3th day of Zun’s Rest, twelfth month of the year, 983:

  He had always liked fire. It kept the cold away. It dispelled the shadows. It erased the things he wanted it to erase. And it danced with an anger equal to his. Unforgiving. Unrelenting. Lastly, it had been the gift his blood from his mother's side had given him. The magic element that had gotten him admitted in the capital’s University. It had given him many gifts, and had protected him and the ones close to him.

  That night it, too, was working hard. It bathed tens of houses in its fiery embrace. The burning homes, sources of hundreds of screams. The air around the village had grown so hot that it was melting the carpet of snow. Some victims of its embrace were throwing themselves from the windows, doors to smaller Nethers, and falling as blackened and carbonised mockeries of what they once were. Crackling in the same way the wood suffered the inferno, some weakly twitched, still trying to live. Others rolled around in a frenzy, panic overwhelming the knowledge of their inescapable demise. The most were unmoving, the fires having already consumed them wholly. Thin, wide, short, tall, poor, rich. All were embraced the same. Breathing in the burning air, filled with ash and cinder, he felt euphoric.

  “Serves you right!!” He cackled, witnessing the destruction he alone had brought. His shaken mind had no space left for guilt or pity, even as they struggled to enter. Even as those emotions screamed ‘This isn’t right!’ Nevertheless, this village was not a warzone, and not all of the traitors had been inside their homes.

  Seeing them run towards him, Noct smiled, his face already tainted with the result of his fire magic. They themselves had declared this rebellion after all. They should have been prepared for the consequences. They should have been readied. They should have stopped him with extreme prejudice. Yet only ten were rushing at him. Most with pitchforks, scythes, sickles. Mere farming equipment. Two with swords. Another three, with longbows, were rushing towards the nearby forest, looking to provide long range support.

  Standing in the middle of the conflagration, Noct had a plan. When they were reaching him in the middle of the village, he snapped his fingers, activating the spell circle inside and around the village that he had carved with fire. It started to shine white. The smoke that was running away, flying to try and warn anyone of this tragedy, slowed down its march and, as if a giant was blowing it away, it slowly returned to the village. A wind shield around the village made itself visible, trapping all of the increasingly hotter and hotter smoke inside. Himself, a prepared mage, was not susceptible to such basic attacks. The peasants, on the other hand, weren't so lucky. Some tried to hold their breath as their eyes burned. Others breathed in ardent breaths, permanently damaging their lungs and starting to choke. It was an indifferent decision, for their bodies needed to breathe and so they betrayed them, condemning them to agonising deaths.

  Only the bowmen were far enough. Taking advantage of the black cloud that created endless shadows, he dived into them, reappearing behind the third bowmen. The other two had started to run. The third had fallen to their knees, not believing the destruction a single person was capable of. Noct simply impaled without turning around, his mind already on the other two. Noct missed the face of the woman, filled with pure hopelessness. Indeed, for watching as everything you knew and loved burned away was a curse not many could endure.

  …..

  On and on he slashed, dancing death’s waltz for people he had not chosen to fight. Alone. Behind enemy lines. A cacophony of metal, screams and the sound of tearing flesh, all his doing. He cleaved. He evaded. He blocked and parried. His armour defended and buckled. His and their feet splashed around blood covered mud under an autumn rain, unable to clean the blood spilled.

  The wounds mounted up. The bodies too, proving to be a danger for him, as he needed to move around when fighting against a high number of enemies. Rebels to the Countess, they were veteran soldiers. Their equipment was high quality, causing them to be a real danger for him for, as a binder magician, his armour was starting to get damaged quicker than it could repair itself. But it withstood another test of blood and fury. His longsword bended and broke, too chipped to keep working under this stress. He had to resort to both his fist and scavenging or equipping his enemies’ weapons. Breaking necks. Pommel striking. Asphyxiating with waves of shadows. He fought for what seemed an eternity, only standing thanks to reinforcement and stamina recovering magic. He continued until he murdered and butchered the last man, a pitiful youngster no more than sixteen, son of one of the men that laid as corpses on this forest clearing.

  Not his first time, he stabbed his brains out to grant him a quick death. His hands shaking, his legs not being able to power through anymore, he fell to the ground. Now in a sitting position, he heard himself mumble some sort of prayer. His hand crossed his face, exchanging grime for grime. What was he pleading for? He already knew that only the demons could hear them, for the Gods had already discarded them. They would find no solace in an afterlife. And he would have to carry what he had done today.

  ……

  Was he a monster? He asked, watching as his sister ran away crying. One could never suppress their demons for eternity, and the ones from the battlefield were harder. They startled, they were surprised, they saw enemies in shadows, enmity in common gestures. Were these all excuses? He knew neither his past nor his emotions justified lashing out on others. But had he done…

  His gaze turned to his sword, embedded deeply into the wall of the room. Blood started to gush out of it, sliding down the wall and making a pool on the stone ground. He had snapped in front of a child. Now he understood the looks of the soldiers. Of the enemies. Of the victims. Had he been fighting wrong for the right reasons? In the end, what did the throne or the barony matter? Wasn’t he doing this for the future of his sister?

  The black edge of his sword reflected light, as if saying “Are you really asking that now?”

  He grunted and grabbed a chair. Dozens of wood pieces bounced right away, causing an enormous mess. A dam broken, he continued tearing apart his room until there was nothing inside but splinters and broken pieces. The mirror was last. The pain of his fist was dwarfed by the joy of seeing his image banish.

  Sighing, he fell to a sitting position on the dry floor. Feeling like he was sinking into the pool, he gazed at that same edge. Would a bit more of blood change anything? Would his do? It would be easy. Rise from the ground, gr…

  Screaming, Noct jumped out of his bed, cold sweat tainting his night clothes and making them stick to him. No caution was needed, the walls were thick and his room was on the other side of the future baroness’. Taking slow breaths, he let his body shiver. His gaze turned to the window, still as dark as midnight. It was a bad habit of his, getting sick of the day before dawn had even come. His empty gaze returned forward and he casted a spell to dry himself. Adrenaline still pumping, he decided to grab his training gear. That energy was timed short and, tired from sleepless nights caused by paperwork and nightmares, he casted a recovering stamina spell.

  Not having the stomach to have some breakfast, he phased outside and started his training, undisturbed. Today he finished before dawn, not really wanting to encounter Mulia. She had become more natural in her interactions, more real. Knowing that the only reason it could have been given was pity was soul draining. Today he had no energy, instead teleporting to the Forge. He had better things to do than stare at the face of someone who should be hating him by every right.

  Getting out of the shadows, he appeared in the underground of the castle. Well, that statement was false, for the underground of the castle had the dungeons, this portion not being connected either. It was a layer under the city that helped to maintain the sewer system and that he had…customised for his private endeavours. And, nowadays, it housed the repair team of the sewers, his army of undead.

  Opening his eyes, dozens of rows of skeletons laid in wait, only living for the next orders that had yet to arrive. A new batch of about two hundred, adding to the total number of a thousand five hundred undead armed with personally forged iron armour, swords, spears, axes and shields.

  The “recruiting” room was thrice the size of his throne room, his night vision not being able to perceive the walls surrounding it, only dozens of columns. Amidst the new undeads a spell circle was drawn, shining in sickly green. To call it a circle could be taken as disrespectful, as it was incredibly complex. Layer upon layer, it extended around a surface of five hundred square metres. It had been had to be drawn around the columns, taking them into account to incorporate them into the spell. Hundreds of different parts harmonised into a chorus of grey mana, the essence of necromancy. It had several definitions. Some called it a parasite form, others a curse, most a corruction force. It was but transformed blue, or normal, mana that had changed its structure.

  Naturally weaker, if approached by blue mana it would also return to its original form, for the world was not as kind as to permit weakness. The trick to its survival, then, laid in where it resided. Out in the open it dispersed. But combined with lifeforce, it festered into a, by the living’s definition, parasitic relationship with the host. It now was able to be the one who converted blue mana, adding the new mana to the host creature. This process could be said to “kill” the host creature.

  What’s more, this “dying” partnership now acted as a trap, collecting and feeding of the atmospheric mana as if there was no future, continually increasing its mana reserves and substituting the need for sustenance. Add to that that grey mana was way easier to use, as the lifeforce in it made it both very malleable and impossible to alter by outside forces, and carried a bigger punch, it was no mystery why undead were so feared. Unfortunately, this effect was permanently radiated from grey mana that had been combined with lifeforce. That’s the why of the prejudices against necromancers, taking them as evil old withered men. Well, it was less of a prejudice than the truth of the matter, as using grey mana would inflict the user with a case of undead. This caused the lifeforce to degrade into a less efficient source that would, in due time, recover and continue increasing as the undead lived…not died.

  All in all, this more powerful and less trickier, for undead, mana had potency only rivalled by the fear and hate it was looked at with. Tainting itself with a distinct sickly and diseased green, a spark could very well burn down a house while its blue counterpart would need a bucket to do the same. Finally, it was most effective when used against blue mana, as it ate away at the very own spell, turning blue mana into grey.

  This turned it into a highly priced tool for battle mages. The catch, however, was that grey mana spells could only be casted, from starters, with grey mana. Trying to do otherwise would condemn the spell to an incoherent mess that would be eating itself along the way. Its lower rate of synthesis also barred the usual feeder circles, as the atmospheric mana would need a lot of time to be converted.

  Now, its effects on the body vary a lot among the users. Grey mana was the one who granted skeletons, lichs and zombies the ability to move, the strength beyond their rotting, or lacking, flesh, and the ability to speak. On living beings the opposite would be true, as the decayed lifeforce would fight against the still healthy one. The drawback would be the complete inability to be able to use blue mana before it has been absorbed, a slow process that could only be hastened by using recently deceased corpses layered with magic formulae or living batteries after injecting those with grey mana.

  All in all, the greatly empowered Inquisition and laws against undead could be taken as completely justified, necessary or maybe even a bit lax for, if all that had been revealed sounds bad, it is but the tip of the iceberg. It looks evident but only a fool would use grey mana for a direct duel or for power or potency. Its potential lay in creating untiring armies.

  That was the spell Noct had crafted so long ago. Of course, it had been very fine tuned. Normal necromantic spell circles were very simple. They only needed a corpse and a few reanimation formulas to bring back the soul of the deceased, twisting it beyond recognition and trapping it under eternal servitude. This, of course, gave the creations twisted or non-existent personalities, elevating the difficulty of controlling high numbers. Also, the current hypothesis for the hate of low ranked undead towards the living is that it comes from a place of either greed and envy for the living or hate towards their own existence and their jailors. Could be the two.

  The reanimation formulas were visible in the middle of the spell circle of the room. The other four hundred ninety nine square metres were for crafting a soul instead of simply bringing the deceased’s back and to protect the spell of mistakenly incorporating an original soul. This completely debunked all of the advantages of an undead, as they would appear without memories or knowledge and would only be able to follow very precise orders than a marionette could do. The process was extremely mana heavy, causing it to be unable to produce undead in any meaningful way. The only benefit, if it could be called that, was the opportunity for the new undead to turn into an “independent” being which could learn and reason. Of course, all undead had servitude formulae embedded in them, and this one was no exception. No creation should be allowed to go against their creator. That would be tabo.

  The results were already in view for, while the new undead were irresponsible, the undead that were manning the spell circle and taking account of the new one gazed at their creator, their eye sockets’ light burning brighter with glee. It was not everyday they could meet, or see, their creator. Some dared to wave with their hands, not wanting to disturb their busy lord. Noct waved back, a smile in his face while he tried to repress the urge to look away. The internal shame that grew under those earnest and bright looks. Even if for the wrong reasons, he had never regretted creating the first three nor the rest that followed. He had created a family, a place for himself, a home. Had it been thanks to weak excuses such as “A few more wouldn’t hurt.”, “A highly skilled force would be useful.” or “The underground city is too big, I need more workers for proper maintenance.”? Damn right it had been. He refused to think of another reason. That had been in the past. He had sworn to himself to protect them now.

  Taking a profound and deep breath of the dusty, moulding and stale air of the underground he nodded towards the nearby skeletons and slowly walked towards the forge. Not five steps later, three skeletons appeared from different teleportation magics, one of them simply walking, and stood in front of their lord.

  The first of the three, cladded skull to feet in heavy plate armour engraved with symbols to the Sun God of justice and order, Zh?n, greeted Noct first.

  “A pleasure seeing you today, m’lord. Do you need our help in any way, shape or form?” Standing proud, it seemed deceptively big, as its armour hid its skeletal frame.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Noct shook his head. “I just came to check on how things were. Everything alright?”

  Lantraz nodded, “The training of the new undead is going great, if I can boast about my training abilities. I am sure we could fight toe to toe with the Empire itself!” The fire in Lantraz`s eye sockets turned yellow.

  Before Noct could answer, the second “skeleton”, which was an unnaturally beautiful woman in its mid twenties, interrupted. “Noct! I have missed you! We all have! I have great news!” Bright and luminous red irises that surrounded predatory pupils. Bone white hair. Clothes that of a highborn lady.

  The third skeleton, bones visible as their magician robes didn’t cover all its frame, shook its head and, gazing at Noct, nodded as its welcome.

  Not noticing his half smile, he scoffed, somewhat entertained already. The usual regret also came as he talked with the three of them. He should push them away, yet he never could have brought himself to. That was another fault found on him.

  “Can it wait a bit, Eve?” Asked Noct, knowing what it wanted to say seeing as it had teleported here. “I would prefer to finish the checks with Kal.”

  Feigning a frown, Eve nodded, letting the two of them retreat to the experimental farms on the underground.

  Not wanting to waste time, Kal started before they even entered. “The last batch of mushrooms has already grown. It is as we had hoped, m’lord. They work.”

  Noct lightly laughed in contentment. Kal had managed to achieve heavy results even after he had had to stop collaborating on the research as life on the surface got more…complicated. A mushroom with a life cycle of days. The alcohol manufacturing would be at their knees, begging for spores. What’s more, it generated a lot of heat, decreasing the costs of increased water usage for the breweries. The current plan was using it on the sewage system to help with the treatment and create large quantities of fertiliser, for now. If it proved stable then they would share it. Grabbing some paper, he started to write a letter.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Kal. Is the comestible breed still toxic?”

  “Slightly. It will take more trials to develop.”

  “I see. We still have a lot of work to do then.”

  Kal nodded and cleaned the table of the research room of experimental samples. An almost dark room illuminated by both the small greenish glow of the fire of the eyes’ sockets of Kal and the crystal lamps that shone the same as sunlight. His barony had been able to find a vein of them inside the forest and, as they had started to exploit it, he had started the construction of fuelless lanterns and lamps. “They illuminate little but it can be upgraded with proper enchantments. Once we have made enough of them I will upgrade the city. I really should thank the craftsmen. They have done wonders with the books of crafting I smuggled here. The problem will be teaching the Guilds above.” Thought Noct.

  Once he got up from the chair, a green smoke came from the small cracks of the room’s stone walls and turned into Eve.

  “See? And you didn’t believe me.” Having waited enough, it dropped from the ground and landed gracefully. Its red eyes were added to the light sources, these always tracking Noct.

  “You do crush my expectations to dust every time. How did you manage it? It's beyond me. I started to teach you shadow magic two years ago and you are already at my level. You will leave me behind at this pace.” Softly laughed Noct, pride overflowing from him.

  “Well, I do have a lot of time in my hands.” Said with a happy smile.

  Cooling down after that casual reply, he sobered up, “That…is certainly right. My apologies for bringing it up. I still can’t let you live under the sun.” Whispered Noct.

  Flustered, Eve tried to console him after realising its blunder, “It wasn’t in that way, Noct! I truly am delighted to be here, and to exist with you and all of my siblings. I know you can’t do more.”

  “I could always let you go up, damn the consequences.” Drily said Noct, cursing his inability to tackle the issue without being tried for heresy. “It still pains me to remember your cheerful face when I gave you the appearance of a human knowing I cannot remove the special aura your mana gives, a run of the mill mage could detect it easily enough.”

  “You made it for me after I asked you to. I wanted to feel the air currents hit me, I wanted to be able to eat and taste food, I wanted to sleep and dream. And you granted me that greedy wish of mine. There’s nothing you ought to apologise for.” It had the unwavering gaze of something that had truly made peace with itself.

  “....” Noct looked to the side, evading those earnest eyes. But that act caused him to question himself. Did he want to be punished? Yet he knew he deserved it. They may not know, but their reality, Eve’s body, had had another backer. The partnership had lasted not a year, yet he had acted under their orders. Didn’t that make this trust undeserved?

  “Talking about eating, it’s been a few weeks, hasn’t it?” It said with a devilish smile, its movements now changing. Slowly stalking towards Noct, it stopped a few feet away from him.

  “Right. I almost forgot” Answered Noct. Rolling up one sleeve, he extended his left arm towards Eve, which had restarted its stalking towards him. “Still, I cannot but think that I was selfish creating you all those years ago. It was out of a desire to not want to be alone. Was it truly something as noble as you put it?”

  Stopping in its tracks, it asked with a bit of fear in his voice. “Everything’s alright, Noct? You have been awfully depressed these past months. It’s not like you to ask for validation nor to be so idiotic.” It resumed its stalk and neared his mouth to his ear, whispering softly, ”Of course what you did was selfish, but living is selfish. Birthing a child is selfish. Eating another living being is selfish. Being nice is selfish. The key is if you intended to hurt or to do good. You gave us, me, a home. Do not dare to step all over our happiness. You are our family because you made it so, and, if it gives you the validation it appears you lack, we chose to be a part of it. Every single day. Every time.” Once it finished, it softly bit into the elbow joint and started to suck the red nectar its physical form required to sustain itself.

  After all, Eve was a vampire. An artificial one but a vampire nonetheless. An undead with undead lifeforce in the guise of a normal body. One which acted and looked like one of the living beings of the world. The true masters of undead, having the perks of actual degraded lifeforce coupled with an organic body with muscles. In exchange, they only needed a bit of food in the form of blood, a thing that also increased their grey mana as they extracted lifeforce from their targets. Nonetheless, all vampires would call this disadvantage as an upside, for it let them still enjoy the luxuries of mortal life and the meaning that came with them. That last part was a bit of a problem with lesser, more true undead. It is difficult to find a drive to do things when you can do nothing and live still, like skeletons, and that slows their learning capabilities considerably.

  The vampires of old had made a game out of it, acting as predators stalking the living. They dabbled in seduction or in their fields of magic, invented by themselves as millenia went and go. Most had just taken what they had wanted, slaving their favourite cattle thanks to the euphoria their bites caused in their victims. Still, for such arrogant and lowly undead, their legendary fall had forsaken entire libraries of knowledge with them. Their revival at the hands of a mere mortal should be making them turn in their graves, ever the more with Eve being artificially made.

  And the new vampire, as if having recovered their instincts, had the same drive as the bygone ones. The reason it had chosen a “human” body, transforming it into it, had been purely to try and entrap Noct in its greedy love for as many eternities as it could manage. Its creator was its. Not of that fake family or that ungraceful barony, but of his true family.

  Slowly stopping biting so the wound healed properly thanks to its spit, she cleaned the mouth and stared at him with half a smile. “We are here thanks to you. We live as we want thanks to you. Never forget it or we will get really angry.”

  Kal nodded from near the chest he had uploaded the samples, looking at Noct with the loyalty that could only be gained through actions over petty words.

  A bit flustered from the emotional monologue of Eve, Noct took a breath and answered, now tranquil, “...I see, thank you. I really do not deserve this world I have crafted here, in the dark.”

  …………

  Back to the ‘training area’, the initial room where he had sprung from, Noct was checking on the training

  Latraz was there, as always, training the skeletons on the noble art of warfare. He was also the one who oversaw the maintenance of the sewers and the living rooms of all skeletons, together with their education.

  Noct sat on the ground, a bit further away to avoid disturbing them, and watched them for a few hours. Perfect discipline, perfect and practised movements and a perfect formation. Damned be he, Latraz hadn’t been exaggerating, not that he had ever caught him lying since his creation. ‘He was a truly honest and good man.’

  “My Lord, it is always a pleasure to see you on the training grounds.” Noct almost jumped from the scare, ‘He still has the bad habit of being very sneaky when he wants.’ Noct would never admit it, but he liked the pranks sometimes he played on him.

  Maintaining his composed facade, Noct said, “I can see your earlier words weren’t a boast. The living rooms?”

  “All according to your code, m’Lord” His arm rested on his chestplate.

  “That’s good to hear. Anyone on a name basis yet?”

  “Well, only another three hundred, the rest are younger than five years.”

  “Great, bring them to the front, I will name them. Remember to tell them they can pick whatever job they want. We will manage.” Continued Noct as he rose from his sitting position.

  “Yes, m’Lord!” His fist hitting its chest plate again, it called upon the fortunate ones.

  …………..

  “It is almost time for you to leave us, m’Lord” Said Latraz, as it passed him a wineskin full of cleaned water.

  “Regretfully so.” Said Noct, tired. His throat parched, he took a swing. His gaze continued tracing the natural carvings of the wall in front of him.

  “Having trouble on the surface, m’Lord?” Looking ahead towards where the gaze of Noct was lost, it asked.

  “Eve playing the stalker?” Deflected Noct.

  “She would never.” Affirmed Lantraz. It surely could not have done it. He had had it in close watch. “You looked too solemn, treating them all with the highest of prides and your best words up to date.” Lantraz followed his gaze. “And you have started to build escape tunnels, m’Lord. I am starting to fear you are preparing for a near death experience.”

  Noct sighed. “I thought of myself as more subtle with these kinds of things. How did you find out?”

  “You insult me, my lord,'' Laughed Lantraz. “These are the lands you entrusted me with. Nothing gets built on them without being inspected and only after they meet the code you mandated, m’Lord.”

  “Well, it is always better to have second plans, isn’t it?”

  Turning to look at him, its green eyes lightly illuminating the face of Noct, Lantraz declared, “This is no second plan, Noct. Remember that I would rather forsake my faith, and all you have teached me, to drench the surface in a sea of flames and blood if it dared to harm you, m’Lord.”

  “Your faith and ideals shouldn’t be so shallow, Lantraz.” Spat Noct, regretting it instantly.

  Lantraz sighed, tired of the same fight. There were indeed a lot of carvings in that wall. “They aren’t, m’lord, and you already know.”

  “Do you ever regret them?”

  “.....Well, can’t say I have had the opportunity to. I have never been tested by the world. Maybe I would cover and run away if my life was in danger. Maybe I would really be a fickle and unjust man. A coward.“ He slowly unsheathed his longsword, a golden blade engraved with the mantra of Zh?n’s faithful ‘The Shield of the Weak’, forged by Noct, and watched as it caught on fire. The usual white and silent flames exhaled warmth and light.

  “But I will fight everyday to meet the expectations I have of myself. I truly do believe every life is sacred and that it is our duty to protect them, no matter what they are, or what they have done. If you would break a hundred chances, Noct, I would give you a hundred and one. I know what you did. I know of how many times you have fallen to the ground, almost surrendering and ending it all, one way or another.” Stabbing the sword on the ground and letting the flames lick his gauntlet, beneath it a clenched bone hand, he let his words sink.

  “And yes, I will beat you if need be. I will admonish you. I will scream at you for your wrongdoings. But, when you are on the ground, when you have lost your faith,“ Turning towards Noct, he lent him a hand, ”I will be there, like I am now, silently waiting for you to grab my hand. I will not let you surrender, m’Lord, nor will I let you give up and fall to evil. Never will I let you stop walking the path of good, but I will be here for both the bad and the good. I may not forgive, that’s, in the end, something you must work for yourself, but I will never hate nor leave. A hundred and one chances Noct, and I will stay, again, for the hundred and two.”

  “I see not the silence you boasted about when waiting for me to grab your hard, you fool.” Said Noct in a mocking tone, his eyes watering a bit, “Are you always going to be that upright bastard you always were?” Continued, grabbing his friend's hand.

  “The Gods already know I will be. And just you wait. Your cynic personality won’t hold out. You will gladly enter the ranks of the faithful, even If I have to continue to pester you for a millennium.” Chuckled Lantraz

  As he grabbed that hand, Noct smirked and opposed that resolution, “Keep dreaming you bone white ass zealot.”

  ……………….

  A light knock resounded in the room of Kal. It was as plain a room could be. A simple bed, a simple wooden chair and a simple table full of books on light magic. It had always loved light, the dancing of the fire, the shining rays of the sun, the magical emanations of the crystals, the glossy appearance of a true smile, the green painting of the forest of ‘the above’, it all gave him peace and hope. He also hated lies. The fake smile Noct had every time he came from ‘the above’. The lies Eve tried to tell herself to justify her avarice. The lies Noct always told them about his state of mind.

  It had learned to distinguish and how to bring both the things it loved most and the ones it hated. How to shine and light the way and how to lie and mask, all to try to help the one who had let it find meaning in hope. When it had lost hope of living outside, under the natural light and forest he so craved, Noct had sworn to build it a future. It still remembered when Noct had presented her a Dryad, he was but a bone puppet by them, but still he remembered the beautiful scenery of the forest.

  He desired a tree house, a fluffy mascot, a garden, and Noct would deliver. That he believed. But Noct also was part of that future, a home of them four on a simple life on the outside, on the so called ‘countryside’. It would rather help Eve in its schemes than to let Noct die like he was planning to.

  He silently opened the door and met Noct with a nod, which Noct answered with another and wordlessly sat on a chair and opened a book. Kal sat on his chair and continued studying. A few minutes passed and Kal went to Noct and asked a doubt it had on a spell, which Noct solved. A few minutes later, Noct rose up and made a nod to Kal, who put a hand on his shoulder and applied a bit of force to convey his feelings. Noct smirked, thankful for the gesture, and promptly phased back to the castle.

  ‘This,’ blissfully thought Kal, ‘this is the life I want.’

  A silent goodbye, but not an emotionless one, for when trust and affection grew above a degree, words stop mattering.

  …………………