The first thing Frieren felt was weight — pressing down on her chest, heavy and inconsiderate.
"You're heavy," she mumbled. "Get off."
The weight shifted. "Frieren-sama?"
She opened her eyes to lilac peering down at her.
"You're awake—" Fern's voice pitched upward. "Stark! Get in here!"
Frieren winced. "Be quiet, Fern. It's too early."
She reached for the blanket to pull it over her head. Pain shot through her left shoulder the moment she moved her arm. She went still.
She tried again, slower.
Her shoulder protested again. Pain lingering, almost like a seam that hadn't finished closing.
"I'm here, I'm here—" Stark appeared in the doorway, breathless. "Should I get the priest again? What happened? Is she—"
"Priest?" Frieren squinted at him. "What for?"
"Frieren." He crossed the room in three strides. "What do you mean, what for? We couldn't wake you up. We thought you were dead."
She didn't know what to say to that. She looked at her arm instead. It looked normal. No mark. No wound. Her skin looked exactly as it always had. The pain was now gone.
"Frieren-sama." Fern's voice was careful. "When I came to wake you this morning, you were barely breathing. Your skin was cold. You wouldn't rouse no matter what I did. The only sign you were alive at all was that you were still breathing."
Stark pursed his lips, "Even the priest couldn't wake you."
Frieren frowned. She tried to retrace the night before. She'd gone to sleep after lying awake for a while. That was all she remembered.
Defend yourself, Frieren. Before I kill you.
Her mind felt strange — not altered, not tampered with. More like it was catching up to something. Like waking from a dream that hadn't finished yet.
She pushed herself upright.
"Are you okay?" Stark asked.
"My body is sore." She reached up to her neck without thinking. A sting met her fingers, almost like phantom pain. It disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.
"My mind feels off."
"Off how?" Fern leaned forward, pressing a hand to her forehead. "I don't sense any instabilities in your mana."
"Neither do I." She lowered her hand slowly. "That's the problem."
You're smiling.
"We were supposed to set off today." Frieren lowered her hand. "What time is it?"
Stark's frown deepened. "Just past noon. You should rest. I'll go get the priest — he should check on you again, just to be sure."
"I feel fine." She moved to stand. Walking felt strange, like relearning something. "Give me a few minutes to get ready."
"Frieren-sama." Fern fidgeted with her cloak hem. "There's no need to push yourself. We can leave tomorrow."
You do realize, I'm not the type to speak empty words.
"That's not fair to you two." She glanced at Stark. "Are you going to watch me change?"
Stark sputtered. "What — no — I just meant—"
She steered him toward the door despite his protests. "Get us some sandwiches. We'll eat on the road."
She turned to Fern, "You should go with him."
"No." Fern crossed to the suitcase and began sorting through Frieren's clothes. "If you're going to be stubborn about this, the least I can do is help you get ready."
You must think very highly of yourself if you think something like this can hold me.
Frieren blinked. Pain flared briefly in her left arm — sharp, then gone. She watched Fern collect a basin and towels from the window without comment.
"I thought you didn't like me anymore."
Fern paused with the basin against her hip. "I don't dislike you. I'm angry at you." She glanced back. "Right now I'm more worried than angry."
She looked at Frieren for a moment — something working behind her eyes — then walked out. "Sit down. I'll be back with warm water."
Frieren was lost.
She didn't know what to do with any of this. The worry on Fern's face. The panic she'd seen in Stark's. The voice that kept surfacing at the edges of her thoughts.
Her hand trembled against her side.
She could feel it. The way her mind knew something her body was now reacting to — the two were out of sync.
Go to sleep, Frieren.
She knew that voice.
Helplessness moved through her like a current. Her vision darkened at the edges for a single moment, then steadied.
She reached up to her neck.
Her hand came away clean. Nothing to show for what her mind was insisting had happened.
"Frieren-sama? I'm back. Let's get you ready."
She lowered her hand, smoothing out her expression before turning around.
"Yeah."
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
"So the first time you used this spell," Percia said, "was on Frieren."
Serie avoided Percia's stare.
"I don't make mistakes."
"You don't make mistakes?" Percia hissed, pinching Serie's cheek. "What about the hole you put through the side of a mountain? What about the time you burned down your own library with a heating spell?"
"That was intentional," Serie said, somewhat muffled.
"Intentional?" Percia released her. "Do you even know if there are side effects? Is Frieren going to be alright?"
"...Theoretically."
Percia closed her eyes briefly. "What were you thinking."
Serie looked away. A beat passed.
"I wasn't," she said. "I was upset."
Percia went quiet. Then she shifted closer, tilting her head until she was looking up into Serie's face. Serie glanced down at her.
"What."
"I'm okay."
Serie's expression creased with irritation. "I can see that. I'm not blind."
Percia smiled, small, and smoothed the crease from Serie's nose. "I'm sorry. For trying to kill you."
Serie went still under her hand, "I will not take that sad attempt as you trying to kill me."
She stood abruptly, moving toward the scattered grimoires.
Percia watched her go. "Then I'm sorry for getting angry."
"You're still angry."
Percia opened her mouth and closed it. "...I'm sorry for not hearing you out. For jumping to conclusions."
"It doesn't matter. I wouldn't have told you the truth anyway — I wanted to see your full reaction."
"..."
"..."
"You're making it very hard to apologize to you."
Serie snorted. "If you want to apologize, fix the walls. This room is a disaster." She gestured towards the scattered grimoires. "Don't touch those. You organize them strangely."
"That was one time."
"And that one time was enough. You are banned from organizing my grimoires."
"...Rude."
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
They worked around it like that. Neither brought it up. Neither acknowledged the weight of what was sitting between them. The calm before the inevitable had its own kind of comfort, and both of them knew better than to end it before they had to.
"That's the last of it." Percia dropped down beside Serie, who was working through the final stack.
"Want help?"
"Touch them and I'll bite you."
"You'd bite me anyway."
"Harder, then."
Percia leaned into her side and listened to the quiet rhythm of pages turning as Serie skimmed and sorted. It was familiar in a way very few things still were.
The last grimoire closed.
Serie's attention shifted — Percia could feel it, the way you feel someone's eyes even when you're not looking.
"I told you. I'm fine."
"Methode let me look into her memory of it. You looked worse then."
Percia sighed. "I should have silenced them."
"Like you did with the other girl?" Serie's tone was questioning. "Lernen told me she was quite upset. Hypnosis magic is her specialty — having her memories altered so haphazardly was a blow to her pride."
Percia frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Serie looked at her. "...If not you, then who?"
"..."
"That's a problem for another day." "Agreed."
The quiet settled back between them, easier now. Percia hummed and shifted, laying her head in Serie's lap.
"Do we have to talk about it?"
Serie flicked her ear. "If you hadn't let Frieren hurt you, none of this would have happened."
"She seemed hurt. I didn't know how to fix it."
"So you let her take it out on you."
"...It worked with you."
Serie didn't answer. The silence had a different texture now.
"I'm sorry," Percia said.
Serie sighed, "What now."
"For bringing that up."
"...Just stop apologizing."
Serie's hands moved to Percia's face — holding it, studying it with the particular focus she usually reserved for complicated theory.
"What?" Percia asked.
"You need to fix that habit."
"I know. You've said so only a couple hundred times."
Serie's thumb moved across her cheek, slower. "You should go check on Frieren."
Percia frowned, "You just tore her consciousness into pieces. Now you have a soft spot for her?"
"I used a prototype spell on her." Serie's expression didn't change. "I simply don't want to be responsible for the consequences if something goes wrong."
"...That doesn't sound like the complete reason."
Serie ignored her.
"I'll transfer my knowledge of the spell to you. If there are any irreparable side effects, you'll know how to handle them." She poked Percia's cheek. "After that, you and Frieren are going to have an actual conversation. Not whatever this has been."
"And while you're gone," she continued, "I'll look into why the world seems so partial to her. I may have something in my archives."
Percia opened her mouth.
Serie's hand covered it. "Yes, I know you're better suited for this. Yes, you interact with the world directly. I know."
She lowered her hand and gave Percia a flat look.
"But you're a disaster at analysis. You are the biggest brute of a mage I've ever met. So no. You are not touching my archives, and you are not using this as an excuse to avoid your mistakes."
Percia finally spoke the words that had been buried deep in her chest — the ones she had avoided with every lesser excuse.
"Frieren doesn't want to see me. I don't know how to stand in front of her."
Serie groaned in annoyance, shoving Percia off her lap.
"That girl stood in front of me and didn't even attempt to defend herself when I threatened to kill her." She raised a hand. A grimoire shimmered into existence — the byproduct of the Fürwehrer spell.
"Do not use that as an excuse."
She dropped it on Percia's face.
The door swung open on its own. Beyond it, the passage leading outside. Daylight.
"Head east from here, toward the Bier Region. There's still decent light. Go."
Percia peeled the grimoire off her face and looked up at Serie from the floor.
"You think she'll talk to me?"
Serie stared at her for a long moment.
"I have cursed people for asking more inane questions."
Percia blinked as Serie's mana curled around her — the room tilted — and then she was lying on her back in the middle of a forest, a teleportation array dimming beneath her.
She stared up at the canopy.
Serie had deactivated every array to keep her out. And then reactivated one — just one — to push her toward the very thing she'd been avoiding.
Percia couldn't help but laugh to the trees.
What a hypocrite.