Anastacia sat by the lakeshore, away from the campsite but still within view, and threw a small stone into the water. It skipped two times before sinking and created the only ripples on the calm surface of the lake. The cloudless night sky was perfectly reflected by the dark waters of the lake and the reflection of the moon served as a perfect target for the next stone.

The party had moved back to the original campsite when Emilia had started to feel a little better, and the plan was to continue the trip at dawn. Losing a day’s worth of distance wasn’t really a problem, nor would they run out of supplies because of it, but Gilbert wanted to stick to the original plan to the best of their abilities and Emilia didn’t exactly feel great about the delay since she blamed it on herself, just like Gilbert and Anastacia had blamed themselves for it earlier. With the early departure waiting for them, the party had turned in for the night as the sun had begun to set. Anastacia had trashed and turned around for a while, before just giving up on the whole idea of falling asleep yet. The weird conversation with Noir was bothering her for some reason.

“Was he warning me about something I’m about to do?” She asked out loud, not really expecting to get an answer. Nor did the world give her one. “Would he have mentioned those two specifically if they were just as likely as any other outcome? What do you think?” She asked and turned to King, who had joined her after making sure the campfire would stay lit.

The simulacrum couldn’t offer much help in the matter and just stared at the lake.

“Thanks.” The necromancer said snidely. She rested her head against King’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “I need you to promise me something, okay? If it looks like I’m beelining towards the whole ‘burning the world’ thing, I need someone to stop me. No matter what it takes, just get it done. I don’t know who I’ll be in the future, but I don’t want to be that person.” She pleaded to the simulacrum.

King immediately shook his head. Usually it took him a few seconds to register anything complicated, but this time the reaction was instant.

“You say that now, but let’s see how you feel if and when it happens…” Anastacia said. “Though I’m not too keen on the second story either.” She pointed out and scraped out dirt from the grooves on King’s arm with her nails. “That makes it sound like I’m too powerful to be a good person and happy at the same time. There are endless amounts of problems normal people have in this world and solving some of them would be almost trivial for me, but they have to suffer or die because of it. Anton for example: him and all his men could be saved if I really went all out to help them, but now they’ll all die and it’s kind of my fault for not helping them.” She continued and moved on to clean the simulacrum’s back. Some of the deeper grooves and gaps required a stick to be cleaned properly; so the necromancer quickly fetched one and resumed her monologue. “I know I can’t solve every problem out there, but definitely more than an average person. Does it make me a bad person if I don’t do any of that and focus on stuff I want to do? Like finding out how they make coffee beans or doing dumb stuff with you and the goblins. I mean the easiest way to do that would be to just get rid of anyone who bothers me and do what I want - that’s totally within my capabilities. But it’s also insane and evil, which is a massive downside... Maybe there is a divine ratio between the world’s problems and my own stuff that I have to work with to be able to sleep without having to worry about not doing my part in the world? It’d be so nice to be able to sit down with a god and ask them why I have to be the one that has to pick up their slack…”

Anastacia found cleaning King surprisingly therapeutic and lost track of time entirely. Eventually she had stopped speaking entirely and just idly scrubbed the simulacrum while deep in thought, every now and then asking him to move a little to have better access to a few more difficult spots.

They were interrupted by Emilia clearing her throat to announce her presence. “I was going to ask why the fire was out, but I see you have our watchman… busy.” She said and grinned. “I’ll just leave you two to… whatever this is and go find Gilbert’s flint.”

“What? Oh! I was just scrubbing off the dirt. It helps me think.” Anastacia explained and hopped out of King’s lap, where she had been sitting to get a better look under his chin. After dusting and straightening her clothes, she ran to the campfire. “I’ll get it for you.”

“Is that what the kids call it these days?” Emilia said and giggled.

Not understanding the joke, Anastacia ignored it, grabbed a piece of firewood and ran back to King to hand it over. From a safe distance, she cast an intense burst of flames at it and asked king to take the burning log back to the camp.

“Can’t you just do some sparks or something? That seems like overkill.” Emilia asked from the would-be fire mage, who was stomping out a few patches of grass that had been caught up in the blast.

“No… That’s like the smallest thing I can cast reliably.” Anastacia answered and sat back down.

The priestess could see that something was bothering the girl - the biggest clue being that the necromancer wasn’t up to anything stupid or annoying, but kept silent instead. Being awake in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly alarming for someone her age - even the priestess herself had often broken the curfew rules of the temple a few years back - but generally young people use that time to do something they probably shouldn’t do and not by thinking in silence.

“So what’s bothering you? I still remember what it was like to be your age, so I can probably help.” Emilia asked and sat down on a nearby rock.

Anastacia scoffed at the suggestion. “Did you also have evil, city-annihilating powers when you were my age? I appreciate you trying but this isn’t about me being a teen.”

“No. Not yet at that point, I only started doing that with you guys. Back then I just had a goddess speak to me inside my head and… well, you’ve seen the people who I grew up with.” Emilia pointed out. “Now, quit sassing me and tell me what’s up.”

Anastacia accepted that her friend might be able to understand her problem and shared her troubles about being a good person. “So, how much do I have to do to not be a selfish prick? Stop a war or two every few years? Just wipe out the bandit population of the world? I want to be a good person and happy at the same time!” She asked and was clearly starting to get frustrated.

“You’re an idiot.” The priestess said bluntly and without delay. “You, just like everyone else, are a creation of this world; not the one responsible for it. You don’t need to fix anything. So let the world turn on its own and don’t go out of your way to cause harm to people who don’t need it. That’s all anyone can ever ask from you.” She explained and laughed. “This actually reminds me about the first time I spoke back to My Lady. The first thing I ever asked from her was ‘Why haven’t the gods solved all the problems in the world?’ Lady Sylvia told me that all it would achieve is creating a new set of problems, and that the only permanent way to fix every little issue in the world was to destroy the whole thing. I fear that’s where this madness of yours would eventually lead to…”

“But…” Anastacia tried to insist but Emilia interrupted her.

“But nothing. Something you necromancers seem to struggle to understand is that power alone doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want, but it doesn’t give you responsibilities either. Only power taken from others comes with that baggage. So how about this: we get rid of this Amaranth that’s still being a problem, then you do what young people are supposed to do for a few years. Only after you’ve somehow figured out answers to all of the life’s great questions and so on, you start to think about solving all the problems in the world? AFTER you’ve asked for permission from us.” Emilia said and headed back to the camp.

Anastacia was left on her own to figure out if the advice made any sense to her. She decided that she might as well finish cleaning King while thinking and continued from where she had left off.

“You know, sometimes I don’t really get her. Like, what are young people supposed to do? Am I missing out on something?” She asked and scrubbed off some stains on King’s chest with her shirt. “Should we be oiling you up?” While not exactly a weapon, King did have metal parts and Anastacia had no idea if they could rust or not.

Back at the camp, Emilia realized that Anastacia’s monologue carried over the water and hearing it without context made her almost choke on some water.