Chapter 3

The town’s name meant “Giant’s Gash,” for the enormous vertical crevasse in the rock it was built around, as though a great titan had cleaved it into the rocky hillside with his axe.  In the mornings, the east-facing crevasse filled with sunlight, the chips of mica in the rock glittering, while in the evenings it was cool under the darkness of the mountain above. Their farms and pastures spread out in front, while the dwellings were hewn into the rock itself. The crevasse was criss-crossed with bridges and stairways and catwalks, with lit-up windows dotting both walls like a gathering of ladybugs. A natural spring issued from the rocks at the back of the crevasse, the reason for the village’s existence. It flowed in clean, pebble-lined channels at each residential level, combining into a thin waterfall at the mouth of the crevasse that flowed into irrigation lines to feed the fields.

The village had something to talk about tonight, as they brought in the goats and rounded up the children. Two travelers had arrived, riding one of those animals from the lowlands to the south. One was wounded, it seemed, and they’d taken themselves straight to the doctor’s home, halfway up the southern wall. The horse was content to settle down with the goats, it seemed, and she looked up whenever someone made mention of her rider’s name.

When Sunny pushed open the shutters of the doctor’s abode, through many meters of rock overhead, Tess looked up again, as if she knew.

Sunny leaned on the windowsill, gathering her new poncho beneath her elbows for comfort. She had purchased it moments before from the village tailor, a heavy, white, and warm thing with traditional Fimbulventr patterns embroidered in blue. The nights were colder in the highlands, and she knew well enough to be prepared. She gave her wet hair a toss. Within the rocky heart of the village, bathing had been more pleasant than she expected of such a frigid clime. 

Behind her, in the candlelit shadows of the doctor’s abode, Zephyr rested on one of the cots. The doctor said all she needed now was rest. Sunny certainly hoped that was the case. She’d held back from saying they had fought a ballachan. That was one round of questions she’d rather avoid.

A chill wind blew in the window, and the candles guttered. Sunny pulled the shutter on the windward side closed. She glanced  toward Zephyr, anxious that the cold gust had disturbed her. 

After a moment or more, some stirring from Zephyr’s bed was met with the hushed footsteps and quiet muttering between doctor and patient, and after a moment more, the doctor turned towards the patient’s companion. “Excuse me… Miss Goodnight? Apologies for the disturbance, but… Miss Lufaine is conscious. If you wish to speak to her, she is ready.” 

Sunny retrieved her hat from the windowsill, holding it to her chest and inclining her head with respect and a word of thanks. She took care to shut the window against the cold breeze before she went back inside.

The linen curtain around Zephyr’s bed weighed light against Sunny’s hand when she pushed it aside. “Hey, partner,” she began. “Feelin’ a bit more hearty now?” 

The mage sat up, slowly and gingerly, then sighed as she held her forehead in her left hand. “I would be, had that healer not gleaned my full name from me”, she said softly. Her eyes remained closed, and her head, shoulders and left arm were wrapped in bandages. “…Where are we, anyway?” With a soft gasp, her eyes opened as she looked around. “And what of Freyja? Where has she gone?” 

“Oh, Freyja?” Sunny shrugged. “She done took off ‘afore we even reached the town. I guess she’s some kinda wild child. Well, not that I don’t understand that way of livin’.” Turning around, Sunny displayed the Fimbulventr patterns embroidered on her new poncho. “This town here is… uh… well, it’s somethin’ in their old tongue. Storrsnida… or something like that. They’ve built it into a big cleft in the rock. Anyway, it’s a li’l town in Fimbulventr. I brought you here ‘cause you were hurt. That sawbones do a good job?” 

“I’m… stiff, and my memory is a little jarred, but I daresay I will recover fully before too long. Magical wounds tend to be less serious than the cut of a blade, and my last spell propelled me out of the direct path of that… thing’s line of fire.” She sighed again and leaned back. “I would see if I could find our companion, but… ah, that reminds me, how long was I… out, exactly?”

Sunny pushed aside the curtain to show Zephyr the window, forgetting she had shuttered it. She let the curtain fall back into place. “It’s the same night. You were out pretty much the whole evening. You can see why I was worried. But Tess was a good girl and helped me carry you here.” 

“…It has only been a few hours, then? It felt like much more than that. I suppose that is a credit to the healers in this region, or to the lack of severity in my injuries. Regardless, that is reassuring.”

Much more, Zephyr thought, that either Sunny did not hear her full name, or she didn’t recognize it.

“…So what is our next course of action, then? We cannot stay here forever, of course.” 

Running her hand up and down the rock wall, Sunny smiled. “Well, this town ain’t so bad. I might even stretch a little to come up here sometimes on my journey ‘round.” Sunny withdrew her hand. “But I’m heading back. Everyone in Landsoul still needs me. I’m sure those tin can-heads will forget about me ‘afore long. All I need to do is learn how to use this crystal properly to take care of Kasimira. I thought maybe you could help me with that, partner.” 

Zephyr stared blankly at nothing in particular. “I… have no direction otherwise, at the moment. All my life, I had lived a certain way, following one set path. That path has been lost to me. I do not know where, figuratively, I am. What choice do I have but to follow yours, then?”

“Huh? I can’t say I get what you mean, partner. Ain’t you got someplace to be? I love it, but Landsoul’s not much of a place you travel to if you don’t have a special reason. You must have somethin’ you were doing, yeah?” 

“I am a wanderer and a gatherer. I don’t particularly have a destination in mind, just… the echoes of a script I once followed, nearly off the edge to oblivion.” The mage shook her head slowly. “I suppose the best I can do now is aid you in understanding your role, now that you have accepted the responsibility of one who wields Magicite.” 

Sunny took off her hat, placing it on the doctor’s table at the foot of the bed. “I reckon that’d be just fine, partner. I’d like to be able to use this thing like it was meant to be used, if the sillos ever get worse than a pack of wolf ones. Or if one of those demons from before wanders off the mountain. I’m all ears. What can I do with mine?” 

Zephyr sighed again and pulled out her own crystal. “This is… meant to be our last fledgling link between the mortal world, and the realm of the Espers of eld. Whatever shadowy presence the Silhouettes draw from, the Espers kept at bay. This much I remember telling you before. But the power given to us in lieu of proper Summoners is all we have left to keep the world from crumbling into dust.”

“Conjurers – that is to say, the name I’ve taken to using to describe people like ourselves, one coined by the people of my homeland – use these crystals to commune with the Espers. They are imbued with their essence, and through their choosing and our channeling, we can borrow their power to fight.”

“You saw Freyja and me use this power before, not long ago. But there exists a deeper connection to the Esper, one that allows for more potent abilities, and… if the bond runs especially deep, a ‘union’ of sorts. To put it more simply, it is akin to what one might call a ‘transformation’. A temporary form giving us extraordinary power, but at greater cost of our energy. In my current state, I doubt highly I could demonstrate such a feat…”

Zephyr sighed and replaced her Magicite in her robe’s pocket. “So my only direction now is to help you commune with your Esper. It is… not too far off the path I used to follow. I admit, your Esper eludes me, however. The ones I am familiar with are Ifrit, Ramuh, Shiva, Garuda, Leviathan, Titan, and…”, her voice trailed off as she glanced off to the side, again staring at nothing.

Sunny drew the magicite from the pouch at her hip. “My one’s name is Alexander, ain’t it? I just gotta learn to ‘commune’ with him, if I want to be able to do stuff like what I saw you and Freyja do just then?” Her expression faded from excited to pensive. Once she thought about it more, she couldn’t be pleased with hurling gouts of flame or thunderbolts. It would be irresponsible on a dry prairie. Would there be something else she could do? 

“I would exercise caution in using his name in this region, just in case, but… yes. It is hard to describe how to commune, if one does not know initially. I… was born into a family that was accustomed to this way of life. Ah, but… this power won’t necessarily give you abilities like I have. I am a mage by nature and by training. It would further augment and enhance your natural prowess in combat, rather than giving you latent magic, in the same way as I have.”

“Oh, I can use magic, partner.  When I was a little’un, I pestered the healer in my hometown until he showed me how to cast Cure. ‘Course, I never studied at it enough to heal more than a papercut. I must’ve driven him up the wall. I just never felt like it was worth all the time while he was around to do it for us… now he ain’t anymore. Mostly now I’ve only got the skills I needed as a cowhand out on the open range.” Sunny tilted her head. “Could I even use a ‘magicite’ if I couldn’t handle magic at all?” 

Zephyr nodded simply. “But of course. I’ve known many who took up the crystals who had no aptness for traditional magic at all. The communion with your Esper augments the way you would naturally fight. In your case, you might be able to heal more effectively, and more notably, Light-aspected energies would be fired from your projectile weapons. It would appear not unlike ‘magic’, as I know it. I am… something of a traditional ‘Black Mage’, is more what I meant. The Espers have enough magical power to cover any deficiencies in our abilities. In a way, this makes us more effective than the ‘Summoners’ of eld, as our communion is direct, and we conjure their power through ourselves, rather than call them from across the rift.” 

Clutching her magicite in her hand, Sunny’s brow furrowed. “‘Communing,’ huh. That word means that you’re, say, talking with them and sharing something with them, right? He ain’t ever talked to me. Or if he did, maybe I’m just not enough of a magician to sense it. That light has followed my shots since I picked this thing up. But I guess I’ve gotta do it for real if I want more than that.” Sunny pressed the crystal to her chest, eyelids lowering as she concentrated. 

“Ah, there’s no need to force the communication right away. Usually, the Esper makes their presence known from first contact with the Magicite. Yours seems to be an outlier. Bahamut is… unsure as to why this is, I feel. Though if I had to make a guess, it would seem that your Esper is… waiting for something before making his presence known.” 

Sunny shook her head. “Naw, I was just thinking I might give it a go. I reckon I ‘commune’ with Tess and the animals all the time. With them, it’s just about doing your best to understand them, and to have an open heart and try to express yourself in a way they’ll understand too. But I got no idea how to do it with an esper. For starters, what is he like? Is he like a man? An animal? A star in the sky?” 

“An Esper’s form is, from our point of view, indeterminate. As far as I’ve been able to tell, there has never been a point in history where a mortal has entered the realm where the Espers dwell, or if so, none had ever returned. The form they take in our world– or would, if summoned– would vary, based on the era and of the summoner, or even collective faith in the Esper itself.”

“But in many cases, we have imagery to go by. To answer your question… well, from what little I noticed, Alexander tends to resemble a metallic castle-like construct. I think.” 

Sunny paused, glancing to the right as if to confirm what she heard was real. “A castle? You mean he ain’t even alive? How does that work?” The magicite’s polished surfaces caught the candlelight as Sunny rolled it around in her hand. “This might be tougher than I thought. How would somethin’ like that think, or feel, or know how to pick who holds the magicite?” 

“It’s… think less about communing with the image or form in your mind that I’ve described, rather try to imagine communing with the concept itself. You’re less in contact with a mechanical castle, and more with the arbiter of Light itself. For example, I’m not necessarily actually speaking with an actual dragon when I commune with Bahamut.” 

“Mechanical?” Sunny’s eyes lit up. “Oh, like a gun! Wow. A machine that can think for itself? No way us humans could invent somethin’ like that. I think I get the picture now. I know how to get along with guns,” Sunny concluded, with a nod to herself. 

“Ah, but I’m bein’ rude. Where do y’all come from that you know so much about this? Can’t be where the espers come from, right?” |

The mage visibly relaxed, closing her eyes once more. “Oh, of course not. In fact, if our studies were accurate, we would be on the pole opposite where one could, in theory, have fallen into the Espers’ dominion.”

“…I hail from Cornelia, from the far northern continent. I am Zephyr Cornelia Lufaine. One of the last heiresses to the prophecy of the Warriors of Light, long, long ago…” 

Sunny whistled in awe. “Well, I had a feeling a hometown gal like me wouldn’t have heard of it, but a whole other continent… and the Warriors of Light? Is that an old myth or legend of your people?” 

She placed her hand on her chest. Her poncho, inlaid with traditional patterns of its own, lay over the pocket where she kept her harmonica. Into its surface her father had etched a design of a girl playing a harmonica nestled next to a horse, a portrait in brass of Sunny and Tess the year they had received it. In her hands, it could play any song of Landsoul she’d ever heard.

“Y’know it’s important you hold onto those stories. They’re what keep you home, even when you ain’t.” 

“Ah, my heritage isn’t so important in the world as it stands. The Warriors of Light… they were for a time before Silhouettes, when the balance of Light and Dark meant anything. The home in my heart, and from my family… it never existed to me. Perhaps someday, if the Silhouettes’ threat is eliminated… but reality is what I must focus on now. Even without my cycle…” 

Leaning forward, Sunny attempted to catch Zephyr’s eye. “I think you might have lost me, partner. Are you saying the Silhouettes destroyed your homeland?” Sunny shook her head. “That must be a common story everywhere these days…” 

“No. That isn’t the plague that haunts me now. The silhouettes… are inconsequential.” 

“Inconseq–” Sunny stopped at the unfamiliar word. “Not the sillos? Just what then? What’s worse than that?” 

Zephyr took a deep breath, as if trying to center herself. “My never-ending cycle of watching life around me come to an end. The cycle… a purpose given to me by my Esper, handed down through my family. To gather, to fight, to die, and to repeat, over and over again… the chase of death and rebirth, gathering and fading… ”

“And that cycle is broken, with me in this unfamiliar domain, with Espers I’ve not met before, and… I feel somewhat lost in this new world of mine.” 

With a sigh, Sunny shook her head. “Now, Zephyr, you know I’m just a simple bull nurse. I ain’t much for fancy words and rhymes. I’m afraid I just won’t understand if you don’t speak plain to me. I can gather you ain’t been in these parts before, and you’re away from your friends. I can understand that feelin’.” 

“…I’m not so sure I can put this in a way that makes sense. Even just this, even this poetic riddle in which I speak… it’s just what I know. I suppose it’s easiest to say that in this moment, I am as a freshly born calf, still trying to find my legs, but in a new world, entirely. It’s… quite a lot for me to take in, I’m afraid.” 

At this, Sunny’s face brightened, and she leaned in to give Zephyr a sporting pat on the shoulder. “Ah. Well, if that’s the case, old Mama Sunny’d be happy to share all she knows about being a saddle bum, at least until it’s time for us to go our separate ways. Still, don’t you still want to be what you were talkin’ about? A Warrior of Light? There’d be nothin’ better for your old homestead, I reckon.” 

The thoughts raced around Zephyr’s head as she began to relax, letting herself drift off. She knew most of what she was trying to say didn’t make sense, though she didn’t know how much she cared to elaborate, either.

“…Perhaps it is worth a try. If… If She could release me this far, anything is possible.” 

With that, the mage fell again into slumber. 

Sunny quietly pulled the covers over Zephyr and retrieved her hat from the bedside table. The muffled conversation of a pair of village women outside the window caught her ear, two housewives speaking about their husbands at home. Sunny supposed a town like this wouldn’t have a saloon to be up late having fun.

Instead, she took the magicite out of her hip pouch. She clutched it to her chest and reflected on what Zephyr had told her of Alexander. 

A machine. Like a pistol, she imagined the springs and levers and gears working together to achieve a single purpose. What kind of machine could operate to eliminate the Silhouettes, or choose a suitable host for its magicite? Nothing man could invent, that was for certain. 

Sunny imagined a great machine, a colossal machine, as big as a castle. Large enough to have the complexity needed to think like a human, to judge a woman’s worth, to harness magic. A gun could only do one thing, and that only at a wielder’s urging. She imagined being a machine built to destroy the Silhouettes, automatic and single-minded. She understood her pistol well. Keep the parts clean and oiled and it would do its job methodically and without fail.

With their arrangement, she didn’t know who was the wielder and who the gun.

As she pondered all this, in the periphery of her vision, she thought she saw the magicite glow, briefly. Had she understood something? Had she “communed?”

Sunny returned the magicite to its pouch. It had been a long enough day already. She sank low into the chair at Zephyr’s bedside. It was probably the doctor’s, a comfortable affair with a deep red cushion on the seat. She’d slept in worse, and it would be cheap to stay here rather than buy lodging at an inn. Save money where you can. If Zephyr was keen to learn how to be a wanderer, that’d be the first tip Sunny would give her tomorrow morn. 

***

The next morning, the entire village was roused from its slumber by the sounds of whirring rotors and cutting winds smashing into the aging wooden doors protecting the townspeople from the cold. The village chieftain, a large hirsute man with a face seemingly too small for his massive head, was the first to investigate. Shielding his eyes from the winds shattering that night’s fresh snow back into the morning air, he dragged his feet through the snow, sword in tow, before casting his gaze upward. Ostentatious displays of power were something he had been used to from the tax collectors, who loved disturbing the peace in Giant’s Gash by letting their airships loom above the town square at the most inopportune times. The head collector back when Crún still ruled the Fimbulventr mountains, an aloof but petty man named Áns ua Faranoch had been little more than a thug masquerading as a magistrate, but at least he had allowed the village people to choose which of their belongings they’d cede to the Crown. The Fortenbran delegations didn’t even have magistrates, and their airships simply flooded the town with faceless soldiers who pillaged whatever they pleased and then left without a word.

As he looked up, however, the chieftain realized that this was not a routine tax collection. The ship that had disturbed his sleep was many times larger than the vessels that usually made their way to Fimbulventr from the capital, and was adorned with a massive golden figurehead depicting a paladin charging into battle. Squinting at the airship’s searchlights, the chieftain could discern the silhouette of a platform being lowered from the airship. When the platform made landfall, a good dozen men and women in bright heavy armor walked out in formation, clearing the way as more and more people poured into the town square. 

The chieftain lowered his sword. On the warriors’ shimmering, polished chestplate, he recognized an emblem he had only seen once before: twenty years ago, when the elite knights of the Crúnian Aegis had graced his town with a visit and their Prime Sentinel had claimed one of its daughters as his own. Before he knew it, he broke the silence.

“What business does the royal guard of a dead prince have in Fimbulventr?”

“Any shield worth the steel outlives its wielder, lord chieftain,” a calm voice speaks up from the very back of the foundation.

“What good is a shield that falters?” the chieftain replied. “What sort of backwards peasants do you take us for, lord Sentinel? The Principality of Crún is no more. This is Fortenbran territory now. You have no authority here.”

“The Aegis will serve the Prince of Crún evermore. And while the Principality may be no more, the Prince has unfinished business here.”

“What are you talking about? The Prince is dead!”

“Yes, lord chieftain.” the Sentinel retorted. When he stepped out of the searchlight’s blinding shimmer, he revealed himself to be a tall young man, clad in bright white armor that contrasted the darkness of his skin. His short hair had been braided into finger-like spikes that protruded from his head in various directions, a chaos that couldn’t be any more different from the calmness on his face. “The Prince is dead. And the only reason why you know is because you’ve been harbouring his killer.” 

Every shutter in town was open a crack, every resident of the village watching from the darkness within, trying to guess what fresh hardship the soldiers would bring just when everything was going so well. It was a familiar position for all of them.

Behind the shutter of the doctor’s abode, however, came a sigh of relief. Sunny closed the shutter as slowly as she could. 

“Here was me thinking the Fortenbrans were crazy enough to chase us all the way here,” Sunny whispered, though the platoon was much too far to hear. “Seems like this is something else. Though they’ve got the government spook act down pat.” 

In the meantime, the Sentinel and the chieftain continued their uneasy back-and forth, both holding their hands close to the handles of their blades as they stared each other down.

“I understand this is hard for you, lord chieftain”, the Sentinel said. “But I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t urgent. Freyja is… dangerous. I don’t know what happened to her. This is why we need to bring her back to Crún. You know she doesn’t belong here.”

The chieftain scoffed, with some of the townspeople boldly joining in. “This has always been her home. A Fimbulventr woman can’t be tamed.”

“Think for a second. Why would she have fled to the very first location we’d be looking for her? She is not thinking straight.”

The chieftain did not reply, causing the Sentinel to close his eyes and sigh.

“Please, listen to reason. I know what this town has been going through these last few months because of Fortenburg’s rule. We are in the same boat here. Her betrayal is the reason for your suffering!”

“You will not take her from us a second time,” the chieftain replied.

“So be it.” The Sentinel shook his head and took a step back, addressing his knights. “Search the village.” 

Zephyr sighed as she rested in her bed for a moment longer. “It may not be the invaders to which you are accustomed, but do be on guard, Sunny. This echoes of trouble.”

The mage slowly rose from her bed, shakily getting to her feet as she looked around for the rest of her belongings and effects. “Be ready for a fight, or possibly flight. Oh…”, she said, lowering her voice and leaning in close, “…do be careful in mentioning Alexander. This force could be looking for his bearer, and I’d rather feel their intentions out before we play our hand outright.” 

“They might not be Fortenbrans, but they sure wear the same boots when they step on your neck,” Sunny said. “Still, I ain’t really looking to take on that many bucketheads. A lady’s gotta know her limits. I reckon they shouldn’t have a problem with us if they bust in here, but you never know with these types.” 

Sunny slid open the cylinder of her revolver to check the bullets inside. “You best hope we don’t have to fight. Soldiers don’t give up unless a bunch of ‘em start dying.” 

The Sentinel calmly folded his hands behind his back and paced forward as his subordinates scattered about the town, opening doors and windows, checking under vendor stalls and behind curtains, and all across the many levels and floors the people of Giant’s Gash had divided into. One of them approached the infirmary as well. Sunny’s hand rested on the grip of her revolver, ready to spring into action if needed. Yet when they put their hand on the doorknob, the Sentinel’s voice once again echoed across the town square.

“Lady Cathlyn.”

As he spoke, the Sentinel furrowed his brow at the small waterfall on the far northern end of the square and reached out a hand to his subordinate, who came running back.

“The spyglass.”

Without a word, the knight reached into a small pouch around her belt and handed whatever she had taken out over to the Sentinel. He put the trinket to his right eye and took a look at the waterfall once more.

“Lord Chieftain,” he said, to be met only with silence. “… What’s behind that waterfall?”

The Chieftain, who had seen no better way to deal with the situation than to keep trailing behind the Crúnian invader until he’d leave, muttered something inaudible.

With a sigh, the Sentinel gestured towards Lady Cathlyn and another nearby knight, who promptly drew their swords, and moved to carefully approach the waterfall.

“Wait!” the Chieftain responded. “Please… That… The cave behind the waterfall is sacred terrain. Only our high priestess is allowed to go in there!”

The Sentinel glanced at him, but did not order his knights to stand down.

“You must understand. I am telling you the truth!” the chieftain pleaded.

“This certainly is… awfully convenient, is it not, Lord Chieftain?”

“Believe me or not, I will not allow you to defile the sanctuary of our Gods!”

“Did you tell her the same thing? Or do your Gods make an exception for kingslayers?”

Some of the townsfolk, who had returned to the square upon realizing the futility of trying to stop the Crúnian troops, still in the process of turning the town upside down, gasped. The Chieftain stared at the Sentinel in disbelief and stammered: “… What kind of paladin are you?”

The Sentinel kept his eyes fixed on the waterfall. “One who’s seen what real Gods look like, Lord Chieftain.”

A pair of soldiers hustled Sunny and Zephyr out of the doctor’s home and out into the open, where they were gathering every resident up to check their identities. 

Sunny dusted herself off once the soldier was satisfied neither of them was the one they were looking for. “Ain’t no reason to be pushin’ and shovin’. I’m just a simple Soulful.” The soldier was already off to check the next group, paying no heed to Sunny’s complaint.

Getting up on the tips of her toes, Sunny’s nervous gaze altered between the waterfall cavern that was the center of attention and the mouth of the cleft where Tess was stabled. “Who needs such a huge pack of soldiers, anyway? Hard to believe you need this many to arrest one person…” 

Readying their shields, half a dozen soldiers gathered in formation as the remaining troops tried to keep the mob under control. One step after another, they drew closer to the entrance to the sanctuary. When the townspeople went quiet, the paladins eyed each other nervously. It was only after a long back-and-forth of nods that started walking with intent, holding up their shields above their heads to protect their heads from the water gushing down the cliffside. That gushing was the only sound that echoed through the town square, as everyone present held their tongue — albeit not all for the same reasons.

“… Stand down!”

In a collective gasp, all heads on the town square turned upward to stare at the voice’s point of origin, at the top of the waterfall. The figure, imposing, yet unkempt, spoke again: “You have desecrated more than enough today already.”

“How dare you talk to me of desecration!” the Sentinel responded. “Show yourself, Kingslayer! If you think you can still invoke the Aegis’ sanctity, then let it be the judge of your fate!”

A single blink of the eye later, Freyja was standing between the sanctuary’s entrance and the approaching paladins, yet her gaze, as if piercing right through their shining armor, was fixated on the Sentinel.

“You will leave my people in peace, Senn,” she said. “Go home. Or whatever remains of the Aegis you value so much will cease to exist here and now.”

Zephyr had mostly ignored the soldiers as she was escorted out and inspected, giving no resistance. Her attention was piqued when she heard about the guardian, and she snapped from her half-asleep stupor, addled in her own thoughts when Freyja came to view.

“Freyja? What… what is going on here?” She took a step back, looking around, finally aware of her situation in full. ‘Whatever is going on here’, she thought to herself, ‘is not of my concern. And yet… Freyja saved my life. I cannot let that simple fact deter me.’

At the same time, the mage felt within herself an urge, quiet and subconscious, telling her that she needed to stay on Freyja’s side. An all too familiar sense, one that drove her countless times before. Her hands remained at her side, though if needed, she could draw her ring and ready her magics in moments. 

“Zephyr… Sunny…” Freyja replied, wavering as she spotted the faces in the crowd. With a sigh, she rested her blade on her shoulder like a construction worker carrying a beam of lumber.

“Why did you come here, Freyja?” the Sentinel said, lowering his pained voice, “You knew this would be the first place we’d look for you.”

“Then how come I’ve been able to roam here freely for months? Come now… You never even entertained the thought of me coming back here after Crún fell, didn’t you?”

“I thought you were smarter than that, yes.”

“Then you don’t know why they call me the Weeping Blade, Senn. I’m surprised you even needed a Beastmaster to figure out where I was. I would never abandon the people of Fimbulventr.”

“So you will let Fimbulventr be your grave!” Senn shouted, and drew his sword as the surrounding townsfolk shrunk back in surprise. “You will pay your debt in blood, Kingslayer?!”

“I will say this one more time. I am innocent. Spill my blood and you will see that it is clean… if you even have the heart to do so,” Freyja answered as she readied her blade in response.

“My heart is broken, Freyja… I don’t need it to do anything anymore.”

Freyja averted her gaze, letting the tip of her sword touch the snow as the townsfolk watching the scene devolved into muttering. Eventually, one voice elevated itself above the others. “F-Freyja, dear, what’s going on?” the butcher’s wife, a middle-aged woman with a usually hearty demeanour, asked, soon to be followed by a flurry of questions and concern.

“On the Giant’s head, don’t tell me… you killed the Prince of Crún?”

“What’re these buggers even on about? Chop their fancy little heads off already so we can all move on with our lives!”

“Who’s this shimmering prick even think he is, talking to our Freyja like that!”

“All of you, calm down!” Freyja raised her voice in an uncharacteristic manner, and the tense silence returned to the town square. “These people will not harm you. They swore an oath. They swore it to me. I’ve always told them to believe in their creed more than they would ever believe in me, and I do not doubt for a single second that their belief will falter. As for this man…” She pointed her sword at Senn. “He swore an oath more sacred. He swore to protect me, honour me, trust in me… in sickness or in health, in times both good… and ill…  ‘till death do us apart… And as a Sentinel of the Crúnian Aegis, breaking such a covenant would be an act more heinous and cowardly than even letting an alleged “Kingslayer” walk away from her crimes.”

Sunny nudged Zephyr lightly. “Hey, partner. This seems like we might have to do somethin’ if we want Freyja to come out of this clean. What do you say? We’re in hot water enough already, but…” Sunny motioned toward Senn with her head, a disapproving scowl on her face. “Justice don’t serve itself when the government types get involved. Not even when he was her husband.” 

Zephyr gave a slow, solemn nod, her eyes not leaving the scene as her ring glowed ever so faintly with a bit of energy. “I cannot begin to understand, in this moment, what drives me. However, a life debt can never be ignored, and neither can a knight who forsakes his eternal oath. By your leave, Sunny.” 

Without a word, Sunny nodded. She tapped Zephyr’s shoulder with the back of her hand, a signal to follow as she pushed her way forward through the crowd. Her eyes fixated on the village chieftain near the front of the assembled villagers. Her hand on his shoulder, she spoke in quick, low tones.

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir. Freyja helped us two travelers on the road before. I’d like to see to her health, too. Ain’t there any way out of this place, besides the entrance? A tunnel, an old mineshaft, something?”

When the hushed excitement emerging from the crowd died down again, Freyja and Senn remained in place, weapons at the ready and gazes unwaveringly locked. Their bitter exchange of words had been cut short by the townspeople’s chattering, but neither side felt it had escalated to a point of violence being warranted — so, they just stood there, like two famished dogs eyeing the same prey.

Without taking his eyes off the tense encounter unfolding before him, the chieftain responded to Sunny’s question. “See that walkway with the broken railing, up there to my right?” he spoke under his breath, “You can’t see it from here but if you follow it around the corner, it’ll lead to one of the cave farms that goes all the way to the other side of the mountain. Wouldn’t recommend it, though. That place’s a death sentence.”

The chieftain’s brow furrowed as he noticed the pile of snow behind Freyja’s heel ever so slightly shift. Slowly, but steadily, she appeared to be changing her footing, even if her stare remained fixated on the man facing her just a few feet away.

“Ah…” the chieftain mouthed, “I believe she’s got a plan.”

Senn was the first to attack, lunging forward with a raised shield and a sword drawing an overhead arc through the morning fog. Before he could close the distance, however, Freyja raised her sword, bathing the town square in darkness.

Sunny grabbed onto Zephyr’s shoulder, as the crowd milling and pushing around in the darkness threatened to separate them. “Is this what she can do with her–” Sunny trailed off, realizing it unwise to voice her thoughts aloud concerning magicites. A particularly large man– maybe the chieftain– bumped past her, knocking her hat off her head. The cord caught it around her neck, saving it from falling into the inky blackness.

Sunny continued, quieter but closer to Zephyr to be heard over the chatter of the crowd. “We gotta get Freyja somehow and make it through that tunnel. I need to see if I can make us a light.” Sunny held her hand low, under the level of the crowd. The slightest light in this darkness would catch the eye of the knights, like a distant campfire on a midnight mountain. 

Light. That was what she needed, and the magic to cast it with. Sunny hadn’t used magic in years. She thought back to when the town healer had taught her to cast Cure. The petrified wood tassels on his cloak had clacked together as he raised his arms. Her small child’s hand disappeared into his large hands, brown and cracked and hot like mud baked in the sun. And he showed her what the flow of magic felt like. 

Sunny had only to remember the feeling of that flow. The magicite in the pouch at her hip awakened automatically in response, joining its flow with hers. A tiny sunflare winked into existence in her palm, shimmering and casting off rainbow rays of light. 

Zephyr stared at the light for awhile, especially given it was the only thing she could see. ‘Of course’, she thought to herself, closing her eyes as realization began to set in. ‘If this is what we need… not to fight, but to flee, then this light would be our guide. Come on, Freyja… surely you see this as well. Odin… follow Alexander’s light, and let us leave this place, while we still can…’

Following her senses, she turned her head towards where she could sense Freyja, as if trying to will these thoughts of hers into motion, hoping beyond hope that this would work as she felt the gods intended. 

In the meantime, several similar lights were ignited amidst the darkness. One illuminated the face of  an Aegis paladin, hastily looking around as she held up her shimmering hand, but the light quickly vanished when a large snowball hit her square in the face. Another lit up a second armoured figure drawing their sword, only to be tackled from behind, three more townspeople joining in in an attempt to pin them down. A third light, upon closer inspection, was not a static source of light at all. It zoomed towards Sunny and Zephyr, radiating a scorching heat that grew even more intense until it dissipated against Frejya’s shield.

“You’re sitting ducks like this. Smother it.”

Crouching down, she grabbed Sunny’s wrist and tugged. A voice in the distance shouted her name.

“This might feel a bit funny,” she muttered. “Grab Zephyr.”

Within a split second, the darkness swallowed the threesome, and mere seconds later, the sounds of battle that had rung so clearly now sounded distant. The next thing they felt was the surface they were standing on shaking and a loud clang cutting off what remained of the rumour outside. Then, the lights went on.

The Crúnian coat of arms stared the group in the face as soon as their sight returned. The distinctive sigil was stamped upon a tarp, which was fastened to the floor to keep the crates beneath from sliding around. From inside the crates came the clanks and clacks and clinks of weapons, whetstones, and bottles knocking against each other as the crates were jostled about. 

The wind howled from outside. The floor rose up sharply, the upward pressure threatening to buckle their legs. The cacophony of sounds from within the crates rose to drown out the wind, then the room stabilized again. 

 Sunny stumbled away from the group, towards a collection of cots that served as a field infirmary. “What in the name of… What just happened?” 

Zephyr, meanwhile, was holding herself up on a crate, shaky and disoriented as she looked around. She wasn’t necessarily a stranger to the magic of moving from one place to another, though she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it herself, but the where was what threw her balance off.

“Are… are we on an airship, Freyja?!” 

“This is our only way out.”

In the middle of the large hold, a sturdy flight of stairs ascended up to an impressive set of massive wooden doors, which slowly and sluggishly slid open as Frejya flipped a switch — the hissing sound emerging revealing a complicated mechanism hidden within.

“Up. Quickly. We need to be out of here before the darkness dissipates.”

Sunny hurried over and started up the stairs. “An airship? Their airship? You wanna steal it and fly outta here?” A mischievous grin played across Sunny’s face, her large eyes growing even wider. “Well, I like the way you think, partner.” 

Zephyr stared, incredulous, for a long moment before finally giving Freyja a slow, single nod, taking a deep breath as she centered herself on her feet. “Lead on, then”, was all she said. 

Wordlessly, the threesome hurried up one flight of stairs after another and rushed through corridors and hallways as they made their way up the airship’s various decks. The industrial brutality of the lower decks eventually made way for more elegant interiors, culminating in a bridge that resembled a palace salon more than the heart of a warship. Freyja had been here before, in a time long past, back when the ship had been used for diplomacy of a softer kind.

Yet she didn’t have time to let her memories sweep her away. The darkness that extended well into the skies one should have been able to see from the large window offering a panoramic view of the ship’s surroundings, had started to dissolve.

“Zephyr,” she yelled out, pointing at a large desk off to the left. “You’ve been on a ship before, you’re  in charge of navigation. The astrolabe should figure itself out.”

With a worried sigh, Frejya sat down in the pilot’s chair, flicking a number of switches.

“Sunny, take the stairs up to the upper deck. I’m assuming you don’t want to leave your horse behind.”|

“Wha– you mean we’re not stopping to pick her up?” In her head, Sunny realized that was a foolish suggestion– they could ill afford to stop with the paladins in pursuit– but the idea of abandoning Tess was so far from her mind she couldn’t help but react in surprise. Muttering under her breath, she dashed up the stairs to the upper deck.

Her hand went instinctively to keep her hat on her head as the wind surged over her. She looked over the closest rail to the bridge entrance, and, finding it on the opposite side as the village, ran across to the other rail.

Inside the cleft, most of the village was yet shrouded in darkness, but the torchlights of the stable at the cleft’s entrance were just barely visible. Sunny put her fingers to her lips and whistled as loud as she could, so hard her lungs ached. Everything depended on Tess hearing.

A moment later, Tess burst out of the stable entrance, knocking the stable doors against the stone doorframe with a loud crack. Sunny sighed with relief, coughing from the exertion of her whistle. Tess could follow along for a short time while they figured something else out. 

In the meantime, Freyja took a deep breath and slowly pulled back the long, slender lever to her right. A loud whirring resounded through the cabin as the airship sprung to life like an ancient dragon awakening from its slumber. The wooden floor underneath her feet started to shiver and rumble, but all the furniture remained miraculously in place when she placed her hands onto the large steering wheel and gently tilted it towards her. It worked. She had never flown one of these before, but she had seen others at the helm, and knew years of technological development had made the Crúnian Bismarcks relatively easy to tame, even in a layman’s hands. As she felt the ship gaining altitude, she turned to the girl at the navigator’s desk:

“Where’re we headed?” 

The mage had spent the last couple minutes carefully surveying and studying the equipment to which she had been unceremoniously assigned. She wasn’t exactly an expert with regards to technology, though neither was she in such a state of mind that she couldn’t have learned. Still, this was the first time she had ever set foot in an airship, and she hadn’t had the time to protest when she was given the duty of navigation based on her experience of being practically a stowaway on a ship to this continent in the first place, so her reply to Freyja’s inquiry, one could think, was all but expected.

“…East.” 

A blast of wind ruffled the maps and charts in the bridge as Sunny returned through the hatch, windswept. “Tess is followin’ us for now, but she can’t keep up forever. I don’t suppose we have time to set down while those knight fellas are chasing us.” 

Freyja grit her teeth, pulling another lever on the dashboard.

“I’m lowering the platform. If I get it close enough to the cliffside, you think she can hop on?” 

“Hop o–” Sunny exhaled. “Well, I ain’t saying she couldn’t, but whoo, what a jump. You better make sure the heights match up well. I ain’t jumpin’ it if it means breaking her legs. I love her and I ain’t doin’ her like that.” 

“Don’t think we’ve got much of a choice at this point!” Frejya replied, jerking the wheel to the side as a shimmering projectile just barely zoomed past, forcing the airship closer to the steep, rugged mountainside.

“We’re flying too low to avoid the mountains, and too slowly to be out of range once they get the other ships fired up. I’m sorry, but you have to take the risk!”

At that point, the deafening shockwave of a meteoric fireball grazing the shift’s left flank, almost knocked her off her feet. Instinctively, she steered the ship to the right, only to correct when she heard a scraping sound indicating she was flying too close to the large wall of solid craggy rock.

She grunted. “Zephyr! Think you can throw up a shield?”

“A… A shield?! I’m not that kind of mage–”, she stops, mid sentence, then after a thought, gives a nod. “…I have an idea.” Zephyr closes her eyes, mumbling a bit to herself. At the same time, around the back of the ship, a thin sheet of ice forms, gliding along as if pulled by the ship itself, and blocking the incoming projectiles. 

“Sunny, we don’t have much time..!” 

“Gosh, I know, I’m on it!” Sunny sprinted from the bridge, back down the stairs the way they came. As she reached the cargo level, she caught a view through a rear porthole of a fireball impacting the ice shield behind the ship, leaving a glowing and rapidly melting crater. Kasimira aside, Sunny had never seen Fortenburg have such potent mages in their ranks.

Sunny located the loading platform primarily by the direction of the gales tearing through the lower decks. As long as she was running into the wind, she reckoned, she was heading in the right direction.

An oblong, gaping hole greeted her on the lowest deck. Even drawing near was a challenge, the winds blasting up out of the hole rampaging around the hold like a bat in an oven. The loading platform was never meant to be lowered mid-flight.

Squinting, barely able to open her eyes, Sunny saw Tess running along the cliff below. She had no time to be lacking courage.

Sunny leapt onto one of the telescoping struts that held the platform, sliding down to the loading platform below. For a mercy, the wind lessened outside the closed environment of the hold, and was even lesser on the loading platform close to the cliffside. Sunny thanked her stars for the good fortune of the terrain. Tess was running along a smooth mountain road that ran beside a steep drop-off, with only thick scrub and a few steeply angled trees to stave off further erosion. It was an ideal formation for what she was about to attempt. Sunny took a step back against the railing, and took a deep breath.

She charged forward and leapt from the edge of the platform. She came down just short of the mountain path, skidding down the slope in a hail of pebbles. She seized some of the brush on the hillside. She felt the plants’ sinews creak and strain, but they held, and she came to a stop. 

The world seemed to spin for a moment, to be so still after being aboard the airship. Tess ground to a halt on the road above her, rearing and looking wild-eyed over the drop-off her rider had tumbled down. With a sigh, Sunny climbed up.

The peace didn’t last long. As if to declare her break over, the roar of the airship’s engines overhead assaulted her ears. From around the ridge to her left came the chocobo riders in pursuit, shouting things she couldn’t hear. Sunny knew well what they were capable of. While horses had the advantage in strength and endurance, chocobos were superior in speed and agility, which would be more important in this situation. Chocobos at a dead sprint would catch them any day of the week.

Sunny pulled her revolver from her hip and fired, though only at the ground in front of them. Without proper training, any mount animal was driven into unreasoning terror by the noise. The moments it would take the riders to regain control would be enough. She had no need to kill these men.

In almost the same motion, Sunny climbed into Tess’s saddle and urged her forward. In a glance back, she saw the effect of the shot had been stronger than she thought. Sunny realized belatedly these were not Fortenbran chocobos, which had at least some experience with gunfire. They possibly had never heard a shot in their lives. They bucked and veered wildly, and one misplaced its foot on the edge of the road. Its rider pitched screaming from the saddle and plunged down the cliff. The plaintive cry of his chocobo as it scrabbled for footing in the brush was punctuated by the wet crunch of bone, as his midsection bent around a protruding tree, his only stop on his way down.

Sunny shivered in horror as Tess bore her away. That wasn’t what she meant to happen.

Tess pulling to the side beneath her brought her back to reality. The mountain road curved back into the mountain to the left, but the airship had swung around to be dead ahead, in the void beyond the curve. Tess had naturally started to steer left. Sunny squeezed her legs in. No. Straight.

Tess tossed her head to jerk the reins in Sunny’s hand to the left. Not left? Are you sure?

Sunny stood up slightly in the stirrups, leaning forward. Yes. Jump.

Sunny had but a moment to reflect on how few horses in the world would do this for her.

Tess’s hind legs planted at the end of the road, and she sprang forward. Sunny loosened her grip on the reins, letting Tess’s head stretch forward, and then they were in the air. Stay out of the horse’s way. Don’t fall behind in the motion. Chin up, eyes straight ahead. A gaze cast forward assures your horse that you have confidence that together you can overcome.

Their gentle arc through the air– always so long while they were in it, always so short after it was over– ended abruptly, as Tess’s forelegs hit the wood of the loading platform. It was impossible to come to a proper stop in such a short distance. Sunny turned them sharply to the left, and they slammed sideways into the rail at the back of the platform, Sunny putting her leg and hip into harm’s way to spare her companion. 

The view from the bridge didn’t give Zephyr enough of a view to see Sunny’s safety. The most she saw was the jump from the road, and after a moment, the mage closed her eyes, slowly counting down from thirteen. At the end of her count, she calmly looked over towards Freyja, her expression stone cold. “Go, now. Get us out of here.” 

“Time for this thing to show off if it’s really as good as everyone says it is,” Freyja hissed between her teeth, and turned the lever she had previously almost torn from the dashboard. After a dry click, it slid back into its original position, revving up the engines in the hold pulling the platform back into the airship’s stomach.

“Alright, hold on to your hat!”

With a grunt, she pulled the steering wheel’s top half as closely towards her chest as she could, causing the ship to pull towards the heavens like a swimmer in desperate need to air. When a loud clank confirmed the platform having reached the top of its short but perilous trip upwards, she pulled the lever to her right all the way down. Picking up speed, the airship nimbly dodged the few remaining spells that managed to reach as high and as far as it was flying at this point. As the paladins on their chocobos came to a halt and the end of the road where they had just seen a far more skilled rider pull off a miraculous feat, they had no choice but to lower their weapons and sigh as they watched one of their own ships disappear beyond the horizon.