Sleeping on her chair had been a concession Xeno had made only with great reluctance. She liked her bed, it was nice and soft- sort of charming with its unflattering thriftiness, and yet try as she might, the only thing her numerous attempts to get comfortable lying in it had resulted in were a constant jarring of her injured collar. By her estimate it had been around twenty minutes before she gave up, accepted defeat and dragged the light blanket with her good hand to the cold of her living room.

It had taken an age for her to get to sleep, and when she awoke her neck had the most uncomfortable ache to it, but if nothing else she hadn’t been pulled from her dreams by a sudden stab of pain at her collar bone.

She groaned as she looked around her room, heart sinking with the knowledge of what came next. After some minutes of putting it off and merely sitting there, Xeno gathered her courage and forced herself to stand. It was almost tempting to use magic. Knowing that her physical enhancement, pathetic as it was by the standards of most Sages and rendered far below even that by her persisting inability to draw out her full power, would make the effort of pushing her own weight into a stand one-handed considerably easier. Intellectually, Xeno knew this was folly. The effort was not that her muscles lacked the strength to raise her small frame, it was simply that any kind of movement made in her current state was in direct opposition to her instincts.

It was a great relief for her to recall that she had opted to lay out a change of clothes for herself the night before, though the act of donning them- particularly the linen shirt- was still a torturous one. Fearing the pain she would bring onto herself by pulling the sleeves over her shoulders, Xeno opted to start with her lower body. She had just finished getting them on when her attention was pulled across the room by movement.

Astra sat up with a groan, previously neat blonde hair as disheveled as a bird’s nest and a saggy weight to her usually smooth skin. The girl smacked her lips together a few times, as though trying to acclimate herself to a poor taste, then looked at Xeno with bleary eyes.

“Morning."

“Good night”, Xeno replied.

The blonde frowned at that, then her eyes widened in panic.

“Wait, crap the orientation. What time is it? I’d forgotten about it!”

Xeno answered by nodding towards the clock, and Astra stared at it with a look of concentration- clearly trying to pick past the blurry vision of a recent awakening- before nodding more to herself than anything else. A great sigh brought her shoulders down.

“Oh thank the Messiah, I was worried we’d be late."

The blonde climbed to her feet with a grunt, looking down at herself and sighing.

“Still, we don’t have much time. It would’ve been nice to be able to change out of the clothes I slept in before going…”

Suddenly feeling a rush of guilt, Xeno answered.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve woken you."

Astra’s reply came quickly.

“No! It’s fine, don’t worry. You already let me stay here free of charge, I have no right to expect you to wake me up like you were my mother as well. It’s my fault…”

Xeno’s response trailed from her lips as she noticed the peculiar way in which Astra was staring at her.

“What are you doing?” Astra asked, seeming genuinely puzzled. Xeno didn’t get the chance to answer before the blonde had crossed the few metres between them, stopping perhaps a stride away and speaking once more.

“You could’ve asked me, you know."

It took Xeno a moment to realise what Astra was referring to, but as she followed the girl’s eyes to her own broken arm it clicked into place.

“Oh”, Xeno realised. “No, no thank you- it’s fine. Really no trouble-”

She was cut off as Astra arched an eyebrow, the silent gesture somehow inducing quiet.

“Come on, there’s no shame in accepting a hand- particularly when it’s to help with an injury you received while aiding me in saving my brother."

There was a look in Astra’s eyes that made Xeno’s blood boil. A familiar look, one that Xeno found herself confronted by no matter where she was. Pity. It made her want to scream, to stamp her feet and unleash every scrap of magic she had- to show that she wasn’t a weak little thing that needed protection.

But then she thought of trying to get the top on with her wounded arm by herself, and all the indignant anger leaked out of her like a torn waterskin.

“Thank you”, she managed to make herself say- keeping a smile plastered over her face tightly enough to conceal the frustration burning beneath. It took a lot less time to change her top than it had yesterday, Astra seemed to have a knack for gauging exactly how much she could move her injured arm and it took no more than two minutes and a few pained gasps for them to finish.

Once Xeno’s upper body had been fully equipped, and she’d finished waiting for the residual spikes of pain to seep out of her collar, the two stood in the uncomfortable silence which often surrounded new acquaintances. Xeno could bear it no more after a few moments, and broke it with a question.

“Are you hungry? You haven’t had breakfast yet, neither have I in fact. We should probably eat before the orientation, right?”

“I’m not really hungry for some reason”, Astra answered. She did an admirable job of keeping her face straight. Not quite admirable enough to suppress a few twitches, however. Xeno knew very well what those particular ticks meant, having read about them exhaustively. She was being lied to. It wasn’t hard for her to work out why.

“Are you sure? I’m happy to pay you know, I’ve got plenty of money from-” she stopped herself just short of mentioning her grant, quickly weaving an alternative before carrying on. “Well, I have quite a lot to spend- more than I need, actually."

“Are you sure?”

Astra’s voice was lined with equal parts eagerness and reluctance, Xeno kept her smile and nodded. After a few moments of frowning, the blonde’s face lightened up.

“Alright then”, she finally said. “But I’m not going to forget to pay you back, thank you."

She smiled at Xeno, and Xeno smiled back. The two of them wordlessly made their way to the exit, with Astra cutting in front to open it herself. Before Xeno could so much as thank the girl she felt her voice flattened into silence as the door parted and revealed a tall man dressed in a crisp Unixian Knight Uniform.

“Greetings." The man spoke with an accent as thick as it was familiar- immediately obvious to Xeno as that of Pangaea city. His eyes flickered between both girls as he continued, making it clear he was speaking to neither in particular.

“I have been sent to request your presence at the orientation for the Sieve, it will be taking place in half an hour. Is that time convenient for the both of you?”

By the time he had finished talking, Xeno had finished thinking. She’d been given a run-down of what had happened in the Sieves of the previous years, and recalled that for some of them the leading teams had been called to the front of the third stage orientation. The presence of the Gemini should have let her predict the same occurring this time, she cursed her slowness.

She didn’t curse it for long, however. Despite her surety as to his business with her, something about the man sent a shiver down Xeno’s spine. She was glad when Astra spoke up to answer him first.

“Why are you here? Are all the contestants getting escorts? Is it that important that we attend?”

Xeno noticed the trembling of her friend’s hand in the corner of her eye, noting that she likely wasn’t used to asking questions of elite mystic law enforcement. She took a moment to marvel at the utter lack of fear in Astra’s voice as the man replied.

“As members of the leading team, you have been granted the privilege of an interview before the crowds of Bermuda. A carriage has been prepared for you, I can explain more on the way- you may wish to accompany me sooner rather than later. It will give you more time to prepare."

Unable to see her face from where she was standing, Xeno could only guess as to what the expression that accompanied Astra’s stunned silence was. Reluctantly, she realised she had no choice but to take over- embarrassing as it may have been for her new friend, there was a clear difference between them in who was more suited for dealing with Unixian authorities.

“Can we please have a moment to discuss this in private?”

She made sure to keep her tone weak and smooth, knowing from experience that people were more likely to acquiesce Xeno’s requests than they were her demands. The knight tilted his head in an almost exaggerated manner, replying smoothly.

“But of course."

He made no move away from the doorstep, and so Xeno nudged Astra- gesturing for the blonde to follow her back into the living room once she had her attention.

“Did you know about this?”

Xeno was taken aback by the immediately accusatory tone Astra took, further exacerbated by the sniper-like focus of her glare.

“No! What? Why would I know about this?” Was her response, the confusion and uncertainty evident in it even to her own ears. Astra’s eyes softened slightly, but not nearly enough for Xeno’s liking.

“You didn’t seem at all surprised, and…” She trailed off, her skin turning from pinkish to crimson. “Eclipse, I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s just that, well… That was a knight, right? Like, an actual knight?”

Xeno nodded, and she saw a very particular kind of smile begin to pull at her friend’s lips. It was the same smile she’d seen just two days ago on the face of a child she’d bought a toffee apple.

“Yes, that was a real knight." Astra’s excitement made her feel symmetrically giddy, and in spite of how the conversation had started Xeno could feel a grin spreading to match her thoughts. She was almost reluctant to bring the conversation back on topic.

“So, what do you think? Are you alright with going with him?”

Astra’s smile went taut at that, and she suddenly seemed far less ecstatic.

“He mentioned an interview, would this be… in front of a lot of people?”

Xeno tried to find the right words to answer.

“Well, if it’s anything like those of the other years this happened then it’ll be in front of the entire stadium’s crowd."

The blonde said nothing, and as the silent seconds pressed in on them Xeno felt compelled to speak once more.

“It’ll mostly be the interviewer with the spotlight, and even then you’ll be sharing it with the rest of the team-”

“There’ll be Immortals in the crowd watching, right?”

For a moment Astra’s interruption stunned Xeno, but then she realised why the girl had asked her peculiar question. She was a magically prodigious mystic who could use an impossibly difficult sphere at the age of fifteen, of course she was eager to know where she might get the chance to show off for powerful benefactors."

Realising how long she’d paused, Xeno quickly answered.

“Yes, there’ll be Immortals. Lots- in fact I’d be surprised if there weren’t even more than in the previous stages."

Astra nodded, seemingly more to herself than to Xeno, and licked her lips.

“Alright then, that settles it. Let’s go."Her words were accompanied with a gesture, beckoning Xeno to lead the way. Not for the first time Xeno was astounded by Astra’s resolve.

She certainly hadn’t been so fearless when first learning she’d be scrutinised by enormous crowds- in fact it made her wonder if Astra really was just a country girl. Shaking her head free of its excess thoughts, she made her way to the door and forced a smile as she addressed the knight once more.