zephia.

In the quiet, she can feel it pulse and thrum within her chest. She can never tell when it starts to hurt, or even when it starts to grow heavy—only that it inevitably does, and that it can be a terribly difficult ordeal to swallow on her own. She has tried; desperately and miserably, she has, singing old songs and murmuring reminders to herself to fill the silence left behind by the departed.

This, a melody beloved by the children of her tribe.

That, the sweets she would always purchase for the Divine One.

These, Lady Lumera's favorite flowers.

"See?" she would say to the empty roads back to camp, "I made sure to get extra!"

But then Gregory would be there, or Madeline, or Lady Nel, or Lord Nil—and the songs would be enjoyed with the remaining Winds over campfire, and the sweets would be shared with Lord Nil, and the flowers would be shared with Lady Nel to lay atop the Divine One's grave. It was not always lonely.

The girl seated alone in the gardens, though, looks like she is—like she exists not to bask in the sun, but for it to swallow her whole. It's a bold assumption to make of a stranger, but Zelestia likes to think that she has an eye for these things.

(And if not—well, who would say no to company on such a lovely day?)

"Candy for your thoughts?" so Zelestia offers with her approach, holding out a colorfully-wrapped treat with a smile. "Oh—this one is strawberry flavored, but I also have one that tastes like apricots if that's more to your preference."

Perhaps this was why she had agreed to come - a performer for a performer.

“Of course,” was all Lachesis said as they stood, weaving their way through the applauding crowds giving their first ovation. By her estimate, the first ovation would last around five minutes, then an encore, then another ovation - at least, this would be what she might expect for a true performance. However, a rehearsal was different, a more casual and exclusive affair.

The better, as Zephia had said herself, to breed familiarity, and trust.

The bustle of the backstage was easier to access, for all that, than it perhaps might have been at a true showing, and Lachesis smiled warmly at those who passed, guest and stagehand alike. She did not disagree that breeding familiarity was the easiest route forward - it was ever how she had manoeuvred in Agustria, when all else had failed her. Better with honey, even when they deserved vinegar.

“Excuse me,” she tapped one of the stagehands on the shoulder, and he turned to appraise her with a look that was half bright interest, and half cool suspicion, lingering on the dresses they wore.

“Ay?”

“My friend and I just watched the performance - splendid work from all, except…” Her eyes flicked down the the chalk on his hands, the corded muscle along his forearms from heaving rope for set, for curtain, for ballast; she smiled, charming. “We believe that it could have been a little better for the lighting-”

"Oh, dear... that's a shame," Zephia frowns, truly looking displeased on his behalf. "That was really the only thing we found amiss. Is there no one that can speak to Connor and have him see sense? It truly was the only shortcoming of the performance; I'd hate to see something with such a simple solution keep it from further renown..."

"Bah!" The stagehand waves the mere suggestion off with an aggressive shake. "He's so crazy about her that he won't listen to anyone within a ten mile radius. Gerald tried, too—took him out drinking some nights ago, you know, since he was the stage manager for that other big production, Five Dusks in Faerghus or whatever, so obviously he knows what he's talkin' about... but no, Connor was as stubborn as a thrice-damned mule!"

"Perhaps we can pass along a letter, then," Zephia suggests. "A simple review from two admirers of his work. Stubborn he may be, but he must surely also care about the audience's opinion."

"You can try," comes the reply. "But I'm tellin' ya, it's a wasted effort." He pauses briefly to look around, scanning his surroundings until he finds someone with a snap. "There—that's Margaret. She handles the finances, so everyone kinda tiptoes around her. Don't be scared, though; she just looks tough as nails, but she's actually really nice once you get her talkin'. If there's two things she cares about in this world, it's profitability and messy gossip. I always say she'd be better off as some gossip magazine columnist, you know, but—"

maybe it’s the fond memories veyle still as of her despite everything— at least with her papa she could confidently say that he never ever cared for her and that their relationship as father and daughter were doomed from the start, but…

“… i don’t want to hurt you.” she finally says with a conflicted expression on her face, lowering misericorde and looking at her feet. even with zephia threatening her now, bringing up sore points that veyle was sure to get angry about if she didn’t think about controlling her reactions.

(Enough—for what? For it to matter? It is far too late for anything to change.)

"You can," Zephia says, to both. You can hurt me. You can hate me. "And you should."

Finally, movement. She crosses what little space remains between them, unafraid of the dagger that could swing for her throat at a moment's notice. Maybe it is because Veyle is too small for it too matter; too soft, for it to hit anyplace important. Maybe it is neither of these things.

This woman made him uncomfortable, and Heppinn, as well. His horse nickered at the aggression of the wyvern, a beast that made Sigurd’s heart race in something that might have been fear, if he had not the strongest conviction that as a knight, he could slay any dragon, if it be a danger.

“You speak of a war that we had fought together, and while I acknowledge that I have participated in my share of them, I have never encountered someone of your like. Your mount would suggest that you are Thracian, and yet I could not imagine anyone looking further the part.”

But there was something else about her, not merely her appearance, not merely her familiarity, that put Sigurd ill at ease. There was something in her air, the perfume of something mystical that he had not had the head for, but had spoken with women of this Zephia’s ilk.

They had all seemed to know more than they aught, and had all seemed content to keep it just out of reach, the apple tree over a lake. Sigurd’s memories had been a point of contention during his time here, but he could not be more certain.

He had no idea who this woman was. And she seemed to take a great pleasure in that.

"...Not Thracian, no," she decides to address first, because easier that than to say yes, Sigurd; you have wronged me by simply being a mortal man with a beating heart. "I come from a different land altogether—Elyos, though I doubt you've heard of it."

A shame; perhaps he would've liked knowing that his spirit or his legacy—whichever it was carried to their shores by magic beyond her ken—had played such an instrumental role in saving the land from a great and terrible evil. She certainly wasn't going to illuminate him on the subject.

"And those from my land," she says with an amused look, "know better than to invite me as a traveling companion."

Yet it is with a gentle tap to the wyvern's neck that she has it lowering itself, enough for her to slide off without a hitch. Another, and the beast is tittering low in its throat, nudging against her palm once before it's flying away. It's smart enough to know where the stables are.

"Still, since you've offered, I suppose it would be terribly rude of me to refuse. Your horse won't bite me, will it? It looks rather terrified, poor thing."

It's not quite the right kind of smile, his lips are curved up a little too slyly and the reds of his eyes barely peek through as he turns to Zephia. "And I would hate for you to miss out on such a splendid evening. You needn't worry for me."

The mention of a medic brings his smile further taut. "Oh, there is no need for such a thing. A medic... they'd not be able to help. It's best not to waste resources. My family has tried all they could, a moment of rest is the simplest cure."

Out.

Ah, so he can stop the charade for a moment then. With his eyes less than ideal, he relies on his ears. Zephia's gait is just as strange to him as it ought to be for a woman who he'd just met in the market, but stranger still was this knight's...

Darios slips from his "darling's" side and the tip of a stolen dagger is placed against the side of the knight's neck. "I believe the baron's wing should be to the right, no? I'd imagine no better place in the house to rest."

Terribly reckless, too. An open hallway when they're mere steps away from the other guard isn't exactly where Zephia would like to start getting into threats, but there's little point in grousing over what's been done.

The guard stutters, clearly taken by surprise, as his bravado drops in the same moment his hands fly up in surrender. "W-Wait—! I ain't—I don't know, I swear, I'm just—!"

"Yes, yes," Zephia sighs. "A lowly security guard, I'm sure. Answer his question quickly, won't you?"

"He—" the guard stammers, "Y-Yes! He moved to the west wing just a few weeks ago, he should still be there...!"

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Zephia starts making her way down the hall, stopping only when she's taken a couple steps as if remembering something. "What are you doing, Darios? Kill him and hide the body. We can't have him causing trouble now that you've gone and waved your knife around, can we?"

"W-Wait...!"

A dog that tries to bite its master is not needed. A daughter that doesn't listen to her mother isn't needed, either. She'd known that already, but still made that choice. Faced with the option to do things over, she would make the same choice, even knowing what awaits.

"No, I..." She doesn't quite know where to look, eyes flitting from Zephia's face down to her hands, then back up to her face. "I didn't..."

She can't deny it. If she were the kind of girl that could lie so easily, she wouldn't get in so much trouble in the first place.

Marni is afraid of Zephia, but even as her body grows cold, the memory of Zephia's warm hands cradling her face at times lingers. She is afraid of Zephia, but she cannot bring herself to hate her. Love and fear mix together in her blood, freezing her in place. Compared to a mother who had never given her a single thought, one that paid attention to her was worth bearing everything else.

She hadn't lied when she said that she loved when Zephia had called them her family. She really meant it.

The claim that Zephia is unarmed is at least enough to pry out the words that had become lodged in her throat.

"I don't... actually know. Haha." Her laugh is normally cuter, but it's hard to laugh with such a dry throat. "I remember waking up here after collapsing, but the priestesses who found me didn't tell me how I got here. I don't think I'm a Corrupted, at least. Probably."

That's the most frustrating part. There's a gap in what she knows and what everyone else knows. There's a big void where her life had paused and everyone else's had continued on without her. Maybe it really would be better off for her not to know, but when she thinks about once again being the only one left in the dark...

"Were you happy for it?" Zephia asks. It is cruelty, not love, that has her speaking gently. "Or were you upset that you weren't able participate in our demise? After all, I aimed to kill you, Marni. And Griss—" soft-hearted, tender-touched fool that he is, "—couldn't even bear to look at you."

(Because: more than he is soft, and more than he is tender, he is desperate to be needed and loved. Aren't they all? Weren't they all?)

Zephia finally reaches out, her hand angling to rest against Marni's cheek. She has always been a terribly small thing, and Zephia—

(—might have felt joy, at one point, in coddling her. You've gone and skewed your bow, let me fix it; or, you did a wonderful job, didn't you? What a good girl.)

—drops her hand before she can make contact.

"...Well, not that any of that matters, I suppose. So what if we all happen to be here?" She folds her arms instead, and in spite of her better judgment—a lie; in spite of what she wants to do—Zephia retreats a singular step. "As far as I'm concerned, you're simply one girl in the midst of hundreds of others. That is what you wanted, no?"

To live like this. To be like this. To be good, as if goodness isn't something that will change year by year; to be free, as if Zephia's love is more yoke than aught else.

Her nails bite briefly into her forearm before she remembers to relax. Wretched child, traitorous child.

Alear had won, and then she'd slept, and then she awoke to win again. Surrounded by her so-called friends, flourishing amongst her so-called family—even if Zephia knows it all to be fleeting, she feels no less bitter for it. After all, Marni is here, as is Griss, and as is Mauvier—but it doesn't matter.

She will not forgive Marni and Mauvier a third time. And Griss—foolish and darling Griss—will one day leave her no matter what he'd said in their final moments. He—they—are all human, and all liars, and all terribly, wretchedly fragile.

(And so: she wants, and she does not want. The Divine Dragon does not understand, not yet, but she will.

One day, she absolutely will.)

She grits her teeth momentarily before turning, surveying the dough mixture with a look of scrutiny. Zephia doesn't make any move to actually help, but that may or may not be for the best, all things considered. Instead, she does the next best thing: reach out to flick the tongue that Alear lets hang as she focuses, finding it unsightly.

Zephia gets to the warning before he does, shouldn't that go for her too? Dragon or not, it's not like breathing in smoke is a particularly fun activity. The Gristonnian pulls free a handkerchief that he holds over to Rowan. "We'll likely have to corral it. Usually if you're going to do something like burn such a flammable field, you'd make a cut off such that it doesn't spread too far."

"I'm not keen on passing out but we're going to have to get close." Darios tugs gently at Rowan's cape and throws a quick glance at Zephia. "Watch the tails of your clothes, an ember will happily go wild with them."

"Once we've stopped it from spreading, then we can figure out how to put it out."

For a moment he stood there, blue gaze focused on the active flames as they slowly but surely spread around. He could catch some of Darios’ commands here and there- corral it, prevent it from spreading too much or too far, careful with clothes, but it was as if his friend were in another room for a brief moment. Something in his tone, as well as Zephia’s, felt…distant. So very distant, with the cracking of fire consuming the grass below feeling much louder than it should’ve.

Like it was right next to his ear.

Unconsciously, Rowan took another step back- but caught himself just in time with a head shake and a sudden urge to scratch his arms. Most of the burns he had sustained had been healed away, but the worst ones sat under gauze and clean bandages.

This was stupid. Rowan fought plenty of terrifying enemies before including the Chaos Dragon himself. There was no reason for a pile of burning grass to get a reaction out of him- and so he puffed his chest in a surge of bravery…or tried to, as smoke quickly irritated his throat and sent him into a coughing fit. “Ack- ugh, this sucks! Let’s just get this over with, doing something about this fire can’t possibly be that hard! Just throw dirt on it or something!”

But the sentiment is gone as quickly as it arrived, torn and burned at the roots. It is not like her—it mustn't be—to forgive and forget thrice.

"It's as the boy said. Unless you're able to conjure water, I suggest the two of you start piling dirt where you can." As for Zephia herself—she steps away to survey the field, identifying the patches of dried grass that would only feed the fire's ambition to spread. With a thoughtful hum, flames flicker to life above her hand, licking low and slow until she casts it down.

Her flames start a line of controlled burning, slowly devouring everything flammable—flowers and grass, arrows and cloth—left behind in the aftermath of the battle. It follows a far neater boundary under her control and finds itself extinguished with a kick of mud.

   When the two of them break apart, Chrom can’t help but allow the pain to show in his expression, something he quickly corrects when it’s called to attention. In that moment, he smiles, allowing the pain from the last several hours to fade from his face. Chrom wasn’t a great actor, but he always knew how to sport a winning smile. 

   “Thank you for your concern, Zephia.” A soft, perhaps pained if given enough attention, chuckle escapes Chrom’s lips. Part of him wondered if she was taking schadenfreude in his pain. Chrom shook the thought away; Zephia deserves the benefit of the doubt. “However, I am able to continue. Though, I may ask – could you be a little more careful?”

   An innocent comment, all things considered. Especially so, when Chrom awkwardly rubs the back of his head, equally as awkwardly smiling as he had. Though perhaps one could read it as sarcastic and insulting. Zephia seemed reasonable, so surely she wouldn’t draw such a conclusion. 

She knows pain when she sees it, no matter his attempts to hide. The tension in his jaw. The set of his shoulders. The way he bites back a wince. It's a good look on him in the way that the ocean is more beautiful when disturbed by the waves—though, she might have to admit to being a little bit biased. She had made it abundantly clear that she did not want to be here, wasting her time pretending like there was any entertainment to be found in spinning and twirling and giggling like this was—like she was—something normal.

(Hundreds of years, thousands, spent toiling for a dream. And for what?)

How did someone even manage to build something like this? The stars sway back and forth as they follow they swing of the giant, oversized axes that have only grown faster at their lack of prey. Who thought of this sort of thing? Surely there were better things they could set their mind to if they were capable of making such displays so easily.

Still, there was no other way out of here than facing the doom that lay before them, no matter how much Mitama would rather not. Briefly, she considers the idea of just accepting the inevitable and living here forever, but that only lasts for a moment before she shakes off the thought. No, she would not want to make people sad if she did.

Which leaves only facing the inevitable. Mitama walks up to the edge of the platform and frowns at Zephia's back. "I wish you had allowed me to go first. As a professor, should it not be you who faces the more dangerous challenge?" Nobody in this Academy had any honour anymore.

With a sigh, Mitama untangles one of her arms and raises it above her head. The air cools as she pulls on the magic and directs ice to form in the joint of the pendulum. The blade begins to slow its progress once more. Mitama takes the opportunity to scurry past it, but no sooner does she fall in place near Zephia than a loud creaking noise behind her precedes a whoosh as the pendulum returns to its former speed.

"No; that should remain your honor as a student," Zephia tuts, though not unkindly. "How can you expect to learn and grow if you remain so constantly coddled?"

Either she learns, or she doesn't—which will necessarily also mean that she will either accompany Zephia out of this little house with all her limbs intact, or she'll return to Garreg Mach in a little black bag.

(—which is to say, she will not be returning at all, because Zephia doesn't have a black bag, and she isn't exactly in the habit of carrying around dead weight. Literally.)

They step forward together this time, making their way through a hallway that seems to grow narrower as they proceed—until, finally, it becomes evident that one person might be able to squeeze through at once.

Griss blinks. The space between the trees is empty, except for the thick fog that's rolled when they hadn't been paying attention.

"What is wrong with you?"

Zephia's voice comes to him like recalling a dream. Griss hears the words, but he can't quite make sense of them at first. He stares between the trees for an eternity folded into the span of a second.

... Wrong? ... You?

"There's--" he starts, and tries to finish it with 'someone there,' but it sounds silly when he doesn't see anyone. And Zephia doesn't see anyone either, or else she wouldn't be asking him what's wrong.

"-- something wrong with the air," he slurs instead. Then he shuts his eyes and suddenly slams the knuckles of one hand into the rocks surrounding the pool. Laughter bubbles from his throat as blood trickles from the fresh scrapes across the back of his trembling hand. The pain is real, and he focuses on it to pull his mind back into his body.

"Heh. Seems like someone might be peeking on us." He jumps back up to his feet, although it's not as graceful or fast as it could have been, and he nearly falls back into the water. Yet he doesn't look at Zephia again, believing instead that she doesn't need his attention to shake the spell off.

For a long while, the air remains stagnant and the forest, draped in a sudden, early twilight, watches on silently. Fog thicker and denser than all the rest rolls over the rocks on the other side of the hot spring, almost unnoticeable until-- Splash!

They had almost won. They were almost hers. They were almost a family.

(Almost, and almost, and almost. Isn't it so obvious, now? Fear isn’t about what has been lost. Fear isn’t the wolf come knocking on your door. Fear is about having something long enough to lose it—about realizing that she wanted something so desperately that she couldn’t stop reaching for it, even knowing that her hands would break everything they held. And so:

They had almost won. She wanted to be happy. They had almost been hers. She wanted to be happy. They were almost a family. She wanted to be happy.

There will never be a fear greater than wanting.)

The blast registers as a tremor beneath her feet, something that curls and cuts and siphons in a way that is achingly familiar. She knows the shape of it the way she knows the thrum of her own heartbeat: it’s Griss’ magic, chaotic and full, a tempest gathered in his hands and leaving with enough force to terrify a small army. What is wrong with you, she thinks to ask again, past the annoyance of how he pulls away, past the rattling breath of something leaving.

When Zephia tries to grab for him again, though, he’s gone. Griss has always been a little pale, but this is different; this is pale in the way that winter fields are pale, when spring’s delicate flowers freeze and summer’s vibrant colors bleach themselves white. This is pale in the way that dead things are pale. This is pale in the way that has her thinking, again: what is wrong with you?

If Griss says something, she doesn’t hear it beyond the sharp clack of bone against bone. He’s gone, as he should have been. As he will be. As he was always meant to be. He is gone because he is human and terribly fragile, and he will hardly live long enough to ever matter. He is gone, her Hounds are gone, and the fog remains stagnant, the waters remain still, and the woods loom and loom. (And through it all: darling boy, darling beast, darling fool—what is wrong with you? Why are you gone?)

“…Oh, Griss,” she sighs. She’s certain that her hands settle on bone; certain, too, that her fingers curl around his wrists, so brittle now that she thinks they might break. “How do you plan on following me when you’ve already gone so far ahead?”

The honeydew scent grows heavier; the fog, thicker. It curls around her horns and says, you won. It settles against her shoulders and whispers, they are yours. And when it invites itself against the seam of her lips, sweetly murmuring that they are your family, Zephia parts her mouth as if to welcome it home—and fits her teeth around it with a sharp snap. Something recoils with a muted shriek around them, and she tightens her hold around Griss’ wrist and pulls. It doesn’t break. It isn’t even cold.

“...We're leaving."

(For this is where the fog has misunderstood. Her yearning is not so soft that it would rest so sweetly against her.)

Of course he doesn't, mostly out of a sense of self preservation.

"It would be my pleasure." Berkut quickly falls back to the lessons he had received. "Let us start with some basic positioning. I can't imagine you'd want to follow anyone's lead other than your own, so when you have a partner you'll take one hand in your own."

As he begins his explanation, he follows through in action. Taking her hand in his and lifting it up. "Then as the lead you'll put your other hand around them at the centre of their back. That way you'll be able to move and guide them throughout the dance. Taking charge, even like this I imagine will come natural. As an example..."

Reaching up, he carefully demonstrates with his own hand, bringing it around to his hand up and around her. Then he carefully takes moves them, with practiced ease for just a couple steps. Of course before he can be potentially be suffer some injury, considering this woman gifted him one dagger there was always a chance she had another, he lets her go and takes a step back. "Then once you're both in the proper position, you simply move to the rhythm of whatever piece is playing. The one we can hear right now is a simple piece. You can count the beats in your head, going one, two three, one two three."

As he speaks, he holds his arms up, giving a small demonstration. Twisting in spot, even as he counts with the beats, his steps moving almost gracefully across the floor. For a second he almost loses himself. Even as he turns back to her, he swears he saw a flicker on the edge of his vision, a flame that has yet to die. Forcing himself to look at Zephia he smirks.

Yes, some might say, for what more had she been to her once-beloved Hounds? No, others might deny, for she had still bent her knee and bowed her head low. So which would sit better with her, when she lacks any sort of grand ambition to be a leader, yet remains far too selfish to commit herself as a loyal follower?

—unnecessary things to wonder, when all she must do now is lead a dance. But her time in Garreg Mach has been marked with thoughts like these, where everything simple and innocuous has her reflecting what had been done and questioning what it must now be for. It has been nothing short of exhausting and vexing in equal measure.

"Do correct me if I misstep," she tells him, taking his hand as instructed. From what he'd illustrated, it certainly looked simple enough. Three steps, taken in the rhythm of whatever song was playing. She could do that.

...which is to say, she could certainly try.

"...This," Zephia decides after the fourth step, "feels terribly boring."

She doesn't wait for Nel to comply, and instead shakes the woman's hand off with a look of irritation. Zephia lifts a soiled shirt, just high enough to see the blood flowing freely from a wound torn once with the arrow's arrival and again on its rough departure. It might not be fatal now, but it won't be terribly long before it will—and considering how far they'd flown, it's easy to surmise that Nel will be long dead and gone before any help from the Church can even think to arrive.

It's a tempting thought, truth told—to hear her speak so bravely of living even as she paints the whole island red with her sickening lifeblood. Zephia doesn't care to be seen as either kind or terrible, least of all by Nel, nor has she ever been particularly worried about repaying every debt in full. It had been Nel's choice to take the arrow. Nel's choice to save her. Why should Zephia reward her for something she never asked for?

(But, and again: ugh.)

"Make sure to scream loud and clear, hm? I'd like to still get some enjoyment out of this."

That she doesn't give much more in the way of warning might be called a mercy, but she doesn't like the way the word applies to Sombron's kin. It is by cruelty, then, that fire sparks to life in her hand, a glimmer of oranges and reds before she's pressing her palm against the open wound. The heat is unkind as it licks the injury, searing through skin and flesh until the blood has nowhere else to run but elsewhere within.

(A little further, a little longer, and—oh, how terribly easy it would be.)

Zephia pulls back, letting Nel drop to the rocks and sands. The burn will scar, far worse than it would have with a singular arrow, but—

Selena had known to be wary of her companion.

(…Well, that wasn’t being very fair, was it?)

Selena’s first introduction to the mission had come through her briefing—to accommodate one of the Alliance nobles in a time of unrest, rife; to serve as a guard against whatever may come to befall him—and that had seemed simple enough. The threat they were facing was yet to be understood, but she had acted as a knight in full capacity in the past. (She knew what she needed to do, and she knew how she was supposed to do it.)

And then she met her companion: faculty of the Black Eagles house; a woman by the name of Zephia. That alone would not have meant very much—did not mean very much when she’d first heard the information—but then the two of them met, and in her gut, Selena felt something was wrong.

(Senselessly; after all, it was impractical to believe one person could’ve arranged this all—especially given the far reaches of the assassinations. To even consider that Zephia may have a hand in it all was fundamentally unfair.) Selena swallowed that feeling.

The third morning of their stay, however, Selena enters the kitchen, and she finds two people: Viscount Burgundy, dead on the floor, and Zephia. Just Zephia. (It is fundamentally unfair.)

And what would be the motive? Of course one of them would be the first accused—there would be no easy escape. (If Zephia truly had wanted to kill him, why would she accept the task? Why not do this silently, such that no one would point to her?)

It was an unfair judgement; an unfounded feeling; Selena summons a calmness, bites down on her sickness, and instead, opens up to a more sensible turn of phrase:

“What happened here?”

The viscount is dead, silenced by three wounds across his chest and a fourth that left a nondescript knife lodged between his ribs.

Amateur, she thinks, stepping over the blood that had spread far enough in a bright, slippery pool. An assassin—or a warrior, or a fighter, or someone otherwise so accustomed to taking life that their hands wouldn't shake with the first thrust of steel—would have left one wound, and two at most; clean lines to end things quickly and without argument, whether out of duty or mercy or perhaps a mix of both. Four, though—four tells a different story entirely.

Fear, maybe. Passion. Anger. There is often less difference between them than people realize.

"Most people," Zephia finally says, "would presume the obvious and draw their weapons first, Selena. Do you want to try again? Ask with a little more bite, perhaps?"

She turns, her smile patient and kind despite the circumstances—or perhaps exactly because of them. From the moment they'd met, it was evident enough that while Selena was willing to play nice, she wasn't at all eager to name Zephia among her allies. And isn't that simply hurtful, when all Zephia had done was dutifully trot along to protect the man who now lays between them, dead as can be?

But any reaction he has struggles to be given voice in his epiphany, and in its place, she weaves together a tale. He listens, partly out of politeness, partly out of curiosity, despite the chill sent down his spine.

“I'm sorry to hear about the ones that left you. I... understand the heartbreak of losing those around you.” His condolences are, if nothing else, real even as he tries to parse whether she means humans with these animal features (perhaps, she, like Micaela, played mother) or literal pets. “But I can't imagine people taking wolves into battle... Is there really such a place?”

He feels bad to wonder, as if moving on too fast from that very heartbreak he'd mentioned. She calls it instincts that she didn't fault them for, but were the wounds fully healed?

But ask he does.

“I've heard and seen people ride on horses, and I've heard disciples of dragons fly on pegasi... but it's hard to imagine wolves.” Where on the continent was this woman from? Were things truly so different somewhere that wasn't Tournu? Were Ast and Notia and all the other kingdoms not the same? “Either wolves are killed... or wolves are worshiped. It's a miracle enough to live peacefully side by side with others, not falling into either.”

And... who was this wolf that she had found? Was he... just like Joachim himself? Or...

"I don't know if I would consider it a miracle," Zephia muses, gaze drifting to the ears atop the boy's head once more. The word sits strangely on her tongue, like it's something foul and foreign despite witnessing—despite living—several herself. "Power will always draw two kinds of response: obedience, or fear. When someone tells you that they feel neither, and that they are simply happy to coexist peacefully..."

She nudges her cup away, finally, and returns her attention to a gaze she understands now to be a little pitiful. Had they met sooner, in a different land and under far different conditions, she thinks that this would be a lesson he knew from the bottom of his heart. After all, if he did not have ignorance as an excuse, that would be very embarrassing for him, would it not?

"...well. I'd say it's obedience dressed very nicely, or fear wearing a more comfortable name. After all, people will always lie to themselves more readily than they lie to others."

Like—

(—a little village of dragons, whose blood was thick with magic and flesh burned all the hotter for it. This is incredible, Zephia. How unprecedented, Zephia.

We love you, Zephia.

See? Fear in all its lovely, meaningless names.)