Chapter 17: Unique

Melia sleepily walked into her room and flopped down on the bed.

It had been a most satisfying Friday. The day before was her last day of schooling, consisting of two four-hour exams comprised of essentially everything she had ever learned. While she had spent most of the late-June day worried stiff that she had done something very wrong, the results came in just as stellar as everyone else expected, and a banquet was held in honour of her "graduation". Furthermore, she was told that nothing was currently planned to fill the void left in her daily routine, that she had earned a substantial break from duties. She still had to continue with physical activities and staff training, and was still limited in how she could leave the palace, but was otherwise free to do whatever she wanted.

With some difficulty, she slowly sat up, preparing to get ready to go to bed properly. A lot of stuff had gone through her mind lately, and one thing in particular was now demanding her attention: the question of whether she mentally considered herself an adult. She had obviously been an adult legally and physiologically for some time, but still identified more as an adolescent or an outright child depending on the situation, and still felt slightly uncomfortable at being referred to as "Lady Melia". But now that school was over, and she somewhat expected to be given some actual imperial duties in the near future so she wouldn't be a waste of space, she felt almost compelled to...

...to learn how to be an adult? Does that even make sense? What "adult" action or knowledge could I possibly be unaware of?

Well, I suppose one thing that could be done would be to move into the Imperial Villa, which would remove me from this room's childhood environment.

Melia hadn't seriously considered relocating to the villa before, what with it being far enough away that doing anything in the palace proper would be a pain, but now that she had significantly fewer daily obligations, that problem would be much lessened. She could probably have the place redone a bit to cover up the more obvious historical ties if the memories ended up bothering her, and she had a very strong feeling that there would be fewer privacy intrusions by guards or maintenance workers (though they of course could not be eliminated completely).

It's worth investigating, at any rate. Tomorrow. I cannot simply pay the building a visit unannounced; I shall have to ask Father about it first, likely at dinner.

Having spent most of Saturday considering her sentiments, Melia spotted a gap in the dinner conversation and made her move.

"Father?"

Sorean was about to get back into his roast Hiln, but the question was so rare it captured his attention immediately. "Yes, Melia?"

"I am considering relocation to the Imperial Villa."

"Indeed?" He seemed surprised with a hint of excitement. "That is encouraging to hear. Tell me, what has prompted this new development?"

No I was going to ask you the questions, ergh. "...I suppose the tipping point was the completion of my education."

A nod. "Of course, a most important event." He didn't pursue the issue any further.

Hello? I wasn't done. "My main concern is what would happen to my current chambers, should it happen that I later wish to return."

"You need not worry about it. We have no need to repurpose your current chambers, and keeping them in pristine condition is of trivial effort. It would be just as the villa currently is: maintained less often than locales that are actively used, but still available for occupation at any time."

Melia had suspected that the villa was kept in decent shape even while empty, which answered another one of her questions, but she still had one left. "So once I have made my decision, how much notice will I need to give, and who should I inform?"

Smiling, Sorean shook his head. "Melia, the villa is yours to do with as you please. You may take up residence in it at any time, or return to the palace whenever you wish, with no reasons, restrictions, or regulations."

"...Very well." She was unnerved by the openness of the situation. She expected it to be an open-and-shut case, a decision that she could make once and only once that could never be undone. To be honest, she didn't feel as interested in the villa knowing that it didn't have to be a permanent change.

Kallian could sense something was not quite settled. "You expected an irreversible decision, didn't you?"

"...I did." There was no reason to hide it.

"But how would that be beneficial?" Kallian almost scooped his sleeve into his food but stopped it just in time. "Sometimes you may wish to reside in the heart of the palace, at other times you may desire a more peripheral life. There is no reason to spite one for the other."

"But..." Melia realised something that she hadn't thought of before. "But if the situation remains fluid, how will you determine whether you must construct another villa to house your future Second Consort?"

The rest of the table froze. Kallian clearly had no idea what to say. Sorean was expressionless but almost certainly thinking hard to create a response. Yumea looked flat-out scandalised at the implication that her son would ever have a Homs consort.

Melia didn't think the question would have caused such a dead response. She sheepishly reached for her wine and took a long, slow sip; over the past several years she had successfully built up enough resistance to drink two full glasses with no ill effects.

After what felt like quite a while, Sorean broke the silence. "Do not concern yourself with matters of the future. We shall cross that bridge when it comes time, not before."

"I understand." She didn't really, but could tell that the topic was done being discussed. It looks like I may as well give the villa a visit tomorrow, if there are truly no restrictions governing my use of it.

It felt very weird to be traversing the skybridge that connected the villa to the palace, something that she hadn't done since she was first moved into the palace - at first because it wasn't allowed, and then simply because it never occurred to her. It was a very foreign feeling, unnervingly similar to the feeling of hollowness that the Tomb radiated. She figured this was because the day she left the villa was the same day she visited the Tomb for the only time.

Passing the two guards at the dome's entrance without a word, Melia glanced at the gardens as she aimed towards the villa proper. The imperial groundscrew had kept them in shape, but were clearly devoted to not changing a thing without permission. The reds and pinks were around the perimeter of the circular shapes, the yellows and whites traced spokes out from the centre, the oranges sat in the corners, and blues and purples filled in the rest. Not a thing had changed in forty years.

It wasn't like she hadn't thought about it since then, but she hadn't truly realised that it had now been four decades since her mother's death, meaning that it would only be two years until she'd have more life without parents than with them (her aunt, father, and stepmother never being much of "parents" as far as she considered). It wasn't a pleasant realisation.

She shook her head. I'm not here to relive the past. I'm here to evaluate the present. She stepped onto the transporter inside the base of the building and passed through it.

She appeared in the foyer on the first floor. It looked like no time had passed at all. The free-standing fireplace in the centre quickly flared to life, detecting a visitor. The mirrors on the doors of the coat closet were unmarked and pristine. The crimson carpets remained thick and fluffy. Not a speck of dust sat on any of the gold decor.

Melia ascended the wide staircase that wound around the outside of the circular building. The second floor, the sitting room, was in just as perfect condition as the first one: sky-blue chairs and couches with polished bronze trimming, top-quality wooden bookshelves with zero mold and mildew, spotless white carpet without any signs of frequency wear. The third floor was the kitchen and dining room, from where the cook would prepare and serve all the meals, all the surfaces, cabinets, and appliances covered in a mix of faint yellow and earthy orange with jet black accents.

The fourth floor was the last that the staircase reached, and could best be described as the living room. Like the sitting room, it housed tables and seating, though this time various shades of green with silver accents. It also contained the entertainment devices, specifically a radio, a television, and a computer. Finally, it was the site of the transporters that led to the more private upper floors.

Melia was trying to remain stoic and detached, but it was pretty much impossible to avoid the memories being resurfaced by the old interiors - and she hadn't even reached the bedrooms yet. She wasn't about to back out of it just for being emotional, though.

Out of the five transporters, she selected the one that led to the ninth floor first - the balcony level. She wasn't allowed up here until she turned twenty-five, and wasn't exactly a fan of it anyways, having had a bad experience with the Sky Terrace in the past. Besides, the balcony only looked out towards the palace, which while an impressive view, wasn't all that interesting. Next she visited the eighth floor, her old bathroom. It was the only room she was ever allowed to have an opinion on the appearance of, so of course it was decked out in eye-searing purple and magenta. It looked awful to her aged mind, but it at least gave her something to laugh about.

Her bedroom was on the seventh floor. Coloured a much more reasonable lavender and half-blue, it looked just as she remembered it, though it seemed a fair bit smaller. She hadn't quite realised that the bed, dresser, and closet were all in the same configuration as her chambers in the palace - a clear-in-hindsight attempt at making her feel more at ease when she initially moved.

But this begs the question, she thought through the emotions, which bedroom is supposed to be mine now? Am I supposed to return to my the room of my child self, or...or take possession of my mother's room? Neither possibility was all that appealing or sensible. If she was supposed to undergo a change of scenery in order to feel more adult-like, returning to either room where so much past existed would be exactly the opposite of what she needed. If I'm feeling so down just by visiting this place, I am certainly not ready to live here. It would take several visits over a period of time to eventually reduce the negative nostalgia to tolerable levels. And I can't just order everything to be stripped bare and redone from scratch; that would destroy the history of the place. While she had effectively decided by now that she'd be staying in the palace for the time being, she was compelled to finish her visit; it was no good evaluating the place if she wasn't going to look at everything.

The fifth floor housed the master bathroom. Melia had very little memory of it, as she was almost never allowed in, so it was a unique experience to definitively fill in a hole in her mental map. Most of the surfaces were an opulent pearl with the occasional amethyst flair. The ambient smell was an unfamiliar mix of "clean" and "product", which made sense to her - of course a Homs would require different shampoos and other such things.

Finally, she stepped on the transporter that led to the sixth floor and the master bedroom. She was half-hoping that it would refuse her entry, as it had all the other times she tried to get in without her mother being there already, but it was not the case. The room's walls were the colour of sky, fading from light blue at the bottom to dark blue at the top. The bed was a watery aqua, while all the other furniture was a blue-tinged silver.

Having confirmed that everything was indeed completely unchanged, Melia turned to leave. But just before she stepped back on the transporter, she saw something quite out of place: an envelope was sticking out of one of the desk drawers. This was highly unusual; her mother hated to get papers crimped or creased, and leaving them sticking out of something was a surefire way for it to happen.

Up until now, she had left everything in the villa completely untouched. But there was just no way she could leave this insult to order laying around. Careful to not touch anything else - not that there was all that much to touch - she plucked the envelope out of the drawer.

Her name was written on the front in Homs lettering.

Desperate for something to latch onto, the genre-savvy cynic in Melia's mind immediately pushed its way to the forefront. Here we go, the sappy "letter from beyond the grave". What's the over/under for cliché count? She shook her head, trying to dispel the negativity. Anything could be written here. It could be a letter to me, but it could also be an unfinished will, or a plea to Father about something relating to me. In any case, it is clear that someone wishes me to read it, whether it be her or whoever else placed it in such a precarious way.

Unable to stop her hands from trembling, she slowly opened the unsealed envelope and extracted the folded paper within. It had been a while since she'd read a large block of Homs text, but it became second nature again after a few sentences.

Hello Melia. If you're reading this, then I'm probably dead, or at least no longer well enough to continue mothering you. And that's okay! Parents aren't supposed to outlive their children. And in my case...well, I really didn't have a hope of failing in that manner, did I? Or at least I hope not.

I'll try to keep this a bit short, I know you can't stand it when I make you stand there and listen to me go on about something. You already know what you did wrong or need to do right, and hearing me tell you just bothers and upsets you, but you stand there and take it and nod anyway, because it's what needs to be done. And that's the perfect attitude to have. I don't know where you're at in life right now, but know that your unique kind of serenity is exactly what this family needs, no matter what position you have in it. The world's only going to get crazier, and calmness is the perfect way to counter it.

That's all I wanted to say really. It's not like I have any big secrets to lay on you, and we talk often enough that there shouldn't be anything major that I might not get a chance to tell you. You still have Kallian, after all! Even if he gets the throne before you do, he'll still be your best bet if you need to talk about something personal. He may try hard to hide it but he's a big softie for you. In fact, just in case he does something sneaky about it, know that he's the one I've entrusted this letter with. I'm sure he'll find the best time to put it into your hands.

Well that's it then. I hope I can still watch you grow from whatever afterlife there is, because otherwise it'll be pretty boring waiting another three or four hundred years to see you again. Don't let me down.

There was a post-scriptum, but she decided not to read it for the moment. She needed the services of the box of tissues sitting on the desk.

With the sniffling mostly subsided, she thought more deeply about what she'd just read. The part that stuck out to her was the phrase "unique kind of serenity". It was true that she outwardly appeared to be the least emotional of all the royal family, even if it was not necessarily so on the inside, and that such would certainly be a positive quality for someone in a position of power to have. With Kallian on the throne, her cautious and emotionless advice would provide the perfect contrast to his more aggressive and hasty style.

I have been trained to suppress emotion at all times, but the same does not seem to hold for Father and Brother. They routinely express joy, discontent, and anger when carrying out imperial duties, whereas if I were in those situations I would be expected to remain calm and passive. It is not a double standard as I initially believed; it is a way to ensure two completely different thought processes can evaluate a situation. That is my role, to be a second opinion once Brother takes the throne, to work as a sibling team just as Father and Aunt Entirmina did.

Now feeling accomplished rather than sad, she read the final line of the letter, written much more faintly and messily than the rest of it.

P.S. Slap Kallian in the face for me. I'm sure he's done something to deserve it.

Melia stared blankly at the post-scriptum, slowly parsing it.

After about fifteen seconds, she chuckled. It was funny. The mere suggestion of either of them slapping Kallian for something was just humorous; the two consorts never more than verbally reprimanded each others' offspring, and she didn't know either of them to resort to slapping, combined with how she personally didn't know Kallian to be anything other than an upstanding rules-conscious individual. It was just funny.

Too funny, in fact. The chuckle slowly turned into a giggle and then a full-bodied laugh, accompanied by a few extra tears that didn't get the chance to escape earlier. In no time she had rolled off the chair and onto the floor, doubled over in uncontrollable laughter.

It took several minutes for things to calm down. Once she composed herself again, she replaced the letter in the envelope and took it with her as she left the villa, returning to her chambers in the palace.

I needed this. Now I know for certain that I have a purpose rather than simply existing. My serenity will ensure that Brother does not do anything too hasty.

Three months had passed since Melia finished her schooling, and there was still no sign of being assigned anything to replace it. She didn't mind all that much - it gave her more time to read - but she worried somewhat that her intellectual skills would get rusty by the time she was actually given something to do.

She still had her staff training, of course. She could now summon nine simultaneous Reflection panels in an instant and was getting quite close to adding a tenth. As a result, Reddel moved to introduce her next art.

"Power Effect is quite simple: it is an aura that doubles the range of the passive effects of your elementals." He paused for a moment. "Now tell me what you think of such an art."

Melia considered the question for about two minutes before coming to a mostly-complete answer. "The ability to put extra distance between myself and my partners without sacrificing support abilities will be useful against large foes with wide-ranging attacks. But that extra distance also means an increase in difficulty when it comes to providing help in either direction. In addition, beings can only have a single aura present at a time, meaning it cannot coexist with the burst aura. Finally, I would have to pay closer attention to both distance and timing, to ensure that I move back into range once the aura dissipates. Therefore, at first glance, it seems that the only way this art could be truly beneficial is if it takes very little time to recharge once expired."

"I couldn't have put it better myself." Reddel demonstrated, waving his staff and causing blue waves of energy to radiate from his feet. "Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to describe how to activate the aura, and as only the user can feel the effects, the sensation cannot be felt vicariously. All I can say is that you must have intent to expand your personal influence, and push it outside the existing boundaries. You must spread your support to more distant friends."

Melia frowned a bit. With only one mock battle a year, she felt she didn't have nearly enough experience fighting with teammates to properly comprehend a teamwork-based aura. But she'd give it a go anyway.

Standing still, she imagined a blue bubble around herself at the normal range of her elemental buffs. Once the image was clear in her mind, she started spinning her staff and trying to push the bubble outwards without bursting it. Somewhat as expected, she couldn't feel anything. She kept trying for a few minutes with no apparent results.

Am I supposed to be pushing the outer range itself, or inflating it from inside? She switched tactics, now imagining that she was trying to emit air in order to expand the imaginary bubble, trying to mimic the same "bloated" sensation that a near-completed burst aura felt like by puffing herself up. She still didn't seem to be getting anywhere.

After a total of ten minutes of trying, she paused to reconsider, waving off whatever Reddel was about to say. I've been trying a gradual push. Perhaps a sudden impulse would be better.

She slowly began lifting one leg into the air while crossing her arms in front of her face, before suddenly stomping the floor and extending her arms, trying to let out a solid blast of the indescribable feeling.

"Ah!" A tiny blue ring appeared from the point she had stomped her foot, fading away before reaching any sort of reasonable size. She also felt an odd warmth cover her body that also quickly evaporated.

"Good!" exclaimed Reddel. "Just what I was about to suggest, a more forceful pulse of energy. You will soon learn to skip the exaggerated motion. However, now comes the waiting part. As an aura, you cannot simply re-activate it on a whim; it requires time to regenerate. As a beginner, the ratio of active time to recharge time is very poor, and can only be improved by practice."

"How will I know when it has recharged?"

"You will feel the same feeling that the aura itself provides, but much weaker and only for a moment. It is not out of the question that you may miss it if you are not paying enough attention."

Melia nodded and stood to wait. It took about a minute and a half, but eventually she did feel something faint in the core of her body that any other day she'd dismiss as a random throb or twitch. She went through the exaggerated motion that worked previously and found success again, stomping out another small blue ring and invisible bath of warmth.

One second of effect for ninety seconds of recharge, that is a poor ratio indeed. Obviously quite a bit of practice will be needed.

March had been a good month so far. The weather had been nice for several days in a row. Power Effect was coming along; though the effect duration was still less than five seconds, the recharge time had shrunk to about a minute. But most importantly, Melia still had no major obligations, and was now thoroughly enjoying it, knowing that it would eventually end and probably never come back. She spent her days reading books, sketching random things, writing fantastical short stories, and occasionally messing around with her bass guitar.

With the imperial guard doing a lot of training exercises today, she had decided to spend the day out of the palace, at a public library. It was a nice change of pace to read a story at the library if she didn't want to pay for a book she wasn't sure about, though she couldn't actually borrow anything due to lacking an address for a library card.

For lunch, she stopped in at a nearby coffee shop, and was meandering her way back to the library afterwards with her mind wandering across a variety of deep questions.

If bees don't use the visible spectrum anyways, why are there no green flowers?

Why has Father not yet officially announced Brother as his successor?

How does each seer find a spouse and keep it a complete secret from everyone for the entirety of recorded history?

Why would DNA sequencing research be outlawed unless there's something to hide?

Why are electric crystals yellow yet electric elementals are purple?

Why would the Mechon build the Mechonis a replacement arm unless they held it in religious reverence somehow?

What happened to the people of Colony 7?

Why have I been hearing so much from Nopon citizens about red pollen orbs lately?

Why would Father recommend I live in the villa if he were not trying to ostracise me from the family?

Why-

Something happened. She didn't know why, but she suddenly tensed up and felt adrenaline starting to flow. It was as if she had sensed some unnamed danger, but didn't know what it was or where it was coming from. Instinctively casting her mind around, she could feel a strong presence above her, descending quickly.

Looking up, she saw a gigantic Hiln, diving out of the sky straight towards her.

Without thinking, she dashed down the nearest alley. The huge bird landed with a sizeable impact and attempted to follow, but was far too large to fit down the narrow passage, only managing to stick its neck in and leer at her. After a few seconds, it decided she wasn't worth the effort and turned down the street. A few screams could be heard in the distance.

That must be Cyclonic Twixl, the dangerous beast sighted circling the city yesterday, Melia realised. It must have found a gap in the defence systems, no doubt caused by all the training exercises today. She peeked her head back out of the alley to see that the bird had already made quite some headway down the street, using its wings to blow over various objects. I can't just sit here and let that thing rampage through the city. Not when today's training exercises will be slowing the reaction time of the authorities to a crawl.

She stepped out of the alley and prepared to pursue the beast before considering further. I can't attack it without becoming the centre of attention, and it would be far too suspicious for the public to see a citizen with the same arts and ether affinity as the princess. Therefore, if I wish to slow it down, I'll have to retrieve my public headdress, and fight it as the princess.

Melia hurried back into the alley and clambered into the vent at the end before using the Chozo interface to launch herself towards the palace. Once she arrived in her room and donned her headdress, she started considering the plan of attack.

I want to lure the beast somewhere it cannot do much damage. If I can't get it to a park or clearing, a rooftop seems decent enough. Attacking from above should be a potent strategy anyways.

She travelled through the vents again, reaching a three-storey rooftop about a block ahead of the Hiln's rampage. It was moving downtown at a constant rate, swatting the occasional vehicle away and scaring off the crowd before anyone could be seriously injured.

No one's going to be looking up here when that beast is rampaging around, there's no way anyone saw me appear.

I'm going to need some footspeed to draw the creature easier and firepower to effectively lure it away from the population centre. Melia started by summoning a wind and two flares, firing the second at the Hiln down below. It seemed to resist the elemental's burning effects and merely slowed down its rampage, but the second flare caught its back on fire and caused it to stop and look upwards.

Yes, focus up here, away from the citizens. Melia tossed down a third flare. Twixl took it right in the face, which made it turn around and crouch down. Melia responded by running across the roof, forcing it to reconsider jumping and instead walk back up the street following her.

Melia came to the edge of the roof quicker than expected. Summoning a second wind, she leapt off and narrowly landed on the next building, the two air elementals giving her a boost in aerial manoeuverability. She then pelted the Hiln with a bolt, causing it to screech and project a ball of snot from its mouth, which was enough of a glancing hit across the top of her head that she fell over. Picking herself up and resuming her dash, she went to look back down at the enemy to find that it had taken to the air, and seemed to be planning to land on the roof she was on.

Uh-oh. Melia saw that the next building ahead of her was four storeys tall, one more than the one she was nearing the end of. Acting on instinct, she created a third wind and pushed off with all her might, soaring across the gap and just barely latching her arms onto the overhanging edge. Taking a few seconds to clamber up, she saw that Twixl was standing in the middle of the roof, ready to have a proper fight.

The enemy made the first move, throwing a horizontal wing strike. Melia blocked it with her staff but was propelled across the roof, tumbling to a stop a ways from where she started. Discharging one of her winds before getting up, she landed a solid blow on the creature's knee, tripping it slightly and slowing its advance. She replaced her second wind with a flare and fired it too, setting its left wing on fire. Busy flapping trying to extinguish the flames, Twixl's next attack was a beak stab, which Melia saw coming and dodged easily, trying to gain control over the centre of the battlefield.

Throwing her last wind elemental into the enemy's face, causing it to recoil slightly, Melia then took time to summon an earth one, followed by a bolt. Trying to decide what third tool to utilise, she was caught off guard by a vertical wing slap and couldn't move fast enough to avoid it, taking a solid knockdown blow to the back of her legs. Rolling onto her back, she held up her staff to block the second slap, acting as a contact spike and distracting the foe enough for her to stand back up.

Melia's next move was to use Shadow Stitch, but Twixl hopped backwards out of the art's range and leapt forwards for a talon attack. But it interrupted its aerial dash and came to a halt before lobbing another ball of snot at a recently-arrived news craft, trying to capture footage of the battle. Melia took the opportunity to discharge her bolt and summon an aqua in its place, striking the bird in the throat for critical damage.

Now thoroughly upset, the giant Hiln let out an ear-piercing screech and tried to stab Melia with its beak again. She avoided it without too much trouble and pelted it with her aqua, replacing it with another bolt. She felt the whole fight was going rather well, but with a shaky balance; one misstep would be disastrous.

"MELIA!" It was Kallian's voice. She glanced over her shoulder to see him coming in for a landing via the Illustrious Alighting, alongside Captain Denzel.

"Brother!" She dodged another beak stab. "What-"

"We will talk later." He extracted his telescopic rapier and flourished it to maximum length, while Denzel wielded both a rapier and a shield. "For now, we fight!"

Melia nodded. She was both hesitant and excited to watch Kallian fight, and even more so to battle alongside him for the first time.

The prince did not disappoint. He opened up with Challenger, an attention-seeking art that instantly locked the enemy's animosity onto himself. From there, he unleashed a wide selection of attacks in succession, from Flare Blade to Dancing Rapier to Quick Slice to even Thunder Punch, stacking up a number of debuffs while dealing high amounts of damage. Denzel's style was less flashy but still quite effective, dishing out the pain with a variety of physical arts. Melia didn't need to do much other than ensure her elementals were close enough to boost their offensive power. Cyclonic Twixl didn't have much of a chance to even hit them.

"Prepare for a Chain Attack!" Kallian turned to Melia, knowing she had never done so before, and began speaking extremely quickly. "Normally, combatants use their intimate familiarity with one another's battle styles to link a combination of attacks together without needing to communicate. But if we know in advance you will be discharging elementals, that should be sufficient for our purposes. Just act on your turn!"

Nervous, Melia nodded. With Denzel also ready, Kallian threw out another Quick Slice and then began the assault.

"For the people!" He planted an elbow into the Hiln, which knocked it askew.

"Bow before us!" Denzel used a Down Kick, making the enemy crumple to the ground.

Melia assumed that the one-liners were a means of timing attacks, and so hastily improvised one. "Um...Purifying flames!" She fired her flare into the foe.

"For justice!" Kallian delivered a devastating flying knee into the Hiln's jaw, stunning it.

"Cease!" Denzel applied a Star Punch, amplifying the dazed effect.

"Er...Bolt from the blue!" Melia launched her bolt. The creature was barely moving now.

"You are no more!" Kallian finished it with a Coup de Grâce, eliminating any more life the beast had with a single strike.

The group paused for a moment, ensuring that the enemy was indeed dead. Denzel prodded it a few times to no reaction.

Kallian nodded and turned to the news craft, which was also emitting a holoscreen of the events to the mob watching from ground level. "People of Alcamoth! You need worry no longer, the beast has been slayed!"

A cheer rose up from the crowd. Kallian continued his speech. "Let it be known that our success in defeating this creature hinged upon the actions of Lady Melia. Without her bravery and commitment to save the populace from evils, there may have been much more destruction and heartache. She is the true hero of the day!"

...why. Melia stoically stared into space as the people below applauded. Why did you call me out like that. There was absolutely no need for it. You were on your way regardless, you could've easily stopped it without my help. She was feeling a bit on-edge and somewhat deprived of closure, having ended the fight only one or two discharges away from bursting.

Kallian turned away from the cameras. "Let us return to the palace immediately. A cleanup crew will have to be formed and dispatched. Probably not in enough time for today's dinner, but it should be an impressive haul nevertheless."

Denzel stood to attention. "Sir. I shall remain here for the moment, in case others have heard of these events and independently broken off training to come and aid."

"Very well, Captain. Come, Melia." He stepped back onto the Illustrious Alighting and started the engines.

Melia slowly climbed on board and sat in a passenger chair as Kallian steered towards the palace and took off. She had the distinct feeling she would probably be in trouble for being outside as the princess without a guard, regardless of the outcome, and that Kallian was probably about to discuss it with her on the journey back. The agitated ether churning within her didn't help, waiting for a burst aura that wasn't coming.

"I trust you wouldn't mind us using your craft for this occasion, sister. With all the training exercises today, it was the easiest ship to launch with little notice."

...that's not what I expected to hear. "Er, indeed. I have no qualms with the decision."

"It really is a marvelous piece of engineering. Tell me, do you carry its remote control with you as you wander outside the palace? If not, perhaps you should consider it. You may not be willing to fly it yourself, but you can still use its autopilot to return to the palace from anywhere."

"...I will consider it." Not a bad idea to be fair, but actually using it would reveal my identity instantly. It would be a last resort. Actually, "But I would need to have something to carry it around in that is less conspicuous than a handbag."

Nod. "Indeed. We shall get you a travel pouch, a tiny bag that can be concealed almost anywhere on your person, for you to store it in." A pause. "Of course, it seems as if you have an even faster way to flit about the city, given that you were already waiting in the monster's path before we even departed."

Melia's face turned white under her mask. Kallian was almost certainly about to force her to reveal the Chozo interface, essentially her one big secret. There was no way she could invent-

"But that's impossible," he continued, exaggeratedly shaking his head. "There isn't any possible way for you to travel that quickly without a ship, even if you could ride the very winds. No, you must have seen the danger far earlier than anyone else. Or perhaps the Seer tipped you off, yes, that is certainly what must have happened. In light of that, I am personally okay with you leaving the palace unattended, and will do what I can to get Father to share said view. I do not expect him to lift the restriction permanently, though. I am sure you understand why it exists."

"...I...I appreciate your help." It was pretty clear to her that Kallian had already determined she had some secret method of transportation, but was choosing to turn a blind eye. The alibi he invented still had a weak link, but as long as her father took it at face value and never asked the seer about it, she'd be in the clear.

"Oh, and one more thing." Kallian had reached the hangar doors and activated an automatic parking function. "Your contribution to our chain attack was a significant part of our success. There can be no greater advantage than the ability to use one's talent art repeatedly, allowing for incredible flexibility of tactics. I shall see to it that you learn the full nature of chain attacks sooner rather than later." The ship stopped moving. "Now, Father will be expecting to hear from us. We should see him immediately."