Colette, Baojun and Lleuad step off the tram at the northern railway station of Vale's capital, dressed in clothing that is practical without announcing itself. The sun has nearly set. The city beyond the station is already lit, the street lamps casting their glow across the evening crowd.
Lleuad wears a trenchcoat in a brown-toned tweed, a rust-coloured waistcoat beneath it and a light-grey shirt under that. His trousers are a shade lighter than the coat, with dark brown work boots underneath. His sidesword hangs sheathed at his left side, largely concealed beneath the coat. His travel bag rides his right shoulder. His hair — a little shorter than when he first arrived in the city — is drawn back simply, kept clear of his face.
Colette is in a deep navy waistcoat over a cream shirtwaist, a charcoal split skirt, and weathered black leather boots with a slight heel. Her pale-gold hair is pinned into a Gibson Girl bun — common enough in the crowd around them to draw no attention. She carries a simple suitcase.
Baojun is the only one who cannot fully disappear into the crowd, and he knows it. His immense height and distinctly foreign bearing resist concealment regardless of what he wears. He has done what he can: a dark charcoal Ulster cape coat to reduce his silhouette, a steel-blue waistcoat over a grey shirt, black trousers tucked into combat-ready black leather boots. His long hair is gathered back in a ponytail, doing partial work of concealing his ears. His tail is hidden beneath the cape. His Jian is packed inside a long travel bag — the sword's design is rare enough in Vale that carrying it openly would draw more attention than they want.
— — —
The northern station is built in a similar fashion to the southern one, but its character is different. The exterior stonework is carved with scenes of knights in combat against Grimm, and where the southern station spoke in greens, this one speaks in autumn — warm tones running through the stone, the ironwork, the details of every surface. Unlike its southern counterpart, the clocktower stands to the side of the building rather than at its center, and across the street a lively market has taken the place of the park — stalls and noise where the southern station had trees and quiet.
Inside, the familiar bones of the architecture are there — portraits of Vale's kings across the main wall, stone pillars and walls alive with carvings of knights and huntsmen lined with marble and silver — but the palette has shifted entirely. Where the southern station was dressed in green marble, this one runs in the deep amber and russet tones of autumn, the stone carrying warmth rather than coolness in every surface.
The floors echo the season as well, their mosaic designs following similar patterns to those of the southern station but rendered with autumn's motifs throughout.
Above, the ceiling is entirely different in structure — no pillars, no subdivided spans, but a single barrel vault running the length of the hall, interrupted at its centre by one large dome. And across the whole of it, from one end to the other, a single image unfolds: the legend of the Greatest Huntsman, rendered in full and continuous detail. The dome holds the culmination — the Huntsman with his sword raised, its tip meeting the glass at the ceiling's highest point, light radiating downward from the contact and falling across the stone Grimm surrounding him, each one caught mid-flight in the act of turning to nothing.
The trio moves through the crowded central hall without being stopped and finds their platform. A passenger train is already waiting. They make their way to the rear carriage, whose door is locked. Colette produces a key, opens it, and steps inside.
The interior that receives them is dim and comfortable — a lounge space with a couch running along one wall and a dining area arranged against the other. Further in, a hallway follows the right side of the cart and leads to four private bedrooms. At their backs, a door opens onto a small outdoor area at the rear of the carriage. The whole of it has the particular quality of a space designed for people who expect a certain standard without having to ask for it.
"It seems the Everwatch has decided to see us off in some comfort," Lleuad remarks, looking around with genuine appreciation.
Baojun passes the two without a word and heads straight for the bedrooms, ducking his head the entire length of the hallway — the ceiling falling just short of his full height.
"We have the carriage to ourselves," Colette confirms. "Which means we don't have to be especially careful about secrecy while we're on board."
The three carry their belongings through to the bedrooms and settle in.
— — —
Once the train leaves the station, Colette gathers the other two in the lounge and produces a map of Remnant from thin air — detailed, three-dimensional, the continents rendered with the precision of something she has visualized many times before. "Our destination is Frostvein." She indicates a city on the island of Vytal in the north. "There is an organized group of Blighted operating in the streets. A Watchman from the city will meet us just before we arrive and brief us on the situation on the ground."
The map dissolves. "We have six days before we reach Frostvein. In the meantime, we are free to—" Baojun stands and moves toward the bedrooms without ceremony. Colette watches him go, finishes her sentence with a measured patience: "—do as we like. But." She raises her voice just enough. Baojun stops. "I think this is a good opportunity for us to get to know one another a little better."
She sets a deck of cards on the table with a decisive slap.
Baojun looks back over his shoulder — at the cards, then at Colette's face. Whatever he finds there settles the matter. He sighs and returns to his seat, taking the couch opposite Lleuad.
Colette's expression carries a playful satisfaction. "Poker. The loser buys dinner." She looks between them. "Agreed?"
She watches the word "loser" land on Baojun and sees exactly what she hoped to see — a spark of competitiveness catching behind his cold exterior. She turns to Lleuad and finds a different kind of eagerness there, genuine and unforced, without a trace of competitive calculation behind it. She begins to deal without further preamble.
What follows runs considerably longer than Colette anticipated. Twelve hands in total, each of them drawn into the game far more deeply than any of them might have predicted at the outset.
All three played with remarkable emotional discipline — most hands resolved within five minutes, tells suppressed, faces composed. They rotated the deal to avoid any accusation of advantage.
Colette dominated. Her ability to track every card on the table and calculate risk in real time bordered on the uncanny — at several points during the game, both Baojun and Lleuad had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that she simply knew what they were holding.
Baojun finished second. He had needed a brief explanation of the rules at the outset, which he received without comment and did not require repeated. After that, he played almost entirely on instinct — fast, decisive, rarely wrong. He was the sharpest at reading bluffs and the quickest to capitalize on them once spotted.
Lleuad won the fewest hands and seemed entirely unbothered by this. He became the heart of the game — theatrical, expressive, quoting his fairytales at moments of high tension, extending rounds through performance and misdirection. His theatrics were contagious enough that Colette eventually joined the banter, and at one point, when Lleuad delivered a particularly well-timed self-deprecating remark, Baojun laughed. Briefly. Once. But it happened.
What the theatrics concealed was deliberate construction. Lleuad was the only one of the three to plant intentional tells early in the game and cash them in later — a slow trap that yielded him a few wins he had no business taking.
The final hand was the best of the evening. By that point it was quite clear that Lleuad was the loser, and he leaned into it completely — playing the underdog with such commitment that the whole thing became a performance in itself. When he won, the surprise was genuine. Colette applauded. Baojun, after a moment's pause, did too — a single reluctant acknowledgement that the thing had been done well.
"Quite the entertainer," Baojun says, his tone dry. "Was it the theatrics that earned you the Slayer title?"
"Perhaps," Lleuad replies in kind. "In an environment where your directness would have gotten me killed within a week, one develops alternative skills."
"Is that so." Baojun considers this without warmth. "I hadn't realized our line of work required the talents of a clown."
"You should try it sometime." Lleuad's voice carries a cheerful edge. "I suspect it would do you more good than you think."
The two hold each other's gaze across the table with the air of men quietly daring the other to blink first.
Colette sighs and begins gathering the cards. "Lleuad. I believe you have somewhere to be."
"Ah!" He straightens. "Dinner." He turns to Baojun with exaggerated formality. "What would you like, Master Xiezhi?"
Baojun does not look up. "Meat. Extra. Three plates."
"Of course." Lleuad turns to Colette.
"Something light for the evening," she says, with the air of someone making a modest request. "A salad — nuts and berries, with extra honey on top." A brief pause. "Four bowls. And four pints of beer."
Lleuad's face undergoes a journey. It begins with polite attention, passes through a moment of quiet recalibration, arrives at something that can only be described as theatrical bewilderment — held just long enough to make clear it is deliberate — and then resolves into perfect composure.
"Of course. Something light." He stands, inclines his head, and leaves the carriage.
Outside, the sun is long gone. The moon has risen, half-veiled behind drifting cloud, its light coming and going across the moving landscape.
— — —
More than half an hour later, Lleuad returns, the volume of food he is carrying requiring a careful negotiation of the doorway. The table cannot hold all of it. He distributes the trays onto the couch and surveys the result with an expression of mild sorrow. "You're not cheap."
The words lack any real accusation.
"You're no different," Colette observes, nodding toward the portion Lleuad has ordered for himself.
"Of course." Lleuad straightens with dignity. "You never know when you'll have your next—"
He stops.
Floating in the air in front of Colette is a mechanism of considerable complexity — dozens of interlocking pieces, each one moving in relation to the others, the whole thing turning slowly in the lamplight. Lleuad's sentence does not finish. He stands with the tray in his hands and stares at it, trying to find where it begins.
"Don't strain yourself," Colette says, noticing.
"What is it?"
"A puzzle. Frode made it for me as a parting gift." Something in her voice softens briefly at the name. "It sharpens the mind and gives me something to do. Otherwise it's just an overcomplicated toy."
"A remarkable one." Lleuad sets the remaining dishes down, still looking at it. Then: "Frode — would that be the young man in the lab coat who was with you before we departed?"
"Yes. A close friend from childhood."
"I see." Lleuad smiles at that, quietly, and resumes moving dishes from the tray to the table.
Once everything is arranged, he sits, places his hands together, and closes his eyes.
"What is that?" Colette asks when he opens them. "I don't think I've seen it before."
"Giving thanks for the food," Lleuad replies, reaching for his utensils.
"To whom, if you don't mind my asking?" A genuine curiosity, not a challenge. "Someone you know?"
"The Stranger."
Colette pauses. Something turns over behind her eyes. "You mean — the one from the tales?"
"Yes."
"No wonder you're full of it," Baojun says, without looking up from his plate.
"Don't be rude." Colette gives him a brief look, then turns back. "Though — giving thanks to someone from a fairy tale. My parents mentioned your descent from Sulien the Huntsman. Is this a family tradition of some kind?"
"I wouldn't call it tradition. Some who carry the legacy swear allegiance to the Stranger. Others don't. I chose to."
"My point exactly." Baojun's voice is flat and cold. "Only a fool would pledge themselves to a character from a story, in a forsaken world like this one."
Colette draws breath to respond.
"You're not wrong," Lleuad says first, his tone without edge. "That's how most people receive it. But if you're ever curious — someday — I'd be glad to say more about it."
Baojun doesn't look up. "Don't hold your breath."
— — —
Dinner winds to its close. Baojun takes his leave and closes his bedroom door. Colette and Lleuad clear the table together, stacking the dishes onto the trays. Colette carries them out to the designated collection point in the corridor and returns.
She finds Lleuad on the couch, the moonlight coming through the window and falling across him in a pale stripe. He is reading a notebook — brown, weathered, the cover softened by what appears to be years of handling, the spine still intact in the way of something carefully kept.
"Something important?" Colette asks.
Lleuad looks up, his attention returning from wherever it was. "The notebook?" He glances down at it, as though confirming the question. "Yes. Very."
"A diary?"
"Not quite." He considers it for a moment. "A collection of stories. And words — instruction, encouragement — from a great friend." He makes no effort to conceal the affection in his voice.
Colette is quiet. Her gaze rests on the notebook — on the wear of it, the care of it, the way Lleuad holds it — and stays there for a moment longer than she intends.
"I'll leave you to it," she says, coming back to herself. "Good night."
"Good night," Lleuad replies warmly, his eyes already returning to the page.