Impartial winds breezed through Bright Battle Academy, trailing a shower of pink and white. Petals cascaded upon every street, dancing without mercy, unapologetically joyful. Beneath the petals, and above, and around, life went on, the strong preying on the weak, the weak preying on each other, the weakest...

The weakest.

Ah, but there's a tragic tale.

Summer Rain drew back from the window. She brushed a stray petal from her lips, then turned to look at the two young men standing hand-in-hand behind her.

"I don't know," she said, in answer to the question that shone in their eyes. "I really just don't know."

Another breath of wind, far from the first and far from the last, made its giddy descent from Everglim Heights and through to the gourmet quarter, past enticing ribbons and wooden cakes and painstakingly handpainted signs. It slipped through alleys and burst on to streets in an explosion of blossom, pink and white petals glittering against the blue of the inappropriately perfect sky.

Then the breeze passed and borrowed time was lost; lifeless, the petals fell. They came to rest on dull brown earth. They came to rest on pale green grass. And they came to rest on glistening blue goop.

Kitten didn't take much notice, barely spared time to delight in their colours before her gelatinous skin began to absorb them. She was far too busy for anything as frivolous as petals. She had a job to do, a job that would make Mist happy. Or at least so she hoped. She'd done her best over the last few days, and was secretly very proud of herself for making her form solid enough not to leave a glistening residue wherever she went. Nobody had said anything but Kitten considered it a victory nonetheless. Silence was better than being yelled at all the time. Not that the shouty pointy man was around much to do any yelling—and when he was it seemed the most he could muster was a sullen glare and a quiet sigh. The tall bandaged girl who smelled like home didn't really look at Kitten at all. Not since the small sad girl and the friendly boy who had helped name her went away.

Kitten wondered about this. She wondered if it had something to do with Mist's sadness. Sometimes her sisters had gone away, back when she lived in the darkness. It was hard to remember anything about that time—hard to remember a time when 'time' was not a recognisable concept—but there was a certain uncomfortable tugging that Kitten didn't much enjoy thinking about. If Mist went away I would be sad, Kitten thought, as she curled a tendril around a trowel. But more than that—more than 'no Mist = sad Kitten'—she wasn't sure. Deep thoughts did not come easily to the young slime, but simple labour was well within her sticky grasp, so she spent an industrious minute digging a hole, then used the trowel to transport a large seed from a bag into said hole. Nobody had specifically told her to plant anything, but the last instruction she'd received was 'look after the garden' so that's what she was doing. She'd been working all morning and had already covered a large area of the front section, the work made easier by her increase in size. When she first joined the Blue Slimes she wasn't even half Mist's height, but clearing weeds and leaves and petals and absorbing a few unlucky rats had given her a noticeable boost. The turnips and potatoes she'd found while working on the back garden had also contributed to her growth, and with concentration and effort she could now form herself into a humanoid figure just a head shorter than Mist. Much less goopy than before, too. Arms were tricky, and legs seemed needlessly complicated, and as for a face ... well, if Kitten was honest with herself she didn't understand faces at all, but people seemed to think they were important so she'd spent some time with a shard of mirror. What she'd achieved didn't seem quite right, but she was confident that with practice she'd improve. Coordination, that was the sticking point. Coordination and placement. Nose in the middle, mouth beneath, ears to the sides and then hair, hair was a problem—eyes too, so many different parts! And so colourful! Of course Kitten only had one colour to work with, which in a way was a blessing. Just getting the shape of things right was challenge enough, without having to worry about the added complication of colours.

With a quiver Kitten pulled herself out of her introspection and plunged back into her work—or would have, if not for the approach of two familiar shapes. She watched as the shouty pointy man strode up the path, noting with interest the collection of bottles and jars he held. She watched as the bandaged girl followed behind, her head bowed so that her straggly hair covered her face. The pointy man looked back and barked a sharp command. Kitten had seen enough of the interactions between the two to expect an equally sharp response from the bandaged girl, but this time the only response was obedience.

Kitten jiggled a little as she returned to her task. They must be getting along better, she thought. That's good. Mist was worried about that. She'll be happy now.

Inside the house, Mist was not happy now. She was not happy now at all.

"You went shopping! You just went shopping, you didn't even look for her!"

"I cut my eyes about myself as I trudged through those dismally petal-filled streets. Nary a dwarf did I spy. What more could you expect of me?"

"Don't you care about her?"

"At this time? With all that has happened? To be brutally honest, valkyrie, I'm preoccupied with more pressing matters than a single cowardly dwarf—"

"Coward—I can't believe you sometimes, she didn't ... she'd never just—she's probably investigating something, researching how we're going to beat those other teams, you know how she is! I mean ... she's disappeared before, hasn't she?"

"She had a reason to come back," came Amanda's dull voice, though the girl didn't raise her head. "Before."

Mist opened and shut her mouth, then opened it again, then shut it again.

"Is that some manner of signal?" Praetorian asked. "Perhaps indicating the end of this conversation? Because as you may have noticed I have a somewhat precarious armful of components and I'd rather like to get on with earning some merits—"

"She wouldn't just run away," Mist muttered, her fierce gaze fixed on an innocent hole in the carpet. "She just wouldn't."

"And why not, pray tell? Why not simply abandon this place, I'm tempted to do the same myself!"

"So why don't you," Amanda muttered.

"Ah! It speaks! 'Why don't you', is that the message you made a sullen attempt to convey? In response, must I repeat myself yet again? I came to this woeful academy with certain goals, and until I have accomplished said goals—"

"Elf girls? That's your only reason for staying?" Amanda raised her head, just the glimpse of a single baleful eye visible through her hair. "You're disgusting."

"And you're dead. We all have our little burdens."

Mist saw Amanda tremble, went to reach out to her, to say something, but the zombie girl was already shuffling towards the room they shared, shouldering past the door and disappearing inside.

"Finally," Praetorian murmured, heading for the stairs.

"Wait!"

"Oh, what? What could you possibly—out with it, then, but for the love of pointed ears be succinct."

"We can't act like this! You and Amanda—and I know, she's been ... more difficult lately, I know that, I'm not just blaming you, it's really hard with, with—" Mist's voice broke and her resolved expression threatened to crack, but she took a shuddering breath and pushed on: "With everything. It is hard. But we're supposed to be a team—"

Praetorian cut Mist off with a laugh, short and sardonic. "Oh, my dear young valkyrie. Allow the scales to fall from those charmlessly idealistic eyes and look at us. Look at the circumstances we find ourselves plunged into. Slythaneile has defected. Tzugakk is dead. And so Nala is gone. We who remain? Oh, we are many things, none could deny that. But it would be the most flagrant of lies to call us a team."

With that Praetorian turned and made for the stairs, without so much as a sweep of his cape. Mist was left standing in the middle of the room, her eyes full of tears, her lip full of quiver.

Presently, she felt a warm softness against her hand, and she looked down at Kitten.

"The garden is good!" Kitten said. "It will be good!"

Mist stared at the slime, then burst into tears.

Except she didn't.

Her face creased, she drew breath in preparation for a good long wail, but then she just ... didn't. She closed her mouth. Her expression smoothed—not calm, not exactly, but at least less distraught.

"No," she said, quite clearly, and then again: "No."

If Kitten had been maintaining a physical impression of eyes at that moment, she might very well have blinked at the young valkyrie.

As it was she swayed and jiggled a bit, then she said:

"Can I do something? To make you happy?"

"You? What? I don't know. I need to ... I mean I should ... everyone says blue slimes are useless—oh, but, I mean, I don't think that ... I think you're, um, great."

"Oh! Thank you?"

"But I don't know what to do with you. Or the others, or myself. Especially myself." Mist took in a breath, then deliberately did not sigh it out. "We've come so far. We made it into the tournament, who would've expected that from us? Nobody! Not even me! But Nala ... Nala always..."

Kitten bobbed slowly up and down as Mist went to adjust a gauntlet she wasn't wearing—currently she was in her unflattering casual clothes.

"We are a team," Mist said. "And if we came this far then we can go further. We have to try at least. Right?"

"Right!"

"Right." Mist smiled weakly at Kitten, but couldn't keep it up. "I have to think like Nala. What would she do?"

"Go away? She went away? That's what she would do?"

"No, I mean ... she'd probably try to figure out the weaknesses of the team we're fighting. Some way we could attack them. Except I don't even know who we're fighting, the brackets still haven't been announced. Even if they were, what can we do? Amanda can't attack, I'm ... not good, and you can't attack, right?"

"No, no. Haha! No. Blue slimes can't attack."

"And Praetorian doesn't even have a stave ... although ... what if we got him one? We've still got our team merits, nobody's really spent them on anything except the FeatherTokens and getting my, um, my dress fixed and that hat for Amanda ... do you think that might be a good idea? If Praetorian had a stave then we could at least do something, I think this might be a good idea! Praetorian!"

Kitten dashed after Mist as the valkyrie thundered up the stairs.

"What is this noise?"

"Praetorian! You can do magic!"

Praetorian stood in the doorway of his room, arms crossed, distinctly unamused.

"I can 'do' magic, can I." The necromancer spread his hands and shook his head. "Vulgarly I suppose that's correct, but without a stave—"

"We can GET you a stave! We can afford one I mean ... well, I guess we can ... maybe..."

"Oh honestly, what would be the point of that, hm? To give us false hope in the face of armageddon? No. Pointless. Now, I have already made plans for today so if you're through wasting my time—"

"But this would be good for you, don't you want a stave?"

"If you'll excuse me," Praetorian said, an air of finality to his tone, and he retreated into his room. Mist gaped at the door the necromancer had shut in her face, then emitted an angry squeak and poked out her tongue at the scuffed wood.

"Fine then," Mist muttered as she stomped down the stairs, Kitten at her heels. "I'll just take Amanda and ... oh."

Mist stopped and Kitten bumped into her, but before the slime could so much as apologise Mist was already walking on.

"She's probably not in the mood anyway—it'll just be you and me, Kitten. We'll go to that exchange shop, the big exciting one on the edge of the shopping quarter, and we'll get a stave and maybe some armour for Amanda and even something for you—monsters can equip accessories, can't they? I'm sure I heard someone say that. And after that it'll all seem better. We just need to do something. Anything. And that'll be a start."