Joran’s eyes were dried shut when he pried them open, feeling the crust dissolve as the world blurred into vision around him. He was in a small cave, with only one opening on the other side. His wrists were wrought in sandy cuffs that he couldn’t break, his sword close by, resting on a wall of the cave. But when he reached for it, he was slammed in the back of his head again.

Joran groaned as he woke up once more in the green field, the sky pitch black. Feeling he wasn’t chained, he sighed to himself and then looked over to the lone tree, where he wasn’t surprised to see the Siren leisurely laying back on its trunk, her eyes closed as she was basking.

“So what’s going on, if you know?” Joran had given up being antagonistic, especially since the Siren seemed keen on being neutral for now.

The Siren popped one eye open as she yawned, “What do you mean?”

“… You know, the Dune Runners knocking me out, now I’m alone in a cave…?” Joran buried his face in between his legs as he thought more deeply, “… How Drekor is alone somewhere out there now.”

The Siren eyed Joran silently, studying him before she spoke bluntly, “Well, I’m here since I’m currently not awake, and I expected you to be aggressive. Judging by what you said and how you’re acting though, I can only assume you got the answer to your last question, then?”

Joran scoffed as he got up, shuffling over to lay on the tree trunk on the opposite side of her, looking out onto the horizon, “So this is what I’m supposed to be wary of? A group of bandits that decided to attack the caravan?”

The Siren giggled coldly, “If you think human evil is limited to this group, you’re sorely mistaken. You yourself had to exile an entire clan from the… What’s it called, the Metropolis?”

Joran frowned as he shook his head, “One group out of many, then. I’ll do what I can to help the Borderlands to fend off the Horde, and then deal with the Dune Runners.”

“Hah. That’s assuming you’re getting away from them.”

As the Siren finished saying that, Joran’s eyes shot wide open as he saw a looming large man, he could only see the silhouette of in front of him, except for a white, devilish smile as he licked his lips, firmly smacking Joran across his face with his coarse palm. Feeling the heat rise from the hit, Joran responding by spitting right in his face.

The man looked shocked at first, then coolly wiped away the spit as his gravely, hoarse voice revealed to Joran it was none other than Atani, “You’ve only been here for a few hours, and you’re no better than a caged animal.”

Joran instinctively tried to rub his face, his hands still restrained behind his back, he scoffed instead, glaring at Atani’s dark brown eyes, “Says the one who raids innocent caravans and steals their food.”

Atani cackled, and he gave Joran another smack across the other side of the face, “You’re lucky I was told to keep you alive. Otherwise you’d be buried under the desert sand like the Yamatsumi fools.”

Joran gritted his teeth as stood up to smack his face against Atani’s, but he then quickly realized he was cuffed to the wall as well, as he was slammed back down as they recoiled. Grunting, he instead brought out a leg to kick Atani, who didn’t budge. In fact, his eyes grew visibly disappointed.

“… Don’t tell me you really thought you’d be able to do anything? Then again, you must be so coddled from your time in the Metropolis,” Atani drooped his head low as he licked his lips again, this time even more sinister, “I’m really looking forward to seeing how you hold up then, ‘Joker’.”

With that, Joran was knocked out once more with a hard fist to the face, forcing him back into the dream he now slowly began to wish would be all he had to endure. Feeling the heat pulse on his face and back of his neck, he instantly fell back onto the grass, grunting out the pain.

The Siren spoke again, this time from behind him, standing over him, “Are you okay, Joran?”

“… I could be better. It’s the first time I’m glad I’m here.”

Joran looked up at the Siren’s face, and he let himself soak the air around him as he calmed himself down, “… Would you happen to know if Drekor is okay?”

The Siren shook her head, furrowing her brows, “I only know where you are roughly. And that’s only because of our connection, Joran,” She softly wrapped her hands around Joran’s face, and he could feel it cool off almost immediately, “Even now, I’m only latently aware of what the Beasts are doing.”

Joran frowned as he rubbed his face, now soothed of any pain from before, “So why do you care so much about me?”

Finally, the Siren warmly smiled, her eyes filled with a mysterious emotion that Joran didn’t recognize, “I told you already. I’m you.”

Joran shook his head, his eyes hardening as he sat himself up, looking directly at the Siren, “No. I mean why do you really care about me.”

“I don’t know how else to convey it to you. In time long past, I was a human too. I was you, until I wasn’t.”

“What happened?”

At this, Joran could finally see a hint of uncertainty on the Siren’s face as she looked away, “… I don’t remember. I only remember that I am the First Beast, and I was created to oversee balance between our two peoples.”

“… Peoples?”

“… Between the humans and the Beasts,” The Siren corrected, but she seemed to hesitate, and her eyes focused back to Joran, “I have longed for humans to learn from their mistakes. But time and time again, they fail to do so. Their ineptness and greed breeds nothing but contempt and insatiable ambition.”

Joran shook his head, “Even then, there are people who strive to bring a better life to people.”

She scoffed softly, “Because of the threat the Beasts pose. Otherwise, would the people that reside in what you call the Borderlands be content in their position?”

“And what about the fact these Dune Runners are thieving from their own people, forced most likely because of their position?”

“… Forced?” The Siren looked at Joran in confusion, as she gave him a soft pat on his head, “Joran, these are people who willingly commit such crimes.”

It was then that Joran’s face contorted, and he clutched himself on the grass, heaving and gasping for air as he felt his stomach lurch. He began to scream in anguish, realizing he was still in the field. He darted his eyes up to the Siren, who gazed down at him, now as distant as when they first met, the stars in her eyes seemed almost as if they became dull.

“W-What’s happening?!” Joran pleaded to her.

“… At the very least, I’ll keep you here. You need not bear such a burden as to bear witness to these wicked people,” She said, as she coolly swept her hands across Joran, numbing him, but Joran could still feel the jab of pain.

He clenched his teeth, and screamed each time his body felt the pangs of searing pain radiate throughout his body, all over it as he could feel it scream in his stead, as his insides were churned abnormally, as he felt completely powerless, slowly realizing what was happening to him.

“W-Why not let me wake up and deal with them!?” Joran’s eyes streaked with tears, begging as he clutched his chest, dragging nails into his skin to ease the pain in some way.

The Siren shook her head, “What can you do? You’re chained down. There’s nothing you can do…” She closed her eyes, a gentle tear glistening her red scales as it fell down her chin, “I’m sorry, Joran.”

“No! No! NO!” Was all Joran could repeat as he started to sob.

He stayed like this for what seemed to stretch on forever, eventually growing numb without the Siren’s aid. The view of the black sky above him allowed him to drown it out, and the cool hand of the Siren let him attach his senses to something. Anything that wasn’t the Dune Runners assaulting him. Anything away from the morbidity of his growing despondency.

Eventually, Joran woke up, the cold wind of the desert blowing across his naked, bruised body. He felt some tattered clothes along his skin, but it was hardly covering him. The pain he expected wasn’t there, and he quietly thanked the Siren as he opened his eyes slowly, seeing a group of Dune Runners coyly laughing. They sat on the other side of the cave; their backs turned away from him.

Sickened to his core, Joran retched as silently as he could, laying as still as he could. More than anything else he refused to let what happened to happen again. He could only plead within that it wouldn’t.

Joran shut his eyes close and felt his rage rise, but it was no longer a boiling heat. Instead, it was ice cold. In his mind, he tried his best to openly speak to the Siren.

“… There’s one thing I ask you now, Siren.”

To his relief, and in the midst of his freezing rage, he could hear her voice ethereally whisper at the back of his mind like in the lake, “… For you to go this far… How can I refuse you, Joran?”

He spoke to her as he spoke aloud, though it wasn’t his intention to do so, “Help me.”

“Hoh? The little boy is ready for round two?” One of the men hurrahed as he started scuffling forward.

Joran grimaced and shut his eyes closed, as he could feel a tumultuous energy grow from within, and as if he could glimpse into the field from the sky, he could see it become completely sheathed in ice. His entire view turned a clear white hue, blinding even in the darkness of the night.

Joran felt the man grip him on the back of his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to glare at him. Unbeknownst to Joran, his own eyes emitted a wispy blue smoke as he uttered in a deep, sullen voice, that was several tones deeper than his normal one.

“Let go of me.”

The man, taken aback by Joran’s eyes, chuckled to himself nervously before he felt his hand shatter into a million pieces of ice. Screaming to himself, he realized his body was slowly turning into ice, as one foot shattered as well, and as he took another step back, the other foot did as well. By the time he had stepped back, his body was completely encased, and as he fell, his scream whimpered out into the sound of the ice block of his body disintegrating into the sand. The others looked on in horror, and they turned slowly to see Joran getting up. The cuffs on his hands frozen over and broken.

Joran could vaguely feel himself, his consciousness drowning in a blizzard as he could barely see for himself. He could feel his body whip ice out of the air, impaling three of the Dune Runners, killing them instantly. The remaining two could only shriek, and they began to run out. One of them was trapped within a cage of ice that Joran seemingly materialized out of nowhere, frozen mid-stride, before being scattered into the wind as crystals. The last one made it out of the cave, his shrills even higher than before.

“Th- The Joker knows the Ice Tempest Arts! He knows them! He’s going to kill us all!”

Joran looked around for a moment, grabbing a tunic from one of the impaled men, his mouth wide open still, agape in shock. He could hear himself speak, realizing that he himself wasn’t sure if he was talking.

“Death is only a mercy for you.”

He grabbed his sword, Rulm, as he silently ruminated. He had no clue where he was, or where his friend was. He wasn’t even entirely sure it was still the same night.

But only one thing swirled from within his thoughts as the cold trapped everything else. A blizzard that seemed to coalesce from his own will while caging himself away.

He walked out of the cave, seeing they were in the desert, much closer to the mountains and a forest he could only assume was Virriben. He could dully see the group of Dune Runners that surrounded him, as he keyed on Atani specifically.

Atani snorted, “So you really did spend time with the Frozen Mistress.”

Joran scoffed, “’I’m really looking forward to seeing how you hold up then,’ Atani.”

The last thing Joran could remember was uttering something incoherent to himself, and then passing out into opaque darkness. The field was blanketed in a sheer winter glaze, a drizzle of snow crystals fluttered from the abyss-like sky. Glancing up numbly, Joran took a deep breath of the bitter cold as he held his hands out to catch the crystals. He felt nothing beyond the cold that he didn’t shiver to.

Then, a soothing embrace came from behind him, as the Siren hugged him. He uttered his breath out, a sigh that carried his lament.

Joran closed his eyes, letting the snow fall onto his face, as he whispered coldly, “… Thank you.”

A darkness shrouded him in bitter cold, that he could intuitively feel would be with him for the rest of his life.