While they were returning towards the temple, on their way, they met tiny orbs of golden light which fluttered beside them, like myriads of suns floating around them. They were called homecoming fireflies and were said to guide weary hunters home from work. They were friendly, landing on people's skin, zigzagging around them. They seemed to welcome them by radiating all their light.

Seeing the familiar lake again, Aiko heaved a contented sigh. She was looking forward to partying tonight to celebrate their return and the success of the mission. With a little luck, they could bathe in this same lake, lit by the magic stone even better than by the Moon, hoping not to be caught again by one of the priests.

As they made their way to the hunters' assigned dorms, a girl popped up in front of them, like an apparition, materializing in their path. She seemed to be disguised as her clothes were strange and crazy, an eclectic mix of patterns and colors. She wore a sleeveless dress with a sequined red bustier shimmering with purple reflections, the sequins sparkled like the gaslights of an entire city, and an original skirt, made with giant playing cards assembled together. You could see the five of diamonds, the eight of hearts, the three of clubs... Quite original petticoats that moved like a fan of paper with each of her movements. She had on black gloves whose sleeves formed bands that crisscrossed, the way two snakes in love might have done playing on the soft golden sand of her skin. Her legs were clad in tall, shiny dark pantyhose, sliding down her legs like the onyx-colored water of a waterfall, while her feet wore little patent red slippers that Dorothy might have envied.

She had such a pretty face, like she was an angelic creature descended from heaven, with a delicate jaw that took the shape of a heart. She had a beautiful mouth, fleshy and delicate, a morning flower usually the same color as the rosy-fingered dawn, painted white. Flawless skin with a peachy complexion that looked like it had been shaped by an artist to have so few flaws. Her flesh seemed to be a charming sandy berry, deliciously pale, covered on all sides by a light golden down like a golden mist that the sun had scattered over her skin. Large azure blue eyes, which reflected the sky, edged with long lashes. They were two sapphire lakes, mountain lakes with pure water bordered by eternal and sacred snow forming a mother-of-pearl setting. Around her left eye was painted a white tile shape like her lips. From her ears hung red stones in the shape of a heart. Her eyebrows were as thick as the bristles of a paintbrush, tenderly surrounding her pupils like long veils of gold protecting those azure expanses. They were dazzlingly blond, as the world seems to be at dawn, when only the sun is present to contemplate the rebirth of this world left gray in this bastard hour between day and night.

She had hair the color of the summer sun that was the very definition of light. The long waves of this river of gold framed her features like a crown of rays which surrounds the shining face of the sun. Hair, hair, fleece with curls cut in the sun, a simple look made one want to bury one's hands in your silky mass and, by this plunge, to taste your elasticity and your angelic sweetness. Hair that the wind agitates, in the long bundles of your wicks seem gathered all the soft summer evenings, when the sky takes on a tawny hue, when the air cools and the scent of the fields fills it, when sweet freshness and the world is bathed in gold. Hair, you make one wish that dusk would never end.

She looked particularly annoyed, her pretty nose puckered and her lips tight, making her features look like a sulky statue, an annoyed muse turning her back on the desperate artist who begs for the services of her inspiring beauty. She had crossed her arms over her chest to show her displeasure and was waiting, stamping the troop with her foot.

Seeing her, Liam sighed.

 "You !" She pointed accusingly at Aiko.

She backed away slightly, suspicious. This single move seemed to have been choreographed as this movement seemed ample and flexible, a slow wave rolling and rising before falling like a cleaver.

 "How dare you come home and not head straight to say hello to me? So you wish to suffer the wrath of my ire, unhappy one? Your heresy cannot be punished enough and if I had known sooner the terrible disdain that you reserved for me, I would not have hesitated before imprinting in your mind the tenor of my anger!"

She seemed to be boiling with rage, a volcano about to explode, as she had tried to express by this flowery language. The back of her hand rested dramatically on her forehead, as if in fear of fainting. As a precaution, the others created a three-foot perimeter around Aiko and Liam began to examine her to determine the dimensions of the coffin.

The girl rushed forward and threw herself into his arms, bursting into tears. She was clinging to Aiko as if it were a rock helping her to keep standing.

 "Don't leave me alone! I feel so sad without you! I almost threw myself in the lake to save myself from this pain, but I remembered at the last moment that it was not deep enough and that I would only get soaked if I did."

She let out loud cries, loud sobs that seemed almost overplayed. Aiko patted her head a little to comfort her, knowing very well the scenes the young girl loved to lend herself to. Right after the heartbreaking farewells, she loved the moving reunion.

"Here we go", intervened Liam, "it's like that every time we come back from a mission."

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to the girl under Aiko's dark gaze.

 "I find that rather cute", Jonas remarked.

Eva smiled back.

 "Alright, Aiko, when you're done with your girlfriend, you'll join us in the dorms", David told her.

She lifted the girl into the air and cradled her in her arms while continuing to pat her back.

 "Don't listen to them Thalie, they're jealous of our love."

David gave an amused snort, shrugging in response as Liam stuck his tongue out at her and Eva held back a laugh to the side.

Aiko smiled at the girl in her arms. She was happy to find her. Thalie was one of a kind. When she first saw her, she was struck by her beauty. Aiko had never had too much taste for appearances but the mere sight of Thalie had been enough to convince a young girl like her who had no experience in judging the elegance of a person's features, that her face was by far the fairest. However, her personality was even more sublime, although at times very annoying as well. Thalie had arrived at the shrine six months ago, recommended to the high priest by one of his acquaintances. He had introduced her abruptly, without giving more information about her than her name and refusing to elaborate. An unusual situation. It was rare indeed for the high priest to bring someone directly into the order, who moreover was a complete stranger. She had no memory of her past life and it didn't seem to bother her. When asked about it, she would shrug her shoulders and reply that if she had arrived here, her past couldn't be very happy. She said she preferred not to remember. No one had succeeded in understanding the reason why the high priest had decided to bring to the order a young girl whose powers were still very underdeveloped and who was amnesiac.

Thalie was also able to use magic, but due to her lack of combat experience and her powers that were not of an offensive nature, she had not yet been assigned to a squadron. No one knew exactly what to think of her. Everyone was still convinced that she must have been hiding something, a special talent that would have convinced the high priest to bring her here in person, but so far, apart from her great beauty, she had shown no characteristic beyond the mediocre stage.

The arrival of people who did not grow up in the temple like her was not that unusual, thanks to the brigades' many trips where they sometimes found people in need of a new home. This was the case for Eva and Jonas who came a year ago. They had fled Germany where they could not live.

The sanctuary could also serve as a refuge for people with extraordinary abilities, who were often driven from their homes or used as weapons. Their fate in the wide world was often cruel and some reported being hunted by a mysterious and vindictive group who had not hesitated to annihilate all that was dear to them to reach them. The situation in Germany was far the worst, with a real purge of the population and numerous prisons and camps, all carried out under the orders of an individual whom all referred to as the Duke of Wiedenwertel. In France, it was said that the situation had calmed down since the war and the rise to power of a new sovereign.

Sometimes groups of people who had known terror were seen around the temple. They rode like that, aimlessly. When one looked at them, one could still read the fear in their eyes, a fear that would never fade away. They rarely spoke to others and were usually not assigned to squads. The order preferred to let them live in peace, trying to recover from their suffering rather than sending them to the front. A lot of them sometimes left the sanctuary shortly after their arrival in order to try to return to an ordinary life in the world, still protected by the order as a precaution.

It was one of the big reasons why Thalie would rather have no memories at all than have visions of horror constantly in her mind. Ignorance can sometimes be such a blessing, a benevolent water, it soothes anxieties and drowns them in the waves of Lethe.

After having put down Thalie, the two young girls both started to move forward, Aiko matching her step to the trotting gait of her friend who seemed to be hopping on the stones that made up the path. Thalie held out her hand and, instinctively, Aiko intertwined her fingers with hers, forming a complex tapestry that connected them and made them seem inseparable.

When Aiko turned her head towards her bubbly companion, Thalie gave her a dazzling smile that was much truer than all her theatrical and exaggerated ways, shining like the sun. Delicate dimples formed on her cheeks and her eyes narrowed in a liberated way, without any worry hindering the happiness she wanted to convey. Each time they passed through the sanctuary, all eyes were turned to Thalie in her bizarre clothes. Contaminated by the young girl's joy, Aiko smiled in turn, happy to feel at her side someone so eccentric and unique, far from what her simple appearance might have led to imagine. With her thumb, she caressed the back of Thalie's hand, admiring the contrast between their two skins, her friend's milk-colored skin and her own, chocolate like. The two went together so well, as if they were made to intertwine.

"I missed you", Aiko finally whispered, almost reluctantly saying the words.

She was so unfamiliar with using them! She had always seen herself as a solitary person and believed that from this same solitude came her strength. She had never learned to love someone like that, she had never learned to think about what might come after the fight, after throwing herself headlong into the battle. She had never learned to miss the warmth of home and the arms of the one she loved.

"I know", said Thalie's crystal clear voice, tinkling like a wind chime.

But she didn't regret finding out.

"So ?" continued Thalie. "What adventures does my great heroine have to tell me? What monsters have you killed? What winds and tides have you braved? I can't wait to complete my epic play about the solitary warrior who with her voice controls the spirits of nature and eliminates the monsters of the shadows! You will see, it will be a sublime piece, something grandiose which will be transmitted through the ages. The bards will fight to sing of your exploits!"

"I don't need them to sing anything, your sweet melodious voice is enough for me!" declared Aiko, proud to use such a high vocabulary as the young girl, who had helped her develop her lexicon since their meeting.

"I know ! The slightest word I utter has the flavor of a captivating and enchanting chant! But my speeches are also sublimated by the lips which declaim them."

Aiko raised a mocking eyebrow and leaned towards Thalie, examining said lips.

"Let me take a closer look at them."

She frowned, pretending to scrutinize the smallest cell that made up her sweetheart's mouth. Thalie happily joined in the game, with an almost childish cheerfulness.

"Sight is not enough, I will have to resort to taste."

Thalie burst out laughing before giving Aiko a little tap to make her step back.

"We don't snack between meals!" She retorted.

Aiko put her hand to her heart, to show the pain this refusal gave her, crying in annoyance.

"And when will I have the pleasure of tasting you, my dear and tender?"

"I am a feast that cannot be consumed lightly, and certainly not in public!"

Aiko let out another exaggerated cry, expressing her suffering for miles around while Thalie took on a detached air, only leaving her hand in Aiko's as a lady offering a great favor to the one who was courting her.

Changing the subject, Aiko stood up to familiarly meet her shoulder against Thalie's, the latter doing the same.

"I can't wait to hear another one of your stories."

"Soon, I have to make myself desired a little, for fear that my charms will lose their value."

Aiko shook her head. Thalie would never lose her charm, as long as she told her stories with the same ardent fervor that made her shine like a star. When she told one of her tales, her alabaster forehead seemed lit by a glow from another world while her eyes shone with a passionate brilliance, bright as a flame. Her tone, often imperious, arrogant, impatient, exaggerated, pompous, plaintive, became quite different, taking on suave airs, hoarse and soft sounds at the same time, singing without singing the words of music with a forgotten melody.

Thalie had a real obsession with this kind of thing. Aiko couldn't help but be admirative and amused by her creations which seemed to emerge from nothing without even Thalie being able to explain where all this inspiration came from.

Aiko clutched her staff. She liked to have its presence with her at all times, it reminded her of her home. It had a soothing and reassuring aura. It had been created during a rite of passage specific to her people. When she was six years old, she had participated in a ceremony which was obligatory and during which the young children tried to connect with the spirits of nature. If they managed to establish contact, a bond was forged between them and a nature spirit lodged in a ritual staff and accompanied them for the rest of their lives. He became a guardian, a friend, a member of the family. Someone to whom they were forever linked, who allowed access to the spiritual world, to the magic of nature.

As her hand moved over it, Thalie's gaze met hers and Aiko knew that the latter must still be thinking of another of her glorious verses about the mythical object that the proud warrior carried with her.

Hidden within her staff lived the spirit of Aiko, the deer spirit, Eilin. Having him with her comforted her a little and brought her back to happy times, when she was still living on the land of her ancestors. When she felt lonely and sad, Eilin was there to comfort her, to support her and cheer her up a bit.

She didn't know what she would have done without him. When darkness had descended upon her and her clan, Eilin had been there, like a beacon in the dark, to support her and bring her back to the light. She clung to him like a castaway clings to a raft in a storm, hoping to escape the storm. When she saw him, it seemed to her that she was finding a fragment of what her life had been before, she could almost feel the breath of the warm wind that bent the tall grass of the large meadows they walked through every day. It was a lingering heat, both painful but so pleasant. She sometimes felt the urge to sink into it and forget the cold that really existed outside, in this world where what she had loved no longer existed. She had so much trouble facing the frosts of this reality, preferring the voluptuous sweetness of illusion, but she always had to wake up, leave this state of perdition and which would never bring back to her what had been. There was only this arduous path in front of her, to which she always returned, unable to detach her thoughts from it, with the jagged and burning surface under her feet, but she would cross it, for it was the only one that led towards the future, this future so bitterly sought after. And maybe she would one day manage to soak this path in blood.

At this thought, Aiko felt her hand become colder in Thalie's. If she continued on this path, what would happen to the two of them? Could she sacrifice her revenge for the girl's smile? She couldn't, she would never forgive herself, and, if she did, Thalie's sweet face would be permanently replaced by the images of her dead family.

She didn't deserve such happiness anyway. It was only temporary.