(Miklaus)

“In the land where shadow dwells, a great catastrophe looms. An age that can only be rivaled by Misjudgment, will force the infinite to move.” Nezira hummed an unknown tone before closing his book and looking up at me. “I’m sure you remember that day well, or is it something you try and forget?” Nezira's tone was full of innocent curiosity.

“The four of us made a mistake and then we handled it. Outside of that, it was just like every other day.”

“But it’s also a day you could have stopped, is it not?”

“What is there to stop before it occurs?” Sighing before walking past him. “When I need to act, I’ll be there. Always. Not before and not after.” Looking down at the countless stars before me.

“Could you still be so confident if it was one of the others who acted?”

I turned to face him, my expression deadpan.

“The others may intermingle in small ways, as they have been since the beginning. They will do no more, they know I am watching.”

“The ever-watchful guardian.” He chuckled before standing up and grabbing my shoulder. “It’s time for us to go.”

“Indeed.”

My fingers sank into the space before me and I pulled it down until it tore, opening a wormhole for us to travel through. “Don’t get lost again.” I said before walking through without waiting for a response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Eve)

“Amelia, come on, it's time to wake up!” I yelled trying my best to wrestle the blankets out of her iron grip.

“Just a few more minutes?” She mumbled through her pillow.

“Fine, have it your way.” I let the blankets go as I began to walk towards the door. “I’ll just have to eat all the bacon myself.”

“Why didn’t you just mention that first?!” She squeaked. Immediately jumping out of bed, sending the blanket into my face.

I grumbled as I pulled the blanket off me and found Amelia's hungry eyes staring me down.

"Where is the bacon?" She demanded.

"Don't have any here so we'll have to go to Lilith's diner again. They have thicker bacon than the market anyways."

"Onwards!" Amelia declared and headed for the door.

I dashed forward and slammed it shut before she could leave.

The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees and she looked at me incredulously.

I tried to hide my smile as I pointed at her. "Might wanna change first."

She looked confused and then looked down at the slightly too-short blue nightdress with multi-colored flowers around the collar she had borrowed from me and blushed.

"I'll meet you downstairs." She mumbled, opened the door, and ran to the washroom to change.

I chuckled as I watched her scurry down the hallway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Excuse me, do you know if Nikolai already left?” I asked the lady in white standing just inside the clinic entrance.

“Oh, Nikolai? What a great young man he is, it's a real shame what happened to his friend a while back." The nurse said, shaking her head sadly.

"Yeah... we heard about it. But, have you seen him? We dropped him off yesterday once we returned from the Borderlands. He was hurt pretty badly, so we wanted to check on him."

The nurse looked down at her clipboard and looked puzzled for a moment and then shook her head.

"I'm sorry dear but I haven't seen him in weeks, he's not even on my ledger from yesterday. Would you like for me to ask around?"

“No, it’s fine. Thanks anyway, let’s go Amelia.” Pushing aside the cloth that led into the medical tents. “How can they say he wasn’t here? We literally just dropped him off?” I asked her as soon as we walked out.

“Maybe he left without checking in once he saw we were gone? That seems to be the most plausible answer.”

“But, why would he do that?”

“Who knows? We barely know him ourselves. Maybe we'll see him around the city while we are out and can ask them then.” She said, placing her arm around my shoulders as we walked. “Come on Eve, the weather is too beautiful for us to just walk around moping about things we can’t control.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I sighed. “Well, what do you think we should do first?” Picking up our pace a little.

“Well the market district is just north, and it’s where we’ll spend most of our time today anyway.”

“Onward!” I said doing my best job of imitating Amelia's morning voice, making sure to dodge the hit Amelia sent my way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wasn’t sure exactly how long we had spent in the market district so far, but I didn’t care either. We found out this city is just a guild city meaning it shares the same name as the guild, tried all sorts of snacks from deer jerky, and fruit cups to even doughnuts, and bought lots of clothes and furniture that would be delivered after we buy our house, and even though we hadn’t acquired any information on the whereabouts of Nikolai, all of the people around the city had nothing but great things to say about him.

‘But,’ pausing to look at Amelia while she looked for the next thing to do. ‘Above all else, being able to be here without having to worry about dying, training, being saved, running away, or any of the other things that have happened. It really helps me appreciate this time with Amelia so much more.’

I finished my thoughts with a smile as we walked toward another store.

“What do you think of this one?” Pointing towards the sign that hung on top of the tent.

“Freida Sister’s fortune telling? Is this really something you want to do?”

“Are you afraid of what they might see?” She teased, nudging me with her arm.

“No, let’s just get it over with.” Pushing aside one of the flaps that led inside.

Immediately upon walking into the tent, I found my vision clouded by smoke as the smell of incense filled my senses, barely catching the small silhouette moving towards me.

“Welcome to my sister’s and my humble abode. I am Angela, and my sister’s name is Danielle” She said with a small courtesy. “My apologies for the smoke, it's a family tradition we’ve passed down through centuries that the more incense around us the clearer we’re able to see people’s fortunes.” She finished with a laugh.

“Thank you for having us.” I said while bowing although it was mostly to analyze her. With our distance shortened, I could now see she was a few inches shorter than me, she had long silky chestnut hair, solid green eyes, freckles lining both sides of her cheeks, and a long white dress.

“Please come right this way.” Guiding us through the smoke until we reached an area with a crystal ball sat upon a table, and two pairs of two vertical plush purple pillows lined up together.

“If you wouldn’t mind sitting here, my sister and I will be right back. The price is one Silver Denari each, if you wouldn’t mind having the payment ready when we’re back.” Walking behind another curtain in the tent.

“We’re going to have to do this more often.” Rummaging through the coin pouch Io gave us until she pulled out two coins and flicked one my way.

“As long as we’re responsible with our money I’m sure we can do this every few weeks.” Running my fingers across the smooth silver coin.

“We have plenty, Io gave us quite a bit after all.”

“No, you think we have a lot. Don’t forget we still need to buy a house.”

“Oh that’s true, I’m sorry I forgot.” Putting the bag back in her satchel.

“It’s fine, I’m not saying we don’t have a lot of money. I’m sure after we buy everything today we’ll still have over fifty gold darics and the same with the silver Denaris, but it’s better for us to live like we’re poor so we’re saving rather than spending it all. We can figure it out after this, I can feel them coming this way anyway.”

“I’m sorry for making you wait, please take a seat.” Gesturing with her hand towards the pillows. “Now if you wouldn’t mind just put your coins in here.” Pushing out a wooden bowl that rattled with coins, to which Amelia and I placed ours. “Thank you both, now do you have any questions before we get started?”

“How long does it usually take for this?” I asked.

“Usually no more than a few minutes, it mostly depends on how much of your future is ready to be shown. Do you have any other questions?” She asked, to which Amelia and I both shook our heads.

“Then let us begin.” She looked at her sister, who at first glance would be indistinguishable from the other if not for her eyes being a darker shade of green. “Please put your hands out, and focus on the crystal ball.”

‘I wonder if this truly works.’ I stared at the transparent ball in front of me, getting my answer only a few moments later.

I had learned a little about projection mana during my time training with Io, but I never thought I’d see it so soon. And here it was right in front of me as different projections shifted through the crystal ball.

Moments of my supposed future flashed through the ball, talks with Amelia, probable future missions, a castle hidden in the clouds, seeing Ryla again, but after seeing Ryla the projections became less clear. Although I thought I could make out a city on fire before the visions stopped on what I could barely make out to be a cartoonishly fat rainbow-colored cat.

‘What the hell is that supposed to be?’ I filled my eyes with mana as I squinted at the image before the ball went completely violet, glowing brighter and brighter until the crystal ball shattered.

As soon as it did an extremely heavy pressure rested on the world around me with such strength that the wood keeping the tent in place creaked and all the glassware strewn about shattered.

I slowly forced my head up to look at Angela to see what the heck was going on and found her completely frozen, staring at me. Before I could force the words out, her eyes widened and with a flash of violet light, her irises cracked in half.

She fell to the ground unconscious, the pressure vanishing as if it was never there as soon as she hit the ground.

My knees hit the ground from the relief and had to take a minute to calm down. I could hear Amelia saying something, Danielle screaming, then footsteps from behind me as people rushed in to find out what that pressure was.

I was led out by Amelia, the two of us only getting a cursory glance from a slightly panicked medic. We sat there for a while just gathering ourselves and trying to process what happened. My mind went back to the images I'd seen, mainly the burning buildings and then to that fat cat.

Despite what just happened, I couldn't help myself from chuckling.

"What should we do?" I asked after several long minutes.

“There’s nothing we can do for them, the medics said that this backlash is common for people like them." She made a face, which told me how much she believed that. "But, we do have a house to buy anyway.”.

I wanted to refute that but I only sighed in response. “That was normal?’ Looking back one more time at the crowds of people huddled around the fortune tellers before following Amelia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first houses we looked at were just small one-bedroom, one-bath barracks at the guild hall. While being so close to the guild and city would be convenient, along with it being cheap at ten gold Denaris each it wasn’t what either of us wanted.

The second house was down a half-mile-long gravel road, but it was absolutely gorgeous. A two bed, two bath spruce wood house, placed right next to a river, surrounded by tall grass and flowers, and the best part was its only sixty gold coins.

However, while I was admittedly ready to take the house right then and there, Amelia still wanted to take a look at the third house.

This one was a lot more lavish than the other two and was placed a few miles outside of town, surrounded by the forest. The house was built out of stone and designed to look exactly like a smaller castle, although the house was still comparable to most mansions with five bedrooms and four baths, as well as being surrounded by a wall that must have stood at least eight feet tall. All of this came out to a price of one hundred gold coins.

I had expected Amelia to fight me tooth and nail on getting this house, but after a short talk, she agreed the second house would be our best option. So after paying for the house, and running to the furniture and clothing store to have them move our stuff for us, we were finally on our way back through the city to have dinner.

“Amelia look.” Pointing out the stand at the end of the road where a familiar tent was barren with a sign that read “closed” on it.

“I told you to forget about that, it wasn’t our fault and there’s nothing we could have done. Now come on, the restaurant is right over there.”

“I know you're right, but I'm still worried."

“It’s fine, have you decided what you’re eating yet?” Opening the door to the restaurant.

“No, not yet.”

“Good, I’ll order for both of us then.” Sitting at the first open table she could find. “Hey waiter! Get us two medium rare steaks, and two glasses of Wyvern Tears.” Calling out to the man who was walking towards us.

“Wyvern Tears?”

“Oh I guess you’ve never tried it before. It’s tears collected from Wyverns, and said tears taste great and surprisingly have a lot of alcohol in them with the alcohol amount being higher depending on the class of dragon it comes from.”

“That sounds quite expensive.”

“A glass of Wyvern Tears is usually a couple silver denaris, but come on, learn to let loose a little.” Pausing as she grabbed my hand. “We’re alive, we’ve made a lot of progress, we even just bought a house. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating every now and then.”

“You’re right, this is a moment to be celebrating.”

“Then let’s enjoy the rest of this night and celebrate plenty before we spend our first in our house. That also means you need to stop worrying about Nikolai. We all have separate stories in life, if ours are meant to cross again they will.”

I sighed. “You’re right, I’m sorry for bringing the mood down.”

“It’s fine, what are friends for after all.”

“You’re definitely the greatest friend I could ask for.” Squeezing her hand as I let a smile cross my lips.

“I couldn’t agree more. Now look.” Pointing towards the waiter who was carrying a large wooden tray with two plates of steak, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and Wyvern Tears. “Let’s finish this night off right, and get ready to get back to work tomorrow. Congratulations on our first house.” Raising her glass.

“Congratulations to you as well.” Tapping my glass against hers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Angela)

I had searched through the future of hundreds, maybe even thousands of people, but this was the first time someone’s future had shown up blurry to me. Yet with every passing moment, the pictures became less and less focused, all the way until I saw one image of what seemed to be a really fat rainbow cat.

‘What is that thing?’ I thought, but as I tried to look closer I found myself floating in the stars and I could see my sister was here with me. ‘This doesn’t make any sense, did their memories intersect?’ But as I looked at my sister again, I could see her face was filled with fear, and as I looked over I was quickly met with why.

Off in the distance, in this land where I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. There seemed to be a figure clad in purple light, its body seemingly made of the stars around us, and its eyes the only visible thing were a glowing violet that resembled the eyes of dragons.

“You mortals never learn. Always attempting to step into the domain of the Gods, but I'll humor you this once. If you want to see, I’ll show you everything.” Its voice rang throughout the space like it was both next to us and far away.

The stars instantly began moving at his word, every star seemingly displaying a different moment in the future. I could see a city raging with fire and blood, and battlefields with bodies littered all over. With each passing nonsensical vision I could feel my sanity going with it until all that was left was-

Judgement... Judgement... Judgement...