Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Until Dawn ❯ Until Dawn ( Prologue )

Until Dawn

Renn Ireigh

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Chapter One

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Disclaimer: Digimon is the property of Toei Animation. The song included, "Sunday Morning Yellow Sky," belongs to the members of October Project.

Red Flags: Mild cursing, alternate universes, blood, death, and homosexual relationships. If any of the above bothers you, please exercise your good sense and find something else to read, or at the very least, continue reading and don't leave anything idiotic as a review; flaming is immature. Thank you.

Notes: Congratulations go out to Gabriel-San, whose fic Ruki and Renamon: Fox Tail Menorah was the winner of one of my contests. (Check it out - a good holiday read for everyone, Jewish or not.)

- - -

When the darkness falls like a curtain, and the night ahead is a long and uncertain dream - beyond the loss, and the hope of redemption…

- - -

Beyond the midnight sky lay unknown. To this side, as far as any eye could view, lay only the crumbling city, and the broken body of the mercenary in the middle of the pothole-ridden road.

Oddly, he had no Digimon Partner within view. That in itself was strange; because of the boosted powers that one Partnered acquired, and the fact that it was not unusual for even the lowliest street rat to be Partnered, few unPartnered mercenaries were accepted into a team. Nor was his team insignia visible, though clothing and weaponry positively identified the stranger as being a 'merc;' another oddity, as mercs tended to be inordinately proud of the team they fought with and displayed their team insignia where every eye might see it.

The merc seemed to be no one of any note or wealth, to judge by their weaponry and by what clothing was still visible under the thick, already drying stiff coating of blood. He bore three daggers in a worn leather sheath-belt around his waist, and the sword clutched in his hand was of rather dubious potency. His clothing was common enough; brown homespun trews and tunic, rough white shirt underneath, and worn leather boots, coupled with stiffened leather leg-armor and gauntlets, and chain mail for a chest-guard and helmet. If it weren't for the fact that he was lying in the middle of the road in a pool of his own blood, in somewhat less than respectable part of a City that was already somewhat disreputable, he could have been walking along the side of the road without attracting stares or double-takes.

But because he was in the center of the road in a puddle of blood, and seemed to be in no condition to rise and move courteously out of the way, the Carriage-Driver for Tachikawa Holding was forced to halt and ponder what to do about the situation. The matched pair of grays drawing the dark green carriage snorted and pawed at the scent of blood, their discomfort doing nothing for the Carriage-Driver's.

"Shame he's i' the center," he told the grays, who snorted once again as in agreement. "Else, we c'd jist go 'round 'im."

"What is the delay?" The soft, cultured voice came from inside the carriage, its owner being a tall, willowy young woman with light brown hair and brown eyes whose delicate features managed to turn what might have been an ordinary countenance into one beautiful and elegant. Dressed as she was, in a sweeping gown of rich silk plush velvet of a deep hunter green trimmed with golden braid and delicate golden embroidery, and a matching cloak which bore a stylized representation of her family's Crest stitched on with gilt thread, it was impossible to mistake her for any rank lower than the one which she held - for this was Duchess Mimi of Tachikawa Holding, returning from a tactical discussion concerning the tense situation between her kingdom of Dejitaru and the adjoining land of Larchait.

"Nothing worthy of your note, your Grace," the Carriage-Driver replied, quickly forgetting his back-country accent for the formal talk of one accustomed to Court. "Just the usual Lower City nonsense posing a problem again."

An exasperated sigh, and the sound of the Duchess getting to her feet in the stooped position that was the only semblance to standing that the low roof of the carriage allowed. "What is it this time?"

"A revolting sight, one which no lady should see - please, your Grace, do sit down; the situation will be resolved in a moment."

"What sort of a revolting sight?" the Duchess asked curiously, as the Driver gave an exasperated sigh of his own. Damnation upon those whose inquisitiveness could not be contained!

Knowing quite well that if the Duchess had screaming hysterics after viewing the body, he would be discharged from his position as punishment for allowing her to see something that the rather inflexible minds of Court would view as 'improper for a lady's eyes', he tried to defuse the situation by being quite blunt and as graphic as his country-bred mind was able to put words to. "A body, your Grace, and either dead by horrible means or on its way to the Gods' Judgment. Lying in a pool of blood, with its limbs stuck out at awful jagged angles and dripping blood in torrents, its face scarred horribly so that you can barely recognize it as human -"

He was cut off in his description by the Duchess herself, who opened the door to the carriage and stepped out, shedding her cloak and rolling up her sleeves. She bound back her hair in a sensible braid with a velvet ribbon she found on the seat of the carriage and walked towards the body. "Then for goodness sakes, Keighvin, you should have said so. I'm a Healer, remember? All the Tachikawas are."

Keighvin Carriagemaster opened and closed his mouth, rather like a fish. The Duchess's maid scrambled out from behind and ran after her mistress, loudly protesting the intelligence of dealing with bloody bodies in a velvet dress, the monetary value of which might have fed ten commoner families for a year.

Duchess Mimi sighed, and addressed the maid without turning around: "Then let me borrow your apron. As a Healer, I'm honor-bound to do what I can for anyone injured. Provided, of course, that they're not traitors to the Crown or to the Crests." The maid, shaking her head when she thought that Mimi couldn't see her, pulled off the white apron that nearly reached her ankles and handed it wordlessly to the Duchess, who put it on as she walked towards the body in the road.

All hint of decorum left the Duchess as she knelt by the blood-covered mercenary and quickly felt for a pulse. Having found one, though it was rather faint, she let her mind drift as she'd been taught, concentrating on nothing, and performed the mental twist that signified her entrance into Healer's Trance. Surrounded with a pale green glow, she looked at the mercenary's body with Healer's Sight, seeing everything healthy in shades of green, and everything ill in shades of red. As her eyes scanned the mercenary, she saw precious little green - and much more red than she would have liked.

Healers were often forced into split-second decisions that might mean life or death for their patients. Duchess Mimi made one now. She stood, lifting the mercenary's limp body as she rose, and gave quick orders to the Carriage-Driver and to her maid - "Keighvin, head for home at the fastest speed you deem safe. Marissa, help me carry him into the Carriage. He needs better Healing than I can do alone." She looked at the two, who were staring at her in open-mouthed silence, and snapped, "This is an order from Healer Mimi Tachikawa, licensed to the Crest of Sincerity and to the Crown. You know the penalties for ignoring a Healer's orders regarding a patient. Now let's get going here!"

It wasn't often that Mimi used the authority afforded to her as a Healer; this made it all the more impressive when she did. The maid Marissa scurried forward and took the bloodied mercenary under an arm. Between the two of them, the mercenary was pulled into the carriage, and hardly had Mimi stepped into the carriage and shut the door did Keighvin Carriagemaster crack the whip, and the matched team of grays cantered forth, pulling the carriage towards Tachikawa Holding, and into the night.

- - -

At the broken heart of the city

Where the hollow light of day never reaches in

A man can break down and fall into pieces

He will fall asleep like a baby

As the unforgiving arms of the cradle

Rock as hard as the face of the city pavement

Hide your eyes

Hide your eyes

- - -

The last thing that Sora remembered was the flat of the blade to her head, and falling, falling, falling into the welcomed darkness below. When she awoke, it was only partially, and the world was still a blurry haze to her eyes, and it would not be long until she slept again. Blessed sleep - for what she felt in her brief moments of consciousness was nothing but explosive pain, and yet her voice hurt too much to scream out at the agony. And so she waited for the darkness to reclaim her, and dreaded the next time that she would return to the light.

And then she was touched by the cool caress of water, and her wounds were poulticed with the light touch of leaves, and the raw edges of wound-pain knit together. And when she fell back into the darkness again, it was with anticipation that she waited for the light.

- - -

The carriage ride back to Tachikawa Holding was bumpy, but otherwise uneventful, although if something had interfered, Mimi wouldn't have been aware of it until it was too late. She was busy with the broken body of the mercenary.

He lay stretched out on one of the carriage seats, barely breathing, his head resting on Mimi's lap as she cupped her hands above his heart, the pale green Healer's energy that enveloped her body flowing from the dome of her hands into his body. The energy pulsed in time with his heartbeat, and seemed to be strengthening gradually, a good sign. Mimi was currently focusing on the broken bones - she couldn't Heal them or set them properly while the carriage was bouncing like this, but she could put them in a temporary energy-cast to hold them immobile until she was in her workroom and able to mend them completely.

If I can only keep him stabilized long enough to get home, and to my workroom… there's not much I can do about his physical wounds until I can see them clearly, not just with Healer's Sight, and I can't clean the blood and dirt off of his body in a carriage… Her thoughts ran along these parallels as her body remained in Healer's Trance, and it took Marissa's persistent shaking for her to snap back into reality.

"We're home, your Grace," the maid said. "I've already called down men to get your… patient into the workroom, so you can change into something suitable for work and get your things prepared."

Mimi nodded and thanked the maid, saw to it that the mercenary was handled gently, and, lifting her skirts clear of the ground, bolted into the manor and up the stairs into her chambers to change.

The splendor of the manor had long ceased to hold Mimi's notice. Built to last in great blocks of stone, it sat impressively (and practically) at the top of a large hill. Inside were elegant hand-laid wood floors, lushly carpeted with rugs in rich, warm tones of green - Tachikawa's color - with tapestries softening the hard edges of the stone walls. A magnificent wooden staircase stood to the immediate left of the Hall, which lead directly to the family's chambers. Thick wooden doors stood in carved frames at uniform distances from each other; none of the suites was any larger than any other. It was through the door farthest to the left that Mimi ran, kicking the door shut behind her.

Fumbling in haste with the pearl buttons on the back of her dress, she finally managed to undo them all and stepped hurriedly out of the gown. After hanging it neatly - she was well aware of how much it was worth - Mimi turned to a chest of drawers in the corner, and, opening the bottom drawer, pulled out a pair of worn green breeches, a matching tunic, and a short-sleeved white shirt. Pulling them on quickly, and yanking on a pair of boots that lay inside her closet, she headed at a more sedate pace through a door on the left into her private Healer's workroom.

This room retained none of the luxury of the rest of the manor; the walls were wooden, and whitewashed, and the floor, wood as well, was laid end-to-end in a no-nonsense design. A simple bedstead sat off to one corner, amply supplied with wool blankets and pillows, the indoor privy discreetly tucked behind a wooden screen in the other, and the remainder of the room was taken up with Healer's implements and necessities.

Standing in the center of the room was a wooden table with a marble overleaf - marble because of its strength and its ease to disinfect - that served as an operating table. Standing against the far wall was an enormous claw-footed bathing tub, its water heated by the local hot springs. A countertop ran the length of one wall, and the soap-dish by the built-in sink was always filled with a bar of the strongest soap possible to obtain. Everything in the workroom was scrubbed daily to prevent bacteria, and that included the Healer herself.

Finished washing her hands, Mimi quickly took charge of the mercenary, enlisting one of the servants to help carry him behind the screen to where she had already set the tub to filling. Dismissing the servant with murmured thanks, she set about matter-of-factly stripping the merc to get at the wounds covered by the remainder of his clothing.

And gasped at what she saw.

Not only was this merc covered in the blood from a gash across his chest, which her Healer's Sight had revealed to her and which was already in the process of being magically disinfected, and not only were there large bruises under the scarlet bloodsheen, but the merc was not, as she had expected, male.

Female mercenaries were unheard of, even though there was no law against their existence. Women might fight for the Crown or in the name of their family's Crest in an army, and they might have become War-Mages if they had potential, but they did not hire themselves out as mercenaries. It was simply not done.

And yet here this one was, obviously a mercenary, and decidedly female.

Putting aside her shock, Mimi put the woman's clothing into a covered basket and carefully lifted her into the bathing tub. Rubbing soap onto a cloth, she covered the merc's upper body and face in a thick lather that was allowed to soak into the skin and the wounds, then was washed off with fresh water. Carefully standing the woman up, her lower body was given the same treatment, then her hair was washed free of the blood that had turned it from a light brown into a sickly rusty red. After rinsing the woman's body with fresh water once more, Mimi dried her off, then (grunting with the effort) lifted the woman onto the operating table to assess damage.

She wasn't as badly injured as Mimi's eyes had originally told her; a quick lapse into Healer's Sight and some expenditure of energy healed the gash on her chest, and more Healing energy and a few splints made short work of the broken bones. There was nothing Mimi could do about the finger on the right hand which had been cut off but disinfect the wound thoroughly and bandage the hand. Checking once more with Healer's Sight to make sure that she hadn't missed any wounds, internal or external, Mimi snapped out of Trance and carried the merc over to lay her in the bed.

After thoroughly cleaning her workroom, and washing her hands and arms, Mimi glanced out the window to see, with some surprise, that the sun had begun its ascent towards zenith. I must have taken longer than I thought, she mused, changing out of her blood-spattered clothing and stepping into her own bath.

An hour later, washed, dried, and clothed in clean, loose cotton garments of a pale green, Mimi bit into one of the rolls that had been on the breakfast tray one of the maids had sent up. That first bit of food awakened her ravenous hunger, and she quickly polished off the remainder of the food. It took a lot of energy to Heal, and it was energy she needed to replenish sooner rather than later.

She was alerted to the mercenary's wakefulness by the bed frame's creaking as the woman tried to sit up. Polishing off a last bit of her roll, and rinsing her hands quickly, she stood and walked with authoritative stride towards the workroom.

Inside, she found that the mercenary had managed to sit up on her own, and was looking interestedly at her surroundings. The woman's reflexes and hearing, sharpened by years out of necessity, betrayed Mimi's soft steps as she walked into the room. The merc's head whipped around, a momentary flash of pain registering on the woman's face as her head complained at the sudden movement, and she swallowed hard a few times before she managed to croak out a greeting.

"Hel…lo," she said hesitantly, her voice rusty and harsh.

Mimi returned the salutations with her own - "Greetings to you, Sword-lady, and welcome to Tachikawa Holding." Wincing almost imperceptibly at the way her words came out - Mimi, you fool, you sound like that ever-formal fop of a Crest Seneschal! - she studied the woman sitting on the bed.

Tall and lithe, but hardened all over with muscle, the woman possessed deeply tanned skin from years fighting in the sun and deep, alert eyes of a reddish-brown that might almost be called russet. Her rumpled brown hair was shorn roughly, as if with a dagger, to reach her earlobes in a ragged line. A few front strands escaped the uniformity of length, and fluttered about her face, curling gently around her eyes to rest on her high cheekbones. Aware of Mimi's scrutiny, she sat up straighter, the blanket falling down from where her arms had clenched it to her body to crumple and crease at her waist. Realizing that she was naked, the mercenary blushed faintly and hurriedly tugged the blanket up again.

"You will find clothing and a privy behind that screen." Mimi pointed in the general direction of the indoor privy. "Can you stand on your own, or do you need help?"

"I think… I can do it," the mercenary said, and after a few seconds of struggle with the blankets, she heaved herself to her feet. As Mimi turned away, the woman took the few wobbly steps to the indoor privy, and disappeared behind the screen.

- - -

She awoke, and found herself overwhelmed by the bright light and the whiteness, as a soft voice floated from nowhere and gave her, at least, the answer to the question of where she was. As her sight began to come back, riddled with black dazzle-spots, she realized that the voice belonged to a woman who stood in front of her, studying her even as she studied the stranger.

Her delicate features were framed by a mass of wavy brown hair that was stubbornly escaping from the ribbon that was losing the battle to keep it confined in a neat braid. Her eyes were of a soft, dark brown, and radiated compassion and warmth. She was tall, and willowy, her body slim and ethereal in the robes of pale green that hung loosely from her amply-muscled frame. She almost looked like a spirit - and the woman was someone that Sora felt she knew, but the face did not swim up from the murky pools of her spotty memory to meet with a name.

- - -

He can see the face of a lover

In the lonely face of the angel above him

Carved into the stone that is changing around him

He can feel her breathing inside him

And the unforgiving visions deny him life

Can only be what a man can make it

Hide your eyes

Hide your eyes

- - -

When the woman stepped out from behind the screen shortly after, clothed in the dark red trews and tunic that had been provided, Mimi was gratified to see that she was walking much more steadily. She had made use of the brush that had been laid out on the sink, and had tied her hair back with the matching ribbon that had lay beside the clothes, and was looking altogether better put-together and confident.

As the mercenary took a seat on the edge of the bed, Mimi introduced herself. "I am Healer Mimi Tachikawa, of the Crest of Sincerity and Tachikawa Holding, and I welcome you to my home. You may remain as long as you wish to."

"I am Sora, formerly of the Heartscrest mercenary team," the woman returned. "And I thank you for your hospitality, and your generosity in Healing me." At that moment, her stomach growled loudly, and she flushed deep red.

Mimi smiled. "If you'll come this way, I'll send down for breakfast. Do you think you can eat solid food, or would you prefer broth?"

"Thank you - I think I can handle solid food, if you wouldn't mind the trouble."

"No trouble at all," Mimi answered, still smiling, as she led Sora into her chambers, tugging slightly on a bell-pull. Shortly after, a maid appeared in the doorway, and Mimi gave her the specifics: "Please ask Cook to send up breakfast for my patient. Tell her that she's been Healed from bone breaks and blood loss - she'll know what to prepare."

"Yes, Duchess," the maid replied, and turned and vanished as quickly as she had appeared.

"Duchess?" Sora queried.

Sighing, Mimi answered, "Unfortunately, yes, although I try not to call rank often. Please - don't -" she said, as Sora bowed. "Really, Sword-lady, you don't need to do that, please."

"Yes, your Grace," the mercenary returned, standing straight again.

Another sigh. "Please, just forget my rank. The more important rank I hold is Crested-Healer; that, at least, has some practicality to it." Inwardly, Mimi puzzled: That's odd… she says that she's a mercenary, of a team that can't be Crest-allied, or I would have heard of it. Yet she has all of the Courtly manners of a noble - when she bowed, it was to the exact degree that one would bow to a Duchess, not a finger's length more, and she knows the proper way to address one; not many commoners would know that. But nobles, in the rare event that they do hire out to mercenary teams, don't hire out to those that are not Crest-allied; that's asking for trouble. Who is she? Dare I trust her?

A servant arrived up with the breakfast tray at that moment, interrupting Mimi's thoughts as she took the tray from him with thanks and set it onto her table. "Go ahead and eat as much as you want," she said, watching Sora's eyes widen as she saw the heavily-laden tray. "All this - for me?" she queried breathlessly, and Mimi smiled slightly as she answered in the affirmative.

"Tea?" Mimi inquired, after Sora had settled into the chair and begun eating, taking the time to cut the spinach-laced pork - Bless Cook, thought Mimi, she always knows just what to do, sending up iron-rich foods when I say that a patient has suffered blood loss - into small, neat squares and eating neatly, though she must have been ravenous. Another oddity; most common-born mercs would have speared the meat on their knife and taken huge bites, had they been this hungry. Might she - a wave of dread crashed over the shores of Mimi's mind - Could she be a spy from Larchait? Or an assassin? Gods only know how many people in Larchait want me dead; the bearer of the Crest of Sincerity, and as that, one of their highest-ranking adversaries… and the sole manager of the Holding, that would cause enough disorder in Court, to see who would inherit the Holding and be the next to bear the Crest. After all, Miyako was next in line for the Crest of Love when the Duke and Duchess fled from what was becoming an increasingly uncontrollable situation, and even though she is my younger sister, by law, she can't hold two Crests. She sighed, her mind trailing from subject to subject. I suppose Taichi would appoint one of the other Two-Crested as temporary Crest-Holder until the Crest Chose another to take my place, but how long would that take? Years, maybe, and then what will happen another of the Two-Crested is needed to govern?

That's the only thing wrong with this government - it's based on nine magical objects that Choose its successive bearers based on virtues, and sometimes, two Crests make the same Choice, and then when one of the Two-Crested is needed to govern one Holding, it removes a successive Bearer from another Holding, and the Crest needs to Choose again. Yes, the idea of having the Two-Crested is a good one, but we need more than one Two-Crested Chosen to bear the Crests! And then you look at Takeru and Hikari, who have no successive, and - well, there are holes in the system, rather large holes at that, and they need to be patched. I think I'll bring that up to Taichi next time we have a meeting, not that he doesn't have enough on his plate, what with the war with Larchait. Gods, I wish this damned war would end - it's been going on since - since before I was born. A hot rush of anger - It killed my parents, it killed my brother, and it killed my Digimon Partner. It's enough to make me want to send an assassin after their king, or whoever is giving the orders to attack - and her thoughts had come full circle, as Sora swallowed the bite of tough pork that she had been busy chewing and answered, "Yes, please," to Mimi's offer of tea.

Taking down the stoppered bottle of peach-flavored tea that she always kept packed in ice on a shelf, and pouring it into two wineglasses (which she used in place of teacups mostly to be contrary and to annoy her maid Marissa, who insisted that there were certain types of cutlery to be used for certain dinner courses and only then, and certain dishes and glasses that were to be used for certain types of food and drink and only for that) commented, "You signed with the Heartscrest merc team, you said? I've never heard of them."

After taking a grateful swig of the tea Mimi handed to her, Sora replied, "You probably wouldn't have. We're - were - a fairly obscure group. Lady Miyako was our sponsor; I said we were a mercenary group, but we were mainly her spies and assassins, entering where she could not. She called us the Eyes of the Heart."

Noting the correction, Mimi asked, "Were?"

Sora nodded. "Were. Our last fight was the one you healed me from." The young woman suddenly looked very old and tired, and her eyes took on a faraway cast as she began the tale of her team's last battle. "We were coming through the City, on our way to report back to Lady Miyako…"

- - -

Her breath came in short, hard gasps that showed clearly in the frigid air as she willed her feet to go just one more step, and another, and another. The cold of the night air permeated every inch of her body, whistling in between the heavy wool of her clothing and the leather and chain-mail of her armor. Underneath her heavy jacket, she could feel Biyomon shivering. Whispering into the MindLink she shared with her Digimon partner, ::Almost there, dearheart, almost there. We only have to pass the City, and follow the Trade Road east for another day's march, and we'll be there. Almost there…::

And the march continued, the twenty-odd members of the Heartscrest assassins moving quietly in their cloak of the night. The chill deepened, and the slight breeze grew to a cutting, icy wind that cut right through the wool garments of the team. Each step further was a torture, and the fighters began to drop off, one by one, with cold. The Captain saw this decimation of her troops by Nature's weapons, and felt the deep sadness that weighed on her mind, and knew that she would have to leave them behind. There was no help for it; they knew it as well as she did. There was no place to halt for the night, and even if there had been, there was no time. The Heartscrest bore urgent information for the Lady Miyako, information that must be given to her for the sake of their kingdom and for the Crest which they all served. Every member of the Heartscrest bore a specially coded message implanted into their minds by the team mage; only Lady Miyako's mages knew the spell to release the information, and the Heartscrest themselves could make no sense of it. At least one member must make it to Lady Miyako alive. Their kingdom depended on it.

And that was when the trap was sprung.

The Heartscrest were known among their peers for their heightened senses and unrivaled reflexes. Yet none of them had detected the following of Larchaitan soldiers which had waited, cloaked in shadows, for their coming.

The soldiers sprung on them all at once, shouting their battle-cries, and every Heartscrest sword came out of its sheath with the hiss of metal against leather. The clash of sword to sword rang throughout the City, and the wet thump of a dying body against the brick-laid streets was heard all too often as Sora slashed and parried, spun and thrust at an enemy that she could not see. She recognized the cries of her teammates as they fell under the swords of their enemy, but had no time to help them, only time for the life-or-death dance where her sword was but another part of her arm. Unsheathing her long knife with her other hand, she spun in a deadly whirlwind of steel and flesh that impaled more than one of the soldiers on her blades. Then she was struck in the side, a knife's razor-sharp edge cutting apart the wool and leather that was her armor, and slicing into her side before it was yanked out and its bearer fell dead by her own dagger.

The wound slowed her, and more followed to her legs and arms, but still the enemy fell. She heard fewer shouts now, and more whimpering cries, and then there was nothing but the hiss of her blade as it swung through empty air and the wet choke when it impaled itself in enemy's flesh. But still the soldiers kept coming in a steady, unending stream, and then it was that she could not block the one shot that came for her heart and soul.

The sword sliced cleanly through Biyomon's feathered body, and into her chest, and the MindLink that she and Biyomon shared was filled with the tortured screams for a moment and then there was nothing where before there had been a channel from being to being. And Sora fell, sobbing in agony, as her partner dissipated into the data that was her essence and left forever, fading into the air. And Sora fell, down, down across uncountable miles, into the blessed blackness, and prayed that she would not return to the light until the dawn of her death. And then - there was oblivion.

- - -

Sunday Morning

Yellow Sky

The sun is floating

Diamond high

Hours passing

A baby cries

In the arms of someone you imagine

Close your eyes

This is your lullaby

- - -

"So you see, I have to get this information to Lady Miyako. The fate of the kingdom might depend on it!"

As Sora hoarsely concluded her tale, she became aware of the tears coursing freely down her cheeks and into her mouth, leaving their salty residue on her lips and adding their saline taste to her mouth. In shock, she noticed that Mimi's reaction was the same.

"Then you and I are alike -" she began, but was interrupted by an earth shattering explosion and the screams of battle, and the servant at the door - "Duchess! The Larchaitan army is attacking the Tower!"

- to be continued -