all…”

“Hey, now. We’ll talk it out more when we stop, but right now, our plan is this: catch that Eggbear, fix Halure’s tree.”

“That’s not much of a plan,” Estelle murmurs, brow furrowing. “Written account of intended future course of action aimed at achieving a specific goal or objective within a specific timeframe. It explains in detail what needs to be done, when, how, and by whom, and often includes best case, expected case, and worst case scenarios. See also: strategy, procedure.”

“Holy shit, Miss Dictionary,” Yuri says, in genuine awe.

Estelle giggles and leans back against the trailer. “I read that on the Network, actually. The Federation of Corporate Conglomerates’ Encyclopedia.”

Which immediately makes Yuri less impressed with the verbose definition, but he isn’t going to just say that. Rich people have to make everything so complicated… “Well, here’s my definition: knowing what you’re doing before you do it.”

Estelle frowns. “...even going by that definition--”

“Whoa, can’t hear you!” Yuri yells, louder than he needs to be, and gestures to his ears to exaggerate a point. He can’t help but grin, big and wide. “The wind’s just so loud!”

He doesn’t miss Repede’s huff of amusement when she pouts.

Karol pulls to a stop near where they met him, which gives Yuri the impression he knows an Eggbear must have territory near here. As Karol hops off his hoverbike, he pulls his vibrant red scarf down from his face and turns to them, extending his hand to help them off.

Estelle takes it, but neither Yuri nor Repede need it. “So,” Yuri says, crossing his arms. “Karol, I’m assuming you know how to trap one of these things, right?”

“Uh, yeah.” Karol’s voice is hesitant, brows pushing together even as he meets Yuri’s unflinching gaze. “They eat nia fruit. Other things too, cuz they’re omnivores, but nia fruit is the easiest bait to use. But that by itself often doesn’t have a strong enough scent to attract them.”

“Nia fruit?” Estelle asks, cocking her head.

“That delicious fruit we nearly gorged ourselves on on the way here,” Yuri answers.

Estelle makes a disgusted look in the same moment Karol’s face turns awed. “Maybe they are wildlings,” the boy whispers, as if neither of them are aware that Yuri’s totally kidding.

“So,” Yuri prompts. “We’re gonna use nia fruit, but we need something else?”

Karol shrugs, then reaches into his bag. He pulls out a utility knife, and it has enough scuffs for Yuri to know it’s been with Karol a while. “Just this,” he shrugs. “If you guys ate them, then I’m sure you know. Once the flesh of the nia fruit is exposed to air, it creates this foul stink. Not sure about the how or the why, but I think it’s to scare off animals that might eat it… but Eggbears don’t have the greatest sense of smell, so actually, they like that sort of thing.”

Yuri laughs. “Wait, this thing is an omnivore, but it doesn’t have a good nose?”

Xenobeasts. Strange creatures.

“It makes up for that in pretty much every other way,” Karol replies. “So here’s what I was gonna do. We were gonna draw him out with these, then jump him.”

“...that’s it?” Estelle asks, shock blatant on her face. It actually makes Yuri laugh, because seriously, what’s she expecting from a kid who doesn’t look a day over thirteen?

“I-I mean!” Karol’s immediately on the defensive. “I mean, uh… Boss… Boss is the one who uh--”

“How are we gonna jump it?” Yuri interrupts, setting a hand on his hip. “We’ll need to figure out how we can camouflage, or at least, how to stay out of its line of sight. We don’t have any of the fancy technology that the Knights do.” Which, as far as Yuri knows, they don’t use that often anyway, given the cost of it. “Do you know if this thing has any Achilles’s heels? Anything we can use to hit it hard and fast?”

Karol puts his chin in his hand. Yuri’s actually kinda grateful they ran into him, because if Karol seriously tried to take on a Xenobeast without considering all of this, he’d be dead by now. “We really only need its paws,” Karol says. Estelle wrinkles her nose, and Yuri’s sure the both of them are imagining having to somehow remove the paws from this thing’s legs, but Karol keeps going. “So… I think damage to anything else is fine. Taking out the head or the spine would probably be the best ways to take it out.

“And our scents will be blocked out by the nia fruit, so… maybe if we keep to the trees around it. Up in the trees, I mean, since we don’t know what direction it’ll be coming from.”

“It’s got good eyesight, right?” Yuri prompts. “And good hearing. So that means if one of us makes a wrong move, or even when we leap from our spot, it’ll be alert right away.”

“We could do a pit trap!”

Both of them turn to Estelle, who looks triumphant already. “Yes, let’s do that,” she says, clapping her hands together. “We’ll set the nia fruit in the middle -- not too large a pile, if we don’t want the weight to trigger our little trap…”

“I don’t think that’s a bad idea,” Karol says slowly. “But… Estelle, have you ever done something like that before?”

“Nope!”

“They take a long time,” Yuri cuts in. “And Eggbears, I imagine, can get pretty big. So we’re going to have to dig deep enough to keep it from pulling itself up, and then we’re going to have to design the cover to hide it, and then we’re going to have to gather all the nia fruit. It’ll be nightfall by the time we’re done.”

“Not to mention, that level of activity might scare off the wildlife,” Karol murmurs.

They all give a great sigh as they stand hunched together, brows furrowed, arms crossed. Then--

I might have an idea.

“This is Repede’s idea?” Karol asks, clearly skeptical.

That’s fine, because Yuri doesn’t really need to explain it to Karol anyway. The less people know, the better for him.

“Hush,” Yuri replies, and ducks Karol’s head into the bushes.

Repede’s plan is pretty great, if Yuri’s allowed to say that, given his complete lack of bias. Partly because it’s very clear he got the inspiration from their first interaction with Karol.

Step 1: Set out the halved fruit. Check.

Step 2: Hide. Yuri glances over to Estelle, who has hidden among the bushes along the opposite tree and covered the pink hair with her hood. She’s been explicitly forbidden from intervening, given her lack of firepower. Karol’s flaming red scarf is nowhere to be seen. Repede’s vanished, like he was never here. Check.

Step 3: Bide their time.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Yuri asks, voice low enough that even he almost can’t hear it.

Karol scowls. “Hypocrite,” he hisses.

“Hush.”

“Depends how far the closest Eggbear is. Depends if it’s hungry.”

This close to sundown, that thing better be fucking hungry, because Yuri sure is. He’s thinking about skinning and cooking the damn thing for dinner.

His train of thought is interrupted by the sound of heavy, heavy footfalls. He tenses and glances to Karol, who only gives a single nod.

Time for Step 4: Bait and switch.

Then the Eggbear draws closer -- closer -- until finally it’s pushed through the branches and underbrush, and Yuri realizes he’s seen this thing before. It’s the same thing that swept in to eat the axe-beak that Yuri had killed, the thing Yuri had thought was too much to fight, just him and Repede.

It’s massive. Not quite as huge as the last one -- that one was nearly double Yuri’s height -- but it’s not smaller by much at all. Slimmer, maybe, and a fraction shorter, but Yuri remembers seeing that muzzle rip into the flesh of that other Xenobeast, and he represses a shudder. Shit.

It reaches the nia fruit, which are about the same size as an apple, and this thing could squish it underneath its paw if it wanted. It doesn’t; just sniffs for a moment, and then it takes a big, juicy bite of the horribly smelling fruit.

Ugh. It’s almost like it’s rotting.

Yuri fights down his gag reflex and holds up his gun, already unholstered to prevent any sound. A glance to Karol -- his rifle held in his hands -- they both nod.

And then they burst from their hiding spot into a run, charging at the beast and yelling like some sort of Tarzan. The Eggbear turns immediately almost ninety degrees towards them, snarling, fur bristling as it rears onto its hind legs. Yuri shoots wildly, only aiming to distract the damn thing, and Karol does the same. They run criss-crossing each other, and the Eggbear gives a great roar as shot after shot hits its fur, singing it across the chest and at least once in the shoulder.

It brings its feet down, slamming into the forest floor and only narrowly missing Karol -- but it gets his gun, nearly snapping the damn thing in two; immediately he shrieks and backpedals into the underbrush.

“Hey!” Yuri shouts. “Karol! Get back here!” Don’t leave me out here to distract this damn thing on my own!

But Karol’s disappeared, only the rustling in his wake, and Yuri grits his teeth as he focuses on the Eggbear. With Estelle weaponless, it’s just him until Repede sees the opening he needs.

Karol, you idiot.

The beast roars as it narrows on him, and Yuri tries not to think about the size as he shoots it in the face. You’d think that’d be enough to knock it out, but it kicks one foot back, kicking up dust, and then.

Then it charges Yuri.

“Shit shit shit shit” is a constant mantra as Yuri dashes behind one of the trees, nearly sliding like a fucking athlete trying to reach home base -- and as he does, he feels the tree shake, down to its roots, as the Eggbear collides with it.

Hopefully headfirst, but Yuri can’t wait to find out.

He moves upwards, grabbing branch after branch with one hand and his pistol in the other, trying to gain some elevation on this thing. The tree shakes again, so much that Yuri nearly loses both balance and grip, and a glance down reveals he’s only barely above its height. It snarls at him with jaws too close, and Yuri shoots again -- he sees the laser go beyond teeth and tongue, and the Eggbear shrieks.

I hope that fucking hurt, you son of a bitch.

And then he hears it -- a snarl that is distinctly familiar. Relief surges in Yuri as he shoots again, keeping the damn thing distracted for long enough for Repede to get his hit.

And then, in a flash, Repede is on this thing’s back. Yuri sees a blue blur, and then Repede’s teeth sink into its neck and claws into its shoulders as he rips out its throat.

It’s gory, Yuri won’t lie -- but he’s seen worse than the vocal cords that splatter against the ground. The Eggbear lets out a gutteral, visceral roar, gurgling as it collapses --

-- backwards --

Yuri jumps down with legs extended, landing a solid kick against this thing’s shoulder, which turns it just enough that it doesn’t land back on Repede. When it hits the ground, just a beat after Yuri does, its chest heaves a few more times, gasping for breath, before it stops entirely.

Gross. The blood is everywhere, and it’s kind of starting to stink.

“Nice one, Repede,” Yuri says as he turns to his companion. Repede lets out an affirmative bark, and as he comes to his side, Repede high-fives him with the tip of his lightning-shaped tail.

“Y-Yuri?” The Princess’s voice comes from his left, and he turns just in time to see her peering over the bushes, her eyes on the corpse before they flick back up to him. “That’s… really gross.”

Yuri almost laughs. Not because her reaction is particularly funny, but because it’s accurate. But now that the fight’s over, he glances over his shoulder, scanning the area Karol ran off in. “...We need that kid,” Yuri says at last. “He knows what to do here. Why the hell did he run off?”

Estelle frowns. Yuri at least appreciates that she’s keeping her eyes on him and not the Eggbear. “He is only a child.”

Yeah, but he’s a child in the Hunting Blades. He’s never even been raised in an Imperial city -- he’s been in the guilds, or in the guilds’ territory, his whole life. So what the hell is it that sends someone like that fleeing?

“What should we do?” Estelle asks. “I think he said we need the paws, right?”

“I don’t know how the hell to go about chopping its hands off,” Yuri sighs. “I guess all we can do is wait for him to come back.”

Estelle furrows her brow, arms folding over her chest. “...You couldn’t go after him?”

“Nope.”

“Yuri!” Estelle hisses, but Yuri’s already moving past her.

Karol got spooked. So when he’s over that fear, he’ll either head back to the Eggbear, or he’ll make for the hoverbike.

Or he won’t come back. That’s always an option, but Yuri thinks Karol isn’t the type to just up and run for good.

It’s nearly nine by the time Karol and Estelle make their way back to the hoverbike. Yuri’s kept his gaze up at the stars, lying on the ground -- which is far more comfortable than that damn trailer -- and Repede has curled up next to him. When Repede sits up, Yuri picks his head up, too.

Karol’s shoulders are slumped, but he’s carrying with him a brown paper bag. Estelle keeps a hand on his shoulder, though Yuri can’t tell if she’s comforting him or pushing him in Yuri’s direction. Either way, it’s not like it matters.

Standing directly in front of him, Karol takes a deep, deep breath. “Yuri--”

“What’s in the bag?” Yuri asks, sitting upright. One knee is propped up, his arm leaning against it and the other leaning back against the ground.

“Huh?” Karol blinks, and Yuri recognizes when he’s wrecked a train of thought. “Uh… the -- the paws. I’ve got all four, so I think that should be enough.”

Yuri gets to his feet, dusting the grass from his ass, and Repede mimics him. “Great. So let’s go.”

Karol blinks again, flabbergasted. “...Is that it?” He asks, voice smaller than Yuri expects. “Aren’t you mad?”

“For leaving me in the middle of a fight? Sure.” Yuri shrugs and pretends he doesn’t see Karol’s pained wince. “But you know your limits better than I do. If you felt outmatched, then -- hey, we all gotta listen to our survival instincts.”

Except Yuri thinks there’s more to it than that, to why Karol just took off. But Karol gazes at him with an expression Yuri’s never seen before, on anyone -- something like awe, or admiration, or maybe even adoration. It’s an expression of wonder and something else, and Yuri… doesn’t know how to take it.

Never been forgiven before, kid?

Estelle’s soft smile is enough to embarrass him. Yuri scratches the back of his head and changes the subject. “Hey, if you were gonna just take the paws off here, why the hell did you even have a trailer?”

“Oh.” Karol shrugs, and though he tries to look nonchalant, there’s something eager in those eyes. “Yeah, Tison is usually the one who does all this. So I was supposed to bring it back to him, but since they’ve gone on already, I just did it myself.”

… They were seriously expecting someone Karol’s size (and age!) to somehow restrain an Eggbear without killing it, and then to transport it, all on his own?

Yuri’s never met a member of the Hunting Blades before other than Karol, but he has a very good feeling he’s going to enjoy punching every single one of them in the face. Other than Karol.

“Well, let’s go.” Yuri turns to the trailer. “We’ll head back to the inn, and then we’ll fix up the elixir in the morning.”

“I’ll do it when we get back,” Karol offers with a skip in his step, already hopping onto his hoverbike. “It shouldn’t take too long. I’ve got all the other ingredients.”

“Cool.”

But as Yuri, Estelle, and Repede climb back into the unfortunate trailer, Karol tosses something over his shoulder. “Hey, hold onto these for me!”

That brown bag lands in Estelle’s lap. She looks down at it for just long enough to process what it is; Yuri snatches it from her before she can get sick.

Then Karol pulls his goggles down over his eyes and kicks the bike into high gear.

Chapter Text

Karol stays up far later than a growing boy his age should. He stays put at the desk in the room, with the overhead that illuminates his workspace, alternating between mixing vials of different liquids, using a licensed automatic M&P to grind something that sometimes crunches and sometimes doesn’t, and setting his blastia-powered knife to autochop. It’s midnight when Yuri tries to grab him by the shoulder and pull him into bed -- Estelle’s been out for at least an hour, while Repede patiently waits for Yuri -- but Karol shrugs him off.

“I’m focused,” Karol says, brows furrowed. He’s using his pilot goggles in place of safety goggles. At least, Yuri assumes that’s why he has them on. He can’t imagine that getting ground Eggbear claw in your eyes is good for you. “I promise I’ll sleep when I’m done.”

“If you make a mistake because you’re sleep-deprived, that won’t be good for anyone.”

Karol sticks his tongue out as he pours from one vial into another. Yuri gets the impression that it’s more of some sort of quirk rather than directed at him. Either way, he doesn’t actually respond, which is more than enough of a message for Yuri, who’s tired as balls.

He wakes up earlier than Estelle. Repede dutifully hops up and shakes the sleep off of him, and Yuri gets a sweet view of the sunrise through the open window.

Great. Less than six hours.

Which is par for the course, but still, Yuri would like to be able to sleep the normal recommended amount. Just at some point, you know, if his body is taking notes.

He glances to the desk as he gets to his feet, and he isn’t at all surprised to find Karol is resting his head against his arm, snoring softly. It’s almost kind of cute. Except Yuri can see the harsh red lines forming against his skin from the goggles.

He almost lets him sleep.

“Hey, kid,” Yuri murmurs as he sets a gentle hand on Karol’s shoulder. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“Snnrk--huh?” Karol startles awake the same way that Flynn does, shooting upright, as if he’s about to do battle. If it makes Yuri snicker, Karol’s too out of it to notice. “Oh. No, no, it’s okay.” He reaches up to wipe the sleep from his eyes. “Gosh, Yuri, what time is it?”

“Time for bed.”

Karol wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “No. I gotta finish this.”

He pulls the goggles back onto his eyes and blinks at the work before him. Yuri doesn’t quite understand what he’s doing with all of it, but Karol seems even more lost than Yuri is, staring blankly.

“Come on.” Yuri gives him a soft shove. “You’re dead. The tree’s still going to be there when you’re done.”

Karol waves him off again. “No. Stop it, Yuri.”

He picks up his knife and, after a few seconds to recalibrate, he’s back at it.

What the hell, Karol? He almost snaps. Why are you so damn stubborn?

But then again, Yuri can’t possibly be the one to call him out on that. He can almost hear Flynn laughing at him from wherever he is.

“So, how does this thing work, anyway?” Yuri asks, more for the sake of the conversation than for anything else. Maybe small talk will keep Karol alive. “You just dump it on the tree, and it necromances itself back to full bloom?”

Karol wrinkles his nose. “What? No. That’s something out of science fiction.” Yuri huffs, but at least Karol’s eyes are focusing. “It’s an elixir. I’ll pour it over the roots, and ideally, we’ll see the signs of it beginning to work within the first hour. It’ll be small at first: in the first hour, the wood should heal where it’s split, but within six hours the leaves should regain color, and then within twenty-four hours the blossoms should start up again.”

Yuri whistles. “Takes that long, huh?”

Karol rolls his eyes. “It isn’t a computer, Yuri. You can’t just plug in an antivirus and whoosh, good as new. It’s nature. Nature has always worked slowly. And the fact that this elixir will even work that fast is due to human ingenuity. Now shoo, I’ve got work to do.”

With a sigh, Yuri shoves off and heads to the elevator, Repede shadowing him.

An hour later, he’s joined by Estelle. Of course, she looks perfect: not a hair is out of place, and there isn’t a wrinkle in her clothes at all, which makes him wonder just how long she’s been up. She arrives just in time for breakfast, which is again provided rather courteously by the innkeeper and his husband.

“Will the young one be joining you?” the innkeeper asks, glancing to the elevator.

Estelle probably wants to say yes, but Yuri cuts her off. “No, we’re going to bring his food up to him. He isn’t feeling well.”

The couple shares a worried look. Yuri wonders if they’re thinking of their own children, or if they have any.

Not that it’s any of my business, he reminds himself firmly as he and Estelle dig in to a delicious meal. Nothing on par with the royal cafeteria, he’s sure, but it’s definitely a step up from what Yuri’s either had to eat in the Lower Sector, or had to forage for them.

They’ve finished and are thanking the innkeeper for his hospitality -- even though Yuri gets the impression this is something they do all the time -- when the elevator dings across the lobby. Yuri doesn’t think anything of it until there’s the patter of hurried feet, and he looks up to see a bedraggled Karol with circles under his eyes, a grin spread across his face and a single bottle in his hands.

“Yuri!” he cries, and the triumph in his voice tells Yuri everything. “I did it! I finished the elixir that’ll save the tree!”

Estelle gasps and claps her hands together excitedly, but Yuri can tell the innkeeper needs a moment to process what Karol just said. Yuri reflects Karol’s grin and ruffles the kid’s already messed-up hair. “All right,” he says warmly. “I knew you could do it. You ready to go kick some ass?”

“Karol isn’t going to kick the tree’s ass, Yuri,” Estelle reprimands. Yuri barks out a laugh.

“Yeah, definitely!” Karol nods. “But uh. First, have you guys eaten yet? I’m starving.”

“Oh, um -- we have a meal prepared for you,” the husband says. He and the innkeeper share another look, and Yuri knows -- knows, in his gut -- that that information isn’t going to stay here.

Great, Yuri thinks with a roll of his eyes. We’re going to have an audience.

And the more people that are paying attention to him, the likelier it is they’ll have seen some kind of wanted listing with this face on it.

But it’s fine. Maybe he’ll be able to get the entourage to scram by convincing them at first that they’re absolutely not going to do that. Detours.

It’ll be fine. It’ll have to be fine.

It doesn’t work as well as Yuri’d like, but after a shopping trip where they’re dogged by curious bystanders and a lackadaisical lunch, it’s just before three in the afternoon when they finally reach the great tree. There are more people milling about there than there should be, which of course means they’re all waiting on them.

Great.

Karol takes out the elixir, hops on his hoverbike, and flies down to the tree's base to spread it somewhat generously across the roots. Then, all they have to do is wait.

They wait.

The townspeople of Halure looped around them wait as long as they can stand to as well. Then, the murmurings break out. The idle ones pull out their devices and screens slide over their eyes; they scroll through the Network as they wait. And just as the two suns begin to set and paint the world through the trees with warm, orange-red rays, one by one, the gathered crowd starts walking away.

Estelle releases a worried exhale. In the light of sunset, her pale pink hair is a rosy salmon. “Why isn’t it healing…?”

Out of them all, Karol looks the most worried, the most distressed. “I…don’t know. That elixir--that should’ve worked…it’s worked before. Fixed dying plants right up back on Dahngrest. I don’t know why it didn’t…why it’s not…”

Yuri’s mouth bends. He turns away. “Damn it.” So much for beating Flynn to the punch on this one.

Estelle clasps her hands together in front of her chest. Her blue eyes run up and down the tree’s wide trunk; what she can see of its base and up to the wide branches sprawled out over the sky above them. Nothing changes in the tree’s color; nothing livens that bark from its perpetual state of ugly, dead brown. Not even moss grows along its sides.

Karol slumps to his ass on the platform. His legs kick out in front of him; his hands drop into his lap:  the picture of defeat has drained him of all lively, enthusiastic color.

“I’m sorry, guys,” he murmurs. There is something very heartbreaking in his voice. Yuri knows that tone well:  the sound of failure so common, so reoccurring and predictable, it might as well have become inevitable. Repede sits down beside him, giving what Yuri recognizes as his sympathetic rumble to Karol’s shoulder.

Yuri glances to the kid. His eyes follow up the legs of the princess standing on the other side of Karol. Her hands are still folded tight like in prayer.

“We should give it up, Estelle,” Yuri says and gentles his voice as much as he can for her. “Staring at that tree won’t change anything. At this point, it’s probably already dead. There’s nothing more we can do for it.”

Karol’s head sinks lower; his chin presses to his chest.

Estelle’s mouth thins into a long line crossing the bottom of her face. With a deep inhale through her nose, she closes her eyes.

Huh. Didn’t know she was actually religious . Yuri watches her for a moment more before he shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. He leans back against the railing. Not much else for him to do besides wait for her to finish with her prayer or eulogy or well-wishing or whatever it is she’s doing. With how easily she gets lost or confused, he wouldn’t want to just up and wander off anywhere. Waiting on her is the least he can do, he supposes.

He’s not expecting something to actually happen.

So the moment that Yuri sees a pink petal float down from the sky, swimming lazily past his eyes, and swing back to land on the tip of his nose, he jolts upright. He turns around.

There are many more pink flower petals raining from the heavens.

Somehow.

Impossibly.

Repede barks once, then twice. He rises to all four paws at the same time as Karol jumps to his feet with a loud gasp and points. “Yuri…!”

The tree’s branches are no longer bare.

Beautiful, copious amounts of flowers have sprouted along the wood. Budding, bursting, and unfurling outwards, they stretch and overlap one another, creating a wide blanket of peach-pink from side to side. The flowers hang down right above their heads, a resplendent canopy in the light of the setting suns. All around them, starting from the hanging gate-points closest to the tree, lights flicker on within the apex bulbs. The seafoam green translucent light of the barrier walls reform and spread out around the perimeter of the tree-top city, the panels appearing one after the other to form a wide ring.

Yuri has never seen anything like it.

“How the hell…?” he breathes. He looks to Karol and Karol looks back up at him, stunned.

Something in the way their gazes meet communicates instantaneously their bewildered questions. Was that the elixir? I didn’t think it’d work that fast, and, Yeah, no, it usually doesn’t. This is almost like magic. No, this is definitely not the elixir’s doing!

Their eyes snap to Estelle’s profile, still calmly serene in prayer.

“Did she--”

Estelle opens her eyes. She blinks once, twice.

Yuri feels like he might as well be holding his breath, waiting for her reaction to her own, impossible work.

As soon as her baby blues catch sight of the falling petals, the princess’s face breaks out into a wide and happy smile. She gasps. She turns to Yuri and Karol, bursting with joy. “Yuri! Karol! You did it! We did it! The elixir worked!”

Karol shakes his head. His voice, when he speaks, is slow and numb. “Uh. Look:  I’m good, but the elixir doesn’t work that fast, Estelle.”

“Hm? Well, maybe we made it extra powerful this time. Isn’t it true that practice makes perfect? You just must have made it better.” Estelle’s smile doesn’t wan. Her clasped hands drop to hover over her stomach. She tilts her head, perfectly and innocently curious.

Damn. She doesn’t even know what she’s done, Yuri realizes.

“N...no.” Karol winces and scratches the back of his head. “I mean…even if I did make it better, plants just don’t spring back to life like this."

“So what do you--”

“--nothing.” Yuri steps forward and puts a hand on Estelle’s shoulder. He squeezes. Even though his bare hand, he can’t feel anything different about the princess. Anything like power or energy or the hum of gears and circuitry. She’s human. Perfectly human. “It’s just…an amazing miracle, is what Karol’s trying to say.”  

“A miracle,” Estelle repeats with a smile and pleased hum. She turns to look at the flourishing tree again and the barrier glowing strong. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

Yuri pulls his hand away and glances to Karol. Together, they share one more look of, Yo, what the fuck? 

Then, they shrug.

The people of Halure are overjoyed. There is plenty of tearful gratitude showered, as well as lots of, “How the hell did you manage this?” and no one quite knows what to say to that. The day melts away warmly on the cusp of every bright, “Thank you!”, enough to reinstill pride even in the most battered and neck-marked souls. Even the Mayor thanks the quartet, though he isn’t quite sure what everyone else in the town is so happy for.

The next day, Yuri and Karol stand outside of the inn and make plans. Repede sits by their feet and watches the princess who stands a measure apart, her back to them.

Estelle isn’t so eager to leave. “We just fixed the tree. Can’t we stay a day longer to enjoy it?”

Yuri raises an eyebrow at the princess. His fisted hands are pressed into his waist. “I thought you wanted to find Flynn.”

“I...I do. But…” She turns to face him. There is a small bend to her brow.

“Didn’t you say there was a great danger coming?”

“There is , but--”

“Then we probably shouldn’t waste any time,” Yuri says with a loose roll of one shoulder. “Sorry, Estelle. I know it sounds harsh and all, but we’re not on vacation.”

Estelle sighs, so soft and wistful. Her head turns, chin-length pink hair obscuring her face. She looks longingly to the thick canopy of flowers above their heads. “I know.” There is something pained to her voice that Yuri can’t identify. Not until he hears her say, “I just...it’s all so lovely. And once this journey is over, I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to come back...”

Oh.

There it is again. The ease with which she can guilt him. And she doesn’t even have to try.

Yuri sighs and turns away. Fine.

Karol looks up at him. A worried frown twists his mouth. “Yuri?”

“Sorry,” Yuri says. “Just getting a stomach ache.”

“You’re...what?”

Yuri shrugs and scratches at the back of his head. “I’m gonna go lie down for a bit.” He feigns a grimace and puts a hand to his stomach. “Who knows; maybe we’ll have to leave tomorrow instead of today. What a bummer.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he does not miss the way Estelle turns around to look at him.

Liar , Repede huffs the sentiment through. But the Xenobeast makes no move to force him otherwise. Yuri gets the feeling he understands, however annoyed he may be.

Karol blinks. “But...you were fine just a second ago…”

“And now I’m not.” Yuri shrugs. He turns for the inn. “Funny how that works. It came on really fast, too. Must’ve been something I ate…”

“B-but--Yuri--!”

Karol cuts himself off as Yuri walks away. He’s just at a loss as Estelle.

Repede makes no move to follow until Yuri’s almost to the inn door. Then, after a moment of pause, he rises and trots after him.

When Yuri unclips his pistol holster, tosses it to the floor, and lays down on his floating cot, Repede hops on after him. The Xenobeast turns in one circle, then two, and eventually curls up by Yuri’s shins, his blue-indigo fur a warm and comforting presence after Yuri’s toed off his boots. Yuri chuckles and lets his fingers scratch at Repede’s forehead and the jagged scar over his right eye.

Repede sends him little sentiments, fragments of Estelle’s gratitude. It’s kind of nice. Yuri didn’t need to be told Estelle was grateful for his decision; but it’s nice to know all the same that what he’s done has at least made one person happy.

“Some things don’t change, huh?” Yuri murmurs to the ceiling with a small smile.

Repede’s ear flicks. Yuri doesn’t expect it, but the Xenobeast’s slow breathing lulls him into an even slower sleep.

Chapter Text

They are up and gone early in the morning. As has somehow become routine over the past few days, Yuri, Estelle, and Repede sit in the back on the trailer. Karol’s gotten enough sleep this time, and a few extra hours for good measure -- because none of them want a battery-drained little kid in the driver’s seat.

Huh. Maybe Yuri should get his license. He’d never really had a need for it; most places in the Lower Sector were either close enough to walk to or worth the walk. Maybe after he gets that aque blastia, that can be his next goal.

Not that he’d have the money for a hoverbike, anyway. Or a hovercraft. But it sure is nice to dream about it.

If he had one, it wouldn’t just make traveling the Lower Sector that much easier -- he could go anywhere. He could come out to Halure again, or make his way to Aspio on his own, or even to Port Nor if he wanted to go even further. He could travel to the edge of Ilyccia and back, and no one could stop him.

Heh. Yeah, right.

It takes a few hours for them to finally reach their destination -- most of which, Yuri will admit, is spent for his part either daydreaming about the future or about what he’s going to do when he finds Mordio.

If not for Karol, Yuri is certain he and Estelle would have wandered right on past the entrance to Aspio. There’s a panel trapdoor at the base of the mountain that lies inconspicuous and barely identifiable. The grass surrounding it is bright green and bushy enough to easily hide it.

Yuri watches as Karol parks the hoverbike, hops off while it’s still puttering, and strides right to the trapdoor.

“Wait,” he calls, leaning up on the wall of the trailer bed. “That’s not the entrance, is it?”

“Nah.” Karol calls back, grinning cheekily. “This leads to the callswitch to open the entrance!”

Yuri looks to Estelle. Estelle stares back.

After a dumbfounded moment, they both hop out of the trailer along with Repede and scurry up to his heels. The trapdoor opens to a ladder, descending into a shadowed steel hallway beneath. As soon as Karol begins the climb down, lights flicker on, revealing a colorless underground corridor, save for a thin blue stripe running down the walls’ center.

“A bunker?” Estelle blinks, leaning over the edge of the trapdoor.

“Nah, not really.” Karol kicks off the ladder and hops to the hallway floor. He tilts his head back and meets their curious gazes with his own. He grins. “C’mon! You know you want to see what all this is about. It’s really kind of a neat set-up they have down here.”

“How does this Guild kid know more about imperial cities than we do...?”

Estelle shrugs to Yuri’s murmur.

Yuri sighs and supposes he wasn’t really expecting an answer. “This seems like a lot of needless security just for a city…” he says and reaches out a hand for the ladder. Repede sets his rump down into the grass by the trapdoor’s opening and sends a single thought across: I’ll stay. Which is a little ironic considering how they met Karol in the first place, but Yuri doesn’t say anything but smile.

Karol snickers. “Yeah, but it’s a city of engineers . What, did you think someone who decides to study the nitty-gritty of blastia and mechanics for a living would make getting into their home easy?”

“Fair point.”

Once Yuri gets to the bottom, he holds out his hands for Estelle and helps her make the final hop from ladder to underground hallway. The walls are closer together than they had looked from above, making the corridor more narrow than either of them had expected. Yuri frowns and looks to Karol walking on ahead of them towards a door at the end of the walkway. As he moves to follow the kid, Estelle quickly grabs his wrist. Their eyes meet; a second of silence passes.

Whatever Yuri had been looking for in her eyes makes him shrug. He lets her hang on to his hand and leads the way after Karol. “Do you have to do this every time you enter the city? It seems a little extraneous.”

“Nah. Just outsiders do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual engineer from Aspio use this long way to get inside.”

“Huh.” Yuri comes to a stop and watches as Karol wraps his gloved hands around the rim of a giant wheel protruding from the center of the steel door. “So how do engineers get inside, then?”

Estelle gasps and squeezes his wrist. “Oh! I think I know this one!”

“Oh?”

“Yes!” She clears her throat and straightens her back. Her blue eyes slide closed and with perfect rhythm, she recites, “‘In order to become an Imperial Engineer, applicants must succeed on developing a device that resonates with the frequency of the City of Scholars’ mountainside doorway. Only when this device proceeds to securely open and shut the entrance, can the Imperial Engineer move on to the next round in the decision-making process.’”

Yuri whistles. He’s getting more and more impressed each time Estelle goes into Walking Encyclopedia-mode. “Just out of curiosity, do you know how many rounds there are in becoming an Imperial Engineer? Is it a lot?”

“Why?” Karol’s voice would sound a lot more teasing if it wasn’t strained with the amount of effort he has to shove with his entire body weight to get the wheel turning. “You thinking about becoming one?”

“No. Just wondering how hard it’s going to be to kick Mordio’s ass when I finally find him.”

Clink.

The door whines open with Karol’s next push. He turns to Yuri with lifted brows. “Who’s Mordio?”

Yuri shrugs. “Some guy who owes me his life.” He gestures a hand past the kid and into the small closet of a radio station beyond. At least, it looks like one of those:  a large, round microphone sticks out of an ancient communications device from some bygone era. The woodgrain and rounded corners along the surface of the button panel strike Yuri as indescribably tacky . But there was also something strangely aweing about finding an artifact so old and all in one piece. Old things in the slums were never found so well-taken care of and whole. “Hey. Don’t tell me those nerd engineers in there expect that to be usable . ”

“Would you believe me if I said it was ?”

“Are you playing some sort of question game? I swear everything you’ve said to me for the past five minutes has been questions.”

“Does it annoy you?”

“Actually, I think it’s hilarious. Are we getting inside Aspio or what?”

Karol snickers and turns for the radio. He cracks his knuckles. “Leave it to me.”

The radio works. The security system works. Everything goes smoothly. Karol does his job somehow perfectly convincing the Knights on the other end of the old radio that they need to get inside for Guild business, and Yuri’s just amazed he doesn’t have to say a word or worry that his identity as Estelle’s kidnapper somehow doesn’t get in the way of getting them entrance inside Aspio.

“Y’know, I take everything back about this being extraneous,” Yuri says once they are topside and watch the giant round panel of the false-side of the mountain rotate away. “Engineers don’t know shit about security.”

Inside are a few Knights and a giant, pristine glass elevator with the same blue strip in the center of each of its walls.

The Knights step forward first.

Yuri jerks his head around to face Estelle. “Estelle, hood .”

“Oh! Right!”

She pulls on the collar of her white waistcoat, yanking up the hood hanging against her back. It’s not the best of concealment, but it hides her telling pink hair.

“You travelers have business inside Aspio?” one of them asks. His voice is eerily close to Flynn’s; a little too close. But Repede doesn’t make a gesture to recognize him, and even without the blankness of his reaction, Yuri himself would know that voice anywhere; he knows it as well as he knows how to breathe. This isn’t Flynn.

“Yep! Guild business!” Karol lies smoothly for them.

Yuri still doesn’t know why the kid is sticking out his neck for them so far and so uninvitedly. But it’s welcome, even if it wasn’t asked for, and it reminds him he owes this kid. Big time. The Empire and the Guilds have always been at odds with one another; even while there’s relative peace currently between the two groups that allows for freedom of movement for traders and merchants. There’s still wary distrust. Hence why the Guilds keep their giant space station always on the move, and hidden from imperial eyes.

That’s the story, anyway.

The second Knight that had stepped forward clicks his speaker on to be heard through his faceless helmet. “State your business and who you are meeting with. We weren’t informed of any Guild merchants coming through.”

“Uh, we’re meeting with a client of ours,” Karol says. There’s a certain hesitancy to his voice that makes Yuri’s gut jerk with the instinct to help.

“Oh yeah?” the first Knight, tinny and intimidating, challenges. “Who’s your client?”

“Uh--”

“--Mordio.”

The two Knights jerk their attention to Yuri.

Yuri levels an unimpressed glare back. He crosses his arms over his chest. “And if you keep us any longer, we’re going to be late.”

“Mordio, huh?”

The Knights look to one another. For a moment, Yuri doesn’t know if what Karol and he have said--combined with his cool confidence which usually helps him get his way easily enough--will work. Sometimes the bullshitting actually doesn’t pay off; he has way too many tally marks on his neck to remind him of that much.

And then, miraculously, the two Knights step aside.

“All right, then. Get a move on.” The first Knight grudgingly mutters. His fellow steps aside first, turning and marching back to his post to the right of the elevator. But the first doesn’t move, watching them carefully as they walk by and towards the glass doors that slide open with a pleasant beep once they approach. “Just remember to be out of the city before nightfall. If you aren’t…”

Estelle almost turns and asks about that. Yuri catches her wrist in time, jerking her with a gentle tug after him.

Mercifully, the guards say nothing. Still, Yuri’s heart doesn’t know the difference if they had; it won’t stop pounding over and over against his ribcage. He keeps thinking, Any second now, they’ll recognize their princess. Any second now, they’ll know who I am. Their face-scan will finish and they’ll have identified me as her kidnapper from Zaphias and--

The elevator’s glass doors slide shut.

“Huh,” Yuri idly says, though his voice feels oddly detached from himself. “No buttons and no keycard. How does it know what level to take us to?”

No one answers him. Yuri expects some sort of jerk as the elevator begins its descent, like some of the poorer ones closer to the Lower Sector--or the one that leads to the imperial cells. But it doesn’t. He’s hardly aware that they’ve moved at all, save for the horizontal stream of cool blue light that occasionally runs over their bodies from the elevator shaft. It marks their distance from the surface.

“Yuri?” Estelle calls, her voice breaking the uncertain silence that had settled among them.

Yuri turns to her. His eyes follow her gaze down to where he’s still holding her wrist.

“You’re hurting me.”

As if touching hot iron, Yuri jerks his hold away. He takes a step back, puts distance between himself and the princess. His dark eyes train on the obsidian panel walls of the shaft outside the glass.

“Sorry,” he says. He clears his throat.

Silence thickens between them once more, awkward and stifled. Repede huffs and raises a back foot to scratch at an ear.

Then the shaft ends and a whole new world opens wide.

Aspio sprawls beneath them, giant white buildings sticking up from the ground like shining teeth. The entire city sits within the shape of a dome, with curved walls lined with strips of white on the perimeter, meeting up at the elevator shaft bringing them down to the city center. The walls themselves look like giant windows; the breathing image displayed on the composition of millions of tiny screens is that of a sprawling green meadow and clear blue sky. Yuri has a tough time remembering for a moment that he’s currently descending deep underground and is not, in fact, topside. The fake windows are too convincing of sunny, summer weather out in the plains and not cavernous undermountain walls.

“Shit,” he breathes.

Estelle takes a step closer to the glass doors of the elevator. Her eyes are wide. “That’s amazing. It’s...it’s so... beautiful .”

“City of engineers,” Karol reminds them with a cheeky grin.

Yuri nods and doesn’t look at the kid. His eyes roam over the buildings below that they are fast approaching. His heart is beating hard in his chest the closer and closer they get. “Right. And one of them’s Mordio.”

Estelle turns to him so quickly, her pink hair flies about her face. “Yes. This Mordio guy. You haven’t mentioned him before now, Yuri.”

“Yeah. And?”

“W-well, I’m…” Estelle clasps her hands together in front of her chest. “...just curious, that’s all. I’ve been travelling with you for several days now, but it occurs to me that I hardly know anything about you. You said he owes you his life? Did you save him or something?”

She has a strange tone to her voice Yuri doesn’t know how to discern. It’s a little too close to awe and that’s not an emotion he feels comfortable being the recipient of.

He scoffs and shakes his head. “No. He doesn’t owe me his life in that way.”

There’s a single beat of silence before Karol turns on him. “You don’t mean to really kill him, right? I thought you were joking last night.”

“Last night?” Estelle chirps.

Yuri sighs and lets his shoulders sag. “Man, you guys really don’t know when I’m kidding, do you? I’m not going to kill this Mordio guy. Chill out.”

The visible relief in both Estelle and Karol’s forms shocks him a little.

Sheesh.

“I’m just going to bash his face in.”

“Yuri--!”

A pleasant ding sounds as the elevator finally comes to a stop. The glass doors slide open and Yuri is the first one to step out into Aspio, with Repede on his heels.

Yuri isn’t sure why Estelle and Karol are still following him and Repede deeper into the city by this point. He thought his behavior would have turned them off from going with him wherever he walks like puppy dogs on his heels. And he would know puppy dogs--when Repede was younger, he acted just the same as they do now.

But no. He asks around to the various other engineers where Mordio is, where he lives; and every time he looks back, both of them are still there, watching him with wide eyes.

What are they doing? Waiting for him to snap and tell them to fuck off? He doesn’t care that much whatever they decide to do.

Really, for the most part, he ignores them. But occasionally, when he glances back, he catches Karol bending his head to Estelle to whisper something behind a cupped hand. He isn’t sure what they are saying; but he doesn’t think he’s all that interested in finding out, either. If they’ve decided they have nothing better to do than follow him around throughout Aspio, then that’s their decision to make.

Finally, he’s told something concrete:  Mordio lives on the edge of town.

He’s also told that Mordio’s a bit of a ‘strange one’ which is fucking right, considering what he’s done. But Yuri would be lying if he said the looks in people’s eyes as they talk about Mordio isn’t a little disconcerting.

Still, a monorail ride and a hop, skip, and figurative jump later, and Repede and Yuri (and Estelle and Karol) find themselves on the doorstep of Mordio’s house.

House.

Not an apartment. Not a compact little floor space with a cute, aesthetic cityview.

A house.

“Who the hell is this guy?” Yuri murmurs. “Why the hell doesn’t he have a ringer?”

Actually, Yuri can’t find any sort of call-device or anything, really, to announce one’s presence at this Mordio’s home. He casts his eyes around the doorframe, all solid white metal save for the small rectangular window at the top.

“That’s because I don’t need one, dummy. Now announce yourself.”

It’s a disembodied voice that resounds, as if spoken at them from every direction. Yuri can’t make out where it came from or how; he can’t see any speakers but he suspiciously eyes the two planters of succulents that sit on either side of the front stoop. Karol on the other hand surges close to Estelle, who gasps brightly. Her mouth has spread wide into a smile.

“Mordio’s a she !” she crows.

“Duh. Of course I am.” Whoever Mordio is or however she’s speaking to them, she sounds smug and proud. “Why? What did someone say? Someone said crap about me, didn’t they. Who was it? I bet it was that stupid--”

“Hey.” Yuri cuts in loudly. “I don’t much care what other people have said about you. I’m here because I have business with you. Now are you going to come down here and show your face or do I need to bust inside somehow?”

Mordio snorts. “Bust inside? As if you could somehow get through all of my traps and hand-crafted defense systems? Unlikely. I’m the best damn engineer in all of Aspio.”

“Oh, are you?” Yuri drawls, unimpressed. Repede sniffs and shares the same sentiment. “Then tell me why the hell the ‘best damn engineer in Aspio’ would go to all the trouble of travelling to the Lower Sector of Zaphias just to steal their only aque blastia.”

“Who did what now?”

“Yuri?”

Yuri pointedly does not look at Estelle behind him. He doesn’t know what he would say. He raises a foot and kicks it forward against the door, too softly to be an attack meant to tear it down, but not too gentle to be something mistaken for an idle toe-poke. Something loud, something attention-grabbing. Something to communicate the antsy urgency that’s been buzzing around inside of his chest ever since he and Estelle first flew out of the imperial palace in a borrowed hovercraft.

He lifts his chin. “Answer me, Mordio! I know you took it. So where is it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Like hell you don’t!”

“Look. I don’t know who you are, but I don’t have to answer to you, especially when you’re accusing me of something I didn’t even do. By the look of your Brands, I don’t think it’d be too hard for me to press charges on anything, either. So maybe you should just, y’know, get lost before I call the Knights on you.”

Yuri’s frown deepens. He looks down to Repede and Repede looks up to him with a knowing look and shared sentiment. Yuri nods.

“Yeah. Guess we’ve gotta find our way in,” he mutters and turns.

“Yuri!” Estelle calls again. She steps forward quickly. Her hands clasp before her chest, blue eyes centered square on the point between Yuri’s shoulder blades. When she turns to the door, she looks up, mouth pressed into an uncertain line. “Please, Miss Mordio. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I do know that Yuri’s been travelling for several days to get here and find you. I don’t know what this aque blastia is or why it’s important, but perhaps the least you could do is at least grant us an audience to speak with you about it?”

Yuri stops walking. Repede looks over his shoulder to the girl in pink. She still hasn’t pulled down her hood.

There’s a pause.

“Is that--?” Then, quietly, barely loud enough to be heard, Mordio mumbles, “Damn. And she’s so cute too…” With a sigh that’s far too exaggerated, the engineer says louder, “Ugh. Fine. Whatever. Come on in, but don’t touch anything . I’m only letting you in out of the niceness of my own heart. And so we can have a nice, civil discussion like our pretty lady in pink here wants. Because believe me, if you wanted to pick a fight, Mister, I’d have happily scorched you to smithereens.”

Yuri scoffs. He spins on his heel, a bit grudgingly grateful now that Estelle has followed him here. He’d rather not get scorched, thank you. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

The door clicks and with a soft hiss , slides open.

Chapter Text

They meet Mordio on the third floor of her house, after the first two were so cluttered and full of various artifacts and spare machinery parts and hastily-scribbled blueprints that there was barely room to walk across their landings and climb up the stairs. Karol’s eyes have been wide since before the moment they stepped inside and they haven’t yet shrunken back to their normal size. 

Again, Yuri still kind of wonders why the kid even followed them in here, but he’s starting to think maybe that’s something about the Guild life that’s ingrained in him:  an instinctive need to follow.

What Yuri pays attention to the most is the fact that Repede hasn’t made a sound at all since they’ve entered. Even when they finally make it to the top and find Mordio with her back to them, bent over a worktable between her and a wide wall of monitors that shows every angle of the outside of her house, he says nothing. Either he doesn’t see this Mordio as a threat (somehow), or he’s still taking in all the different scents and sounds that are here in this place, and Yuri has no way of poking across their connection to determine which it is.

Yuri kind of sees now why the other engineers of Aspio have said she’s a little “odd.” 

Whatever it is that Mordio’s working on makes an odd sputter and suddenly, a loose spring jumps away to the pile of other strange contraptions to her right. 

Mordio slams her left fist on her work-table. Karol yelps and jumps behind Estelle again, which is finally what draws her attention to them. Mordio sighs and presses a finger to the side of her head, where Yuri can see an earpiece with an end sticking down over her cheek. With a press of a finger, the lightscreen over her eyes slides away, revealing two bright green emeralds.

“Cool. You made it. Great.” She doesn’t sound enthused to see them. At all. Mordio turns around, grabs the long contraption on her worktable--a prosthetic for an arm, from what Yuri can tell--and leans it hand-up against her shoulder like a sword. “Let’s make the introductions quick. I’m Rita Mordio. And you guys are...?”

It’s then they notice that the long sleeve on her right hangs a little too limp against her side.

“Hey. Like I said earlier, I still can scorch you to ash at any time.”

Rita’s voice is a little too knowing; a little too sharp. Yuri’s eyes dart up from her side and sees that she’s looking straight at him, fully aware of what had just occurred to him. “Even if my arm’s not working at it’s best since the blackout, I still have lots of other tools at my disposal. So don’t get any funny ideas. Got it?”

Yuri releases a breath. He introduces himself and the other three with him before he launches into:  “I just want the aque blastia that you stole. That’s, literally, all I’m here for.”

Rita narrows her eyes at him and a wide frown stretches across her face. “Yeah. So you mentioned. But I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would I steal an aque blastia when I can just make one whenever I want?”

“I don’t know. You’re the thief here. Not m--” Yuri stops. “Wait.”

“ You can make blastia?” Karol speaks up for the first time in what feels like hours. For a second, Yuri forgot he was there.

Yuri scowls. “When were you going to tell us that ?” 

Rita shrugs. “Uh. That’s kind of what I’m hired to do here? Thought it was obvious. Though it’s really stupid. I’d much rather be working in research and development, but no . They won’t let me go anywhere near that department…”

Yuri waves a hand and cuts her off. “Hang on. Can we go back to the part where you said you can make blastia?” What kind of bizarre happenstance was this? Regardless of whether or not it was Rita who actually took the original aque blastia, to, in the course of chasing after said thief, actually run into someone who could make another? 

“Uh. Yeah? I work in the blastia factory on the other side of the city. Did you miss the part where I said it was really stupid? It’s not that exciting.”

“Oh, bull --”

“--that’s the only blastia factory in the entire solar system ,” Estelle breathes with wonder. 

“Yeah. What she said.” Karol sounds a little braver now than he had seconds before. He’s also no longer hiding behind Estelle. “How can that not be incredible? I’ve heard only a select number of engineers get to work there! Out of all the hundreds of engineers that live in Aspio!”

Rita blushes red and looks away. “Okay, okay. Sheesh. You’ve flattered me.” 

“So could you make a new one?” 

“Sorry?” Rita jerks her attention to Yuri again.

Yuri sighs. “Could you make us a new one? I don’t know whether or not I believe you when you say you weren’t the one who stole the Lower Sector’s aque blastia, but if you can make us a new one, then I’ll be willing to play along with whatever game this is you’re trying to pull.”

“ Game ?” Rita repeats, screeching. “Hey, mister, I’m not pulling anything! I’m telling you the truth! I haven’t even left Aspio in months since that stupid blackout! It’s all stupid!” 

“Blackout?” 

Rita’s green eyes snap to Estelle’s blues and as soon as they meet, her face blushes redder. Tomato crimson. “That’s...uh…” She clears her throat and looks away. She drops her right arm onto the worktable behind her with little fanfare. “Geez, I’m surprised the capital hasn’t heard about it yet. It happened a while ago, but ever since, lots of things in Aspio haven’t been working as they should.”

“Sorry to hear that and all, but look:  I still need an aque blastia for--”

“--what do you mean nothing’s been working as it should?” It’s perhaps the first time Estelle has ever talked over Yuri as if not hearing him. And if Yuri didn’t already know how kindhearted and gentle and sweet and good Estelle is, he probably would have been offended. “What’s wrong?”

But he knows all this and has been painfully reminded of it with every second he’s with the princess, so Yuri sighs instead, rolls his eyes, and crosses his arms over his chest.

Fine. He’ll wait his turn.

Repede sets down his rump in one spare space of floor with the same sentiment. 

Rita gives Estelle a weird look, not unlike the look Karol gave the princess, or hell, even Yuri gives her occasionally when she asks her questions with such sincere compassion and without a thought to anything else.

Thankfully, the engineer response to it with a little more tact. “I mean, let’s be real:  the fact that you were able to just walk right into Aspio without anyone stopping you is probably example enough. I’ll bet the Knights’ facial recognition scanners haven’t been able to connect to the Imperial Database very well.” She shrugs. “But ever since the blackout a few months back because of a weird surge in the aer--which I have theories about, but no one’s actually letting me research them --long-distance communications like that with the capital haven’t been working that well. They’ve been spotty at best. Plus, my arm’s been funky, so it’s just great. Everything in Aspio’s faulty or busted and no one will let me test my theory as to why.” 

“A surge in the aer…?” Karol repeats with a frown. “Sounds kind of like what happened to the tree in Halure.”  

Yuri doesn’t know why the kid looks to him as if he’ll be able to tell if that coincidence is significant or not. He’s already said his piece:  he’s only here for his one thing, and that’s that. Whenever this whole part of the conversation is done, he’d really like to get back to that one piece.

“Why won’t they let you figure it out?” Estelle frowns. Her hands tighten over one another. 

Rita shrugs like she’s nonchalant, but there’s an angry bend to her brow that reveals too much. “They just don’t like hearing what I have to say about things. I’ve got ideas that are too controversial, I guess.” 

“Like what?”

Rita jerks her attention to the princess again, stunned. Then, she looks to Yuri and Karol and opens her mouth.

Yuri beats her to the punch.

“Does she always ask this many questions?” he drawls. “Yes. She does.”

“And she does care about the answers,” Karol adds with a small grin.

Rita doesn’t know what to do with that information. The way she hesitates is a little telling and also, entirely too relatable. Yuri recognizes instantly the look in her green eyes as they shift to the side:  it’s the look of someone who has had their voice or talent shot down one too many times to believe that it’d be of value to someone else. 

He decides to throw her a line. 

“Hey,” he calls out and his arms fall to his sides. “In other news, about that aque blastia…”

“I didn’t steal it.”

“And I don’t have a real good reason to believe you, but like I said earlier:  if you can make me a new one, then I’ll leave you alone.”

Rita frowns. She presses her left fist into her hip. “Y’know it’s expensive to make those things, right? And I’d be going against like, a bajillion Imperial laws just trying to forge you your own personal aque blastia.” 

“But you’d have someone in your court who could advocate for you to be in research and development, like you want .” Yuri takes a step closer to Estelle, gesturing with a tilt of his head to her. He assumes Estelle would be up to the task of advocating for this stranger, anyway. It seems like something the princess would do. “Make me an aque blastia and maybe you can get the job of your dreams.”

Estelle looks to Yuri with a thin frown. “I could just pay her for it.” 

Karol’s eyes widen again. “Do you really have enough money for that?”

“I…” 

“Forget that. That’s not moral, either.” Rita huffs and blows out her cheeks round. “Besides, I don’t have to do anything for a pair of strangers I--”

Rita cut herself off as the lights, the screens--even the windows beyond that curved around all of Aspio, displaying the image of a serene meadow--shut off and abruptly leaves all of them in an inky, thick blackness.

Karol jumps and cries out. Estelle gasps. Repede rises to his feet. Yuri swears.

It is Rita who says it with a dazed whisper, “What the hell? A second blackout…?” 

They wait and an awkward pause follows where everyone waits for the lights to come back on, for sound and life to resume.

Nothing happens.

Rita turns and fiddles with her prosthetic arm on the table. She slips it up her sleeve and reclasps it into her shoulder port. Once on, she wriggles her fingers and presses with her other hand to a small panel above her wrist. It clicks, slides back, and out extends a small round column that turns on with a bright flashlight.

“Had this installed after the first blackout happened,” she explains and swerves to point her armlight over the other four still standing in shock. “Now I know probably none of you guys moved, but I’ll ask it anyway:  everyone okay?”

“Just a little freaked out,” Karol murmurs, voice faint. “But fine.”

“Is this what it was like last time?” Estelle’s eyes are big and round.

“Yeah.” Rita shrugs and turns for the pile of junk to her left. Keeping her right arm up and aimed at the pile, she keeps the light honed in on a certain point as she shoves a few items to the side.

“How long was it out for?” 

“A few hours. I don’t know. It was hard to keep track of.” 

For some reason, that sticks out to Yuri. A blaring red flag that he can’t just ignore. “A few hours? The hell? I thought this was the City of Engineers; you’re telling me you guys don’t have a backup generator?”

“Oh, we do.” Whatever Rita is looking for, she finds. With a soft and triumphant “Ah-ha!” she snatches it up and clips it onto the wide sash around her middle. “We have like, four of them.”

“Then why the hell aren’t they coming on ?”

Rita shrugs and straightens up. “With luck, that’s what I’m going to find out today.” She huffs, a determined set to her jaw, and marches over the remaining clutter for the stairs.

Yuri looks at the others, meeting eyes with them all and appreciating the fact that it seems all of them had the same thought crossing through their minds. He turns and leads the way with Repede on his heels as they charge after Rita.

“What do you mean you’re going to find out? Where’re you going?” Karol pipes up from the rear of their troupe.

“The laboratory. Why--” When Rita turns around to view the train behind her, she stops. Her face is impossible to read behind the light pointed at the others, but Yuri has a good idea what she means when she blurts, “--uh, no. You guys aren’t coming with me. What are we, some sort of retro caterpillar game?”

“Caterpillars,” Estelle hums pleasantly. “Are we like caterpillars? Right now? That’s kind of funny.”

Rita pulls on the card dangling from her sash and waves it around. The plastic covering wrinkles and jostles. “I work there . I’m allowed to go there. I have clearance. That’s something you all don’t have, so zip it and stick it.”

“So...what,” Yuri shrugs. “Are you saying you’d rather have us stay behind in your house? Unsupervised? ”

Silence.

Rita huffs and lets go of her keycard. With a quiet shoom , the magnetic clip pulls it right back to her sash. She spins around for her front door. “Whatever. But if you get caught, I’m not taking responsibility for you. You’re on your own at that point. Got it?”

Yuri can hear the smile in Estelle’s voice behind him as she follows him out of Mordio’s house and hums, “I think she likes us.” 

He’s not sure he agrees, but there seems to at least be something there, sure.