A relentless beep tore Lorelei from her slumber. She tried to ignore it, reasoning it would cease on its own soon enough, but the sound betrayed her hopes and pressed on, indifferent to her suffering. Taking matters into her own hands, she opened her eyes and swept the room with a quick, bleary glance. Shiniel, who should have been lying in the bed next to hers, was nowhere to be found. The red fur blanket had been cast back against the wall, its crumpled shape proof that someone had risen in a hurry.
With next to no determination at all, Lorelei forced herself upright. Her silver cowlick wavered lightly before her eyes, reminding her—for just a fleeting, almost weightless moment—of her mother's. A memory that had only recently surfaced among the countless others she stored within her consciousness. And one she refused to pry into. The memories of her mother. The memories of Philia. She knew that doing so would almost certainly reveal who her mother had been, and possibly who her father was, too. For a child who had never spoken to her mother—who could not even recall her face from her own memories—Lorelei felt no desire to learn what kind of person her mother had been. She didn't need to dig through her past or hunt down blood relatives, because she feared it would awaken the feelings she had so desperately chained beneath the surface. She feared it would change her. Change who she was becoming. Change Reili.
The door creaked slowly open, letting in a dim light that chased back the darkness left by the tiny blue flame. A familiar gait entered the room, and the door clicked shut behind it. It was Shiniel. Carrying a lamp, she set it down on the nightstand between their beds and flicked it a few times before it sputtered to life. In contrast to the eerie blue, this flame shone a warm, bright yellow—a reminder of the beginning of spring.
"Morning."
"Goo-d morning…"
Lorelei yawned and stretched, hopping in place on her toest. One thing struck her the moment Shiniel entered: she was already fully dressed, black boots laced and grey jacket on. The ends of her hair had resumed the shape they'd held when Lorelei first met her—the tips spiking upward, almost as if defying gravity itself. Her hat had been pulled low over her eyes, and she seemed to be fidgeting with something stuck to the nightstand. From that same source came the beeping—a blue light that flickered in and out, matching the sound exactly.
"What are you doing?" Lorelei asked, cocking her head to the side.
"Blowing up this place," she answered calmly.
For a split second, the silence between them gave way to a—
"Huh?"
Spoken from the heart. Lorelei was utterly confused. The calm way Shiniel said it left no room for her to reassure herself by writing it off as a joke.
"You should grab your stuff while you're at it."
"You… can't poss—"
"We have thirty seconds before this thing blows. Hurry up."
The drowsiness Lorelei had woken with was nowhere to be found, as if it had been washed clean away by whatever Shiniel meant by "blowing up this place." Still shaken by how fast everything was moving, she pulled on the boots and jacket lying at the headrest and hurried to Shiniel's side.
"Stay there," she ordered, in that same indifferent voice.
"Where?"
Shiniel let out a long sigh before standing and walking to the door. Just when Lorelei thought she meant to open it, Shiniel turned around with her chest glowing of a pale blue.
"What. Wait. Wai—"
She raised her sword and struck down—unsheathed—at Lorelei, who instantly formed remnants of her own blade to block the attack. Unable to withstand the impact, the wound beneath her shattered, and her feet slipped straight through it. A frigid cold permeated from behind her body, sinking into the ground.
"What are you doing!" she screamed, both confused and annoyed.
A wall of ice had formed behind them, spanning almost the whole gap between the beds. Then, with the same unwavering cold expression, Shiniel turned and lashed violently at the wall. Strike after strike, as if she were painting a canvas—except instead of painting, she was destroying it. In mere seconds, with Lorelei's mouth left agape, Shiniel breached the wall, exposing them to the natural light of early morning. The sun sat directly adjacent to them, spilling its mighty rays over Lorelei, who shielded her eyes, stunned by the sudden display of its power.
"What the fuck are you doing!"
She quivered on the ground, trying to pull herself out of this ridiculous position.
"Hey! Answer me!"
Shiniel raised her cap with the same motion, displaying something close to pride, but seeing Lorelei's face, her expression turned clueless.
"What are you doing down there?"
"As if you didn't know!"
"Oh. I forgot I didn't introduce myself properly." Her expression lightened slightly. "I'm Shiniel Fareway. Call me Niel, or… Never mind, Niel is fine."
"I don't think it's time for introductions! What are you doing?!"
Shiniel cocked her head to the side. "I told you, no? I'm blowing up this place. If I do that, I think we could either kill the two members surveying us or shake them off somehow."
"Wouldn't you kill others by doing that too?"
"Oh—"
"Don't 'oh' me—"
Lorelei looked behind her, feeling an odd sensation of warmth. She understood what Shiniel's "Oh" meant. Shiniel quickly grabbed her cap with her right hand and Lorelei's jacket with her left before a white light engulfed them whole, giving Lorelei no time to react. The next second, she found herself flying across the skies with Shiniel still holding onto her. The ice wall had taken the force of the explosion behind them, and its pieces splattered in every direction. Shiniel had overestimated herself by placing just a single wall.
"Wha…"
It took Lorelei a second before she realized just what kind of situation they were in. She glanced at Shiniel, whose clothes floated in every direction as the wind current shifted unpredictably. Shiniel brought her hand to her mouth and puffed her cheeks. A long whistle mended and faded in the air before a loud screech answered. Lorelei felt the wind violently switch in a single direction before her body flew in an arc and flipped horizontally. A soft warmth bloomed beneath her, calming the surprise her body had been shaken up with.
Contrary to her, Shiniel calmly took the reins of the stingray and steered it forward with a single hand. Her back turned to Lorelei, the spiky ends of her hair flowed backwards, and so did the silver ends of her grey jacket. These metallic straps slapped her back to reality with their unyielding craving for attention.
"The fuck?"
She formed her sword out of the crimson substance and unsheathed it before tapping Shiniel on the shoulder.
"What was that about?!"
"What do you mean?"
Without turning around—even though she felt the crimson particles still emanating from the freshly formed blade.
"I explained it, no?"
"Couldn't you have told me that yesterday?! Why did you decide to blow up the place now?!"
Lorelei looked back at the barely visible column of light still looming over the town from the explosion. The energy particles drifted in the air, almost guided by the wind current stirred up by the creature's flight. They were rising slowly, not above the clouds, not below them, but just barely in the middle. Visibility decreased as water droplets condensed around them.
"Is this part of shaking them off too?"
"Shut up."
"Huh?"
"Shut up. I just told you. I'm trying to concentrate."
Lorelei was left slightly perplexed by Shiniel's reaction, but decided to back off without arguing. Right now, she could tell from Shiniel's—albeit indifferent—expression that they were in imminent danger. Without so much as a second to spare, they needed to leave Vileth.
"Don't let go."
Shiniel turned around and grabbed Lorelei's jacket before jumping down from Vivas. A split second later, a beam of light pierced through it, bursting a clean hole clean through. Its purple blood splattered in the air before its body blitzed past them. Before they could lose control and start spinning uncontrollably, Shiniel held Lorelei's jacket tightly and guided both their bodies into a horizontal stance, legs half curled up. Even under such intense pressure, Shiniel's face remained calm and composed.
"They are here."
Lorelei understood who "they" were without needing much explanation. Their explosion had failed to blur their traces, and the body of the creature nosing down at an exhilarating speed was proof of it.
"What Eye do you have?"
"What?!"
"It's not time to hide things from me. This is about both our survival. What Eye of Fate do you possess?"
Lorelei was taken aback by the sudden timing of this question, but what bothered her most was:
How does she know that?
She wanted to voice her thoughts, but her face revealed more than enough. Both of their hair was spiking up, seemingly pulled the opposite way from their bodies—though it was only an illusion, conjured by the speed at which they were approaching the ground.
"Time," Lorelei answered after a brief silence. "Eye of Time."
Although she didn't fully possess the powers of the Eye of Time, she did possess one of its numerals. The numeral twelve. The ability to stop time.
"Is that why you cover your left eye with that eyepatch, huh? Lorelei…"
Her gaze hardened at once.
"Do you trust me?"
Trust. A word Lorelei had learned to despise. But she knew the nature of this word spoken by Shiniel wasn't friendship; it was a contract. Doubt still harboring in her mind, she spoke clearly.
"No… But I believe in you."
Lorelei wasn't ready to be betrayed again. She wasn't sure she could handle it. She didn't know if she could repress those feelings any longer if she were to be betrayed once more. So she chose to believe that Shiniel wouldn't betray her—and not to trust her.