The exchange shop was sprawling and cluttered, with a low roof and long aisles. Everywhere Mist looked there seemed to be some new wonder—a suit of plate armour that glistened like melting ice, a display of amulets shining in purples and golds and greens, a case filled with heart-shaped gems that pulsed with life. The weapons took up almost half the store, racks upon racks upon racks. Mostly they were swords, ranging from the glorious—a golden scimitar that shone with the purest of auras—to the obscene—a disturbingly organic purple-brown blade that writhed upon its rack. Mist dwelt a while at the spear section, entranced by a beautiful partisan with a wing motif, but eventually forced herself away. The staves were set apart from the other weapons, sandwiched between amulets and rings, rows of them held upright with little tags describing their abilities and statistics. The section was dominated by healer-orientated staves, with mages and thaumaturgists and so on making up much of the remainder. There weren't any necromancer-exclusive staves, but eventually Mist tracked down a couple that Praetorian might be able to use. One in particular seemed promising, a classic design of dark wood and inlaid silver runes, tall and straight and with the DeathBolt ability, which sounded appropriately offensive. Best of all it had been marked down to 790 merits, bringing it just within her budget.

"But this would be it," Mist murmured, her hand on the stave's cool surface. "If we get this then we can't buy anything else. Not unless we win another battle or something."

"Mist! Look! It looks like me!"

Mist looked at the metallic blue object that Kitten had found—a slime badge, an accessory so common that even Mist recognised it.

"Those aren't very useful," Mist said. "They just give a little bit of status effect resistance and a tiny hit point boost."

Kitten appeared to look at the badge, then back at Mist.

"Um," the valkyrie said. "It's like..."

Mist trailed off, remembering how these badges were made—they required components found by killing the monsters they resembled.

"Um, what I mean is ... blue slimes are resistant to a lot of status effects and hit points are their strongest stat. So that badge wouldn't be useful to you. Do you understand? It'd just make you more blue slime-ish. And you're already blue slime-ish enough. If someone else wore it then they'd, um ... be like you. In that way."

"Oh!"

Once again Kitten appeared to look at the badge, then she moved a little closer to Mist.

"If someone like you wore it?"

Mist smiled at Kitten, then gently took the badge.

"It's only fifty merits, I guess we could get it ... it's not like I have an accessory ... and the colour matches my armour."

Mist got the impression that if Kitten could smile, she would be beaming.

"Anyway, the stave is the important thing. We've got around eight hundred and fifty merits, so if we get both..."

Mist trailed off, looking from the little slime-shaped badge in her hand to the stave.

"This is one of those hard choices, isn't it," she said. "Is getting a stave for Praetorian the best thing for our team? It'd give us at least a little chance to fight ... and maybe it'd make him get a bit interested in things, and if he got interested then maybe so would Amanda ... they've got that link, I don't know how it works but when he's down so is she, so maybe it'll be the same for enthusiasm?"

Mist looked down at Kitten, who made a kind of blobbish shrug, then the valkyrie took the stave firmly in hand and made for the front of the shop.

"This," she said, laying it down on the counter. "And this badge too. Um. Please."

The human shopkeeper glanced down at the stave, then at the badge, then gestured at Mist's hand. "BrightCircle."

Mist was already pulling off her gauntlet, raising her hand ... and frowning at the glowing numbers above it.

"Wait," she said. "We should have more than that—are these my personal merits? I meant to use team merits, I'm with the Blue Slimes—"

"Those are team," the shopkeeper said, pointing at one of the numbers. "Forty-four tactics merits. There's your personal merits down there. Twelve craft. They're full worth for accessories, so you can get that badge if you want. Not the stave though."

"But that can't be right! Not unless ... unless..."

Mist trailed off, unwilling to voice her realisation out loud. The shopkeeper looked at Kitten, then back at Mist.

"So you want the badge?"

Mist left the shop in silence, the little slime badge in her hand, Kitten close behind. The wind was picking up again, the air filled with petals, the street covered in a fresh layer of pink and white.

"Something was wrong?" Kitten asked, leaving a cleared path through the petals as she followed Mist. "We didn't get the stave?"

"She's really gone," Mist murmured. "I didn't want to even think about it, but it's true. She must have had enough personal merits saved up to buy her graduation, and she used our team merits to, I don't even know, buy equipment or something. The others were right. Nala was only staying because of Tzugakk. With him gone..."

Kitten didn't know what to do with a downcast Mist. She didn't understand what was going on. She knew that the cheerful boy Tzugakk was gone, and so was the sad girl Nala. She knew that Mist was unhappy about this. But what could be done to make her happy?

"Mist?" Kitten said, after several streets-worth of thought. "Do you want to wear the thing that is like me?"

Mist stopped walking. She looked back at the slime, then down at the badge she still held. It was a squat teardrop shape, the same as Kitten's most comfortable form, coloured blue with a metallic sheen. There was nothing much to it at all. The bonuses it conferred probably wouldn't make any difference.

Even so, upon clipping it to her hair, Mist did feel the tiniest bit better. She managed a smile at Kitten.

"Hey hey! The littlest valkyrie, haven't seen you for ages."

"Yeah, we missed our tiny shiny punching bag."

Mist's head snapped up, her eyes widening as she recognised the solid grey buildings around—she'd walked aimlessly, lost in melancholy, and had fallen into an old habit, heading towards her apartment in battle quarter.

"Hello!" Kitten said to the group of fighters. She blobbed in front of Mist. "Are you Mist's friends?"

The fighters glanced at each other, then grinned at Kitten.

"What's this?" one said. "You got yourself a pet?"

"Haha, blue slime! Perfect match!"

"Yeah, if li'l Misty was a monster that's exactly what she'd be."

What a nice thing to say, Kitten thought.

"Oh!" she said. "Please wait!"

The gathered fighters grinned and made a show of paying great attention to Kitten—she was stretching herself upwards, extending thick tendrils into arms and working a lumpy nodule into a surprisingly passable head. It had a blobby little nose, and a thin lipless mouth, and two blank eyes, and a gloopy gloppy mass that might pass for hair in the right sort of light. Kitten had put less effort into her lower body (below the waist she wasn't much more than a lump of goo) and some details were off (she didn't have fingers, just hands with little indents to show where fingers might be), and the longer you looked at her eyes the creepier they seemed, but overall her form could definitely be called 'humanoid'.

"Huh," one of the fighters said, as Kitten shyly clasped her new hands together, copying a habit of Mist's that she'd seen and liked. "Slime girl. Didn't expect that."

"Yeah, heard some stuff about these things."

"No kidding, slime girls got a reputation."

"Hey girl, put some more goo up here," a fighter said, grinning as he cupped his hands in front of himself. Kitten looked at him, cocked her head to one side, then her chest began to swell—

"Oh wow," said another of the fighters. "Damn. Hey, we got that thing coming up, you guys thinking we could maybe use another girl? I mean, she'd be okay with it, right? Because I got some real possibilities coming into my head here—"

The fighter staggered back, clutching at his bloodied nose. Mist stood small but solid before him, spear tight in her gauntleted hands. While the fighters had been distracted by Kitten she'd had time to ready her spear—or time to use a FeatherToken. But that would have left Kitten alone.

"You all just shut up!" she squeaked, glaring up at the fighters. "She's not a pet! She's not a thing! She's my team mate and my friend and you can't talk about her like that!"

The fighter Mist had hit wiped blood from his face and laughed, joined by the others.

"Lucky crit," he said. "Wanna try again? Go ahead. See what happens."

Mist tightened her grip, tried to assume an attack stance, wishing that she'd had proper training, not just muddling around by herself and copying people fishing with spears, if only her mother had been around to show her how to fight, how to act, how to be a proper valkyrie—but maybe that wasn't what really mattered. Maybe what mattered was having a reason to fight. Having someone to protect. Maybe that was true strength.

The fighters exploded into laughter as Mist went sprawling, she didn't even know how she'd tripped, whether her spear had caught against the ground or her armour had snagged on something or if it was just her natural clumsiness betraying her once again.

"Critical FUMBLE!" one of the fighters roared, but as if this was some kind of signal the laughter stopped, and when Mist raised her head she saw that they were staring at someone—not Kitten, the slime was cowering to the side, shocked into reverting to her normal teardrop shape. No, the person the fighters were staring at—the person Mist joined them in staring at—stood tall and calm, pink and white petals falling around her, silver hair braided in swirling patterns, armour gleaming, the sword at her side long and straight. She was every inch a hero, and though alone and outnumbered her presence was undeniable.

"Huh," said one of the fighters, his voice husky with bravado. "Clare Brightheart. What's up, 'hero'?"

Clare looked at the fighter, then down at Mist, then at Kitten. Here she paused, a shimmer of curiosity in her sleepy violet eyes.

"You listening?" the fighter said, taking a step towards Clare. "You hear me? I said what's up, so what's up?"

With flat eyes Clare returned her attention to the fighter. She raised a gauntleted hand. A single pink petal lay in her palm.

"Petals," she said. The fighter snorted, shook his head, and turned away.

"Whatever," he muttered. With dark glances and vaguely grunted threats the others followed, leaving Kitten to try to help up Mist—though the slime had been getting better at maintaining a solid presence, her arm-shaped tendrils weren't particularly well suited to the task.

Clare watched this with impassive curiosity, waited until Mist was sitting up before nodding to herself and turning away—

"Wait!"

Clare looked back, her gaze once more on Mist, who swallowed.

"Um. I just … I just..."

Mist faltered and dropped her eyes. What did she have to say to a hero? What interest would a hero possibly have in her?

"Do you like to eat?" came a perky voice from Mist's side. "There's a wonderful restaurant nearby! We could go there together, would you like that?"

Mist stared up at Kitten, then risked a glance at Clare. The hero was picking a petal from her hair. She stood looking at it, let it fall, then set her gaze upon Kitten.

After an eternity, she nodded.