"You said you weren't going to tell anyone!"Karol whispered desperately.

"No, I said I wouldn't tell Estelle," Raven replied, his volume at an equally furtive level.

Rita didn't say anything despite being at perfect ear-shot distance of both tones, as she was currently prying open Karol's eyelids with her fingers so she could peer into his pupils. Raven felt for the kid. Rita all but had him in a headlock, preventing him from squirming,

"R-Rita, I have to blink!"

The mage did not relent with her prying hand. Instead, she manually closed Karol's left eye and then exposed it again.

"Rita, darlin', he does need to actually blink."

She growled and let go of the kid's face. Karol blinked frantically, his eyes watering, and Rita watched him as she chewed on her pencil.

"You know Yuri's eyes are still messed up too, right?" Karol pleaded, rubbing at the tears.

"I do now. He's next." Rita flipped to another page in her notebook that she had tucked under one arm and scribbled a few sentences.

She did not notice how Yuri retreated backwards out the doorframe abruptly, let alone that he had been in that door behind her at all.

"And I notice that you didn't tell me either," she continued, stabbing her pencil in Raven's direction without looking at him.

Karol wisely did not bring up that Nan's eyes were also not fully healed. Raven wasn't going to bring that one up either. Neither was Nan herself, who had poked her head in to see what the commotion was and disappeared as soon as Yuri dipped out.

Rita stuck her much-abused pencil back between her teeth and consulted the textbook she had propped open across Raven's knee. He had been out of the way originally, really just there for moral support. Then the entire fiasco had migrated closer and closer to him over time. They were all in the dining room, the best lit room in the house due to its bay windows, and Raven was perched on the end of the table. Karol had been patient while Rita asked him any number of questions, making him follow her finger as she moved it back and forth and the like. But as soon as she had started leaning over him to stare deep into the backs of his eyeballs, he had scooted his chair first slowly and then frantically backwards until he had ended up pressed against the table edge next to Raven. And why Rita didn't just use the other side of the table to put her reference materials versus on Raven's lap was anybody's guess. But he felt too guilty now to just leave. Especially since the Rita was once advancing again on Karol. The kid took a deep, grim breath in preparation.

"C'mon, Rita, gimme a break..."

But she didn't go grabbing at his face again, just leaned uncomfortably close to the kid and chewed more enthusiastically at her pencil.

o-o-o

Something about the way he said that made her feel better about her decision. He wasn't crying, his eyes were just watering, but it was certainly getting close to running down his cheek.

"Finger above and below," she demonstrated over her own eye, "and hold it."

He hesitated and then did it. Not well, but he did it. It was enough for her to see for a bit, but when he inevitably let his fingers slip, she pushed at his bottom lid and shoved it down.

"Ow ow ow!"

"Keep your damn eye open then."

"Well, it's hard when you keep stabbing me!"

"I'm not stabbing you!"

Raven put a careful hand on her book where it sat on his knee. His thumb kept it still as he started to laugh as silently as he could.

"Keep your damn mouth shut," Rita threatened him regardless. "I am not stabbing him in the eye."

Raven started to reach up and out at something.

"No," she snarled, not really caring if he was reaching for Karol's shoulder in solidarity or her top of her head in 'please calm down' attempts. "I'm being careful."

That required her actually being careful to prove a point, so she had to deal with the fact that the results of Karol's watery eyes were still uncomfortably wet at the pads of her fingers. Being efficient meant that she never had to deal with that feeling – everyone usually just trusted her enough to do what she had to do.

it had taken until she had met Estelle and her group of ruffian hangers-on for Rita to consider that maybe it wasn't that people had trusted her per se, but that they had feared the consequences of not interacting when she demanded it

and the twerp...

Damn it.

"Quit being such a baby," she muttered, pushing at his finger again.

That in and of itself was enough to make the 'baby' blink uncontrollably, so she had to brace her elbow against his shoulder to pry his eye open again.

Was she really the only person trying to help here?

Raven was laughing again. She could see it out of the corner of her eye and she was almost proud when Karol not only ignored it, but also proceeded to be angry at her.

"Rita, seriously!"

twerp

She backed up again, her hands raised in surrender. As she did, she noticed that perhaps her pencil had been too close this time.

Maybe.

"So, what do your eyes actually feel like?"

"Uh... They sting?"

"No, like, before this exact second, moron. Recently. Before I 'stabbed' you." She raised and lowered her fingers in a quotation mark.

"It's hard to focus and there are spots everywhere. Feels like I have sand in my eyes. Stuff under my eyelids, like an eyelash that isn't there."

"Mmm..."

Made sense based on everything she had read so far. His eyes were responding for the most part, his pupils contracting as she leaned back out of the light.

Not that that necessarily proved anything. After all, pupils could still move regardless of brightness levels.

Raven had had those dark, dark pupils when there had been plenty of light

The kid's sclera was slightly red, but she was willing to accept that might be slightly her fault. Something to look for when she was able to rustle up Yuri and Nan.

"Okay, great." She turned away from his red eyes and wrote another few notes in her book. Then she decisively shoved her pencil behind her ear.

"Thanks."

o-o-o

Raven finally was able to set his hand on Karol's shoulder and shook it gently in solidarity as Rita finally let the poor kid go. Karol snatched his notebook off Raven's knee. Apparently too honest to just then bolt, the kid was stiff and bracing in anticipation while edging slowly towards the door, but then Rita flapped her hand at him.

"Take it. You can go. Thanks again."

Karol was up and gone almost instantly, not appreciating how he had earned another 'thank you'.

"Think ya could probably be a little more careful," Raven suggested as mildly as he could. Rita all but ignored him, pulling her pencil out from behind her ear just as soon as she pushed it there and leaning over her notes.

"Also 'pologize."

She hummed in acknowledgement. Except he couldn't be sure it was actually acknowledging anything.

"Yeah?" he prompted.

She sighed without looking at him.

"Yeah. I'll find him later. Think he'll probably be hiding for now though."

"Kinda yer fault, dearest."

She sighed again and kept scribbling.

o-o-o

She made good on her promise later, when she saw the kid dip through a doorway just seeing her walk to the pantry. She had to shout her apology down the hallway after him, but at least she had apologized. It wasn't her fault if he was ungrateful.

In the meantime, Nan had been stoically complacent through her checkup. Every carefully patient answer explained how she had tolerated the dumbass kid for so long. Rita could respect that.

The story was the same. She had known that would have been the case, but hearing a confirmation was beneficial.

Repede couldn't inform her about his symptoms verbally, but he chewed on his pipe and she chewed on her pencil and the two of them stared deep into the other's eyes for several long minutes.

o-o-o

Stranger things certainly could, would, and had happened, but there was something about Rita having a staring contest with Repede, both of their respective mouthpieces bobbing at the corners of their mouths, that was amazingly funny. Funny enough that Raven had to cough into his elbow to disguise the laugh that was threatening. Repede was the one who turned to look at him, the dog's left ear flicking back in annoyance, until Rita made a displeased growl and both of them went back to all but glaring at each other.

It was so very precious and Raven could never tell anyone, because anyone he could tell would certainly blab it to one or both parties. So he just had to quietly 'cough' a second time into his arm and then admire the way that both of them had managed to get their chewing in sync, pipe and pencil bobbing as one.

o-o-o

"It's interesting that a gel doesn't work," Raven observed after the others were gone and Rita had all of her reference material sprawled across the dining room table. The start of the sunset was casting a rather pleasant gold light against the mahogany.

It was almost hard to think about a light so bright that it would fry the back of her eyes. The gritty, milky feeling that could replace a normal blink. Nothing but a hot red darkness.

The good news was that this was pretty common as far as eye injuries went. Specifically as examples of dumbass injuries to an absolute dumbass by their own self went, but it usually was someone looking at the sun like an idiot, or the blade drifts reflecting the light back at them. She wasn't sure why gels didn't work on those folks either. There were more than several academic papers on the subject and no one else knew.

She'd dig into it later and fix the issue.

"I mean..." She paused and considered. "Gels won't grow back a limb or something like that. The eyes would probably qualify that way? Something that wouldn't generate itself again. We would be able to recover from a cut to the chest or something if we had optimal care. A gel just makes the process easier. Eyes don't grow back."

The thought was interesting and suddenly a bit concerning.

But Estelle had managed to get them from completely blind to a common injury. One didn't just do that.

It was definitely the spirits themselves.

Rita wrote down a last few more lines of notes, then snapped the book closed.

But she had been wrong about her feelings before. Hard as it was to admit.

Estelle hadn't.

"Time to talk to Yuri."

o-o-o

Yuri knew that Karol had done his best to warn him, but he did also feel like the Cap'n could have warned him a little more.

Rita's eyes were incredibly green this close to his own and he didn't really know where to focus when all he had was one eye open and the smartest person in the world had her own eye less than two inches from his. He was pretty sure that she was closing out the light that seemed pretty necessary for her examination, but he also understood why Karol had done his 'best' to warn them.

Nan had made herself scarce as possible after her turn, which seemed to include leaving the building. Yuri was very sure his warning and her warning had been very different, based on the specific bearer's priorities. And now he was dealing with trying to decide what shade of green Rita's eyes were and that was so uncomfortable that he couldn't decide between something like algae or evergreen trees.

Estelle would have an answer.

He would have been near her if he didn't know that doing that would be him using his proximity to her as the most disgusting of crutches to keep the genius mage away from him and the least helpful thing he could do in all of this.

Selfishly, he also had trust in Rita to figure out how to remove the gray spots at the corners and midpoints of his vision.

So if he could trust her to look out for him – him, who he was pretty sure she tolerated just because he was close to Estellise – he could trust her with Estelle herself.

She had put his fingers at uncomfortable angle holding his own eyelids, but she let him hold the position as she put one hand on his shoulder and the other on his forehead. Heedless of his resistance, she tilted his head back on its axis until he was basically staring into the sun tilting past the jamb of the window. Again, pretty sure it was counterproductive.

"Tell me where the spots are," she demanded in the flattest tone possible. He could just barely see Raven at the base of his eyelid and he felt just as betrayed by the fact that the old man was clearly smiling at his expense.

He told her. Up along the line of his top eyelid. To the right and the left if he wasn't actually focusing on them. It was all gray enough to notice.

She hemmed and hawed. All deep enough in her throat to the point where it was basically a series of growls that he had to interpret.

It was scary, but not as scary as it could be. But then it was downright terrifying when he realized that she was doing her best to not be scary and this was the closest thing that she could manage.

Her fingers suddenly jerked to his eyelids and they were snatched open.

Her eyes were... the green of the deep forest? Maybe. He had lost track. He should have been able to compare it to Keiv Moc immediately, but the gray spots had already consumed his memory of something that had occurred so recently.

"Do you want us to try now or wait until later?"

"'Try'?"

The eyes whose color he couldn't decide about rolled up past where he could see them as she clamped down on his eyelids and she groaned again at the base of her throat.

"First off: you can say 'no'," she informed him in a way that informed him that he really could only say no if he wanted to invite a lot of wrath. Plus she avoided the actual question. "And second off: I've tried it already and I survived."

She held up her pinky finger just at the peripheral of his vision. A point of release below the fierce hold on his eyelids. She then proceeded to hold the fingertip up there long enough that it really looked like it was something he should understand.

He didn't, but she looked very confident in the meaning of that finger.

He sighed.

"Go the fuck for it."

o-o-o

She definitely didn't expect the weirdly enthusiastic attitude Yuri suddenly had.

Raven clearly hadn't been expecting any cooperation either way and she had to snap her head around and glare at him until he realized that he should shift closer. She didn't really know how she would have dealt with the situation if the old man hadn't been two scoots down the table. He had originally retreated as a punishment for her being an ass towards the kid and at least she could admit that she had been an ass. With prompting. 'Yeah, I know I fucked up, bastard.'

He at least did her the courtesy of coming closer and touching fingertips to hers.

"Yeah?" His voice had a shake that she didn't expect.

"Yeah?" she confirmed, with a shake in her voice that she also didn't expect. And she realized that the cold coil in her ribs was a fear of a pain that was about to happen and his shake was the fact that he knew it was about to hurt. Both of them. Not injure, but hurt.

Like, the fuck? Estelle went blind and she was worried about something hurting.

And yet... and so, she closed her eyes and nodded. And even if she couldn't see it, she knew that he had closed his eyes and she felt Sylph hover behind her scalp and the sudden presence and then absence of pressure was still a stinging, tearing bareness.

fuckfuckfuck

She didn't say it out loud. Sylph was trying. She knew.

Raven was trying. She knew.

It was so much better than before. And it hurt like hell.

A long moment passed.

"Shit," Yuri hissed.

"Stop?" It was Raven asking.

"No. It's working." Yuri's voice was rough.

"Yeah?" Now Rita realized she should be the person to ask, her fingerprints probably imprinting themselves on the pretty boy's face.

It hurt.

"Where are the spots?"

"I'm not looking around, am I?"

"Look then."

She didn't open her own eyes. She knew it was probably hypocritical.

"They're-" the description continued in a startled, strained voice, "-they're going away."

"Sure?"

"Ughggg," and that was the response that made Rita draw her hands back, the feeling of his skin still a deep vibrating touch against her hand that travelled up her carpal bones to her elbow. She really wished that she could throw up and it wasn't something she could do.

"Okay for real?" Again with Raven's voice, which was suddenly grating with what she knew was real pain because she felt it too. But she also felt he was really being a pansy if that was what he had to say in that tone when the angry energy was throbbing it way along her nerves too.

"...Fuck."

And Rita let go. And Raven let go that half second behind her.

Some of her calluses, things she had been cultivating for so long without meaning to do so, sloughed off and under them was healthy skin without being pink or disturbed.

They didn't clatter to the floor obviously – they were just flakes of skin – but she was so upsettingly conscious of them that she took too many steps back to be cool about it.

Yuri was blinking as he stared at the floor boards, quick and without rhythm.

"Sorry," Raven mumbled. "You okay?"

"Y-yeah." But the answer was a rough whisper.

"Where are the spots?" Rita demanded, cradling her hands that didn't hurt and were actually healthier than they had been since she was...

...she couldn't remember.

"N- There aren't any?"

Her healthy, callus-less fingers snapped in front of his face. His gaze rose from the floor to the sound.

"Color's back," he said, in the same rough whisper.

There was a long moment.

"It hurt." Yuri was panting. "Is it supposed to hurt?"

"It hurts," Rita and Raven agreed in unison.

Rita looked down. The tips of her fingers felt naked as she stared at the white, dead circles of her fingerprints on the floor.

Then she looked up at Yuri. Their eyes met.

She was sure that if she kept doing this, she would lose the scars on her knuckles and on the back of her wrists and the one dark shiny sheet of old burn scarring across the point of her left elbow. Scars that defined her.

"Yeah?" she asked for the last time, staring into the back of Yuri's pupils.

He nodded, still panting.

o-o-o

All of Vesperia – well, there was one conspicuous absence – and its closest allies were together and its heart was at their center.

Estelle was trying to pretend that she could see them. And if she wasn't focused on them, it was just an overreaction on their part. Yuri could suddenly see the similarities between her with him, and her and her best friend, the bad habits that she and Rita had learned from each other. And Yuri had been a bad influence since the beginning. And yet, despite it all, Estelle had always put everyone above herself. But there hadn't been a pride about it then. It was just because she wanted everyone to be safe or happy or any other reason that could be considered technically without shame. Because it was easier that way. Now it was about pride, about her demands that she be the only one to suffer. Because she was the only one who deserved it.

Yuri was having none of it.

"I don't understand," he said again, a tone that wasn't meant to be heard by anyone else but he knew and she knew that everyone else could hear it even if she couldn't see them. "Explain to me again why this was a good idea in your mind?"

"It worked!" she answered, her cheeks glowing with indignation that Yuri knew that she knew was misguided. Her voice dropped to a mutter and she tilted her face down and to the side. "We didn't have the time for anything else."

Rita and Nan let out the same ugly snort from either side of the princess. They didn't even try to hide it.

It had been difficult to draw the princess out of her room. It had taken Karol to gently talk through the door. Everyone else had given them their privacy. Well, nominally. They weren't trying to spy, but there definitely had been the clandestine halo through the surrounding rooms and hallways of everyone very quietly doing their business. Quietly enough that they could hear the quiet reassurances, even if they couldn't quite make them out.

Eventually, it had worked. She was put together and brushed, but the red and slightly raw rings around her eyes were noticeable.

And now she was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, her arms across her chest and hands gripping her elbows, pretending she wasn't doing exactly that.

"So you sacrificed your sight for everyone else?"

There was a long moment of silence. At the very last second, she made a small sound of surrender.

"It worked."

Rita again made an ugly snort and Yuri really was happy that Estelle couldn't see the other girl point at his eyes. The eyes that could see her. He could see her rose hair and grass-green eyes. Proof that that she could do it.

So he didn't make his own vicious motion to his eyes that he had intended. He let Rita silently fume for him. That if Estelle could heal someone else, she could heal herself. He pushed his fingers into the crooks of his knees as he sat cross-legged in front of her on the same carpet.

"Estelle," Rita started, bouncing gently from foot to foot in lieu of pacing around the circle. Her arms were crossed too.

"Aska needed someone," Estelle interrupted. She held her hands up in front of her face, turning them back and forth. Her eyes did not move.

"We're going to find Shadow." This was Karol, his voice small.

Estelle turned her hands again, staring at her knuckles without seeing them, then dropped them into her lap.

"It's going to hurt," Raven said, his voice also small.

The conversation was becoming disjointed, each piece just as important as the other.

Estelle sighed, a deep inhale and then a hiss out through her teeth.

"I'm ready."

Rita also hissed through her teeth, this time an inhale onto her tongue.

The cross-legged drop onto the carpet from the mage's bony-ass ankles to her hips, knees, and a defeated flop of her hands was an audible three-beat drop even beneath the rug they were settled on. She ended in a very deliberate and furious lean in front of the princess where their faces were almost touching. Estelle leaned back ever so slightly, clearly away from the sound and the warm breath against her chin.

"It hurts," Rita said, so small that Raven only knew because it was an echo of his own would-be warning. And that he could read lips. And that he knew the both of them well enough. It didn't take the fact that Rita touched the tips of her fingers to the turn of Estelle's jaw, her face just far enough to still be heard.

"Of course it will." And Estelle's laugh was enough to make Rita laugh, not silently. They both huffed a single, un-amused chuckle into the air past each others' faces that made Nan look away ever so slightly with a light pink dusting her nose.

Rita looked at him then, her hand doing a one-two clench and then reaching towards him. He had to sit down, his own descent probably producing more than three pops and then thumps against the floor, then her fingers were tight clamps in-between his knuckles on one hand. Then she picked up one of Estelle's hands in one of her own and Raven could see both of their hands' tendons turn white as they held onto each other.

His own hands were tentative and loose as he touched palms to both of them, their fingertips just brushing rather than grasping.

Rita didn't ask out-loud if they were ready, just put her head down and breathed a deep sigh. Estelle mirrored her without being able to see it and Raven felt the valley open. Sylph fluttered in at the base of his neck, tickling the hairs there with the breeze from her wings.

=Breathe,= came the command and all three of them drew themselves up the same time.

It hurt. It still did. Estelle's fingers twitched from his fingertips to lace between his joints with a suddenness that startled him. He didn't blame the force she pressed against the back of his hand, to the point where it hurt. Not as much as the wind coursing through all of his bones and into hers. But it hurt still.

It was grounding.

A rock, something Sylph wouldn't place, settled into his hand, but only as something metaphorical. He never let go of anyone's hand, their palms pressed to his as tightly as their fingers could push them.

But the rock let itself be carved into a valley, channeling the wind with a purpose that Raven could recognize. His bones were the base of the route, a line that the knife of air carved along, but it was a defined line.

There wasn't a direct answer. Just a response from Sylph to the direction.

=Exactly!= she cried, clearly not talking to them but at Gnome who was hovering just beside her. Just behind, his dust crawling down their veins to form the rock in his palm.

Estelle let out a little cry, something half-swallowed to the point where it was mostly lost in everyone's general silent sounds.

Raven squeezed her hand.

It ended just as suddenly as it began, the last bits of pain fizzling out at the ends of their nerves. Like a grass fire reaching the edge of its clearing.

Rita let go last, her fingernails leaving their crescent marks in the back of his hand. She and Estelle both planted their palms on the ground simultaneously, as if it were coordinated, a deep cough coming from somewhere deep in their ribcages. Raven panted along with them, all of their breaths coming in ragged staccato.

"Hey hey hey hey," Karol was saying before anyone else, his voice somewhere in the distance as he knelt next to Estelle.

Raven blinked against the light that hadn't changed at all but now felt incredibly bright, and felt Nan's hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah," he mumbled, digging the heel of his hand into the hollow of his eye, "never better."

She made an unimpressed sound, but her hand didn't leave his shoulder. Raven turned his own hands to look at the back of them. Rita's nails had scraped along one tendon to the point where it was almost bloody. His other hand, the one laying at his side that Estelle had held, ached in every joint as if he had slammed a door on it.

He let the scraped hand fall to his knee and lifted his head. Rita was still breathing hard, both hands splayed out on the floor in front of her, keeping her upright.

Karol was talking with Estelle, their heads close together, and Yuri hovered over the both of them. Raven's ears were ringing, a high constant sound that was fading just as quickly as it had appeared, so he didn't catch their conversation, but he saw the exact moment when Estelle's eyes came back into focus. She blinked and then suddenly her eyes were present where they had been dull before.

Rita had lifted her head just in time to see it too, and her little ragged cry of victory made everyone look at her.

"Ha!" she said, this time deliberately, and pointed at her own eyes.

"Estelle! Look at me!" she demanded and the other girl had to at the command. Rita gave another crow of triumph, this time far less subdued. Estelle had focused. She had seen.

"Oh!" the princess clapped both hands across her mouth, muffling her words. "Oh, Rita!"

Those who hadn't caught onto the significance of the second noise from Rita immediately snapped their attention to the princess. Her fingers had linked together, clutching at her cheekbones on opposite sides.

Estelle's eyes moved to Raven, tears welling at the corners and her face already beginning to turn pink. "Oh! Raven!"

She was blinking too much, not just from the tears starting, but in the way you blink if you have something in your eye. But he hadn't said anything to her, hadn't given her a reason to turn his direction. And she had seen him, no matter how her forehead was wrinkled in the attempt to keep her eyes open.

"Heya, princess."

"Raven! Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you."

The next few minutes was mostly a circle of people moving closer and closer to each other until they were all shoulder to shoulder, some holding hands, some just leaning on each other. But all of had moved together, everyone ending up on the plush carpet. Tokunaga had his elbow leaned on the top of Karol's head; Nan had Raven's shoulder firmly in her grasp still; Yuri and Rita sat on either side of Estelle with her hands linked in their elbows. And all of them talked about how Estelle could see again and none of them talked about the fact that she obviously couldn't see very well.

Rita eventually subjected Estelle to the same inspection she had the other three, though she made a great show of avoiding stabbing the princess in the eye with a pencil and didn't make as many threatening sounds when Estelle didn't do something in the first fraction of a second. Estelle's arm stayed hooked in Yuri's elbow and she would absently pat at Rita's knee when something was too much.

Raven wondered how easy it would have been for the others to do the same tap-out motion and knew that she would have responded exactly the way she did to Estelle – she wouldn't acknowledge the pats and probably wouldn't actually notice them consciously. But she still would back off, lean back on her heels, or move her hand. If Yuri had been observant enough, he could have accomplished the same thing. Karol probably knew he could have done it, especially now, but there was something different between knowing you could do something and actually doing it. Nan's hand on Raven's shoulder made it clear that she definitely knew and was brave enough, but being brave wouldn't have gotten the results that Rita needed at the time.

As if she knew his thoughts at that moment, Nan squeezed Raven's shoulder once, hard enough that it would probably bruise, and then let him go to sit by Karol. They met eyes long enough to nod at each other, one quick bob of the head for each of them, and then it was as if it never happened.

She was going to make a great daughter-in-law.

o-o-o

Rita flinched away from all the touching. Things were getting to be too much, too many people's breath near her ears. She bowed out as gracefully as she could manage as soon as she could, ending with the quickest of touches between her forehead and Estelle's. The princess leaned into the touch, brief as it was, and they both huffed a quick laugh. Then Estelle turned to all the people who she could see and who were looking at her, and Rita scooted backwards, the carpet making a nearly-silent hiss under her stockings as she moved over it.

Tokunaga met eyes with her and threw up a thumbs-up behind Karol with the hand whose elbow was on the twerp's head.

It was good as a permission as any to leave.

Repede found her an hour or so later, sitting down very deliberately so he could whap her in the face with his tail while he turned the other way. When she snapped at him, he gave her the most puppy-eyed look that a scarred, pipe-chomping dog could give and his tail smacked her one more time before he turned around and set an envelope on her knee. She straightened from her slouched huddle in one of the leather chairs and picked it up, wrinkling her nose at the film of saliva along the one edge.

"Is this your idea of cheering me up?" she growled at the dog, flipping the envelope over. She snorted.

"Yeah, this is how I can tell you can't read." She turned it back around and pointed at 'Brave Vesperia' on the front. "I'm not a member."

Repede just huffed at her and wouldn't take it back when she tried to shove it at him. After three attempts, the last of which had him turn around and whack her with his tail once more, she sighed and broke the seal on the envelope.

"Though I guess you're a member and, as we previously established," she said pointedly, "you can't read."

How he'd managed to figure out who it went to was a question she'd tackle later. Let alone why he decided that she was the one to read it.

The paper was cheap and when she opened it, she skimmed the few lines before reading it out loud. It felt a little silly to be reading a letter out loud to a dog.

"'The Weasand of Cados is correct. Volt is waiting there. Maxwell thinks the whole thing is very funny.'"

Rita frowned at the message, flipping the paper for any additional information, but there was nothing.

"Where'd you get this?"

Repede patiently waited for her to realize how stupid a question it was to ask a dog who couldn't talk, let alone read.

"Did she give it to you?" She changed the phrasing, taking a guess.

The dog shook all over and then scratched behind his left ear. His chain rattling with the movement and none of it was a proper answer to her question.

"Why didn't you take it to Yuri?"

Repede decided he was done with the conversation and began to wander away.

Rita clicked her tongue in thought, then pushed herself to her feet and followed.

"Okay, let's go find folks."

Rita didn't know Judith's handwriting well enough, but she was pretty sure that Tokunaga would. The pilot was having an intense conversation with Karol that she didn't care about. She interrupted to shove the paper at him.

"Is this Judith's?"

The man didn't immediately understand what she was asking, looking from the window to her and then the piece of paper without really comprehending. When he finally took the note from her, he read it quickly and then his eyes widened.

"Yeah, that's her writing. Where did you find this?"

"Repede found it on the steps outside. Or under the door or something. I dunno, get Yuri to ask him." Rita flapped her hand at him and walked away without taking the paper back.

"Let me see," she heard Karol demand behind her. No whining or apologies, but also not rude. Just firm. Tokunaga handed the paper over, judging by the rustling behind her, but she didn't bother to check.

She had to find Raven.

o-o-o

He was waiting for her when she poked her head up through the skylight directly next to his shoulder. Not that he didn't still jump when he pointy little chin was suddenly aggressively stabbing at his forehead, but he at least had been at the right skylight opening.

"There you are!" she snapped at him, as if it was his fault that she had ungracefully knocked her forehead against the jamb of the window.

He didn't look over, his gaze still fixed on the point in the distance where he had seen Ba'ul touch down about a half hour before, a dark shadow fading into other dark shadows.

"Something on yer mind?"

"Where is she?"

No need to pretend he didn't know what she was talking about. He freed one of his arms from behind his head and pointed. He couldn't say if Judith was still there, but he hadn't seen Ba'ul take off again. If nothing else, the entelexia was waiting for them.

"You okay?" he asked. The old popping feeling he would get in one elbow had resolved itself, at least for now, after the initial stabbing pain that had shot through to the ends of his fingers as Sylph flapped her wings.

"Yeah," she replied, absently rotating her wrist against an ache he suspected was not there anymore.

"So she's not downstairs."

"No. She left some note with the dog or something. I don't know what she wants. She also hasn't left?"

"No," he confirmed. She nodded, the motion more of a tilt back and forth, where she knew what he meant but also knew that didn't mean he had all the information.

"I'm going."

"With the furball?" The question was kind of pointless, but he needed to know for sure.

"Yeah. Don't tell Estelle yet."

"Tell her what? I'm comin' with ya."

"No," she snapped and now he did make eye contact.

"What are ya talkin' about?"

"I'm not putting you in danger. Not again."

He coughed, loudly and irreverently, at the sky. She shied away from any potential noise and spittle, his behavior rude even for her feral self.

"What was that again? I thought ya said ya were going to leave me behind and do everythin' yerself with no backup again."

"I… You…" The next few moments were a mix between inarticulate sounds and completely silent gesticulating.

Finally she wrangled words under her control again.

"I was fine. You almost got yourself killed last time. I was kidnapped. You chose to show up without anyone else."

He rolled his eyes up to stare into the deep blue of the sky until they started to water and he closed them. When he opened them again, he had taken a few deep breaths. Breaths that he hadn't realized he needed to take.

"I'm not sorry." His voice was firm in a way it might not have been a few breaths ago.

She growled, hiking one leg and then another up through the opening so that she crouched on the roof next to his head. When he opened his eyes again, her left knee blocked the sliver of sunlight stabbing his right eye and she rested her wrists on her knees so that her fingers almost brushed his hair. She was staring out across the city, in the direction of Ba'ul but not really looking for him.

"I am," she said finally. "I didn't mean that. I'm just scared."

She took a deep breath and then let it out. He stared at the point of her knee, at the fine hairs that were bright and golden with the sunset's glow against the darkening sky.

"I'm scared of Judith. I'm scared of me."

Another deep breath, this one a little shaky. She looked down at him again.

"I'll be okay," he said, the way he had so many times already.

"But will you? I'm scared of you too." Her voice was quiet and bitter.

He waited, his breath even in a way that even he didn't believe.

"I'm scared of what you will do to yourself."

She rubbed her fingers up and down her face. Once. Then twice.

"I don't want you to go. I want to know where you are and that you are safe."

"But you are going to go," he prompted. His eyes moved back to where Ba'ul had landed. Easily within walking distance if you were willing to put in a little of a hike.

She didn't answer, which was an answer.

"That's not fair."

And just like that, he was angry again. He had been so angry at her recently, so many times, but he hadn't had a name to put to it until this exact moment.

"I can make my own decisions, Rita."

She snorted, but she turned her face away a moment too late to hide the twist of her mouth. He waited for her to respond any further, but she didn't. The shade across his face disappeared as she sat heavily on the roof tiles.

"I want to know where ya are too. I want to know that you're safe."

He didn't think about it. He didn't have to. His hand found hers, her fingers cold against the warm surface of the roof.

"Lost ya once, before I really had anything to say. I won't lose ya again now that I do."

o-o-o

He huffed a laugh, not really amused but close enough, and his fingers tightened on hers until she could feel his fingernails pressing into her palm.

She sobbed once, the sound and motion without actual tears. It was a weird sensation, but not one she could stop.

"You are so incredibly stupid, you know that?"

He didn't answer. But he didn't let go of her hand.

"Estelle still can't see properly," she said, desperately. Anything to get him to stay somewhere safe. Anything to keep him away from when she saw Judith again.

"And if ya disappear, I'm not doing much good either way. Ol' Raven only just got used to being useful."

"Shut up, old man."

He didn't laugh again. He just lay there, his feet stretched out before him and his free hand tucked beneath his head, staring at the sky.

She reached out with her free hand and closed his eyelids. His face twitched under her fingers. They were quiet for a long moment, the sun warm on their skin.

"Either I'm comin' or I'm telling Estelle."

"Snitch," she growled.

"Ya could tell her yerself."

She blew the air out of her cheeks and squinted across the landscape. Her leg started to bounce, the back of her knee tapping up and down on a loose tile that clicked ever so slightly.

"Ya were planning on tellin' someone, right?"

"I told you." Her face was hot even without the sun on it.

Her fingertips were still on his face and she felt him roll his eyes under his eyelids. It was an uncomfortable sensation and she moved her hand to wipe her fingers against her leg. They were clammy and made her flinch away from her own skin.

"Ya told me because ya found me accidentally."

"No!" she burst out, then tried to back off the defensive tone. "Nuh-uh. No. I was looking for you."

He made a thoughtful hum and when she looked back down at him, he was watching her.

"I was. I…"

She didn't really have something past that. She really had been looking for him. And until she had said that, and all the other stuff before it, she hadn't realized that it was because she was scared of him.

She looked at him, his soft disappointed face, and it wasn't because she was scared of him for herself. She was scared of him for him. Just like she had been about Alexei. Because she could see the shadow of Alexei in him, the little remnant that had trickled in through everything. The influence of another life.

It was the same reason she was scared of Judy.

It wasn't for herself. She knew that it would either be her or Judith in an even chance. Rita could rain down hellfire, but Judith might make it to her first. Either way, it would be a fair fight.

But she knew that Raven would go down. Not because he would lose. Judy wouldn't head for him like that. But because he would give himself up. Because of that shadow. So Rita had needed to know where he was before she left the guild headquarters behind. Had to know that he wasn't already where she was going.

She sighed.

"If I let you come, will you keep quiet about it? No snitching."

His fingers tightened on hers.

o-o-o

Estelle's hand was in Yuri's as the two of them sat in a corner and watched the aftermath of the note's discovery. Once the hubbub had died down and Tokunaga and Karol were poring over a map of the Weasand of Cados, Yuri looked down to find Repede holding a crumpled note, folded in half.

"Another one?"

The dog proffered the paper. As Yuri took it, Repede rummaged under his harness with his nose and pulled out another.

"Regular mail carrier, bud."

Repede didn't deign to respond to that.

The crumpled note was addressed to Estelle in blocky, deliberate letters and Yuri handed it to her. The second one had Karol's name written on the front, but it wasn't the same no-nonsense script as the first.

Yuri hesitated for a moment before taking it. "Find it at the same time?"

The dog just sniffed and walked away, his job done.

"Hey Cap'n, can I borrow you?"

Karol raised one finger in a 'hold on' gesture, pointed it decisively at a point on the map, and then lifted his head.

"Yeah, Yuri, what's up?"

Yuri drew him closer with a jerk of his head.

Karol took the letter without saying anything. He'd seen the first note. They all had.

"Did you read it yet?"

"It's got your name on it."

Brow furrowed, the kid opened it and began to read. Yuri stayed and watched him, even though Karol didn't say anything.

Karol re-read the letter, wobbling his head side-to-side with an indecisive frown, then handed it to Yuri.

"Let me know what you think."

'Karol –

I disappointed you and did something on my own. You would have thought I learned my lesson, but I guess I'm just hard to teach. I'll send Ba'ul back as soon as I can.

Judith'

"'Back'? Back from where? The Weasand of Cados?" Tokunaga was gripping the paper with knuckles so white that Yuri could see it from where he sat. Nan had appeared at his shoulder, a deep frown etched in her forehead.

Yuri let them contemplate and looked over at Estelle, who was squinting at her own paper, nearly touching it with her nose. Her face turned red, then paled, then turned red again. She lifted her head and addressed the room.

"Myorzo. They're going to Myorzo."

Karol frowned, the bewildered disappointment aging him by decades.

"Who is 'they'?"