We sat in silence by the lake, the kind that wasn’t empty but heavy with everything left unsaid. The water stretched endlessly before us, reflecting the sky in slow, shifting ripples. Somewhere in the distance, a father and his child rowed a small wooden boat, their laughter faint but steady, carried by the wind.

I watched them for a while.

I had a long way to go.

If words alone weren’t enough to change things, then I needed something more. Strength. Not just the kind that lets you fight, but the kind that lets you decide when to fight.

“You regret your decision?” Syr asked suddenly.

I turned my head toward her. “About what?”

She didn’t look at me. Her eyes remained fixed on the lake. “Not using force sooner. Against those hunters.”

My gaze dropped to the ground.

“I guess I do,” I admitted quietly. “I should’ve helped Reesay. I should’ve prioritized the safety of my people instead of trying to reason with someone who was actively hurting them.”

The words felt heavier once spoken aloud.

“But…” I added.

Syr hummed softly, prompting me to continue.

“I’m still glad I tried,” I said. “If I had gone straight for killing him, I don’t think I could’ve forgiven myself either. I needed to know if there was another way. There wasn’t. That’s what I got wrong… not trying to talk, but when I chose to stop.”

The wind brushed past us again, rustling the leaves behind.

“You are still clinging to the idea of solving things without force,” she said.

I let out a small breath, almost a laugh. “Yeah. Whenever it’s possible, I’ll try. I want to believe enemies can become something else.”

I glanced back at the lake.

“I want to turn my greatest enemy into my greatest ally,” I continued. “If that’s even possible. I think… that’s what it means to be wise.”

Syr finally looked at me then, her red eyes studying me with that same quiet intensity.

“I am starting to believe you are not what you appear,” she said. “No child thinks like this.”

I scratched the back of my head with an awkward smile. “Yeah, well… I’ve had time to think.”

More than she could imagine.

I shifted slightly and looked at her more directly.

“But you’re the one who went through all of that,” I said. “So what about you? If you saw him again… what would you do?”

For the first time since we started talking, she didn’t answer immediately.

The air changed.

Her gaze lowered slightly, and when she spoke, her voice had lost its calm neutrality. There was something colder underneath.

“I would not forgive him,” she said. “Not for what he did to my companions.”

Her fingers tightened slightly against the ground.

“He took advantage of us. Of me.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Her eyes drifted back toward the horizon, but they weren’t seeing the lake anymore.

“We were in the Drachenfall Ranges,” she said. “We were attacked by a certain individual. My duty was to lead and protect them. I misjudged the situation. I believed we were safe.”

A brief pause.

“We were being attack. He studied us. Waited for the right moment when we were all seperated.”

My chest tightened.

“My ignorance,” she continued quietly, “is what allowed him to kill them.”

The wind passed again, but this time it felt colder.

“And because of that…” she added, her voice lowering just slightly, “if I see him again… I will not hesitate.”

“Wait,” I said, leaning forward slightly. “You said you were attacked.”

Syr’s gaze remained fixed on the lake, but her voice grew quieter, heavier.

“Yes. A masked individual. He called himself Timor, of something known as the Midnight Sun. He came in the middle of the night.” She paused briefly. “He was strong. Not in the way you measure strength… but in a way that made everything around him collapse.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was holding off the others,” she continued. “Cloaked figures. Hunters. I had the advantage at first. But then… something changed.”

Her fingers pressed slightly into the ground.

“I could no longer sense my group properly. Their voices felt distant. Directions became… wrong. I moved, but I wasn’t where I thought I was.” A faint exhale left her lips. “I was isolated without realizing it.”

My chest tightened.

“And then?” I asked.

“I felt something pierce my side. A dart.” She tapped lightly near her ribs. “After that… nothing.”

Silence stretched for a moment.

“The next thing I remember,” she continued, her tone flattening in a way that felt worse than anger, “was waking up. Chained. Weak. My plasma drained.”

She finally turned her head slightly.

“And watching them,” she said.

I didn’t need her to explain further.

“I saw my comrades,” she went on, her voice beginning to tighten, “laid out like animals. Cut apart. Piece by piece. They were still alive.”

The air shifted.

I felt it before I fully understood it.

Her plasma.

It surged.

A pale, almost white aura began to spill from her body, distorting the air around her. The temperature spiked so fast it felt like stepping too close to a furnace.

I instinctively stepped back.

…This was on a completely different level.

It wasn’t just dense. It was overwhelming. Heavy. Like the air itself was being crushed under it.

Stronger than mine.

Stronger than Reesay.

Stronger than the Butcher.

If she wanted to kill me right now… I wouldn’t even see it coming.

“Hey—hey,” I said, raising my hands slightly. “It’s getting hot. Like, really hot. You’re going to burn the forest down.”

She didn’t respond.

Her eyes were no longer on the lake.

They were somewhere else.

“I heard them scream,” she said. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help them. I watched them die while I was chained to a wall like something worthless.”

The grass behind us began to blacken.

Then smoke.

“Hey! You gotta stop!” I shouted, my voice sharper now.

“If I see him again…” she continued, her voice low, dangerous, her red eyes burning with something far deeper than anger, “I will give him a fate worse than death.”

I swallowed.

Could I even blame her?

If it were Reesay… or my father…

Would I have done any better?

Or would I have thrown everything away just to make sure the one responsible suffered?

I clicked my tongue softly and shook my head.

Peace without violence.

Yeah… easier said than done.

“Hey, uh… girl—lady—uh, beautiful lady,” I said quickly, trying to cut through whatever storm she was building. “Can we maybe not turn this entire forest into charcoal?”

Her gaze snapped toward me.

For a split second, it felt like something locked onto me.

I froze, hands still raised.

“…Perhaps I should begin with you,” she said, her voice calm again, but edged with something sharp. “You provoke me with your words and your behavior.”

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly.

“Heh… yeah, that’s fair. Sorry about that,” I said with a weak grin. “You’re just… you know. Pretty. That’s all I meant. If I were older, I might’ve tried my luck.”

Her aura flickered.

Then… it eased.

Not gone, but no longer threatening to incinerate everything around us.

“Tried your luck?” she repeated, tilting her head slightly.

Her tone had shifted.

Less rage.

More curiosity.

“In what way?”

I blinked, then let out a small breath, lowering my hands a bit.

“Well uh,” I said, glancing at her for a second before looking away again, “in a normal way, I guess. Talking to you. Getting to know you. Maybe asking you to stay. That kind of thing. Maybe, I would've tried to get a kiss from you, or even more than that."

I paused, then added with a small shrug, “Not exactly something I can do seriously when I look like this, though.”

That earned me a longer look. 

She was blushing slightly, I think? Actually maybe not. 

Still that serious look.

Not hostile though.

Just… evaluating.

“…You speak strangely,” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I get that a lot.”

A brief silence followed, but this one felt different.

Lighter.

The heat in the air slowly faded.

And for the first time since she started talking about it… she wasn’t drowning in that memory anymore.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked, my voice quieter than before.

Syr didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifted back to the lake, following the slow movement of the water as if the answer might be hidden somewhere beneath it.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “Returning to the Drachenfall Ranges… is not something I can do.”

I frowned slightly. “Why not?”

“The Dragon King would not acknowledge me,” she replied calmly. “I failed in my duty. I was entrusted with lives, and I lost them. Appearing before him as if nothing happened would be… disgraceful.”

I blinked, then let out a short, incredulous breath.

“You survived a group of lunatics who hunted you down, butchered your friends, and nearly killed you,” I said. “And your king would reject you for that? That’s… I don’t even know what to call that. You Dragonites have a seriously messed up sense of honor.”

She didn’t even look at me.

“Says the one attempting to seduce a woman while still in a child’s body.”

“Heh?” I turned toward her. “What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that, you know… a universal goal of man? Find someone you like, try your luck, maybe not die alone?”

“A goal of a man, you said,” she replied, glancing at me briefly.

…Right.

Damn that witch and her timing.

I cleared my throat awkwardly and waved it off. “Details.”

Then my expression shifted again, more serious.

“Still,” I continued, “I don’t get it. You’re alive. That should matter more than pride. You didn’t run away. You didn’t abandon them. You were taken down by something you couldn’t even properly fight.”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

“Honor and pride define Dragonites,” she said. “It is not about survival. It is about fulfilling one’s role without failure.”

Her hand tightened slightly against the ground.

“I failed. And now I continue to live because someone else chose to save me.”

I turned toward her more fully.

“…Are you blaming me for that?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. “What, you would’ve preferred to die there? Alongside them?”

A brief silence.

Then she opened her eyes again and looked at me.

“Yes.”

The word landed without hesitation.

It hit harder than I expected.

“At least then,” she continued, her voice steady but low, “my failure would have ended with me. Instead, I carry it.”

I stared at her for a moment, then let out a small, disbelieving laugh.

“That’s stupid.”

Her gaze sharpened instantly.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s stupid,” I repeated, meeting her eyes directly now. “Dying doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make what happened better. It just makes sure nothing else ever does.”

“You speak as if living is the easier choice,” she said coldly.

“It isn’t,” I replied. “That’s exactly the point.”

I leaned forward slightly, my voice lowering.

“Living with failure, regret, guilt… that’s harder than dying. Way harder. So if you’re still here, then don’t twist it into something meaningless just because it hurts.”

She didn’t interrupt me this time.

“You say honor defines you,” I continued. “Then define it yourself. Don’t let it end at one mistake. If anything, that’s when it should matter the most.”

I gestured vaguely toward her.

“You’re strong. Strong enough that those people went through all that effort just to take you down. And now you’re just going to throw that away because you think surviving makes you unworthy?”

My voice tightened slightly.

“That’s not honor. That’s just… giving up with a better excuse.”

Silence.

The wind passed between us again, gentler this time.

Syr stared at me, longer than before. Not with anger now, but something more complicated.

“You speak as if you have already lived through such things,” she said quietly.

I paused.

“…Something like that,” I answered.

Another moment passed.

Then she looked back at the lake.

“If I continue to live,” she said, slower now, “then it will not be as someone who runs from what happened.”

“Good,” I said.

Her eyes shifted slightly.

“It will be as someone who corrects it,” she added. “Who ensures it never happens again.”

I exhaled softly.

“…Yeah,” I said. “That’s a much better reason.”

A brief pause.

Then I added, half-smiling, “Also a lot less depressing.”

She didn’t react immediately.

But after a second… just barely…

Her expression softened.

For a moment, I thought I saw it.

A smile.

It was faint, almost uncertain, like even she wasn’t used to making that expression. But it was there… I think.

“You are a strange child,” she said.

Yeah. I’ve been called worse.

“Don’t die on me,” I replied, leaning back slightly on my hands. “At least give me the chance to make you fall in love with me properly when I’m older.”

She stared at me.

Then, for the first time since I met her—

She actually blushed.

Not subtle either. A clear, visible flush creeping across her cheeks as her eyes narrowed just slightly, like she didn’t know whether to be annoyed or… something else.

It was… kind of adorable.

“Very well,” she said after a second, turning her head away just a little. “I will grant you that chance.”

I grinned. “Appreciated.”

She didn’t respond to that, but the tension from earlier had completely faded now. Whatever storm had been building inside her… it was gone. Or at least, quieted.

I watched her for a moment.

I liked her.

Not just because she was beautiful. Not just because of that strange, blunt way she spoke.

There was something else.

Something grounded. Honest. Uncompromising.

She didn’t bend her words to comfort. She didn’t pretend things were better than they were. And somehow… that made her easier to trust.

Different.

Very different from anyone I’d met so far.

She stood up slowly, brushing the sand and bits of grass from her legs. The sunlight caught her for a moment, and I had to look away before I stared too long again.

She began to walk off.

“Hey—where are you going?” I called after her.

She stopped, then turned slightly, looking back over her shoulder.

And this time, there was no doubt.

She was smiling.

“I could not die,” she said. “But you have given me a reason to live.”

Something about the way she said it… it didn’t sound light. It sounded like a decision.

“I would like to repay that,” she added.

I blinked. “Repay it?”

“You will understand soon enough.”

And with that, she turned and continued walking, her figure gradually disappearing between the trees.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Atleast tell me your name."

She replied, without even turning back.

"Syr." She said. "Syr Valdengaard."

"Valdengaard?"

I stayed where I was for a moment, staring after her, as she walked away.

“…Yeah,” I muttered to myself, a small smile forming despite everything.

She really was different.