Chapter 338: Chapter 322 – The Northern Brigade VI

Chapter 322 - The Northern Brigade VI

Claire flicked her tail to and fro as she crested a familiar hill. It was winter. It wasn't supposed to be winter; the summer solstice had only recently passed, and fall had yet to come, but it was winter nonetheless. A thin layer of snow covered the grasses beneath her feet and the tree that sat upon the summit was painted in a layer of glimmering frost. There was a familiar silhouette sitting beneath the snowy branches, a humanoid creature adorned with two ears, a tail, and a head of short, orange-brown hair.

She was hunched over, scribbling her thoughts into her diary with exactly none of her focus on the rest of the world. She didn't perk up until Claire crested Catnap Hill and sat down beside her. Without a word, Lia leaned over, entrusting her weight to the lyrkress' shoulder. It was the usual behaviour. The catgirl's cheeks were hot enough to ward off the winter winds and her heart was pounding with the intensity of a roaring forge. In spite of the fact that she had initiated the contact.

And for a while, that was how they remained. Neither said a word. They only enjoyed each other's company in silence as the snow slowly fell on Vel'khagan. It was only a few minutes later, after she finally calmed, that Natalya tried to speak. But Claire heard nothing. Not from the catgirl’s lips, nor the rest of the world. Everything was dead silent, as it often was in her dreams. A heart-wrenching pain coursed through her frame as she turned her eyes on Lia’s lips and found herself unable to read them. It didn’t make sense. They were clear as day, but somehow, somehow, they remained impossible to interpret.

Her confusion mounted as she continued to stare. The world around her began to change. The hill vanished. Lia disappeared. Her body suddenly fell into a pitch-black, infinite abyss.

She opened her mouth to scream, only for water to fill her lungs. She couldn't breathe. It felt like she was choking to death, even though she knew that she had no need for air.

And then, her eyes shot open. She rose from her bed, wheezing as she pressed a hand to her chest, only to panic when she found herself incapable. She flailed around as she desperately tried to find her limbs, knocking over her chair and her wardrobe before the world came into focus. It was only then, as she looked at herself, that she recalled that she was in her qiligon form.

Despite the disturbance, wherein her bed shifted and jumped around the room, Sylvia stayed sound asleep throughout the ordeal, her face buried in the caldriess' mane and her arms around one of her ears. The fox was in her larger, humanoid form; she had taken to sleeping in it despite spending most of her waking hours as an adorable, fluffy rat.

Sighing to herself and laying her head back on the bed, Claire turned her eyes out the window and gazed upon the moon. It had only just started to descend; it was far too early to rise.

She slowly shook her head before assuming her humanoid form and catching Sylvia out of the air. The unconscious vixen started reaching around in her sleep for something to hug, so Claire shoved the furball's own tail between her arms and set her back down on the bed.

With that matter settled, she grabbed a familiar object off the drawer and moved to her desk with it hugged to her chest. She bit her bottom lip as she fiddled with the leatherbound book. She had carried it on her person ever since its previous owner's departure; it had long become as familiar as the shard buried in her chest. And yet, she had never once undone its clasp. She had tried several times before, but the thought of learning Natalya's thoughts and discovering her hidden pain had always stayed her hand.

But with the catgirl's gentle touch still lingering on her skin, her fear was momentarily abated. Still shaking, she reached for the strap and carefully unhooked it from its belt. Thoughts of turning back immediately flooded her mind, but she discarded them with a shake of the head and flipped the diary open. An index appeared in the space in front of her, detailing all of the diary’s contents, the sheer volume of which clearly exceeded the limits of a book's physical frame.

The table of contents was formed as a series of headers, each with an author and a date. The most ancient were over four thousand years old, written well before the lyrkress' time. Though she was curious, she ignored the longstanding entries and flipped to the first penned by her late friend's hand. It has been written over ten years prior, scribbled by what was clearly a child's hand. The sheer disparity between the chicken scratch and the neat documentation produced later in the cat's life sufficed to inflict a twinge of pain. It reminded the lyrkress how little she knew. She couldn't even recall the catgirl's age.

Still, she pressed forward.

Biting her lips a little harder and drawing a trickle of blood, Claire caught her breath and gently traced a finger over her friend's lost words.

109832 - 5 - 4 - 8
Dear Diary,

I don’t really know what I'm supposed to write, but Lina's gonna be sad if I don’t use you. I think mom said that I'm supposed to write about everything that happened today, so I’m gonna give that a try! Today was a really good day. Mom cooked lots for dinner. She made all of Lina's favourites again. The stewed pumpkins were really sweet and juicy, but I still like corn better. I'm gonna try really hard at practice tomorrow so Mom makes my favourites too.

Lia.

It was a meaningless, silly entry written by a brat. And yet, Claire's breath was stuck in her throat. Something in the back of her mind was begging for her not to continue. She tried to press on in spite of it, but her hands were shaking, trembling so violently that she found it almost impossible to flip the page. It was a pathetic display, an obvious show of weakness that never would have been allowed back home. But she was not her father and his rules were none of hers.

Closing the book with a vector, she brought it to her chest and wiped her dampened cheeks with her nightgown's sleeve. Silently, fearfully, she returned it to its position on her nightstand and crawled her way into bed. She assumed her smallest form, hugged Sylvia's tail, and curled up into a tiny, trembling ball.

And then, there was darkness.

Her body went straight to sleep, but her mind was still active, taken into the usual empty void with all of her thoughts still perfectly intact. Normally, she enjoyed the extra time. It allowed her to plan the next day and even compute strategies that allowed her to navigate tricky situations. But with her mind where it was, the blessing was more of a curse. She was stuck, alone in the darkness with only her thoughts still swirling up a storm.

She didn’t know how long it lasted. But at some point, she shrugged off her surging emotions and reached into the depths of her chest. The key buried within it took her straight to the phantom’s home. She lumbered through the doorway after making herself presentable and stepped into his living room with her ears held high.

There was another person within the space. Claire was suspicious at first, but sneaking around the blurry couch revealed a familiar, nine-headed beast present in a form long lost. The lizard in question was fiddling with one of the phantom’s magical devices, manipulating the buttons and sticks with graceful dexterity while Claire contemplated its continued existence. None of her spirits had bothered her since her ascension. She had almost forgotten about them entirely.

Her guardians had only ever spoken to her when she was alone, and there was far less of that than there had ever been. Most of her time was spent with Sylvia, and she was always busy with other things during the few moments they parted. It didn’t help that Headhydra was the group’s least noticeable member. She rarely said anything out loud, opting instead to ignore Claire while the other two blabbed away at every given opportunity.

The rude thought appeared to be conveyed in some way or other, as one of Farenlight’s heads suddenly whirled around and shot the lyrkress a glare.

“How dare you!” she said. “You killed me! You can’t just turn around and forget I exist!”

Claire shrugged. In her mind at least, it wasn’t really her fault. Headhydra was only one of the many large monsters that she had slain, and her killing had never been particularly memorable.

Again, her thoughts were transmitted; the beast lowered its heads and sulked. “Give me my life back.”

The impossible request was met with a series of blinks; mimicking Sylvia, Claire fluttered her eyelids exactly three times and left the nine-headed snake equally frozen and appalled.

“That’s enough of that,” said the phantom. He handed Claire an artifact and pointed at the glowing box. “This is how we settle our differences around here.”

Claire accepted his device with a frown and seated herself on the couch. Only the leftmost cushion remained; the man’s body was in the middle and Headhydra was on the far right. All three of them had artifacts in hand, and all three of them manipulated the people that appeared in the glowing box.

The contents themselves were not quite the same as usual. The humanoid that she controlled was seated on top of a miniature golem with just enough space for one. It bore a very slight resemblance to a carriage, given the four wheels on which it was supported, but there was no creature to pull it nor any reins to seize control. The golem itself was what raced around the track and competed against the entities manipulated by the other two.

It was a strange experience. Her directions were relayed to the driver, who in turn spun a wheel like a ship’s and manipulated the golem’s path. The others had operators more accustomed to the golem’s handling—given the way that they spun their servants—the end result of which was an entirely unfair defeat.

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Headhydra gloated despite the clear disparity and left Claire with her fist itching and a vein bulging in the side of her head. She was about to issue another challenge when she realised that something strange had happened. Looking at the phantom, she pointed towards his body and opened her eyes wide.

She had always assumed that the flesh was something pulled from a distant memory. But they had just interacted with it. He had been part of the race. And he had come in first.

His ghost laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of his head. “It’s complicated, and there isn’t enough time to explain.”

As if on cue, Claire felt the morning sun against the lids of her eyes. If the fingers brushing against her cheeks were any indication, she was due to return to reality. She stuck her tongue out at Headhydra before opening her eyes and confronting the fox that was toying with her scales.

“Good morning, Sleepyhead.”

Sylvia’s face was only a few centimeters away. It was the only thing she could see, with a canvas of multi-coloured hair blotting out the rest of the scene.

“What are you doing?” asked Claire.

“Uhmmm… putting a smile on your face, I think?” said Sylvia.

Her hands were doing just that. They were holding Claire’s cheeks, pulling them outwards and up to force her lips into an upwards crescent. Claire was not quite as happy with the development. Lunging, she bit the other halfbreed right on the nose, just hard enough for her to recoil.

“What the heck was that for!?” cried Sylvia.

“Don’t ask me,” said Claire. She tackled the fox before she could recover and reversed their previous positions. From there, the lyrkress buried her face in her pet’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her waist.

“Uhmmm… Claire?”

“Shut up.”

“Bu—”

“Shut up.” A tight squeeze robbed Sylvia’s lungs of any air still stuck inside.

“Claire! I can’t breathe.”

“Good.”

“What do you mean, ‘good?!’ You’re choking me!”

“Good.”

Ignoring any further complaints, the tiny halfbreed held the fox prisoner for another few seconds before suddenly returning to a seated position. Feeling much better, she stretched out her back and returned to her usual size.

“Ughhh, what the heck was all that for?” cried her victim.

“I don’t know. I just felt like it.” She lightly pinched the fox’s nose, which happened to be wet for some mysterious reason, before climbing out of bed and changing her clothes. Though not usually an early riser, Sylvia did the same; she grabbed an outfit out of her tail and threw it over her otherwise naked body.

Claire didn’t exactly understand why the fox refused to use the dresser, but she refrained from raising the point. The pet would no doubt argue that she didn't use it either.

Neither halfbreed was wearing her usual attire. Their bodies were draped instead in Vel'khanese uniforms of the naval variety. Claire’s was really just her runecloak with its form changed, so its silken fibres were not exactly representative of the regular fare. Sylvia’s, on the other hand, was standard issue. She had taken it straight from the barracks after Arciel informed her that everyone had to match. The dark blue outfit was woven from a special variety of cotton with long, water-resistant strands. Its bottom half was a skirt, largely to accommodate people like the halfbreeds, who had to deal with tails that otherwise didn’t fit inside of their pants. In another country, the men would have had a different uniform and a different solution, but the Vel’khanese didn’t mind. It was normal for men to wear women’s clothes in formal settings and vice versa. Skirts were a welcome part of every well-off citizen’s wardrobe.

“Do you have everything?” asked Claire.

“I think so,” said Sylvia. The fox had already packed all of their luggage into her tail just the previous night, not that it mattered much in the first place. Sylvia could always teleport back if it turned out they’d missed something important.

“Then let’s go.” Claire grabbed Boris off the bed, turned him into a familiar Paunsean rapier, and hung him off her waist. For a moment, she considered giving Starrgort the same treatment, but she quickly dismissed the idea and made for the kitchen.

Breakfast was ready and waiting. Myne, the maid responsible for its creation, was already sitting at the table with her portion half-digested. Being a slime, she had skipped all of the other steps by simply shoving everything inside of her stomach, though the precise part to which that referred was rather nondescript. Slimes were almost entirely stomach. Only ten percent of her body was meant for any other function.

“You’ll want to hurry,” said the maid, as she moved to fill their plates. “Her Majesty wants us there within the hour, and it’s already half past.”

“Whym waleddy bwon vin aeck,” said Sylvia, with her cheeks stuffed like a squirrel’s. She swallowed the contents a moment later and proudly puffed up her chest. “See? All done. Now we’re just waiting for Claire.”

“Stupid fox.” Sighing, the caldriess raised the plate to her mouth and shovelled its contents inside.

It was unbecoming, but she put up with it nonetheless. They would need to arrive early if they wanted to make a half-decent impression.

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