Ever since he'd escaped his roots in nobility, Feather had come across the smell of the sickly very often. It'd never really scared him, because no matter how bad the plague, he wouldn't die from it. After all, he could do anything, and that included curing the incurable with his concept. But he didn't like the idea of being sick, either. Feather had never been truly sick in his life, and had always had a strong tolerance to disease, but the idea of it still frightened him. The feeling of being trapped inside your own body while it decayed and betrayed you was a concept he did not like, which was why whenever he heard about plagues, he always made sure to come over and get rid of them. It made him feel like he was doing the world a service. But in order to properly remove a plague… you first needed to find the seed it was all growing from, and that wasn't always easy.
"Mmmmmmm," he hummed between closed lips, hands on his hips as he looked around the grieving town. They really did all look so pitiful. On this specific planet, it was early spring and was still rather cold out, so it would've seemed like the town was completely abandoned if it weren't for the smell of disease. And when he used his concept to enhance his hearing, he could detect raspy breathing and people picking at blisters on their skin. It wasn't a very pretty thing to listen to.
Though there was no time to dwell, and Feather wasn't about to let some silly, insignificant plague ruin his good day, and turned to Kya and Leocadies with orders in mind. "Kya, please go ahead and use your pendulum to try and find where the seed is located. Me and Leo will go handle it once you do."
"Oh wow, boss! You mean I finally get to do something?!" Leocadies grinned from ear to ear, Feather smiling at him with an encouraging nod.
And Kya obediently pulled out her pendulum from her small leather satchel wrapped around her waist, and carefully took it by the small bead at the top of its chain, the pointed black crystal hooked to the opposite end while Feather watched it stabilize itself in midair. He liked watching this process, he found it very interesting. He'd tried using the pendulum before as well, but much to his dismay, it had never worked for him. Kya said it was because he was too attached to his desires and preferences, so the pendulum would get distracted by his desired answer and default into giving him just that, regardless of its accuracy. Apparently, you needed your mind to be perfectly clear with only the question itself echoing throughout your mind, and you needed to erase your desires completely so that the pendulum could be honest without distraction. It did sound rather complicated, didn't it?
Feather and Leocadies watched as Kya must be asking the pendulum several different things, observing it closely as the crystal on its chain moved with its answer. First, it went in a circle… then it started moving west… then it went in another circle… then a straight line… before it started moving east… yeah, Feather didn't really understand pendulums at all, but at least they were interesting.
"We need to go west, to the next town over. That's where the seed lies," Kya then announced, folding the chain back into her hands before placing it back where she kept it safe, turning to Feather with clear red eyes. "This isn't the only town affected by plague in this area, apparently. But the pendulum says it hasn't traveled overseas yet, so the seed will still be over here, meaning if we can get rid of it, we can eradicate this plague for good," she offered dutifully, Feather satisfied with that knowledge.
"Yay, sounds easy!" he cheered, Leo only laughing at him while resting a hand on his thin shoulder.
"You're the only person I've ever heard say that finding a plague seed is easy, boss. All the other healers out there must envy you!"
"Hahah, well of course they do! I can do anything, after all, so of course I'd surpass all of their feeble efforts!" Feather grinned with arrogance dripping off him in waves, Leo continuing to laugh with him as Kya scoffed.
"You're so haughty… if you weren't able to back it up, you'd be the most annoying man in the Udimeia," she retorted, but Feather was still shining beneath her backwards praise, clearly taking the word annoyance as a compliment, since annoying the everliving life out of people had to be his absolute favorite hobby.
"Well, doesn't matter! I'll go ahead and make sure to pause the illness from spreading further so that nobody dies before we can find the plague seed," her leader ended up announcing, proudly lifting his finger and using his concept to, of course, do anything he wanted. A wide, circular frame the color of mint leaves began expanding on the tip of his nail, moving forward and spreading all over the land as far as the trained eye could see… it passed through all the sickly villages across the continent, causing time to stop moving for their weakened bodies so that they could hopefully keep whatever strength they had left. After all, he didn't want anyone to die here. It was just that if he healed them all at this very moment before the plague seed had been properly dealt with, they would likely just get sick all over again, and nothing would be solved. In the end, this was the best way to preserve their lives.
Though Leo was watching him with those wide, cat-like orange eyes of his, ginger lashes blinking every once in a while as he focused on Feather's face and his effortless show of power that not many people ever got to see or have the privilege to remember. "You better be careful, boss. You might have to kill yourself sooner than expected if you keep pulling stunts like this. Curing the seed is gonna take a lot out of you as well, so remember to pace yourself."
"Didn't ask, don't care! Dying is exhilarating anyway, I dare it to come at me! Me and the grim reaper can have some fun," Feather grinned while moving to crack his knuckles, as if that somehow made him more intimidating… before he suddenly came to a realization, and frowned. "Ah, but… I really don't like dying naturally. You're right, if I do all of that, I'll have to keep a close eye on my reserves, and dying like that really hurts…" he grumbled childishly, before turning to his companions with pleading eyes, the type of look he'd given them whenever he wanted something ever since he was a child. "Kya, kill me later, pretty please? You always make it super painless, so I wanna die that way next if I get to choose."
"Alright, boss, I got it," she agreed without batting an eye, not phased when Feather beamed at her with a smile that could cure the depressed. She really wasn't phased by this anymore. The first time this man had asked her to kill him, she'd been shaken to her very core, but after so many centuries of serving Feather, she'd long been forced to get used to it… and now it didn't mean much to her anymore, either.
Leocadies was perhaps the only one out of the two who still knew how to properly value Feather's life. He was the only one in of their ragtag group of three that tried to help the miraculous man die as little as possible. He was always checking in and making sure their leader wasn't recklessly wasting his mana, and would always communicate his thoughts with Feather and remind him when his lifeforce would be running thin so that the man could be aware of his capabilities. He was used to the constant deaths too, of course, as he had no choice but to be… and the three of them were all too comfortable with death. But what other choice did they have? It wasn't like Feather could stop dying now. If he wanted to live, he had no choice but to die. That was how it had always been, no matter how Kya had tried to prevent it. And after traveling with someone like that for over four centuries, things that might've once felt deranged or inhumane now felt all too normal.
Though, all of a sudden, Feather found himself completely frozen. He had sensed the man before he'd seen him, but the moment he locked eyes on a tall, blurry figure approaching the town from the horizon, he was entirely shaken. That aura… it was a familiar aura that he'd be able to tell apart from others from miles away. It was just as unnerving as the last time he'd been in that weak man's presence, and it had to have been the last thing he'd expected to feel all the way out here, nearly on the opposite side of the Udimeia. What… what was that embarrassing and pathetic pushover doing here?!
He immediately raised a hand in front of Kya and Leocadies' faces, their existences blurring into the fabric of reality to make all three of them invisible to the naked eye. There was no hesitation in his movements, and his urgency seemed to shock his two companions, Leo beginning to jump forward as if he were preparing for a fight. "Huh? Boss, everything okay—?" he went to ask in a rush, only to make a tiny little yelp when Feather took his short subordinate by his collar and pulled him back behind him, slowly raising a finger to his lips before pointing to the man who had gotten his attention.
There he was in all of his regal glory… Cirrus Aixon, the crown prince of the planet Lilino and future leader of the Central Domain Alliance. He was a very, impressively tall man, nearly a head taller than Feather himself, and the blond wasn't short by any normal standards. He had a wide chest and broad shoulders along with a very upright and practiced stance, with skin that looked as soft and dark as milk chocolate and a lean, slender figure. His velvety black hair was nearly as long as he was tall, wrapped into a neat and elegant braid over his left shoulder, along with bangs that only covered the left side of his face, making one of his eyes completely obscured for reasons Feather didn't care about. The eye that was visible, though, was a very bright, captivating amber covered with long eyelashes fluttering open and closed, and by all counts, most people considered Cirrus to be the most beautiful man of his generation. Feather didn't really see the hype, though. After all, it didn't matter how good someone looked when their personality was absolute trash. The prince wasn't ugly, sure, he'd give him that… but he didn't have the most impressive physical appearance Feather had ever seen, either… honestly, he was just way too overrated, so at least someone needed to hate the guy. Feather would gladly be that person.
Though little did he know that the man he found more annoying than anybody else was searching for him in particular, the miracle man for whom legends were made. And as Cirrus walked closer, Feather quickly honed in with his hearing to catch a grasp of the man's conversation.
"Wow, this town really is sick," chimed a small, white-haired girl with concerned icy blue eyes. Feather had never seen her before, but based on her demeanor and reaction to feeling disease in the air, she most likely wielded a healing concept. After all, it was common knowledge that healers often had empathetic bodies that reacted just to the smell of disease, and it could make the concept wielder feel overwhelmed or anxious if they endured too much prolonged contact. Of course, the same could go for anyone, as being around the sick wasn't exactly a fun thing or a hobby, but healer's concepts grew specifically from their intense empathy and strong compassion for others, which would thus intensify those feelings, making it far more draining for them. It was one of the biggest obstacles all healers had to face eventually, but it didn't look to him as if this young woman had yet been able to overcome that weakness.
"Should we go around it, the two of us? It's okay if it's a bit too much," offered the great warrior, Achitha Washema, wielder of the poison and illness concepts. Feather had only ever seen her from afar, with the closest he'd ever been to her having been sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom. He'd never talked to her either, but… he'd imagined her to be a little more gruff, for some reason.
But the snowy white girl immediately shook her head with a heart full of determination, clearly working hard to shake off her concept's drawbacks as she pushed forward. "No way! I'm fine! If you guys get sick, you'll need me! I especially can't let Cirrus fall ill while I'm the one here!"
"Ahah, don't worry, it would take me a little bit anyways before I started showing any symptoms for you to treat," her prince countered kindly, and Feather's eyes watched him with narrowed slits from behind his invisibility, all while Cirrus and his group walked right past him, none the wiser. "It's fine if you want to go around. Me and Jayce will be just fine on our own."
"Yeah, you go ahead and take a break. If one of us really does get sick, we'll need you to be able to handle it," Jayce pointed out rather roughly, Cirrus nodding in agreement with that kind, practiced smile he always wore. It'd been centuries since Feather had last seen him, though it still looked like he hadn't changed much at all. He wasn't the only one who thought so, because it wasn't long before Leocadies was also saying the very same thing out loud.
"...Cirrus doesn't look like he's changed that much," the ginger-haired man commented as the group walked further past them, having not been noticed in the slightest.
"What do you think he's doing here?" Kya whispered curiously, eyes pinned on the back of Cirrus' dark head as Feather continued to quietly observe. "Not only is he one of the highest ranking royals in the entire Udimeia, he's also a prophesied hero on top of that. What are they doing, letting him come down to a plagued site like this? The rookie healer was right, him getting sick won't reflect well on the monarchy at all."
"I wanna know what brought him to this planet in the first place," Leo chirped, leaning like a cat against Kya's shoulder as he grasped her arm with calloused hands the color of caramel. "What's so interesting about this place that would catch his attention? You'd think royal prodigies would have better things to do…"
The words spoken so carelessly out loud, however, suddenly triggered the same thought in both Kya and Leo's heads, and nearly in sync, they both turned their gazes to Feather, who flinched at the heated stares before scrunching up his nose in confusion. "What? What is it?"
"Well, as far as I know… you're the most interesting thing on this planet, boss," Leocadies drawled, lazily nuzzling into the side of Kya's shoulder while she gave a firm nod.
"That's right. You've been causing a lot of trouble recently, too, so it's possibly he's looking for the cause of all that chaos."
"I mean, just last month, you broke into a cursed, restricted dungeon that killed everyone who ever went in and completely obliterated it from the inside…" Leo trailed off, Kya quickly picking up after him.
"And then you portioned all of the gold you got from it out to the slums of different worlds and completely rejuvenated multiple planets' economies."
"And before that, you fought a mythical whale, which is cool and all, but…"
"You killed it because it was eating people, even though it's illegal to kill mythical beasts, and escaped detection and ran off to another universe as if nothing had ever happened…"
"Ugh, I don't care about the law! That mythical beast was eating people, it had it coming!!" Feather yelled loudly, stomping his foot on the ground in a childish tantrum as Kya sighed into her pale hand. Would there ever come a day where this overpowered man she served would show even the slightest bit of maturity? He was already five-hundred and twenty-five years old, so since he hadn't yet learned, now it just seemed unlikely. Although, putting those thoughts aside, all three of them had to freeze the moment Cirrus' head turned to where the sound of yelling had come from, and suddenly, Feather and his subordinates were as still as statues.
No way… had he heard that? Feather's jaw was slack as he watched Cirrus squint at where his figure was standing, clearly registering that something was there, even if he couldn't see it. Which, he supposed it wasn't completely impossible to hear or see himself and his companions when Feather put this erasing effect on them, it was just very rare… a person would have to have exceptional mana detection to do so, or maybe a useful concept that enhanced their sight in general. Seeing that the meek, spineless Cirrus he had once known was now capable of such a thing made him need to do a doubletake. But he supposed that if anyone could do it, it made sense that it was Cirrus Aixon, the chosen child of prophecy. He'd had not one, not two, not even three or four… but over two thousand prophets from all over the Udimeia have the very same vision of his triumph. Perhaps he was finally beginning to grow into those very big shoes.
Though, regardless of that, Feather still wanted nothing to do with the prince and wasn't about to let himself get caught now. He'd worked too hard to evade all those influential planets and kingdoms within the Central Domain Alliance, all with the purest intention of never having to talk to another one of those snotty, arrogant royals for the rest of his life. So, very slowly and very carefully, he laid his hands on Kya and Leocadies' shoulders, delicately moving the three of them backwards and into a nearby alley, holding his breath all the while.
"Hm? You okay, Cirrus?" Jayce asked attentively, noticing the way his childhood friend was looking around behind him as if he'd heard or seen something weird.
And he really, truly had. The esteemed prince of prophecy could've sworn he'd just heard someone yell that they didn't care about the law, but the voice felt so distorted in his mind he couldn't even recall if it had belonged to a man or a woman. Yet as he continued to examine the space in front of him, he didn't see a thing. "Mm… yes, everything's fine," he was eventually forced to concede, turning around swiftly to lead himself deeper through the town. The mysterious voice now felt so blurred in his memory that the words were beginning to escape him, and the more he tried to remember, the more his head began to hurt. But still, they'd said… they'd said that… they'd said someone didn't… someone cared… who cared? About what? Ahh, his useless thoughts were taking him nowhere, and as if on cue, Feather's magic worked wonders and Cirrus suddenly forgot that he'd ever heard anything in the first place, continuing to move about the town unbothered.
"...you're lucky you remembered to use the concept of memory distortion in time. He definitely almost caught you," Kya calmly remarked as she peeked around the corner of the alleyway, watching as the group of four kept following the brick road deeper into the town, before turning a corner to get to the center plaza. Feather, for one, was also glad he had remembered, immediately letting out the deep, heavy breath he'd been holding as Leocadies rubbed his arm.
"That was exhausting. I certainly hope that absolutely pathetic excuse for a man isn't here for me," he seethed through gritted teeth, feeling so utterly angry at this unexpected turn of events that he felt the dire urge to punch another tree, but unfortunately, there weren't any close by.
Though, when he zeroed back in on his surroundings, he could sense his two companions staring at him with concern, the loyalty and care in their eyes prompting him to say more of what he was feeling. But of course, he refused to let some ugly rat decide his mood just because he'd crawled out of the gutter and into his home, and merely stuck his chin high with his nose in the air, haughty smile returning to his features while he crossed his arms and clapped his ankles.
"Whatever, it doesn't matter! Even if he wants to catch me, he never will, because I'm far too amazing for him. So we'll move along as planned, obviously. I'll go to the next town, find the seed, cure all of the sick, and then continue my travels into the next world, all while acting like he doesn't exist! I won't let his presence control what I do or who I save!" he announced confidently, puffing out his chest with an assured smile, Leocadies bursting out into a laugh as he started clapping.
"That's right! You're brilliant, boss, Cirrus is nothing compared to you! You're too great!"
"Exactly, I agree. Thank you for saying so, Leo."
"Of course, boss! I only speak the truth! You're the most amazing man in the world!"
"Oh, well… heh. I guess I am pretty amazing…"
Watching this play out, Kya felt like she wanted to say something, something she didn't quite know how to put into words. Leocadies was busy hyping Feather up again like he was so good at doing, and she was glad that he had the innate ability to comfort the man and distract him from stress, which were areas she was personally lacking. But, deeper down, she sensed they had bigger worries. This encounter with Cirrus felt like only the beginning.
The burden and responsibility that she felt had been chasing Feather ever since the tarot reading only seemed to be getting closer, and seeing Cirrus was almost undoubtedly an important variable in that… and then there was also the Six of Cups to consider… nostalgia, innocence, and the past coming to meet your present. Feather and Leo probably weren't thinking about any of this anymore, the tarot reading already long forgotten in their impulsive, hyper minds… but she was certain now that Cirrus Aixon was who that card had been talking about. After all, Feather's past with Cirrus was rather complex, although it wasn't negatively tainted… Feather just didn't like thinking about it because it had been mostly political, which he now avoided like it was the plague itself.
But when she thought about it, Feather had been running from his responsibilities for a very long time… so if Cirrus had always been the type of person to try and carry all of his many trials and burdens on his back alone while refusing to ask for help, Feather was the type of person to run away from all those burdens and the burdens of others as he chased freedom and never-ending euphoria instead. They were opposites, down to their personality, their mannerisms, and deep into their cores. But when everything got laid down bare, Cirrus had never once meant to harm Feather, and Feather knew that very well… so in the end, Kya decided to think that reuniting with Cirrus could only be a good thing, and kept her mouth shut.