Baswara, Serayu, and Lazuardi stood on the gravel path, a tribunal of elders braced for a storm. The memory of yesterday's recordings, the roar, the clinical violence, the chilling, ancient command was fresh in their minds.
They expected a sovereign, a force of nature wearing a school uniform, perhaps still vibrating with yesterday's cataclysmic fury.
What they got was… something else entirely.
Oathran stood beside Cecilia, but his posture was different. Less the poised, silent monument, more a lanky teenager with his hands shoved in his pockets, a faint, petulant frown on his face. He seemed… normal. Alarmingly so.
"Cecilia…" he whined, the sound entirely out of place, "why don't you want to hold my hand?" He tilted his head, his expression a masterpiece of teenage angst and entitlement. "Aren't I your boyfriend?"
Actually, no, the three observers thought in unison, he wasn't normal at all.
