“I was listening the whole time.”

After Lucienne left, Camilla sighed and sat down on the bed, running her fingers through her hair and messing up the formerly neat strands. “Yeah…She doesn’t sound happy about it. Did I do the right thing?”

“That’s for you to decide, as you’re the leader.”

It was a non-answer but before she could protest, Kagriss interrupted her and added on: “But I think it would help if you made it seem like you cared a bit more, you know?”

“But I don’t want to be biased. They should choose their own future without me putting unnecessary influence on their decision. If I made it seem like I want them to stay or leave, then won’t they feel obligated to do one or the other?”

“You’re right, but that seems like rather backwards logic. Ignoring or seeming uncaring isn’t a neutral choice; it’s you being unwelcoming. When was the last time you spoke to them anyway? Even I interact with them more than you do.”

“Well, they like it.”

“Because you don’t care about them.”

Camilla licked her lips and flopped down onto the bed, putting her pillow over her head. It’s all so complicated. These dynamics are something she was completely unused to.

She didn’t want to admit it, but she was lost with no idea about what to do. Things would be much simpler if she could create a strict, hierarchical structure like the Order, but she didn’t like that kind of atmosphere either.

Wasn’t she just being picky?

When she didn’t reply, the conversation naturally ended on an unhappy note. Kagriss laid down beside her and hugged her arm. Her full breasts pushed up against Camilla. 

The promise that she made to Kagriss came back to her, but she couldn’t find the motivation to fulfill it, not to mention the mood was all wrong. With another sigh into the pillow over her head, Camilla closed her eyes and tried to shut out everything, imitating sleep as best as she could.

Free from responsibility, she didn’t have to rush anything. It was okay to go at her own pace and deal with things that aren’t urgent tomorrow. However, to make things up to Kagriss for the unfulfilled promise, Camilla turned and draped her free arm over the lich, pulling her close.

Their breaths slowly fell in sync.

That night, Camilla dreamed when she drifted off. Something about the dream struck her as familiar, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. 

In the dream, she had pure white wings. 

But even so, she could not remember. When she woke up again, nothing of the dream remained except for a feeling of loss in her chest, prickling at her like a tiny thorn that she couldn’t remove, and the image of a snowy white feather that faded into the back of her mind.

 

Half a day’s worth of traveling wasn’t far at all, so not much preparation was needed, especially since most of their number didn’t really need food. After buying some rations for the twins, Camilla and her party set off. 

Using the tracker on Elyss’s color, they found the lion napping in the forest. She was in a small clearing with no trees, with only the remains of the once-tall wooden giants in the form of decaying hollow trunks on the floor. The ancient remains were covered with moss and flowers, and a whole clearing of flowers had sprung up around it to take advantage of the life that the death of the trees returned to the earth.

When Camilla first saw Elyss again, she had to pause and rub her eyes to check her sight. Was she really seeing this?

Elyss had a woven crown of flowers on one ear, resting on top of her mane. The white, blue, and yellow blossoms coiled around each other to make a little circle that exuded such innocence that for a moment, Camilla wondered if she got the right lion.

Just in case, she called out to her. “Elyss?”

At the sound of her name, Elyss flicked her ears and angled it toward them, but the flower crown stayed on. Slowly, she opened her eyes and twin orbs of liquid amber focused on Camilla.

She yawned, sitting up on her haunches without a care in the world, and began to bath herself.

A normal mana beast will have become aggressive right now after having their rest interrupted. Or rather, most mana beasts are sensitive enough to mana that when something unfamiliar approaches without putting some effort into concealment, they’ll wake up from sleep naturally. Without a doubt, the lion before them was Elyss.

“Where did you get that from?” Camilla pointed at the crown of flowers. When she reached toward it, a low rumble came from deep in Elyss’s chest. Understanding that she was crossing over some kind of limit, she took her hand back and settled for just looking with her eyes.

The crown looked well made. The flower stems are woven together tightly and the ends were clipped. Whoever made it clearly put a lot of thought into it and was good with their hands. 

Obviously, Elyss couldn’t have been the one.

Elyss didn’t answer. She lifted her nose in the air with an air of “I’m not going to tell you,” and Camilla could only leave it at that. Well, if Elyss found someone else that she could trust, it’s not a bad thing. Elyss, with her beast’s instincts, was a decent judge of character, so Camilla wasn’t particularly worried about her being taken advantage of or betrayed.

When she turned, she caught Kagriss shaking her head and sighing, but when she shot Kagriss a questioning gaze with an eyebrow raised, Kagriss just shook her head again. 

“What?”

“Hah… nothing. Let’s be off.” 

Was keeping secrets from her in vogue right now? Pushing aside the confusion she felt, Camilla quickly filled Elyss in on the things she missed, including where they were going and the commission they accepted.

True to how Elyss usually was, her eyes lit up when Camilla mentioned battling mana beasts. Her claws sprang out from their hidden sheathes and tore into the earth in excitement. “Perfect. When are we going? Now?”

Camilla nodded and Elyss began to wag her tail, waving it back and forth as if it was a flag in the very image of confidence.

“Half a day, huh? I think we can do better than that.”

“You’re going to run?” Camilla asked, surprised. “I thought you didn’t like running.”

“Well, if it’s running all day for weeks on end with no end in sight, then who would? Just half a day is a whole other story. Besides, I've been bored out of my mind these past few days.”

“I doubt that’s anything compared to staying in the stronghold.”

Elyss nodded and Camilla felt a pang of guilt. There was the scent of blood still lingering in the air, meaning that Elyss had killed and devoured something recently, as a predator should.

Camilla hadn’t noticed it before during her tenure as the commander of the Order, but reflecting on her actions now, it had been cruel to confine a free spirit like Elyss in a mountain stronghold. Treating her like a guardian beast when she’s a mana beast like any other was nothing more than a decorated, glorified collar.

That guilt is part of the reason why Camilla gave Elyss a lot of leeway in things she did. If Elyss decided to leave right now, Camilla won’t stop her.

If Elyss wanted to run, then she'd do her best to keep pace. Anyone that couldn’t keep on will probably have to stay on Elyss’s back, though. Unfortunately, at Elyss’s top speed, Camilla was probably the only one who could.

Lucienne was a bit too slow and while Kagriss could cover long distances better with her flight magic, she was slower. Half a day’s journey was still too short a distance to make up the distance and allow her to catch up to Elyss.

“Can you carry four people?”

“Of course I can, but then I can’t go as fast as I want.” If lions could pout, Elyss would no doubt be doing so right now. 

The whole point of the conversation was because Elyss wanted to go all out, so having her bear four people defeats the purpose. “Okay, okay; does anyone else have an idea?”

Kagriss raised her hand. “I know where it is so I can just catch up later.”

“Eh? But…”

“You should come with me too.” Kagriss shushed her with a warning gaze. Camilla coughed, trying to hide her embarrassment. She almost acted spoiled just now at the prospect of having to go separate ways with Kagriss.

But that left just the twins and Lucienne with Elyss. Elyss will definitely be going on ahead of Camilla and Kagriss, and she’ll definitely be carrying Ariel and Sariel. There is no world where the twins can keep up otherwise.

But what about Lucienne?

Lucienne paled and smiled weakly. “I can’t do it for a long time, but if it’s in short bursts, I can keep up. Probably. And maybe we can take frequent breaks for me to recover?”

Although Elyss didn’t look very happy about the mention of breaks, this kind of setup seems to be the best compromise of all, so she nodded. 

“It can’t be helped. But instead of resting, I’ll carry you as well.”

The twins cheered at that, probably because it meant they could spend more time with Lucienne, but that drew Elyss’s attention. The lion looked at them with her amber eyes. “Why are you two here though? Kittens like you should stay in the city away from danger until you’re old enough to handle things.”

They froze. “Huh? W-we’re here for experience!” Ariel stammered. 

“That’s right. How else can we grow strong? We’re plenty old enough… besides, Lucy has been teaching us.”

“Hmph.”

Despite the dismissive tone that Elyss took toward the twins, she didn’t go overboard and left things at that. She didn’t say that she wouldn’t let them on her back either. If she doesn’t agree to carry them, then there’d be no choice but to leave them behind, and Elyss knew that.

Perhaps she has a soft spot for them after all?

That became more likely the more Camilla thought about it.

They spent a few more minutes planning out a rough route, taking into account paths and well known or prominent landmarks. It honestly wasn't that big a deal because of how close the destination was, but it never hurt to be careful.

When all preparations were complete, Lucienne and Elyss ran off, the latter carrying the twins on her back. They were tiny compared to Elyss’s total size and they barely slowed her down. The four of them were gone in seconds, disappearing into the forest. Even their mana signature began to rapidly fade.

Camilla unfurled her wings and shot upwards with a sight feeling of deja vu she didn’t really understand. Kagriss followed shortly after with a flight spell of her own making that struck a compromise between speed and efficiency. Together, they set a course unbound by terrain straight toward the site that earth silencers have infested.

Far from taking half a day, the whole journey will probably take an hour or less. Lucienne and Elyss will beat them there, though.

A while into their flight, Kagriss drew closer. Camilla didn’t think much of it, at least until Kagriss spoke.

“If you keep going like this, you’ll lose them.”

“What?” Camilla hadn’t planned on talking. What she desired was Kagriss’s presence, and just having Kagriss nearby was enough for her, so she was a bit surprised when Kagriss started a conversation. Not to mention, the topic was so random that she had no idea what Kagriss was talking about. “Lose who?”

“Everyone. Lucienne, Elyss, Ariel, Sariel.”

“What do you mean?.” Camilla felt as if her head was filled with fog and her thoughts were ten times slower than usual. Why else was she having trouble understanding Kagriss?

Why will she lose Lucienne and the others in the first place?

“Haven’t you noticed that you’ve become more and more distant from them?”

Camilla was about to deny it without thinking but found that she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth. Why? Deep inside, she knew that Kagriss wasn’t wrong. And when she did put some thought into Kagriss’s words, she found exactly what Kagriss meant.

She wasn’t particularly close to Lucienne in the first place. She had been a bit bored when she entered Moltrost and chose to pick on Lucienne because she was an easy target. Afterwards, after getting to know her a bit better, Camilla found that their ideologies weren’t all that different.

It put both of them at odds with the Church in some way. Coincidentally, she had been looking for allies, so she accepted Lucienne into their fold and turned Lucienne into a vampire to free her from her connection with the templars.

But in the end, when it came down to it, the relationship she shared with Lucienne was at best limited to being allies; perhaps friends as well, but definitely not close. At worst, she could be considered Lucienne’s relative.

Her relationship with the twins was even more delicate and strained since she had pushed them on to Lucienne from the start. All she did was okay their joining.

Even Elyss, who she knew the longest, was someone who acknowledged her for her strength and perhaps out of old gratitude for training her. But, even that gratitude should have faded in time.

Of all the people she had with her, the only one she was truly close to was Kagriss. Even though they haven’t been together for very long, Camilla didn’t think there was anyone else in this world that could compare with Kagriss’s importance in her heart, which was why the concern she saw on Kagriss’s expression made her heart throb. She was doing something wrong, but what if Kagriss gets fed up with her one day and leaves? She wouldn’t be able to bear it. 

Camilla looked down below her, unable to formulate a rebuttal.

Even if she drifted apart from the others, she didn’t mind too much, as long as Kagriss stayed. Of course, it would be best if she didn’t. But even if she tried to salvage her relationships with others, it wasn’t like she knew how to. It’s a bit embarrassing that even Kagriss seemed to know better.

All her life, she was “Carmen the trainee,” “Carmen the templar,” “Carmen the commander,” and the way she acted in each role was all she knew. The trainee focused on her studies and training in order to become the best templar she could be. The templar obeyed commands and brought peace to human lands. The commander led the Order, offering herself as a pillar.

She had comrades and brothers- and sisters-in-arms, not friends, with precious few exceptions.

“Camilla. Milla.”

“…yes?” 

Kagriss had a strange look on her face, a burning intensity in her eyes that made Camilla a little bit taken aback. When she spoke, she was so quiet that Camilla had to strain her ears to even begin to make it out over the wind howling so high up in the sky.

What reached her was only a broken chain of words that meant nothing by itself. ”I can’t hear you, Kagriss.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” For some reason, Kagriss looked really happy about something. The way she looked at Camilla was a bit weird as well, almost feverish. 

Camilla almost checked Kagriss’s temperature out of concern, but undead don’t get fevers.

“I don’t think it matters whether or not you’re close with others.”

“Huh? But didn’t you just tell me that if I don’t try harder, Lucienne and Elyss will leave?” Camilla asked, confused about what Kagriss was getting at. 

“Did I?”

“Yes…” Kagriss wasn’t making any sense.

The person not making any sense shrugged her shoulders and raised her arms helplessly. “I was just warning you. It doesn’t matter for me. Whether you have one or a hundred with you, nothing will change between you and me.”

Camilla blushed and pushed Kagriss, sending her careening off course. “What are you saying at a time like this?” The wind was cool against her hot face.

“It’s just the truth,” Kagriss said with a deadpan face when she caught up. The lack of expression made it seem like it was a joke, but it still made Camilla feel better.

Perhaps it was just empty reassurances, but Camilla was still thankful. A small weight lifted from her chest, taking the edge off the worry in her mind about being left behind. As long as she had Kagriss…