Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Natalya, go get your brother, dinner is ready.” the warm voice of her mother sounded through the house. She ran outside, finding Misha in the woods behind the house, playing.

“Come on, Misha, food’s getting cold.”, she called out to him.

The six-year-old looked up. “Talya, look what I found!”

She walked over there to take a look and plucked some leaves out of his blond hair. “Look at you, you’re a mess, as always.” She smiled though.

There was an explosion, and people started screaming, then, everything happened fast.

“Misha, stay here! Hide, don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe!” Natalya ran back to the house to see what was going on.

Bandits. Utilising Blades. Raiding and burning. When she got to the house, it was already on fire. She found her father, his throat slit, in the field in front of the house, her mother was lying in the doorway, barely alive.

“Natalya? Where’s Mikhail?”, she breathed.

“I told him to hide.”

“Good. Look after your little brother for me.”

“Mum, it’s going to be okay. You’ll be fine. Please, don’t go! Don’t leave us!” But it was too late, her mother was already gone.

Behind her a small scream sounded. Ice cold fear ran down Natalya’s spine. Mischa! He’d followed her! Why didn’t he ever listen to her? The next thing she knew was being picked up by the collar by a huge brick of a man.

“Well, what do we have here?”, he grinned. “Would you look at that, two pretty faces like yours are going to fetch us a nice price!”

They got dragged from the village to a ship stashed in the hold like cargo. That was the last time she saw Misha. She got dragged off board in Mor Ardain, sold off to a group of mercenaries, she had no idea what happened to Mischa after that.

The next four years, she spent training and running errands for these people. They weren’t cruel or anything, and they taught her a lot, but it wasn’t home. Though, when the news came that Estham had fallen in the Aegis War, Natalya felt nothing. After all, all that had been home about Estham was long gone. Her home, her parents, everyone was dead. Mikhail could still be alive somewhere, but even he wasn’t on Estham anymore, so Natalya really didn’t care about the end of the Titan. All she cared about was the possibility of her little brother still being alive somewhere out there. She had to find him. Natalya started using her time away on missions to gather information on the bandits who had sold her and her brother four years ago. It took some time, but eventually, she found some clues. They lead all the way to Torna.

Her debt to the mercenaries had long since been paid. When she told Quinn she wanted to leave, he did not protest. Rather, when she told him what she was going to do, he actually seemed to understand. And so four years after she had last seen Misha, Natalya was on a ship again, headed out towards Torna, to find him again. She was going to find him again. He was still alive and he was alright, he had to be!

Her leads lead her to a small village in the Lasaria Region. Porton Village, it was called. The trail of leads ended there, so Misha had to be there. But when she got there, all she found was ashes, ruins and corpses. No trace of Misha, tough she found a number of smaller bones, any of them could have – she did not allow herself to finish that thought. Perhaps he hadn’t been there after all, there was still a chance, perhaps – she’d search for more leads in the capital, perhaps she would find a trace of him somewhere.

But there was no trace of Misha anywhere to be found. Not in any of the adjacent regions, not in the capital, he simply seemed to have vanished off the map. No one seemed to have seen him. Natalya had lost all hope of finding him. Then the sky blackened with monstrous machines and carnage broke out in the capital. Two boys ran past her, a Gormotti with grey-brown hair and – Natalya’s heart stopped, as she caught a glimpse of familiar blue eyes and blond hair. Could it be? She screamed his name and he turned around. For a brief moment, their eyes met across the distance, then the explosion hit the ground right between them. Natalya did not remember anything that happened after.

Natalya woke on what looked like a ship. Ardainian from the looks of it.

“What happened?”

An older woman approached her. “We were attacked. The Aegis. You were on the outside of the blast radius of one of the explosions, so you were lucky, you didn’t get hurt much, but you need to rest, and stay still.”

“What about everyone else in the square?”

“Looking for anyone specific?”

“My brother, Mikhail, he’s ten, blond, blue eyes.”

The woman looked sad. “I’m sorry, there is no one matching that description on this ship.”

“I have to go back there! I have to go find him!”

The woman held onto her shoulders. “I’m sorry, but you can’t. The Tornan Titan, you see, it sank into the Cloud Sea. If your brother was still there, he is gone now. I’m sorry.”

“No!” It couldn’t be! Natalya buried her face in her hands. I’m sorry mother. I couldn’t keep my promise. Why did carnage always have to follow her?

Chapter Text

The ship was headed to Indol for refuge. In the past, Indol had been known to take in refugees of the Aegis War and help with their relocation – at least that was, what they had heard. And there were not really many other places to turn.

Natalya hated Indol from the moment she first stepped foot on it. The clinical brightness, the cold ethereal buildings reaching for the skies as if they too wanted to escape the stuffy people roaming their halls. All that made her want to run and never come anywhere near here ever again, but there wasn't really anywhere else to go. There was no one left, just her. Even Mikhail was gone now. It was Indol or the depths of the Cloud Sea, and Natalya didn't quite like the idea of dying just yet. She'd made it this far. No one else had been this lucky. She owed it to them to keep going. Natalya promised herself that was going to live, no matter what. She may hate this place, but there wasn't really any reason to be afraid of Indol. After all, what could they possibly do to her that hadn't already been done to her? She'd lost her home, her family, and even her country had sunk beneath the Cloud Sea, never to be seen again, and now, even little Misha was gone. What else did she have to lose? What more did she have left that Indol could take from her?

~

She'd had no idea, back then, when she’d first come here. She'd thought she'd lost everything, that there was nothing she possibly had left to give. But the bastards at Indol had found a way to take even more. It took more than a couple monks to hold her down while she struggled.

“No! You can’t do this!”, she screamed, but the Indoline monk just smiled down at her with his leery smile, eyes hidden behind his strange glasses.

“Oh, but we can.”, he sneered, before one of the guards knocked her unconscious.

When Natalya came to, she was cold and in pain. She would have thought she’d be used to the cold by now, but this was different. It wasn’t the cold of an icy wind on her face. It felt more like she had gotten stuck in the middle of a frozen lake. The cold bit at every fibre of her being, but when Natalya opened her eyes, the room she was in was bright and dry and there was sunlight shining through the window. She could feel the warmth tickling her face, but it did not reach the cold biting her bones. She looked down at herself to see a bright blue perfectly round crystal stuck in her chest. So that was where the pain and cold were coming from! Natalya tried pulling at the gem, but it wouldn’t move. It was embedded to deeply within her chest. Why was it so cold? What did they do to her? Slowly, the memories started trickling in, the Judician experiments at the refugee camp, the Praetorium, the Blade cores. Natalya shuddered at the crystal in her chest. A core crystal. She’d thought Indol couldn’t take anymore from her, she had never thought they would be able to take her humanity.

“You are awake.”, a chilling slimy voice sounded from behind her.

Natalya twisted around to see the Indoline monk stare at her through his creepy bronze glasses. It had been him. He had done this to her. And to that Blade that was now stuck inside her. Cold icy hatred rose in her chest. How could they?

~

Quite some time had passed, since the Praetorium had turned Natalya into a Blade Eater. She had started to get used to it, the pain was not as strong anymore, but the Ice-Blade’s cold remained. Natalya would still wake up shivering every morning and no amount of clothes seemed to drive out the chill completely, though it wasn’t like Indol cared enough to give her any additional clothing to what she’d been wearing when they forced the core crystal into her chest anyway, so there really was no way to tell.

The testing on her continued. They had tried to make her fight for them in the beginning, but Natalya had refused. Found herself “incapable" of summoning her Blade’s weapon. So she was declared a failed experiment and locked away in a cell until such time as the Praetor decided she would be of use to him. But Natalya knew, sooner or later, she would be disposed of. Along with all the other refugees that shared her fate.

Natalya wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to the consciousness of the Blade whose crystal they had used, or their body. She hoped the process had not completely erased them, but even if it hadn’t, what was left surely wasn’t a pleasant existence. But why would Indol care about something like that. They had never seen Blades as more than tools. They would never care about causing them pain or harm. Natalya on the other hand did care. And she vowed that she would make them pay. Natalya did not know how yet, but she would find a way! She had to.

~

Somehow she’d made it outside the walls of the Praetorium, but the guards were already looking for her and there was nowhere to run. She should have planned her escape more carefully. If she could not get off the Titan quickly, they would find her, and there was no way they would let her escape them a second time. She pulled the cloak tighter around her chest and made sure to not walk to hastily, to not seem in a hurry. Someone behind her yelled. Natalya turned and saw guards spilling into the square. No! She panicked and quickly ducked into the shadows of a side street – and collided headfirst with a person.

“Nat?”

She looked up and recognised Liam, her friend from the Mor Ardain mercenary group.

“What are you doing here?”, his eyes dropped to the glowing crystal in her chest. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I’ll explain later, can you get me out of here?”

“Sure.”, Liam took off his coat. “Here, put this on, cover up that core crystal, before anybody asks any questions.”

He led her out of the city. When they were off the Titan, Natalya told him her story.

“So you didn’t find him after all?”

Natalya shook her head.

“Do you think he could still be out there somewhere?”

“He’s ten, how could he have possibly survived all that?”

“You’re barely thirteen, and you’re still here.”

“I had a lot training, and I got lucky.”

“So what do you want to do now? We can’t go back to the guild. After you left, Quinn got killed while out on a mission. There was a lot of disagreement, about who would come after him, but in the end, Darragh came out on top. And well, just as we always expected, he turned out to be a nightmare.”

“Whatever it is, I need to lie low, until I figure out a way to make Indol pay for what they did. Until then, it would be best, if they didn’t find me.”

“I have some friends in Gormott, we could probably lay low there for a while.”

~

Things went moderately well for a while. Things started getting difficult, when Natalya’s aging began to slow down and then stopped completely when her body reached her twenties.

“We could try to pass you off as my blade.”, Liam suggested.

“No. People will expect me to fight with Blade weapons, and I am never ever going to touch those!”

“Why not?”

“Drivers are bad news. They destroyed my village; they killed my parents. Just think of what Darragh is like. All Drivers ever do is use their Blades for their own gain, with no regard for them or others. Those bastards at Indol were just the same. And the Blade they put inside me has never gotten any say in the matter. I’m not going to use them like everyone else has. I refuse to be anything like Indol!”

“Okay, okay, Nat, I get it. We’ll be fine if we just keep moving, but I’m starting to get too old to be your older brother. I guess I’ll be your father in the next town we go to.”

“Thank you. You know you don’t have to bother though, why do you keep going through so much trouble for me?”

Liam shrugged. “I don’t have anyone left either and besides, don’t you remember what I told you when you came to us all those years ago? Us child soldiers have to stick together.”

Chapter Text

Liam stayed with her for another forty years, for the last of them, they hid away in a tiny cottage in the outback of Gormott, with Natalya looking after her aging “grandfather”. In the end, he left her too. It had been over seventy years since the events on Torna and in Indol. And Natalya still did not have a plan for how she could get Indol to pay for their sins. But she did know that they kept collecting core crystals for something. Most likely to create more victims lie her and her Ice-Blade. Natalya had gotten used to the chill in her blood, the cold was still uncomfortable, and she was still shivering almost all the time, but she was resigned to never being rid of it.

Perhaps there was no way to punish Indol, no way to get them to pay, but there was still something she could do. She could stop them from getting their hands on as many core crystals as possible. Every crystal that didn’t make it back to Indol was one saved Blade. Having buried Liam next to their cottage, Natalya said her final goodbye and set off.

~

She was running through the streets of another city, a bag of core crystals slung around her back. Liam had taught her well. She was fast, a couple more turns and they would never catch up to her. The experience helped too. She had been doing this for well over a hundred years now and this wasn’t her first close encounter. Natalya would disappear and the core crystals would sink to the bottom of the Cloud Sea with the others she had collected so far. But she made a mistake. She looked behind her to check on her pursuers, and collided headfirst with a group of guards.

“There you are!”, their leader growled, gripping her shoulder so tightly she screamed. “Take the crystals and lock her up!”, he sneered at her, “The Praetor has been looking forward to personally disposing of a troublemaker like you!”

“Let me go!”

Natalya screamed and struggled, but his grip only tightened on her, as he dragged her further down the street. No, not back to Indol, anywhere but there! The bottom of the Cloud Sea was better than that place! Natalya looked around, but she knew, no one would help her. This was an empty side street, there was no one around. For a second Natalya thought she saw a shadow on the other end of the alley, but when she blinked it was gone. There was no one there. No one was coming for her. It was over. For a moment, Natalya resigned herself. She would finally be able to see her parents again. Misha. It had been so long since she had last seen her little brother. She missed him so much. But could she face him after all this? After she had failed him so badly? After she had survived for so long, while he hadn’t? For the first couple decades after she’d left Indol, Natalya had always kept a lookout. She’d never lost hope that she might find Misha somewhere, but even if that boy she’d seen so briefly had been him, even if he’d survived that blast, even if he’d made it off the Titan before it sank, he would have died of old age a long time ago by now. Natalya had stopped looking. Would he forgive her for that too? For giving up?

She felt a gust of familiarly cold wind on her face, and the monks around her collapsed on the ground. Natalya staggered against the wall to catch her balance and raised her gaze to find a masked silver-haired man standing amongst the carnage, watching her with cold ice-blue eyes. Was he going to kill her too? No. If he had wanted to kill her, she would already be just as dead as the Praetorian guards around her.

“Who are you? Why did you help me?”

He ignored her, instead leaning down to fish something out of one of the monks' pockets. Natalya studied him more closely. That armour he was wearing. She’d seen it before. Natalya blinked. Torna. That was Tornan armour, he was wearing! Was he from –? Her heart stopped a moment. A survivor? But how? It had been so long since the Tornan Titan had sunk beneath the waves, most of its people had been assimilated into other cultures by now. Who was this? The man rose and his cold eyes met hers again. The iciness in them reminded her of the crystal in her chest. Was he –

“Go. More will be coming.”

His voice was rough, his tone cold. He seemed utterly without feeling, except for those burning cold eyes, which seemed to hide a deep sadness. Natalya wondered, what had he lost when Torna sank beneath the clouds? Well, whoever he was, Natalya thought, he most likely wasn’t human, no human could move like that – or live long enough to be a survivor of that time. More importantly, though, he was not with the Praetorium. After all, he had just killed a number of their men without batting an eye. The enemy of her enemy. Natalya decided that had to be good enough.

“And go where? Like you said, more are coming, they will find me, if not this time, then the next time I get in their way.”

“Where were you headed before this?”

“Doesn’t matter, as long as I get in their way.”, Natalya admitted, staring at the floor. “I have to –”, she thought it better not to explain what she’d been doing to a perfect stranger.

The masked man blinked. She must have hit a nerve. Natalya took a deep breath.

“Let me come with you.”

“What?”

“Whoever you are,”, Natalya indicated to the bodies around her, “you don’t seem to like them either. And you seem to have a plan. Let me help. Let me make them pay.”

He still hesitated. Natalya was almost certain he would say no, when a young man around her age turned the corner. He looked distantly familiar. Blond hair that fell in strands around his face and eyes so blue they put the skies to shame. There was a cat's smile playing on his lips as he sauntered down the street towards them. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw him, but she dismissed the thought immediately. It was impossible. He too was wearing Tornan armour. Another survivor? Who were these people? From the looks of it, they seemed close. Closer than friends. Family then? A father and son that survived the fall of Torna, perhaps? But that couldn’t possibly be – Natalya did not understand any of this, but any theory was better than the thought that knocked at the adamantine wall in the back of her mind, trying to send her memories that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Jin? Did you get it?”, he asked, then stopped when he noticed Natalya. His eyes widened slightly, and his cat’s smile slipped for a moment, as he took her in. It wasn’t long though before he caught himself, cocked his head to the side and smirked. “I thought we were done picking up strays.”

The man, Jin, turned away from Natalya.

“We are not here to pick up anyone.”, he said.

The young man raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” His eyes drifted again to her chest, and Natalya noticed that in the scuffle from earlier, her shirt had torn and the crystal in her chest sat exposed. “She seems like one of us.”

“She’s human.”, Jin said, his voice laced with disgust.

“So am I, remember?”, he winked at Jin.

“She’s a common core crystal thief.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we seem like we have completely honourable motives right about now. Did you ask her what she was going to do with them?”

Jin sighed. “Fine. If you want to keep her, fine. But you’re explaining it to Malos.”

The young man reached a hand towards her.

“I’m Mikhail. I am like you. What’s your name?” Her heart stopped beating. No, she told herself. This was pure coincidence. Mikhail was a common name.

“Natalya.”

Mikhail frowned ever so briefly. “Well, then, Nat, do you want to come with us?”

She noted the way he used her name. Nat. Misha always called her Talya. Of course, it couldn’t have been him. Natalya looked again at the Praetorian guards at her feet. From the way they were acting, neither of these men was a stranger to such violence. These were not the first bodies they’d left in their wake, and they would certainly not be the last. But the Praetorium deserved it. For all Indol had done, to the Blades, to Torna, and to her, they deserved all that was coming to them. Natalya met Mikhail’s deep blue eyes, that were far too familiar for her liking, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”, he turned to Jin, “We'd better get a move on, before we get more company.”

Natalya buttoned her coat up to cover up the crystal again – luckily that one had stayed more or less intact, although one of the sleeves definitely needed mending – and the three of them made their way towards the port.

Chapter Text

Natalya had never seen a ship like this before. Sleek and black with gold plating, imposing and threatening, the kind of frightening beauty that warned of the danger lurking within. But most importantly, there was no Titan in sight. Something else must be powering that ship. Who were these people? Natalya guessed she would know soon enough.

Malos, as it turned out, was even less likeable than Jin. Jin may have been cold as ice, but Malos was a different story entirely. There was something in his eyes that reminded her of the Praetor, full of a dark determination that made her pray he would never be her enemy. But it seemed he was satisfied enough with her anger towards Indol to not toss her into the Cloud Sea straight away.

Torna. That’s what they called themselves. Named for the Golden Country that fell in the last days of the Aegis War and the people devastated by Indol in the aftermath. Her new home, named for the place that had killed her little brother. Yet, somehow, she could not bring herself to hate it. They had all lost just as much as her. A group of survivors of Indol's reign of terror, dead set on vengeance against the Praetorium at any cost. Malos, Jin, Mikhail, two others Natalya had not yet met, and now her. Natalya pitied those who would try to stand in their way. Though looking at Malos and Jin and the power and strength radiating from every fibre of their being, Natalya understood his reservations, she might have become a decent thief, but was probably still the most useless member of their group.

“You’re shivering.”, Mikhail noted, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I’m cold.”, Natalya shrugged. “Pay it no mind, I’ve been that way since…”, she trailed off.

Mikhail’s eyes shone with understanding. “Ice Blade?”, he guessed.

Natalya stared wide-eyed. “How’d you?”

Mikhail pointed to his own chest, and a fan-shaped blue crystal flickered briefly into view.

“You and I are the same, I guess.”, he said, almost wistfully.

No, he wasn’t her Misha, though he reminded her so much of him it hurt, but it was just wishful thinking on her part. Some foolish lingering hope that she could see him again. But even if Mikhail wasn’t her Misha, Natalya felt like she couldn’t help but like him. It felt nice. Her first friend since Liam had died.

“Where are we going?”, she asked.

“I thought you might want to see your room. You’ll be sharing it with Patroka. She’s got an attitude, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a façade, I think she does actually care way more than she lets on.”

Mikhail trailed off and Natalya was not quite sure whether he had been talking to her or rather himself. Either way, she was already a little weary of her new roommate.

“Are they like us too? Are they –”, Natalya swallowed, she hated the word, it still tasted like poison on her tongue.

“Blade Eaters?”, Mikhail laughed. “No. That’s just us, to be honest, I never thought anyone else had made it out of Indol’s experiments alive, I thought I was the only one left. No, Akhos and Patroka, they are more like Jin. Flesh Eaters.”

“And Malos? His energy…”

“You noticed, huh? Yeah, Malos is different from us entirely, but none of that is my story to tell, if you want to know, it’s best to ask them, or, where Jin and Malos are concerned, wait until they tell you, you might not like the consequences otherwise.”, he winked at her. “Ah, here we are.”, he announced a moment later, gesturing to a door on her right. “I have to go help Jin with the cooking, but I’ll see you later. Patroka should be back soon.”

And with those words and a small wave, he was gone. Too quickly for her to not believe he fled the scene.

Natalya’s hand hesitated on the door handle. She took a deep breath, opened the door and looked at the room in front of her. It wasn’t big, but it looked comfortable. There was a bed against each sidewall and a small wardrobe in the corner. Natalya was about to take a step into the room, wondering which bed was supposed to be Patroka’s, when someone yelled at her from the corridor.

“You!”

Natalya whirled to see a woman, about her height with long smooth black hair walk towards her.

“Patroka?”, she guessed.

“I see Mikhail just dropped you here. Does he expect me to babysit for him?”, she asked harshly.

“I don't need a babysitter!” This was ridiculous, she was almost 200 years old at this point. “Just tell me which bed is yours so I can sit down.”

“Left.” Patroka stepped past her and opened the wardrobe, took out a uniform and tossed it at her.

“And put that on, you look ghastly in those rags and maybe you'll stop shivering when you’re wearing something proper.”

Natalya doubted the clothes would help with the shivering, but she knew better than to argue. No doubt she'd already antagonised Patroka enough – not that she had any clue about what she’d done, but Natalya thought it best not to ask. So she just thanked her and changed. It had been an eternity since she’d worn Tornan clothing. The old woman who had patched her up on the refugee ship had given her a dress of her daughter’s to wear, as her own clothes had been horribly torn from the blast. She’d worn it for most of her early life after Indol, until she eventually did grow out of it.

Mikhail poked his head into the room sometime later.

“Jin said to get you, dinner is ready.”, he stopped and surveyed Natalya then turned to Patroka. “You gave her your clothes? I knew you had a soft spot buried under all that stone.”

Patroka hissed at him. “I have no idea what your problem is. Her chattering teeth annoyed me and besides, it's not like those are my clothes anyway.”

With that, she stomped past him. Mikhail looked after her, opened his mouth, then apparently thought better of it, and turned back to Natalya.

“These don't look too shabby on you.”

“Thanks. I never thought I’d be wearing something like this ever again.”

Mikhail's eyes widened. “Are you from –"

“Torna? No. But I was there for a while. It seems like it was an eternity ago. Back before –” Natalya shook her head, trying to dispel the memories of her last days in Torna from her mind, especially the face that accompanied them.

Mikhail seemed to sense her distress. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“We better go, or I'll have to listen to one of Jin's lectures about letting the food get cold.”, he laughed, “Come on.”

Chapter Text

The dining room was enormous, Natalya assumed it had been designed to house a hundred people at least, but apart from one rectangular table placed right by the kitchen door, it was mostly empty except for a few more chairs that stood discarded in a corner. The table was large enough that it could have comfortably fit about a dozen people, but at the moment, there were only three chairs placed on either of the longer sides. Despite the large size of the room itself, the mouth-watering smell of a home-cooked meal still perforated the entire room. Natalya found herself seated in an empty chair next to Mikhail, opposite a dark-haired boy with bright blue eyes and rectangular glasses.

“You must be Natalya. I'm Akhos.”, he introduced himself to her briefly, before joining Patroka in recounting their last trip to Malos and Jin. Apparently they had been scouting and found out about some Indoline transport vessel full of core crystals that was due to leave Tantal in a few days. Natalya was not really sure what she could contribute to this conversation so instead she dug into her food and almost moaned audibly when she tasted it. She couldn't remember ever eating food this delicious. The taste was exquisite, and the warmth seeped through her body warming her to her bones, and for the first time in almost 200 years, Natalya actually wasn't shivering anymore.

The effect did not last, however. By the time dinner had ended and she and Patroka had returned to their rooms, the cold had begun to seep in again.

“Do you ever stop shivering?” Patroka hissed, twisting in her bed.

“I'm sorry, I can't help it.”

“Well, go shiver somewhere else. I need my rest, and your teeth are clattering so loud, I can't sleep.”

And with that, she'd gotten up and pushed Natalya out of the room.

Natalya stood in front of the room, not entirely sure what had just happened, both hands still clutching her blanket. She sighed. There was no point in going back in there, she did not want Patroka to hate her completely, so perhaps it would do to give her some space. Natalya turned and walked down the corridor, wrapping the blanket around her tightly.

She wandered around aimlessly for a while, before somehow finding herself on the steering deck, staring out at the vastness of clouds in front of her. She sat down and just watched as they whirled before her.

“Couldn't sleep?” Akhos was leaning against the door. A blanket was loosely draped around his shoulders like a cape. He looked like a knight from an old fairy tale.

“More like Patroka couldn't sleep so she kicked me out.”

Akhos laughed. “Oh, yes, my sister can be difficult sometimes. She takes a while to warm up to people, don't take it too hard.”

“Your sister?”, Natalya asked, surprised.

“Oh, it's quite the tale.”, Akhos said, sitting down on the floor beside her. “Our Drivers were brother and sister. They were quite close, joined a mercenary group together, fought side by side, a perfect duo. My Driver, Xander, and I got separated from Patroka and Roxane in our last battle together. We ended up getting overwhelmed by enemies and Xander got hurt so badly even my healing arts couldn’t do anything to save him.” Akhos paused, tousling his hair with his right hand, and almost succeeding in making it look like he was pausing for dramatic effect. But one look into his eyes, focussed so intently on the clouds outside, told Natalya a different story. She knew that look of guilt marring his face. It was the same look that haunted her own eyes every time she remembered. Survivor’s guilt. She reached over and placed a comforting hand on his knee. Akhos took a deep breath and turned to look at her.

“It’s been a long time.”, he said.

“Doesn’t mean it can’t still hurt.” Losing Misha still hurt her, and that happened well over 18 decades ago.

Akhos stared at her for a moment. Then apparently noticed her shivering. “Are you cold?”

Natalya nodded. “Yes, but it's okay, I’m used to it.”

Akhos' eyes softened.

“Here, you can have some of my blanket, I don't really need it that much anyway.”, he said, wrapping the blanket around both of their shoulders. “Better?”

Strangely enough, it actually was. Curious. Usually, no number of blankets was enough to warm her.

“A little.”, Natalya admitted. “What are you doing here anyway?”, she asked, trying to change the subject to something lighter.

Akhos shrugged. “I don't really sleep much these days. And when I do, it's not pleasant, so I tend to just come here, when I can't sleep. It's quiet, and far enough away from everyone else that I usually don't disturb anyone if I wake up from a nightmare.”

“Oh.” Natalya bit her lip. “Want to tell me about it? That nightmare?”

“It’s not a pleasant tale.”, Akhos warned.

“Hardly anything in this world is. We live in an age of tragedies.”

Akhos laughed. “How poetic of you.”, he took a deep breath. “Mostly, my nightmares are related to what I told you earlier. They start out with everything being fine, and then Xander dies, and I can’t do anything to save him.”, Akhos shuddered. “He was a good Driver – and an even greater brother. Even when he was dying, the only thing he thought about was his little sister. He was so worried about her being in danger, he asked me to become a Flesh Eater, begged me to look after Roxane, even when he wasn’t able to anymore.” He sighed. “And I promised him that I would, but by the time I found Patroka, Roxane was already gone and Patroka was – well, as it turns out, our Drivers were more similar than even we had anticipated.” Akhos groaned in frustration. “I promised Xander I’d look after Roxane for him, but I was too late. My last words to him, and I let him down” Akhos ran his hands through his hair again. With all pretence gone, he looked so pitiful, and all Natalya wanted to do was ease the pain that marred his face, not quite knowing what she could do though, she put her arm around his shoulder and patted his back reassuringly. Akhos sighed. “I thought since there’s still a part of him that lives on in me, perhaps there is still a chance for me to keep my promise. That if I protect the part of Roxane that still lives in Patroka, I can keep both of them alive.”, he sighed. “Patroka thinks it's ridiculous for me to hold on to a notion like that. Of course that is just her own way of dealing with the situation. Roxane was everything to her. Part of me would like to agree with her, but I just can't help it. I don’t know if it is because of Xander, or my own feelings, but I look at her, and I see my sister, and I know I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

Natalya had no idea what to say. She wanted to console him, but the right words for this situation just didn’t exist. She took a deep breath and tried anyway. “I think it's nice.”

“What?”

“That you knew the human whose life you carry. That you got to make memories with them, that you have something like that. I never got the chance to meet the Blade I was fused with. And now, it's too late. I envy you for that chance.”

They sat in silence for a while, staring out at the cloud sea.

“Will you tell me about them?”, Natalya asked, “Xander and Roxane?”

“Why?”

“You said your nightmares are about losing them, seems to me most of your thoughts concerning them are, but you must have happy ones too. Memories, I mean, ones that aren’t filled with regret. Perhaps, remembering the good times could help you. And besides, from what you’ve told me, they seem like really great people. I’d like to know more about them.” It did not help her, because 8 years of happy childhood memories, most of which she could not even recall, had never been enough to make up for all the regret that came with her broken home and promises. But Akhos was not her, Xander was not Misha, this was a different case. It might actually help him.

Akhos smiled. “Alright.”, he said, and began his tale.

At some point though, they must have fallen both asleep, though, because the next thing Natalya knew was waking up to the sultry tone of Mikhail's voice. “So this is where you sneak off to every night, Akhos.”

Slowly, consciousness started drifting towards her and Natalya remembered where she was. The steering deck. But she was leaning against something other than the wall from yesterday. It was warm, firm, but comfortable and it had a heartbeat.

Natalya jolted upright as if she'd been burnt, and Akhos' arm fell off her shoulder. She looked at him, but Akhos seemed more bothered with having been woken up than with the sleeping arrangement. He blinked at Mikhail with sleep-drunken eyes.

“Was I asleep?”, he sounded surprised.

“You were sleeping so soundly, I was actually considering letting you stay that way for once, but I figured neither of you would like the others to find you like this, so I decided to wake you up before Malos gets here.”, he winked. “Well, that’s it, I'm actually done here, if anyone asks, I'll be in my lab.” And with that and a wave in their direction, Mikhail was gone.

Akhos sat up and stretched. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I haven't slept this well in ages. Come to think of it, I don't even remember the last time I slept through the night.”, he looked at her. “You stopped shivering.”

Natalya blinked. She had, hadn't she? She also wasn't cold at all right now. Akhos, it seemed, read her surprise.

“You were cold yesterday at dinner too, are you always freezing?”

“I've been cold since Indol decided it would be a good idea to stick an Ice-Blade’s core crystal into my chest without asking either me or the Blade. I actually thought I'd be like that for the rest of my life, but I'm fine right now. I was doing quite well after yesterday's food as well, but that did not last...”, Natalya trailed off, unsure of why she'd told him this much. She barely knew him. Then again, he had spent yesterday evening telling her story after story of his life before his Driver's death, so perhaps it was alright for her to tell him some things as well. Akhos was watching her tentatively for a moment, then, instead of asking her questions, as she would have expected, he just straightened his glasses and smirked.

“Yeah, Jin's cooking is known to work miracles. None of us know where he picked up a skill like that, but who are we to complain.” He got to his feet and reached out a hand to pull her up as well. “Speaking of food, I'm starving. Do you want breakfast?”

“Sure, I'll just drop this off first.”, she pointed at her blanket.

Akhos nodded. “Yeah, good idea. Then I guess I'll see you in the dining hall.” He picked up his own blanket, pushed his glasses up the ridge of his nose, winked at her and left. Natalya was left behind, holding her blanket, and wondering what just happened and why her heart was beating so fast. She really hoped he hadn’t been able to hear it.

Chapter Text

“And where have you been?” Patroka asked sharply by way of greeting, with her hands on her hips. The tone and look of a person who had once cared way too deeply and tried to deal with it by attempting not to care about anything ever again – and failing miserably.

“Well, you kicked me out, so I had to find somewhere else to sleep.” Natalya did not feel like explaining herself to Patroka, especially since she could already feel the cold creeping up from her toes again. Patroka was Akhos' sister, she might misunderstand the situation and things between her and Patroka would get even more complicated than they already were. Natalya did not want Patroka to hate her. Right now, all she wanted was to go back to the steering deck. It had been really warm there. But she said nothing. Instead, she tossed her folded blanket on her bed and left the bedroom, with Patroka not far behind.

She found the dining room currently occupied by both Jin and Malos. Natalya felt a little disappointed to see that Mikhail was nowhere around. Out of all of her new allies, he was the least terrifying. Or rather he was terrifying, but for an entirely different reason that she did not want to think of just now. And then, well, there was Akhos, who definitely wasn’t unpleasant, but Natalya was quite sure she did not want to know what he thought of her after last night, so she really did not want to bother him any more than she already had. She took a deep breath. These were her allies, there was no reason to be scared of them, she told herself, while ignoring the part of herself that was screaming at her to turn around and run away.

“Good morning.”

Jin and Malos turned their heads to look into her direction, and Natalya felt like she wanted to disappear into a cloud of smoke. But they just nodded in unison by way of greeting. That was probably the best she was going to get, Natalya thought.

“Where’s Akhos?”, Patroka asked stomping past Natalya as if she wasn’t even there.

Jin shrugged. “Still sleeping, probably.”

Malos shook his head. “Sleeping? Akhos? I think not. Though it is odd. He doesn’t usually miss breakfast.”

“Who’s missing breakfast?”, chirped a voice far too close to her ear.

“Where were you?” Patroka fumed at him.

Akhos smirked. “Oh, my dear Patroka, I never knew you cared, sister!”, he said, passing Natalya and sitting down at the table. There was only a slight mockery in his tone, but Natalya thought Patroka must have picked up on it too, because she shot him a glaring look.

“Only because Mikhail woke me up when he was trying to find you, earlier. And for the last time, you and I are not siblings. You are not my brother; you are nothing to me!”

A shadow passed Akhos face, visible for less than the fraction of a second, but Natalya still felt the stab of Patroka's words in her own heart. Akhos, however, caught himself again immediately and just tilted his head and winked at her. “Whatever you say, my dear sister.”, he emphasised the last word.

“Natalya,”, Jin’s cold voice sliced through the air like a rapier through butter, “Are you going to stand there all morning, or are you going to eat something?” Natalya realised that she hadn’t moved since she’d entered this room. Hesitantly, she walked towards the table and sat down. The porridge wasn’t hot, but strangely enough, just like the dinner the day before, it drove away the cold that had started to creep back in.

“So Natalya,”, Malos began, “What weapon do you fight with?”

“Whatever I can get my hands on. I was sold to a band of mercenaries after my village was burnt down, I was a quick study.”

Malos shook his head. “That’s admirable, but I meant your Blade weapon. I’d be interested in seeing it.”

“No.”

“What?”, his tone was dangerously dark and forewarning, the voice of a man not used to hearing the word ‘no’. She had made a terrible mistake, but this was what she had sworn to herself the moment she’d awakened after that dreadful day in Indol. She would not be like them, not even if it killed her.

“I said no. That is out of the question.”

“Why?”, Malos growled, the kind of growl, after which no one could have faulted her for complying, but Natalya was not afraid enough of him to back down. Her resolution was the only thing she had left, after all, she was not going to give that up as well.

“First of all, it’s not my weapon. It belongs to a Blade I’ve never known. No one gave them any choice or consideration when Indol forced their crystal into my chest. And now, there is no way to ask them. They never handed me their weapon willingly, so if I used it now, I’d be doing exactly what Indol wanted. I’d be no different from them. I may not know their name, but at least I can make sure that they are never used against their will ever again.”

There was dead silence at the table, and Natalya received a number of incredulous looks, even Jin’s icy composure shifted for a moment to an unreadable expression, and it made her wonder whether she may have gone too far. They might consider her feelings foolish, and Malos seemed was definitely the kind of person it was most unwise to deny, much less out right anger, as she had just now, but Natalya had drawn that line a long time ago, she was not going to waver now. Although her next words were far more quiet and hesitant.

“I want to help, really, I’ll do anything to make them pay, anything but that, it doesn’t seem fair.”

Natalya stared down at her plate, Jin had been right. She was useless to them. Just another useless human. The silence persisted, as Jin and Malos exchanged a long look and Natalya started fidgeting nervously under the table. Then Malos laughed deeply. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, it was actually easier described as warm and amused, but coming from Malos, it still sounded more terrifying than anything Natalya had ever heard.

“Well, it seems that bastard Amalthus really does not have a good hand in picking people he turns into Blade-Eaters. Whoever heard of such a damn thing, I can't believe you are bloody serious!”

Natalya almost breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to kill her. But was it really that ridiculous a notion?

“If that is your only problem,” Malos continued in a far more serious tone, “then, as luck would have it, I might be able to help, and I am feeling generous today. So what do you say, do you want to talk to her?”

“Her?”

“The Blade, Morena, do you want to talk to her?”

“Well, yes, but – wait a minute, how do you know who this Blade is?”

Malos shrugged, “You may not believe it, but being the damn Master Blade does have its benefits.” The Master Blade. The Aegis. So that was why he seemed so different from all of them, so much more powerful.

“Please.”, Natalya said, “I would very much like to meet her.”

Malos nodded. “Meet me in the training room in an hour.”, he said, before summoning a newspaper out of thin air, unfolding it and beginning to read. Conversation over.

Morena. So that was her name. An hour later, Natalya found herself standing in the training room, fidgeting nervously. What if Morena didn’t like her? What would she do then?

“You are shivering again, I see.”, Mikhail noticed a bit too casually. He had been kind enough to accompany her to the training room when she had run into him in a corridor after having gotten herself utterly lost. “I wonder what the cause is. You seemed quite alright this morning, so there must be something we can do to stop you from chattering your teeth all the time.”

He winked at her and Natalya suddenly decided the floor was the most interesting thing she had seen all morning. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but something about the thought of how he had found her this morning, made her unable to look into his eyes. Natalya scolded herself for being ridiculous. After all, nothing had happened between Akhos and her. She had nothing to be embarrassed about in front of any of them, but for some reason, the thought that she fell asleep on Akhos’ shoulder made her feel extremely uncomfortable. And then there was the added embarrassment of looking into that familiar face and feeling the need to explain herself, when she had done absolutely nothing wrong.

“Talya, you’re here.” Malos said, upon entering the room.

A very different kind of shiver ran down Natalya’s spine. That name, out of his mouth, it felt so wrong. “Don’t call me that.”, she couldn’t help but hiss. Only Misha had ever called her “Talya”. No one else was allowed. It was too painful hearing that name form anyone else.

Next to her Mikhail stiffened.

Malos frowned, but then apparently decided caring was too much of a bother. “Natalya then. Mikhail, I am sure you have somewhere else to be, there is no need to babysit the fledgeling anymore now that I’m here.” Fledgeling. an awkward word to use for a person in their 190s, Natalya thought, but she shut up.

“I wasn’t babysitting, Malos.”, Mikhail said defensively, but he left the room anyway.

Natalya wasn’t entirely sure she was comfortable being in a room alone with Malos, but there was really no way to tell, since she was already shivering so much from the cold, it was impossible to tell whether or not the fear contributed.

“Well, then let us begin. Close your eyes and put your hand on your core crystal.”

“It isn’t mine.”

Malos rolled his eyes. “Since it is stuck in your body, and I do not have the bloody time to discuss your damn feelings every fucking time, for the purposes of conversation, will you please start referring to it as yours?! Thank you!”

He sounded angry enough that Natalya did not argue and did as she was told. A second later, a wave of energy hit her face, when it was gone, Natalya carefully blinked. She wasn’t on the ship anymore. Instead, she was standing on a snow-covered mountain, a frosty wind blowing in her face, glittering snowflakes drifting about the place.

“Well, hello there, who might you be, child?”, a silky voice asked from behind her.

Natalya whirled to see a tall, pale woman with pale hair and eyes the colour of milk, clothed in a long white dress and fur-lined ice blue cloak.

“I’m Natalya. Are you Morena?”

“I am. So you are my human, then. It is nice to finally talk to you.”

Morena's eyes stared unseeing into Natalya's general direction.

“I’m sorry.” Natalya got out.

“What for?”

“For what happened to you. I’m sorry for eating you.”

Morena laughed. Her laughter cut the air like ice, but her smile was genuine and kind.

“Why would you apologise, this was not your fault.”, Morena stretched out an icy hand to caress Natalya’s cheek. “I know you didn’t want me.”, she almost sounded sad saying it.

“That’s not true. I would have loved to be your friend.” Natalya defended.

Morena arched a perfect white-blond eyebrow. “Really? Then why do you keep me locked away? Why did you never even summon my weapons?”

“It felt wrong. You never had a choice. I wasn’t going to let them use you any longer.”

“Oh, you really are a treasure. You know, if I had to be eaten, I’m glad it was you. Had we met under different circumstances, you would have made a fantastic Driver.”

Natalya stared at her feet. “Really? But I'm just some peasant girl from Estham, I wasn’t even able to protect my little brother. No Blade should ever have to rely on someone as useless as me. Besides, I’m not even special enough to be a Driver.”

“You think the fusion process of my core with your body would have worked if you lacked the aptitude to be a Driver?”

Morena's hand found Natalya’s chin and gently forced Natalya’s brown eyes to meet her unseeing gaze. Blind eyes looked straight into her soul.

“Listen to me. You cannot change what happened, so there is no point in dwelling on it. My life is tied to yours. So if you care about my life even a little, it is your duty to defend both of us with all that you have and my weapons, my arts, they are part of that. Use them, to defend us and, if you get the chance, to wipe the floor with the monsters who did this.”

“I promise.”

Morena leaned down to kiss Natalya's forehead.

“I am glad I got to meet you. I am glad I get to stay with you. This conversation has been a gift. Thank the Aegis for me, will you?”

Morena vanished into a snowstorm and Natalya shielded her eyes against the snowflakes. When she opened them again, she was back in the training room. Malos was watching her intently from where he was leaning against the wall. Natalya thought he looked exhausted, but she dared not say it. Instead she looked up to him.

“Thank you,”, she said, “from the both of us.”

“Don't mention it.” He said, his voice unusually rough. “Did you find your answers?”

Natalya nodded.

“Good.”, he said and walked out of the room.

Chapter Text

“So? What did she say?” Akhos asked popping his head into the room.

“She told me it was okay.”, Natalya said.

“Then why do you look so forlorn?”

Natalya stared at the floor. “I don't know how to – I mean, I wasn't – I'm not used to this way of fighting. I don't think I can do it.”, she admitted.

“You'll get used to it. We all had to figure out the ropes at the start, none of us were used to fighting on our own, you'll be fine.”

“How do I even summon my weapon?”

Akhos sauntered closer. “Well, it might be different for you, but I usually just think and –”

He stretched out a leather clad hand and a shining gold and white bow appeared in his grasp.

“Like this.”

“But I don't even know what it looks like.” Natalya protested, but she closed her eyes anyway and tried to think of the cold and ice, and the mountain range she had seen earlier. It wasn't really that difficult to imagine since her body was already feeling said cold quite strongly. Something heavy started weighing on her right arm, and Akhos breathed: “Nice.”

Natalya opened her eyes and looked down at a round shield that seemed to be made from pure ice. It was the same ice blue colour as her core crystal and had a very pretty snowflake design on it. Morena’s shield. Her weapon. Natalya's face lit up at the sight of it.

“It worked!”

Akhos straightened his glasses and smiled mischievously.

“Want to test it out? Don't worry, I'll go easy on you.”

“Wait, what?”

“You wanted to learn how to use your powers, right? Well, there's no better way to learn that by doing. It's not like you can just read a book on these sorts of things. Trust me, I'd know.”

“But I can't fight you! What if I hurt you?”

“I am honestly so offended you said that right now.”

“I, uh, well, I don't know how to control any of these things yet, if I lose control, who knows what'll happen.”

“You really think you could hurt me?” Akhos teased. “Then prove it!”

 And with that, he back-flipped away from her before firing a bolt of lightning at her from mid-air. Natalya barely managed to block it in time with her shield.

“Hey!”

Akhos landed gracefully. “Still worried about my safety?”, he smirked.

Natalya was pretty sure she did not want to answer that, or even think about the question for too long. Not that he gave her much time to think about it anyway, as his next arrow was already zapping towards her. She ducked that one too, but the third one almost hit its mark.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

Akhos laughed. “Trust me, if I were actually trying to kill you, you would already be dead.”

He smirked and fired again. Natalya ducked.

“Your reflexes are quite good, but your attacks definitely need some work.”

Natalya considered snapping at him that her attacks would be just fine, if she didn’t need the shield to block him, but was prevented from thinking up a clever retort by another arrow zapping towards her. So she just growled, grit her teeth, and rolled out of the way.

~

Natalya had no idea how long he continued to rain arrows down on her, but it must have been hours. She kept blocking and dodging, but even with years of training and running behind her, it was beginning to wear her down. Usually, that was her strategy, she had quickly learned that with her stature, it was best to evade an opponent until they were exhausted enough to strike, she never thought she’d be the one to reach their limit first. Sooner or later he was going to hit her. Even her shield wouldn't help her if she got too slow to use it.

“You know, you could at least try to hit me with something. I'm sure you've got an art tucked away somewhere.”

She would hit him with something if she had anything she could hit him with. Wait. Natalya had a terrible idea. Terrible, because it was utterly stupid, but at this rate, Akhos wasn’t going to stop shooting at her and she needed a break. Now. Natalya threw her shield at him. It was an irrational choice, as it left her wide open to the arrow zooming straight at her, but she did actually manage to knock Akhos' bow out of his hands before hitting him straight in the face with enough force to knock him over, so there was that, at least. Obviously not having seen that move coming, he went down with a “Hmpf”. Natalya stopped and laughed, which was a mistake, as it turned out, because Akhos' arrow hit her right in her lower abdomen.

“Argh.”, she coughed and slumped over.

“Nat!”, Akhos was back on his feet and by her side almost instantly. “Why the hell did you do that? I mean, good thought, but good grief that was stupid!”

“You told me to attack!”

“And you thought that just leaving yourself completely open during said attack was a smart move?”

“I didn’t. I know it was stupid, but I was just done dodging all the time!”

Akhos knelt down next to her and pulled out his arrow. “Since you are part Blade, you should heal faster than you used to, but you still shouldn’t overdo it. Don’t take risks like that, you’re not indestructible.”

“Says the person who’s been using me for target practice for the past couple hours.”

His hand hovered over her wound sending golden sparks into her body, fixing the damage immediately.

“You know, Akhos, when they say, ‘break in the new teammate’, they don’t actually mean you should break the new teammate.” Mikhail was leaning against the doorway, looking amused. Akhos moved away from Natalya with a speed that qualified as unnatural even amongst Blades. Mikhail, pretended to ignore it, though he was grinning from ear to ear when he continued: “Nice footwork, by the way, Nat, and with a little practice, I’m sure that shield throw could become quite deadly.”

“If ‘practice’ is more of this,”, Natalya pointed at Akhos, doing her best to make fake an affronted expression, “then no thanks.” She got up, slowly, testing her healed muscles. Good as new. Perfect. She stormed out of the room, before either Mikhail or Akhos could decide she was fine enough for another round. At least the exercise seemed to have driven the chill away a little again. Or at least her freshly healed muscles radiated some comforting heat, everything else in her body just seemed mostly sore. Still, this was quite peculiar, exercise usually did not do a thing to warm her up.

She found Patroka in their shared room.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Your brother and about three hours of me being target practice. I’d say I look great considering, but now I just want a bath. Any chance you could show me where I can take one?”

“Fine, come with me, I was headed that direction anyway.”

A few minutes later, Natalya found herself in a tub of near boiling water, which for some reason still wasn’t warm enough to drive out the cold that had started to creep in again. Natalya sighed and dunked her head under.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day passed mostly without incident. Natalya took another walk trying to orientate herself on the ship, so she wouldn’t need Mikhail’s help every single time she had to find somewhere to be. Evening came, and Patroka hadn’t returned to their room yet, so Natalya decided, she would just try and get some sleep. Once Patroka returned from wherever she was, she’d most likely kick her out again anyway, given how much Natalya had started to shiver again. She curled up under her blanket, and closed her eyes, but she couldn’t sleep a wink. She was so cold. Normally, that didn’t bother her so much. Like she had explained to the others, she’d had decades to get used to it, but after last night, her thoughts kept drifting to the steering deck with its nice view of the Cloud Sea. It had been so nice and cosy up there. She wanted to go back there. Natalya sighed, got up, wrapped the blanket tightly around herself and left the room.

The steering deck wasn’t quite as warm as she remembered. It also wasn’t empty. Akhos was sitting on the floor, his back leaned against the wall, eyes staring out at the clouds. He turned his head when he heard her come in.

“Did my lovely little sister kick you out again?” he smiled at her, cocking his head to the side a little.

“No, I was just cold, I thought I’d see if I could find a warmer place to sleep. What about you?”

“The usual, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh.” Natalya turned, if he was going to try and sleep here, she had better find a different room.

“Don’t go.” Something in his voice made her pause. “Could we just talk for a while?”

“I thought you wanted to sleep?” Natalya said, but she stepped towards him anyway.

“I do, I just can’t. Would you mind keeping me company for a while? Please?”

She didn’t mind, not really. Not that she was going to say that out loud.

“Fine.” Natalya sat down next to him on the floor. “What’s wrong? You slept fine last night.”, she asked, immediately regretting bringing it up.

“I don’t know. And like I said this morning, me sleeping last night was akin to a miracle, I can’t really explain how that happened.” Akhos straightened his back. “You’re shivering again. You weren’t shivering earlier.”

“If you’re about to suggest another training session, you can forget about it. I am not doing that again. And especially not now. Some of my muscles are still sore.”

“I thought I’d healed your wound?”

“Oh, my wound is great, it’s everything else that hurts.”

“I’m sorry, I was trying to get you to use your arts, I was sure that if I pushed you at least something was going to burst out of you eventually. Sense of self-preservation and all that, I never thought you’d throw away your shield. Where did you even get such a stupid idea. What were you thinking?”

“To be honest, I don’t think I was thinking a lot when I did that,” Natalya admitted, “I just wanted you to stop shooting at me. Were you ever going to stop? Wasn’t it already obvious after a couple of minutes that I was not going to just be able to use an art against you?” Natalya tilted her head. “You were enjoying it, weren’t you?”

Akhos stared out the window. “Maybe a little. It’s been a while since I practised my shooting. I’m sorry, I got carried away.”

He studied her for a moment, then untucked his blanket and wrapped it around the both of them. Natalya tensed up a little.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re still shivering. Last night, the second blanket obviously must have helped since you weren’t shaking anymore when you woke up.”

“Thank you.”

Akhos grinned. “Take it as an apology for shooting you earlier.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You were going easy on me. If you had meant to shoot me, you might have hit me sooner than that.” Natalya admitted. She stared out at the clouds whirling past, then turned to look up at Akhos. “I want to learn how to use them, but I don’t think shooting at me is going to trigger anything.”

“I know, which is why I think it would probably be best if you asked Mikhail to train with you. You and he are a lot more similar. He knows what it’s like having to get used to fighting as a Blade. The rest of us, we were just born knowing how to fight with our abilities.”

Natalya nodded. “Hmm. I’ll ask him in the morning.”, she mumbled.

“Good idea.”, Akhos mumbled. “But I do find it hard to believe that a former member of a mercenary group has never learnt how to fight as a Driver, if I remember correctly, they recruit mostly people with aptitude.

“Well, I was ten, when I was sold off to them, so there wasn’t really much use in as they put it, wasting a Blade on someone like me. I left when I was fourteen to go and find my brother, and then, everything happened, and I spent the next couple decades trying to not stay off Indol’s radar. If I had become a Driver then, they would have started to keep tabs on me, and it would have been harder to sneak in and out of places smuggling core crystals to the bottom of the Cloud Sea.”

“You did what?”

“Well, Indol is still collecting core crystals from all over the world. And they control who gets which crystal, but not all of the crystals that arrive in Indol ever make it back out again, so they must be using them for something. Given Indol’s track record,” Natalya gestured down to her own core crystal, “I really don’t think that whatever they’re doing to those crystals is good. And I doubt it is pleasant for the Blades involved. So I figured, they’d probably be safer at the bottom of the Cloud Sea than in the hands of Indol, so I started collecting them and sinking them.”

“And you never thought of awakening any of them?”

“Why would I? Like I said, not being a Driver is what kept Indol so ignorant of me. They never considered someone without apparent aptitude to be a threat, so when the crystals started disappearing, they usually never looked at me twice.”

“Hmm.”, he paused for a while, staring out at the clouds. “You said you went looking for your brother; did you ever manage to find him?”

Natalya shook her head.

“He was six when I last saw him, we were separated when the bandits sold us off, I ended up tracking him down to Torna in the middle of the Aegis War, but the village he was supposed to be in had burnt to cinders, and, well, you probably heard about what happened shortly after that. Deep down, I kept hoping that he was still alive somewhere, but in all honesty, how could a ten-year-old have survived all that? And if he did, he’s dead by now for certain.”, she said, gloomily.

“I’m sorry.”, Akhos said.

“Want to tell me another story? Preferably one that is less depressing than what happened to my little brother?”, Natalya asked changing the subject. Akhos grimaced, but he obliged and soon he had managed to distract her enough that she could shut Misha’s memory away behind the adamantine wall again, where it couldn’t hurt her as much. The blanket was nice and warm. Sitting here, all bundled up, Natalya could feel the cold disappear from her bones, a comforting warm feeling seeping into her in its place, making her drowsy. Akhos told her a story of the four of them getting stranded in the middle of nowhere in Gormott, and how Xander had gotten himself into a hilariously sticky situation with a skeeter nest. Natalya did not remember much after that.

~

“I thought I’d find you here! You know, there really is no reason for the two of you to sneak around like this.”

The two of you. Akhos. They’d fallen asleep again, hadn’t they? Natalya slowly opened her eyes to find that she was indeed curled up against Akhos’ chest like a snake on a sunlit rock. The metaphor was quite apt, she thought, sleepily, since he was so very warm. Warm enough that even the embarrassment of her having fallen asleep in his arms – again – and having been found by Mikhail – again – wasn’t enough to make her want to move away from him.

Mikhail was leaning against the instrument panel. Behind him, the Cloud Sea had started shifting from greys and blues to the pale pinks and oranges of early dawn.

Akhos took off his glasses to rub his eyes with his left hand. His right arm remained draped around Natalya and did not move an inch. “Mik...”, he sounded drowsy and exhausted, but annoyed enough that any sensible person would have immediately at least attempted to make a run for it. Mikhail, it seemed however, was not, in fact, a sensible person.

“And I am also pretty sure there are enough bedrooms on this ship that you don’t need to sleep on the floor every night.”

“It’s not like that.” Natalya mumbled. She realised that her argument was very weak, given how she had still barely moved an inch since she had woken up, but she was still not awake enough to care, or realise how much she was going to care once her brain had fully caught up to the situation. Though she had a nagging suspicion that she would be less embarrassed, if the person that had found her like this looked a bit less like a younger version of her father.

“Oh, so you have not been sleeping on the floor these past two nights?”, Mikhail asked, smirking, “My bad, I must have remembered it wrong then. Did this room have a bed yesterday? Or does it still have one and it’s invisible?” Given the look on Akhos’ face, Mikhail was probably very lucky both of them were still sleepy and Akhos' getting up would have involved him moving Natalya, or he probably would have punched him.

”You’re acting like we fell asleep on purpose.” Natalya finally sat up, her entire body immediately protesting the decision.

Mikhail made a point of dramatically shifting his gaze from Akhos to her and back again. “Oh, really, is that not what you were trying to do?”, he asked, his voice shaking with amusement.

Akhos stood up and leaned against the wall behind him. “What did you want, Mikhail?” He looked fully woken up and annoyed enough that Natalya was wondering whether he regretted falling asleep like this again. The thought somehow made her stomach sink a little.

“I was looking for you. Do you remember where you put that book on the Mechanics of  Mor Ardanian Engineering, after you finished reading it?”

“I put it back in its place in the library. And you just had to wake me up for that, didn’t you? It could certainly not have waited until after breakfast?”

Mikhail scratched the back of his head, trying – and failing – to look absolutely innocent. “No, it absolutely couldn’t, I need it very urgently to fix the issue with the second steam pipe in the Marsanes’ rear engine.”

Mikhail grinned and turned to walk out of the room before halting in the doorframe with an expression of pure delighted mischief on his face. “You know, you should really consider moving your little cuddling sessions to a proper bedroom, Akhos.”, he turned and winked at them. “Just think of poor Nat next time. She might not be shivering just now, but the cold floor is no place for a lady.”

Akhos glared at him. “Get out.”

“Akhos, if you want to kick people out of your sleeping place, you really shouldn’t choose such a public place to fall asleep in.”, Mikhail laughed, before wisely exiting the room before Akhos could actually find something to throw at him.

“Are you alright? Did you sleep well?” Akhos reached out a hand to pull Natalya to her feet. His voice was so soft, Natalya could barely believe he was the same person who was talking to Mikhail earlier.

“I did. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Asking.” Natalya said, taking a step back, suddenly painfully aware how close to each other they were standing. Akhos opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again, having seemingly thought better of it. The air in the room felt charged. Natalya took another step towards the door, suddenly in a hurry. “Oh, I just remembered, I wanted to ask Mikhail if he was going to train with me today.”, she said, and danced out the door before Akhos could even so much as react.

Chapter Text

She did not manage to catch up with Mikhail – not that she really wanted to look at his face right now anyway, it was too early in the morning to deal with that particular kind of trauma – and since she still had no idea where the library was, Natalya decided to head for the dining room instead. There was still time, she could just ask Mikhail later, whenever she saw him again, which hopefully wasn’t until after a very strong cup of tea.

Breakfast was rather uneventful. Jin barely acknowledged her presence long enough to remind her to eat some fruit-salad – vitamins were a very important part of a balanced diet, he’d said, as if she was five rather than almost 200. Not that she said any of that or did anything other than obediently chew down on said fruit salad. Malos never even looked up from his newspaper. It wasn’t long until Natalya found herself on another reconnaissance mission through the ship, this time in hopes to find the library Akhos had mentioned earlier.

A few hours later, she had found a number of empty rooms with no discernible purpose, a few of those bedrooms Mikhail had mentioned, the engine room and two locked rooms whose contents she was certain she did not want to know, but no library. Natalya sighed. This ship was a veritable maze. Was she ever going to have as easy a time navigating it as everyone else did?

Since she couldn’t find the library, she decided to go to the training room herself. She couldn’t find Mikhail anywhere either, so asking him to help her with training would have to wait as well. At least she could summon her shield by now, so even if she could not ask Mikhail to train her, she could at least try and get better at using the weapon she had, and work on her stamina, while she was at it, so that her constitution would not diminish now that she didn’t spend every day climbing up buildings and running away from Indoline monks. Besides, she was feeling cold again, and the exercise yesterday had really done its part to warm her up. Not that that thought process made much sense, until yesterday, exercise had never helped to warm her up before.

When she approached the training room, she was surprised to hear voices. She was about to turn and head back to her room, unwilling to disturb whoever was in there, when she recognised one of them.

“You know, if you like her this much, why don’t you just tell her?” Mikhail teased. Natalya froze mid-step. She knew it was wrong to listen in on other people’s conversations, but for some reason, she just could not move away.

“It’s not like that.”, Akhos voice rang out.

For a reason she could not quite explain to herself, Natalya took a step towards the door and peered inside. What she saw was truly a sight to behold. Akhos and Mikhail were, as it seemed, in the middle of a sparring match, and it looked in equal parts terrifying and beautiful. The air around them vibrated with ether, strong enough to nearly knock Natalya, who had not been expecting it, off her feet. Akhos’ movements were as swift as the lightning bolts flying from his bow, and it seemed only thanks to Mikhail’s incredible footwork that the latter one was still standing. Not that Mikhail let Akhos get away with just firing arrow after arrow, Natalya noted, as Mikhail made, what could only be described as an incredible elaborate and over the top dance move, most likely designed to both confuse and distract whoever he was fighting before using his fan-weapons to send a wave of black knives the shape of feathers into Akhos’ direction. They bounced off an ether shield of golden hexagons.

“Oh, so you are trying to tell me that my roommate, who has suffered from sleep-apnoea and nightmares for as long as I’ve known him, has suddenly found the ability to sleep without waking up screaming every couple of hours and that that has absolutely nothing to so with the girl that’s been curled up against him,” Mikhail blocked an arrow with his fan, sending it bouncing back off into the direction it came from. He looked quite pleased with himself for that. “Am I getting any of this wrong?”

Akhos pulled up another ether shield, to shelter from his own lightning. “So you are saying you noticed that I was finally sleeping well, and you decided to wake me up anyway?!”

“Don’t change the subject! Plus, you know that if I hadn’t, the two of you would just have one more excuse to pretend like nothing happened.”

“Nothing did happen!” Akhos fired a bolt of golden lightning from his bow that split in mid-air, shooting down around Mikhail in a perfect circle. “Besides, so what if I do sleep better when she’s around, that does not mean anything. And it’s not like I can just ask her to stay with me, because it is easier for me to fall asleep. I’m not going to use her like this!”

Mikhail let out an exasperated sigh, before knocking Akhos back a couple steps with a well-placed storm of dark purple ether energy. “You know, for someone so smart, you really can be an idiot sometimes. Nat is a half-frozen icicle most of the time, and I can’t be the only one here who noticed that there’s only two things on this ship that have managed to momentarily stop her from shivering. The first being Jin’s cooking, which really isn’t any surprise, Jin’s food has the power to warm even the coldest of hearts, and the second is that she stops shaking the moment she gets close to you. Coincidence? Could be, but forgive me if I am starting to doubt that.”

Natalya blinked. Could it be? Was Akhos the reason she had woken up warm rather than freezing the last couple of nights? How? That did not make even a semblance of sense! She did not even know him that well, how could he have the power to make her feel like that? Her heart started racing for some reason and she decided it was probably best to just not leave, before she heard anything else she clearly wasn’t supposed to. Her body however, seemed to have other ideas, because when she made the attempt to turn, her foot got caught in something, causing her to lose balance and fall face first into the training room.

Mikhail threw Akhos a triumphant look before painting an innocently surprised look on his face and chirping: “Oh, look who’s here!”

Natalya got up from the floor and brushed off her clothes. “I came to ask if you would train with me.”, she told Mikhail, trying her absolute best to not look anywhere near the direction Akhos was standing in. Though looking at Mikhail was not a good option for a number of other reasons. She needed to get out of here. “You know, since you went through the same thing I did, I thought you might be able to help me learn how to control these new powers. But I see you are already otherwisely engaged, so I’ll just leave now. See you later.”

Natalya turned to dash from the room. She did not manage to leave however, since Mikhail was already blocking the doorway. Damn, he could move fast.

“Oh no, you don’t. You are not going anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“Because you came here to train, and Akhos and I were just done, so, as it happens, I have an opening in my training schedule.”

He was looking at Akhos behind her while he was speaking. Natalya did not know what his expression looked like, because she was still trying to look anywhere but in his direction, though the absolutely unveiled look of pure devilish delight on Mikhail’s face as he looked between them told her that she really did not want to know. It also made her instantly regret asking for his help. Sadist.

At least Mikhail's approach to training her seemed not to involve attacking her, at least at first.

“Let’s start out with the assumption that your powers are tied to your emotions, what we have to do is find the specific emotion or feeling that triggers them.”, he explained.

“That sounds incredibly foolish.” Akhos interjected. He was watching them from the far side of the room, arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression unreadable from the distance. “Your mind should be on the fight, if you let emotions cloud your judgement you will only put everyone around you in danger, including yourself.”

“It's nice to know you Blades are always this rational and have such perfect control of your emotions,” Mikhail’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, “but unfortunately, we humans don’t quite work that way.” He winked at Akhos, the sarcasm in his voice clearly meant to illustrate that Blades were just as capable of throwing temper tantrums as humans were, but there was an almost imperceptible waver to it, that made Natalya think it was masking something else underneath it too. She herself did not care whether or not it was rational to draw on emotions for power. If it got her results, she was willing to try anything.

“What kind of emotion?”, she asked.

“I don’t know, we’ll have to figure that out together.”, Mikhail considered for a moment, then asked, “You’re angry at Indol, aren’t you, for what they did to you?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Quite a lot. Try focussing on that anger. Try picturing Amalthus and how much you would like to kick his ass.”

Natalya was indeed mad at Indol, and making them pay was the highest priority, but she wasn’t entirely sure how Mikhail expected her to fight the Praetor. It was far more likely for her to get her ass kicked than the other way round.

“Okay, anger does not seem to do anything. Let’s try revenge.”

They went through a number of different emotions, before Mikhail took a deep breath and said – in a tone that made it almost seem like he had been avoiding the option: “What about regret? You’re old enough to have lost quite a number of people. Anyone among those you wish you’d had more time with?”

Looking into those sapphire eyes was suddenly making it hard to breathe. Natalya felt like she had fallen through the surface of a frozen lake and when she tried to come up for air, the surface had frozen solid again. Ice-cold memories flooded her mind, pulling her deeper. The room became blurred, as those same eyes set in a different much younger face drifted to the surface of her consciousness. Someone was shouting her name, in the far distance, almost inaudible against the rushing in her ears. The last thing she saw before everything went black was that pair of blue eyes. “Misha.”

~

Mikhail hadn’t planned for this. He hadn’t meant for this to happen, hadn’t considered the possibility that it could. The first time he had triggered his Blade-Arts, had been a complete accident. At the time it had happened, he had been terrified and angry. He could still see it, the forest, the other refugees, the Indoline monks ready to dispose of them, the dead Gormotti boy with a broken core crystal in his chest. It was the sight of that body that had caused the change. Not because it was a dead child. He’d seen enough of those to not really care anymore. But it reminded him of a time when he had cared. Lora, Milton, Talya. The memories, the grief – on normal days, he managed to lock it all away behind smiles and bravado, but not back then. Back then, they had overwhelmed him and seeing that boy, it had been like losing Milton all over again. Milton, who had been doing his best to be like a brother to him during those few months they had known each other. Milton, who despite everything they’d gone through always had a smile on his face. Milton, who had died protecting him from that explosion. And despite all that, Mikhail had never once smiled at him. Regret was a horrible emotion. He wished it on no one. But it was powerful. However, he had never imagined Nat would react like this. He had realised immediately that he had said something wrong, that what he had triggered would not result in the manifestation of Ether Arts. What it had triggered instead looked much worse than he had expected, and it hit him much harder than he thought it would. He tried to tell himself that it had nothing to do with the face that drifted to the surface of his memory again. Pull yourself together, of course it’s not her. it can’t be her, he told himself, when Nat collapsed and almost inaudibly breathed out a name. No. She died. It can’t be! Mikhail caught her as she fell, her agonised face slowly relaxing. He shook his head. Foolish wishful thinking, that’s all that was. It wasn’t like he had that rare a name. Talya was dead, so were Milton and Lora, none of them were ever coming back for him.

Akhos knelt down by his side to check on Nat. For someone who had just been denying having any feelings for her whatsoever, he certainly looked very worried. Though with the look he was giving Mikhail, the latter decided not to bring it up.

“What the hell were you thinking, bringing that up?”

“Well, she did want to know how my Arts manifested, how was I supposed to know she’d react like this?”, he studied his friend. “You, on the other hand don’t look surprised.”

“She told me last night that she was separated from her little brother when their village was attacked, then spent the next years trying to find him again, only for him to die when she found him. I’d say that qualifies for enough trauma to cause regrets – why are you looking at me like someone just punched you in the face?”

“What?” Mikhail wasn’t sure he had heard any of that correctly, or if what he had heard had actually been what Akhos had said. It could have just been his imagination. Yes, that must have been it, this face was so familiar he now started imagining things to fit his naïve narrative. He wasn’t ten anymore, he was old enough to know that the people around him didn’t miraculously come back to life. Rather the opposite. People around him usually ended up dead.

Akhos shook his head and went back to trying to bring Nat back to consciousness.

Chapter Text

Mikhail was still holding her when she regained consciousness, he was looking at her like he couldn’t see her, like his mind was somewhere else entirely. When Natalya moved, it seemed to drag his mind back to the present. He let go of her immediately and took a step back, ruffling his hair, before pasting that smug smile back onto his face.

“Alright, none of this seems to work, we’ll need a different approach.” He paused and Natalya braced herself for whatever sadistic plan he was obviously contemplating. Especially, when a strange glint appeared in his eyes for only a second, before he mastered his face into his usual smirk. “Hmm, maybe we should focus on developing your weapon skills first. We have time to figure out how to unlock your arts, we don’t have to solve this now. Shall we dance?” he sketched a bow.

“Alright.” Natalya summoned her shield. Now that she knew what it looked like, it was a lot easier. She did not even have to close her eyes. She steeled herself for an attack, but Mikhail just stood there, chin propped theatrically onto his fist. Natalya was pretty sure he had already decided on the rest of his plan, and was only pretending to come up with the details just now.

“Now, I don’t want to accidentally hit you, so if we practice shield manoeuvres you are going to need an ether shield.” he turned around. “Oh, Akhos, you’re still here. What a lucky coincidence. Say, would you help us out over here?”

Akhos, who was standing right next to them, grumbled something about obvious fishy behaviour but offered a hand despite it. And so, Natalya found herself in a low-stakes duel with Mikhail, low-stakes due to the ether shield generously provided by Akhos, who had taken up a spot behind her on her left. The goal of the exercise seemed to be mostly how to use the shield to hit and potentially decapitate your opponent and block their attacks mid-air with a well-placed throw. In essence, it was nothing more than a slightly more high-stakes version of discus or boomerang. Mikhail usually dodged her throws, and waited to counterattack, until her shield had returned to her. Mostly because due to Akhos’ shield, he wouldn’t have hit her anyway.

Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest, when she realised what kind of Ether energy, Mikhail was drawing from. Natalya told herself to keep breathing. This was a completely different situation. This was a training exercise, she told herself, no one was going to die. And Mikhail had certainly not been involved in what had happened on Torna. He was not an Aegis. It was one of the Aegises that had killed her brother. Which one, she did not know. Not that it mattered right now, though she did not want to know what would happen if she ever found out. Natalya reminded herself to focus on the fight. She could not let this distract her, or she would be in trouble if she ever ran into a Dark Blade that actually wanted to kill her.

Natalya was starting to think that she was getting rather good at this, when Mikhail sent out a torrent of ether and her shield hit it at exactly the wrong angle, which sent the disc tumbling through the air, with Mikhail’s attack soaring past Natalya, some of it careening with force against the shield around her. Most of the dark violet and black storm though headed unobstructed towards Akhos. Natalya screamed. Not again! She barely had time to move, though, before the ether torrent collided with a solid wall of ice that had formed in its way and dispersed. Akhos stared at it in complete and utter disbelief, and for a moment Natalya wondered whether he had been frozen too. Behind her, Mikhail whistled. “Just as I thought.”, he smirked.

Natalya blinked and turned around, half expecting to see Jin in the doorway, but there was no one else. “Was – was that me?”

“See any other ice blades?” Mikhail asked, dramatically turning around, arms extended outward.

“But how?”

“What exactly were you thinking about just now?”

Natalya felt her cheeks heat. Thinking back, there had only been one thing on her mind, and it had been very stupid. They were so going to scold her for this. She stared at the floor at her feet. “I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

Akhos rested his forehead in his palm. “I can protect myself; you know.”

“As far as I could see, you were busy protecting me!”

Akhos raised an eyebrow. “You do know a Blade can cast more than one shield, right? Please tell me you know that.”, his tone was mildly upset at the implication that Natalya thought he wouldn’t be able to do as much.

“I wasn’t really considering any of that. I’m not even sure of exactly how I did what I just did, I just reacted. And how exactly was I supposed to know? I’ve never been a driver, and I wasn’t a Blade until recently. And if this had been a real fight and whoever was behind me did not currently have a shield on them, how can I be sure they react in time? All I saw was someone about to get hurt, how can you blame me for not wanting that to happen again?”

Akhos took a step back, apparently realising something that must have gone completely over everyone else’s head, because he looked at her like she’d slapped him, then cast a guilty look over at Mikhail. Mikhail, however, just smirked obviously still pleased with the result of his underhanded methods.

“As entertaining as it would be, Akhos, to just stand here and listen to the two of you arguing about whose job it is to protect whom, we have just made incredible progress here, and I would hate for it to go to waste.” He approached Natalya, stopping only a very short distance from her. “Now, as pretty a sentiment as it is, not wanting anyone to get hurt is a pretty broad and non-specific emotion, it should not be enough to fuel your blade abilities. I’m really sorry we have to do this, but I’m assuming it was triggered by something. A memory, perhaps, of someone you cared about? Someone you lost? Someone you wished you could have protected?”

His voice was quiet and soft, a far cry from its usual tone. All flamboyance drained out of it, no laughter, only sincerity and understanding, and something else, that Natalya couldn’t quite place, though it looked to her like Mikhail was struggling with something, then shoving the thought back down. He must have lost someone too, Natalya realised. She thought back, to her home on Estham, to the Aegis War, the sinking of the Tornan Titan, the Indoline refugee camp, Morena, there were too many casualties, so many people she could have helped had she just been a bit more powerful. She might have been able to save someone. She might have been able to save Misha. Natalya shoved down the thought. It was no good dwelling on it. All it did was hurt.

“I wish I could have protected any of them.”, she said quietly.

“You can’t protect everyone.”, Akhos said. “That kind of sentiment is only going to get you killed.”

“I know. I know I couldn’t have saved everyone. To be able to do that, one would have to be a god. No, I just wish I could have saved anyone, no matter who.” Natalya stared at the floor, her voice barely more than a whisper by now. “It’s not fair that I survived, and they didn’t, so, I just don’t want anyone else getting hurt. Not again. Not on my watch.”

“No one else, huh, seems fair.”, Mikhail mused, though there was a shadow passing underneath his usual smirk. “Well then, hold on to that thought, and let’s try this again. And this time, let’s make it a little more interesting.”, he paused, as if for dramatic effect, “Akhos, since you are already looking like you’d really like to shoot at something, why don’t you two resume where you left off yesterday?”

Akhos summoned his bow and grinned forcefully. “Right now, the only one I’d like to shoot is you, Mikhail, want me to test how keen she is on protecting you?”

Mikhail’s eyes twinkled. “Why not? Shall we all dance together?” He summoned his fans and sketched an elaborate bow. The smile that broke out on Akhos’ face in response seemed genuine enough and Natalya realised that for all their teasing and fighting, she had a feeling they really cared about each other, that they had developed the kind of friendship that could last centuries. It made her smile too, just a little.

“Fine.”, she said, summoning her shield again, “I’m good to go.”

Not taking his eyes off Akhos for even a second, Mikhail leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Don’t forget ‘no one else’ includes yourself. You need to protect yourself so you can protect others, got it? Don’t go dying on me.”

Natalya nodded, determination clearly visible on her face.

Her second fight with Akhos went a lot better than her first one. It was strange, she realised, fighting besides Mikhail, especially with her need to focus on a certain range of thoughts in order to access her Ether Arts. It was a gut-wrenching feeling, but somehow also a little cathartic. Remembering Misha with Mikhail right beside her, it almost felt like his memory could spring to life at any moment. Natalya couldn’t quite tell if the ache she was feeling in her chest at that thought was grief or joy, but it was better than the gaping hole of darkness that had previously threatened to destroy her at the mere thought of her little brother.

She actually managed to produce an ether shield very early on, which freed up her ice shield as a weapon. After a while, Natalya had also figured out how to quickly pull up the ice wall to block an attack, then use the shards as shrapnel in an ether blast. And towards the end of the session, she had even managed a weak blizzard. She was just about to toss a small avalanche at Akhos, when Patroka’s voice interrupted the fight.

“Ah, there you all are.”

Natalya’s concentration broke and she dropped all that snow on Mikhail, who had lowered his shield in exactly the wrong moment. Behind her, Akhos laughed gleefully, as Mikhail stepped out of the heap of snow, brushed off his clothes and shook out his hair in a way that Natalya was sure was designed to make both women and men alike swoon. She figured it was probably a very useful battle strategy, something along the lines of ‘distract them enough that they’ll never expect your next move’. Too bad for Mikhail, however, that this manoeuvre was absolutely wasted on the occupants of this room. Patroka had actually started to laugh, though Natalya suspected it had more to do with the snow than with him. With the smile illuminating her face and her permanent scowl gone for once, she looked quite striking, beautiful actually, Natalya thought.

“I see you’ve been having fun without me?”, Patroka pouted playfully.

“Don’t worry, my dear little sister, you’ll get your chance to knock all three of us around soon enough.”, Akhos said, striding closer.

“Whatever. Jin told me to get you, he said to tell you that if any of you miss lunch again, he will freeze you to your chairs until the next mission.”

“Better hurry then, before it gets cold.”, Mikhail grinned, faking a shiver.

Chapter Text

Lunch was a kind of fish soup that tasted so much like home Natalya thought she could hear her mother’s voice calling out to her scolding her for gulping it down too quickly. But she did slow down her eating before Jin could chide her for it.

Mikhail poked her with his elbow.

“Good job there earlier, though I have to say, that snow was pretty cold, no wonder you’re always shivering.”

Patroka was watching them from across the table. She threw a glance at Natalya then frowned. “How long were you at this?”

Mikhail shrugged: “A couple hours perhaps?”

“Then why the hell is Nat still shivering after all that?”, she turned to Natalya, pointing at her threateningly with her spoon. “Shouldn’t the exercise have warmed you up a little bit? Why are you always so cold?”

Natalya actually wasn’t cold at this very moment. Mikhail had at least been right about one thing earlier: Jin’s cooking really did have an extraordinary effect on her. Though Natalya said none of that out loud. Especially not since she would rather not admit to herself what the acceptance of this revelation implied for Mikhail’s other theory. Instead she quipped: “I have an Ice Blade stuck in my chest, what’s your excuse?”

Next to her, Mikhail nearly spat out his soup, which earned him a very stern look from Jin, while across from Natalya, Akhos started coughing – or laughing, Natalya wasn’t entirely sure, it might have been a mix of both. Patroka glared at her, before returning to her soup.

~

In the afternoon, Malos called a team meeting.

“We are about to reach Tantal, I think it’s important to go through the specifics of the plan and make a few last-minute changes.”, he looked at Natalya, “I hear you made progress with your fighting, think you’re ready to join in?”

Natalya nodded.

“Then let’s make this a test. If you make it through the mission, you’re officially a member of Torna, if you get lost, or killed, or caught, we will not be going back for you.”

“Got it, don’t get caught. What’s the job?”

The next three hours were spent with detailed plans on the infiltration and capture of the ship and liberation of its cargo before it could fall into Indoline hands.

Mikhail and Patroka were supposed to create a diverstion at the back of the ship and distract the guards, while Jin was going to disable the crew at the helm. Akhos and Natalya were to infiltrate the cargo hold and smuggle the core crystals off board, while the guards and crew were distracted, and Malos would stay behind to pilot the Monoceros.

~

In the evening, Natalya decided not to go to the steering deck. However much she wanted to know the answer to Mikhail’s outlandish theory from this morning, she did not want him to find her on that deck for a third night in a row. Additionally, there was no guarantee she would find Akhos there, especially not the night before such an important mission. So when she could not sleep, because she just felt too cold, she decided to head to the library instead. She had finally found it this afternoon and thought she might as well look up the schematics of the Tantalese titan ship Patroka and Akhos had brought back from their reconnaissance mission a few days ago.

She must have fallen asleep looking at those plans, because the next thing she knew was a gentle hand on her shoulder waking her and warmth flooding her body. She did not need to look up to know who was standing behind her.

“There you are.”

“What are you doing here?”

Akhos hesitated, staring off into the distance, then at the floor at his feet. “I couldn’t sleep again, so I was waiting for you at the steering deck. When you didn’t come, I decided to come here and have another look at the schematics and our plans for tomorrow, maybe figure out a backup strategy in case something went wrong, and then I saw you must have had the same idea.” He paused. “I’m sorry I woke you, it’s just you were shivering in your sleep, and I thought you should really find somewhere to lie down, you’ll strain your muscles this way and I can’t have you compromised in the fight.”

“What about you then? You need to sleep too if I’m supposed to be able to count on you.”

Akhos continued staring at the floor, as if it was the most fascinating thing he had seen all day.

Natalya took a deep breath. “I heard you and Mikhail this morning,” she said, “I don’t know if he is right or not, but if there is even a chance that he is, then perhaps just for tonight, we should give it a try.”

Akhos looked at her in surprise and suddenly, Natalya blushed and agreed that the floor really was a very fascinating thing to look at.

“Are you really fine with this?”, Akhos asked, hesitantly.

Natalya nodded. It was just one night, after all, it would be fine.

They found an empty bedroom a few doors down, grabbed a second blanket off one of the beds and cuddled on the other. Akhos waited until Natalya was bundled up tightly in her blanket before tossing his own over both of them.

“Good night.”, he whispered into her ear. Natalya’s cheeks heated and she buried her face in his chest.

“Good night.”, she responded. Natalya listened to the sound of his breaths evening out, soaking up the warmth he sent coursing through her body. She did not even notice falling asleep.

When she awoke the next morning, it took her a while to realise where she was. Akhos arm was draped over her, his heartbeat steady and calm. When she arched her neck to look at him while trying not to move too much, so as to not wake him, she saw he was still asleep. He looked so peaceful, lying there, Natalya couldn’t help but smile. She had no idea how long they had been asleep, but she couldn’t find it in her to wake him. Not yet. She put her head down again and just listened to his heartbeat.

Natalya found herself worrying about what the day would bring. If she wanted to stay with them, she would have to prove her worth today. She went over Malos’ plan in her head one more time. There was no room for mistakes, she could not afford to lose focus. Next to her, Akhos stirred, his arm around her tightening a little. When Natalya straightened to look up at him, he was blinking down at her.

“Sleep well?”, she asked.

“I did, thank you.” Akhos reached out to brush a loose strand of hair from her eyes. “How about you? How are you feeling?”

If his hand kept touching her face like that, Natalya had a feeling she might just burn to cinders. “I’m fine.”, she said, trying her best to mask the shaking in her voice that had nothing to do with her usual shivering, “The cold feeling is completely gone at the moment.” Natalya sat up. “If you are rested, we should go get breakfast, unless you want to listen to Jin lecture us about the importance of fiber for the rest of the week.” Her eyes widened. She had picked up too many of Mikhail’s mannerisms, it seemed. “Do not tell him I said that.”

Akhos just laughed. “I won’t, if you don’t tell him that I think you’re right. Come on.”

He pulled her out of bed, then hesitated a moment, before letting go of her hands and stepping away from her. Natalya blinked. Of course, last night hadn’t meant anything, and nothing had happened, but the others might assume differently, if they saw them coming to breakfast together. But why did it hurt her to think that he could just step away from her this easily after spending the night sleeping so close to her? Akhos straightened his glasses and opened the bedroom door.

“After you.”, he said.

At breakfast, Natalya was surprised to see Mikhail join them for once. He looked up when they entered, looking like a cat that could not wait to play with the mouse it had just caught. No one else even batted an eye. Natalya prayed to the Architect that he would drop it, but her prayers remained unanswered.

“Sleep well, Akhos? You look surprisingly well rested.”, he teased.

“I guess that’s what happens when your face isn’t the first thing I see in the morning. One just wakes up that much more refreshed.”, Akhos said so nonchalantly, Natalya wondered whether he had prepared his answer in advance.

Mikhail did his best to feign a wounded expression. “How barbaric of you, Akhos! How could you profane such beauty?”, he asked, flicking his hair back theatrically.

Natalya decided to focus all of her attention on Jin’s fruit salad, in the hopes that Mikhail would not draw her into this. Mikhail, however, was merciless today. “Speaking of beauty, how was your night, Nat?”

Natalya, who had wisely already stuffed her mouth with fruit, indicated she could not possibly speak right now. Talking with your mouth full was unhealthy and rude, and Jin would most certainly not stand for it. Mikhail took it as a victory, winked at Akhos and dropped the subject. For the moment at least. Thus, as it did so often, Jin’s cooking had saved Natalya once again.

~

The infiltration of the ship worked like a charm, all they had to do was pretend they belonged there and wait for the signal to start the attack. The signal, as it turned out was an explosion, combined with a lot of screaming. Soldiers started running in the direction of the command centre and the source of the explosion. Natalya never once doubted Jin and the others would be able to keep them distracted or incapacitated. The only one she had yet to see fight was Patroka, and she was already certain she did not want to mess with her either.

The air seemed clear enough for her and Akhos to make their move. Natalya was glad she had studied the schematics again last night, it made it a lot easier for them to move around undetected. Locating the cargo hold was no problem. Akhos incapacitated the guards with a well-timed electric shock, they left them in a corner of the cargo hold and opened the previously agreed upon window. All that was left was to toss the chests with the core crystals out the window for Malos to retrieve with the Monoceros. Minimal theatrics, minimal damage, sneak in, sneak out, with no one being the wiser, that was the plan. Easy enough. What could go wrong?

She should not have asked herself that question. They were down to the last two chests, when the door to the cargo hold was burst open. “INTRUDERS! THIEVES! I FOUND THEM! THEY’RE AFTER THE CRYSTALS!”

“Natalya, get the last chest and get out of here!”, Akhos said, summoning his weapon.

“No way, I’m not leaving you!”, she countered, pulling her shield out from thin air and using it to knock out the first wave of guards that had entered the room. Together. They’d started this mission together. They’d finish it together too. She may not have been able to protect Misha all those years ago, but she would be damned if she lost anyone else.

Guards kept pouring into the room. There were just too many of them. With no back-up, they were both going to get caught. And it didn’t look like back-up was coming. Natalya did not want to even think about what that meant for the others.

“Akhos, get out of here!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’m the weakest link anyway, you’re worth far more to the team than I am, so just make the sensible decision and go!”, Natalya screamed, as a guard struck her side. Akhos caught her in a wave of pure white ether energy, healing her wound instantly.

“I am not leaving, so you can get yourself killed!”

This was bad. They were never going to get out of this alive. The fight took another bad turn, and Akhos was overwhelmed by the guards surrounding him.

“He’s a Flesh Eater! Get his crystal!”, someone screamed.

They were going to kill him. Akhos was going to die. He was going to leave her, just like Misha. Just like everyone else. And it was all her fault. She had failed him. She had failed all of them.

No. Not again. They would not take him. Or anyone else. She could not let them hurt him. Natalya screamed and the room exploded into bright white light. Then, everything went black.

~

Too many. Akhos was getting exhausted, his control on his ether arts was slipping. Even with the augmented strength of a Flesh Eater, his abilities were not limitless. There was no way out. He lost sight of Natalya when they wrangled him to the ground, tried to rip his core crystal from his chest. But he forgot all about his own situation when he heard her scream. It was the most terrifying thing he had heard since Xander's death. Her scream struck him deeper than any weapon ever had and he was sure he would do anything to never hear her make a sound this agonised ever again. The next thing he knew was being hit with a wave of white ether so bright he had to shut his eyes. When he opened them again, everything around him was frozen and in the middle of the carnage, Natalya was floating half a foot above ground before sinking to the floor and collapsing.

“Nat!”, Akhos scrambled to his feet, and ran to her side. Only when he found her breathing, a weak pulse beating under her skin, did he realise he had been holding his own breath. She’d saved him, and she had exhausted her entire ether reserve doing it. When she was going to wake up, he was going to kill her. Akhos sent a wave of energy into her body speeding up her healing process. Then he tossed the last chest from the window, before picking up Natalya and jumping through the window down onto the deck of the Monoceros with her in his arms.

Malos was waiting, the last chest resting comfortably on his shoulder. “What the fuck just happened up there?”

Akhos was spared from having to answer by Jin and the others appearing behind him.

“Apparently, someone decided to freeze the entire crew into icicles, and something tells me that someone was not Jin.” Mikhail seemed smug as always, until he saw Akhos holding an unconscious Natalya. All colour drained from his face, as he rushed towards them.

“Tell me she’s not – Akhos, is she still –?”, he couldn’t even bring himself to finish that sentence. Akhos had never seen him in such a state. He hadn’t known Mikhail cared this much for Natayla.

“She’s still alive, but only just. I better get her inside to rest.”

“Leave her to me.”, Patroka demanded, brushing Mikhail aside as if he were nothing but a thin curtain. Akhos wasn’t sure, if he had heard right. Judging by everyone else’s expression, they were wondering the same thing.

“She’s a girl and she’ll need bath and fresh clothes by the looks of her. You men are entirely unqualified for that job.”, she explained coolly, before lifting Natalya out of Akhos’ arms and marching off, leaving the rest of them behind.

Malos nodded after her. “Alright, let’s get out of here, before any more shit happens. Everyone under deck.”

Chapter Text

When Natalya came to, she was tucked into bed and wearing a different set of clothes. She blinked.

“Where...? What...?” The memories of her last conscious moments came rushing in. Natalya sat up far too quickly and the room started spinning. “Akhos!”

Patroka turned. “You’re awake. Good, I’ll go tell the others.”

“What happened? Where’s Akhos? Is he alright?”, she was not entirely sure those sentences had made it out in order, her brain was still fuzzy and there were strange echoes droning in the back of her head. “Ow.”

Patroka walked over and pushed her back down on her pillow. “We got caught, and apparently, you thought it would be a good idea to use up all your ether energy to freeze every single person on the ship, before collapsing and making everyone worry about you.”

“You were worried?”, Natalya breathed.

Patroka froze. “Uh, no I wasn’t.”, she protested far too quickly, “Urgh, you’re such a bother!” She marched towards the door, before stopping and turning around again. “Akhos is fine, all things considered. Now stay in this bed and rest, or I will personally tie you to it!”, with the look she was giving Natalya, it could not have sounded like more of a threat. She thought it best to heed her words.

Sometime later, Jin appeared in the doorway holding a bowl of soup. “If you don’t eat, you’ll never get your strength back.” He sat the bowl down on the nightstand and helped her sit up, before handing the bowl to her and watching like a hawk to make sure she actually ate all of it. “You need to learn to watch your limits.”

Somehow Natalya had a feeling that he was not the kind of person who would have listened to his own advice, had he been in her situation, but she thought it best not to challenge him right now.

“You can’t exhaust yourself like this, or you’ll be of no use to anyone. If there had been reinforcements, or you missed a soldier or two, you would have been completely defenceless.”

“I didn’t even know I could use this power. It just broke out of me.”

“That’s even worse.”, Jin scolded, “If you cannot control your powers, that means you’re nothing but a loose cannon. And that makes you a liability to everyone around you.”

Natalya focussed on her soup. “I’m sorry.”

“Apologising is not going to fix this. Starting tomorrow, you will train to control yourself and find the limits of exactly how far you can go and when you need to stop. Malos agreed to train with you. As an Aegis, he’ll be able to sense when you have reached your limit, which will stop you from exhausting yourself. Something like this is NOT going to happen again. Do you understand me?”

Natalya nodded, feeling like a little child being scolded by her father for burning her hands on the stove. Jin took the empty bowl from her and left the room. “Sleep.”, was the final command he gave her. She obeyed.

~

Natalya felt a lot better the next morning, and Patroka actually allowed her to leave the bed again. When she came to breakfast, she walked straight into a heated discussion.

“Absolutely not!”

Jin seemed so furious, Natalya wondered whether she should come back later, the smell of Jin’s cooking won, however, and she sat down.

“If we rush in the same way we did last time, without back-up, we might not get this lucky next time. Nat could have died and so could the rest of us.”, Akhos countered, refusing to meet her eyes. Natalya blinked. He hadn’t come to see her the day before either. Even Mikhail had dropped by in the afternoon, though he had been quickly shoved out by Patroka, because ‘Nat needed rest’. Was he mad at her for letting him down? The thought stung more than it should have.

Mikhail nodded. “Patroka and I had a pretty close call too.”

“You are not awaking any additional Blades, that would make us just as bad as Amalthus.”

Malos voice cut through the fight like the edge of a sword: “Jin, we all know and understand how you feel, but if we are compromised during a mission like this again, we’re fucked and all our efforts will be wasted. And if our identities as Blades are discovered, that will be an entirely different problem. Awakening our own Blades will provide a very useful cover. And should their abilities ever be exhausted, we’ll have our own to back them up.”

Jin’s eyes were glacial daggers. Malos placed a hand on his shoulder.

“If it helps, you can keep your bloody moral high-ground and stay on your own. You are the most effective this way anyway.”

“Are you saying the rest of us are incapable?”, Mikhail winked at him. Malos ignored him.

Natalya stared at her porridge. She had let everyone down. But had she really let them down so badly that they had decided they needed extra help? Akhos still wouldn’t look at her. Please, Natalya begged silently, don’t be angry with me. But of course, he didn’t hear her, and he still wouldn’t look at her.

After breakfast, she went to meet Malos in the training room. Akhos had excused himself in the middle of the meal. The thought had occurred to Natalya that he had left to get away from her, but she shoved it away. It hurt, and she had more important things to focus on right now. Mikhail and Patroka had decided to tag along and do some training themselves.

“Admit it, you just wanted to keep an eye on dear Nat here, in case she collapses again.”, Mikhail teased her on the way over.

“Urgh, no. I’ve just missed the opportunity to wipe the floor with that smug face of yours.”

“You are so mean!”, he sounded offended, but for some reason he could not keep said smug grin off his face anyway.

Malos was already waiting for her in the training room.

“You have unlocked most of your arsenal, are you ready to fully take control?”

Natalya nodded and summoned her shield. She was ready for anything he could throw at her.

She was wrong. She had not been ready. Not for this. Malos summoned his weapon and the air around him began to vibrate with the power of the Aegis. A dark purple glow that had haunted her nightmares for the past eighteen decades. Natalya lost all awareness of everything else around her, as Malos sent a blast of energy her way that looked all too familiar.

“You!”, Natalya screamed and raised her Ether shield to shelter from the attack. “It was you!”

She had forgotten all about the purpose of this exercise. Forgotten about holding back. Forgotten about control. Forgotten about the limit to her ether energy. All that remained was the Aegis who had killed her brother. She was going to kill him – or die trying. Most likely the latter, but Natalya did not care anymore. Why should she. Misha was already dead. At least, if she died, she could see him again.

“You killed my brother!”, she screamed. The cold tugged at her again, and this time, she did not shrink from it. She just became. Became ice and snow and storm and sent all that freezing cold towards Malos.

~

Mikhail was grateful that Patroka had dragged him to the training room with her. He hadn’t quite wanted to admit it, but he had wanted to keep an eye on Nat. He couldn’t explain it to himself – or rather, he didn’t want to explain it – but seeing her hurt after the incident on the Tantalese ship had hit him deep. And Malos, well, Mikhail didn’t quite trust him. Were it not for Jin, he would be as far from the man as possible. So he was glad his training with Patroka gave him the opportunity to make sure Nat did not get hurt.

He had not, however, expected things to go wrong this quickly. The fight had barely even begun when Nat exploded. Both Mikhail and Patroka turned from their fight to see what she was screaming about. All Malos had shown was a small blast of his Ether energy, and it seemed that Nat recognised it. And it caused her to lose control completely.

“You killed my brother!”, she screamed.

Mikhail blinked. A dead brother. He could understand her anguish. After all, he too had lost a brother at Malos’ hands. And not just a brother. A face he had kept locked away in the back of his mind drifted towards him. Talya. The last time he’d seen her, she too had been caught up in the blast. The same blast had killed both of them. He scowled. He had successfully locked up that memory for almost 200 years. Why was it that Nat kept triggering those memories? Why did she have to remind him so much of his sister?

“That’s for killing Misha!”

Misha. Mikhail couldn’t move. He was sure he’d stopped breathing too. No! It wasn’t possible! It couldn’t be her. He’d seen her die! He blinked, as the realisation sank in. Those few seconds of his sister’s face before the air exploded between them. What if she had made it? No. Don’t give me hope. Her brother was dead, he wasn’t, so she couldn’t mean him, right? You never considered she could have survived that blast either, why would she assume any different?, a small voice in the back of his head reminded him.

Patroka nudged him back into the present. “Why are you so pale? Who is this Misha?”

“Me –”, Mikhail breathed.

Malos seemed really pissed off at this point.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re going on about and I don’t bloody care!”, he shouted, before exploding the air around him into a black and purple glow.

Mikhail’s legs finally allowed him to move again, as he rushed to his sister’s side, to block Malos’ attack with his own Ether shield. He had to stop this. If Talya kept attacking, Malos was going to kill her for real. He turned to his sister, grabbing her shoulders.

“Stop!”

“No!”, she screamed, agonised. She looked at him, as though she couldn’t see him, a veil of held back tears clouding her eyes. “Let me go! He killed my brother!

“No, he didn’t!” He pulled her closer. “Talya, I’m right here!”

She struggled weakly against him. “No, you’re not him. My Misha is dead.”

“I’m not. I promise, Talya, it’s really me. I’m here. I’m alive.”, he paused, bending down to rest his face in her hair. Snowflakes melted against his skin, it made him think back to Estham. “Remember the last spring we had on Estham? I was so excited about the snow finally melting again, and you made me a crown of those snowdrops we had behind the house.”

Talya relaxed against him. “You were so happy, you told mum you were never going to take it off ever again.”, she paused, then looked up at him. “Misha. It really is you, isn’t it?”

The smile on her face was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She threw her arms around his neck and he lifted her up, hugging her closely. He felt like he never wanted to let her go ever again.

“My Talya.”

“My Misha.”

“I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you too.”, she mumbled, face buried in his shoulder. “I love you.”

Mikhail could tell she was crying, and so was he. He hadn’t been this happy since he had been six years old. Talya, alive, alright. He had his sister back. “I love you too, Talya.”, he said, burying his face in her hair.

Chapter Text

Akhos had been researching in the library since breakfast. Though, truth be told, hiding out was probably the better word for it. He was supposed to be better at planning these things. Strategy, battle tactics, those were his strong suits, and yet here he was, having failed to protect the people he cared about yet again. He still wasn’t able to face Nat, seeing her at breakfast, knowing how he had failed her, how she had gotten hurt because of him, he couldn’t even bear to look into her eyes. And now Jin was angry with him as well. Righteously so, but Akhos just could not afford this kind of situation happening again. He couldn’t lose anyone else. Not Patroka, not Nat, not anyone. Hiding away was not a solution though. With a sigh he got up and made his way to the training room. Perhaps sparring with Mikhail and Patroka would help take the edge off.

He passed a visibly pissed-off Malos and a slightly on edge Patroka on the way there. Patroka angrily told him to get out of her way, and something about talking to Jin. Malos looked like he wanted to explode and the only reason he didn’t was that they were currently a few feet under the Cloud Sea, and him losing control would end up killing all of them, rather than just the person he was currently mad at. Akhos wondered what had happened. It was true that Malos’s base emotion was anger, but this was different. He seemed even more dangerous than usual.

When he got to the training room, he was surprised to hear what sounded like a mixture of laughing and crying. He froze at the doorstep of the training room. Nat and Mikhail were inside, neither of them noticing his presence. Nat had her arms wrapped tightly around Mikhail, who had lifted her up in the air, so he could rest his head on her shoulder. His stomach dropped. Akhos did not really understand what was going on, but given their tight embrace, he assumed he was out of place here. He turned to leave when he heard Nat quietly mumble “I love you.” He could not quite explain why his heart started racing at those words, and why they felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He left, before he could hear anymore.

Akhos stopped a safe distance from the training room, leaned against a wall and sank to the floor. He didn’t understand why it bothered him so much. It wasn’t like there had been anything going on between Nat and him. And he couldn’t say he was surprised either. After all, this was Mikhail. Tall, handsome, flirtatious Mikhail. Of course Nat would have fallen in love with him. Next to that what chance did he have? Akhos scowled at himself. Why was he even thinking that? They were his friends. He should be happy for them. So why wasn’t he?

~

Patroka cursed under her breath. Dealing with Malos was something she did not enjoy doing on one of his good days. And right now, she needed to do damage control, before he ended up actually murdering her friend the next time he saw her. Mikhail’s sister. Now that was a development she had not seen coming. She didn’t know how they had gotten separated in the first place, but it was clear from everything that had happened that they had both thought the other to be dead for a while. And if Nat had blamed Malos, that probably meant that they hadn’t seen each other since the sinking of the Tornan Titan. Patroka had no idea what exactly had happened back then. Her memories didn’t date back as long as that, but she had pieced some of the events together from things Mikhail, Jin and Malos had said. Enough to understand Nat’s every action in that room. Enough to understand that right now, Mik needed to be with his sister. And one look at Malos told her that she had to get him out of that room and needed to keep him as far away from Nat as possible in the near future.

She found Jin on the steering deck, brooding over a map. He raised his head when she stormed in with Malos. She explained briefly what had just happened in the training room. Malos seemed to calm down visibly as he began to understand just what exactly had set Natalya off, but he was still simmering enough that Patroka did not want him anywhere near Mikhail’s sister. Jin, on the other hand, showed surprise.

“Mikhail’s sister? Really? He never even told me he had one.”

“I’m pretty sure they both thought the other was dead until a few minutes ago.”

“This is an interesting development, but since Mikhail is very much alive, I do not think an incident like today is likely to happen again.”, Jin concluded calmly.

“I’m not going to continue training her. Next time, I might not be so lenient.”

“Alright, then starting tomorrow, I’ll train with her, it was my idea in the first place anyway.” Jin said as he got up.

“Why only starting tomorrow?”, Malos asked. “You think the brat’ll get better at controlling herself on her own?”

“Mikhail just got his sister back. Natalya just found out her little brother hasn’t died after all. I’d say we give them today.” Jin told him and walked from the room.

~

The rest of the day passed rather quickly. Talya spent most of it cuddled up against her little brother – who was so much taller than her now, she could still barely believe how much he’d grown since she’d last seen him. She was glad Misha was safe, though for some reason, that name no longer seemed to fit. In the time they’d spent apart, he seemed to have completely outgrown it. They talked about everything that had happened to them since that day in Estham – more or less, they did each leave out some of the more boring details. When Talya asked what had happened in Porton Village, Mikhail told her about how he’d been found by Jin and his Driver, Lora, how the three of them got tangled up in the events that happened after. They both collectively decided that they would not talk about anything that happened between the sinking of Torna and their escapes from Indol. Neither of them needed to relive those memories.

It was late in the evening when they could finally stand to be parted again. As if neither of them could quite believe that if they left each other’s side, they would see each other again.

“I still can’t believe you’re so short now.”, Mikhail mumbled, resting his chin on her head, “You used to be taller.”

“You used to be shorter, that’s all.”, Talya laughed and buried her face in his chest.

That heartbeat. She felt like she could spend hours just listening to that. He was alive. Her little brother, safe, sound, and alive. She was going to have to thank Jin tomorrow. She wished she could thank Lora too, but even though Mikhail had not told her about what happened to her, Jin’s current condition was indication enough that this was no longer possible.

They said goodnight and Talya returned to the bedroom she used to share with Patroka. Not that she’d ever done much sleeping there. Patroka seemed to think the same thing.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you usually sleep somewhere else?”

Natalya stopped mid-step. Akhos. He still hadn’t spoken a word to her. She hadn’t even seen him since this morning. The thought that he was still angry with her felt like a knife in her chest. Patroka stepped towards her, pulled her into the room and pushed her towards her bed before closing the door.

“Look, I don’t care where you sleep, but don’t stand in the doorway, there’s a draft and I don’t want to get sick because of you.”, she scowled.

Natalya smiled. “Thanks, Patroka.”

Patroka looked visibly taken aback. “What for? I just said I don’t care about you, why are you thanking me?”

Talya curled up on her bed and pulled the blanket over herself. “Because I don’t think you mean it.”, she stated plainly and closed her eyes.

The warmth from the blanket was nice. She hadn’t – Talya paused. She was warm? How? Usually it took Akhos’ presence to take the cold away, but he was nowhere to be seen. And this feeling, it wasn’t the absence of cold. She was actually warm. Cosy even. How had this happened? Natalya didn’t know. She had a suspicion, but it could not be proven. It did not matter though. She just hoped the warmth would stay.

She curled up under the blanket, her sleepy mind drifting yet again towards Akhos. Talya still wanted to go and see him, even if he did not want to see her. She wanted to curl up next to him, listen to his stories and his heartbeat. She wanted to tell him how happy she had been this morning, when she found out her brother was still alive. She wanted to – well, no matter, it was not going to happen. He was angry with her, and if she wasn’t cold anymore, she did not have an excuse to seek him out. Natalya sighed, turned in her bed, fell asleep and dreamt of a young dark-haired man with blue eyes and red glasses holding her gently in his arms.

~

When she awoke, it was still dark. The artificial day light system of the ship had not yet turned on. Talya sat on her bed for a while thinking about her dream. Then she got up. It did not matter if Akhos didn’t want to see her. She needed to apologise to him for failing him. She needed to hear his voice, see his face. Quietly, so as to not wake Patroka, she left the room and began to search for Akhos.

He was not on the steering deck, and not in the library either. She checked the training room and found it unoccupied. Talya walked around some more and found herself in a part of the ship she’d never been in before. After quite a bit of walking she found a room with light already burning inside. It turned out to be a workshop, from the looks of it, containing what looked like a large unfinished ship. Not as large as the Monocerous, but certainly larger than most Titan ships that frequented the ports of Alrest these days. Talya could hear the sounds of someone whistling while tinkering around with the monster of a machine before her.

“Who’s there?”, she asked.

Something metal cluttered to the floor with a clanging sound, followed by a curse word, then “Talya?” Mikhail appeared from behind the ship, rubbing the back of his head. “What are you doing here? Why are you awake?”

“I could be asking you the same thing.”

“It’s five in the morning. I’m always up this early. You on the other hand, you’re usually sleeping until –”, he interrupted himself, sky blue eyes narrowing, “What did Akhos do?”

Talya’s eyes widened. How did he assume so quickly that it had something to do with Akhos? “Nothing. He didn’t do anything.”, she spurted, way too quickly to convince Mikhail of anything.

He took a step towards her. “Did he say something?”, he pressed, his voice was a low dangerous growl now.

“No.”, Talya hung her head. “I just – it’s just that – I think he is angry with me.”

“Why would he be angry with you?”

“Because I put everyone in danger on the ship. I came along even though I still couldn’t control my powers that well, and my inexperience almost got him killed.”

“If he blames you for that, he’s an idiot. If it hadn’t been for you, Jin probably would have been the only one to make it off that ship alive.”

“I was looking for him.”

“Jin?”

“No. Akhos.”

“Were you cold again? You’re not shivering now.”

Talya bit her lip. “No. That wasn’t the problem. I’m fine. I’m not cold anymore.”

“Then why?”

Talya stared at the floor. “I wanted to see him.”

Mikhail laughed. “I see.”

“What?”

“My sister has a crush.”, he teased.

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, isn’t it?”

“Besides, he hates me.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“He hasn’t spoken to me since I woke up. He didn’t come to see me, and he hasn’t even looked at me since what happened on the Tantalese ship. He’s avoiding me and there’s only one possible reason for that. I let him down during the mission and now he hates me.”, she pouted.

Mikhail put his arms around her.

“I’m sure it’ll work out. Akhos doesn’t hate you. He’d have to be a real idiot for that. And you should have seen him when he carried you off that ship. He was wrecked with worry. Don’t you think there’s a chance he’s avoiding you because he feels like he let you down, just like you?”

“Mikhail, have you seen – oh.”

Mikhail let go of his sister and Talya spun around to see Akhos standing in the doorframe. He was looking at her. Though the look on his face was not what Talya had wanted to see. He looked hurt.

“Akhos –”, she managed to say, but he was already gone. She turned back to face Mikhail who was resting his forehead on the fingers of his right hand. “See? He hates me.”

Mikhail sighed. “No.”, he said, looking to the place Akhos had disappeared from, “I really don’t think he does.”

He wouldn’t tell her what he meant by that, though.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Natalya went to the training room with Jin after breakfast. He was in a foul mood, and Natalya was initially quite concerned that he would take it out on her, but as it turned out, Jin had himself under impeccable control. Ever the cold practical teacher, his focus was entirely on her and her training. However, contrary to Natalya’s expectations, he was neither impatient, nor cruel. On the contrary, he made it a habit to force her into taking breaks whenever he noticed her attacks weakening.

Around 11am, Akhos entered the training room with his new Blade hovering next to him. Natalya nearly dropped her shield and got hit in the face with an ice dagger as a result. Akhos’ Blade was clad head to toe in bright shining silver armour with gold inlays, large, moth-like wings spread wide behind her. She was dancing through the air, cheerful and brimming with energy. She looked so perfect, so beautiful.

Akhos still wouldn’t meet her eyes. Talya’s heart sank.

“Don’t drop your guard in the middle of a fight!”, Jin scolded, then paused, “Perhaps you need another break.” He pointed to a thermos standing on the side-lines. “Make sure you drink enough.”

Natalya stepped away from Jin, and Akhos’ Blade zoomed down towards her, folded in her wings around herself and circled Natalya.

“Oh, hi! I’m Obrona.”, she squeaked, before twirling away, giggling, “And who are you?”

“I’m –” uncomfortable, she thought, “Natalya.”, she said.

“Well, it is certainly nice to meet you, I look forward to sharing the stage with you.”, Obrona giggled, twirling around her one more time, then flying back to Akhos, the two of them moving to the other side of the training room to begin working their fighting.

Natalya watched them from afar. It was evident that Akhos wasn’t used to this new way of fighting, but he seemed determined to learn. Obrona’s sparky personality was no coincidence, as it turned out. Another electric Blade. Natalya sighed. They were perfect for each other. The thought stung, but she was saved from thinking too much about that by Jin calling her back to her own training.

By the end of the day, Natalya’s fighting technique had improved quite a bit, though not as much as Akhos and Obrona’s, who – after some instructions from Jin on more effective Blade-Driver fighting techniques – by now seemed like a well-oiled machine running entirely on the fuel of sarcastic banter. Back in her room, Natalya curled up on her bed and pulled the blanket over her head in an attempt to forget about the two of them and get some sleep. She tried and failed to keep herself from thinking about a certain person who had no interest in seeing her. No matter how hard she tried, Akhos’ face kept drifting to the surface of her consciousness. She wished she could go to him. Talya hated admitting it, but she missed cuddling up under a blanket with him. She did not quite understand why she felt like this, but either way, going to see him now was out of the question. First, he had been acting cold towards her all day, today and yesterday, and second, he had Obrona now. He no longer had a need for her, no matter how much she wished for it. She sighed. Obrona and Akhos were perfect for eachother, so why did the thought of Obrona make her chest tighten so painfully? Was she jealous of the Blade? No, impossible. Talya and Akhos were just friends, if one could even them that. She had no feelings for him whatsoever. No, Talya imagined she had just gotten used to sharing a bed with Akhos and had begun to miss the warmth of his body. Not that she was cold without him anymore, but how else was she supposed to explain this pain she was feeling in her heart? Yes, that was it. It had absolutely nothing to do with jealousy. There simply was no way.

~

Akhos was sitting on the floor in the library and groaned. Obrona twirled around above his head. “You know, studying won’t make you fall asleep any faster.”, she chirped, landing beside him. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, yes, denial, always the best way to deal with a problem.”, she shifted from his right to his left, studying him from under her helmet. “It’s that girl, isn’t it? Do you like her?”, she teased.

“No.”, Akhos found himself protesting far too quickly. “But she got hurt a couple days ago, and it was all my fault. I just don’t know how she could ever forgive me.”

“Did you hurt her on purpose?”, Obrona asked, sounding doubtful.

“No, but –”

“No buts. If you weren’t the one who hurt her, why would she be mad at you for it? What is she to you anyway?”

“A friend, I hope.” Even though his heart strained at the thought, there wasn’t really much he could do about it. As long as she was happy, he’d have to find a way to deal with it.

“You seemed closer than that.”, Obrona sat down next to him and tousled his hair.

Akhos frowned. “You met her today and barely exchanged a word with her. How could you possibly be able to make your mind up about something like that in such a short time?”

Obrona rustled her wings. “I may have been born yesterday, but even I can see the way you look at her. It’s honestly a miracle she hasn’t caught on to it yet.”, she smirked, “You liiike her.”

“Shut your mouth, Obrona. Don’t be silly, of course I don’t. I just sleep better when I’m next to her, that’s all.”

The look on Obrona’s face made him instantly regret his words. She smiled like a cat that had just found a ball of yarn. “You sleep together? That is so cute!”, she squealed excitedly.

Akhos groaned. “Nothing happened, and nothing ever will. And besides, after what happened, she won’t come to me anyways.”

Though he could not see it, Akhos was pretty sure that behind her visor, Obrona was rolling her eyes at him. “You are reading way too much into this. You can’t know things like that.”

“She doesn’t feel that way about me.”

“Oh? And what research and data are you basing that on?” Obrona chirped.

“I don’t deserve her. That’s not how this story goes.”

“Doesn’t the hero always get the girl?”

“Do I look like a hero to you? I’m the smart guy who plans and always has the answer, and I couldn’t make a plan good enough as to not endanger the people I care about. I’m utterly useless. At best, I’m a glorified sidekick. If I were to write a hero, that would have to be Jin, he makes a perfect protagonist, powerful and driven, cold as ice yet with a warm loving heart and – but anyway, I’m not writing that story. Either way, that hero you’re talking about, that’s not me.”

“I'm sure Natalya would disagree.”

“Natalya doesn’t care about me that much. Besides, she’s in love with Mikhail.”

Obrona rested her forehead in her hand. “What exactly makes you say something as stupid as that?”

“She told him she loved him! I was there, they were all over each other! I understand though. He's every girl’s dream, and he knows it. And he loves her too, he said so, I heard him. I’m happy for them.”

Obrona pulled out a book from the shelf behind her and whacked him over the shoulder with it.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Being an idiot. Don’t say ‘I’m happy for them’ all gloomy looking. A blind person can see you don’t mean it. Besides, are you sure you’re not misinterpreting something? Because I’d say if she sleeps in your bed, that doesn’t really leave much room for interpretation.” she grinned at him. “You liiike each other.”, she chittered. “Like, like, like, like.” she giggled.

“You are being fantastically helpful right now, you know that?”, he gritted out, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, I am going to be.”, she cooed, and hopped up. “As your new best friend, I am on the case.” And off she went before Akhos could stop her. Great. This was going to go fantastic. He buried his head in his hands and groaned. He had to come up with a plan for damage control. Whatever Obrona was about to tell Natalya, he had to deny it, or risk losing her. He couldn’t lose her. No matter how she felt about him.

~

Someone knocked at the door. Patroka growled and pulled the blanket over her head. Since she could not sleep anyway, Natalya got up to see who it was, and found Obrona at her door in complete hysterics.

“Have you seen Akhos? I can’t find him anywhere, and it’s really important that I talk to him right now.”

Natalya frowned. “Why would I have seen Akhos? He hasn’t even looked at me all day.” She did her absolute best to ignore the sting that voicing those words sent through her.

Obrona looked at her innocently. “I thought you were his friend?”, she bit her lip. “Please? Just help me look for him.”

Friend. For some unknown reason that word stung. Talya really didn’t want to think about why Obrona wanted to see Akhos so urgently in the middle of the night, but the Blade looked so worried, it was hard to say no.

“Fine.”

Natalya followed Obrona out of the room. Obrona twirled around her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now I think I remember he said something about going to the library, but I have no idea where that is, do you?”

Natalya sighed. “It’s that way.”

They walked to the library, where Obrona decided it would be smarter to split up. “You take these shelves, I’ll look over there.”, she chittered.

Natalya nodded, turned the corner, and ran straight into Akhos.

“Natalya?”, the look on his face was pure disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

“Obrona was looking for you.”

Akhos raised an eyebrow. “Was she now?”

Natalya turned to call out for Obrona, but Akhos grabbed for her arm. “Natalya –”

What was this, was he going to say something about him and Obrona? If so, she did not need to hear it. For some reason, even thinking about it hurt too much. “It’s fine.”

“No! It’s absolutely not fine!”, Akhos hissed quietly. Natalya stared at him. She had never seen him like this. “It was my fault you got hurt, and I’m sorry.”

“What?!”

“You got hurt trying to protect me. And I just couldn’t –”

Natalya’s eyes widened. So he hadn’t been avoiding her because he disliked her after all? Natalya felt so relieved she forgot to breathe for a second. When she remembered to breathe again, she felt anger welling up inside her.

“Akhos, you idiot, I did not get hurt because of you! I got hurt, because I did not pay attention to my ether energy and used it up too quickly without thinking. None of that was even remotely your fault!”

Akhos paused. “You’re shaking.”

“Well, and whose fault is that? I spent the last few days thinking you hated me!”, Natalya said defensively, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Had she really just said that?

With barely any hesitation, Akhos pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry.”, he whispered into her ear, “I’m so glad you are alright. I was so worried, and I blamed myself for what happened, and I just couldn’t –”

“It’s fine. I’m alright. It wasn’t your fault.”, Natalya muttered into his chest. Her tremors of anxiety and anger slowly subsiding, she took a deep breath before looking up at him. “Are you tired?”

“Yes, I haven’t closed my eyes for three days straight.”, Akhos let go of her. Natalya bit her lip to stop herself from groaning in protest. “Do you mean – do you want to – ?”, he trailed off before finishing the sentence, the sparks in his eyes blazing at her so intensely, Natalya thought she was going to evaporate right there. But then the light in his eyes dimmed again, as he choked out: “What about Mikhail?”

Talya blinked. What? “What about him?”

Akhos opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking, apparently not sure how to say whatever he was going to say. Natalya took a step towards him. Akhos retreated. Had Mikhail told Akhos to stay away from his sister? No, surely he would not do that. But still.

“Did he say something to you?”

“What? Uhm, no, but –”

“But what? What does he have to do with this?”

“Shouldn’t you be with him instead?”

Natalya frowned. Mikhail was her brother, but that didn’t mean – Why would she –

“What? Why?”

Akhos bit his lip and stared at the floor. “Look, I heard the two of you in the training room. You told him you loved him. You don’t have to stand here and pretend for my sake.”

All Natalya could do was stand there, mouth halfway open, gaping at him like an Argentum Monkfish. She blinked, trying to order her thoughts.

“What does that have to do with anything? Why would I spend –”, she trailed off mid-sentence and blinked. Then blinked again. Heat rushed into her cheeks and she clapped her hands over her face. “Akhos, you idiot, I – Mikhail – oh Architect!” She couldn’t even say it. She remembered the look on Mikhail’s face this morning, when Akhos had walked in on the two of them hugging. How he’d told her that Akhos’ look of pain when he’d seen her had nothing to do with dislike and refused to explain more than that.

“Akhos, Mikhail is –”

“You don’t have to tell me.”, Akhos interrupted, still staring at the floor. “I know he’s better than me.”

“What? No, he’s my brother!”

Now it was Akhos’ turn to look at her with wide eyes. “Your – brother.”, he repeated.

“I thought your brother was called Misha? And didn’t you say he was dead?”

“Misha is short for Mikhail. And, as it turns out, the explosion we each thought had killed the other, we actually both survived. I still can’t believe we got this lucky. I still can’t believe I found him again. And of course I love him, he’s my little brother, but I –”, she interrupted herself.

Akhos wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t ask, I just got so jealous.”

“You got – what? Why?”

Akhos held her tightly. “Do you really have to ask?”

A yawn reverberated through him.

“Sleep?”, Talya suggested. Akhos nodded. They walked to the library door, but Natalya stopped at the exit.

“Wait, we should find Obrona, she was looking for you.”

Akhos shook his head. “Nah, I think she’s already gone, I can’t sense her anywhere.”

“Huh, she sounded pretty urgent earlier.”

Akhos shrugged. “I wouldn’t read too much into it. I’m sure we do not want to know what goes on in her head.”

Natalya nodded and they headed out of the library, together.

A few minutes later, she was lying in Akhos’ arms bundled up in blankets. Akhos moved to stroke a strand of hair out of her face. Wherever he touched her, Natalya’s skin immediately began to tingle and burn with heat.

“Could we keep doing this? Would you mind?”, he asked, sounding almost shy.

Natalya buried her face in his chest in an attempt to hide her expression. “I’d be fine if we continued.”, she said, doing her best to not let her voice waver and betray her.

She could hear Akhos smile in his voice when he responded: “Thank you.”

Before they knew it, they were both deeply asleep.

Chapter Text

When they made it to breakfast the next day, Talya saw that her usual place was already occupied. Obrona and Mikhail were having a quiet conversation, both of them grinning like devils when they looked up and saw Natalya and Akhos enter the room together. Talya decided she did not even want to know what was going on in their heads. So instead, she sat down next to Akhos and focused on the heated discussion going on between Malos, Patroka and a very grumpy Jin. Apparently, Malos had decided that everyone would need a human cover, therefore they should all awaken Blades. Jin was still very much opposed to the idea.

“Are you ever going to get your head out of your ass? Don’t be a fool, the second you use your arts, everyone will figure out that you are not the human you pretend to be and then it’s only a matter of time, before we have Indol on our tail, trying to get their hands on the Paragon of Torna. You think your precious Driver would have wanted you to fall into Amalthus' hands?!”

The temperature in the room dropped to sub-zero degrees almost instantly. Across from Natalya, dishes clattered. Mikhail had frozen mid move. His fork dropped uselessly on the plate in front of him. His usual smug expression was blown away, replaced with a mixture of pain, shock, and anger, as his eyes darted from Jin to Malos. Jin's expression, was unreadable, but there really was no need to read his face to decipher what was going on. The freezing room told Talya all that she needed to know. Mikhail had told her about Lora, how close she and Jin had been. It was obvious that she had meant a lot to him – to both of them. More than Xander had meant to Akhos. And coming from Malos, even the mention of her in a conversation, especially in a fight was a very big mistake. Natalya decided she needed to do something before Jin froze everyone but the two of them to death. This whole mess was her fault after all. If she had had better control of her powers, they wouldn’t be talking about back-up right about now.

“I still don't have full control of my own abilities, becoming a driver right now would be a mistake, I think I should focus on my own arts first.”, she interjected, “And I have a perfectly normal blue core crystal, I could always pretend to be someone's Blade.”

Jin looked at her with an unusually unveiled expression of surprise and gratitude on his face. The temperature in the room gradually rose back up to normal. Malos looked between them, considering the suggestion for a moment, before deciding it was probably best to go along with the idea.

“Indeed. And we could most likely make this work to our advantage. If you work with Jin, the two of you can mask his arts as yours, though you should train with the others as well, so we don't have to restrict you to only fighting with Jin, we may need both of you to be flexible.”

Jin and Natalya went to the training room again after breakfast. Neither of them spoke about the decision that had been made back there, but Natalya had the feeling Jin was at least a little less grumpy than he had been in the morning.

Training went surprisingly well too. Since Akhos and Obrona had also joined them in the training room again, Jin decided to train all three of them together. He was an impressively good teacher where all manner of fighting was concerned, and by the end of it, Natalya had improved at fighting on her own, as well as passing her weapon to him and coordinating attacks. There was still a lot of room for improvement, but she had gotten noticeably better compared to her rather feeble first attempts a few days ago. And Jin and her worked quite well as a team too, though that was probably mostly due to his immense experience.

Since Akhos, Obrona and her were doing quite well by the time the other three showed up with their own new Blades, Jin told Talya and the others to practice together while he went off to help the newly formed teams improve their techniques as well. Neither Mikhail nor Malos had ever worked as a Driver/Blade team and while Patroka had, apparently, her technique was just as inefficient as Akhos' had been the day before, so the three of them and their Blades needed Jin’s instruction much more than Akhos, Obrona and Talya. Natalya admired Jin for how calm he acted. Especially since it was obvious that he was still very much displeased with all of their decisions. But then, that was Jin for you, calm, collected, a professional through and through.

“Don't forget to drink something before you continue.” Jin reminded Talya before he left to join the others, who then collectively went to a different training room because ten people fighting in the same room were going to get in each other's way no matter how large the training room was.

They started out with a match of Obrona and Akhos against Natalya, and while she was outmatched, she still held her own considerably well, until Obrona pulled something – and Natalya had absolutely no idea what that something was or how she’d done it – and cut Talya completely off from her ether supply.

“What the hell did you just do?”, Natalya got out in a mixture of surprise and admiration. Morena’s power was draining from the shield, her ether arts all but useless. If she had not been on the receiving end of this new art of Obrona’s, this ability would be so incredibly cool!

Obrona giggled, obviously pleased with herself. “I disrupted the ether flow around you. Jin did tell you to be careful how much of it you use. Wanna see how you can fight when you can't use any?”, she chirped.

Akhos sighed. “While this is amazing, and I absolutely love that you can do this, don't you think you're completely defeating the purpose of this exercise, Obrona?”

Talya, meanwhile, was puzzling over something else. Her usual ether flow had been compromised, she could feel the difference, but she didn’t feel helpless. At the same time the ether flow around her had been cut off, Talya noticed a weaker flow still tugging on her. Where was this energy coming from? Talya’s eyes widened. Blades drew ether energy from their surroundings and channelled it into their arts. But Natalya was no ordinary Blade, technically, she wasn’t a Blade at all. Their rules did not apply to her. She was human, and that energy she was feeling right now, that was the ether her own body was generating. Talya adapted and switched her ether flow to channel a different source of ether. There was nothing Obrona could do to stop her now. Natalya straightened and shot a blizzard at an unsuspecting Obrona and Akhos, blinding both of them.

“How? How did you do that?”, Obrona chittered surprised, “You can’t, that’s against the rules.”

“Well, I don’t work by a script.”, Natalya said and chased into the blizzard. It was impossible to see anything, but that was her advantage, she realised. Both Akhos and Obrona gave off noticeable heat signatures. In the midst of the blizzard, all of them might be blind, but if Natalya closed her eyes and concentrated on nothing but the heat, she could sense their exact positions. Obrona was currently aimlessly tumbling somewhere above her, disoriented and mildly frustrated, though no less excited. For some reason, it almost seemed like she enjoyed having been foiled. Then again, this was training, so the stakes were rather low, Talya assumed she’d react quite differently, if Akhos’ or her life were actually in danger.

Akhos was mere steps from her, shielding his eyes from the snowstorm. Seeing as Obrona was well out of reach, Talya went for Akhos. A few well-placed hits, and before he even knew what was happening, he was on the ground, and Talya was on top of him, her shield at his throat, both of them panting. Natalya dropped the storm and smiled down at Akhos. “Guess this means I won.”

She might have gotten too cocky and forgotten that just because Obrona was still dizzy from having been tossed around, that did not mean Akhos was defenceless. He used an opening in her defence, tipped her balance and toppled her onto her back, pinning her shield hand to the floor. He smirked, before leaning down to whisper in her ear: “You really think so?”

His voice was breathless and low, and Natalya’s breath hitched. She prayed to the Architect that he hadn’t noticed that or her elevated heartbeat. His breath tickled the skin under her earlobe. Feeling her cheeks redden, Natalya lifted her other hand and dumped snow on both of them, hoping that would cool her down. She was about to mount a full on counterattack, when –

“If you two love-birds are done, Jin said to fetch you before lunch gets cold, and I should add that he had another fight with Malos, so I would not test him by being late.”, her brother was leaning against the doorframe smirking gleefully.

Akhos was off Natalya and on his feet in less than a second. “We weren’t –”

“Playing in the snow like a bunch of newlyweds? Oh, I’m sure you weren’t.”, Mikhail winked at him, before wisely deciding that he did not want to be in Akhos range right now and spinning out of the room. “Don’t be late.”, he cooed. Then he was gone.

Akhos pulled Natalya to her feet. “That was amazing! You have to tell me how you did that!”

Talya laughed. She explained her new trick on the way to the dining room.

Chapter Text

At lunch, Natalya finally had a chance to meet the new Blades. Additionally, the seating arrangement had changed. Malos had now taken up a seat at the head of the table with his Blade Sever on his right, who looked and sounded so utterly terrifying, Natalya had on the one hand no trouble believing he was Malos’ Blade and on the other hand very quickly decided to stay as far away from him as possible at all times. Seated on his other side was Mikhail’s new Blade Cressidus – most likely due to the same reason for which Patroka had taken up the other spot next to Sever. It seemed he had been voted least likely to be intimidated by everyone else at that end of the table – in which statement Natalya definitely included Patroka. Perdido, Patroka’s new Blade was seated across from her between Cressidus and Obrona, who had immediately launched herself in a lively conversation with Mikhail, resulting in her taking up the empty chair next to him, which left Akhos to take up a seat next to his sister and Natalya took the remaining spot between him and Jin, who had chosen to take up residence at the other head of the table, next to the kitchen door. Natalya suspected it had been done both out of convenience and to provide a quick and easy way of escape.

Mikhail broke from his conversation with Obrona long enough to turn to Jin and beam: “Talya just discovered a new ability, guess your training must have really paid off!”

Jin raised his brows and looked at Natalya, “Is that so?”, thinly veiled pride shone through his usually cold demeanor, “What did you do?”

“Well, first, she completely blindsided us by outwitting one of Obrona’s arts.”, Akhos started.

“I cut off her ether supply and she somehow managed to attack us anyway.”, Obrona chittered, turning to Natalya, “How did you do that? Did my art fail somehow?”

Natalya shook her head. Obrona had run off to chat to Mikhail while Talya told Akhos how she’d done what she’d done, so Obrona probably hadn’t heard Natalya’s explanation the first time round. “Oh, no, it worked alright, you completely cut me off the ether supply around me. I just figured out I could channel the ether energy from my body rather than my surroundings. It’s one of the benefits of being a hybrid of a Blade in a human body.”

Jin looked at her, an expression almost akin to admiration on his face. Natalya suddenly felt excited about telling him about her training session today. It was like she was a little girl again, telling her parents about the snowman she built in the backyard, or the dragonfly she caught in a jar. She smiled and told him everything that had happened today – well, everything apart from how that fight had ended with her and Akhos atop of each other rolling around in the snow. For some reason she did not feel quite as comfortable telling Jin about that titbit of information.

“Sensing heat signatures in a blizzard.”, Jin considered for a moment, “How exhausted were you after this?”

“Quite a bit actually, but I think it also had something to do with the fact that I was only channelling my own ether at the time, because someone”, she shot a look at Obrona, “cut off my supply. I don’t think it would have been quite as difficult otherwise.”

“Good. Then with a bit of practice, we could use that to get us out of tight spots in the future, rather than you having to freeze the entire ship and spend the next day in a coma.”, he paused then looked at her more softly. “You did well.”, he said, then pushed the casserole dish closer towards her. “Make sure you eat and drink enough to get your energy back up.”, he told her, before turning to Obrona. “Your art seems quite fascinating as well, I wonder if you would lend me a hand for a little while with the others after lunch? I’d be quite interested to see what effect your powers have on them.”

Excitement was playing on Obrona’s smile and her voice buzzed with impatience. “Oh, I would love to try that!”, she chirped.

“Good. Akhos, you can continue training with Natalya, if you are to go on missions together, the two of you will need to be able to pretend to be Driver and Blade anyway, so you can use this afternoon to get used to passing your weapon and coordinating attacks.”

~

As it turned out, after a short introduction, Akhos was just as proficient with Natalya’s shield as he was with Obrona’s twin swords and his own bow. He missed a few of Natalya’s passes, mostly because she miscalculated the strength she would need to throw it to him and smacked him right in the face with it, but other than that, they seemed to work quite well together. When she laughed after he slipped on ice trying to catch her shield and fell, he threw her a dangerous look.

“Doesn’t it seem kind of unfair to you that I get to play around with your shield the whole time? In the interest of equality, why don’t you try to handle my bow for a bit?”, he teased.

“Sure.” Natalya winked, sensing a trap, but in far too good a mood to actually care about his motives. Besides, it had been quite a while since she’d even seen his bow in action, and she had to admit, she really loved the weapon, just like – she stopped herself before her brain could finish the thought. They were friends, she would not even let herself go there. Her shield disappeared from his hands into a gust of sparkling snowflakes. “Teach me then.”

Talya had expected Akhos to summon his bow to his hand, and whelped in surprise, when it appeared in hers. Akhos got to his feet and strode over to where she was standing. As he ran his eyes all over her, Talya felt her body tingle under his gaze.

“Okay, first, that posture won’t do at all.”, he criticised. He raised his hands, “May I?”

Natalya nodded, and he aligned her posture, facing sideways, only her head focused on the target. Well, turned to look there at least, as Natalya’s head was anything but focused at the moment. Not with Akhos barely an inch from her, his hands moving from her hips to her arms, sending heat and sparks through her entire body under the guise of showing her how to hold the bow. He took her right hand and a shining blue arrow appeared in it.

“Place that here,”, he whispered into her ear, nearly stopping her heart right there, “draw your arm back just like this and loose.” Talya let go of the bow string, the arrow zipped aimlessly through the room before landing somewhere entirely nonspecific and exploding into a globe of lightning. Not that Natalya saw any of that, as she turned to Akhos, who was smirking. “Your aim needs improvement.”, he said, “Perhaps next we’ll try actually looking in the direction we’re shooting?”, he teased.

Natalya bit her lip. Akhos eyes followed the movement. She took a deep breath, trying to get her heart to follow a normal rhythm before he noticed what was going on. Talya lifted the bow again and Akhos adjusted her posture. The air around them was buzzing heavily with electricity. Natalya lowered the bow again.

“I can’t concentrate if you keep doing that.”, she admitted.

Akhos’ face was the epitome of innocence.

“Keep doing what?”, he asked in a tone that told Talya that he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Well, if he was trying to distract her from training, two could play at that game. Natalya turned to face him fully. Her left hand was still clasped around his bow, but her free right hand grasped his shirt collar to pull him closer.

“Nat, what are you doing?”, Akhos voice was hoarse and breathless.

She had no idea. This could be the biggest mistake she ever made, but with the air around her still pulsing with electricity, and her body nearly in cinders from the heat and sparks he sent coursing through her veins, her brain had no space for processing rational thought. She kissed him.

Akhos made a noise that was somewhere between a moan of surprise and a groan of impatience. His weapon faded from her hands, and he responded immediately. Natalya collided with the wall a few steps behind her, but she didn’t really care. She wasn’t going to care about anything ever again. Not with Akhos lips on hers, igniting her entire body, sending bolts of electricity coursing through her veins, setting her body tingling. Electricity. Cheater. She broke the kiss, immediately regretting it.

“Akhos, what are you doing?”

He kissed the lower ridge of her jaw. “Tell me you don’t like it and I’ll stop.” His lips moved lower to her neck. “Ask me to stop.” Natalya arched her head back in response, to give him better access to her throat. No, she would not, she thought. Though she changed her mind when his kisses reached the lower base of her throat and she had gotten tired of her neck getting all the attention. She buried her hands in his hair and pulled his lips back onto her own.

Neither of them noticed Mikhail and Obrona high fiving on the other side of the room.

Chapter Text

And this is definitely where this story ended. A few months later, Amalthus was hit by a gigantic rampaging Titan weapon and trampled to death. After that, both Malos and Sever returned to their core crystals. Torna spent the next 450 years dismantling what remained of the Praetorium while trying to find the other Aegis in an attempt to restore Malos’ broken core crystal and return both of them to Elysium, where they would be out of reach from humans who would abuse their power.

This is how they eventually met Rex and company, who at first thwarted their plan by actually awakening Pyra, which Rex was soooo not supposed to do, but then decided to help. Malos also got reawakened, and thanks to his new Driver he awoke with way less of a chip on his shoulder. Everyone becomes great friends eventually – well, everyone except Jin and Mythra, but that’s just because Mythra keeps insisting on helping him in the kitchen and ruining dinner. He quite likes Pyra though – mainly because she does not cook atrocities and insists on calling them food.

Not much else has changed. Even though everyone in Torna is now well over 500, Jin still insists on parenting most of them, especially Mikhail and Talya. No one minds though, especially not when he makes everyone stick around for dinner, because they’d all collectively die for his food – it’s just that good. They’d also all die for him, but that is a different matter entirely.

Patroka still pretends she has no feelings, especially not towards Mikhail, that would be soo gross! Everyone ships it anyway, but no one would be stupid enough to mention it in front of her – Tora once did and she nearly skinned him alive, but Poppy rescued him by being so adorable even Patroka couldn’t stay mad. Patroka and Mythra actually get along extremely well. They bonded over pretending to hate everything, while actually not doing it.

Mikhail and Talya are still getting on like a house on fire. Depending on the mission, this is sometimes to be taken literally. It’s why they are no longer allowed to go on missions together without “adult” supervision. Said adult supervision usually comes in the form of Jin, though he has also been known to separate them into teams with Patroka and Akhos – because those two are sooo much more responsible – well, Patroka actually might be.

After about 450 years together, you would expect Akhos and Natalya to act like an old married couple, which well, in some ways, they do, because they are, but in other ways, things haven’t changed that much. One thing that has changed is that Akhos no longer suffers from insomnia and nightmares, even when Talya is not in the room.

Things that haven’t changed: Natalya still loves dumping heaps of snow on people – though she’s no longer doing it in the kitchen after Jin got mad at her for watering down the soup he was cooking. Akhos still enjoys his sarcastic banter with his best friend Obrona. He and Natalya are still very much in love with each other to the point where they are so sickeningly sweet even Mythra tells them to get a room.

This is how the story ends. X2 Chapter 10 did definitely not happen, everyone is fine and alive and happy, AND YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE! Enjoy your wholesome ending.

Love, Caradilis