After a night of war, after a feast of victory, after the revelations of history—life simply continued.
That was the beauty of survival. No matter how heavy the weight of knowledge, no matter how harrowing the truths unveiled, the world moved forward. And so did my bastion.
The cafeteria was quieter now, though not empty. It still carried the warmth of lingering embers from the grand banquet earlier. The overhead Theotech lanterns cast a soft, golden glow over the polished floors, the long tables still boasting the remnants of a celebration well-earned.
Thanks to my brilliant foresight—or rather, my overenthusiastic approach to cooking—there was still an abundance of food left from the feast.
Nothing wasted, of course. All preserved and ready to be retrieved whenever needed.
And at this mont, soone was indeed retrieving it.
Ishmael.
She moved with the quiet purpose of soone who had long grown used to existing within the periphery. Not unseen, but unnoticed. A presence carefully calibrated to neither intrude nor draw attention. Yet I noticed her—because I saw everything within my own territory.
She had just finished her little session with Viviane, and from the way her posture held a certain looseness, a quiet ease that wasn't there before, I could tell that a weight had been lifted.
A session like that must have been exhausting. And nothing replenished the soul quite like a good al.
As she moved to select her food, she wasn't alone for long.
Erika was there.
Ah, my little Deowl, with her ever-watchful eyes, always moving as if she had planned everything before it even happened.
Or maybe that the truth was she had already experienced everything and rely choosing which path to take that would lead to her intended future, or whatever that was embedded in her mind that allowed such a drastic change in term of existence and pattern of action.
I watched as she took the sa dish as Ishmael and, without hesitation, seated herself beside her. There was no formality in the action, no request for permission—just a simple declaration of presence.
Ishmael paused for the briefest second, acknowledging Erika's arrival with nothing more than a glance. She did not tense, did not react with caution.
Not yet.
Then Erika spoke.
"Are you doing fine?"
Simple words, but loaded with intent.
Ishmael, ever the one to feign ease, gave a sheepish little smile. "I'm fine. Just… feel like sothing's been lifted off my shoulders."
Not a lie, but not the whole truth either.
Erika, however, was not one to ander.
Without missing a beat, she leaned in slightly, her owl-like gaze gleaming with sothing that wasn't quite amusing.
"Has your mory returned yet?"
Brief. Barely a second. But I caught it.
Ishmael blinked, the edges of her composed expression faltering ever so slightly.
"Pardon?"
Erika, in her usual casual manner, elaborated as she plucked a piece of at from her plate.
"Viviane's fae magic should have stimulated your soul quite a bit," she mused. "Enough to bring back fragnts of what was lost. Surely, sothing must have returned to you?"
I leaned in—figuratively, of course, through my perceptive extension. Tis was interesting.
Erika wasn't just asking out of idle curiosity.
She was digging. And she was doing it with full awareness that I was listening. A deliberate, calculated move.
Ishmael realized the attempt, but not the intention. Her deanor shifted. The ek uncertainty vanished, replaced by a more asured composure.
She placed her fork down.
And then, her voice ca, smooth and guarded.
"Do you know sothing, Erika?"
Erika did not answer imdiately. Instead, in a movent almost too fluid, too precise, she tilted her head completely sideways, her eyes blinking slow and deliberate.
Then she smiled—a wide, closed-eyed, serene smile.
"I know that you left sothing untapped."
The words settled in the air, soft yet absolute.
A statent, not an accusation. A quiet revelation delivered with the certainty of soone who had already drawn her own conclusions.
Ishmael stiffened.
The tension in her fingers was barely perceptible, but I caught it. A subtle, involuntary tightening—muscle mory betraying her carefully crafted composure.
Fear. Anxiety.
A mont of hesitation—then the quiet, sharp inhale of soone preparing for the worst.
Her eyes flickered, shadows pooling beneath them as she asured her next words carefully.
"Does this an I will be deported from this bastion…?" she asked, voice quieter than before. "Did I just ss up…?"
Oh, how uncertainty clung to her.
Even though she had fought through the horrors of the Unloving Sea, even though she had braved twenty years of perpetual voyage across an endless nightmare, this mont—this simple conversation—was what rattled her.
The fear of being cast out.
The fear of losing sothing she had barely begun to believe was hers.
Erika, ever unfazed, lifted her hand in a light, dismissive wave, as if brushing aside the re notion of consequence.
"Oh, no, of course not." She plucked another piece of food from her plate, taking her ti with an unhurried bite. Only after swallowing did she continue, her voice as breezy and nonchalant as ever. "As of now, only I know this. Which ans you're fine… as long as I don't report it."
Ishmael's eyes narrowed slightly.
A flicker of calculation. A shift from fear to caution, perhaps?
"Is this a good idea to discuss in an open space?"
A fair question.
She was a survivor, after all. Her instincts were finely tuned.
Erika responded not with words, but with a vague, sweeping gesture—an effortless display of confidence that made it seem like she had already thought ten steps ahead.
She gestured toward the Heavenly Maids still enjoying their als, their elegant figures unbothered, chatting among themselves as if nothing unusual was happening. The Duolos vessels, ever composed, sat in placid silence, offering no reaction.
And then, with theatrical certainty, Erika declared:
"I've already cast a spell to prevent eavesdropping."
A lie.
A beautiful, effortless, bold-faced lie.
And what a delightful lie it was, because I could hear everything perfectly.
She hadn't cast anything. Not a single trace of arcane concealnt, not even the barest flicker of a veiling spell.
She simply didn't need to.
The Duolos and the Heavenly Maids weren't reacting because they already knew.
She hadn't cast anything. She simply made sure that those present had been inford beforehand.
I didn't really catch on back then when she asked for the cooperation of the Heavenly Maids since she didn't ntion anything related to Ishmael specifically, and I still couldn't really pry into her mind either.
And thus, the Duolos and the Heavenly Maids didn't react because they already knew to ignore the conversation.
An elaborate stage. A carefully crafted trap of words and circumstance—and Ishmael had already stepped into it.
Ishmael exhaled. Not entirely relieved, but reassured just enough to let her guard slip, if only a fraction.
Her shoulders eased. Her posture loosened.
And then, she spoke.
"I didn't tell the full truth about my Authority."
I barely held back a smirk.
Now that was sothing I hadn't pinpointed.
Expected? Yes. But pinpointed? No.
Charis and I, and to a great extension, the majority of my confidantes, all had already assud this situation.
The reason why we didn't pry further yet was due to an unknown limitation that we might break when carelessly venturing into the abyss.
Because solving a single limitation doesn't an rendering every other limitation tied to it.
Ishmael leaned forward, her voice dropping lower. "And the entity of light… there's more to it."
Erika did not react with surprise.
She rely listened. Patient. Serene. Unwaveringly sharp.
She tapped a single taloned finger against the wooden table, a rhythmic, thoughtful gesture, before finally murmuring. "Then elaborate." There was no force behind her words. No pressure. Just an open invitation—one that carried an undeniable certainty. "I understand keeping secrets," she continued, voice laced with an eerie kind of understanding. "But I want you to know that you're not alone in this…
"You see, I too… have encountered an entity of light."
She probably referred to , or maybe the delusional image of that she idolized so much.
It honestly felt nice to have soone who had this much of a passion for you.
That statent—that admission—hit Ishmael harder than I think even she expected.
Ishmael froze. Her lips parted slightly, the beginnings of a question forming, but no words ca. For the first ti in this conversation, she was genuinely caught off guard.
A shared experience. A thread of familiarity.
It was enough.
Slowly, carefully, she nodded.
"There are things I still can't say," she admitted. "So information is bound—unutterable through any thod of communication."
Erika nodded, as if she had already anticipated that answer.
And then—finally—Ishmael gave sothing new.
"The entity of light… it didn't appear just once." The weight of her words settled between them like a blade sinking into water. Ishmael looked left and right, scanning the room as if still unsure whether speaking this truth was a mistake. But the spell—or rather, the illusion of one—held. And so, she continued, "It appeared twenty tis. Over a span of twenty years."
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