Inspiring Vista

Nir and Rain are having a date in a coffee shop at the market.

They go inside the shop again to pay the bill. The barista at the counter insists on not charging them because of who they are and because of the mistake with the coffee.

They exit and continue their day.

”Everyone here is so nice!” - Says Rain.

-”Yea, they are”. - Nir replies, as he already forgave the violent incident completely.

-”By the way, have you noticed?” - She asks.

-”Yes. It’s actually surprising he isn’t being noticed by others”.

-”Yea, I guess he developed those skills over the years”.

Nir and Rain are genuinely impressed by Grandpa’s abilities to go undercover. He crawls so fast from one hiding spot to another, barely visible.

They keep walking for a while until they see a bench and go sit together.

He watches them talking from afar, not knowing what they are talking about. After a few minutes, Rain leans onto Nir and he strokes her long hair.

Grandpa falls asleep after a while.

He wakes up abruptly, not knowing how much time has passed, seeing them get up and start walking again. He keeps following, crawling quickly behind anything big enough to hide him, switching places frequently. Then, as he lowers his guard for a few seconds - an old lady lifts him up from behind, saying: “What a cute baby! What are you doing, crawling on the floor like that? Who left you alone?”

The old lady starts calling out: “I found a baby! Who left their baby here?”

Grandpa focuses quickly and vanishes from her grasp. The sheer speed had a physical impact, shocking the old lady. “What? What just happened? Did the baby just… Disappear?”

He sees Nir and Rain didn’t get that far away, and moves in their direction, with his nimble technique for crawling.

They find a nice tree surrounded by grass and lay down, leaning against it. Grandpa is surprised to see they aren’t saying anything for a long while. He eventually falls asleep again.

It gets darker and darker, and he randomly wakes up, only to find out they are already gone. He quickly starts crawling around, looking for them in multiple directions, but he can’t find them anywhere.

He decides to head back, panicking he may miss them.

As the route to the castle is the main route, which also leads to the house of worship, he suddenly notices Nir and Rain. They are walking home and have almost reached the castle’s entrance. They stop by the statues and stare at them. Each of them stands in front of their representing statue. They see themselves in the statues, somewhat. It makes them feel inspired and even proud to live in the empire.

Grandpa sees this vista and gets inspired too. He remembers everything he saw them doing today, thinking how much he likes them and chooses to trust them fully.

Then, instead of entering the castle - they hit the road again, now aiming to get to the house of worship. Grandpa realizes they are now coming to see him without stopping at home first.

He raises his speed to catch up but tries to get back through a shortcut outside the route. He crawls swiftly between the flowers, as those reach almost half his height when he’s crawling, and passes between small trees and through some bushes that make quite the obstacles. He then shortly arrives, managing to do so right before they do.

Nir and Rain reach the house of worship and enter the building. They see him sitting on top of the preacher’s stand.

-”We are back!” - Says Rain.

-”I can see”. - Grandpa replies. “What have you been doing today?”

-”We went on a date”. - Nir answers. “What did you do today?”

Nir and Rain look at each other smiling.

-”Oh! I was just hanging around here”. - He says, as he is visibly dirty from all the crawling outside.

-”Well then, do you have an answer for us?” - Nir asks him.

-”I do”. - He replies. “I will join forces with you, hoping to impress the empress”.

-”That’s great”. - Says rain. “So where do you want to start?”

-”Hmm… A fair question. There are a lot of scoundrels and trouble makers, after all. But…”

He is thinking for a while, not completing the sentence.

-”But…?” - Nir reminds him they are still listening.

-”But I just realized most of them are probably dead already… From old age… If not by the empress and her soldiers’ hands”.

-”Do you have any… Recent information?” - Nir asks.

-”I do! I just think most of the recent information I got is about small fry goons, which all lead to one very troublesome guy… I just… Wonder if the empress would even care about him. If she cared, wouldn’t she do something about him already?”

-”That’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she just had worse problems to deal with… Probably still has, actually”. - Says Nir.

-”I see. Very well. I gave you my answer. And I think we have a direction to start from… Just give me a day to organize the information and write everything down. Meet me here tomorrow?” - Grandpa suggests.

Rain looks at Nir and nodes. He smiles at her.

-”That’s a plan!” - Rain answers. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”

-”Rain… While I appreciate the thought… Remember I have hundreds of hearts. I may not be a killing machine, but I’m certainly a surviving one. Besides, this place is completely abandoned. Nowadays, people come to pray next to the statues. Those who come often are usually there to receive new skills”.

-”Where do you even sleep here?” - Nir asks.

-”There are some beds in the back… Look, I’ll be fine. Just come back tomorrow, and we can get on the road”.

Nir and Rain let him focus on writing everything down and leave for the time being. They walk to the castle, tired from a well spent day.

They reach the entrance and enter the main hall. A huge commotion awaits. A whole squad is back from the war, along with the empress. They get closer and see she is gravely wounded.

They are horrified to see someone as safety-reassuring as her being that wounded.

-”EMPRESS!” - Nir and Rain yell together.

-”Nir… Rain… Go to your room… I don’t want you to see me like this”.

The soldiers are treating her using a healing skill. The situation seems under control. Nir and Rain abide by her order and turn to the residency area to get to their room.

-”Oh no…” - Says Rain.

-”Yea. That looked bad”.

-”I didn’t realize… How much we relied on her”.

They enter their room and go beyond the curtain to get to the bedroom-half of the room, where they prepare to sleep. Soon enough, they are ready for bed.

Rain jumps on bed, laying faced down, feeling fatigued. Nir slowly climbs from the other side, and starts stroking her hair. She then grabs the blanket, puts it on him and hugs him under it.

”We’ll have many days like today, right?” - Rain asks.

-”Yes. That’s what we are going to fight for”.

Rain starts tearing softly. Nir presses her head to his chest, hugging her closely.

They eventually fall asleep.

The next day.

Nir and Rain wake up early, as rays of sunshine make their way into the room quite passively. They wake up at the exact same time, immediately noticing each other. Rain smiles at him. He strokes her bangs to the sides, smiling at her too. He then leans in and kisses her right on the bridge between her nose and forehead, making her chuckle.

-”Do you want to check on the empress?” - Nir asks her.

-”Yes. Let’s do that”.

They prepare to leave their room, and head out soon after. They go through the hallway and turn left to the main hall, seeing the empress is sitting on her throne, looking completely unharmed, with Ranmei standing by her side. It seems like they are having an intimate moment, as he tells her: “It always pains me I can’t heal you myself”. She replies: “You heal me in ways you don’t comprehend”.

Hearing this, Nir and Rain look at each other, blushing.

The empress - who saw them already, which wasn’t enough to stop her special moment with Ranmei - now addresses them: “Nir, Rain, come forward”.

Ranmei smiles at them as they get closer.

-”Empress, is the war over? I somewhat feel like it’s a naive question to ask regardless of the answer…”

-”It is not over. It is a naive question to ask. But it does mean you are well protected”. - The empress answers in a serious manner. “Have you got your fair share of life in town? Did you manage to have enough time for yourselves?”

Nir and Rain look at each other, then at the empress. -”We have got our fair share, but we didn’t get enough”. - He responds.

-”Hahahaha, a good answer”. - Says the amused empress. “Anything specifically you wanted to do and didn’t have time yet?”

-”I wanted to go to the forest again”. - Rain says. “I liked being there despite everything”.

-”That’s the spirit”. - Says the empress. “What do you like to do in the forest?”

-”I like to study the plants, observe nature, hunt rabbit-roos…” - Rain replies, as she turns to look at Nir to see his reaction to mentioning the cute name he gave them.

-”Haha, I almost forgot about them”. - He says.

-”Oh! You like hunting rabbit-roos too??” - The empress asks in a childish excitement, casually forgetting she is the empress as she sometimes does.

Nir and Rain look at each other in shock, saying nothing and thinking the exact same thing: “No way they are actually called ‘rabbit-roos’!”

-”Hmm… Yea! We hunted and cooked them in the forest”. - Rain remembers to answer despite the surprise.

-”What can I say? You have good taste… The dish I recommended to you at the market - it was rabbit-roo curry”.

-”It was really good”. - Nir adds.

-”Listen”. - The empress switches to a serious tone. “We defeated most of the invading forces. There are some that ran away, migrating between villages, trying to hide. The problem is… Some of those who got away have skills. They got those from the statues in an invasion from the past. As they butchered our people all the way to the statues, they gained more hearts to sacrifice”. - She explains.

Nir and Rain are surprised by the speed in which the conversation shifted so aggressively.

“The spy I sent to the villages is about to return. He may have some relevant information about them so we can prepare for an invasion ourselves. You should enjoy the time you have left, since soon enough - your training will continue on the double. In this soon to come invasion… I’ll have you participate”.

As she says that, footsteps can be heard from behind them.

“You are dismissed for now. I’ll keep you posted. Stay sharp as always”. - The empress says.

They turn back, heading to their room, passing by the person who’s walking in. He is wearing a full set of battle armor. They look at him as he looks at them. They are staring right into his eyes, the only thing that is visible besides his armor. As the staring is mutual - it feels as if time is slowed down.

Nir and Rain can’t help but feel those eyes look familiar.