“You’re… here…” Kai chose this as his greeting as he walked into view. His words were as lukewarm as ever.

  Nico tilted an ear in suspicion even though it was who he thought it’d be. He heard footsteps that sounded like Kai’s, and as expected, it was him. Except they had set off in opposite directions this morning.

  “Did you follow us here?”

  It wasn’t like Kai to not do his share of work. He probably had a good reason.

  “No. I entered from an opening on the west bank and then followed the sudden surge of mana distortion. It led me here.”

  …Or not. He could just lie, whatever.

  “It looped back east?” Nico lifted an ear, obviously suspicious.

  “From what I could tell I kept north-west the entire time.” Kai mirrored and lifted his own ear as he walked towards the amphitheater.

  Nico didn’t care for the vague wording and responded with his own.

  “We walked south-east for the most part.”

  " Hm.” Kai accepted it too easily. He looked around as he asked,

  “How long were you in the rift?”

  Nico wasn’t in the mood for Kai’s usual topic changing.

  “About two hours,” he said, glancing at his phone, deciding to be difficult.

  Kai let out a small scoff that held a sentiment of ‘are you serious’.

  “…Alright. Not a great time to be withholding information, but I’ll give you time to process.” Kai sighed and redirected his path to take a look around at the decaying tree trunk and surrounding ruins.

  Nico ignored the sigh. Kai didn’t care and continued. “I found some interesting mana pollution in the area I was in. How it was decaying the surroundings was a bit different from the other rifts we surveyed in Tellur but…” Kai put pressure on the bark of the decaying trunk, and it gave way to dust. “… it’s the same as right here.” Kai looked to Nico, “it’s clearly polluted but how it degrades seems to follow a very specific, slow pattern. I’d guess this is the result of decades of degradation.”

  Nico didn’t feel like dancing around the topic and stated the obvious. “It feels like the weak remnants of an Ashmark.”

  “What makes you think that?” Kai’s ears tilted as he asked in an earnest tone. He started walking the perimeter of the trunk again, taking close account of the ruins in relation to it.

  Nico tilted his head. Well, it’s true Kai wasn’t in the rift. Probably. It was still suspicious that he got here so quickly. “In the rift, the riftborn—hm…” A lot had happened. Nico had to think about how to get the point across without rambling. The way he thought of made him wince a little.

  “The main ones resembled Aster and his familiars.”

  “The Sage?”

  “Mn. Down to the skill.”

  “…”

  Kai silently made his round and came back to the part of the ruins Nico sat in. Nico watched Kai trace over some of the Serif glyphs in thought.

  “A lot to accomplish in two hours,” Kai mumbled.

  Kind of audacious coming from a guy who should’ve been well more than two hours away.

  “That wasn’t a lot of processing time.” Nico rolled his eyes as he said this.

  “It wasn’t, sorry,” Kai’s tone had softened. He pulled his attention away from the ancient runes and turned to face Nico from where he was standing, “But to check in… did you have to fight them?”

  The change in tone surprised Nico, who was fully expecting them to bicker for longer. Also he didn’t need an apology?

  “…Yeah, the riftborn versions of them…” Nico found himself grasping for words to describe it, not sure of what details to include. He settled with the summary of, “It was rough.”

  Kai gave Nico a good stare, looking him up and down with the same thoroughness he had given the ruins.

  “You don’t seem to be dealing with mana exhaustion.”

  Kinda accusatory, but with all their years together, Nico knew this comment was to get a good read on his condition, rather than to poke holes in his story.

  " Zhou took on a lot of it. It was–” Nico looked down and picked at his fingers as he struggled again to figure out what to filter for relevance. “–unsettling how much difficulty it gave us.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Kai’s ears twitched. With a displeased expression he gathered, “So there’s enough mana condensed here to form a copy of a sage. But not just that, the riftborn version was strong enough to challenge an actual sage?”

  Nico tilted his head. Kai wasn’t the type to think out loud like this for show. Nico gave him a slow nod and Kai continued, “And the decay here resembles what you saw of the rift version of the Ashveil skill, but it’s still here after you unraveled the rift.”

  “…Yeah.” Nico said, quickly losing interest in being defensive. This felt like how they typically debriefed.

  “A man-made rift then,” Kai’s voice held a tone dripping with disgust. A disgust Nico recognized because it was the same one stockpiling inside of him. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel it yet; he took care to give Zhou the space to–

  Wait, what was he letting Zhou do?

  “It’s probably…” Nico found himself contributing now, “not ambient, from what I’ve experienced in both rifts.”

  “You’ve experienced this more than once…?” Kai’s ears perked up.

  “The festival rift fully mirrored Zhou’s sage skill.”

  Kai’s eyes widened at this statement.

  Now that he heard himself say it out loud, even Nico felt it was out of character for him—to not have already told Kai this.

  After a series of rapid blinks, Kai picked up where Nico left off, “Just like it fully mirrored your skills…”

  Then with a sigh, “so you didn’t think it was strange…” Kai pieced it together. “Because you don’t think the sage is strange anymore.”

  That’s right. He had gotten used to their shtick of pretending Zhou wasn’t there and only talked about his own reflection in the rift. It felt implied that he was always with Zhou now.

  “…Seems to be the case.”

  It admittedly wasn’t a groundbreaking connection for Kai to make. Nico should’ve realized it much sooner; it was incredibly dense of him not to have. He ran his hand over his face, sweeping his bangs back, unsure if he was feeling stunned or embarrassed.

  But even as he let out a groan, Kai didn’t seem to be interested in getting upset at Nico.

  “Well, that’s one explanation for how we both ended up here,” Kai said.

  “…”

  Nico hadn’t taken core mana into consideration for that either. He had long stopped questioning how Kai and Zhou kept popping up in unexpected locations.

  But that shouldn’t have made him stupid.

  Kai’s tone was even and careful.

  “Is he okay?”

  “….”

  The pause was towards Kai’s acknowledgment of the Sage. It was a quick change of heart. A full day had passed in the rift for Nico, but only two or three hours for Kai.

  Nico responded softly, feeling oddly protective of Zhou’s condition, “…that’s hard to say.”

  As he had been this entire time. One rift after another, he watched Zhou pick up pieces of something that seemed like he’d been told he’d never find, something that no longer existed. Nico became sensitive to his–

  Oh.

  He was letting Zhou grieve.

  “Then what about you?” Kai didn’t ask for more details about the sage as usual, but it felt like for a different reason this time.

  “Uh,” Nico murmured blankly, “I don’t know,” but honestly.

  Kai sighed and put a hand to his forehead, shading his eyes as he looked up towards the opening of the cave, as if he were looking for the position of the sun. He started putting gear into his inventory—the items typically pulled out to navigate the terrain, but sat bulky on the body. They constrained movement enough to slow him down and become more detectable. It looked like he was preparing for another non-goodbye.

  Nico also was feeling exasperated with himself, so he wasn’t going to protest. But Kai crossed the ruins toward where he sat. Nico gave a curious expression as a hand was extended out to him. Even when he only stared at it, it stayed there. So he eventually took it. His friend pulled him up from his seat on the ruin. Then into a gentle hug. Nico gave one back in return, still feeling unsure of the gesture as he was given a few pats on the back. The confusion that surfaced wasn’t because of the physical contact of the hug…

  But because it made him realize how much he needed it. His heart had been feeling so heavy.

  “…”

  He and Kai entered Tellur at the same time with about the same amount of fragmented knowledge, or lack thereof, of its history. They were learning, at the same time, how much had been hidden. They filled each other in on what they uncovered day by day. So why could Kai stay level-headed as more information was disseminated to them, while he grew dim and weary? Nico felt increasingly upset with himself.

  “…Sorry for being moody.”

  "It’s okay,” Kai responded immediately, “You’re allowed to be, but that’s not how I’d describe it.”

  “…”

  “I know you’re doing this regardless, but I’ll still remind you to not be hard on yourself about it.”

  " …What would you describe it as?”

  “What it's been for you for a long time.”

  “…”

  “Grief.”

  Oh.

  He had been grieving too.

  * * *

  Nico always told Kai everything he deemed pertinent to the mission. But he had been omitting the little things that didn’t feel relevant, especially when they pertained to Zhou. Like how Zhou knew bits of the local folktales. How there seemed to be familiarity every time the sage looked through ancient glyphs.

  But also how Tellur felt foreign to Zhou too. And how the longer he stayed in Tellur, the more Nico questioned himself. How complicated it made him feel that he was more comfortable interacting with Virid people, yet found himself sticking to the Arcanite quarters. That of all people, he spent the most time here with Zhou. That he preferred it because he felt the least awkward with him. And that he could have joined Kai in how much he interacted with Effie and her network, but chose not to. Because he didn’t like going to the Virid quarter. Because it reminded him of—

  That wasn’t true; it didn’t remind him of his hometown. It was much too vibrant and even in its current state, far more stable than the home he fled. It was just—he knew Ruzen had long changed since he left, but not how, since he couldn’t bring himself to go back. So Tellur—rather, Tulen and the Virid quarter—felt like remembering a homeland he never knew, but had been raised to mourn. Harboring that sentiment developed a deep guilt within him, even though he didn’t know much about those places at all.

  Because the fox knew he held a place that no longer existed in his heart.