Three small bags bounced up and down as Gaius and company headed towards the Phrontistery of Scientific Reasoning. Their little field trip to the Central Circle was about to begin; everyone in Year One was to report to their homeroom teacher at the assembly hall. Unusually enough, Nakama was carrying her own bag and walking on her own, instead of being carried by Isabelle.

Gaius had stopped Isabelle from pampering Nakama today. It was the eve of their field trip, after all, and he wanted to prepare both of them if things really did go awry. Making sure that Nakama’s desire to depend on someone was being stifled at the start was part of it. She was a mature person, but her lifestyle for the past two years or so might have caused her to regress — Gaius wasn’t too sure.

At any rate, losing the advantages that a person growing up under adverse conditions would be quite the waste. That said, he wasn’t going to go overboard…

“Still tired?” Gaius asked, his eyes on Nakama as she yawned cutely three times in a row. “Isabelle, you have been staying with her at night, right?”

“It’s not the nightmares,” the Knight replied. “She was so excited about this field trip that she couldn’t sleep. And as a result…”

Gaius winced. “Want a piggyback?”

“No!” Isabelle retorted, and then yawned twice. “Urgh.”

Even in the morning sun, her golden hair seemed a bit dull and flat, reflecting its owner’s state. After spending a moment to parse her words, Gaius began to understand. She didn’t just not sleep — Knights were physically tough — no, she had probably spent the better half of the night playing with Nakama, and then was probably prevented from sleeping or mediating for a related reason.

Gaius rolled his eyes. “Take a rest, I’ll float you over to the school.”

“Float?” She rubbed her forehead. “But…”

“No ‘buts’,” Gaius replied, extending his hand. The Telekinesis Ability he had activated, and Isabelle found herself sitting on a stretch of air. “Lie down. Or mediate. I’ll bring you there.”

She tried to get up, but a yawning fit got her. Visibly tired, she finally decided to mediate. Her breathing pattern became somewhat deeper, but Gaius knew that she would wake if even a small disturbance were to occur, and with a slight effort, cordoned off her surroundings by ensuring that her little container was surrounded by a fine vacuum.

It was a bit troublesome to move air around constantly, but it was an exercise Gaius found rather intriguing. Maintaining a vacuum while moving was far harder than just sustaining a thick container of air. It required constant movement and exercise of Telekinesis, and after walking a little while, Gaius made a mental note to explore his other Abilities in a similar fashion.

“What did you do last night?” Gaius asked. “She’s so tired, poor thing. Did you ask her to play with you all night?”

“No,” Nakama replied. “I asked her to tell me stories, but then she started getting excited and told me even more stories.”

She yawned. “I wanted to sleep, but she was too excited to stop. And then I couldn’t sleep as well, and—”

“For some reason, I cannot dispute your words.” Gaius held his head. “That sounds like Isabelle for some reason. What story were you guys talking about in the first place? Why did she get so interested?”

“She was reading off a book called Orb: A History,” Nakama replied. “I wanted to sleep, but she was insistent on reading chapter forty-two out loud.”

“Oh, I’ve read that book too,” said Gaius. “It’s rather fascinating, and—”

Nakama made a little noise, and the boy stopped. Evidently, she had gotten some minor trauma from Isabelle’s recital, and Gaius didn’t feel like making it worse. He glanced thoughtfully at the floating Isabelle, whose breathing pattern indicated that she was somewhat in deep sleep, and then slowed his steps.

From afar, it probably looked like two children holding on to a balloon, and needless to say, they were attracting a lot of attention. Countess Reinford, who had shown up as they were entering the gates of Twilight Elysium, was staring at the sleeping Isabelle with googly eyes.

After the guards waved them through (which, incidentally, took five minutes because none of them had any procedures for a sleeping girl floating in a container of apparently air), the countess bounced over, her entourage in tow.

“What happened to her?” Reinford asked. “That’s so high profile, I want to hire you to do that for me!”

Gaius eyed the blue-haired, eager girl, and shook his head. “She didn’t rest well last night. That’s why I’m ferrying her to school like this. I’m not sure how we’re going to go to the Central Circle, so the more awake she is, the better.”

It was true. No one knew how they were going to be transported. It had taken a month at sea with overly-favourable currents to get them to the North, and if they were to ride a ship to the Central Circle…they wouldn’t make it in time. Rumours about the North working on some incredible artefact that was a brainchild of the now-forgotten Ark City was rife, however.

Someone was clearly hard at work spreading these rumours, but there wasn’t really much of a point when their mode of transport would be verified soon enough. In fact, now that even he was hyped up, Gaius couldn’t wait to see what sort of new artefact the North had come up with. After all, getting a bunch of eleven to nineteen-year-old students to fly all the way to the Central Circle would be a problem.

“True,” Reinford replied. “But I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s probably going to be something mundane anyway. If you ask me, it’s probably a teleportation formation; this school has the resources to teleport one anywhere one-sidedly.”

“Is that how it works in the Holdings?” Gaius asked.

“It’s only reserved for national emergencies, though,” Reinford replied. “Which is why my packages get delivered through plain old snail mail.”

“Ah, that’s why the Engines took so long.” Gaius rubbed his nose. He’d offered all three to Nakama, complete with explanations, but she had spent a long time wondering what she wanted. Night had fallen while she was still deliberating, and in the end, she’d chosen the multi-purpose Engine.

Gaius wasn’t too sure if she’d bonded with it, though. Was sleep a requirement? The boy couldn’t quite remember. Nexus, along with the two intelligent artefacts, were fast asleep inside Nakama’s bag, and the little girl had prevented Gaius from waking them up for some reason.

After spending a moment or two to shrug, he headed to the hall, a sleeping Isabelle floating behind him.

Behind him, he could hear Reinford asking Nakama about her choice.