[Ballad of the Earth]!

She swept her arm wide, and the ribbon flung out a flock of brown threads, like roots waking under rain.

They sketched a ringed sigil on the soil, a brown halo like bark circling a stump.

The Dragonfolk swooping over the array were snared in a heartbeat, vines bursting up like sudden snakes from the earth.

Relief hit first, then the crash; Alicia dropped right onto the ground, like a sail with wind gone.

Sweat streamed from her brow down her cheeks, beading and falling onto her chest like warm rain.

It sank into cloth already dark with damp, a stain swallowed by a river, no new color to show.

Her heart burned like a furnace, her brain like iron in the forge, nerves crackling like hot wires.

Everything in her sight doubled, like reflections on rippled water, and a pale wash drifted in like winter fog.

Did I… win?

Clinging to that thought, Alicia’s eyelids closed on their own, like shutters in a storm.

Her body lost balance, a puppet with cut strings, and she toppled toward the earth.

Thud—the ground raised its voice.

A small, golden-haired figure flashed in as if skipping space, sunlight catching on her hair like wheat.

She caught Alicia cleanly, stopping her skull from meeting Mother Earth in a cruel kiss.

“You’ve worked hard~”

She offered the simple phrase like a cup of warm tea, then pressed her lips to Alicia’s brow, a petal’s touch.

A faint imprint bloomed there, like dew on stone.

———

“So you just let her challenge the entire Dragonfolk alone?”

Back in human shape, the Dragon King looked at Ling, puzzlement flickering like shadows under leaves.

Ling tended Alicia on the bed, her face calm, no worry drawn like lines of ink.

“Mm. I floored one of your old dragons and a few younger ones,” Ling said, her tone flat as winter lake.

“I saw Sis could handle the rest, so I stepped out, like a breeze leaving the pines.”

The Dragon King rolled her eyes, exasperation puffing like steam.

“See? You could’ve fought alongside her, like two blades crossing.

Why play spectator on the ridge?”

Ling was strangely distant; the lively girl wore a frosted mask, a blank moon over a cold pond.

Maybe Alicia’s condition had pulled her into this winter.

“Sis said she wants to fight sometimes,” Ling replied, voice quiet as falling ash.

“So I should leave the chance to her.”

“But even if you join in, your sister’s still fighting!”

“No. I have to leave the chance to Sis.

Sis said she sometimes wants to fight.”

Utterly done, the Ninety Nine Maiden stared at this human tape recorder with a glacier’s face.

She had no way in, and even the topic slipped like sand.

“You and your sis are a strange pair,” she muttered, words clacking like beads.

“One willful, one stubborn, both absurdly strong.

I’ve no idea how you two grew this way.”

It was only a small complaint, tossed like a pebble into a stream.

If she truly fought Alicia, then without Ling’s bottomless mana or a skill set to match her own, Alicia wouldn’t beat her.

Speaking of skill, Alicia was still a young girl, a new blade with bright shine.

Her experience was rich, yes, but it couldn’t match a dragon whose years stacked like mountain rings.

The knowledge in Alicia’s head, compared to the Ninety Nine Maiden’s, was a toy pistol versus a star-annihilating cannon.

Ling ignored the grumble, laying a wet towel on Alicia’s brow, cool as spring stone.

The chill did nothing; Alicia’s cheeks stayed flushed like plum blossoms, her breath rushed like a bellows.

“Have you tried some kind of magic?”

The Ninety Nine Maiden watched Ling’s careful hands, fluid as water, and wondered why magic wasn’t used where magic could help.

Ling kept that welded-on mask, expressionless, a face bolted like steel to a gate.

“I tried. [Perfect Restoration] had zero effect,” she said, words steady as a metronome.

“I don’t feel any virus in her at all.

It isn’t a normal fever.”

“No other magic?”

“None. The only support magic I know is that one.”

The Ninety Nine Maiden’s cheek twitched, a ripple across a pond.

One signature trick that conquers everything? No, not that.

She herself barely ever needs that spell anyway.

While the Ninety Nine Maiden drifted in thought like a kite, Ling, who’d only been answering, finally asked:

“Don’t the Dragonfolk have magic for treating disease?”

The Ninety Nine Maiden scratched the back of her head, awkwardness pricking like nettles.

“We’re dragons… do we need to worry about colds?” she said, shrugging like a mountain.

“Viruses die inside us in two seconds.”

“Mm. Must be nice,” Ling replied, flat as a line read from a script.

The topic died again, wilted like a cut flower.

Only the Ninety Nine Maiden felt the awkwardness tugging, while Ling weighed her as useless and spared no more words.

The Dragon King wanted to flee this odd, tight air, like a bird trapped in a room.

But she couldn’t—she was the host here; when a guest falls ill, you stay, or your hospitality looks thin as paper.

Helpless, the Ninety Nine Maiden switched topics, tossing lines like stones across a river.

But what topic? Her thoughts knotted like vines.

Nothing seemed talkable at all.

She couldn’t let the awkwardness brew forever between host and guest, even if the “guest” didn’t find it awkward.

After a spiral of pointless thinking that spun in her eyes, she clasped her hands over a crossed knee and parted red lips.

“Ling, are you a Yokai?”