Departure

As the first rays of sunlight appeared over the horizon, Lina, Skayla, Princess Leonora, Guild Master Zenos, and Crown Prince Edwin waited before the Kingdom’s Great Gate.

Edwin stepped forward and prostrated himself before Lina and Skayla with a loud THUD!, shattering a cobblestone beneath his forehead.

“I’M SO SORRY FOR THE TROUBLE MY LITTLE BROTHER HAS CAUSED BOTH OF YOU!” he shouted, startling several stray cats sleeping nearby.

“I-Is he going to be okay?” Lina whispered to Leonora. “He broke a cobblestone with his head!”

"Don't worry about it," Leonora whispered back. "He is hard-headed like mother." 

“Please stand up, Your Highness,” Skayla pleaded as she knelt in front of Edwin and gently placed her right hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize for someone else’s mistakes.”

“That’s right! The one who should be cracking a cobblestone with his head is Prince Edgar, not you. Now get your ass up already!” Leonora exclaimed. She turned to Lina. “Please write to us once in a while, okay?”

“Huh?” Lina asked. “I thought being banished meant cutting off all contact with the Royal Family. Would any letter I sent through the postal service even reach you?”

Letters addressed to the Royal Family were screened for malicious spells, curses, poisons, and other hidden dangers. The sender’s identity also had to be confirmed before delivery.

“If you address your letters to me, I’ll make sure they reach the Royal Family,” Zenos suggested.

“You’re not going to read them first, are you?” Lina asked suspiciously.

“I’m sure Guild Master Zenos values other people’s privacy,” Leonora said with an awkward smile, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Unless he’d like Queen Seraphine to remind him what happens to people who invade it,” she added, tightening her grip.

“Absolutely,” Zenos said with a nervous nod. “People’s privacy is extremely important. I also treasure my life very much!”

At exactly seven o’clock, the first morning bell tolled, and the Kingdom’s Great Gate slowly opened with a rattle of chains and gears.

“Time to go,” Lina said, taking one final look at everyone before gazing toward the distant Royal Castle. “Ready, Skalya?”

Skayla nodded through her tears and took Lina’s right hand as they stepped beyond the gate. Lina fought the urge to look back, knowing she would begin crying too if she did.

Meanwhile, King Ernest and Queen Seraphine watched from the Royal Castle’s balcony as Lina and Skayla disappeared beyond the Great Gate.

“They’ll be alright,” Ernest said, wrapping his left arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“I-I know,” Seraphine said as her usual stern composure gave way. “I truly... didn’t want to let them go! They were like daughters to me!”

Ernest embraced her tightly, hiding her tears against his chest.

“They were like family to me too,” he whispered, tears rolling down his cheeks as he closed his eyes.

He remembered watching Lina, Skayla, Leonora, Edgar, and Seraphine play tag in the Royal Garden while Edwin desperately tried to hide at the top of a tree.

“Where is Edgar right now?” Ernest asked, opening his eyes and turning to Hendrick.

“He is currently patrolling the Slum District... alone,” Hendrick answered, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief.

“I see,” Ernest muttered. “I truly hope you learn and grow from this, my son.”

As the morning bell’s final toll faded, a gentle breeze swept across the balcony. Two white doves flew past the King and Queen, disappearing beyond the eastern horizon toward the Sea of Cremonia.

After seeing Lina and Skayla off, Zenos returned to his office and took an old, unlabeled bottle from his item box. He poured himself a glass of mead, settled behind his desk, and looked out the window.

“The time has finally come, my dear old friend, Asclepius,” Zenos muttered. “Your daughter has embarked on a journey of her own and will leave her mark on this beautiful world... just as we did all those decades ago.”

He held the glass toward the rising sun. The instant sunlight touched the mead, its pale yellow color turned a deep golden amber, and its faint aroma grew rich and sweet.

“I offer a celebratory toast in their honor.”

Zenos drank the transformed mead in a single gulp, placed the empty glass on his desk, and closed his eyes.

Sixteen years earlier:

Zenos (55) was working peacefully through a large stack of paperwork when his office door suddenly burst open.

A disheveled grey-haired man wearing glasses, a white coat, a dirty blue button-down shirt, brown trousers, and black boots entered his office. 

“HEY, ZEUS! GUESS WHAT?!” Asclepius (38) shouted, completely out of breath.

“The fact that you still haven’t learned to knock before entering, Asclepius?” Zenos asked, keeping his eyes on his paperwork. “I’ve told you I go by Zenos, remember?”

“Papa Al, w-who’s that?” a little girl asked.

The sound of a small child’s voice made Zenos stop writing. He slowly looked up and saw his best friend holding a little girl with long light-blue hair, wearing a white summer dress.

“Please don’t tell me you kidnapped a child,” Zenos said with a long sigh. He set his pen on the desk, stood, and slowly approached them. “I always knew you were into strange things, but kidnapping a child would be a new low.”

“WHAT?!” Asclepius shouted, only for the little girl to slap his face repeatedly with her tiny hands.

“Too loud, Papa Al,” she complained, covering one ear.

“I’m sorry,” Asclepius said, nuzzling her cheek with his unkempt, prickly beard.

“S-Stop it! It tickles!” the little girl said with a playful giggle.

“So who is she?” Zenos asked, glaring at her. 

The little girl met Zenos’s eyes for a moment, then buried her face in Asclepius’s shoulder, making him snort at Zenos’s wounded expression.

“This little girl is our daughter, Skayla (6)!” Asclepius proudly announced, grinning wider than Zenos had ever seen. “Ofilia and I officially adopted her today, and I wanted you to be the first to meet her as our daughter!”

“You? A father?” Zenos asked. “So Ofilia has two children to raise now, huh?”

“Oh, shut it!” Asclepius exclaimed, gently stroking Skayla’s light-blue hair. “Skayla, say hello to my best friend in the world, Zenos. Don’t be scared of the grumpy old man.”

Skayla slowly peeked over Asclepius’s shoulder and stared at Zenos.

“H-H-Hi,” she whispered, raising her left hand in a small wave.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Lady Skayla,” Zenos said, gently shaking her tiny hand. Skayla giggled. “By the way, why does she call you ‘Al’?”

“My name is too complicated for her to pronounce, so she came up with a nickname for me,” Asclepius answered. “Isn’t she adorable?”

“I warned you to choose a nickname like the rest of us did,” Zenos scolded. “But you refused because you thought changing your name would interfere with your ‘identity.’”

“Yeah, yeah, save your boring lectures for my daughter when she grows up,” Asclepius said, turning to Skayla. “You’re going to drive Grandpa Zenos crazy with all the shenanigans you’ll cause, right?”

Skayla nodded and giggled.

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING GRANDPA?!” Zenos shouted.

“Considering your real age, I’m not exactly wrong,” Asclepius said. “But fine, we’ll call you Uncle Zenos. Right, Skayla?”

Skayla nodded and giggled as she repeated, “Uncle Zen Zen! Uncle Zen Zen!”

“What a doting father,” Zenos said with a grin, seeing how happy his friend was.

Later that evening, Zenos appointed himself Skayla’s godfather over dinner and announced that he would hear no objections. Asclepius objected anyway.

After Ofilia gave him a brief but brutal beating, he graciously reconsidered.

A few weeks later, Atena dropped by Asclepius and Ofilia’s home with her student, Lina (5), then left the girl in their care... without asking permission.

Every few months, Atena returned to take Lina away for one of her spontaneous training sessions, only to bring her back badly injured—or completely unconscious.

That was how Lina and Skayla first met.