Under broken moonlight, the song rose like mist from a river, then thinned like ripples sinking into stone.

When the tune ended, it was already rest time, embers settling under ash.

But with liquor and atmosphere glowing warm as lantern light, even as drowsiness budded, nobody wanted to lie down and close their eyes.

A small cup, a single song—yet something woke, like a fox turning in brush.

Even if not sleeping was just picking a fight with the night, they still wouldn’t sleep.

In every chest, something fluttered like a moth behind ribs; the unsaid reasons differed—some feelings to hide, some words too syrupy to speak.

By contrast, only Tela stayed blunt, shouting pride in the Nacha Tribe’s old glory like a banner snapping in wind.

"I swear you don’t get it. I’ll say it again—the Magma Forge is the greatest engineering masterpiece in this world, period!"

Fueled by drink like fire under a kettle, Tela started preaching again. She fixed her eyes on Kabos across from her, pointed at the quiet mountain that looked like any other peak, and poured out praise for the Forge’s design, sharp and unrepeatable.

"An entire volcano as the power source, the biggest man‑made facility on the continent! Picture it—early engineers chipping a frame inside a fragile live volcano, always at risk of eruption. Then they poured steel from the top, molding it in one go like frost casting on branches! Three generations spent carving its inner organs. Can humans do that now? Nope. Long‑ears do it? Also nope. It’s the pinnacle of mechanisms, a perfect miracle of engineering—"

"Alright, alright, you’ve said it ten thousand times. Do you want a card or not?"

Hos cut off his childhood friend, impatient as a hawk flicking its tail. They were playing blackjack with a deck Kabos had brought. The Empire’s little human game was addicting, and Kabos had simplified the rules just right for a handful of tipsy hotheads.

He pushed Tela to act. Tela made a ghost face, but she drew anyway. Her eyes widened, then her mouth tilted—victory curled there, and it rubbed Hos the wrong way like sand in a boot.

"Quit the act, huh." He scoffed, a bit guilty, hiding it by asking for a hit and bickering. "And what ‘perfect’? The Magma Forge has flaws, okay. The chief engineer’s diary complained every day that the auto safety kept triggering and jamming. They had to run and unlock it by hand."

"That isn’t a flaw. That’s design—design!" Tela yelled, so worked up she nearly flashed her hand. "A sensitive safety trigger’s fine. It leaves margin to stop the core hammer from firing by accident. It’s our foresight—mine included, two lives ago—stretched like a long horizon!"

Hos barked a laugh. "Right, right. Since you say so, the platform with the manual release sometimes phasing into the wall, and operators having to do a standing long jump to reach the lever—also part of your brilliant plan?"

"Th‑that… that was a wee issue in construction, not a design defect…!"

Their spat flared like dry grass. Kabos meant to mediate, but before he could play peacemaker, a harsh curse slammed over them.

"Godsdammit! What kind of crap hand is this!"

Varie, drunk and wordless till now, had been drawing quietly. One glance at her cards turned her face pale as bone. She snapped them onto the makeshift wooden table—one K, one Q, and an 8.

"Ha! Greedy, and you busted!" Tela didn’t spare her. She laughed, then bowed with theatrical flair. "Well then—one earth biscuit each. Thanks for the treat, Hero~"

Earth biscuits weren’t made of dirt. They were thin flatbreads baked from paste of lungfish that burrow in soil, a rare creature. For the Nacha Tribe, they were feast‑day food, something you only ate for birthdays or holidays, beloved second only to frozen liver blocks.

With no cold storage for those liver blocks, these flatbreads were the finest rations the team had. Everyone’s allotment was limited, and Varie’s hard‑saved stack was about to vanish by half. The thought made her molars itch like ants.

"Tch… stupid hand. Garbage game. I’m out!"

Varie stormed off to fetch the biscuits. Behind her, Kabos asked cautiously, voice like a twig testing ice.

"Uh… she’s the Hero, big sis. Is this… okay?"

"Okay? What’s not okay?" Tela and Hos knew their unlucky friend by heart. They didn’t care. "Relax. She’s always like this. Once she’s drunk, she never wins a bet with us—"

"—One day I’ll make you pay! Just you wait!"

Varie yelled back, cursing. They answered with more faces pulled like gargoyles. Even Barni clapped his paws to mock her. Fuming, she didn’t watch her step and thunked straight into a tree.

Truth was, she wasn’t that angry. The truth ran the other way, like a current under ice.

Back at the supply camp, slipping free of the noisy warmth, Varie felt cold.

Yes, cold.

Even in a desert winter, the Hero who wore just an outer coat over hotpants and bandages finally tasted a knifing chill.

It wasn’t the air. It rose from her spine, radiating to her fingertips, a numbness no rum could smother.

Damn…

Find the tent. Grab the biscuits. Go back to those bastards…

The thought drifted like smoke. She’d just been cursing them, but that wasn’t a gambling itch. It was that stubborn refusal after a loss, the kind of loud clamor that could boil her blood and drown her thoughts like stones dropped in a river.

Anything would do, as long as it set her head on fire and stopped the thinking.

Her heart said it. Her body didn’t listen. The rum Kabos brought was much stronger than the Nacha drank. The proud Hero staggered, camp shrinking into a maze, exits hiding like foxholes. She couldn’t find a way through.

Even simple things turned heavy. Panic crept in like frost. She grew colder, and the numbness and fear marched side by side, cornering her into thinking—what was she afraid of?

Right. What was I afraid of?

Her foot caught. She lost balance.

In that instant, she wished her skull would meet a rock. She wished to black out and let time wash her unease and guilt away like rain over chalk.

But no rock, no soil. She fell into a soft, warm, fragrant embrace.

She couldn’t see. She could smell.

She knew who it was, even though the woman always wore different perfumes—apple one day, bitter orange tea with vanilla the next. In front of others, her scent shifted like masks, her social grace finding the right incense for any room.

Tonight, Varie smelled something else entirely.

A milk‑soft fragrance laced with licorice wrapped her, gentle as winter sunlight, and it cleared the alcohol fog like wind brushing a pond.

She knew that scent. She wished she didn’t.

It was an Elf’s true scent, her own pheromonal breath—the kind that stirred any woman’s blood like spring sap rising.

It was also a taste only Varie had ever been given.

"You’re very drunk, Woli."

Menglan lifted the mess of Varie’s dark chestnut hair, her voice a silver bell, affection shining that she showed to no one else.

…Damn.

Varie swore inside. She wished she were a man. Then the smell would be sulfur and rot, and she could puke all over this witch and shame her in a flood.

Too bad. Why wasn’t I born a man?

If I were, I’d do this and that to her—every filthy trick men use to belittle women, learned from curses since childhood. I’d make her hate me in blunt, brutal ways, make her go far, far away…

Too bad. Why wasn’t I born a man?

If I were, I could… harden my heart and walk away from this warmth.

"Too dirty… you cheat."

Head buried to Menglan’s chest, Varie mumbled. Her voice was muffled, soft as cabbage gone tender in a pot. Her muscles unwound and sank into those arms.

After a long moment, she asked, a breath like mist.

"Today… why did you pray for them?"

Menglan’s eyes opened slightly. She touched her chin, thought for a heartbeat.

"Woli, they’re my comrades."

She began with a smile and ended with a sigh, both true as stone and water. Varie knew it.

Menglan honored the Nacha Tribe’s sacrifice, and she mourned their passing.

To her, the Chaos Uprising was still yesterday’s storm.

She slept a dozen years after the war, woke again only thirty years ago. Fifty years, all told—a snap of the fingers to a long‑lived Elf.

Unlike Bingxia or Silan of the First Generation, ages hadn’t sanded away the scars the Uprising carved on her.

Menglan still saw the Nacha as comrades. And she still saw herself… as the Lionheart Hero.

She hadn’t changed. The one who had… was me.

"I… don’t call me Woli."

Teeth set, buoyed by alcohol, Varie pushed out the tremor that had been thudding in her chest tonight.

"I know you and the Lionheart Hero had something. But I’m not her copy, got it?"

She aimed for a hard edge, but no matter how she tried, her voice shook like a leaf.

That guilt she’d felt the first time she saw Menglan in the sea of flowers flooded back, binding her heart tight.

"I’m not her… and I can’t be her. Don’t cling to me. I can’t keep her promise—"

Her words broke on that promise, because Menglan cut in.

"What’s this?"

She pointed at Varie’s chest. Out of nowhere, she asked a question that seemed to mean nothing. But her face wasn’t playing. Her fingertip didn’t waver. She was serious.

Even drunk, Varie knew it was important—a question that could tilt everything. Answer wrong, and she’d regret it all her life.

At the same time, it felt familiar, like a question that didn’t need thought, a question with only one answer since the beginning.

An answer that belonged to her alone. But what was it…?

The answer brushed her lips. One more nudge, and it would spill like water over a rim…

…

Menglan waited. What came was a light snore.

Maybe it was the rum. Maybe Varie wasn’t built to wrestle a question so hard. Before replying, she tucked her head back into Menglan’s softness.

Menglan felt her warm breath against her skin. Regret flickered in her eyes, then smoothed into a smile. Her hand stroked Varie’s back like wind over grass.

"Sleep easy, my dear."

It’s alright. The age has turned; this time, they have time enough, like a long river whose current finally slows.

The whisper that never reached Varie’s ear drifted off with the breeze, like a petal blown away. Menglan brushed the fringe from Varie’s brow and left a light kiss there, soft as dew on morning grass.

She’ll wait—until Varie finds her answer again, like a lantern patient at the riverbank, watching for a returning boat.