The pleasant sounds of the Basestation coming to life…and the little hands of Nakama were the first things that entered Gaius’ mind when he finally woke up. His glazed eyes stared around, roving through the inwards of the tent, and then finally settled on the little girl’s worried eyes.

It was the day of the auction, but Gaius had spent the whole of Tuesday night in what seemed to be a surge of insanity. After it had subsided, he’d spent the rest of the night just playing with Nakama, in accordance with whatever remnant will that had combined with him long ago.

He’d identified the cause a few hours later, as he lay on the bed, but he’d no desire to remove it. For one…it was part of him. Gaius, the original one, and the Gaius now were linked through their focus on Nakama and linked that way alone. He wanted it to stay that way. He didn’t want to return to the days where he roamed the Earth, killing for those who had money and power, eventually destabilising an entire region as administrators died by the dozens.

His breathing faltered slightly, as the implications of what just ran through his head hit him. Gaius’ memory of the past had grown clearer, and more details of his life were beginning to reveal themselves. It wasn’t that much, but it would seem that the madness of yesterday had their own lingering effects of Gaius’ psyche too.

Tossing the matter to the back of his mind, Gaius got up under Nakama’s worried gazes and tugs. She was sensitive enough that Gaius knew that she had sensed his abnormality the night before. Or maybe it was her instinct, but either way, he could feel that she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight for the next day or so, until she was certain that Gaius had returned to normal again.

The boy smiled, and with no particular effort, placed the little Nakama on his shoulders. She panicked for a moment, but regained her balance a few seconds later. Gaius smiled as Nakama marvelled at the increase in height, turning her head frantically to take in the novel sights. Her hands, stuck onto Gaius’ ears, were quivering with excitement, as though as she wanted to feel what it was like to be at such a height with her bare hands.

Gaius walked around the tent, letting the little girl take in the new sights, before pushing over the tent flap. It was Wednesday morning, the day after Harvesters returned from Heritage, but it was uncharacteristically bustling with life. People moved with a bounce in their step, an energy that screamed “I have a purpose, so get out of the way” emanating off them. All lectures were cancelled for today in light of the auction, which meant that Gaius wouldn’t be able to beat up a bunch of Harvesters this afternoon.

“Hullo, Gaius.”

“Ah, Nalus.” Gaius looked at the bedraggled Nalus. “You look…under the weather.”

“Understatement of the year,” he replied. “Do you not see my eyeshadows? The pallid tone of my skin? My…”

He yawned, cutting off the rest of his sentence. Nalus tried to continue speaking, but another yawn left his mouth. Slumping down onto the snow in what looked like a bout of sadness and fatigue combined, he started to create a small snowball on the spot.

The result splattered on Gaius’ tunic, and Nakama, still sitting on his shoulders, laughed happily.

Gaius shot a pointed look at Nalus. “Hey.”

“Which darned Paragon came last night?” The Campmaster’s son ignored Gaius’ words. To the latter, Nalus was showing the signs of being drunk, but he’d scoured the camp enough to know that alcohol wasn’t a thing in Heritage Basestation. “Everyone just wanted to sleep, but now that even the Lords are out in full force…argh. Let me sleep in your tent for a while. And if my father came by, I was never here.”

Nalus flopped over, and crawled into Gaius’ tent.

“What happened to him?” Nakama asked.

“He didn’t get enough sleep, I think.” Gaius cupped his ear in dramatic fashion towards the tent, where the sounds of snoring were entirely audible even from where he was.

After checking that Nalus was sleeping on the floor, and not on either of the two beds inside the tent, the two decided to make a few more snowmen to surround their tent. There were already forty-plus pairs of little snow figures dotting the area, but they had nothing better to do before the auction at night.

And most importantly, Gaius wanted to observe Nakama’s artistic skill. Her snowmen…or sculptures, if he wanted to pay adequate respect to her work, were detailed in ways that the boy couldn’t match. His work looked like that of a child’s, which was technically true, when placed beside Nakama’s works. Hers had a touch of life to them, and from afar, one could very well mistake them as people playing at being statues.

After carving out a particularly detailed arm on a snowman (who really couldn’t be called snowmen, if Gaius went by his basic conception of a snowman), Gaius picked up the somewhat-pouting Nakama and brought her to the canteen. The atmosphere was considerably subdued, as Harvesters ate alone or whispered amongst each other in groups of three or smaller.

Gaius’ ear twitched slightly, as he tried to eavesdrop on the closest group while shovelling as much food as possible from his plate onto Nakama’s. Even with such a focused effort, Gaius could only make out whispered words too faint to understand properly.

But he could garner from their tone that they were at least uneasy, and it had nothing to do with the auction tonight. It was likely that news was beginning to trickle from the frontlines of the Southern Continent, about what most likely was rumours about the end of the war. Given that the East-West alliance had been silent on the issue of the beastfolk, it was natural that the powers that overlooked Heritage Basestation, and by extension Ark City, would feel uneasy

This auction — where items of great value and power were going to trade hands — had suddenly turned into a tussle of survival. Interest in the auction was no longer going to be limited to the Harvesters alone, not with every faction in Ark City now aware of an impending threat. And with the events where an unknown Paragon had appeared in the Intersection yesterday, it was likely that the auction was about to see massive changes.

Nalus must have been tired out over the course of remaking the rules of the auction. We can expect a reshuffle of factions too, at least. Gaius bit down on some meat, his mind not paying attention to the rich taste the entire time. It was likely that the Campmaster’s son and even the Campmaster himself had been exhausted by the numerous demands made by the strongest of Ark City. The auction would definitely be expanded to a greater scope.

Pushing his plate over to the delighted Nakama, Gaius leaned backwards and looked at the ceiling. The events of the previous Harvest had changed too many things that even Gaius was unable to sort out the repercussions that would follow for the months or even years to come.