The next morning's sunlight filtered through the blinds. When Arthur pushed open the door, someone had already beaten him there.
Durandal sat at her desk, several documents spread out in front of her, a pen in hand as she wrote something on them. Her posture was as impeccably straight as ever. At the sound of the door opening, she looked up.
"Good morning, Captain."
"Morning."
Arthur gave a nod and walked to his own desk to set down his bag. "You're here early."
Durandal didn't respond to that. Instead, she picked up the documents in front of her, rose from her seat, and walked over to his desk.
"This is a list of tasks to be completed today for the staff on leave."
She set the documents down before him.
"Kiana and Mei's art assignments, Bronya's programming tasks."
She paused, then added, "I've already reprioritized them based on each person's work habits and efficiency. Following this plan, today's progress won't fall behind."
Arthur looked at her for a moment, silent.
Then he smiled.
"Durandal, you don't have to do this."
Durandal blinked, caught off guard.
"What?"
"I mean," Arthur leaned back in his chair, his tone unusually relaxed, "you don't have to carry everyone else's workload on your shoulders."
A faint crease crossed Durandal's brow, the kind of puzzled expression she almost never showed.
"This is my responsibility. Principal Theresa sent me to protect Kiana, and that includes ensuring her work environment remains stable."
"Protecting her isn't the same as doing her work for her."
Arthur shook his head with a smile. "The game's been live for a while now. Everyone's been wound tight. They could use a breather."
Durandal said nothing. Arthur looked at her, and something came to mind.
"By the way," he said, his voice softening a little, "Kiana must keep you pretty busy, huh? Worrying about her, looking out for her, cleaning up after her messes?"
Durandal's brow shifted almost imperceptibly.
"Worrying about her?"
She repeated the phrase as if she were turning over an unfamiliar concept.
"You know, being concerned about her, taking care of her, dealing with the chaos she leaves behind," Arthur explained. "She is your little sister, after all."
Durandal was quiet for a few seconds.
Then she spoke, her tone as measured as ever, and yet somehow there was a faint, different kind of warmth underneath it.
"Captain, you're the one who's spent more time looking after Kiana than I have."
Arthur paused.
"From the day she joined this studio," Durandal continued, her gaze drifting toward some distant point beyond the window, "you were the one giving her assignments, the one listening to her complaints, the one putting up with everything she does. I only arrived recently."
She turned back to look at him.
In those blue eyes, so similar to Kiana's, there was none of their usual sharpness. Only something very quiet and soft, something that felt like gratitude, or perhaps like entrusting.
"So it should be me thanking you, for taking care of Kiana."
The office was still for a few seconds.
Arthur looked at the girl before him, always so by-the-book, so rarely letting anything extra show.
He found himself thinking she wasn't quite so difficult to read after all.
"We're practically family," Arthur said with a smile. "Besides, Kiana might be loud and all over the place, but when it comes to actually getting things done, she never cuts corners. Looking after her? I'd say we look after each other."
The corners of Durandal's mouth seemed to curve, just barely, into the faintest of arcs.
It was the first time Arthur had ever seen anything close to a smile on her face.
Footsteps sounded from outside.
The door swung open and Dan Heng walked in, wearing that same composed expression as always. He gave the two of them a nod and made his way to his desk.
Right behind him came Stelle and March 7th, both sporting the same unmistakable dark circles under their eyes. Clearly they'd been up late again.
"Morning, Captain..." Stelle said through a yawn.
"Morning..." March 7th followed with her own yawn.
Durandal glanced at the two of them, a faint shadow of concern crossing her face, the kind that said she was already calculating the impact on productivity.
Arthur noticed, and couldn't help but smile.
"Alright, everyone just do what needs to get done, but don't push yourselves too hard."
He looked over at Durandal. "You too. Loosen up a little," he said. "The work never runs out, but you can't stay coiled up forever."
Durandal held his gaze for a moment, then gave a quiet nod.
"Understood," she said.
When Dan Heng had come through the door earlier, the sunlight happened to fall across his shoulder. He'd given a nod to the two people in the office, then moved to his seat with the kind of easy, unhurried precision that made it seem as if nothing had changed from the day before.
But Arthur had noticed. After sitting down, Dan Heng let his fingers rest on the keyboard for a few seconds.
Then he reached for his phone and looked down at it briefly.
A moment later, Arthur's phone buzzed softly.
He opened the message.
Dan Heng: "Captain, I'd like to take a day off. Just one day."
Arthur looked up toward Dan Heng.
He knew that if something didn't absolutely require words, this guy would always let his actions speak for him. Sending a message to ask for time off was already his absolute limit.
Arthur typed back: "Friends getting together?"
A few seconds later, Dan Heng replied: "Yeah."
Arthur smiled and sent one more: "The Cloud Knights Five?"
This time, Dan Heng's fingers stilled.
He turned his head and looked at Arthur, a rare flicker of something complicated passing through his eyes.
Arthur held up his phone toward him with a knowing smile that said he already knew everything.
Dan Heng was quiet for a beat, then gave a small, deliberate nod.
Over in the corner, Stelle and March 7th were both slumped over their desks, matching sets of dark circles drooping under four bleary eyes. They looked like two pandas that had badly overdone the all-nighters.
"Did you two stay up late again last night?"
Arthur looked at them.
Stelle lifted one hand with great effort and pinched her fingers together in a barely-that-much gesture.
March 7th couldn't even get her hand up. She just let out a couple of faint whimpers that meant yes.
Arthur shook his head in exasperated resignation. "Take care of yourselves."
"We will, Captain, but we've got something to tell you too."
With visible effort, Stelle fished her phone out of her pocket and tapped at it with trembling fingers.
Arthur's phone buzzed again.
Stelle: "Captain, Phainon's throwing a party the day after tomorrow. You absolutely have to come!!"
March 7th: "Yes yes yes!! Phainon said you HAVE to be there! If you don't show up, he's coming to drag you there himself!"
Arthur read the two messages and laughed despite himself.
He looked up at the two pandas across from him.
"A party?"
Stelle nodded with everything she had. March 7th nodded too, hard enough to shake her hair loose.
"Got it."
The office settled back into quiet after that.
Dan Heng's keystrokes fell in their familiar steady rhythm, just like any other day.
Stelle and March 7th remained draped over their desks, making valiant attempts to wake themselves up, with limited success.
Durandal had already gotten to work. Lines of code scrolled rapidly across her screen.