in which the broken mend themselves

As soon as they left the forest, the elemental battle resumed. Alpherson was no longer at the bar.

Rather than inquire about whatever was going on, Topaz said, “She also has round ears.”

“So you can see that but you wouldn’t cover me?”

“Calm down, that spear was just shiny. Like that thing.” Topaz pointed at a second divine weapon casually lying on the bar counter—Frell’s knife. “Can you use it as a lamp or something?”

Pebble squinted at it—but no, she wasn’t hallucinating. “What… wait, don’t—!”

Topaz took it, twirling it in his fingers. “We can probably find Alpherson with this.”

Frell must’ve adjusted it to prevent civilians from getting burned on contact. “Yes. Don’t do any brusque movements with it. That thing can cleave mountains in half if you’re not careful. Stop.” He was aiming at her and grinning. “Can you… I don’t know, adjust its brightness maybe?”

“Not my specialty, but… oh!” As it went from shiny to blinding (faux pas not intended), Topaz and Pebble winced. The rain glowed under the makeshift lamp, so bright that it illuminated all the way to the mansion, where Alpherson was climbing instead of going inside and using the stairs like a sentient creature.

It was funny until one of the Primordial Saintess’s light beams almost vaporized him. As his wife retaliated, a tornado nearly blew him away.

That wasn’t even the worst part—Mimi waddled at the base of the mansion. “Oh, shit,” Topaz mumbled.

They broke into a sprint.

They ran.

This time, Alphyn did not stop.

“Wait!” Topaz skidded, bent, then picked up a set of keys. “Ugh. No wonder that dumb fuck is climbing. He probably dropped these on the way there.”

While that didn’t explain why Mimi was outside, with how stupid everyone was, she’d probably seen this, ran out of the house to help him find the keys, then gotten lost and locked out herself.

“What do we do?” Topaz asked.

Sending him to stop the Primordial Saintess would be asking him to die. Sending him to rescue Alpherson and Mimi would also be sending him to die.

“Fuck it. You stop that crazy woman. I’ll take the keys to Alpherson and get that girl out of there.”

“What if you get hit?”

“Then I get hit.” Topaz tossed the blade at her, then broke into a sprint. A mysterious, red will-o-wisp appeared next to him, small yet strong enough to withstand the rain. Almost as though it had been spawned by a certain god…

“Frell?” Pebble asked, to no avail. “Answer or I break this thing.” Nothing. “You suck.” Then she chased after Topaz.

Sure, not telling the Primordial Saintess to calm down would prove to be disastrous if she attacked at the wrong time, but something told her that Frell hanging around would keep them safe… so long as he didn’t show himself before Alphyn, anyway.

“ALPHERSOOON!” Topaz cried out upon reaching the base of the mansion. “I HAVE THE KEYS!”

Alpherson stopped mid-jump. He glanced at Topaz, then at Alphyn. By that point, he was closer to her than not, so he kept climbing anyway.

“COME BACK, YOU DUMB FUCK! MIMI IS HERE!”

Two things happened:

Alpherson paused.

So did Alphryn.

Well, three things: the third was that the Primordial Saintess chose that exact moment to shoot a light beam.

As an ice shield appeared before Alphyn, Pebble swung at the beam; the gust of wind was such that it caused a sonic boom. Still, somehow, Alpherson did not fall. Mimi cried, covering her ears as Topaz covered her with his body in case any debris fell upon them.

The beam didn’t stop, but it fizzled out a bit. The shield vaporized almost instantly. As the vapor dissipated, Alphyn climbed to the very edge of the balcony, waving Alpherson away. “It’s dangerous! Get out!”

“Alphyn!”

“Get out, I said! The killer is—”

“He’s not!”

“He is! He is! Go away!”

An ice staircase formed below Alpherson. How nice of Topaz. Why hadn’t he done that earlier? Not that Pebble had remembered he could do that…

By then, the Primordial Saintess had stopped attacking. Her divine blade glowed against her, a serene, melancholic expression on her face as Mimi climbed the ice stairs and the three of them embraced—well, more like Alpherson forced them together, but the sentiment was there.

It was there. It was warm and bittersweet.

Frell popped up beside her. “Boo.”

Pebble said nothing, nor did he follow up. For some time, they watched. It was all that they could do. Whatever happened on that balcony was none of their business.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

After the family headed inside, as did Topaz and Pebble, Frell teleported next to Lou. “Are you insane?” was his greeting.

“Shut up. Let a woman have her fun.”

“Her fun, she says.”

“I didn’t know there was a child involved.”

“I know, I know.”

They sat under a pine tree which did little to cover them from the rain. “Are you sure you want this?” she asked.

“Pretty sure, yeah. I thought you’d be more happy.”

“Perhaps.” Lou toyed with the sacred stone, which was little more than a rock with paint and glitter. “I must admit that to be the last primordial sounds… lonely.”

“Hey, Leison is still there.”

She scoffed.

They watched the mansion, the rain, the remnants of the magic fight.

“I guess that,” Frell began, “if you didn’t believe in the legend, you wouldn’t have shown up after all.”

“I don’t.”

“Correction: if you didn’t believe in what the legend represents.”

Alpherson and his wife walked out the balcony again, so Frell huddled under the pine tree. “The legend represents nothing,” Lou said. “Nothing meaningful, at least. It exists in a world where war and evil can end—where they aren’t one and the same. Still… to weaponize it is so incredibly delusional that I must see this to the end.”

“Me too,” Frell said. “The Demon King will awaken tomorrow. Oh noo.”

Lou rolled her eyes. “Not everyone in the pantheon hates you, you know.”

“They will after this, trust me.”

“Which is why I’m saying—you don’t have to do this. In fact, what if I…”

As Frell pulled his collar down, Lou trailed off.

Earlier, as he’d visited the Holy City for the last time, Frell had broken the seal. “If you what?”

For the first time in centuries, Lou was stunned out of words.

Well, of course—a loose primordial wasn’t something this world was prepared for. The old world was used to concentrated power, but people around him would grow ill, withering away until they collapsed.

“No one can stop me,” Frell said, buttoning his priest’s robe again. “No one. No one in this entire world. The Demon King will wake up tomorrow. If Pebble can’t defeat me, then you will. Then the world will know peace.” Something in him twisted at the sight of her reaching for her spear, ever-so-slowly. “Or not. Who cares. I won’t be around to see this.”

He vanished.

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹

“...Pebble…”

It’d taken hours to fall asleep.

“...Pe… bble…”

HOURS.

And now this nuisance was showing up. “Go away,” Pebble grumbled, placing a pillow on top of her head. Frell tugged at it. She tugged back. “Go. Away. Fuck off. Let me sleep, dammit.”

“I’m sad.”

“Then be sad while I sleep.”

“I tried. I was drinking with Topaz earlier, but it’s kinda lonely if it’s just the two of us. Even he thought the same. But I get it. Alpherson is with his family and you’re being a terrible friend who doesn’t care about my feelings.”

She kicked him, then scrambled up; she’d added actual force to it by accident. “Frell, I’m so—”

She stopped. This should’ve knocked him across the room. He was rubbing his chest, amused. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t a strong kick. Poor, poor me.”

“No, I’m…” Pebble sat up. “...I’m pretty sure it was.”

“Nah.”

“...if you say so.” She was half-asleep, so there was that. As usual, Frell sat beside her. “What is it this time?”

“I wanted a drink with all of you.”

“Does it have to be tonight?” Pebble asked.

“I guess not. Can I sleep here?”

“Uh.”

“Yes or no?”

Frell’s sad drunkenness was getting out of control. He was being clingy, sure, but… still.

He grinned. “So no.”

“I mean. Um.”

“I’ll just pray for a bit, then. Does this room have a balcony?”

“It does.”

Pebble pointed at it. Alpherson had lent her Mimi’s bedroom. For a child’s room, it was disturbingly sterile. Bed. Night table. Window. That was it. Hopefully things would get better from here onwards.

They would, right? Why was she fighting for otherwise?

Tomorrow, she’d ask Alpherson whether he wanted to keep traveling with them or not. If he said yes, she’d kick him. If he said no, she’d… miss him, wouldn’t she? Well, it wasn’t as though they’d never see each other again. She’d invite him to tag along on an adventure sooner or later. There was plenty of time left.

By the time Frell returned, Pebble had all but dozed off again. Through a haze of gay ponies, she heard him say, “Goodbye, Peb.”

While she lacked the strength to kick him again, Pebble groaned. “...you’re so dramatic… fine…”

“Fine…?”

“Sleep with me. Not in that way.”

It should’ve alarmed her more when he crawled beside her without making a joke, yet sleep pulled at her like an anchor. What an annoyingly long day it’d been. Sometime during the night, she could’ve sworn that she heard muffled sobbing. Her body wouldn’t move, though. Besides, if there was one person in this world who was more prideful than her, it was Frell; by his own words, he’d rather die than cry in front of anyone.

Just in case, she’d ask him about it in the morning.

By the time she woke up, he was gone.