Stark grunted as he yanked Frieren out of the troll's reach, deflecting the heavy blow with his axe. Fern was not far off, preoccupied by another troll.
"Frieren! Snap out of it!"
Frieren blinked hazily as she looked between the troll and Stark swinging at it, slicing through its club.
"Oh. Right."
The battle was soon over. The monsters disintegrated into nothing.
Frieren remained exactly where she stood, staring at a distant tree.
Stark glanced at Fern. "Hey… is she, you know, okay?"
Fern pursed her lips. "I'm not sure. Frieren-sama can be distracted at times, but even this is excessive for her."
"Yeah." Stark wiped the edge of his axe against the ground. "I feel like she wouldn't even notice if we just left her there."
Fern frowned. "...Probably not."
"It also doesn't help that she's supposed to be navigating. Are we even headed in the right direction?"
"Stark-sama?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Please be quiet."
"...Yes, of course."
Fern ignored Stark's sulking and made her way over to her master. Frieren's eyes had gone almost glassy—the particular look of someone truly lost somewhere unreachable. Fern reached out and held her hand lightly.
"Frieren-sama? We defeated the trolls."
Frieren hummed. Fern wasn't sure she had heard her.
"That's the fourth horde of monsters we've encountered since crossing into the Northern Plateau." Fern kept her voice even. "This is quite a dangerous place."
No response.
Fern gently guided Frieren back onto the main path. Stark followed quietly from behind.
"Which way did you travel before? Back when you traveled with the Hero Party? With Himmel-sama?"
That seemed to reach her. Frieren blinked, and some of the distance receded from her eyes.
"Ah. Stark, Fern." She glanced between them. "Good work defeating the monsters back there. Quite impressive."
Stark smiled awkwardly. "Um. Thanks."
Frieren smiled back, her expression still not entirely present. "The path onwards will only get rougher. But that is precisely why we should travel it."
A small pause.
"There are a lot of people who call the Northern Plateau their home, after all."
She turned and walked without further explanation.
Stark stared after her. "Are we just supposed to follow her?"
Fern walked past him without a word.
"…This feels like accompanying a grandma with dementia and a granddaughter still in denial about it."
Frieren stopped.
"Stark." She didn't turn around, but her voice had sharpened considerably. "First you called me an old hag. Now a grandma."
"That's your second offense. There won't be a third."
She resumed walking.
Stark stood frozen. "…What's that supposed to mean?"
Neither Fern nor Frieren responded.
"Hello?!"
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Frieren lay awake watching the stars, listening to the soft, steady rhythm of Fern and Stark's breathing.
She had been doing that for a while now. Listening. Watching. Waiting for her mind and body to arrive at the same place at the same time.
Whatever was wrong, it wasn't fixing itself.
She had made this first observation throughout the day—the way her mind and body kept arriving at things separately, like two travelers on the same road who had somehow stopped walking together.
Her mind felt heavier than it should. More burdened. As though it had lived through something her body hadn't been present for.
It made her listless. She had seen the monsters. Had registered the way they moved to kill. Yet something in her had stalled before it could become urgency.
That was unusual. She may not have been someone who cared deeply about most things, but she had never struggled to care about the immediate.
A monster was a problem. Problems got solved. That had always been simple.
It hadn't been simple today.
Sometimes her body processed first—the wind against her skin, the hum of ambient mana, the world continuing on around her. Other times her mind moved ahead of sensation, labeling and measuring before she'd had a chance to feel anything at all.
Neither was in harmony with the other.
The result was distraction. Disconnection. The feeling that her own soul was suspended somewhere between states—neither fully present nor absent, neither alive nor dead.
This led to her second observation.
Something had happened that night. Something deliberate.
She suspected it had to do with her consciousness specifically.
It could be explained by one of the many theories of Flamme. Or rather, one of the many that she had failed to theorize.
She still remembered the way Flamme had sighed, leaning back in her chair, covering her weathered face with both hands before peering at Frieren through the gaps of her fingers.
I suppose this is not one of the gifts I'll be leaving for this world. She had smiled, soft and resigned. Perhaps you can continue my work someday.
No, Flamme. It seems someone else continued it instead.
Her third observation concerned the voice still echoing faintly at the edges of her memory.
Familiar. Close. Unmistakable.
There was no existing magic capable of drawing on another's consciousness from a distance—it would have had to be developed from nothing.
She could think of only three mages with the time, resources, and mind to accomplish it.
Only one had the motive to direct it at her.
Only one had been there, speaking to her, guiding her carefully toward death.
Serie.
As for why—Frieren could narrow it to two possibilities. One was her laziness, her stagnation. Serie had always hated her for it. At the same time, Serie had always been aware of it; she had tolerated it across centuries without resorting to this.
The far more likely cause was simpler. A response to her recent actions. To what she had done to Percia.
Serie had found out. And had decided to kill her for it. Frieren's hand hovered over her neck before she let it fall to her side.
Serie wasn't known for half-measures. When she set her mind to something, she saw it through.
That Frieren was here at all—breathing, stargazing, listening to the sound of her companions asleep—meant something had gone wrong with the plan.
This lead to her fourth and final observation.
Something had interrupted Serie — something had made Serie change her mind.
She wondered what it was.
Frieren kept her gaze fixed on the stars, quietly aware of the wrongness still running through her—faint and persistent, like a fracture running through glass.
She didn't want to sleep tonight.
She wasn't ready to find out what might be waiting for her on the other side of it.