And it was true; he was a lucky guy who didn’t get assassinated whatsoever.
Nor was he targeted for one, for the record. He had been overwhelmed off a platform by the Riftborn specters, lucky enough to land on another platform. Unlucky that it was straight into his ribs. Kai offered a deeply sincere apology for not being able to find Caleb in the rift. It had been his decision to search as long as they could before unraveling the core. Between the level of blight and the drastic shifts in reality, he had treated unraveling as a last resort, citing a lack of confidence in the rift ejections he’d seen in Tellur.
When the autopsy results came back, narrowing the time of death to roughly three hours on either side of their arrival, the mistake became obvious. They should have unraveled the core the moment they entered. Kai took full responsibility for the judgment call that exhausted his guildmate and missed the window to find Caleb alive.
Government staff were excruciatingly kind to the fox after that. Nico thanked them and tried to take the words to heart, eventually developing a catchphrase for the week: “I didn’t know it’d be like that.”
Despite the affirmations, the hospital staff occasionally caught glimpses of the fox lowering his eyes and letting his ears droop when he thought no one was watching. The staff hadn’t treated enough Lycans to consider he could smell or hear when someone was near enough to be looking.
It weighed on his mind.
What the fuck happened to Caleb.
Kai’s contact had texted a picture of the body as discovered—a wild decision already, but Kai had then propagated the sin by showing his phone screen to Nico. It was unappreciated. But the point was to see the reality: Caleb was found half-submerged in a stretch of swamp. No tree. No restraints.
Apparently, getting the picture sent to him was standard documentation and not implicating. Kai didn’t fight very hard to convince Nico that was true, but with some supplemental mental gymnastics, it almost lined up with his missing alchemist work.
Post-rift interviews followed. All relevant staff were questioned, with particular interest shown toward the Lycan alchemists. Many terse conversations were held right outside the fox’s hospital room as his patient privacy was eviscerated. Kai outlined, repeatedly and in detail, how the fox’s injuries, pain, medication, trauma, and mana depletion rendered him unfit to give a usable testimony.
The protection from drive-by interrogations was appreciated. Kai’s constant presence, however, made it impossible to tell who came from where and on behalf of which entity for what purpose—much to the fox’s chagrin.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kai said, carving apple wedges to look like they had rabbit ears. He’d become fairly deft at it, carving apples all week at Nico’s bedside.
“But I love being nosy,” Nico whined, decapitating a rabbit slice with a bite.
“You won’t like them.”
“I’m going to be upset if I find out online before you tell me.”
“They’ll start killing celebrities before letting it leak that an Arcanite Sage’s familiar died in a rift in ‘stable’ fringe territory.”
Nico groaned and sank deeper into his pillows, hitting the button for breakthrough pain because arguing with Kai made his lungs ache.
“Don’t do that,” Kai said, pushing a fourth pillow onto the fox.
Nico hugged it and mumbled into the fabric, “Then pull up the socials of whoever Aster sent for me.”
“I don’t want that in my search history.”
“You built a full psychological profile off of a picture of Caleb holding a fish.”
“Those were night thoughts,” Kai said, waving it off as he exited the room.
“That’s… what?”
Kai’s aide swapped places with him, greeting Nico with a small bow and polite pleasantries. She’d been rotating shifts with Kai to ensure Nico never, under any circumstances, had privacy.
“Have a lot of people from other nations arrived?” Nico asked, testing his luck.
“I was instructed not to disclose that information,” she replied cordially as a Lumean who arrived recently herself. “It’s important work stress doesn’t interfere with your recovery.”
“I’m stressed from FOMO.”
“I will accept that as the lesser of two stresses,” she skillfully countered.
“You’re contracted to the Vuongs, right?”
She nodded.
“So in your contract—”
The door swung open in a flash of polished garnet, bringing in the smell of mahogany.
“Oh, esteemed alchemist, I came the moment I heard of your condition!”
The Governor swept in with a small entourage of Arcanites, sunlight reflecting off his horn straight into Nico’s eyes, leaving the door open behind him. Nico caught sight of Kai sat outside the room, fully absorbed in his phone. Kai’s aide moved to the corner and pulled the window curtain closed, taking out her phone to text as well.
“I was admitted almost a week ago.”
“Ah, but the whole government quarter has been in disarray!” The Governor pulled out a handkerchief to dab away a single, sparkling tear, absolutely consolable. “It was only upon hearing the details of your failure to rescue Sage Aster’s familiar that I realized our guest from Eclipse was the one injured.”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“I’ve heard you’ve been inconsolable over such a tremendous loss.”
“Yes.”
“So I’ve prepared a gift to aid in your recovery,” the Governor said with a broad smile, full of teeth.
“…”
“…“
The Governor cleared his throat twice before Nico helped him out by staring dead-eyed into the soul of his assistant. The young Arcanite startled and rummaged through his inventory until he produced a small velvet box, which the Governor promptly seized out of his hands.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“This piece from the Forged contains the finest healing inscriptions,” he announced, opening and presenting it in his palm.
Inside lay a neatly folded embroidered handkerchief, a manasteel ring set delicately atop it.
“Your efforts did not prove fruitful,” the Governor sniffled before he continued, “but they were commendable.”
Nico gave the same dead-eyed stare as he accepted what looked like the Governor’s proposal for his hand in marriage.
“Thanks.”
“And I must insist, if you find yourself in need of anything, let me know and I will put the right person on it immediately.”
“Okay.”
The Governor gave him a solid nod and performed a tight about-face to the still open door. Kai intercepted him with a handshake.
Nico pressed his button again.
***
“Has your partner visited yet?” Lani chirped, swinging the question in between counting stitches on the Minny beanie she was crocheting.
Nico gulped down the rest of the water he had meant to sip.
Lani was outpatient now and doing well, though she still came back for routine check-ups. They’d bumped into each other on the hospital rooftop, lush enough to qualify as a botanical garden. It was the only place Nico was allowed privacy from the Lycans guarding him, and not without some begging. It wasn’t even a great prize, considering it was still humid as fuck outside. Kai had probably accounted for that, agreeing to the fox’s most self-limiting version of free time.
Every day since their “incidental” encounter, Lani had come up to soak in the sunlight with him, which felt frequent for someone who was outpatient. Her parents’ goodies began appearing in his hospital room as well: homemade meals and treats wrapped in delicate floral prints, carefully tied with ribbons that doubled as charms wishing him a speedy recovery. All of it was a welcome break from cafeteria food, enough to almost make him cry. It was incredibly sweet, even if he suspected the Ori had been nudged up to the roof by a certain wolf, confident he’d hear frantic chirping if anything went wrong.
“What was his name again?” she followed up with a left hook.
Nico dodged. “Uh, that’s confidential due to the nature of the mission.”
Lani gasped, her feathers fluffing, and mimed zipping her mouth shut. She was, again, very easy to accept the vagueness around Zhou. It was unclear whether she’d made the connection—having pulled the ribbons out of the sage’s hair herself—considering there was literally only one alchemist out there with his look. If he had to guess where the Venn diagram of alchemist social media for the gays and college-aged girls overlapped—
Nico shook his ears, his head dropping abruptly as he exhaled through the most painful thought dispelling of his life. As he kept his head down to avoid swearing in front of Lani, she tugged the beanie firmly down over his ears.
“Omg it fits really well!!”
“…” Two pastel green pompoms dangled into his line of sight.
“Can I take a picture??”
His ears perked, as did Minny’s jasmine sprout, suddenly bright with an idea. “…I’ll take a selfie with you if you do me a favor.”
Lani gasped again, her eyes sparkling at all the secrets she was being entrusted with.
“Can you fly back down to the lobby after this? I ordered food delivery and don’t want Kai to take it away.”
Kai had, in fact, been confiscating any food he deemed too junk-adjacent from the fox, often eating the items he’d labeled too high-sodium himself. Nico reminded her that he had broken ribs, not gout, so she shouldn’t feel bad about sneaking him food. She nodded and, just as enthusiastically, retrieved Minny merch from her inventory, eager to match with the alchemist in their picture. After a less enthusiastic promise not to post them, she jumped off the roof, which still gave Nico a shock—despite the whole bird thing.
He quickly pulled out his phone and swiped through food delivery apps, eager to eat—
Yeah right, he was getting out of here!
***
Nico ordered fries to the hospital twice, twenty minutes apart. The first gave Lani something to do. The second distracted Kai with something to snack on and wish hypertension upon him.
|| Skill Activated || [ ? Lycanthropy ]
What was the harm in sneaking out alone? He was merely injured enough to limit mobility, borderline mana-depleted, and a fresh target of assassination—but that had been a week ago! If he could manage a few plausible lies to a teenager and escape a facility that wasn’t actually detaining him, then surely he was capable of finding a patch of grass. This decision was not influenced whatsoever by a strictly controlled schedule of painkillers and muscle relaxers!
He wasn’t even leaving hospital grounds. The perimeter opened into a sprawling garden, lush in a way that felt unmistakably Virid. From his window, he’d already seen how manicured paths wound into private pockets of clover and wildflowers, dense shrubs and tall hedges partitioning the space until the only view left was sky filtered through leaves.
He mashed the close-door button for the entire ride down. The elevator bypassed the main floors and ran straight from the roof, which helped. The fox stumbled through the halls afterward, charming staff with his Minny beanie as it flapped in greeting along with his ears. He worked up a sweat on the way out—wearing a beanie in the summertime and all, not that other seasons were much cooler in Tellur—so he tugged it off and shoved it back into his inventory. (Lani had been thrilled to crochet one for someone who lived somewhere that actually got cold.)
He didn’t need to be conspicuous. It was fine if Kai found out later; he was leaving a hospital that always allowed that, not committing a crime. Still, he fully expected some kind of punishment to come out of this. Somehow. Eventually.
Finally making it to the garden, he pushed through a line of bushes and found a small clearing of wild daisies, shielded by the canopy. The shade, paired with a breeze that lifted the tired smell of disinfectant from his fur, was a much-needed relief. The fox circled a patch of grass, sniffing the flowers to his content. A massive yawn came out of him, and he leaned into it, paws stretching forward, ears pinned back. Enjoying the feel of fresh grass on his paws again, he kneaded into the turf for a long minute, savoring the softness of something that wasn’t a hospital bed.
He glanced back toward the hospital building and felt stuffy just looking at it. From inside his room, all he’d been able to see through the window was how nice it would be to lie out here in the garden.
Not quite able to curl up yet, he cautiously flopped onto his side and rested with his eyes closed. The warmth of the sun filtering through the shifting leaves was just right.
On the next breeze, the smell of jasmine drifted in, followed by the weight of a familiar hand between his ears.
??????
Nico kept his eyes closed and leaned into the palm, pressing his weight into it. He was too tired, too injured, and just loopy enough to force himself to forget he’d been caught making biscuits. The fox contentedly accepted the head scratches.
An amused hum sounded as he settled into the grass, his hand moving to rest on Nico’s back. Fingers brushed carefully through his fur, which was admittedly approaching mats from the hospital stay. The brief self-consciousness melted away as another sensation laced through his fur and sank into the ache. Nico’s tail swished against the grass, earning another pleased chuckle.
He raised his head just long enough to catch the violet glow beneath his fur, watching it ebb and flow, before relaxing back into the grass as the healing spread through his ribs, his tail wagging.
“How’d you find me?” he finally asked.
“Hm?” Zhou replied. “Why wouldn’t I know my favorite fox was at the hospital?”
Nico suspended all fox activity as he let out an internal whistle. His lungs weren’t quite capable of exhaling a scream. His ears immediately warmed, but hopefully they were already flushed from the sun.
“Also, you showed up where I was,” Zhou mused.
The fox lifted his head again, scanning the flat field of daisies. Was he hiding in the bushes? Nico accidentally made eye contact with the Sage as the slanderous thought crossed his mind. Zhou’s eyes cut into crescents. Nico flopped his ears against the ground in a huff, almost defiantly refusing to question it.
“I was just outside,” Zhou clarified.
“…”
Nico flopped his ears against the ground in a huff, not questioning it almost in defiance.
They sat together in the quiet for a long while. Zhou’s hand remained on his back, smoothing his fur as he activated his mana in gentle intervals. The urge to tell Zhou he was fine and to save his mana made it halfway out the door, but it couldn’t get past the overwhelming joy of the attention. Nico’s tail thumped softly against the earth every few moments, his paws kneading the grass in a slow, content rhythm. He was glad he was Zhou’s fox right now. It felt good to be found.
He shifted his head to let the thought drift out his ears and into the sun to get eviscerated.
“I’ll be going then.”
Nico whined a bit, which Zhou seemed to delight in.
“If you do that again I’ll stay for longer.”
The fox stayed completely silent, a modicum of pride suddenly finding its way home.
Zhou laughed and gave him a final headpat before standing. Nico heard the rustle of clothes and brush as the scent of jasmine drifted away.
Silence returned to the garden, punctuated by the chirps of birds. The fox relaxed back into the grass and closed his eyes, taking a deep, painless breath for the first time all week.
“Oh, I almost forgot.”
Nico reflexively raised a paw, eyes snapping open as his heart jumped.
“You dropped this.”
The item fell onto Nico’s wrist, its form obscured by the gleam it caught in the sun. Nico carefully flipped himself upright, too slowly to catch the Sage’s exit. The startle lit his ribs up with pain. He kind of wished he had yelped to make Zhou feel bad.
With an eye roll, he let the item slide off his wrist and took a closer look.
“…”
Shining iridescently in the daisies lay a manasteel circlet, embedded with opals.