Date: March 8th, year 1286 Location: ???

  Uuugh I’m so sooore. But I’m still comfortable, so I’ll sleep in. There’s no farm work to be done today anyways! …Why am I sensing Vanessa somewhere nearby?... I can’t even see anything, my eyes are closed. I just feel like she’s around. Whoa, she’s getting closer. Oh no, she’s probably mad about the injuries! Eek, get away from me! I need to wake up!

  - “AAAAH!” Nyx screams as she jolts up.

  She was lying in a bed of leaves in between two trees in the forest, and the moon was high in the sky. She hears a thud nearby, and when she turns she sees the light of a campfire a few meters away from her. Next to it, Julian was sitting on the ground, his hand clenched on his heart and his eyes widened in terror.

  - “Why in the three hells did you scream?!” He yells.

  - “Vanessa was chasing me!” Nyx replies, disoriented. “Is that what humans call fear?! I don’t like it at all!!”

  - “Nyx!” Beatrice exclaims from behind the campfire, getting into Nyx’s field of vision before running over and jumping into her arms. She seemed much healthier than back in the trafficker’s lair. “I’m so glad you’re okay !”

  - “Beatrice!” Nyx catches her before looking around. She notices none of the other escapees were here. “Where are the others?”

  - “Most of them headed South towards Oakvale.” Julian replies.

  - “Oh already? I barely got to ask them anything!”

  - “Then you shouldn’t have slept for two days.”

  - “I was out for two days? Maybe I overslept a little too much…”

  - “You said it. They stuck around for the first day, but then left eventually since food was getting tight.” Julian points his thumb at the cut-open boar that was roasting over the campfire, held up by a few tree branches.

  - “Oh I see.” Nyx looks down at Beatrice, then pans back to Julian. “Why are you still here ?”

  - “Oh you thought I was just going to let you go into the forest and die to random things? Think again. I know better than to leave my benefactors without some measure of compensation.” His eyes stop on Beatrice, and he frowns. “About her…”

  - “I don’t wanna go to Okkeveil!” Beatrice screams. “I wanna stay with Nyx!”

  - “Yeah there you have it.”

  - “Oh.” Nyx places her hand on her chin. “That would make us… a party!”

  - “Don’t put it that way. I don’t want to be associated with you when you inevitably kill a random civilian with your magic.”

  - “I wanna be associated!” Beatrice raises her hand.

  - “You… really don’t.”

  - “I’d never kill civilians! That’s like, really bad! Also, if you don’t want to be a party then there’s other group names then, like a band!” Nyx comments.

  - “That’s for music.” Julian sighs.

  - “Hmmm… a troupe!”

  - “For performing.”

  - “A guild!”

  - “Too big.”

  - “A terrorist organization!”

  - “Where did that come from?!”

  - “We were beating people up and messing up infrastructure back in the cave!”

  - “That’d make you a thug or a hooligan, not a… terrorist. Also you were the only one partaking in mass destruction.”

  - “Alright, then it’s decided!”

  - “What is? You-”

  Julian is interrupted by the sound of branches cracking behind Nyx and Beatrice. When Nyx turns, she sees a large brown bear advancing towards her. Beatrice emits a short high pitched scream and grips Nyx’s dress tighter.

  - “Oh, a bear.” Nyx comments as she points her finger towards it.

  - “Probably got attracted by the noise.” Julian says as he reaches for his sword, resting on a rock near the campfire.

  Before he can even grab it, a small yellow star forms at the tip of Nyx’s finger. A wave of similarly colored plasma erupts from it, and the bear is completely incinerated. It only leaves a pile of smoking bones behind.

  - “Uh… that takes care of it I guess.” Julian comments, lightly frowning.

  - “Look!” Nyx says as she runs over to the remains of the bear and picks up its skull. “I saw that some humans like collecting things like that!”

  - “You’re surprisingly ruthless. Weren’t you the one who said you didn’t like to kill and all that?”

  - “I don’t like to kill humans.” She replies as she walks back towards the campfire with the skull. “But bears can’t tell stories, so I don’t care ! Plus, even when they’re involved in anything they’re super boring. Always the same personality, no changes at all! Can you imagine?”

  - “Well yeah bears aren’t known for their emotional depth. But still, you shouldn’t just go around killing animals for no reason. They’re alive too, you know? You could’ve just scared it off.”

  - “Nope! The only real living beings are the ones who try to communicate with me. The rest is just kinda… there !” She opens her arms wide. “They exist for humans and other people to feed off of. If it’s threatening Beatrice or me, then I’ll extinguish it before it can do any damage!”

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  - “...I’ll just drop that for now. I don’t have the energy to tell you just how wrong you are.” He pauses for a few seconds. “Wait, why am I not included in that sentence?...”

  - “You can defend yourself! Plus, I discovered that I really want to keep humans who openly display their affection for me alive, like my father or Beatrice!”

  - “Is that true?” Beatrice asks, looking up at Nyx.

  - “Of course!”

  - Yay!” She hugs Nyx, smiling from ear to ear.

  - “Huh. Well I guess at least someone’s wish has been granted, to some extent.” He replies as he gets up and starts cutting pieces off the boar roasting over the fire with his sword. “Granted I don’t know if that’s a good thing in this scenario…”

  - “What are you talking about?” Nyx starts, before her stomach loudly growls. “Ah. I’m super hungry!”

  - “Here’s the menu. Do enjoy the variety our establishment has to offer.” Julian replies, dangling a piece of meat over the flames.

  Nyx walks over with Beatrice and they start eating. Nyx was looking up at the sky, stargazing while Julian was finishing his meal. When he’s done, he turns to her.

  - “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. I know my way around the kingdom, so I’ll take you to Crystal Rose. I also have a few things I need to take care of there.”

  - “Oh?” Nyx tilts her head to the side, mimicked by Beatrice. “Like what? When I think about it, you never told me anything about you!”

  - “And it’s better if it stays that way.”

  - “Now I’m reeeally curious! Tell me!”

  - “No. Now stop pressing me, I need to get some sleep.”

  - “But I want to know ! What should I do… right ! If I threaten you, will you tell me?”

  - “I don’t feel the least bit threatened by you. I don’t even think you could bring yourself to throw a rock at me if I wasn’t trying to kill you.” He replies as he gets up.

  - “How do you know that?!”

  - “Anyways, good night.” He concludes, laying down in a bed of leaves similar to the one Nyx woke up in, not too far away from the campfire.

  Nyx starts pouting, and stands up to find a better stargazing spot. She eventually finds a grass clearing not too far away from the campfire, with a nice nocturnal breeze blowing across it and creating a relaxing ambient sound of leaves rustling. Beatrice quickly joins her.

  - “What’re you doing?” She asks. “You look up at the sky a lot!”

  - “I’m making sure all my stars are still as bright as usual ! It’s weird, none of them have burned out yet. Time really slows down when I’m having fun!”

  - “You know all the stars?”

  - “Yes! I made them, it’d be sad if I didn’t know the names humans gave to a few of them. For example, this one is Zerkis or Dela depending on the time period, this one is-”

  Nyx starts listing off all the stars in the sky, with the names given to them by all the human civilizations she had witnessed up until now. Beatrice was listening religiously during that whole time, but when Nyx gets to somewhere around the thousandth star, she sees Beatrice lying next to her, peacefully sleeping on the grass.

  - “I guess that’s it for tonight!” Nyx declares as she also lays on the grass, and keeps staring at her creation above for the rest of the night.

  Date: March 9th, year 1286 Location: A forest in Specta

  Nyx wakes up to the sound of Julian’s voice, coming from her left.

  - “And that’s exactly why you don’t sleep on the ground in forests you don’t know anything about.”

  - “...Huh?” Nyx asks, still a bit out of it. She gets upright, and immediately notices red marks all over her arms and legs. She quickly feels an itch coming from each and every one of the marks.

  - “Hmmm?...” Beatrice mumbles as she also wakes up. The same marks are visible on her, and she quickly starts scratching her arms frantically.

  - “You never know what type of critters are on the ground. The leaves I used to make your bed are from a plant that repels bugs with its sap. Sleep anywhere but on them, and you’re exposing yourself to getting chewed on during your sleep.”

  - “Ah.” Nyx replies while staring at Beatrice. “I knew I should’ve removed them entirely back then. They’re annoying, humans can’t eat them most of the time, and they can make people sick!”

  - “Well they’re essential to any ecosystem, so-” Julian freezes.

  - “What’s going on?”

  - “Shush.” He replies in a very low tone.

  He was staring in the direction of their camp. When Nyx follows his gaze, she sees a few lights moving among the trees. They were lanterns, held by what seemed to be a group of bandits with leather armor and a variety of weapons in hand. Said bandits were heading towards their campfire, which had burned out.

  - “How did a search party find us?... We’re so far from their base…” Julian whispers.

  - “Oh. I don’t want to fight though!” Nyx comments.

  - “Did you hear that?” A man from the search party shouts. Nyx sees him looking around for the source of the sound.

  - “So much for my sword. We’re leaving.” Julian says as he helps Nyx and Beatrice up. “Nyx, for the love of all that’s holy please stop yelling all the time.”

  - “That’s just how I talk!”

  - “Over there!” One of the bandits shouts.

  - “Dammit. Nyx, just follow me!” Julian shouts as he immediately throws Beatrice over his shoulder and starts running.

  He was very fast, but slowed down at times for Nyx to catch up. The bandits give them chase for about five minutes before they find a large pond and Julian jumps in head first. Nyx follows suit, and immediately starts sinking towards the bottom. Julian raises his hand, and a large bubble of air pierces the surface and hovers down to them, completely engulfing their heads and allowing them to breathe. Nyx immediately starts coughing up water.

  - “Wait, how did you inhale water?...” Julian asks. “Don’t you know how to hold your breath?”

  - “I do!" She pauses, gasping for air due to both the water in her lungs and fatigue. "...I just didn’t think of doing that!” She pauses to huff again, her body motionlessly floating in the water.

  - “...Okay. You really need to work on your stamina by the way.”

  - “So that’s your magic?” Beatrice asks as she looks around at the fish swimming around them. “You’re lucky…”

  - “Not as lucky as you’d think. I just hardened a dome of air and forced it down into the pond.” Julian replies. “I’d much rather have standard wind magic.”

  They see the group of bandits passing by the pond. One of them stops to look at it, but doesn’t notice the bubble thanks to the sun’s rays reflecting on the surface. Eventually, the bubble’s air turns foul, and Julian dissipates it before he swims out towards the surface with Beatrice. Nyx also does, flailing her arms and legs up and down in a synchronized and completely unoptimized motion.

  - “Why do you swim like that?...” Julian asks. “You look like a jellyfish.”

  - “I don’t know how to swim, so I’m swimming like Jelly!”

  - “Jelly?”

  - “That’s a monster I know! She swims very well.”

  - “You know what, I’m done brushing that stuff off. It’s becoming way too weird, so I think it’s about time I start asking a few questions.” He turns towards the sun, and then pivots slightly in place while pointing his finger forward. “Alright let’s head North, you can tell me what your deal is on the way.”

  - “Ha ! I sense a trade opportunity!”

  - “...What?”

  - “Humans love trading, and I understand why now! It’s super convenient. If I tell you my story, then you tell me yours! How about that?”

  - “You can know… some of it. You don’t have to tell me everything either, just the big lines. I just have a hunch you’re not JUST crazy, especially after overhearing you talk about the stars yesterday.”

  - “Then we have a deal!”

  Julian starts heading North, and Nyx merrily follows him while recounting all the events that transpired from the creation of the universe up until now. Eventually, Julian loses patience.

  - “I said just the big lines! How long have you been in Specta for?”

  - “Oh. A few months?”

  - “Then if you’re going in detail, describe those!”

  - “Fine… But you can’t deny I was creative when I made that one star that-”

  Julian deeply sighs as Nyx starts proudly rambling about the genesis of the universe again, fishing for praise. Beatrice was giggling in the background as she watched Julian’s mental state degrade as time went on.

  - “I didn’t think there would be so many people out there that would make me regret my life choices…” He complains.