In the early hour of the morning, Anna felt cold under her blanket. She had been so warm and comfortable when she fell asleep that the cold sensation brought her to full consciousness like she was doused in water. With the way Azure had clung to her, she had expected her to be with her when she woke and not seeing her filled her with panic. Azure was the only one who could kill the demons, if she was gone and they came back then they wouldn’t stand a chance. Also, Anna didn’t want her to be gone.

Looking about, she could see that she was the first one awake. The distant demon fire had, like most fires in the grasslands, burnt itself out without travelling far; the juicy green grass eating away at the fire’s strength. They hadn’t set up a watch rotation, since the oxen would make a fuss if any prairie beasts or wolves approached the camp. Not only that; beasts rarely hunted when there were fires about. That was probably for the best, anyway, since the grieving women wouldn’t be the best lookouts, even if they acted like it wasn’t getting to them, and the children were too unreliable to be useful in the first place. Looking about at the sleeping remnants of her village, she noticed something out of place. Piled up next to the cart was a pile of scorched, but still shiny, metal. Each sheet seemed twisted into strange and unusual shapes, with no discernible pattern or purpose. The pile hadn’t been there when they went to sleep, yet she couldn’t imagine moving that much metal without waking everyone.

Anna found Azure behind the pile. She had a series of finely crafted tools spread about her as she worked at assembling something from the pile. She had the fire and water stones with her and was using the firestone with metal tongs to join sections of metal together. The tools she was using were unpacked from one of the sack’s crates and were able to withstand the fire stone’s highest heat, where her father’s tools would have melted away. The scene was dreamlike, as the fairy beauty worked in complete silence on a tool with no apparent use. As Anna watched, Azure suddenly spoke to her, in a voice just loud enough for her to hear, but not the slightest bit louder. She didn’t look up from her work, and she didn’t seem distracted by talking.

“Alternative transportation will be finished shorty, though modifications to the organic structure needed to be made to mimic the activation sequence that the water stone and fire stone respond to. Salvaging was delayed by the analysis of Anna’s ‘Mana Well’, as the Lord knew it. Further organic structures, known in references by the Lord, would also improve functionality should samples be found.”

“Um…Good morning.”

Anna was starting to believe that Azure slipped into some demonic language whenever they spoke. A traveller taking the land route from Kawa to Atawaun had once told her that traders from the northern continent spoke a different language, and that they would sometimes not notice when they start speaking the wrong language when they were drunk or distracted. She assumed something similar was happening to Azure, though some of the words sounded like her own language, so demonic might be more of a dialect than a language unto itself.

“Yes,” Azure paused her work in response to the greeting, seeming to look distantly for a few moments before turning to face her with a smile in full bloom, “good morning.”

She felt as if she would melt just looking at the smile and wanted to run over to hug her, but some part of her reasoning warned against tackling someone hold an active fire stone.

“If you need the stones to prepare nutrition, let me know and I’ll pause my work. Otherwise I still require one hour and twenty-seven minutes before completion.”

That seemed to end the conversation, as Azure returned to her work, and Anna continued to watch her in silence. It seemed like a magic trick the way she handled the tools with the perfect amount of force so that no effort was wasted in unnecessary sound. At some point her father had started watching also, a look of amazement and confusing spread across his face as he watched an unknown craft that resembled his own only by materials use.

“Do you know what she’s making?” he whispered to her.

“No really sure. She did call it ‘alternative transportation’, so I guess something like a cart.”

“That won’t do, we don’t have enough oxen for any more trailers. Besides, she doesn’t have any wheels, just those four barrels and they’re facing up, and I doubt they’d roll well on grass.”

As if noticing their questions, Azure put the stone to sleep in its box and straddled the body of the structure, which did seem vaguely like a starving metal horse’s body and connected a roped between it and her head. A building whistle sound started and then the metal barrels, that were placed as though they were the horse’s legs, started to sound like a giant blowing air through tightly pursed lips. The sound was half as loud as a Sacram, which still made it as loud as an ox cry, though constant, and if anyone had still been sleeping they no longer were. The metal horse lifted off the ground, floating in place like a bird flying into the wind. The four drum legs made tiny movements, but it otherwise stayed unmoving in the air, defiant against the pull of the ground. Azure rode it closer to her at the pace of a horse’s trot, holding her hand out for Anna to take it.

Anna took the hand without question and was led to straddle the mount behind Azure, using the excuse to hug tight to her back and rest her chin on her shoulder. The horse then rose up high above the grasslands, high enough to see the ground curve at the horizon. The air in front of them turned hazy, like the air turned to fog, but without blocking their sight. That seemed to form a cloudy net around the horse. When the net was formed, the legs started to slant, and a trot turned into a gallop. She could see the objects on the ground flash by and knew they were traveling at incredible speed, though the wind she would expect from that speed never came, with only a comfortable breeze making its way through the net. Anna looked out at the world in wonder, seeing trees that dwarfed her made small by her height, seeing hills made as flat as the grassland. She watched the world while holding Azure and felt at peace despite the horror she had witnessed less than a day ago. From above she could see how huge the world was, and how small both she and her problems were.

Half an hour passed before Anna had noticed an they were once again back at the carriage. As the came back down to ground, everyone gathered around them. The children in wonder and the women in horror. Her father seemed to flow between relief and his own child-like wonder. As the legs went quiet, Anna could hear what the women were saying.

“Bad enough that she consorts with one demon, now she makes a show over riding a demon’s mount.”

“No human men would marry her, so she turns to demons.”

“The demons probably killed the Lord and our men because she ordered them to.”

Their eyes had turned vicious, and she knew they blamed her, that they didn’t trust her. They were the eyes of predator, of wolves and prairie beasts. If they stayed together then there would only be conflict between them. As she thought about what to do, Azure puller her off the horse, ducked her behind it and crouched behind it with her. The others looked surprised at the small, seemingly fearless, girl crouching like a child soon to be lectured by her mother. That was when the distant sky started to light up with fire.

The light seemed to come from the other side of where the village had been, out by the quarry site. The sky on fire was bright even in the morning sun and a burst of sound shook through the air even at their distance. The cacophony of sound and fire started as pillars of flame rained down from the burning cloud.

“The took longer than I thought they would; I predicted they would arrive before morning. Since they haven’t noticed us yet, we should use the time LPU is granting us to leave.”

Hearing Azure’s words, everyone jumped into action, packing up everything and attaching the oxen. While they did so, Azure fit two sacks to the horse, on containing the crates and the other containing Anna’s supplies. Finally, she attached the Divam to an indent in the horse’s belly that seemed to be able to twist and turn. The thin rope that Azure had connected between the armament and herself was instead connected to the horse’s body. Suddenly, one of the women shouted.

“Where’s Gregory? I haven’t seen him since he ran off last night.”

That caused everyone to pause. Gregory, the chief’s son, had run off after Azure and hadn’t been seen since. A silent understanding was formed then; they had left him behind. Left him in the city that was set aflame and was now torn apart by the pillars and sound bursts.

“He’ll find peace at Ren’s side,” her father yelled, “and we will too if we get caught up in all that so get moving.”

No one argued with him and didn’t stop until everything was loaded again. Her father took the driver’s seat as Azure pulled her onto the horse. When the carriage was underway they took to the air, but only travel a few metres above the ground. They stayed close enough to the cart that they could see hand gestures, but not so close that they would scare the oxen. Like that, they travelled all day, stopping only for lunch and to relieve themselves, until nigh fell and they could no longer even see the smoke from that morning’s storm.

That night, clouds started to roll in and the moon-bright sky turned dark. The wet season had past more than a month prior and rain coming in so quickly wan entirely unseasonal. Temperature wise, it was a welcome reprieve though, as the demon’s fire had made the whole grasslands hotter and drier. In terms of practicality, it was somewhat daunting. They had no tents, and most of their food would soil with water, not to mention they would weaken with the water sapping their heat. They could only do what they could, and before the rain started to fall, they found a slope and dug a gutter trench around the cart to funnel the water around it. With their blankets over dirt, they had sandbags to further block water and only had to worry about the water that would seep through the carriage’s wood. With the food bags and people under it, the carriage wouldn’t have a lot of room, and some of them would sleep sitting up. The children naturally got to lay down, and her father naturally volunteered to sit up. The fire stone would have to be their warmth, with the blankets keeping them dry.

Azure and Anna didn’t huddle under the cramped cart, but instead stayed near the horse. The burred air fog, to Anna’s surprise, was both solid and malleable, and Azure shaped a dome around the horse that was big enough for her blanket to be rolled out. The horse’s body wasn’t warm, but Azure’s embrace made enough warmth that it didn’t matter. She fell asleep feeling more content than even the Grand Lord Magus’s Princess.

The next morning, she was awoken by a scream. Three women had gone out into the rain during the night and a fourth one found their bodies in the morning. The bodies had rolled down the slope with the flowing water and the bodies were scavenged by the creatures of the night, leaving very little to identify them with other than circumstance. The mood turned tense, as process of elimination identified them as the three who spent the previous day gossiping and slandering Anna. All eyes turned to Anna and Azure with suspicion; even her father’s weren’t completely free of doubt. It was a suspicion that was only strengthened when one of the dead women’s husband’s hunting knife was found in the dirt near the horse.

“I’m going to come right out and ask,” her father started to say, his voice hardened like he was talking with a clenched diaphragm, “did that demon of yours kill those women?”

“She would never hur-” Anna started to say before she was interrupted.

“Yes,” Azure confessed without any change in her expression, her voice as disinterested as if she were confessing to dropping rubbish, as if the questioner was somehow ridiculous for treating it with any kind of importance what so ever. “Per defence protocol, legion soldiers may dispatch efforts at harming their OO regardless of effectiveness.”

There was a stunned silence. They had expected Azure to be guilty, but never expected her to confess, let alone confess with such a blasé attitude.

“Why?” her father asked, “Why would you do that?”

“I already said. They attempted to harm Anna and, regardless of their capacity to succeed, I deemed it the safer response to kill them. From their memories, it seems more likely than not that this won’t be a conciliation, though there remains a chance that it will, but they’re memories have been added to the legion.”

It seemed that even the wind died down, as if any sound at all would mean accepting what was said.

“LEAVE,” her father lifted his hammer while he yelled wildly, his face as red as any fire, “DEMON LOVING WHORE! A WHORE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER; BUT AT LEAST SHE HAD THE DECENCY TO LAY AROUND WITH HUMANS! HURRY UP AND LEAVE! AND DON’T TAKE MY NAME WITH YOU!”

Anna was frozen with shock, and Azure’s flickered between Anna and the hammer. Seeing that they weren’t moving, he swung the hammer at them. Azure moved in closer and sent a punch into the falling hammer arm that caused cracking sound as the hammer flew from the now limp hand. She looked like she was going to follow that with another strike, but her eyes turned distant for a split second and instead turned away. She grabbed the stunned Anna by the hand and pulled her onto the horse, taking off moments later. With some distance ways, angry cries could still be heard, but even those faded into echoes.

“Why?” Anna timidly managed to ask, her tears starting to flow as she buried her head into Azure’s back.

As she asked a compartment opened on the horse’s neck, or where a neck would be, and a solid mist formed there, light filling the fog until it formed an image. It was like a perfectly lifelike painting, but it moved like it was alive. She had heard such things described by travellers, movies and photographs. They were use by Lords to record details of trials, or even for recreation amongst the most powerful Lords. The scene showed by the recording was of three women approaching a sleeping couple cuddled together. With some embarrassment, she realised that she was the light-brown haired man in the image, and decided she’d make more of an effort to match Azure. One of the standing women pulled out a knife and started swinging it down on the fog. Again and again, a kind of madness filling her face as the blade bounced harmlessly off the shell. The recording of Azure kissed the recording of Anna’s forehead and slipped out from her arms. She walked up to the edge of the fog and seemed to start talking to the women. They appeared to get even more angry and started to try and stab at Azure through the fog. A hole in the fog suddenly appeared and Azure let out three punches in quick succession while ducking from side to side to give the punches weight; all just about faster than Anna could track. All three women clutched their throats and fell to the ground.

After watching the recording, Anna knew that Azure had only acted to protect her. While that made her happy, it also made her worry. If they entered a town, would Azure kill every guard that suspected her, every guy harassing her, every merchant who tries to cheat her? While she worried about that, she recalled her father, or rather, the man who used to be her father. Despite attacking them, Azure hadn’t killed him. She had considered how that would affect her before she made a move. So long as Anna was there to tell her not to, Azure wouldn’t be a danger to anyone. In other words, it was for the sake of everyone if she stuck close to Azure. The closer the safer.