Sweating and panting heavily, two men burst into a sparsely-decorated room, sending papers flying as they opened the door leading inside with a vengeance.

“What’s with the rush?” Marshal Marie asked, raising her eyebrows as strands of qi shot out to capture the loose papers. Returning them to their original positions, she sighed and said, “We may all be military, but you two should really know that doing cardio in the corridors isn’t something officers — or anyone, for that matter — should do.

“We’re been cooped up lately,” Hans replied. “Figured that running around would be great and all, right? Right.”

Aziz, who was exhaling a tad too heavily to speak properly, gulped down some air and said, “Right.”

The marshal looked at the two of them. In that moment, Aziz could swear that Marie had somehow figured out why they were in such a rush. To him, those penetrating eyes of hers were incisive to a point, and the colonel found himself looking away while clearing his throat.

Marie sighed. “Seems like you are out of shape, Aziz. I keep telling you to make some time every day to exercise and run some laps, but you just keep doing work after work. Do you enjoy tormenting yourself?”

“You’re the reason why I have so much work,” Aziz replied, patting his chest. “I know you have a Locomotive full of papers too, but surely you don’t need to accept that many assignments, right?”

“Eventide’s orders,” she replied.

“What about that secretary the Minister of State assigned to you?”

“Collapsed from overwork.”

Aziz felt Hans shudder at his side, and then shook his head. “Surely that should tell you something? You’re the Chief of Air. There’s got to be something you can do about this, right?”

“You know as well as I do that the War Minister is also complaining about his workload,” Marie replied. “So unless you have a method for making the other ministers experts at war, our situation will never change. Rather, I think you shouldn’t be this hung up on deadlines. Who’s going to punish you? Me?”

“Are you sure it’s really fine for you to say that?”

“A younger me wouldn’t have said that,” Marie agreed, “but the me now? I’ve awakened to a few tenets. Deadlines are illusory. Needs are wants. Wants are dispensable. Those papers you’re working on…only a tenth will be used in the end.”

“I knew the last bit a long time ago,” Aziz replied. “But those words are a tad extreme, right?”

“Call it burnout or something,” Marie said, before yawning twice. “Look. Just knock off on time. Go back to your usual healthy lifestyle. It’ll be fine; I’ve been doing that for the past month too, and it’s the best month since I entered the Republic’s military.”

“R-right.” Aziz glanced at Hans, who was probably led so far off the beaten path by her words that there was no turning back. Making a mental note to stress important deadlines the next time he gave the captain some assignments, he rubbed his head twice.

“Come to think of it, why did the two of you drop by here in the first place?” Marie asked. “I don’t think you two came by just to chatter about work ethics in my office, right?”

“No, we didn’t. Remember that Display the two of us got Hans to pre-order for our use?” Aziz asked. “The Display M2? We need to reimburse him, but Finance isn’t giving me anything to show for it. That’s why we came to you.”

“Oh.” The marshal rubbed her eyes. “How much is it?”

“For the two of us, it’s thirty gold each,” Aziz replied. “I’ll pay you this weekend when I return to Interregnum.”

“No rush there, thirty gold isn’t much to me now,” Marie replied. “I was expecting the Display M2 to be around a hundred and fifty gold, though.”

“That’s the retail price,” Hans replied. “We’re soldiers, so we automatically get an eighty percent discount.”

“Right, the Defenders Discount.” Marie nodded. “Maybe we should order as many things as possible from the North before the others catch on. Do you think we can resell them locally?”

“Ma’am…is the Republic strapped for cash?” Aziz asked.

“Just making a suggestion,” Marie replied. “Well, it’s lunch. Want to head out into town for a bite?”

“Which town?” Aziz asked.

“I want to see the specialties of Liamar’s Divine Kingdom, so let’s go there.” The marshal tossed the file in her left onto her desk carelessly, before getting up from her chair. Punching out a few times, she did some light stretches and massaged her neck.

“Neck pains, ma’am?” Hans asked.

“A frequent visitor to us all in the past few years,” Marie replied. Up close, Aziz could tell that the eyebags that had plagued his commanding officer no longer existed — probably a result of her returning to a more normal work-life balance. “Something wrong, Aziz?”

“You look a lot healthier now,” he muttered. “Maybe I should follow your example.”

“Or maybe, I should make it a directive.” Marie tapped her nose — which, incidentally, was as smooth as a baby’s skin…the default skin condition for Knights who were in their prime.

“Spread out the love, right?” Hans chipped in.

Aziz eyed the captain, who was clearly egging Marie on to make work-life balance a standing order for the First Aerial Division. For a moment, he wanted to simultaneously scold and praise the fellow, but it would be too telling of his thoughts.

Watching on in silence as Marie started running through the kindest standing order he’d ever heard in his time as a soldier, Aziz felt conflicting feelings well up inside him.

“Alright, I think this should work nicely,” Marie muttered.

Aziz didn’t know how to react to her words, so he decided to make do by looking around at her sparse office. The dull interior probably didn’t endear anyone to the concept of staying in it for any longer than necessary, which was probably a key factor in making Marie so keen on work-life balance.

Other than her ceremonial sword, which was hung up behind her seat, there really wasn’t anything to look at. The colonel mentally compared his smaller office to hers, and rolled his eyes.

“Shall we go for lunch?” Aziz asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Marie paused. “I should also make it a point to gather all the officers every week for lunch outside this damn place.”

Once again, Aziz didn’t know how to react to that.