Chương 169: Snap Back to Reality

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon's Heart Tower. Level 23. Residence 30. Local Time: 1757 Hours Ilunor Ridiculous. Laughable. Relentless in its vain and cloying attempts to tug at the heartstrings, all to rationalize what bordered on blatant rebellion.

"Childish." I mimed the prince's self-admitted sentiments.

"An apt descriptor, and one which you should have heeded."

"Yet one which you cannot deny." Thalmin responded bluntly in a manner so devoid of reason and so removed from context that his response made barely a modicum of sense. Was… was that even a counterargument? How was that supposed to prove anything? Especially when the narrative he was presenting was nothing short of vicious mockery against an institution with more years in proven civility than Earthrealm has had years in recorded history?!

This was akin to comparing birds to drakes, pollyflowers to rangen moss, or the infamous kobold debate of whether moss should be sorted by color or taste. In short, it was insulting by its very nature, reductionist to the point of absurdity, or completely moot from the onset.

"And what is that supposed to prove exactly?" I countered, huffing up a storm as I spat out each word with an incredulity unmatched. The prince was playing with fire. He was truly placing this unproven realm of questionable pedigree and foolish sensibilities on the same mantle as the Nexus; as something worthy of consideration as a peer-in-communicatia. Which begged the same question that had begotten this entire conversation.

What could have possibly gotten you so excited that could supersede the privilege and wonder of being in the Nexus?

"Earnestness." The prince answered dutifully, his features and the entire expression he wore telling the story of a man who had neither regrets nor doubt over his conviction.

"An honesty that the Nexus would find impossible to reproduce due to its very nature, because unlike the dizzying schemes within schemes and plans within plans, Earthrealm's priorities are, by its childish nature, straightforward."

"An earnestness born of a lack of self-centered egoist interests." The prince took a breath, steeling his eyes as he crossed his arms in silent contemplation.

"They hurl themselves into the void on nothing but steel and explosions in the hopes of reaching something, they pierced the heavens and tore through the tapestries in the hopes of finding someone, anyone else amidst dead and lifeless realms. They seek all of this out, whilst knowing well the dangers they may face. And when finally faced with the threat of your Nexus, when dealt with a slap to the face when their only sin was offering their hand in friendship?

They sought not to respond with prejudice, but instead with calm and measured consideration, refusing to concede that all were complicit in this web of malicious intentions. They offered me, a complete stranger, a chance to talk as peers. To Nexian eyes and Nexian sensibilities, such a desire to trust would seem childish, would it not? This… inclination for optimism, amidst what you once described as 'ill-fated idealism?'"

I took in a breath as I closed my eyes to listen and ponder, deliberating on the prince's words as each and every sentiment bordered on blatant fanaticism. Had this one conversation truly pushed the prince over the edge? Had this solitary, transient line of status communicatia acted as the keystone by which all of Emma's starry-eyed idealistic conversations finally fell into place?

I could scarcely gather my thoughts before Thacea abruptly interjected, her eyes leveling on Thalmin's as she placed both fork and knife down, refusing to eat until her sentiments were delivered.

"Yes." She spoke solemnly, much to the surprise of everyone present, with Thalmin in particular widening both his eyes in understandable shock.

"To all known Nexian sensibilities, what you speak of is indeed… naive… but not childish." Thacea corrected, prompting me to hold fast on my hopes of an abrupt shift in the winds of conversation.

"Yet to those ends, I'd argue both words are entirely misleading. Because when compared to the ceaseless bickering and two-faced politicking, I'd posit that a dialogue constructed on integrity and a willingness to honor all with respect is far more deserving of the descriptor of maturity." I narrowed my eyes and steadied a deep and resonant soot-filled breath. A litany of responses flooded my mind, each and every one more damning than the next.

But before I could speak and before a single word could emerge, I was hit with two interruptions in rapid succession. The first, an unwelcome reminder, came about in spite of all my attempts to bury its relevancy. Images of the black-robed professor immediately flashed into waking memory. His actions, his impacts, not only felt… but were viscerally palpable. He was the reason behind my current… encumbrance. He was the reason behind the shortcomings of my ambitions. …

And yet by all measures, he was operating within the very framework both the prince and princess were condemning and one which I was obligated to defend. The irony of my circumstances at present was not beyond me. As I realized in short order that my current existence was facilitated by none other than the agent of anathema herself. It was the earthrealmer who aided me in… softening the blow from Mal'tory's gambits.

It was the earthrealmer who, despite my reservations, managed to strike a deal where a compromise was otherwise impossible. … Yet it was by that very same deal that we were now bound, with the earthrealmer ostensibly holding the keys to my fate. Then came the second interruption. A darkening realization that aligned too neatly with a prophecy I'd only touched upon once before in simple postulation. The Final Confrontation Was I witnessing the first roots of this unstoppable growth?

Was I now an inexplicable part of its insidious machinations? My mind rushed with the possibility only to be brought back out of its spiraling confines by none other than the potential harbinger of this apocalypse herself.

"I think it might be best if we continue the clip show." Emma finally interrupted, bringing my discordant thoughts back to the present.

"Moreover, I really appreciate your guys' enthusiasm about my people, but I think you're being a bit too kind here… We have our issues, we're not perfect, but we try our best to put a buffer between those issues and our ability to follow through with our promises and principles." She turned to the pair with a sheepish and ultimately modest response. One that I despised for its affirmations to both Thacea's and Thalmin's points.

"Get on with it then." I urged, neither acknowledging nor disparaging the earthrelamer at present as we pressed into what this entire recount had been leading up to. The dragon and this illicit correspondence. I watched as the earthrealmer resumed where we left off, as the dragon regarded her with… … Cordiality. An honor that not even the prince was afforded, as it was clear he was an accessory to what was in effect Emma Booker's story. I should have felt nothing.

I should have disregarded this detail, as I should have any other from a creature with such a reprehensible legacy… But I couldn't. There was still a certain… paradoxical 'exclusivity' tied to these beasts, as one would tie a sense of prestige to other magically inclined creatures. Or at least, that's what it was supposed to be. That's where it was supposed to end. But not here. Not when the realization of this beast's sapiency now recolored its power and, by extension, its good graces.

A twinge of disdain and even jealousy creeped up my spine even though I knew I had nothing to be jealous of. This was just a dragon, and whilst no longer a beast, it was still a criminal — a failed despot that had been firmly defeated eons ago. Her title meant nothing. Her good graces were not an honor, let alone something to be jealous of. And so I turned my nose up at this, figuratively and literally, as I shifted my concentration to the more pertinent aspects of the conversation.

Emma's attempts at maintaining this facade of naive interactions were becoming grating, especially as this dragon — this matriarch of nowhere — decided to humor her as such. I tolerated this, maintaining my focus until the sight-seer brought us into the caves and firmly into the realm of an escalation I hadn't expected. Their conversations had shifted in intensity, yes, but the topics were banal and esoteric.

They talked of mathematics, Emma Booker's strange speaking mannerisms, so on and so forth and on and on until…

"You cannot be human." … the dragon's tone shifted. My attention returned and so did my growing curiosity.

"You… your kind must be a lost line." What.

"A daughter amidst daughters." WHAT?

"Part of the crystalline legacy… masquerading in flesh."" WHAT?!!!" I screamed, my internal monologue breaking through my mentalscape and into the realm of the social space. Everyone stopped and so did the sight-seer as Thalmin turned to shush me with a single finger.

"Stop interrupting, Ilunor. We're just getting to the good part!" He grinned mischievously, to which I simply responded by gesturing for the earthrealmer to continue with haste. I leaned in closely, my eyes practically making contact with the manaless looking-glass at this point, prompting the prince to attempt to shoo me away. But I cared not for his demands as I remained virtually glued to the events of the past set into this manaless crystal.

"I believe there's been a misunderstanding." … I let out a sigh, pulling back and then turning towards the earthrealmer with a disappointed gaze.

"What? I never claimed to be an elven-form dragon, Ilunor." She teased.

"I'll have you know I much prefer the human form." And teased some more, her latter statement eliciting further scrutiny.

"And what exactly is the human form then, Cadet Emma Book—""A topic for another day! Let's get back to the video!" She interjected with haste, continuing these illicit scenes and forcing my gaze once more to land on the dragon. The conversation, surprisingly, shifted into more esoteric talk of crystals. I groaned. I just had about enough of this… rambling madness. Yet despite those reservations, I couldn't deny that the dragon's own interests were… concerning.

From her continuously awestruck responses at Emma's unseen 'crystals' to her vivid descriptions of how they supposedly worked — shackled, bound, screaming in forced emergence — all of it was worthy of concern by its own right. However, the fact that it was accompanied by a growing sense of morbid curiosity, visceral disgust, and indignancy at what I'd hardly even considered was worrying. This all came to a head as Kaelthyr uttered those telling words.

"By what right does flesh and blood, without magic, attain the perfection of draconic craft?" … There it was again. She was comparing humans to dragons. This time at least not in terms of form or biology or lineage or relation… but its implications were worrying all the same. She was readily admitting humanity's parity in craft and potential. Emma's following response proved to aggravate me even further.

"By right of will." I scrunched up my nose in disdain and outright harumphed as Kaelthyr seemed to acknowledge that petulant response not just in stride but with outright respect. The conversation soon dipped back into esotericism that quite nearly melted my brain. The same response could be seen on Thalmin's visage as he preoccupied himself instead with the scarfing down of food into his gaping lupinor maw. It was Thacea, however, that leaned in closely, her eyes focused on each and every word spoken…

even if it was through that shatorealmer puppet. I was just about ready to continue my meal until Kaelthyr unleashed her next visceral response.

"... blind clockmakers…" … She was right. I hated to admit that fact, but that was eerily the best descriptor I could have ascribed to the earthrealmers. However, that thought, that notion — as eloquent as it was — was completely supplanted by a passing, practically throwaway comment bordering on humor.

"He should do well as your first realm." My heart stopped for a single breath, my gaze moving to meet both the earthrealmer and lupinor, who were neither bothered nor seemingly caring for what was arguably the single most important line in this rambling discourse. The dragon, this challenger to the sanctity of Status Eternia, was openly broaching the notion of an axiomatic shift of Nexian primacy, presenting the possibility of a new hub to which Havenbrock would be its first spoke.

The rest of the conversation regarding the details behind Emma's crystal quest became but an echoey and muffled mess, as my mind kept repeating that one line over and over and over again. This couldn't be. This can't… surely it's just a point of jest. It's not like things are aligning with prophetic truths… But as much as my mind shifted towards matters of potential futures, so too was the conversation veering towards a rewriting of the past, as Thalmin led the charge in addressing this beast.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. His questions, his direction, eventually landed on a point that both confirmed and reframed my entire understanding of history.

"... dominion of our exclusive rule, and dominion where mortals roamed at our leisurely discretion." There it was. The unbridled truth of the matter. The confirmation that sapient, thinking dragons truly did lord over us. Moreover—"Then I must ask, what changed?" —I was about to get an explanation, a firsthand account from our mortal enemy as to what happened.

"The start of a new era… the disruption of the upheaval cycle and its unforeseen consequences." I smiled. So history was accurate. It was the bold Vunerians and their allies under His Eternal Majesty that broke the cycle, destroyed the wheel, and eviscerated the chains. The rest was history, including the rewriting of draconic legacy. What's more… it was confirmed they'd chosen their own path in the great adjacency war. This… This was undisputed evidence as to the primacy of—"IS THAT A FUCKING DRAGON?!"

My eyes blinked rapidly as I stared at… nothing. Nothing had changed. The room was as dead as this sight-seer was capable of conveying. And yet there were new voices. Voices I hadn't yet heard nor expected in this isolated nook within the rock and dirt. What followed were the disjointed correspondences of Emma… and her people… facilitated by the dragon and spoken with a common, unified language so removed from Nexian sensibilities it might as well have not been translated at all. The back and forths were…

foreign, almost alien in their stilted delivery. Each word felt heavy, not with inference or allusions but with the weight of law and procedural code. Everything seemed blunt, leaving no room for ambiguity and little else for flourishes. Yet it wasn't the bluntness of commoners and the peasantry, no. There was a refinement in this bluntness, a carefully practiced cadence that teetered on the martial but likewise bordered on the scholarly.

These people didn't seem like the rabblerousers or savages I'd expect from Emma's purported systems of anarchy. No, they were as far away from the chaos of this… mire of madness as I could have possibly imagined. There was order, clarity in rank, and poise in the division of responsibility. This wasn't possible. But that perplexity would be quickly supplanted by something else entirely. A reminder of my ill-fated conversation just days ago. A conversation… that had predicted this very interaction.

Emma's delivery of slights and infractions committed against her came shortly after her dire warnings against any ill-fated attempts at illicit portal endeavors. This was bad enough already. But what came next sent shivers up my spine. It was Kaelthyr's turn to play victim. Her delivery of the Nexus' 'damning' infractions was as bitter as it was vitriolic, spoken from the heart, and unyielding in its poise. And by the end of it all came a bone-chilling warning.

"This is what now threatens your halls, matriarchs of the void. This is what stands at the foot of your gates. Do with this knowledge as you will." I could only imagine the reactions, the utter turmoil and fear brewing within the hearts of these bleeding-heart idealists; these naive fools with the capacity for manaless creation straddling the lines of Crownlands excellence… Part of me grew worried. Yet the other part of me yelled at me to come to my senses.

The only thing to worry about here was my involvement in all of this. There was surely no means by which the earthrealmers could threaten the Nexus. How could they, when they could scarcely create a pinhole between the space between spaces! The only danger was in their growth and potential competition with Nexian interests. … Only then will they perhaps reach the heights of the prophesied Adversary.

I steadied my breath as the conversation moved forward at a pace both surprising and confusing, as it seemed much of what Emma and her superiors spoke of was glossed over. Hmmph. At least she has some sense… This hastened pace eventually landed on the last point in this entire endeavor. Thalmin's interactions with Emma's superiors. His introductions were… as to be expected. A simple, honorable thing, or as honorable as one could be when representing a fledgling adjacent realm with scarcely anything to show for it…

Then came the response of Earthrealm's leaders. And with it… came a proclamation that at first felt silly by comparison Doctor. Director. Professor. All scholarly titles and pursuits, with perhaps only one of those being something nominally worth glancing at. That all soon changed, however, the moment her words crossed the threshold into posturing.

"On behalf of the Greater United Nations, and on behalf of the people of Earth, Luna—" Luna? Wasn't that the dead and desolate realm floating in the void above Earthrealm?

"—Venus—" What even was that?

"—Mercury—" Another city?

"—Mars—" Another continent?

"—Saturn—" Wait, it couldn't be.

"—Jupiter—" Was she reciting off entire—"—to the entirety of Sol—" —realms?!

"—and to all the corners of the galaxy that humanity calls home, we receive you with full respect, and acknowledge the sovereignty of the state from which you hail." … All corners of WHAT?! My focus, my attention, my entire frame of reference threatened to unhinge. The respect shown by this leader to Thalmin's presence had already been enough. But when coupled with this understanding, no, this serious implication of Earthrealm… no, humanity's true extent? … I raised my hand, ordering the earthrealmer to halt.

"Yes, Ilunor?"

"Emma… what was your superior trying to imply here?" I asked carefully.

"Oh, she's just trying to be thorough and cordial, as well as polite in ensuring that first — somewhat official — contact gets off on the right foot and—""Not that, earthrealmer!" I seethed, before pointing at her cape and the emblem proudly embroidered upon it.

"She was reciting off what exactly? Towns? Cities? Continents, perhaps?" I rattled on before shaking my head wildly.

"Nonononono, no. That can't be right now, can it? That can't be. Why would she? That doesn't work, especially when she explicitly listed Luna following Earth, implying that this list, this recital, was not of unequal sets but the same, no?" I hoped I was wrong. I prayed that I had well and truly departed the realm of logic and reason. But then came the fated response.

"You're right on the money there, Ilunor! Dr. Weir was, admittedly, a bit carried away by the gravitas of the whole situation. So her introduction in response to Thalmin was a bit more dramatic than it probably would have been if it were a letter. With that being said, the answer to your question is yes. She more or less listed most of the major powers in our grand union before capping it off with an umbrella categorization for the rest of it.

Because trust me, if you wanted to list all of the 'realms' in our union of states, well… we'd probably be here until tomorrow, haha!" The earthrealmer acknowledged with that same blasé cadence, completely disregarding the leypull of the situation. But her delivery wasn't important here. No. It was the confirmation of my deductive reasoning. Why did I have to be so intelligent? Why couldn't I be an ignorant fool? Why… why has fate cursed me with such a deductive mind?!!

I cried out internally, as I gripped both fork and knife tight within my hands. The sight-seer resumed, touching and elaborating on the sizes of these 'realms', courtesy of Prince Thalmin's own questioning intent.

"These places are realms unto their own… comparable to Earth by their own right… possessing populations sharing in the prosperity of the sights you've seen from Acela." I turned to Emma once more, my eyes half-lidded and my body refusing to ingest anything in light of this assault on my reality.

"They can't be that big." I stated plainly.

"Oh, but they are, Ilunor." She beamed back. I hated that.

"How?" I shot back with a stifled laugh.

"HOW?! LUNA WAS A DESOLATE WHITE-SANDY WASTELAND!"

"Yes." Emma nodded, infuriating me further.

"And by your own director's admission, this 'VENUS' is both toxic and acidic! A-are, are you humans somehow resistant to these deathly environments?"

"Oh, gosh no. We'd die as easily in those environments as we would in mana!"

"THEN HOW CAN YOU CLAIM TO HAVE SETTLEMENTS IN DEATHREALMS AS PROSPEROUS AS ACELA?!" The earthrealmer refused to elaborate, instead simply gesturing back to her armor.

"Tenacity." She spoke simply before gesturing to her bedroom.

"And adaptability. Not to the environment, mind you, but the other way around. Because you see, we refuse to back down from a challenge, and we likewise refuse to bend over for these environments. Instead, we make the environment bend to our will. That is to say, we build. We construct habitats from great turntable cities to floating metropolises, all in defiance of the hostilities of our uncompromising universe. We build our way out of problems, and eventually, we thrive for it."

I breathed in and out deeply, my sooty breaths causing the air around me to grow foggier and more acrid; the princess responded to this by swiftly summoning a gust of wind to clear the air.

"I understand it may be difficult to get your head around at first, Ilunor. And again, I don't blame you. You've only seen our baby steps into the void. Even back then the stuff I'm spouting now would seem utterly impossible. But a thousand years of stellar expansion and experience really does make all the difference, you know?" She chuckled.

"I'll have some sight-seers prepped up in the ZNK-19 over the following weeks, or whenever we have time. Then, I'll show you our expansion into the stars."

"Just as you've shown us the growth of Acela?" Thalmin questioned.

"Yup!"

"With everything that comes with it too?" He squeezed harder, piquing my interest.

"Yes, you'll get to see some of our military escapades too, Thalmin." Emma acquiesced with a tired sigh, prompting my own gaze to narrow. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of… everything so far, or perhaps it was my newfound fixation with the ramifications of these revelations, but the next back and forth between Thalmin and Emma's superiors felt… muted, almost lacking in detail. There were pleasantries and the 'respect' the prince had spoken of, yes. But my attention couldn't capture anything significant.

Instead, both the dragon and this… multi-realm union stood tall above all else. It was possible. It was… probable. It was more than likely. Which was the worst part about this. I'd seen firespears taking their first pioneers up and into another realm. That was… established. And if one succeeded… it stands to reason that more could build something out of it.

But admitting that, acknowledging that possibility, meant the acknowledgment that Earthrealm could very well be the only other power with a presence in multiple rea— No. This was different. Earthrealm was simply… bridging the gap between a single realm, wasn't it? The void was not a true 'space between spaces.' They weren't really a Nexus of one. That was absurd. … Just as absurd as their scale. But perhaps none more absurd than their stated intent.

My attention returned to Emma's sight-seer once more, watching now as the earthrealmer recited some long-dead human's creed.

"We step out… seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all of its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe. And it is with humility and hope that we take this step." Modesty. So much modesty like a trickster lying in wait. With all of this potential, with all of this power, such modesty felt insulting, if not entirely disingenuous. And yet they played it completely straight.

Over and over and time and time again, going so far as to be replicated by Emma's superiors and everyone around them. What did they want?! Friendship was not a reasonable motivator for such extraordinary efforts into the impossible! There needed to be palpable material gain! Were these earthrealmers fools? Or perhaps… they were simply just this misguided. Whatever the case was… I needed to see how all of this came to be before accepting this like some blind aspirant.

My attention once more returned to the looking-glass, just in time to see all of it coming to an abrupt and unexpected end.

"Aaaand that's where the clipshow ends, folks. Or at least, that's really the real big points of interest we should be covering tonight." Emma announced, just as a series of alarms blared and were silenced. I raised a brow at this, somewhat bemused but more so curious at the abrupt stop. But such reactions were muted when compared to the rapid shift in the princess' visage. Thacea No. This… this couldn't be. She promised that this wasn't possible.

My eyes widened at the alarms, at the sounds and echoes of what Emma had once described to be her litany of 'warnings' against potential mana and taint incursions. These were… reactionary responses from her manaless artifices, informants as to potential dangers, and augments to her senses where she was otherwise completely blind. And it was one of these, the only one she seemed entirely resistant to, that had so clearly caused… whatever it was at the end of this entire affair. I stood up, urging Emma to follow.

What happened next was a simple trot over to our dormitory, a soft closing of its door, and a donning of an expression I rarely wore outside of private spaces.

"Emma." I managed out with a darkened and unsteady trill.

"Y-yes, Thacea?" She responded nervously, her body language reflecting this shift in mood.

"Am I correct in assuming something terrible happened at the end of that recording?"

"Well—""Just answer me plainly, please."

"... alright, princess." She nodded.

"There… there was a complication, one which resulted in the loss of contact with Earth, a sudden adverse reaction from Kaelthyr, and a… a seizure from yours truly." I took a step back, my hands trembling as I looked down at both of my talons with utter fear and visceral disgust.

"Was it… taint that caused this?" I questioned.

"I recognized one of the alarms, the one you taught me, showed me."

"I don't know." Emma admitted, spurring on an even worse spiral into self-doubt than a simple 'yes' could ever have.

"What do you mean you don't know?" I urged, causing Emma's fists to ball up.

"I… I don't know. I… there's evidence to support it, but I can't be certain. I just… there's just not enough data to definitively say anything at this point in time."

"But it could have been possible." I drilled.

"It could have been taint that caused this?"

"Yes." Emma nodded once more. At which point, I felt my whole body shaking. I could've… She could have… There were so many instances, so many random occurrences, including her own urgings where I even—"Thacea, listen—""You claimed on multiple occasions that taint was a negligible concern. That while unknown, its exposure brought you no ill effects." I interjected.

"I… I could have hurt you, and then what? There would be no method for me, or anyone else, to help. You'd be writhing, suffocating, dying in your own skin. I can't reach you, I can't touch you, I can't even see into you!" I managed out, and in a rare instance of complete transparency, I allowed an explosion of outrage to completely color my sensibilities.

"What would you do then? What could anyone do then? How would we even realize if you've… succumbed to a fate of my own making?" I stared at my hands, watching as they trembled with disgust at my affliction lying in wait.

"What would I do then?" Emma paused, her expression unreadable but her downward gaze telling me all I needed to know.

"We can't say for certain that it's taint." She finally spoke.

"My working hypothesis is that it's a spell, or some sort of magic cast using taint. And that's why it affected me so viscerally." This… hypothesis… sent chills down my spine, but I dared not interrupt, merely urging Emma to continue.

"All of my previous exposures with taint have been latent bursts without any real rhyme or reason to them. No targeted attacks, no nothing. Am I wrong?"

"No." I admitted.

"Moreover, as you've seen yourself in the memory shards with the dragon, it even used taint to see through the armor and into… well… me. This proves that taint itself isn't the issue. Which implies there must be more to it. That's why I think this… incident wasn't the result of just taint itself but an emergent property of it… maybe a spell that was cast using it. A spell that was specifically targeting me." I narrowed my gaze, considering the facts, before letting out a frustrated sigh on Emma's behalf.

"And without manasight, without the ability to see, you were unable to recall or record such an event."

"Correct." She nodded once more.

"Even with the wand apparatus, there was too much interference, too much noise to make anything out." I turned my head away for a moment, reaching my shoulder in resignation.

"I wish I could have provided you with better tainted streams for you to study from—""No, no. It wasn't you, Thacea. It's… my artifices need time to adapt. A week and change wasn't going to cut it. There was no way to predict this. It was…"

"An act of the fates, so to speak." I reasoned dourly.

"You could say that…" Emma sighed, shrugging her shoulders as she did so.

"Listen, Thacea, I… I'm sorry if I worried you or anything."

"No." I responded reflexively.

"No, it's… it is I who must apologize for being so… forward with my concerns, Emma. Especially given how I was working on naught but a fragment of a hypothesis myself."

"No, I… I mean to say I'm sorry for everything else as well." She added, prompting my gaze to tighten.

"I made a promise at the very start of this that I'd try my best to mitigate risk. But… as you've seen, it wasn't easy."

"No, it wasn't." I acknowledged with a shrug of my own.

"But it was not entirely your fault… so I refuse to cast blame on you for that."

"Come on, princess, don't go easy on me now. You know there were a few things during that whole trip that I could have mitigated—""I have spoken, and I will hear no more of it." The words left my beak on instinct, edged with an authoritative intent I hadn't meant to bare. My gaze faltered almost immediately.

"What I meant to say was—""Your Majesty has spoken—" Emma cut in lightly, already committing to a mock bow.

"And your knight obeys." There was a clear glint of an amused chuckle in her tone, one which I couldn't help but find… amusing. Silence quickly returned, interspersed with a few chuckles from Emma.

"So aside from that abrupt end, I couldn't help but to notice… a lot more was alluded to but missing in context, Emma." I attempted to move the conversation… away from all of this, regaining composure, control, and focus.

"Yeah… there were a few things that I left out for Ilunor's sake."

"For your sake, you should say."

"Yeah… that'd be more accurate."

"If you feel that I should not be privy to such proceedings then I completely understa—""Oh! Nonono! It's nothing like that, Thacea. If anything, I have the full and uncut version here for you. It's just… it's not the intel I'm worried about here. I trust you as much as I trust Thalmin, after all."

"I see." I replied softly, placing both hands in front of me with poise.

"Yeah, I… you see, there's just oooone small detail that might be, well, not so small, come to think of it. It's rather important, and I was rather hesitant to show it to you, not because I don't trust you. It's just…"

"Yes?"

"Awkward." I cocked my head, taking a seat if only to seem less… invasive, urging Emma on with a wave of my hand.

"I won't judge, Emma." I reassured the human, smiling softly as I did so.

"I know you won't but…" She took a deep breath before letting it out all in one exasperated exhale.

"Alright, let's get it out of the way first." I leaned in closer as Emma took another step towards me.

"Thalmin asked me for my hand in marriage."

"Ah."