The evening sun crests the horizon, dying the clear skies red and orange. Early autumn’s chill breezes through the town’s streets nearly empty of people. There’s one of the smith’s apprentices, carting a wheelbarrow back from the baker’s. Some bar flies milling about, as found in every township large enough to have a drinking hole. A small group of children excitedly feeding a cat—whether a stray or someone’s pet, who can say. Then there’s a figure in a cowl, hands tugged into her sleeves for warmth.

It’s Claine the [Wizard], heading towards the direction the smith’s boy came from. “Blasted cold…blasted Sammy…blasted warden cap’n…” she mutters, trudging onward.

Sammy had valorously disappeared soon after Claine had gone outside to check on the situation. Sid was there with some wardens, the man was in manacles, and Sammy was looking for an excuse to go somewhere else. Trust it to a [Paladin] to be more interested in smiting evil rather than answering questions for paperwork.

It took the whole day since the warden captain had decided that Claine’s skillset would prove helpful for the interrogation. What was she to say to that? Sorry, I can’t interrogate the [Slavemaster]—that’s what he had eventually confessed to his unconcealed class being—I’ve got to go drink with my crush?

No, she had to do as they asked. Coax and cajole and convince the man. But that’s done and over with now, and the ol’ one foot in front of the other is about to bring her back to the Guild. Left step, right step, around the bend, and she’s at the main street. There’s the facade’s familiar vertical sign reading Adventurers’ Guild in large bold letters, the painted emblem above the door. It looks alright. She’s seen fancier ones, though. The capital’s Guild had an actual large shield and a sword secured on top of the building.

But that’s neither here nor there. Walking closer, Claine can hear boisterous laughter from the Guild’s main hall. Sid must’ve goaded someone to do something stupid again.

Claine opens the door and steps inside into the blessed warmth. Her eyes rapidly scan the [Message] up and down, checking the notices. Nothing new. A familiar-looking elf greets her behind the counter, but she can’t quite put a name to the face. Another round of laughter has her look to the right, and sure enough, they’ve pushed some tables together for a makeshift stage, on top of which an idiot dances shirtless. Sid’s clapping and trying to egg him on to do a handstand. Claine decides to ignore them and address the woman behind the counter.

“Hey. Vesta still ‘round?”

The stranger smiles and nods. “Upstairs, last door on the right.”

“Thanks”, Claine says. She takes one more look at the uncanny elf, shudders, and walks to the stairs while ignoring Sid’s shouts to join her in the revelry. She’d love to, but she’s got business to handle first.

Upstairs, she walks through the sparsely decorated hallway. It terminates into a small desk and a window. There’s a singular potted plant with purple flowers on the desk. Claine doesn’t know much about plants but finds it nice to look at. She walks past the doors on the way to the end of the hallway, slightly impressed by how little of the noise downstairs she can hear. Look at them wonders a highly paid [Carpenter] can do. Chose the wrong profession, I did. If carpenters even make houses.

Reaching to the end, she knocks on the door on her right.

“Come in,” she hears Vesta’s voice, a little quieter than usual.

Claine opens the door. She sees the [Receptionist] sitting there in candlelight, a book in hand, wearing eyeglasses and a simple white nightgown.

“I ever tell ye yer Skill is as creepy as all hells?” Claine asks her. Vesta hushes her with a finger on her lip and motions to the side with her head. In a bed in the corner Vesta gestured to sleeps a familiar horned girl.

“Oh, shite. Sorry,” Claine lowers her voice. Vesta closes her book and puts it on her lap. “Only every time I use it,” she answers the question, then asks, ”Did you need something?”

“Oh, um—I brought ye a copy of the wardens’ report.” The [Wizard] pulls out a folded piece of paper from her pocket.

“Is there anything urgent in it?” Vesta gives her a tired look.

“Not so much, no. He was gonna meet with a ‘business associate’—” Claine mimes quotation marks at the phrase “—up north. He’d take ‘em to an auction, where..,I’m sure ye can imagine.”

“I see. That’s pressing, but not urgent. A party or two will have to go, but that can wait until the morning. Put the report there,” she points at a dresser that has the candle she’d been using as a reading light on it, “I’ll read it in a moment.”

A moment passes. Claine looks at the sleeping girl and asks, “Is the lass okay? What’s been going on, anyroad?”

Vesta sighs, takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. She says, “As okay as anyone can be under the circumstances. After you left, Zavelle gave her a proper check-up. Fixed some bruises and a broken rib.”

“Didn’t she say she ain’t hurt?”

“I assume she didn’t know—apparently, the first skill she got from [Slave] was [Hold It In], and she’s been using it nonstop. It must’ve kept her going.” Vesta looks at the sleeping girl. “Overusing the skill is probably what has her so conked. She fell asleep in her chair while having the bread the baker’s girl brought. Didn’t even eat much.” Vesta gestures at a breadbasket on a table in the middle of the room. “The tot bringing it said she saw ‘someone who looked like they could use a bite’ coming in here with ‘a real weirdo’. Bless that girl, you know what she told me?”

“No.”

“She said it’s free as long as we don’t give any to said weirdo.”

Claine chuckles. “Ain’t a chance o’ that.”

Vesta nods and taps a little rhythm on the book on her lap with her fingers. “Anyway. Drava here regained her words rapidly after you left. Maybe the man’s Skill had short range. She seemed ill at ease with so many people around her, so I brought her here to have some quiet. We’ve got plenty of vacant rooms anyway.”

Claine looks to be in thought for a moment. The [Wizard] looks at the girl sleeping curled on her side under the blankets, then at Vesta, and asks, “So why are ye here?”

The elf sighs again. “She keeps startling awake in a panic. I was about to go downstairs the first time she did, and then she practically begged me not to leave her alone. That’s why I’m here.”

“That’s kind of ye.”

“It’s the least I can do.” Vesta’s drumming fingers come to a stop, and she moves the book from her lap to the dresser beside her. “I just hope it won’t become a habit. She’ll be staying here, I think. She said her father was the only family she had left until, well…”

“…That sucks. At her age, alone in the world?” Claine looks like she doesn’t know what else to say.

“It does. Speaking of her age, I’m curious. How old do you think she is?”

Claine thinks for a while. “I dunno. I ain’t seen a species like hers before. Could be anywhere between a hundred if she’s a type o’ elf, or fifteen if she’s a dragonoid.”

“She’s no elf, I can assure you.” Vesta says, being somewhat of an expert on elves on account of being one herself.

“Say fifteen then. No—sixteen. Reckon she’s a half-dragonoid; that’s why there ain’t any scales on her neck?” Claine looks to Vesta for confirmation.

The elf just smiles. “Fifteen, huh. No, she might be a little older than that. If I’m guessing correctly on her species...but that’s not my matter to share. Let’s afford little Drava some privacy, shall we?”

“Sure. Ain’t me business anyroad. Well, I oughta be going now. Wouldn’t wanna wake her up. Night.” Claine gives Vesta a nod and opens the door, about to leave.

The [Receptionist] stops her, “Claine, one more thing before you go.”

“Aye?”

“Tell me, how’d things go with Sidney last night?”

The [Wizard] gets caught off guard by Vesta’s question. She freezes for a moment, her face flushes a little, and she starts nervously stroking her left wrist with her other hand. “They, um. They didn’t.”

“Go on.”

“I was tryina—well, ye see—I couldn’t do it, okay? Instead, I kept droppin’ hints, but she just rammed through ‘em!” Claine explains feverishly. She lowers her pitch in a poor impression of Sid and blasts out, “Wow, cold hands, friend. Cold hands. Thanks, I like your eyes too. Yeah, the bed does look inviting. Should hit the sack soon.”

Vesta snorts. “I told you that you should be direct with her. She is never going to get it otherwise; I can guarantee that. When you go down, tell her you’d like to talk about something important. Find some privacy, then tell her you like her. And that you’d like to go on a date with her. If you leave it at just the first thing, she’s liable to go ‘I like you too, friend’ or some such.” This time, it’s Vesta who does a poor Sid impression.

“B-But what if she says no?” Claine’s starting to look like a level one [Wizard Apprentice] about to fight her first Slime.

“What if she says yes?” asks Vesta back.

A flame lights in Claine’s eyes. She clenches her fists and says, “I’m…I’m gonna try it.”

“Go for it. Leave no room for regrets. Good night, Claine.”

“Night, Vesta,” Claine says as she walks through the door. A little quieter, she adds, “Night, Drava.” She closes the door behind her.

Vesta puts her glasses back on and her hand on the book she had been reading. She doesn’t pick it up, instead sitting there lost in thought for a moment. Then the elf shakes her head, and mutters quietly, “…[Memorable Advice]. Make it count, girl.”

⁂

Downstairs, the situation has escalated, as these things tend to do. There’s now multiple idiots dancing on the makeshift stage. All shirtless, of course. Maybe I oughta have told Vesta about this. There would be a storm come morning if these idiots started breaking things.

Claine scans the faces but doesn’t see Sid anywhere. Did she leave already?

“Sid leave already?” she asks the person closest to her. He’s a scar-faced older man drinking a stout of some horrible swill. She recognizes him as one of the newer arrivals, but doesn’t recall his name.

The man gives Claine a brief glance. “Sid? Nay, she went to the training grounds.” He returns to his drink.

“Thanks,” Claine says, turns around and takes the door to the courtyard.

The sun having wholly set by now, the training grounds is covered in darkness. Not a torch nor spell-light in sight, Claine wonders if the man was mistaken or pulled a fast one on her. Deciding to still try, she yells into the dark, “Sid! Ye in here?”

“Yeah! Claine, come over here, Claine,” she hears Sid shout back. Claine heads into the direction she heard Sid from, minding her footsteps. Despite the darkness, the visibility is not totally gone—while tonight is moonless, the stars above lend her some light. Walking into the middle of the courtyard, she sees a massive dark shape wider than she’s tall.

“Is that a boulder?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Sid replies. Her voice seems to come from a downward direction.

With bafflement in her voice, Claine says, “What’s a boulder doin’ here? It weren’t here earlier.”

“I’m not sure. Maybe someone left it here? But I’m not sure.”

“That don’t—ye know what, forget it.” Claine says with exasperation. She located Sid during the exchange, and now stands beside her by the boulder.

“Why are ye layin’ down there?” she asks.

“Makes it easier to look up.”

“Up?”

“At the stars, friend. At the stars.” Sid elaborates.

“Right,” says Claine. “I guess that’s better than a sore neck from cranin’ it up all night.”

Sid guffaws, “Exactly! That’s what I told Ankie. But she just hissed at me and left. Hissed! Care to join me instead, friend?”

Claine carefully ponders the merits and demerits of the proposal. On one hand, her cowl, which she expended a spell on earlier to clean it, would get dirty. On the other, seven hells stargazing with Sid.

“Eh, what the hell. Me cowl’s dirty anyroad,” Claine lies, sits down, then flops on her back. To her right, Sid laughs heartily at something only she gets. Claine doesn’t ask.

Then there’s only silence and the glimmering cosmic weave above. A matrix of lights scattered in a purple-green haze vaster than anything one could imagine. Lost in the twinkling web under the strange skies, Claine hesitates to say a thing and let the moment pass

In her stead, Sid breaks the silence, “How was the night sky where you came from?”

“Hm?”

“You’re from up north, right? A small place near the capital up north, I think you said.” Claine feels a little warm from the fact that Sid remembers—she only mentioned her origins in passing some months ago when she first came to Aerst.

“Aye. It’s, uh…a lot less. Less color, less stars, less everythin’. Not worth lookin’ at,” Claine answers. She gets a little lost in thought. “Gets worse the norther ye go, too. Our ship—” At the mention of ‘ship’, Sid goes yarr and laughs some more, eliciting a smile from Claine as she continues, "—had to dock at a dwarven harbor once. A hell o’ bureaucracy, that trip. Cap’n had everyone who could write fillin’ in forms. Forms for folks, forms for food, hell, separate forms for ropes thicker’n two inches and those thinner. Cabin boy was outta breath runnin’ between every strand f. Short‘n’stocky inspectors with sticks up their arses sniffin’ under every plank before they let us moor. Someone done whined, I forget who, about all ‘em forms. Guess what ‘em inspectors said?”

“Screw off, just doing our jobs?” Sid suggests.

“If only. The inspector went, and I quote,” Claine adopts a gruff, low tone, “Your failure to anticipate the mandates of regional regulations is entirely your own concern, and not that of Silversteel Heavy Industries or Securidock Incorporated.”

Sid cackles like it’s the funniest thing she ever heard. She seems to find a new funniest thing every day.

Claine continues her story, “After we done left, the first mate made the cap’n swear we never sail in dwarven waters again, lest the crew mutiny. I don’t blame ‘em. Think I woulda joined the mutineers.”

“You should’ve done it anyway! You could be [Wizard-Captain] Claine right now! A [Wizard-Captain]!” Sid hollers.

“Nah…I reckon I’d still be at the seas then,” Claine says, turning her head sideways. She really can’t see more than a silhouette of Sid, but imagines she’s grinning in her usual way.

“Oh, right. Good thing you didn’t mutiny, friend! Would’ve missed seeing the stars, bwahaha!”

Sid’s remark reminds Claine of what her story’s point was going to be before she started exaggerating the aspects Sid seemed to like. She says, “Right, stars. I was gettin’ there. Night sky in dwarven lands don’t even compare. Just a few dots o’ light here and there, even on moonless nights. When the moon’s up or if ye’re in a place with lots of ‘em weird dwarven mage-lights, ye’re lucky to see any stars.”

“Huh. Ain’t that sad,” Sid reacts.

“Aye. Near the pole there ain’t any stars ever, they say. Just pitch-black above. Ye don’t even see the moon there.”

“Dang, nothing at all? Empty skies. That has to be weird.”

Claine points out, “Maybe not, if ye’ve lived there all o’ yer life.”

“Maybe,” Sid concurs.

Then silence falls between the two again. One staring up at the slowly shimmering dance of lights in the heavens. The other staring at the first. They lie there in their own little world. Claine gathers all the courage she’s ever had.

“Hey, Sid,” she says.

Sid’s silhouette changes in the dark as she turns her head left to face Claine. “What’s up?”

Claine takes a deep breath, and says, “I wanna tell ye something.”

“Any time, friend. Any time.” The smile in Sid’s voice is apparent.

Claine takes another moment to settle down. She knows the words; she just has to say them. “I was wonderin’—do ye wanna—” Oh hells oh hells oh hells, "I—I mean, you—" What am I doin’ how’s this so hard what do I say, "I-I think that…" Claine can feel nervous sweat beading up all over her body, faster than ever. “…I just…wanted to say that…” Spirits help me I can’t, “…ye might be the weirdest person I ever met,” she says, giving up.

“Ha! Thanks!” replies Sid, in her characteristic glee. She returns her gaze to the skies and continues, “Feels good to be the best in something.”

Claine just lies there, starting to feel despondent. Why can’t she ever do it? The uncertainty simply becomes too much, melting away the words from her mind like a mischievous spirit was playing tricks on her. Maybe that’s it? Could her cowl have developed a spirit, and is now protesting her treatment of it?

…No, probably not. She’s just fleeing from the situation, like she always does, like the coward she is. She doesn’t even deserve this, she should just—What if she says yes.

Memory fills Claine with sudden encouragement. She clears her throat and addresses Sid again, “Sorry, um,” Sid’s head turns back to look at her. “What I actually wanted to say,” I can do this, “was that I like ye. D-Do ye wanna, like, go on…a date? With me?” she squeaks.

Sid speaks, with less of her usual joviality in the tone, “What?”

Urgent missive from Claine’s hippocampus. The ship’s about to run aground. Evasive maneuvers now, all available mana to jibing inscriptions, all available hands to back-paddling. All blood to face. “Never mind! It was, uh, nonsense! No, a dare! No, it was—”

“Of course I will,” Sid cuts off Claine’s rambling retreat stratagem. “I like you too!” Claine’s hippocampus would like to formally apologize for the inconvenience caused by the erroneous report and will strive to do better in the future. However, all available blood may continue finding its way to the face.

“R-Really?” Claine asks in disbelief.

“I ain’t ever told a lie in my life, friend. Oh—but maybe I shouldn’t call you ‘friend’ anymore?”

Smiling, Claine replies, “Call me what ye want, Sid.”

“Will do, Claine. Will do,” the joy in Sid’s voice sounds fuller somehow. Like the night sky here compared to the north. Claine’s unseen smile broadens in the dark, and her face flushes red like ruby. I’m glad it’s dark so she can’t see me blushin’ like a little lass.

Of course, the darkness hides Sid’s equally red face too.