"It wasn't just one or two ribs, Yara. It was four. Four," Kaya stresses, as a ball of white light whizzes around Yara's body, checking for any more serious injuries.

"And a punctured lung," Tam reminds them. "Ow - hey! Watch it!" he snaps as, annoyed, Yara presses down on his cut with a little more force than necessary.

She shrugs. "You should stay still while I'm dealing with your injuries."

Yara had woken up midway while Kaya had been crouched over her, healing her wounds with her Starsong, still in the slightly wrecked train car with the door leading to outside closed and bolted again.

"What happened to the woman?" Yara had asked.

"I... deposited her outside," Kaya had said. "Gently. I checked on the man as well. We didn't kill them, thankfully. Though... they might not be able to walk for a little while."

And then, after Yara had healed enough to walk, they had headed back to the compartment, where they are now, tending to the more minor injuries.

"Still," Allioni says now, "Who were those two? They seemed a lot more experienced than your average mook. And the guy..." he glances towards Yara. "He gave you four broken ribs and a punctured lung just by kicking you across the entire length of the train car. What kind of monster can do that?"

"Dunno," Chia shrugs, sitting opposite them and swinging her legs casually as the train rocks back and forth, chugging onwards to their next destination (it had already stopped at Ellings while Yara was unconscious). "Those guys were definitely reaaaaal bad news, though. If Kaya hadn't shown up in time..." she shudders, then pauses. "D'you think we're going to be facing off against those kind of people from now on?"

"Hard to say," Yara replies. "Those two... seemed like professionals. Not the professionals we've been dealing with, but like the professional professionals. Hitmen or assassins, maybe - not top tier, but quite good. Or at least, the man was. Meaning - whoever sent these people, they're rich. And powerful. And very, very serious. Might just be one of our toughest pursuers right now, next to Mrs. Rivyet."

"Well," Chia swallows. "That's absolutely positively definitely one-hundred-percent bad news, then."

"Yes," Yara nods, looking up and tossing the cotton ball she had been using to the side, done with treating the few wounds Tam had gotten from his scuffle with the woman (a lot less than Yara, which just goes to show how experienced the man is, or perhaps how inexperienced his partner is). "Plus one more."

"One more?" Allioni asks. "Did you find something out?"

Yara nods, and then she tells them.

About her new job. About Mr. and Mrs. Rivyet's daughter, Raine.

About how she's blind, and how her legs are paralyzed.

Kaya sucks in a sharp breath. "I never knew. I never knew that that's who they're doing this for. I never..." she shakes her head. "If we go through with this, then... I might as well be taking her sight and her legs from her, all over again. She didn't ask for this - it wouldn't be fair to her. How can I go through with this now, knowing that she'll have to suffer this for the rest of her life and I could change it?"

Gently, hesitantly, Allioni places a hand on her shoulder. "That isn't your fault. And it doesn't mean that you don't deserve to live."

"Yeah!" Chia interjects. "You're your own person, too, y'know? You should have a say in the matter as well!" she says, and Tam gives a single, silent nod of agreement.

"I know," she offers them a small, grateful smile, then glances down at her own hands. "But still..." she shakes her head again, lets out a shaky laugh. "Well, at least now I know what they were talking about all those months ago. When my mom - when Mrs. Rivyet asked Mr. Rivyet whether he cared about his own daughter anymore... it hadn't been about me. Adopting me, raising me, those rare moments of care... it had never been about me."

I wonder if they've ever cared about me at all?

It's unspoken, but they all already understand what she doesn't say - maybe because she's too afraid to say it, like saying it out loud will make it actually true.

Chia reaches over, takes her hand and squeezes it. "It's ok. You have a new family now - us. And we will definitely never, ever abandon you."

"We are pretty hard to get rid of," Tam agrees. "Especially Chia - she is extra clingy."

"Yep - we're with you all the way," Allioni grins.

"Thanks, guys," Kaya says, voice a little wobbly as she swipes at her eyes and lets out a single sniffle.

And it's all very cute and sweet and wholesome, which just leaves Yara feeling a little bit guilty (and also slightly awkward) for intruding - this doesn't feel like a moment she should witness. Nevertheless, she still has some things to address, and so she clears her throat and announces, "Back to business. Another thing I need to put extra emphasis on - since I now have a new job that demands almost all of my time and dedication, I won't be able to sneak around and eavesdrop as much as before. Nor will I be able to go frolicking with you all over the countryside and mountains and towns anymore, so for the Anya situation - you'll have to deal with most of it on your own. I can show up for an hour or two, tops, to negotiate with Anya and gather info, but that's about it. The planning, traveling, and so on will have to be taken care of by you."

"Ehhhhhh?" Chia exclaims, then slumps back into her seat with a sigh. "Oh man... more brain-destroying work? I don't know how much more I can take... and what if we run into more people like the guys who attacked us just now?"

Yara shrugs. "You'll just have to deal with it. Keep backup plans in place, stick together as a group, lay low - and that's even lower than you already are, and keep some weapons on hand as well. You've been doing just fine these few weeks - just think of it as less visits from me. You already know your goal anyway, so you'll be fine. Besides, haven't you already been living independently for a few years now?"

"...true," Allioni admits. "Ever since we were fourteen, I think - we left the orphanage as soon as we had enough money to move out."

"Exactly. So you'll be fine, as long as you don't do anything too reckless. Or plain stupid," Yara says, to which Tam raises an eyebrow.

"You do know you're talking about us, right?" he says.

"Well, it's not like we have any other options, so -" she shrugs. "Just find a way to keep it together, will you? I've already been here for too long - I need to head back now, or they'll start to get suspicious."

"Wait, before you go - one last thing," Tam begins, but she's already pulling back, letting the train's noises fade away as she visualizes her room, lets herself be tugged back to it like following the natural flow of a river.

"Don't mess up," she says, and then she's gone.

(Because she knows, knows what he wants to ask even before he's asked it.)

(And she doesn't want to have to explain it, not again.)

When she opens her eyes again, she's back in her room.

She blows out a sigh, glances down at her hands, and, taking a deep breath, she reaches for that corner of her mind again - that part of her core, her soul, that's always been a bright light, a warm, comforting hum, a safe sanctuary -

She flinches as she rebounds off of some invisible barrier harshly - the same as before, and the time before that as well.

She blows out another sigh, curling her hands into loose fists, remembers again the feeling of a bow of light in her hand, of standing her ground, being in a fixed position, an immovable boulder. Of being completely, absolutely sure.

She misses that feeling.

Nowadays, all it feels like she's doing is freefalling, stumbling around blindly in a room in the dark, praying that she grasps something.

No path, no destiny, no future, no nothing.

Nothing to follow.

"Why do you reject me?" she says, quietly, to the empty room. "Galatheia."

--------------------

"Ah..." Chia says, taking in a deep breath of fresh air as she stretches her arms out. "Another day, another train station, and another town!"

"Don't forget another possibility of certain death," Tam reminds her as he steps off the train. "I swear, you really only see the bright side of things sometimes," he sighs with a shake of his head.

"That's because you've already taken the spot of team cynic," Allioni says with a laugh as he passes by him.

"Yeah, what he said!" Chia nods rapidly. "Someone needs to be the optimist here!"

"For balance?" Kaya asks. "Because one optimist and one pessimist equals..." she pauses, frowns. "Wait, won't they just cancel each other out?"

"That's kinda the point here, yeah," Allioni agrees. "Though in our case, it's more like they're two halves."

"Two halves of a whole...?"

"Idiot," he ends, nodding to himself. "They're two halves of a whole idiot."

"Meanie!" Chia sticks her tongue out at the same time Tam snaps, "Not an idiot."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Allioni says to a round of protests from the both of them (which he promptly decides to ignore). He pauses, as he looks over the mostly empty train station, with its board of train schedules and travel brochures, and the big, faded sign with a giant black cat - the town mascot, maybe? - saying "Welcome to Orivia!" in capital letters. When he speaks again, its quieter. "So - we're here, huh?"

"Mhmm," Kaya says. "Wonder what we'll find."

"Hopefully the answers," Tam says. "Or at the very least, another lead. I didn't drag myself halfway across this country for nothing."

"Are things ever that easy for us, though?" Chia asks.

"Fair point."

As one, they turn to see the town of Orivia, with its winding paths and cobblestone houses and forests and mountains, spread out below them.

--------------------

"It feels kinda weird here," Chia notes as they head into town. "It feels so... similar to back home, but at the same time... it doesn't. It's all a lot more... I dunno, squished together?" she says, pressing her palms together as if squashing something to prove her point. "But like, in a cozy way?" she scrunches her eyebrows together, shakes her head. "This is weird," she says again. "Kinda makes me miss home, though."

It is a lot more cramped here in comparison with the other towns they've visited, Tam notes - its streets narrow and winding and going up and down steep hills more often than not, the houses crammed in next to each other haphazardly, all looking like they've been built with wildly different materials over the course of a century and on the verge of falling apart - and yet, it has a strangely homely feel to it. Because as cramped as it seems, the chimney smoke, the smell of baking bread, the sounds of children's laughter and bicycle bells ringing for people to get out of the way doesn't make it all that suffocating.

"You're right," he agrees. "It's weird, but - now I kinda miss home too."

"Oh, what's this?" Allioni turns around so he's walking backward. "The mighty Tam, of all people, admitting he's homesick? I never thought I'd live to see the day -"

"Shut up," Tam grumbles.

"Okay, okay!" Allioni raises his hands in surrender. "But, in terms of a remedy for your homesickness -" he, being the horrible friend that he is, pauses to laugh at the word again, "- think of the bills we'll have to pay when we get back and you won't miss home anymore."

"Okay, no - don't even start," Tam points. "I've already had enough to deal with these past few weeks - don't add bills onto my plate and ruin today as well, please."

"Still, that's -" Chia frowns, starts counting on her fingers, "- water, electricity - oh no, did we leave any lights on?"

A pause as Tam looks to Allioni.

"You were the last one out of the house," Tam begins, glaring harder as Allioni purposefully doesn't meet his eyes. "Allioni, I swear to god, if you left the lights on -"

"... maybe?" he winces. "Listen, I was in a rush, okay, and I mean I'm not completely sure I didn't turn them off either -"

A gasp from Chia's side as she pauses in her counting. Both Tam and Allioni pause to look at her, Kaya looking up from the travel brochure she's been reading in her hand. "What is it?" Tam asks.

Chia looks positively horrified. "I forgot to water Mrs. Nadia's flowers," she says in a whisper.

"So?" Tam raises an eyebrow. "She can water them by herself, right?"

"No no no, you don't get it. Her wife is scary, okay? And they're away for holiday."

Another pause.

"Oh."

"They entrusted the job to me and now I'm going to let them downnnn," Chia wails, head in her hands. "The flowers will be dead by the time we get back!"

"I mean... you could always tell them what happened?" Allioni suggests.

"You think they'll believe me?" Chia asks hopefully.

"No," Tam says. "No, they won't."

She sighs, her face sinking deeper into her hands. "I'm doomed."

"Ah, on another note..." Kaya interjects awkwardly, the first time she's spoken up since the conversation started. "Should we ask around? About Anya, I mean."

"Yeah, sure," Tam says. "We'll have to be careful, though, considering she's over a hundred years old at this point - we can't just ask about her right away, since she's probably changed her identity and -"

"Heyyyyyy!" Chia calls, running over to the nearest person she sees - a middle aged man sitting on a nearby bench. "Do you know someone named Anya? I heard she lives around here."

Tam facepalms. "Never mind."

Said middle-aged man looks up in surprise. "Y' mean Anya Hawthorne? She passed away a long time ago - twenty years ago, I think. Her daughter still lives around here, though. I can give you directions to her house." The man leans out, points in the direction they were heading. "Head all the way up this street, then take the last left onto Lockwood Street and continue all the way up the hill - it'll end at a dirt path, but just keep going after that cause' her house is a wee bit into the mountains. Oh, an' be careful on the mountain path, y' hear me? Lots 'a stuff you could trip over, could easily get yerself injured."

"Right, I got it - thanks!" Chia waves, then runs back to their group. "I got directions! And wow, but the people here are so nice and friendly."

"Bet you would fit right in," Tam mutters. "Try to be more subtle next time, please - we can't risk blowing our cover."

"Right," she says, scratching the back of her head sheepishly. "On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Sorry."

"Well - what's done is done, I suppose. But now what? Yara's not getting here until the evening, right?"

"Yeah," Kaya nods. "So we've still got a little time to spare."

"Back to waiting it out in cafes, then?" Allioni asks.

"Guess so," she replies. "Though there are a few free attractions around here - I think it's a minor tourist spot." She holds up the brochure. "Does anyone want to go to a museum?"