The western main road of Orario was, for the moment, a pocket of relative tranquility.
There, amidst the low hum of early morning trade, Draco sat in a small, unassuming café, engaged in a quiet conversation with Miach.
The air between them was filled with the herbal scent of potions and the steam of fresh tea, a stark contrast to the burgeoning chaos developing on the other side of the city.
For while the west had become a sanctuary of calm, the Eastern Main Street was roaring to life. It was now nine o'clock in the morning, and the city's pulse was quickening.
The eastern area was shedding its previous skin and draping itself in the vibrant, chaotic regalia of a festival.
The songs of the citizens mingled with the boastful shouts of visiting merchants, creating a symphony of sound that echoed through the walls of the surrounding architecture.
Most of the city's serious adventurers had already vanished into the yawning maw of Babel, seeking their fortunes in the damp, dangerous depths of the Dungeon.
In their wake, the townspeople and tourists claimed the surface.
Throngs of people gathered on the streets, flowing like a tide toward the northeast.
A line of food stalls, smelling of roasted meats, sugary confections, and fried dough, ran like a spine down the middle of the street.
Two more lines flanked the sides, creating a corridor of indulgence.
The scent of jagamarukun(Croquette) and honey-glazed skewers wafted over the ocean of mortals, making stomachs rumble in unison.
Long ribbons of silk, dyed in every hue of the rainbow, were draped from balconies, and vibrant flowers, plucked from the surrounding plains, bloomed in window boxes and hung in garlands across the thoroughfare.
Flags whipped in the morning breeze.
Some bore the silhouettes of terrifying, vicious monsters…..a tribute to the beasts that would grace the arena later today.
Others bore the familiar elephant's head: the emblem of the Ganesha Familia, the perennial hosts of this grand spectacle.
"Faster, Mom! We're going to miss the opening!"
A young beast-kin boy, his wolf-like ears twitching with manic energy and his face flushed a deep crimson from excitement, tugged relentlessly on his mother's arm.
They plunged into the crowd, disappearing into the sea of tunics and cloaks.
Above them, the sun itself seemed to be a participant in the revelry, casting brilliant yellow beams that turned the dust motes in the air into shimmering flecks of gold.
The line of fairgoers stretched in an unbroken chain from the massive East Gate all the way up to the towering shadow of the stadium.
"..."
A pair of silver eyes watched the procession from above.
On the second floor of a quiet café overlooking the main street, a figure sat in silence.
The interior of the establishment was crafted from dark, polished wood, exuding a laid-back, sophisticated atmosphere that felt miles away from the sweating crowd below.
The woman sat by a glass window, her silhouette framed by the morning light.
She wore a navy blue cloak, the heavy fabric pulled forward to shield her features and her snow-white skin from the prying eyes of the world.
Yet, a single layer of cloth was a poor prison for such a presence.
Even with her face obscured, she was the gravitational center of the room.
Every patron in the café…..from the weary shopkeepers to the few customers….were mesmerized.
When she traced the rim of her porcelain cup with a delicate finger, the room seemed to go silent.
When she shifted, allowing the elegant line of her chin to peek out from beneath the hood, men and women alike held their breath, their hearts stuttering in their chests.
She did almost nothing, yet she commanded the soul of everyone who looked upon her.
Freya, the goddess of beauty, ignored the adoration.
It was a weight she had carried since the beginning of time.
Her focus remained on the street below, her silver gaze piercing through the physical forms of the mortals to observe the colors of their souls.
To her, the crowd was a shifting mosaic of auras…..some dull and grey, others flickering with the spark of ambition or the warmth of simple joy.
Sprinkled among the commoners were the sharper, more jagged colors of adventurers, their souls twisted by the constant threat of death.
The rhythmic creak of boots on the wooden stairs announced the arrival of new guests.
Freya withdrew her gaze from the window, the slight tilt of her head signaling her transition from observer to hostess.
"Yo! Sorry to keep you waiting!" the new arrival greeted.
"Not at all. I just got here myself." Freya replied.
Freya offered a small, knowing smile from beneath the shadow of her hood.
At the top of the stairwell stood a figure who was the stylistic opposite of the goddess of beauty. Her hair was not the brilliant, polished flame of Hephaestus, but a more muted, weathered shade of red….the color of a bruised evening sky.
It was pulled back into a utilitarian ponytail that had seen better days.
Her shirt and pants were faded, worn thin by movement and neglect.
To a casual observer, the newcomer might have been mistaken for a scruffy young man.
Loki, the goddess of trickery, fought back a massive yawn, her eyes watering from the effort. She looked as though she had been dragged through a hedge backward, yet she wore a grin that was as sharp as a razor.
"Haven't had a break yet. Mind if I grab a bite?" Loki asked, kicking a chair out from the table.
"Do as you please," Freya replied, her voice like velvet.
Loki slumped into the chair across from her, the wooden frame groaning under her lack of posture.
The two goddesses sat in a bubble of easy familiarity….the kind of comfort that only exists between entities who have spent eons watching the rise and fall of civilizations.
"I heard you had quite the night after I left the Celebration," Freya teased, her voice dancing with mirth.
"Crawled into a bottle and passed out, did you? Hee-hee-hee... Bahamut and Hestia are something else, aren't they?"
Loki's eyes narrowed into thin, dangerous slits, her face turning a sour shade of pink.
"Where'd you hear that? Was it that scaly lizard or the boobs-for-brains goddess?"
"Not at all," Freya replied, her smile widening.
"I merely overheard some of your 'cute children' talking. They seemed to be having quite the laugh at their goddess's expense."
"Those bastards!" Loki grumbled, slamming a hand onto the table.
"Always having a good time without me! I'll double their work for a month! No, two months!"
Freya had invited both Loki and Bahamut to this specific café to discuss matters that required the privacy of the second floor.
It was nine in the morning, and while Bahamut had yet to arrive, Freya was content to pass the time with small talk.
However, her eyes soon drifted past Loki to the silent figure who had followed her up.
"So," Freya said, her tone shifting to one of genuine curiosity.
"When are you going to introduce the girl standing behind you?"
Loki blinked, looking over her shoulder with a skeptical expression.
"Eh? You need an introduction? I thought everyone knew her."
"This is the first time for us to meet face-to-face," Freya clarified, her silver eyes narrowing as she focused on the girl.
Standing like a sentinel behind Loki's chair was a young woman whose presence was as cold and sharp as a mountain peak.
She clutched the sheath of her spare sword in a white-knuckled grip, her posture perfect and unyielding.
She had hair the color of spun gold and eyes that matched…..golden orbs that held a depth of focus rarely seen in one so young.
"Ok then," Loki sighed, gesturing lazily.
"This is my Ais. That enough for you? Ais, this is a goddess. You should at least say hello before she tries to eat you with her eyes."
"...Nice to meet you," Ais greeted.
Her voice was soft, melodic, but carried an edge of distance, as if she were speaking from across a great chasm.
"Sword Princess," Freya whispered under her breath.
Ais Wallenstein.
The name was a legend in the making.
She was the primary engine behind the Loki Familia's meteoric rise, a prodigy whose reputation had already leaped over the walls of Orario and begun to spread across the world.
Looking at her, Freya saw more than just a beautiful girl.
She saw a soul that was a brilliant, blinding white….pure, driven, and dangerously close to breaking under its own pressure.
A normal girl with her looks did not usually go into a dangerous profession like adventuring. Someone who didn't know her face would never guess that she had slain countless monsters and trodden on just as many of their corpses.
"You can take a seat," Loki said, patting the empty chair beside her.
Ais nodded, her movements swift, and sat down.
"She is very cute," Freya commented, her gaze lingering on the girl's delicate features.
"And also… yes. I can see why you have taken such a liking to this one, Loki."
Ais's golden eyes met Freya's silver ones.
The girl remained an enigma of stoicism, lowering her head in a polite, shallow bow.
Her nickname was perfect in some ways, completely wrong in others.
Freya's smile flexed for a moment thinking about it.
"Can I ask why you brought this child here with you?" Freya asked.
"This was supposed to be a meeting of… peers."
"Fu-he-he-he… It's a festival, yah?" Loki's eyes twinkled with a mix of mischief and genuine affection.
"What better time for a date with my Aizuu?"
She leaned over and began to pat Ais's head with a possessive rhythm.
"Well, that and the fact that she finally came back from an expedition. If I don't tie her down to a chair, she'll be back in the Dungeon before the sun sets. That's just how she is. Someone's got to tell her to relax, don't they?"
Ais looked down at the tabletop, choosing to remain silent as her goddess toyed with her hair. Freya watched the interaction, noting the warmth in Loki's usually sharp eyes.
It was a strange sight.
In the Tenkai…..the heavens…..Loki had been a chaotic force, a troublemaker who lived for the collapse of order.
Here, in the lower world, she had become a mother, albeit a strange and overbearing one.
"Additionally," Loki added, her expression suddenly souring as she began to grind her teeth, "I've got to make sure my Ais doesn't come into contact with that annoying lizard kid. I don't know what's so special about him, but my Ais goes crazy whenever she sees him."
Freya's eyebrows shot up.
She turned her gaze back to Ais, who had suddenly become very interested in a scratch on the wooden table, her eyes darting away to avoid Freya's scrutiny.
"Interesting," Freya murmured.
A soul as pure and driven as Ais reacting to a boy?
That was a development she hadn't expected.
"Well, she is a young girl, Loki. It is entirely possible that she might be… in love."
"Absolutely no way!"
The reaction was instantaneous.
Loki surged out of her seat, slamming her clenched fists onto the table with enough force to make the tea service rattle.
The sound echoed through the café, drawing the startled gazes of every patron in the room.
However, the dramatic effect was immediately undercut by Loki's face contorting in agony.
She hadn't accounted for the hardness of the aged oak.
"Ow, ow, ow…" she hissed, nursing her bruised knuckles.
Freya couldn't help it; a melodic giggle escaped her lips.
Even Ais remained expressionless, though a slight twitch of her lips suggested she was fighting the urge to sigh.
"Aizuu!" Loki cried, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and shaking her back and forth.
"Don't tell me it's true! There is no way you love that lizard boy, right? Tell me he's just a weird specimen you want to study! Tell me you want to fight him! Anything but love!"
Ais didn't respond.
She allowed herself to be shaken like a ragdoll, her golden eyes staring blankly into the middle distance.
"No way! I won't allow it!" Loki yelled, her voice rising to a frantic pitch as she began to flail. She eventually slid off her chair and onto the floor, throwing a full-blown tantrum like a toddler denied a sweet.
"Ais is mine and mine alone! I'll fight him! I'll fight Bahamut and her whole Familia if I have to! I'll declare war!"
As Loki continued to roll on the floor, much to Ais's visible embarrassment, the sound of heavy, sluggish footsteps drifted up the stairs.
Bahamut arrived at the top of the stairwell looking like she had been awakened by a bucket of cold water.
Her eyes were half-closed with lingering sleepiness, and her beautiful silver hair was slightly mussed.
She had only woken up minutes prior, having finally seen the invitation Freya had sent via messenger.
Initially, she had fully intended to ignore it and sleep until noon, but Freya was not the type of goddess who invited anyone for anything without reason.
Reluctantly, she had donned her clothes and made her way to the café.
As Bahamut stepped into the room, her gaze traveled from the elegant, cloaked Freya to the stoic, golden-haired Sword Princess, and finally down to the floor.
There, Loki was flailing on the ground, kicking her legs and whining about "lizard kid" and "stolen heart."
Bahamut stood frozen for a long moment, her half-lidded eyes slowly widening as the pathetic nature of the scene processed in her mind.
She looked at Freya, who was merely sipping her tea with an amused glint in her silver eyes.
"I should have stayed in bed," Bahamut deadpanned, her voice thick with the gravel of a morning-after headache.