Our trip back to Titan City was uneventful, given most of it was focused on avoiding the underlying issue. How to deal with Mia and her father who had been pointed to as a traitor by the Mistress. There were no attacks by bandits, no spike feeders lurking too closer to the road. Just extended silence spent fixated on the outside world, looking for a distraction rather than confronting the the problem that lacked an easy solution.

After that first night in the inn, Mia’s sobbing had faded away, although her eyes were still puffy whenever you looked at them. You could feel the tension in the air as though it was the sky ready to break apart and let the rain fall onto the waiting ground. If disturbed ever so slightly the tension would shatter and the deluge of suffering would coat us all.

Vera had tried to force us to engage, perhaps the only one of us with a functional sense of empathy, but I had refused out of fear of making things worse. I didn’t see any attempts made by Javier nor Alain, which either meant they also declined or did it out of my sight, but it didn’t seem like they had given Mia’s foul mood never looked like it had abated.

By the time we were back in the city, it was night once again, leaving us all in the barracks, needing to rest from the hours of travel. Whatever was to be done could be done in the morning. Nothing good would come of rushing it that night. We slept uneasily, knowing that in the morning, everything we had been avoiding would be addressed, one way or another.

In the morning, we gathered in the classroom, Javier having insisted we discuss the next steps with everyone present. It was to give everyone the proper understanding of what we were doing, or so he claimed. “So now that we’re back from Malagost city… Amalaris is expecting our report. The standard operating procedure is clear here. In good consciousness, we cannot confront your father without proper planning implemented. We have to validate the research found by the Mistress and see if we can replicate her results on our side. She’ll give us the required direction how to proceed.”

Mia’s hands bunched up by her sides, face growing redder with each passing word of Javier’s. “What, and give my dad a chance to understand something is wrong? What happens if he runs away? We lose our chance to get more information from him. You don’t think he’s been keeping at least vague tabs of my presence? We name dropped my family at Lord Montare’s mansion. He may have already reached out to my father before returning home. If we don’t do anything soon, the Nonan honor will be besmirched by his actions, let alone the odds of our success decreasing with each passing day.”

Javier crossed his arms, frowning at Mia’s outburst. “Mia, I understand tensions are high, but there are procedures we need to follow. Steps to be completed. Rules to be honored. I’m sure we’ll be able to draw a warrant on your father and interrogate him, but Amalaris needs to go through the proper channels to ensure that we don’t cause any tension between the city guard and the nobles.”

Mia slammed her desk, gaze fixated on Javier. “Just leverage my own connection to my dad. He’s smarter than you. If he hears that you’re trying to catch him he’ll have set up enough impediments to ensure that it was all for nothing. At most you’ll have stopped his present efforts, but the movement already exists. We need to know who else he was working with in the city if we’re going to have a chance at rooting out the protesters and ensuring Titan City is safe.”

Javier let out a lengthy sigh, pressure building up in his shoulders. The stress was a physical burden one could see in his tensed up form. “Mia, I know this sounds callous. I really do. I don’t want to come off wrong. I’m not the best at speaking to others, as Amalaris can attest to. I have my quirks, I’ll be the first to admit it. So with all of that caveat in place, I want to make it clear, that while I think chasing after your father is a high priority, there are certain rules in place for the protection for everyone. If we don’t follow those rules, we run the risk of work being discredited, of your father escaping through the legal boundaries in place for the city. We have to stick to the rules as members of the city guard.”

Mia’s voice was cold and raw. “Fine. I guess I’m no longer a member of the city guard, and you certainly aren’t going to try and stop me from going to my family’s home without talking to Amalaris first. Procedure is the most important thing to you, isn’t it? I know this can’t wait any longer even if you’re willing to let things go to ruin.”

She ran out of the classroom, leaving us caught up silence, Javier’s jaw dropped down, mouth agape. But that wasn’t the most shocking incident of the morning. “I’m sorry, Javier. I’m sorry. I can’t let her go off alone like that. You’ve done so much for me, but I have to help her, and if helping her means that I need to quit the city guard, then you can consider me a member of the city guard no longer. The doctrine preaches helping one another, and I can’t let Mia go alone through this darkness at this time.”

Vera ran out of the room, her voice echoing through the hallway as she cried for Mia’s attention. Leaving the three of us staring at one another. Or in Javier’s case, staring away from us, seemingly afraid of what would happen next if he fixated on the world, as opposed to pretending what just happened didn’t exist any more. The issue was, Vera’s words resonated with me. Two would have to become three.

“I’m sorry. I really am. You mean so much to me. Javier, you literally rescued me from near death, but I can’t let the same potentially happen to Mia and Vera. I’ve already seen them both get injured in front of my eyes, and I can’t pretend to ignore the potential for it happening again. I’m sorry. I really am, Javier. I really am.”

I ran out of the room, searching with my electroreception for the two bodies that were hastily leaving the city guard’s grounds towards the noble district. I couldn’t let them get too far ahead. My body leaned into the most efficient route, dodging the other various members of the city guard. Deciding what would happen after my exit would come second. The first step was being there for my friends.

I managed to catch up, noticing that neither Alain or Javier had followed me, but I couldn’t say I was surprised. They were always more married to the job, talking in whispers while the rest of us were speaking aloud. They had their own commitments, and I didn’t fault them, although I wished they had deigned to come with us for this pursuit.

We had slowed down once the others grew aware of my presence and my confirmation that we weren’t being pursued. The streets were surprisingly devoid of company for this time of day, but that didn’t make our movement any less urgent. “I feel like I should explain,” Mia started out of nowhere. “If you’ve given up everything to join me, then you should know what you were sacrificing it for.”

“Mia, you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. We didn’t sacrifice for your unknown cause. We sacrificed for you, our friend.”

“Perry’s right. It was the right thing to help you in your time of need. The doctrine wouldn’t ask any less of us.”

Mia turned to us, flashing a smile, looking the happiest she had over the last few days, but that quickly faded away into grief and anguish once again. “I appreciate that, but that’s all the reason more I need to tell you about well, my family, really. You deserve to understand why I joined the city guard, which starts with perhaps one of the worst things that can happen. The death of my mother.”

We slowed down ever so perceptibly, caught in the narrative Mia was weaving. She was baring herself, vulnerability out in the open for all to see. To not pay it proper attention would be a transgression against her openness.

“You see, it wasn’t like I’ve lived with the absence of her since my birth. I knew her long enough for her memory to latch on, but that memory is faded. If I don’t look at a picture, her face starts to fade away, an empty echo left behind where I question if I actually knew my mother or whether she was just a memory conjured by my father’s stories. There’s so much one doesn’t remember from their childhood, only flashes and visions, formative moments that have been skewered to one’s mind, affixed by their presence in your life. To me that would be my father crying at my mother’s funeral. I don’t see her face as we burn her body. I don’t see the flames that lick at her skin, eating up her pale form, her hair turning to ash as the embers crawl up her gentle trellises. I just see my father, holding me tightly, my back feeling the heat of the flames, his tears softly dripping onto the back of my hair. They plod ever so lightly against my head, a steady rhythm of grief beating upon me, my father silently shaking, keeping himself together lest he breaks apart and casts me into the heart of suffering.”

She took a heavy breath, tears starting to stream down her face, but she continued on, unable to be deterred by her feelings surfacing. “That’s what I remember of my mother. Not herself, but the framing of her death and how that affected my father. I was too young to notice who he was before, but the staff suggested he changed with her death. It was as though I was growing up alone in the house, my mother looming over me with her absent presence, my father carrying her memory along like a leaden weight. He was so fixated on her memory that he was absent of the present, leaving me to be primarily raised by the staff.

"You could say my real mother was Lexus, my nursemaid and my real father was Renault, our butler. Lexus had told me the cause of my mother’s death when I asked one night. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but I needed answers when my father wouldn’t provide them, let alone even regularly interact with me. He was out on business, whatever that was— knowing the family business will likely elude me my whole life— which left me staring at the photos in his study of my mother, wondering where she was. Lexus was reluctant to share, lest she upset my father and get fired by him, but I couldn’t handle not knowing any longer. I needed to know about my mother’s death. Not knowing was tantamount to living in ignorance the rest of my life.”

She took a deep steady breath, slowing down to suppress the sobs that threatened to escape her lips. Vera took her side, wrapping her arm around Mia’s shoulder, whispering words I couldn’t hear. “She— she— she wasn’t even the one that was supposed to die. Her food had been poisoned by a girl we had in the kitchens, a scullery maid named Kia who had joined us not long after an attack by the spike feeders. There weren’t enough guards present, having been pulled back from the village they were loaned to in preparation for the Culling Night. Her family had died, and all she could think of was getting back at the city for not properly staffing the guard. It wasn’t the most logical thought, but grief is a mind-warping thing and she was young. All alone. Not unlike how I felt when I learned her story.”

She swallowed back her tears, taking a few deep breaths before continuing on. “She learned my father was behind the policy request to pull back the guards, evidently so driven in her grief nothing would stand in her way to understand why her village had to suffer— so she joined our staff, and prepared a meal that my mother, the unintended target had eaten in my father’s stead. Since that point, most of our staff was canned, leaving us a skeleton crew who primarily attended to me, other functions left to waste within our empty mansion. Kia was imprisoned. I don’t know what happened to her after that but I can’t imagine it was anything good, having killed a noblewoman’s wife.”

My mind flickered to the dark hallways of the barracks, wondering if there were cells in there where prisoners were held, and if Kia still slumbered within its depths. “When I learned of the story, it had me believing that if there was just one more member of the city guard, Kia’s parents could have been saved. It was a foolish thought, but I was a young, foolish girl, and that search for meaning embedded itself within my head. I set out to train and be an adequate member of the city guard, even if I had a prey beast soul. My father wished I do anything but join the guard. I don’t know if he blamed it for my mother’s death, but I wouldn’t hear him. I had to make things right, while he obsessed over a world I wasn’t part of. I still loved him. I still love him. That’s why I have to be the one to clean up after his messes once again.”

We had arrived outside of the manor, staring at the walls that had shaped Mia’s life up until this point, waiting for her direction for us to continue. It was smaller than Lord Montare’s, the outside looking to have experienced insufficient upkeep. Parts of the walls were peeling, the roof’s tiles missing in large chunks. The grass was mostly dead.

While the lack of staff was apparent, the only real impediment to our access was a gate. Compared to the other manors around, it was small, ill kept, impoverished.

“You know, we could go back to the barracks. Say we just left to clear our minds, and I’m sure they would let us in, no questions asked. I’m not saying that to say we should do that, Mia, but that we could. I’ll support whatever it is you choose,” I said.

“I know, Perry. I know. I can’t go back,” she replied, words softly cutting through the breeze that passed by.

“Then let’s go meet your father,” Vera said, resting her hand on Mia’s shoulder, no doubt a source of comfort and stability for Mia.

Mia nodded, fishing out a key from her pocket and placing it in the lock, it noisily scraping against the tumblers until it was turned a quarter from its starting position. She pushed open the door and ushered us through before sealing and locking it behind us, leaving us with no exit without her approval. I was already committed, as was Vera. We didn’t need a physical barrier to prevent us from abandoning Mia.

The door opened, leading us into a dusty interior, an elderly man waiting by the door. “Lady Amelia. So you’ve returned,” he uttered, smile growing on his face.

“Oh Renault. It hasn’t been that long but it looks like the ravages of time haven’t been kind to you lately. It hurts me to say there but I’m here for business, not for a family visit. Would you mind escorting me to my father’s room?”

“Very well, Lady Amelia. Your friends are coming too?”

“Unfortunately, that is the case, Renault.” It felt like she had fallen into a speaking pattern foreign to us. She was becoming someone that she solely was in the hallowed manor that was her home.

We walked up the stairs until we were at the presence of the study. Renault bowed and opened the door for us, showing us a shrine to loss. The walls were plastered with paintings of a woman who looked like Mia, but there were no images of Mia. Every combination of painting sans those featuring the mother and her daughter in tandem.

“Amelia? What brings you home? I thought you had a mission over in Malagost city?” the man asked. I stared at him, trying to understand where I had seen him before. He looked all too familiar, but it couldn’t just be his parentage of Mia. He looked distinctly unto himself.

The more he stared at Mia, the more things fell into place. This was the man who was present at our event in the marketplace. This was the man who Mia refused to look at. He was certainly taller than her and had light hair with a sharp nosed and dark circles etched underneath his eyes. His clothing looked as though it as staying together out of necessity.

“Dad, you really don’t know?” Mia said, walking closer and closer to him.

“Any visit from you is a welcome surprise. Is there something I should know about?”

“I take it Lord Montare didn’t send any message then. Curious.” His face hardened, eyes narrowing at the mention of the other noble.

“Sweetie, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is there something I should know about?”

“Stop stalling. We know you’re contributing to the unease in Titan City. I don’t know if you’re funding the riots or something worse, but you need to stop.”

He plastered a sickly smile on his face. “Amelia, you don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“Then why don’t you tell me instead of telling me what you think is best for me? How do you know what’s good for me? You weren’t around. That was Lexus and Renault who raised me. You weren’t there, Dad. It’s absurd that I keep calling you Dad when you’ve done little to merit that title.”

He sighed, rising up from his chair, one fluid motion in contrast with his shabby attire. “I can see you inherited your mother’s stubborn streak. If you won’t listen to reason, then we’ll have to work outside of reason. At least, until you’re ready to listen to your father again.”