The suit did, in fact, fit.
Lymur was standing in the back room of whatever building they'd been ushered into in Etistin and looked at himself in the mirror that had been wheeled in for the occasion and thought, begrudgingly, that whoever had designed it knew what they were doing. The black was clean, the white details exact.
He looked, against his better judgment, extremely good.
But he also looked like he was about to be sick.
There sure are a lot of people out there, he thought to himself, heart pumping against his chest at the thought of standing in front of so many strangers.
He could even hear them through the walls.
He'd faced things in the Beast Glades that would have reduced a lot of cities to fine mist and felt less nervous than he did right now.
Why is this any different, he thought, straightening his collar for the fourth time.
Because a monster isn't really looking at you, something answered. All of those people are going to look at you.
He fixed the collar again. It had been fine the first time.
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
"We're being called to gather with the other Lances," Aya said, from outside.
He exhaled and opened the door.
......
The room they were led to was busy and full of important people being in close proximity before such a formal event.
Lymur saw Baron Wykes first, because Baron Wykes was hard to miss. He was taller than Lymur remembered. He saw Lymur and said nothing for a moment.
"Brightburn," Baron greeted.
"Long time no see, spark boy," Lymur replied pleasantly.
The electric charge running along Baron's hands seemed to tick up one level, but then he exhaled and looked elsewhere and Lymur counted that as a successful interaction.
He found Alea next, across the room, and she found him at almost the same moment. She looked at the suit. He looked at her uniform. She looked like she was deciding whether to say something.
"Professor."
"What up, Lance?"
She smiled at that. "How long have you known?"
"Since the cemetery this morning. Aya's uniform gave it away." He looked at her for a moment. "I was going to bring it up."
"Were you going to make it weird?"
"I was going to make it a whole thing, yeah."
"I figured." She shook her head. "Congratulations, I suppose. On the appointment."
"You too," he said. "Lance."
"You're going to keep saying it like that, aren't you."
"Probably for a while, yes."
The other Lances he knew less well — mostly by name and reputation and the kind of secondhand impression you got from years in a city where people talked. They knew him the same way and with considerably more wariness, which he understood. He smiled at each of them, and it either reassured them or made things worse. He tried to read which direction it was going.
Mostly worse, he thought. But not catastrophically worse.
This is fine, he told himself. This is completely fine.
He fixed his collar. Again.
The royal families arrived — with advance warning in the form of the room rearranging itself, the palace staff straightening, people who had been in mid-conversation closing them.
Lymur watched King Glayder enter with the queen and the prince and the princess, and then the Eralith contingent, and then the Greysunder rulers, and thought about how every single one of them had agreed that putting him in an official role was a good idea, which said something about either their confidence or their desperation and he wasn't sure which.
Curtis Glayder found him almost immediately.
"You look different," the prince said.
"Uh, different how?"
"More official." He considered it. "I'm not sure I like it."
"Neither am I," Lymur replied honestly.
"Will it stay?"
"The suit or the position?"
"I'm thinking both."
"The position, probably. The suit just for today." Lymur looked at him. They walked with each for a while, occasionally greeting the usual noble or two. "How's the auction count?"
"I've been to two more since the Helstea one." The prince brightened slightly. "Neither had explosions either."
"Your standards are too high."
"My sister says the same thing."
King Glayder appeared at the prince's shoulder then.
"Arbiter Lymur," he said.
"Your Majesty," Lymur replied with a nod that was probably still not quite enough of a bow but was at least better than last time.
The king's eye twitched. Only slightly.
Progress, Lymur thought.
The princess, Kathlyn, greeted him next and she linked her arm to his as they walked along the venue. After that, she and her brother headed off to Xyrus.
"I don't wanna be here for whatever announcement this is," Curtis told him as they went off to a portal headed to Xyrus.
He bid them farewell.
He didn't pay attention to most of the speech.
He meant to, though.
He genuinely intended to stand on the stage in the Etistin public square and listen to three rulers announce the discovery of a new continent and the formation of the Triunion Council with the attentiveness that the moment warranted.
He really did.
But there were just so many people. The square was full and from where he was standing at the far end of the stage with the Lances, he could see most of them. Row after row of faces looking up at the stage, at the rulers speaking in turns, at the flags of three kingdoms hung together for the first time.
That really is a lot of people, he thought, gulping down.
He focused on a fixed point in the middle distance the way he did when he was thinking, which probably looked to any audience like grave, focused attention. He was actually thinking about whether he'd left his apartment window open. He was fairly certain he'd left it open.
He became aware that Aya was standing next to him.
"You're not listening," she said, quietly enough.
"I'm listening," he said.
"You just looked at the sky."
"I was checking the weather."
She chuckled slightly, then was quiet for a moment. "Are you nervous?"
"Whaaat? Me? No." Then, a second later, "Okay maybe a little."
She didn't say anything to that, which he appreciated.
The Lances were called forward first. One by one, names announced to the crowd, each one stepping forward. Then the names were done and there was a shift in the speeches.
He heard his name.
" — and finally, in recognition of a role unique in Dicathen's history, I present to you... Arbiter Lymur of Code: Destroyer — "
Oh, he thought. Right. That's me.
He stepped forward.
The crowd was very loud and then very quiet in the space of about two seconds, which was its own strange thing to experience. He stood at the front of the stage and looked out at several thousand faces looking back at him and felt, with complete sincerity, that he would have preferred fighting a dozen S-class mana beasts than this.
He smiled anyway, and he looked unbearably awkward.
Look dashing, Virion had said.
He fixed his collar one last time, this time with slightly shaking hands.
···---⚜---···
"I never want to do that again~."
Lymur slumped into the chair like his body had made a unilateral decision about posture.
The room behind the stage was quieter than the square had been, which was a relief, though he could still hear the crowd through the walls doing whatever crowds did after major announcements. Celebrating, probably. Making noise. Being several thousand people all at once, which was the thing he'd found most overwhelming about the last hour and a half.
He stared at the ceiling.
That was genuinely awful, he thought.
I stood in front of all those people and smiled and I don't even remember what the speeches said.
I was thinking about Gerald the entire time.
I wonder if they noticed.
Were they making fun of me?
He gasped dramatically.
Am I going to be the town's gossip —
Footsteps approached from his left and interrupted his thoughts.
"I suppose I should introduce myself properly."
He turned his head without lifting it from the chair back.
She was tall, with silver hair and a face that definitely belonged to both a pageant and the military. She extended a hand formally.
"Varay Aurae," she said. "I am honored to be working with you, Sir Lymur."
Lymur looked at her hand. Then at her face.
She's hard to read, he thought. Not impossible, but she's good.
He sat up properly and took her hand.
And then, in the half-second of the handshake, another thought arrived completely uninvited.
She's really pretty.
He kept his expression exactly the same. He was very good at that when it was just him and another person. He just wasn't as good when standing in front of lots of people.
Why are all the Lances like this, with the lethal face cards and all, he thought. Is that a requirement? Is there a selection process that accounts for this? Because Alea, and Aya, and now —
They released hands.
"The Arbiter is adjacent to the Lances, not above it," Lymur said after a second of intense eye-contact. "No need for 'sir.' I'd lose my mind hearing that all day." He settled back slightly, sitting to the chair once again. "Lymur's fine. And I'd genuinely love to be friends, if you're open to it."
Something moved in her expression. Not warmth exactly — more like a reassessment. She'd clearly prepared for several versions of this interaction and this one hadn't been among them.
"...I'll consider it," she said, which was more honest than most people would have been.
"Nice. That's all I ask."
A moment of silence passed between them, not uncomfortable, mostly because Lymur wasn't uncomfortable and Varay seemed like someone who could handle silence easily.
He was about to say something else when the door opened with considerably more energy than the moment called for and someone came through it like the idea of gradual entrance was something that had happened to other people.
The new arrival was shorter — and thinner — than Varay, looking like an adolescent human child. Looking at her now, anyone would second-guess her position as Lance, if her formidable presence wasn't enough telling. Dark skin, brown hair, bright eyes, an energy that entered the room before she did.
She walked directly into Varay's shoulder.
Varay moved aside, and judging from her reaction, she had already developed a tolerance for this.
"Mica Earthborn is here!" the girl announced, pointing at herself with both thumbs. She looked at Lymur with an enormous grin. "And Mica has been wanting to meet you forever, Brightburn!"
Lymur stared at her. She refers to herself in third person?
"Mica Earthborn," he said slowly, testing it.
"The one and only!"
"Is that — do you always — "
"Always," Varay said this time, from slightly behind Mica.
Lymur looked at Mica. Mica looked at Lymur.
She seems fun, he decided.
"Mica," he said, "how long have you been wanting to do that entrance specifically?"
Her grin got wider. "Since Mica heard they were gonna put you on stage today and figured you'd be hiding back here after."
"Was it that obvious?"
"Mica thought so."
"Hm." He considered this. "Well, whatever. Sit down."
She dropped into the nearest chair comfortably like she had decided they were already friends, which was, Lymur thought, exactly the right call. He liked people who made that decision quickly.
It saved time.
And he didn't have much friends.
Varay remained standing, because Varay seemed like someone who remained standing.
The door opened again, this time at a normal speed. Alea came through first, Aya half a step behind her. Alea looked around the room, found Lymur slumped in the chair, and brightened up.
"You survived," she said with a smile.
"Barely," he added. "I was thinking about my plant the entire time. Did it show?"
"You looked very statesmanlike."
"That's terrifying~."
"It really was," Aya said, which was the most she'd said in the last hour. Lymur pointed at her in acknowledgment.
Alea came and leaned against the wall near his chair. Aya took up a position nearby that was close enough to be present and far enough to be herself, which Lymur was starting to understand was just how she operated in rooms.
Lymur only just noticed then that he was surrounded by girls. He didn't let the thought show on his face.
"Mica introduced herself?" Alea asked.
"Mica did," Mica confirmed.
"How bad was it?"
"Mica was very professional!"
Alea looked at Varay.
"She walked into me," Varay said.
"Mica was excited!"
The door opened a third time, and this time the energy turned a different direction. Olfred Warend was a taller dwarf than Mica, and looked far older. He had a calm face and a measured way of moving that said he was the type to assess a room before he committed to being in it.
He looked at the collection of people — Lymur in the chair, Mica sitting like she owned it, Varay standing precisely, Alea and Aya in their respective positions — and seemed to find it acceptable.
"Olfred Warend," he said, to Lymur, with a nod that was professional without being stiff. "I've heard a great deal about you."
"Good things?" Lymur asked teasingly.
"Varied things," Olfred said, which Lymur respected for its honesty. "I look forward to working alongside you."
"Likewise."
Baron Wykes came in behind Olfred.
The room became slightly more awkward. Just the particular atmospheric shift that happened when two people who had a history entered the same space.
Baron scanned the room and found Lymur in the chair and his jaw tightened imperceptibly.
"Hey, Wykes," Lymur greeted pleasantly.
"Brightburn."
"How've you been?"
"Fine. Thank you."
"Good. You look well. The spark's looking healthy."
"..."
Olfred glanced between them like he was filing information away. Mica looked between them with considerably less subtlety.
"Mica is sensing history," she said.
"There's no history," Baron replied.
"We've met a couple of times," Lymur said, nodding. "We're old friends, in fact."
Baron's expression did something complicated.
"We are not — " He stopped, sighed, and found a place to stand near Olfred.
He doesn't actually hate me, Lymur thought, watching him. He's just not sure what to do with me yet.
He filed it away. There was time.
The talks after that moved the way they did when a group of people who didn't yet know each other were in a room together with the understanding that they would need to. Mica carried most of the energy, which suited everyone. Varay said precise things at precise intervals. Olfred asked questions that revealed he was more curious than his composure suggested. Alea stayed near Lymur, saying she'd already done the getting-to-know-you part and didn't need to do it again.
Lymur mostly watched and listened and said things when something occurred to him, which was often enough to keep him present and not so often that he dominated it. He was, he thought, getting better at rooms like this. Marginally, at least.
They seem good enough, he thought, looking around at the six of them. Whatever this Triunion Council was built to prepare for, if it comes down to people, this doesn't seem like a bad collection.
He didn't say that out loud. It would have required explaining how he'd arrived at it, which would have led to a longer conversation than he wanted to have right now when his collar was still slightly tight and he could still hear the crowd outside.
......
The goodbyes happened like how formal event goodbyes happened — efficiently but not quickly, if that made any sense, which it did to anyone who'd been to enough of them. There was a specific rhythm: find the right person, exchange the right words, exit without it becoming a whole thing.
Lymur became reasonably good at this and did it without incident.
Outside, Etistin was full of people who had just been told something significant and were processing it in public. The streets near the square were still thick with people. Further out they thinned, and further still they became the ordinary streets of a city that hadn't stopped being a city just because something historic had happened in its center.
Lymur flew around it with his jacket over one arm and his collar finally open and felt the specific, clean relief of being anonymous again.
He had been to Etistin before. Two years ago, on the way to the beach. But he hadn't gotten this far and was baffled at the sheer size of the city, several times larger than the floating city of Xyrus.
He'd come in, gone to the beach house, stayed a week, and left. He remembered the ocean and the seagull and Cynthia appearing beside him. He did not remember anything about the city itself because he hadn't been paying attention to it.
He intended to fix that now.
He started flying without a destination, which was his preferred method of seeing somewhere new without all the people reacting to his presence. The streets of Etistin were different from Xyrus — lower, wider, built around the fact of being a coastal city.
He found a market street and hovered above the length of it. He landed when the people thinned out, bought something fried from a stall run by an old woman who didn't recognize him, which was either because she was too busy or because fame didn't reach as far as he sometimes assumed, and ate it flying while looking down at what the other stalls had.
He found his way to the waterfront eventually without particularly trying.
The ocean again.
He stood at the railing above the harbor and looked at it. Same water, same horizon, different angle than the beach had been. The boats moved on it with the ease of things that had been doing this for a very long time and expected to keep doing it.
Arbiter of Dicathen, huh, he thought, looking at the water.
He tried to feel the weight of that and found that the ocean was very large and the water was very blue in the afternoon light and the fried thing had been quite good.
That's fine, he thought. I'll feel the weight of it later.
He stood at the railing for a while longer.
A seabird landed nearby and looked at him with assessing eyes.
"Don't," he said.
The bird looked at the bag where the fried thing had been.
"I don't have any left."
The bird remained unconvinced.
"It's extortion," Lymur told it. "You know that, right?"
The bird said nothing, which was, in his experience, what they always did right before they won.