Mercy sorted through a crate of dried herbs at the small kitchen table, quick fingers picking through the bundles while Tiana's presence sat at the edge of her thoughts — not warm, not comfortable, just there, the way an uninvited guest always feels.
"This one's burned too bad," Mercy muttered, tossing a blackened sprig aside.
'Most of them will be. You gathered up everything from the villagers to make medicine already. This is just the leftover.'
Mercy didn't answer. She'd long since stopped bothering to fill every silence Tiana left behind.
Then suddenly, it hit her.
Not a sound. Not a sight. Something underneath both, a pressure against the inside of her chest.
A bundle slipped from her fingers.
'Temorsth is awake…' Tiana felt the same thing, but she knew what it was.
Mercy was already up, chair scraping back hard against the floorboards.
'Wait —' But just as suddenly as the feeling came, Tiana went cold in a different way. '—something's wrong. Mercy, wait—'
She didn't wait. The cottage was small.
Liam — Temorsth's room was only a few steps and a doorway away, and Mercy crossed it before Tiana finished the thought, hitting the door with both hands hard enough that it cracked against the wall.
Half naked, bandages across his abdomen, just as she had laid him down. He was standing at the window.
A small window, the kind with little swinging doors instead of glass, and both had been pushed open wide, one hanging slightly crooked on its hinge. The wind came through in slow pulls. It should have caught the edge of his pants, the loose strands of his hair. Nothing moved.
He didn't turn even to the sound of the door.
Mercy's breath caught in her throat — relief first, pure and instant, 'he's up, he's awake, he's—'
Then it curdled.
She knew how Liam stood.
She also could recognize how Reason held himself, spine straight like a blade sheathed.
She felt Monster's presence once, and that was enough to permanently be burned into her.
This wasn't any of them.
There was something almost lazy in the set of his shoulders, an ease that didn't belong to anyone she'd met wearing that face — and inside her, Tiana had gone rigid.
Not speaking.
Still, the way something goes still when it's trying not to be noticed by a thing that already knows exactly where it is.
Mercy's voice came out smaller than she wanted. "...Tiana? Is this Persona?" She knew the name, the face Tiana had told her about.
'That's not him. That's—'
The silence that followed had weight to it. Wind filled the gap instead of words.
Then, quiet, almost to herself — "How was he let out?"
Tiana took the body before Mercy could stop her.
'Hey! Why did you force me down!?' Mercy shoved back against the pull, angry, but underneath the anger she couldn't help feeling what Tiana felt.
"Zenith? Where is Persona… why… how are you out?" Tiana's voice came out smaller than Mercy's had.
He didn't answer.
His head turned, unhurried, and his mouth moved.
No sound reached her. No sound reached anyone.
'He's not saying it.' Tiana's thought came fast, urgent in a way it hadn't been a moment ago. 'He always says it. First thing, every time, before he's even finished waking up.'
'Says what?'
'It doesn't matter what. Just — he always says it.'
He didn't move to say it now either. He only watched the wind fail to reach him, the way a man might watch a door refuse to open for someone else and find nothing about that surprising.
'What is happening…?' Mercy had gone quiet, pinned beneath Tiana's hold, but the unease radiating off her kept her sharp, watching.
'I don't know.'
Whatever he was doing, it didn't cost him the way effort costs anyone else — his mouth simply kept moving and nothing came out, and he let it happen again without hurry, the way someone repeats a step they already know will land.
"Serenity—" It came out thin. Half of a word more than a whole one.
Nothing followed it. He hadn't finished — not in whatever place finishing actually required.
He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear, and whatever he found there settled something in him.
Original's presence turned toward him. Distant. Unhurried. Like a key finding its lock.
'Zenith.'
"Serenity, I'm— trying."
A pause followed that he felt more than heard.
'Trying.' The word came back to him, turned over, examined. 'I don't believe I've ever heard you use that word before.'
"...Serenity."
'You always just do things, Zenith. You've never needed to try. Interesting work I've put up, or are you just playing?'
"It is different," Zenith said it the way he said most things — certain, but it was already past the need to defend it.
Silence.
Something in the silence that answered him shifted, just slightly.
'Good. You are doing well, brother.' Knowing they were asking Zenith to do something unnatural to the existence he was, Original couldn't help but praise.
His presence withdrew as quietly as it had come.
"..." Zenith didn't say the word again. There was no reason to. What it was for was no longer something he needed, so it was dropped.
"A blind man cured is quick to throw away the stick that guided him. Serenity... that is not entirely true. Mortality reaches for memory and sentiment before it reaches for what is merely useful. And after everything — am I not mortal too?" Zenith looked out the window.
The wind reached him — not through some narrow gap he was forcefully creating, but all at once, every inch of skin in the same instant.
He turned his palm over slowly in the light. "Warmth, rays of light. I could say Zenith is now in the world, though I must ask, is the world in me too? Serenity…" He used the word again, even with its meaning lost.
He watched his own fingers flex, the way a man confirms a fact he was never in doubt of to begin with.
Behind him, he was aware that Tiana and Mercy were speaking about him to him. He let them. Nothing in it required him yet.
Zenith allowed the silence to stretch exactly as long as he chose. Then he turned.
Tiana couldn't hold his eyes. Inside her mind, Mercy's breath caught, worse this time.
His eyes weren't Liam's tired blue, weren't Reason's mismatched silver and gold, weren't the blue Mercy had braced herself for.
Mint green. Steady, the way something is steady when it has never once had reason to be otherwise.
He looked at her the way one looks at something already accounted for.
"Serenity," he said, and something almost like amusement touched the corner of his mouth. "You may call me Zenith."
Mercy couldn't think, though Zenith was looking at her body; Tiana had control of it, yet Mercy felt it, that Zenith was looking straight at 'her', her mind and soul.
"I-I see, so you suppressed your power, but… but where is Persona?" Tiana asked. She was hesitating a bit, but couldn't let silence stretch for long.
"Persona is dealing with his drawback. Zenith is the new face." Speaking of oneself in third person was strange, but what strange or not was for Zenith to decide.
"Ah… I forgot about that. Is he alright? I hope he didn't go completely blind…"
"Feral is with him."
"I see, so they will be fine…"
Silence stretched, long enough that Zenith shifted his stance, hands folding behind his back — the posture of an old man, which, in every way that mattered, he was.
He was unmoved, rather blank-faced, not bothered by the stretching delay or anything.
"I guess I can't stretch it… What… What was the meeting's decision?"
'What are you asking about? Why do you sound so scared?' Mercy was confused as Tiana's emotions of uncertainty and fear rushed over her.
'Hey?' Zenith walked over, unhurried.
He stood right in Tiana's face, looking down at her.
'Hey!?' Feeling the increasing concern, Mercy couldn't help but speak up as Zenith raised his left hand.
Though the hand was raised slowly and gently, and only to his head level, almost like a wave. It shifted just a tiny half-rotation, and it became a blade, an executioner striking down.
'Move! Get out of the way!'
'No one can dodge Zenith's strike…' Tiana's acceptance contradicted Mercy's screams, but that wasn't exactly how she felt either.
As the hand began to descend just as slowly as it was raised, tears couldn't help but form in her eyes.
"I… love you all. Please… Please take care of yourselves…" Tiana was choking back her words but soon closed her eyes.
*Pat* A soft and light tap.
"Congratulations." Zenith's voice was flat as his hand rested on Tiana's shoulder.
"Uh?" 'Uh?' Tiana and Mercy had the same reaction.
"Congratulations for being closest ever to your goal, sister."
"Then…?"
Zenith turned around, put his hands behind his back once more, and walked back to the window.
"The meeting was long and dragged out. In the end you leaving was deemed a necessary and foreseeable action towards your goal, not as a betrayal of our collective."
"Then just now… brother…?"
"Hmh?" Zenith didn't turn around.
"Were you just f-ing with me, brother?"
"Hmh…" The reason why he didn't turn around: Just a tiny mischievous smile.
"Ahm. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, though even kin-blood is not spoilt by oceans."
"You are avoiding my question." Tiana seemed to return to her normal self rather fast, but inside, Mercy felt it.
The relief and joy washed over her from Tiana.
Someone whose whole being stems from connections did not lose her most important one; Tiana couldn't help but be happy.
"Sister, people's choices are their own to make. You should know that if not harming us directly, I would have stood in front of you eternally."
"Thank you, brother, my thanks to all of you."
"Yes, we are happy too. More importantly, does either of you know what is in that direction?" Before the feelings and emotions could even subside, Zenith pointed out of the window.
"Uhm, I think depending on how far, but the capital?"
"No…" Zenith closed his eyes. "I mean beyond that and the ocean, beyond those islands, beyond that big city, beyond those foul swamps and those huge mountains, right there there is a forest… The wind is calling me there."
'How…? Liam never learned the map; at best he looked at it once or twice…'
'Mercy, you remember what is there?'
'Yes, but before… Give me my body back!'
'Yeah-yeah, I am done anyways, here…' Almost like passing the ball, Tiana and Mercy switched places.
"I think you mean the Elven Forest. Not many maps even show it, and I have yet to see one that has it detailed, so I don't know much more than Light and Wood Elves live there."
"We will have to get there, the sooner the better."
"Why? It would be very dangerous for me to go there and not much safer for you or anyone else either..."
"Are Dark Elves not welcome amongst other Elves? Then is Taegan unique?"
"Dark Elves are never really welcomed anywhere, and yes, when Taegan took us in… do you not have the memory of how I acted then?"
"Echo doesn't have all the memory, only most of it, and also only most of that got shared with me."
'Echo? Who is that… wait, so a new one was born after me?'
"Yes, Echo is the newest of us."
"Wait, you can hear her like this?" Mercy got shocked as Zenith answered Tiana.
'Oh, right… Zenith can interact with souls…'
"What? So he can speak with ghosts!?"
'Not just ghosts, all beings, even mental and spiritual.'
'Mental? Wait… then can he hear our thoughts?' Mercy switched to her inside voice too.
'No, that is different; speaking in your head and thinking are very different, like the difference between screaming and whispering… He can hear the screaming.'
"She is speaking the truth."
"..." Mercy seemed hesitant.
'What are these feelings? Oh no, we can't do our girl talk, were you thinking like that?'
'Girl talk!? Shut your trap! I would sooner speak of my life with a stranger, a strange-looking man, than you!'
'Oh no, I am so hurt.'
"Girls, why are you two arguing? Don't you two need each other?"
"Need? This bitch is living rent-free in my head, speaking constantly and taking control of my body just because she feels like it!"
"And without her you would have long since been a rotting corpse at the slave traders."
"..."
"That… still doesn't make it fair…"
'Buhuhu, when was life ever fair?'
"True, but Tiana, you should tone it back too. One of Liam's deepest wishes was Mercy's safety and helping her; as he was a brother to us, his wish must be upheld, so you will have to protect her too."
'I… I will see what I can do…'
"Good, just tone back the fighting a bit; you two will get used to it… But something I heard: Constantly? Tiana, are you always awake? Is it possible with just two?"
'Hmh? Oh yeah, since here there is no Black Swamp to hold back, I am pretty free, and other than the body tiring a bit faster and thinking a bit slower, there are no real drawbacks of being awake.'
'Wait, so it's because of you that I am so tired all the time and why have I slept in for the last three days!?'
'No, it's because you are lazy; I could have pushed this body a bit more.'
'Push? Push!? Push your own body, you wench, oh, you don't have one!'
*Sigh* Zenith glanced back, then turned to look out the window.
'This will be a long journey…'