Morning light crept over the camp slowly, golden rays dripping across the barren land like honey. For once, there was no battle, no trial, no blood waiting to be spilled. Just the quiet hum of twelve people who had forgotten how to live like anything but weapons.
Lucien sat cross-legged, pale hair catching the sun. He tried to keep his expression neutral as always, but the way his eyes lingered on the flames gave him away. Seliora noticed—she always did. She walked over, handing him a steaming cup.
"It's tea. Don't glare at it like it's poison."
Lucien blinked, then took it with an awkward nod. "I wasn't glaring. Just… assessing."
She smirked. "You assess everything."
"I'm alive because I do."
"Maybe," she said softly, sitting beside him. "But you'll stay alive if you learn to rest, too."
Lucien didn't answer, but he didn't move away either.
Across the camp, Zarynth and Vaelith were already arguing, their voices carrying like thunderclaps.
"Fire is chaos, admit it!" Zarynth declared, spinning his blade lazily like a showman.
Vaelith's hair flared brighter than the morning sun. "Fire has discipline. Heat, burn, ash. Perfect order. You just like to swing things until they break."
"That's called efficiency," he said, grinning.
She threw a flame that scorched the sand at his feet. Zarynth didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned forward with that maddening grin. "See? You love me already."
Her face turned red—whether from fury or something else, no one could tell.
Ashveil was sprawled on a rock, staring at the sky with hands tucked behind his head. Nysera stood nearby, arms crossed, clearly unimpressed.
"You're wasting daylight," she muttered.
"And you're wasting oxygen, lecturing me," he shot back.
She glared. He smirked. For a moment, it was silence, just the two of them watching clouds drift. Then she spoke, almost too quietly: "You're not as careless as you pretend."
Ashveil tilted his head, eye catching hers with an unreadable gleam. "…Don't tell the others."
Kairo and Eryndra weren't far, sitting apart from the noise. Kairo flicked a small stone into the air, vanishing it mid-arc, only for it to reappear in Eryndra's palm. She smiled faintly.
"You're reckless with time," she said, handing it back.
"Someone has to be," he replied. "Otherwise it just… swallows you."
She studied him, then whispered, "It's strange, hearing the same ticking in someone else's chest."
For the first time in a long while, Kairo smiled.
Caelthorn and Morwyn, meanwhile, didn't need words. They sat together on the far edge of the camp, staring at the horizon. His hand rested loosely on his knee; hers, quietly beside his. When her fingers brushed his, he didn't pull away.
Sometimes silence said more than voices ever could.
Later, they all gathered to share food. Iralith had stolen rations from Veythar's pack, insisting she could "season them better." He grumbled but allowed it. When she handed him a bowl, he eyed it suspiciously.
"…You didn't poison it, did you?"
"Why waste poison when I can crush your lungs in your sleep?" she shot back, deadpan.
Veythar's lips curled into the smallest, most dangerous smile. "You're learning."
As night fell again, laughter echoed through the barren land—a sound it hadn't carried in centuries. For the first time, the Revenants and Mirrors weren't just weapons forged by the void.
They were people learning how to live. How to love.
And though the world beyond waited with threats greater than they'd yet faced, for one fleeting day, they let themselves forget.