“Haha! You're a freak! You're a freak!” The group of kids continued their taunts, running and circling her with a twisted childish glee that only children could muster.

“Stop it...” Jacques kowtowed on the floor in muffled begging, head buried under her arms, tears streaming across her face. “Just leave me alone, please...”

“You're not a girl!” a boy's voice screamed at her.

“You're not a boy!” a girl reaffirmed.

“You're a freak!” they chanted in unison. “You're a freak! You're a freak! You're a freak!”

“CUT IT OUT!”

She looked up just in time to see the girl flew in with a punch, catching one of the boy square across the face. Golden-brown hair fluttering behind her, Luce stepped between Jacques and the rest of the children. The boy she hit tumbled back and started crying and the others stepped back in fear.

At that moment, Jacques thought, I need to get stronger.

Staring at the back of her protector, she made a promise to get stronger. If she wanted to protect the people close to her, protect those that protected her, she needed strength.

Luce turned to her with an outstretched hand. Sniffing, wiping away the last of her tears, Jacques smiled back and took the hand.

***

They removed their masks. Luce, her scarf. The breezy pass kept bringing in fresh air from the sea, clearing out the Tainted air and they could actually feel their skins cooling instead of sweating from the heat. Winds ripped through the cliffs of Leviathan's Helm. Opposite them, across the torrential river of water that churned faster than the launch of a glider was the shear face of the even taller cliff that lead to the Valley of Titans beyond. From where they stood with wet grasses beneath their feet, they could not only see their destination, but if they threw a stone across the helm, it would probably hit the walls of the cliff.

As if on cue, Luce picked up a rock and tested that theory. With her best arm, she threw it across the river. The stone arced through the air and just as it was about to reach the middle, slowed, hovered in mid flight, before being zoomed away on the raging air currents as if it had been nothing more than a leaf in the wind.

Luce scolded Josh, “How are we supposed to get pass that? My grappling hook can't reach that far if the wind is that strong!”

Jacques always knew that deep down, Luce was a hothead. She may try to hide it by being calm and acting mature, but of the two of them, Luce was the easiest to anger.

“I'm sure he has a plan,” Jacques cut in to diffuse her girlfriend's rage. Turning to their Guide, she asked, “Right?”

“Yes, of course I have a plan.” He took a step to the ledge and the girls instinctively stepped forward in worry. He stopped just at the edge and looked over the cliff. Pointing down to the base to the east, he said, “There.”

Carefully, Jacques and Luce stepped after him, Luce holding onto Jacques's arm for support against the wind. Jacques could not help but blush, her heart fluttering at the action. It was rare to be relied on by Luce, especially since the younger girl had such a tough front that her vulnerable side rarely surfaced. Jacques was happy that she was reliable enough for her partner to lean on.

Luce noted, “That shoreline over there?”

Jacques looked over. At the tip of where Josh pointed were the rare whiteness of sand, just barely poking its head out at every interval of the currents that smashed into the rocks. A large wave washed over it and the sand barge disappeared under the water.

Josh explained, “There's a path of sand and rocks there. For about half an hour, at the lowest tide, we'll get a path of shallow water to the other side.”

Jacques asked, “In this current?”

Luce added, “Even if it's shallow, we'd still get washed away.”

The man slung his heavy pack off his back and dropped it unceremoniously to the ground. Pulling open the main compartment, he took out a set of twelve metal rods and connected them into six pairs of long ones. Again from his pack, he took out a coiled rope and three sets of folded harnesses.

“We'll be using these,” he explained, holding up the sets of equipments. “We'll use the rods to dig into the sand and move in the formation of a triangle. The pathway is quite wide, so we should be fine. If one of use slips, the other two can pull 'em up.”

“Why can't I just make a dirt path for us?” Jacques asked, her shoulder glowing slightly as she made her point.

“Because there's a Titan in the water. A sentient-type. Bigger than a golem and faster than mechs. These creatures came from the Age of Immortals and can sense magic.”

“How big?”

He pointed to the end of the cliff to the east and noted their spot on the ground, a good 150 plitz across in length. “The one living in the Helm is called an Ormir. When it's low tide, it swims out into the sea and stays near the opening of the Helm.”

Jacques raised a brow. “You mean the opening that is near the bank that we are trying to cross?”

“Exactly,” he confirmed her fears. “So no magic. We'll have to cross the Helm in half an hour with nothing but our feet and hands, so every second is going to be crucial, and we need everyone to work together or we're not going to make it.”

Luce stared at him intensely, so much so that the man backed off in fear.

“W-what?” he stammered. “Something wrong with the plan?”

“I've been wondering...” she started. “If you had a way to cross the Helm, why have you not done it yet? This is the reason, isn't it? It's not a one-man job.”

Josh's eyes narrowed and he stood to full strut. He looked right across the Helm, the faint edges of blue sky peeking out just over the tall cliff edge opposite. “I've tried a few time. Five, to be exact. I took others who wanted to cross the Helm and lost all of them. Either to the currents or on the Path. It's true that you need at least two people to cross, and the chance doesn't get higher with more people either.” His legs wobbled and he had to lower himself to sit on the ground. “I miss my family. And I'm an old man. These chances comes so rarely too. This will be my last try at the Helm. I fully intend to cross today. Or die trying.”

The two of them stared down at the man. Once a hulking body, now slunk to the floor. Age had caught up with him in the matter of seconds, and he looked more like an elderly grandparent readying himself for death. Luce got down on one knee beside him and placed her small hand on his shoulders, rubbing it gently. She looked up to Jacques and her eyes said it all.

“Oh... no!” Jacques waved away her unspoken idea immediately. “I am not leaving you here. Either of you!”

“He says we only need two people,” Luce replied, “You're not wanted by the military. You can still live your life. And it's a one-way trip.”

“It's always been a one way trip! It was a one-way trip when we became friends! It was a one-way trip when we started dating! It was when we got conscripted into the academy, and it was one when we decided to run!” She knelt down beside her two companions. “Life's a one-way trip. The only thing we can do is keep walking towards where we want to go.”

The trio sat there in their small circle, winds howling beside them, waves crashing below. Jacques wondered how the three of them had managed to bond over such a short time. It was probably the impossible circumstances they found themselves in. Josh with his desperate attempt to return home and Luce's struggle to escape imprisonment or death for desertion. And her. What was she doing? Following the girl she loved. The first person to love her back for who she was and nothing else.

“Luce,” Jacques inevitably found herself asking. Luce turned to her with with quizzical brow. “When this is all over, do you want to get married?”

The younger girl's face flushed. Her eyes widened in shock but could not hold back a slight smile. “Are we discussing it now?”

“I don't see why not,” Jacques replied with a sly grin. “We're about to put our lives on the line so this is as good a time as any.”

Luce looked to Josh, who stared at them in disbelief. She tried to give him a signal that said, Can you believe this? The man shook his head, looked down, and a smile formed on his face. He looked back to Luce and changed his answer to a nod. Jacques inwardly thanked Josh for not letting Luce dodge the question.

The girl looked to Jacques, then to Josh, before finally settling back on her partner. With a sigh, reddened cheeks, and a thin smile, she said, “Yes. Let's get married.”

Jacques reached out and grabbed her hands in hers. “Really?”

Her smile widening, Luce replied softly, “Yes.”

“And live happily ever after?”

With a chuckle, “Yes. Yes. That too.”

Josh added, “And have kids!” The two girls snapped him a look and he stumbled away from them. “I mean, I was just thinking, technically, Jacques still has male parts so you could, you know, do it.”

With affinity and synchronicity only seen from the hands on a watch, the two ladies slapped his face from both sides, smashing his cheeks together like pancake.

Jacques blushed furiously and shouted, “What the hell are you thinking?”

“You're one to talk!” he pointed back. “You're smiling!”

Caught in her lie, she slapped him again and drew her hand to cover her mouth. “No I'm not!”

Josh laid defeated on the ground, covering his face in pained tears and laughter. Luce had pulled her scarf up, chuckling discreetly into it. As she drew the situation in, Jacques could not help but laugh with them.

In her mind, she could see it. Her and Luce, married under the legendary clear skies of the north, living in a small hut, maybe with a farm. Josh would visit with his family when the weather was good and they would have dinner out in the open field, under a starry night sky. She had never seen a field of grass of starry skies before before and had no idea what they looked like. But she imagined them to be beautiful.