Two months, that’s the time that has passed since Meira arrived at the Kare. Nothing much has changed, at least not for Liv, but she knows that is not the same everywhere. Things are more agitated, training sessions are longer and the higher ups are pressuring Howard to take them to fight. The ones that are trying to fight the Hexians because they lost everything to them. Well, not everything, they lost their castles and their power, and now try to still cling to what is left of it to be the ones in power. It would have worked with someone else but Howard and Elinor treat them like their own children, and don’t hesitate to say no to Lords and Marked Council alike. Still, Liv knows that one of the reasons they are waiting is because of Meira. She still is learning how to control her powers, how to fight. She improves every day, Liv herself trains with her some days but it’s too soon. They won’t even let Liv go out in missions like Rakan and Kylem do, to spy on the Hexans or to bring Marked children to safety. It will be a while until they can really attack.

Liv walks into the stables, taking care of the horses is one of her duties. Giving them food every morning, cleaning the stables, it’s a peaceful job for her but it’s tiring, at least she has Gabriel to help her.

It’s good that she is used to Rakan being weird or otherwise she would have screamed when she finds him stripping inside.

“You are going to scare the horses, don’t do that here”

“Oh! Liv hey!” he answers with a smile “Don’t be like that, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has to strip here”

Liv blushes “I leave my clothes in the saddle room so no one sees me”

“Well, unlike you, I don’t fit inside the saddle room”

“Just go outside then” she says, she doesn’t expect him to actually go out, but she should have thought about how this is Rakan and of course, he just goes outside naked. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway. Liv follows him “Where are you going?”

“Just flying around for a bit, see if everything’s okay” he says, just before he starts turning, Liv takes a few steps away to not be hit. Rakan in his dragon form will always be a beautiful sight, his dark scales taking blue tones in the sunlight. His eyes are like a cat’s, and he looks at Liv with his pupils completely round. He is now bigger than the stables but still looks like the least menacing creature in the area. He touches Liv gently with his snout and she gives him a few pats.

“Take care around there” she says, the dragon only moves back before extending his wings and flying away.

She looks up at him until it’s painful with the sun on her eyes. She is about to head back inside when she feels it. Trees dying, a big number of them disappearing at the same time in the same area. That is in no way normal. Liv changes into a cat so she doesn’t break her dress and into a wolf once she is out of it. She takes the dress carefully with her mouth and starts running to the forest. She is thankful that she can at last dress with clothes that are easy to get out of and carry, the winter is long, and cold, and it is much more bothersome with clothes and changes.

She heads straight to the area where the trees have disappeared. In the years she has been living here she has become so in tune with this forest that she feels their absence like a hole in her heart. Nothing could have prepared for what she finds there though. There, in the middle of the forest she has learned to know like a part of her, is a house, one clearly in the style of the east, it makes no sense how it could be here, how it could have appeared like that.

She approaches quietly, still in wolf form in case she needs to fight or run. She is about to put one paw on the wooden veranda when she hears a voice from inside.

“We have our first visitor!” The panel in front of Liv slides open then and she is surprised to see a man from the east standing there, he looks a bit dishevelled, his hair messy and robes out of place, he doesn’t get surprised at the sight of the wolf next to him and has a big smile on his face “Welcome Kyusei, you can get dressed and come in to have some tea if you want” He closes the panel.

Liv is confused, but she changes back into a cat to get inside her dress and be dressed when she changes back to human. She slides open the panel carefully. She still doesn’t know if this is going to be some kind of trap but she didn’t feel any vile intentions from that man, he wouldn’t be able to come here if he had any anyway, and she is curious, how did the house appear here? How did he sense her like that and knew who she was?

She walks along a corridor with panels at the sides until she is at the other side of the house, at a room with a low table in it and one of the walls opened to the veranda and the forest.

“Oh! You are here!” the man says, he is carrying a tray with a teapot and cups that he leaves on the low table “come, sit here” he leads her to the other side of the table and sits her down on a cushion on the floor. He then moves to the other side and sits down himself, on his knees. “I didn’t expect anyone to visit us so soon, we are lucky.”

Liv doesn’t know who ‘us’ is “I felt when you arrived” she says carefully.

“Oh right, sorry about the trees, we had to make room for our home.”

“And how exactly did you get it here?” she asks.

“I can make things small” he says, the table with the tea pot and the cups shrinks then, it could probably fit on Liv’s hand now “and big” it turns back into its previous size and the man starts pouring the tea as if nothing had happened. Liv just stares at him shocked, she has never seen a power like that before, and he did it without touching all the objects, he must be powerful “here” he offers a cup filled with tea to Liv and she accepts it “we heard you had found our lost Kyusei of light and decided to pay a visit.”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, a little birdie told me” he says with a smile, he lifts his head and gets up then “talking about flying things, the other changer is here.”

Just as he walks towards the veranda, Rakan lands next to the house, he looks ready to attack, his pupils slits, but then he sees Liv. He stops growling and moves back surprised. The man looks completely unfazed by the dragon in front of him. Just who exactly is him?

“You can change and join us, we have tea” the man says, Rakan turns human then, Liv sees him making his clothes appear and getting dressed while the man sits back in front of her “he calls for his clothes and you carried yours, why is that?” the man asks, for once, he truly looks confused.

“He is not a Changer, he is a Creator so he can learn how to call for things, I’m only a Changer so I can’t”

“Who says you can’t?” he asks, Liv frowns, what does he mean? Rakan sits next to her.

“That’s just how things are” he says.

“So you are a Creator but you can change and she is a Changer and can make plants appear without seeds. Who taught you magic Kyusei?”

There’s a voice then, from inside the house. Liv doesn’t understand what they say, she doesn’t know the language but the man in front of them answers to it. There are steps then and a man appears at the door from inside the house. He is wearing the same kind of robes as the other but he wears them impeccably, his hair long and perfectly kept in a high ponytail. What catches Liv’s attention though, is the cloth covering his eyes. He walks perfectly to the table and sits down next to the other man.

“Excuse Masahiko, he isn’t the best with people. You can call me Hiroshi, and don’t worry, we mean no harm” he has a kind smile that makes you trust him immediately.

“My name is Lífdagar and I am the Kyusei of Life, he is Tirakan and he is the Dragon Kyusei” she introduces them.

“What are you doing here?” Rakan asks. Liv wants to scold him for being rude, but Hiroshi starts talking again before she can.

“We heard that you had found the Sunone and decided to come here to help if we can”

“Sunone? You mean Mei?” Rakan asks exactly what Liv was wondering.

“The Sunone, the one of Light, however you want to call them. The one who was missing” Masahiko answers him. Rakan is about to ask something again but he is interrupted “If you ask how we found out too I’ll scream”

“Masahiko” Hiroshi scolds him, before turning back to Rakan. “You must know that words travel fast, faster than we can control, and even if you didn’t want the news to spread, you must know that not everyone wants the same as you”

“Are you saying that we shouldn’t trust our own?” Rakan says, his eyes are squinted.

“They are only saying that we have to be careful” Liv tries to calm him down, it seems to work.

“How did you get in anyway? We have protections” Rakan asks.

“Rune magic is intricate, and it knows how to recognise between friend or enemy” Hiroshi says. “Don’t worry about your safety, the runes are fine” He lifts a hand, and Masahiko immediately guides it to the cup in front of him. Hiroshi smiles and lifts it to take a sip.

“Why do you have a blindfold?” Rakan asks. Masahiko looks at him with his lips pursed while Hiroshi only leaves his tea cup on the table. Liv gasps when he reaches up and takes the blindfold off. His eyes are closed, and they don’t look like they can be opened, the whole area covered in scars.

“I was just old enough to fight when everything started, as you can see it didn’t end well, but I consider myself lucky, at least I could return. We’ve been travelling around since then.”

“And now you just came here? Why? To help?” Rakan seems confused, he has always trusted Howard and the others with his life, Liv doesn’t think he has ever questioned their decisions or thought he needed someone else.

“One of you doesn’t think we can help and the other wants us to” Masahiko says, he has a smile dancing on his lips. Rakan turns to Liv shocked.

“Do you really think they can help us?”

Liv doesn’t look at him, she just looks straight to Masahiko “What you said earlier, about Changers and Creators, what did you mean?”

“There’s people that control water, others fire, I change the size of things. You Kyusei are supposed to have all of the powers between you but you are limited by the same things as everyone else?”

“That’s what we’ve been taught” Liv answers, and it’s not completely true, in her clan they didn’t teach how to use their powers like they did here, they just let the Marked develop them as they wanted. When she arrived here with the others it was the first time she had been called a Changer, she had been told what she could or couldn’t do “Do you think we could change that?”

Hiroshi turns towards the man beside him with a smile on his lips “I taught him how to draw runes”

.

.

“Do you really trust them?” Rakan asks Liv, they are watching the two men approach Howard and Elinor at the entrance of the Kare. Hiroshi had insisted that he wanted to meet them if they were going to stay in their territory and Masahiko didn’t really protest.

“I don’t think they have any bad intentions and if what they said is true, they can help us a lot.”

“But why would Howard lie to us?”

“Maybe he didn’t lie to us and he truly believes it too.”

“Are you plotting against the Council Liv?” a voice says from behind them, she doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Kylem.

“I’m not plotting, I’m just saying that maybe we shouldn’t trust all that they tell us”

“What are you guys talking about?” it’s Meira now, she rests her arm on Liv’s shoulder and turns to look at their visitors too. She must have been training because she is covered in sweat, her hair tied, Liv doesn’t really mind her being so close though “Who are those?”

“Just some visitors, they are nice and I think they can teach us some things” Liv answers, just as she is saying it, three of the four they are watching turn towards them. Masahiko tugs on Hiroshi’s arm and starts guiding him towards their position while the other man says goodbye and bows to Howard and Elinor while letting himself be led.

“I’m going to take a guess and say that you are the Sunone and you are the Nocturne” Masahiko says looking first at Meira and then at Kylem who look just as confused as Rakan and Liv were before, even when Kylem tries to hide it.

“I am Kylem, the Kyusei of the night and she is Meira the-“

“Yes yes yes” Masahiko interrupts Kylem “Just what I said”

“We’ve come a long way to meet you” Hiroshi interjects “I hope we can have a good relationship.”

“Uhm yeah, sure” Meira answers, still confused “Rakan, do you want to come practice a bit?” She asks, turning to the boy, he agrees and they both say their goodbyes before walking towards the house.

“So what now, Lífdagar?” Masahiko asks.

“I want you to teach me, please” she feels Kylem looking at her, probably wondering what they are talking about, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Then we should go back home” Hiroshi says.

.

.

“Do you know why they call themselves Hexians?” Hiroshi asks. Liv turns towards him, they are at his home, in one of the rooms, Liv is in her underwear, trying to make her clothes appear. They’ve been training two weeks now and she still can’t do it as fast as she would wish, or without the help of runes. She has two new runes on her body now, one on her ribcage and another on the upper part of her leg, both with their rune twins on her shirt and pants, ones reinforced with leather, the kind she will need in the future. Masahiko is not here right now, Liv can already make the clothes appear when they are at the house so he has left with them so she can widen her reach.

“Is there a reason for their name?” she is confused, Hiroshi is not the one that normally makes enigmatic questions, that is Masahiko. Hiroshi normally explains things patiently.

“Names always have a reason, a meaning, you should know something about it Lífdagar. It would only be natural that theirs do too”

She waits for him to continue, to tell her the meaning of the name, but he doesn’t, and Liv knows that he won’t answer if she asks. It’s for her to think about and not for him to tell. She tries to make her clothes appear again, and she more or less succeeds as she is now wearing her pants, but nothing in her upper body.

She groans “this is too difficult, it would be easier only making it appear and then putting it on”

“It would be” Hiroshi agrees “but maybe in the future you won’t have time for that”

She understands, so she takes her pants off and opens the window to throw them out, the animals will take them to Masahiko. She sits back down on the floor with a sigh, this is going to be a long day again.