“Why the rush? He’s a bard, a living bard—first time I’ve seen one breathing, like a rare bird crossing a winter sky.”

Yekase tilts her head to complain, like a cat bristling at rain.

Mira still has her by the back collar, like a mother wolf hauling a cub—she loves this bossy way of walking people along.

“Won’t keep your mama company while I soak my feet, yet you want me to wait while you run your mouth, like wind rattling shutters?”

“If you want girlfriends, go find them yourself; I’m not stopping you, like a gate left wide in sunlight.”

Mira is good at self-reflection; she halts mid-stride and thinks, like a statue under passing clouds.

“Fair point. You’re not my subordinate; why should I leash you, like a shepherd counting wild deer?”

At last she releases Yekase’s collar, like unhooking a kite string in a sea breeze.

“The venue’s in the local church, clocktower next door. The day after tomorrow, don’t let me catch you late, like a snail at dawn.”

She leaves, like a shadow slipping behind a lamppost.

Right in front of Yekase, she steps into a pink-lit, suspicious shop, like a rose-glow puddle after rain.

“Come to think of it—an academic meeting in a church,” Yekase murmurs, like tapping a cymbal. “Kinda punk, like stained glass with graffiti.”

She pushes off the ground and drifts back to the bar for round two, like a moth circling a warm lamp.

The glass is still on the table, but the uncle is gone, like footprints washed by a wave.

Yekase doesn’t ask the bartender where he went; she lifts the glass and sips in silence, like tasting dusk.

“Malt,” she whispers, like a pebble dropped in a pond.

“Beer here’s all home-brewed,” the smiling bartender says, eyes crinkled like crescent moons. “We just consign it. This one’s called Analogical Inference, like a puzzle on the tongue.”

She plucks three unlabeled bottles from the shelf and points them out, like cards in a street trick. “Want a craft? Chocolate, mango, peanut butter.”

“Craft’s perfect. Chocolate for me,” Yekase says, like a bell struck once.

The bartender fetches a new glass and pours the near-black liquid, foam rising goose-yellow like warm clouds at dawn.

Yekase sips the foam and squints with bliss, like a cat in a sunbeam.

“Your name, little miss?” the bartender asks, voice soft as felt.

“Yekase. If that’s a mouthful, my foreign name’s GeoLuize, like a ribboned alias.”

“Little Luize, if you’re in the Sovell Conference, you must be something,” she says, smile bright as a candle. “Got a paper?”

“Yeah, like ‘How Flash Energy Gains Mass in Vacuum—’” Yekase starts, like a match flaring—then freezes, like smoke in wind.

Right, she has a few in proper journals, but the first author isn’t “Yekase,” like a name behind a veil.

“First author’s my advisor,” she finishes, slipping into her own student’s shoes like a hand into a glove.

“I get it,” the bartender nods, like wheat in a breeze. “Students gripe about that all the time.”

She keeps the chatter flowing, like a stream around stones—bartenders learn that as a trade.

“By the way, it’s my first time in Europe. Do you have mages?” Yekase asks, curiosity fluttering like paper cranes. “Traditional ones—wood huts, robes, pointy hats, brooms. Preferably not tied to an organization.”

“There are plenty inside the Organization,” she says, like counting keys on a ring, “but the kind that stays out of disputes is rare now, like fireflies in a storm.”

“Shame,” Yekase sighs, like a leaf tipping on water.

“Rogue mages usually wear warm biker gear,” the bartender says, painting with words like chalk on slate. “They live on mechanical sky-islands in the stratosphere and commute on magitech flyers.”

“The latest models come with energy shields and climate control,” she adds, like listing charms on a bracelet. “Below the speed of sound, comfort is king—the dream graduation gift for every European kid.”

“Wow,” Yekase breathes, like a window cracking to sky.

There it is—mechanical sky-islands, like iron lilies floating above clouds.

She once asked how to hide alone with the Sinister Organization blanketing the land, like a net over the sea.

Her answer was underground or high sky—deeper than twenty subway lines could dig, or higher than any military craft could claw, like burrowing moles or migrating cranes.

Both ways are hassle and hardship, like thorns and frost, but that’s the price to slip a giant’s hand.

“I’ve got to go up sometime,” she muses, like an arrow eyeing the blue.

“Better give up,” the bartender warns, like rain tapping glass. “Rogue mages prize secrecy like Ancient Alchemists; outsiders never cross their threshold, like wolves at a monastery gate.”

“Did Ancient Alchemists really treasure secrecy?” Yekase asks, memory flicking like lantern light. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

Sandryon’s baby-fat face floats up in her mind, soft as steamed buns yet lacking gravitas, like a queen in slippers.

When Yekase took Ancient Alchemy apart right to her face, the first response was wonder, not rage—like sunlight, not thunder.

If those rogue mages were that easy to talk to, she’d start grinding their reputation right now, like filing a key.

“Thanks for the intel. First, I’m snagging a flyer,” she says, then shudders at the thought of her long-haul flight, like a sparrow in sleet. “Climate control matters.”

“Don’t buy in our city’s flyer shops,” the bartender says, voice firm as a door latch. “They’re airport souvenir stores in disguise, here to fleece Easterners at the conference like gulls at a pier.”

“For solid gear, go to Sector C in Ivalice,” she adds, like a compass needle settling.

“You sure about telling me? Aren’t you locals, like trees from one grove?” Yekase asks, half-grinning.

The bartender sends a wink like a falling star. “I’m telling you alone. Because you’re cute.”

It’s late when Yekase leaves the bar, like the moon sinking behind tiled roofs.

She grabs a budget hotel, quick as a sparrow slipping under eaves.

On the way she dreads the horror of sharing a room with Mira, like a nightmare knocking—thankfully, it never comes to pass.

That madwoman is probably sleeping on some girlfriend’s belly, like a cat on a warm drum; let her be, like smoke on wind.

She’s not the one attending anyway, like a boat tied to a different dock.

After a shower in the tiny bathroom, the buzz from two big cups still hums, like bees in late summer.

She wanders up to the roof to fly a bit and catch wind, like a kite testing the night.

The rooftop door isn’t locked; it opens with a sigh, like a book at midnight.

Someone sits at the edge already, like a lone gull on a cliff.

“Looks like we do have a bit of fate,” a voice says, smooth as river stones.

Yekase walks over and crouches beside him, like a fox settling near a fire.

“Ha, it’s you,” he says, smile flicking like a match.

“Second meeting. What’s your name?” she asks, voice steady as a beam.

“Fa’e,” he says, like a note plucked clean.

“Yekase,” she replies, like ink on rice paper.

Fa’e holds a guitar in his arms, bag at his side, like a traveler with a staff.

His legs dangle off the edge, swinging easy as willow branches—no middle-aged steadiness at all, like wind refusing to sit.

“Tell me, little miss,” he asks, eyes bright as dew. “If someone loses their memory, are they still themselves?”

“Do we have to start with a philosophy question every time, like thunder before rain?” Yekase groans, half laughing.

“I want to hear everyone’s answer,” he says, curiosity rising like a lark.

“Then no,” she says first, heart ahead of words like a drum before a march. “Memory shapes the self; without it, the self is a castle in the air, warped and off-track, like a compass near lightning.”

“Ha! Interesting, very interesting,” he laughs, rubbing his bristly chin like a bow over strings.

“Sometimes you’re naive, sometimes you’re pragmatic,” Fa’e says, gaze steady as starlight. “You don’t believe the soul surpasses memory, yet you dream of an afterworld where enemies share hotpot, like wolves and sheep at one table.”

“You’re a delight,” he finishes, grin warm as a hearth.

“It’s not that extreme,” Yekase mumbles, cheeks warm like peaches.

He fixes on her eyes, as if seeing through to her soul, like moonlight through clear water.

“Naive and pragmatic. Materialist and idealist. Gentle and cruel. Justice and evil. Male and female—how many dueling pairs live in you, like twin stars in one sky?”

“—?!” Yekase startles, like a deer in sudden snow.

It’s as if a bucket of slush hits in summer heat; the buzz dies in an icy baptism, like embers hissing out.

“How did you—” she begins, breath hitching like a snagged kite.

Fa’e doesn’t answer; he starts to play, fingers moving like swallows.

It begins mellow and easy, like morning wind over spring fields, soft as wheat sighing.

Then a sharp slap turns it fierce, and the strings overlap like iron clashing and horses screaming.

Only when the music fades like dusk did Yekase remember to breathe, like a diver breaking the skin of the sea.

“Nice to meet you, my strange old friend,” he says, lifting the guitar like a flag. “Until we meet again, my new friend I already miss.”

He straps the guitar on his back, like a traveler shouldering dawn.

“Wait, who are you—” Yekase blurts, dread blowing cold like north wind.

She feels a final parting in her bones, like a bell tolling across empty fields; the world is wide, and bards are wind over the steppe.

Her question still hangs like a thread as she reaches forward, like grasping a falling leaf—

The old bard slips off the rooftop edge, smooth as rain off a tile.

She looks down, heart dropping like a stone—he’s gone, like mist over a river.

The next day, Yekase combs every bar in Sovell, one drink per place, like stamps on a long ticket.

She asks around until she’s nearly drunk, like a boat taking on rain, and still there’s no sign of Fa’e, like a star behind cloud.

Did he leave this little town, like a bird riding a new wind?

“He still owes me a drink,” she mutters, voice small as a seed.

She calls Sandryon long-distance; Sandryon only says, “So you ran into him,” in a tone unreadable as fog.

Think on it, and even their getaway—jumping and vanishing—matches, like two signatures in the same ink.

With probability as her creed, Yekase doesn’t buy that they’re unrelated, like dice loaded the same way.

“That’s a once-in-a-century rarity,” Sandryon says, voice smiling like a closed fan. “For your full experience, no spoilers. The flow is short.”

“What do you even mean—” Yekase protests, words fluttering like sparrows.

No more is offered, like a door clicked shut.

Which means Sandryon knows why Fa’e vanished; that alone carries weight, like a sealed letter.

First, the truth isn’t the dull answer of “he’s a bard so he left,” like rain drying on stone; his vanishing is an event, like a spark in dry grass.

Second, though rare, it’s happened before, like a comet on a long clock; whether patterned is unclear, but likely under Fa’e and Sandryon’s control, like two hands on one helm.

Third, Sandryon thinks Yekase can crack it solo, treating it as a light game with a short flow, like a knot with one clever pull.

With that much laid out and two days until the conference, Yekase can only play along, like a rook stepping into a puzzle.

Wondering if Fa’e is an attendee, she slips into the church beneath the clocktower, like a shadow under chimes.

She finds the stone-brick lecture hall behind the nave, stairs winding like a shell.

A nun in a habit says it was once for catechesis, now refurbished into the Sovell Conference hall, like an ark remade into a ship of books.

Each year the world’s sharpest minds gather here, like sparks in one brazier.

Being called one of the sharpest minds makes her bashful; Yekase lets out a dopey grin, like a goose honking at the moon.