Millicent paced outside the dorm room. The quiet corridor said nothing, while the candles on the floor wept wax through the night.
"Have you been waiting long?"
Skyl appeared from around the corner of the corridor. Before he even reached her, he raised a hand in greeting. On a night quiet enough to hear a pin drop, his voice was perfectly clear, yet soft enough not to disturb anyone sleeping nearby.
When Skyl saw Millicent, the red-haired girl had her head lowered, her left hand gripping her right arm across her chest while her right hand hung loosely at her side. She resembled some silent ancient statue, completely lacking the stubborn, weedlike vitality he had grown accustomed to seeing in her.
Only then did Skyl finally realize that something was wrong with Millicent.
Like Dumbledore, he was an accomplished Legilimens, but after becoming powerful enough to protect himself, Skyl had rarely used Legilimency to pry into other people's thoughts. No one could pose much of a threat to him anymore, and he had little interest in what went on inside other people's heads. Professor X from the X-Men probably understood the feeling. People's minds were often uglier than what they showed on the surface. If you wanted to find genuine sincerity, reading minds wasn't the way to do it.
"What's wrong?"
"Are you okay?"
They spoke at almost exactly the same time.
The difference was that Skyl sounded concerned, while Millicent sounded worried.
That made him laugh.
"What could possibly be wrong with me? Anyway, we shouldn't stand here talking and disturb everyone. Let's go for a walk. We can talk while we wander around."
Skyl and Millicent walked side by side through the Academy at night, wandering from one floor of the dormitory corridors to another.
Skyl pulled a small bottle of potion from his robes.
"You died once inside the instanced plane, so that weakened state has to feel awful. I brewed this pick-me-up potion in a hurry. Drink it. You'll feel better."
Millicent accepted the potion and drained it in one gulp.
Then she found herself holding an empty glass vial with nowhere to throw it away.
Skyl looked at her curiously.
"What's wrong? Why do you still have a bottle after drinking the potion? Like any normal person taking medicine, you're supposed to eat the bottle too."
What kind of normal-person logic was that?
Only video game characters could drink a potion without leaving the bottle behind.
Millicent was full of doubts, but she didn't argue. She simply tried biting the glass tube.
It didn't budge.
"Mmph."
"Pfft, you actually believed me."
Skyl burst out laughing.
"Come here. Let me check your teeth."
Millicent obediently bared them for him.
They were small, straight, and perfectly white, like a neat row of tiny pearls.
Skyl pulled out his phone and snapped a picture, permanently preserving Millicent's ridiculous tooth-baring expression.
The swordswoman remained perfectly calm. She wasn't angry in the slightest.
Instead, she quietly asked, "Skyl, you don't seem happy."
Skyl's expression shifted.
"...Is it that obvious?"
"Yes."
"Well, I guess I'm still pretty easy to read."
At least Skyl had enough self-awareness to admit it.
"What do you want to know?"
"I only want to know whether you're okay."
The night air was cold.
Skyl wanted to shove his hands into his pockets to warm them, only to remember that his wizard's robes didn't have any. So he slowly rubbed his hands together until they warmed, then raised his head toward the peacefully turning stars.
"Let me tell you a story. Fair warning, I'm not very good at storytelling, and this one is incredibly clichéd and boring. Do you still want to hear it?"
"I do," Millicent said encouragingly. "You're actually a very good storyteller. Whenever you tell me something, I always end up completely absorbed in it."
"Ha, thanks for always being such an enthusiastic audience. If my life has any substance at all, it's because interesting people like you have filled it. All right, then. Here goes.
"Once upon a time, there was a man who wandered into a room. The room was filled with marionettes. Every toy had strings attached to it, and those strings controlled them as they performed a great war.
"They fought desperately. Many of the wooden puppets were cracked and broken, but they kept shouting and crying. Then all those damaged puppets were dragged by their strings into a glittering golden furnace. The flames burned them until they became charcoal.
"The man didn't like that at all. Those puppets were so delicate and beautiful. It must have taken all the countless wonders of nature to bring something like them into existence. How could anyone waste them by turning them into stupid lumps of charcoal?
"So while the owner of the house was away, the man put out the furnace. Then he cut the strings attached to the puppets' heads.
"Every puppet was free.
"They could finally live happily and perform whatever stories they wanted.
"Unfortunately, the good times didn't last.
"The owner eventually came home. He asked the intruder why he had interfered with his business. He had been running this charcoal factory for a very long time. The process was well established, the system worked perfectly, and after waiting so long for a rare harvest season, he had barely even begun collecting his crop.
"The intruder told him, 'You're never doing this again. As long as I'm here, you don't get to burn anyone into charcoal.'
"The owner refused.
"So the two of them went twelve rounds.
"And in the end, just like every story you've ever heard, the two of them lived happily ever after..."
Skyl paused.
"I made that part up. What actually happened was that the intruder beat the owner. The charcoal factory has officially shut down, every puppet has become a real person, and now they're free to live however they want.
"So? Pretty clichéd, right?"
Millicent knew Skyl was deliberately making light of the story.
But she understood what he meant.
She realized that she herself was one of the puppets Skyl had described.
And the owner of the house was the Greater Will.
Skyl had fought it.
She felt as though she ought to smile along with his joke, yet the memory of Skyl standing by the window with that cold expression on his face left her deeply uneasy.
It was like an itch in the middle of her back that she couldn't reach.
"You weren't hurt, were you?"
Skyl smiled and winked at her.
"I'm standing right here, perfectly fine. What are you worried about?"
"Are you really okay? Because you're still unhappy."
"Ha, that's because I skipped one part of the story. The owner and the intruder fought an epic battle. The intruder suffered terrible wounds and now has only a short time left to live..."
Millicent's eyes widened.
She suddenly reached out and grabbed Skyl by the shoulders, carefully feeling him as though she needed to make absolutely certain that the person standing before her was living flesh and blood rather than some ghost.
"Easy, I'm joking."
Skyl smiled.
"But let me finish the joke. Anyway, the intruder doesn't have long to live, and the only way he can recover is if someone tells him one completely honest truth. So, good girl, help me out. Tell me something from the heart."
His expression softened.
"I want to know why you're unhappy."
Skyl had gone through that ridiculously elaborate setup just to make this joke.
There were many truths that people found impossible to confess in a serious conversation, yet somehow managed to reveal when disguised as jokes.
He was only trying to protect his friend's dignity.
Millicent suddenly became angry.
All the color drained from her thin, pale face. Tears spilled continuously from her reddened eyes as she cried out in anguish.
"How can you joke about something like that? What if you really were badly hurt but deliberately refused to tell us? You're always so distant. You never tell us what you truly feel."
"Skyl, if you really were injured, if you really didn't have long to live, and someday I could never see you again..."
Her voice trembled.
"What am I supposed to do?"
Skyl fell silent.
Millicent wiped her cheek with her hand, but the tears wouldn't stop. Soon her palm was wet, so she switched to the back of her hand and blinked hard several times.
Then she lowered her head.
"I'm sorry. I think I frightened you. I've been acting strangely lately. It'll pass soon."
"Good girl, what are you apologizing for? I'm the one who made a terrible joke. I'm the one who should apologize."
Skyl's voice became gentle.
"Don't worry. I really wasn't hurt. The Greater Will is nowhere near powerful enough to injure me."
Millicent finally smiled through her tears.
In Skyl's mind, she had always been quiet and tenacious.
Born from the mud, yet not some delicate flower, but the stubborn green leaf beside it. Growing on a dangerous mountainside, yet not a majestic solitary pine, but simple grass clinging stubbornly to the stone.
She possessed the clean vitality of an ordinary person, the same vitality found in people everywhere who simply worked, struggled, and endured. The world might treat their lives as cheap, but their spirit refused to break. They would rather snap than bend.
She was a wing forged from steel, capable of soaring even without wind.
Her heart was passionate, clean, and bright.
Yet beyond all that, she was also sensitive.
In a single instant, countless emotions could cross her face.
And right now, she seemed strangely fragile.
"You came looking for me specifically because you wanted to know whether I'd been hurt, didn't you?"
Skyl leaned against a bookshelf in the corridor and looked down at Millicent.
"Well, now you've seen me. I'm fine."
"But you aren't."
"Tell me what's wrong. Let me help carry some of it. What's been bothering you so much?"
"I... I'm afraid I've disappointed you."
"What are you talking about?"
Skyl laughed.
"How could I ever be disappointed in you?"
"Something is wrong with my Shehai."
Millicent hesitated.
"Fear has taken it over."
Skyl cautiously offered, "They say the best way to overcome fear is to face it. Maybe you should try that too?"
Millicent raised her head and looked at him.
Her lips trembled.
The words were already on the verge of escaping.
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