Bella stared at the man on the former lakeshore. Sure, he was a bit small for the average height of the world, appearing to be at 6 rather than 8 megards; and he was lithe like a panther, but his handsome and chiseled face more than made up for his lack of masculine aspects.

Wait, what am I thinking!? We literally just met! Jane smirked at her granddaughter’s face, which was slowly turning a bright shade of crimson. “Ah youth.” Jane mutered, causing Bella to hide her face in her hands.

Jane turned away, seemingly to scan the forest line for any sign of hunters, fishermen, or rogue guards sent to investigate the explosion at the lake. Jane grunted, and a plethora of roots shot out from, her fingers and into the earth, for kilogards in each directions to pick up on any sign of incoming danger.

Peeking out from behind her fingers, Bella started analyzing the strange man. From head to toe, his clothes were smoldering, or still on fire, but his body itself was fine with no sign of trauma from whatever blast had sent him here.

His white hair was quite common in elves, angels, gods, and vampires, but rare for any race other than those. Oh well, without waking him up and asking him, or seriously invading his personal space…

Bella looked towards his burning pants and gulped, before shaking her head violently. Keep it together girl! Just ask grandma to bring you something to relieve your urges on. You’re going through puberty, of course you’d be interested.

Continuing her former train of thought, she realized that she couldn’t identify his species yet. Sighing, she continued to gaze at him for a while longer until an unholy voice invaded her thoughts.

“Well don’t just leave him there, pick him up! We need to go before the forest rangers come to investigate!” Jane had felt a tug on one of her vines, and quickly recalled them before turning her attention to her seemingly lovestruck granddaughter.

Bella flinched at her grandma’s loud voice, but quickly complied and lifted the creature into her arms. Jane quickly threw a cloth over him, and together they set off back towards the house at a rushed pace.

Deftly and carefully jumping over roots and vines, gracefully dodging branches and hunting traps, Bella sped out of the forest at a pace that would have most professional sprinters shaking in their boots. Her body was naturally built for running, and that was the one area in which she was proud of how her body turned out. Her pace decreased as she approached the treeline and her paces grew shorter and shorter.

Bella huffed and finally gasped for breath as she exited the forest and returned to the trail leading towards the mansion. After regulating her breathing, she turned back only to find her grandmother still a ways back in the forest, a pained expression on her face. “Grandma! Are you alright!?”

Jane waved her cane back and forth in a dismissive gesture. “I’m... fine… child. Just a little… out of breath.” She pointed towards the human that Bella was cradling in her arms. “You can take your time heading back now, and I’ll follow after you in a bit. Just give this granny a little time to rest.”

Bella nodded and shifted the man to her back before proceeding on the trail towards her house. Jane smiled and sat down on a decaying branch. “Heh, the prophecy has finally begun to move. Just when I was starting to wonder if it was untrue. Soon, it will all be ours again… soon, the Clairborne family will be on top again.”

Bella frowned at the smell of charred fabric as she piggy-backed the unconscious man back to the mansion. He was the size of a boy, a full three megards beneath her, but she was tall for a girl, as were all Clairborne women. She hoped the difference in height wouldn’t scare him off when he awoke, as it was dangerously lonely around the mansion sometimes, and she would kill to have another sentient being to talk to. Hell, she would even settle for the semi-sentient rocks from the Silver Continent.

Sighing, she looked towards the sky, which had started to transform into dusk, and just stared at the clouds as she walked down the trail. “What a beautiful sky. It’s a real shame that Grandma can’t look at it through her lens right now…” Bella’s voice trailed off as she realized what she had just uttered.

Jane had been looking at the sky before, in this specific direction, at exactly the time she needed to be. Bella would fully regard that she was slow in some matters, but she definitely was not stupid. She turned her head to side-eye the man, this time with a much colder gaze than before. If he was part of the prophecy, then it was a very real possibility that this man could cause Bella and Jane to become that much more separate, and Bella herself to become that much lonelier.

After finally reaching the door to the house, and unlocking the door, Bella vowed to have a talk with her grandmother before the night was over, one way or another.

---

Night would soon approach and Jane smirked at the entrance to the forest, watching as a sole figure emerged from the shadows.

“Oh my. You never one to disappoint Jane… and I doubt that you would start tonight. So then, I’m guessing you got to the piece first?” A man decked out in full Electrum armor walked out of the forest, his blade covered in blood and helmet grasped in his free hand.

“Ha! Former Rank 1 of the Imperial Coat of Arms and current leader of the military, Conrad Morrow. It’s a pleasure to see you again, boss.” Conrad’s hair was slicked back in a very villainous way, but his eyes were wide and kind. A smile danced on his thin lips, and a scar ran down his tanned skin from the bottom of his left eye and stopped at his chin.

Conrad sighed and pointed to Jane’s cane. “How come this is the first I’ve seen you in two decades and all that seems to be a symbol of aging is that goddamned cane of yours? Why are the gods so unfair?”

Janer laughed and pointed to Conrad’s hair. “Grey is a nice look for you, but don’t give me that spiel. The only sign that you’ve even aged a day over 50 is that your hair is a different color than it used to be. No wrinkles, not liver spots, nothing.”

This time it was Conrad’s turn to laugh. “Well, those in the Coat were always on a different level than mere mortals, even a human such as myself is going to live for a very long time. Maybe I’ll even give the elves a run for their money.”

“Please,” Jane chided, “If you did that then Sera would curse you until the end of time. For the time being, would you like to come back to the mansion and have a cup of tea?”

Conrad shook his head. “No, but I would love it if you told me if you had the piece already.” Jane reached for her wand. She didn’t need it for small-time criminals, but for a Master like Conrad she would die without it.

“Relax. Hey, relax!” Conrad put his sword into the sheath on his back and walked closer. “I’m not going to hurt you Jane. I would prefer you get whatever fell here anyway. The monarchy is corrupted enough without another source of power to vie for.”

Jane smiled, relaxed her hand and pointed at Conrad. “You always were my favorite, Connie. No matter how much power you gained, you never changed. Always noble, always heroic… always looking out for those in the Coat.”

“So Conrad,” Jane pointed to the bloodstains on his armor, “Who do those belong to then?” Startled, Conrad looked down at his armor and cursed. “Ah, Gods be damned, I keep forgetting to clean this thing in my old age. It really would have been a nightmare if I had just strolled back to the fortress with blood on my armor. Give me a second.”

Conrad charged the Electrum armor with his mana and the steel vibrated at such a high frequency that the blood slid right off of it and onto the dying grass below. “Sorry about that Jane. Anyhow, on the way over I saw two spies, one from the Gold Continent and another from the Darkness Continent. They had seen you leaving the lake, and if I imagined that Bella was with you, then I didn’t want you dealing with them while protecting the girl and the treasure.”

Jane smirked, and shook her head. “The girl can take care of herself if she steps out of her own way first. She still remembers you, you know? Still asks if she can visit as well.”

Conrad’s eyes grew wide in surprise, but then returned to normal as a grimace formed on his lips. “You know she can’t… because the King-”

Jane held up her hand. “Yes, the Azure King has outlawed cities from housing Demonkind and offshoots, such as Vampires and Ghosts. That racist maggot made all of our lives harder just to preserve the falsehood that his rule is built on… and my daughter…”

Conrad saw the sadness and pain in Jane’s eyes, and ran up to hug the aging demoness. “I know Jane, but we need to keep things as they are for now. 6 of the current 10 Coats believe your innocence that night, and will fight for you when the time comes. All that is left is to give us the word, presumably after you discover how your power source works.”

Jane smiled in his arms, and separated from him reluctantly. “I know we can't go to you, but maybe you can come to us, once a week. That girl suffers from loneliness more than anyone else I know, and I’m not exactly a social butterfly, so if you could come chat with her from time to time it would be a nice gesture.”

Conrad smiled at her, and bowed gracefully. “Of course, I’ll come sometime within the next three days. He turned to leave, but stopped when Jane called out to him.

“Conrad, promise me that if something happens and I am unable to lead anymore, that you’ll follow the will of Bella.”

Conrad squinted, but shrugged and spoke, “I don’t know. I’ll talk to the others about it but I won’t make any promises.”

Jane shrugged, "That’s the best I could ask for, thanks Conrad.” They both turned away and Jane smiled once more. This had been a great day. The prophecy was beginning, she had rekindled with her old flame, and now she was heading back to a comfortable home where she could study her new power source. All that was left was talking to a most certainly worried Bella and going to bed after chaining up the boy. Things couldn’t get much better than this!