"I apologize, Fass-sama, but I can't dispel this barrier." Fern pulled her hand back from the sealed door.
The dwarf they'd met only minutes ago shrugged. "That's why I said I need Frieren. You won't do." He looked Fern over with frank dismissiveness. "Where did that young lad take her anyway? If she doesn't want to help, she can just say so to my face."
"Frieren-sama isn't well. Stark-sama took her to see the priest."
"Huh, is that it?" Fass's grouchiness dissolved instantly. "Well, why didn't you say so! This town has excellent priests — they got plenty of practice with the local drunks. Frieren has probably recovered by now."
Fass was already moving. "Come now, I must get Frieren to help me this time. I shall have the taste of the legendary Boshaft in this century!"
Fern didn't follow.
She could feel it from here — her master's mana sitting still. The priest had not been able to fix what was wrong with her.
She was fairly certain the priests didn't even know what was wrong with her.
She sighed as she allowed herself to sink to her knees, tension unraveling from her form now that she was alone. She gazed off to the side, at the stone monument inscribed in ancient elvish.
It reminded her of someone.
"Do you know how to read it?"
Fern spun around. The voice was all too familiar.
Midnight blue gazed back at her.
"Half the grimoires in existence are written in ancient elvish." Percia settled down beside her, unhurried, as though she had always been there. "It's worth studying, if you haven't already."
Fern's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"Although, I wouldn't be surprised if Frieren already taught you." Percia smiled, distant and fond. "She's always been a bookworm. You are too." A pause. "I imagine you get that from her."
"She — yes. She taught me when I was younger."
"Good." Percia blinked slowly. "She's laid a strong foundation in you."
The questions were piling up somewhere behind Fern's ribs — pressing, too many to reach for any single one. Where have you been? Why did you leave? Why are you here now?
Are you here to stay?
She didn't ask any of them. She didn't know which one mattered most.
Percia kept her eyes on her throughout it all. "You've grown."
At Fern's confusion, she gestured at her sleeves. "The cuffs are short. It's only been a couple of months."
Fern glanced down mutedly. She hadn't noticed.
"Tell me, Fern. How have you been?"
Fern flinched. She felt something shift in her chest.
She couldn't remember the last time someone had asked her that. Not in the past months — not while everyone around her was quietly coming apart at the seams, carrying things too heavy to name. Not while she'd been holding herself together with both hands.
She had gotten so used to not being asked.
She didn't know what happened next. One moment she was sitting with her hands in her lap, and in the next, her lips were trembling.
There was simply no explanation for it — she wasn't a person who cried easily, she had never been, and yet here it was, rising up from somewhere, deep and tired and long ignored.
"Percia-sama." Her voice came out barely above a breath. "It's been so hard."
"I'm so tired."
She couldn't read Percia's expression. Couldn't tell what she saw when she looked at her. But in the next moment Percia's arms were around her — quiet and steady.
The kind of presence that didn't ask anything of her.
Fern pressed her face into her shoulder and cried. Properly. For the first time in a very long time.
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Stark sat with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, watching Frieren sleep.
The priests had found nothing wrong with her. Simple exhaustion, they'd said. Insomnia. They'd cast a sleeping spell to help her rest; Frieren had resisted it up till the last moment.
That Frieren. The same Frieren that would beg for twelve more hours of sleep every morning.
That Frieren didn't want to sleep.
"Please stop," she had said, quiet and small, as the spell took hold. "I don't want it to happen again."
She had sounded scared.
Stark stared at her still face and tried to make sense of it. Whatever had happened that night had been enough to make Frieren afraid of her own sleep. That alone told him more than anything the priests had said.
He groaned quietly into his hand.
**Knock knock**
Stark didn't bother lifting his head from his hand as the door opened with a soft creak. Light footsteps crossed the room, the figure settling down in the chair next to him.
"Fern," he started, eyes still closed. "They couldn't find anything wrong with her. Just insomnia." He turned with a tired smile. "Insomnia, can you believe—"
This wasn't Fern.
"...Percia?"
She hummed. "Fern's taken another room here. She wanted to head in early tonight."
"You— you're back."
"For now."
She looked at him, eyes softening. "Breathe, Stark."
He took a stuttering breath, not quite trusting himself to blink. "You're back," he said again.
Percia reached up and settled her hand on top of his head. It was warm. "Yes. I wanted to see you and Fern." She glanced at Frieren's resting form. "I'm still not sure she wants me here. But someone told me that she wouldn't stop me from visiting the two of you."
She withdrew her hand. Stark noticed its absence immediately.
"Eisen is a wise man," Percia said.
Stark blinked. "My master?"
"He's the one who urged me to come." She smiled. "He seems rather proud of you."
"You met my master?"
Percia laughed softly. "Yes Stark, I met your master. Try to keep up."
Stark blinked slow. "I'm still trying to process that you're here. I thought — " He exhaled. "I thought I'd never see you again."
"You left without saying anything."
"I did."
"Frieren said that you're the reason demons exist today."
"That is true."
"A demon killed my family. My village." He looked at her. "I should hate you."
"...Do you?"
Stark was quiet for a moment.
"How could I," he said finally. Not a question. He thought about the past two months — the way she had lingered at the back of his mind, the way he had worried for her, the way he had prayed, just hoping that she was alright.
"...I'm just glad your back." Stark whispered.
"I'm glad to be back too."
Something broke open in his chest — quiet, sudden. He stood and grabbed his axe before he could think about it, because he needed something to hold onto and it was the nearest thing.
"I have to — " His voice came out thick. He cleared it. "Supplies. I should restock. Yeah." His grip tightened on the handle. "Watch over her for me?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He was out the door before she could give one.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Percia watched as the boy all but ran out of the room.
She felt sorry for him. For him and Fern both. They had been carrying things that weren't theirs to carry.
She should have come sooner.
She sighed and settled back in the chair. She'd spent the walk here trying to figure out how to announce herself to them — a simple greeting, maybe. A gift, perhaps.
In the end she had simply sat down, and that had apparently been enough to undo the two.
Percia looked at Frieren.
She reached out toward her hand, then stopped. Pulled back. Frieren would probably not want that.
She studied her instead. The faint shadows beneath her eyes. The way her face, even in sleep, hadn't fully released whatever it was holding.
Underneath it all — she could feel it, — the consciousness sitting wrong against the body. Awkward. Unsettled. The spirit stretched between the two, trying to compensate, and not quite managing.
It looked like it would hurt.
Percia shifted to the edge of the bed. She kept her voice low.
"Frieren." A pause. "I'm going to try to make things right."
She let her hand rest on Frieren's forehead, finally. It was cool under her palm. She stayed like that for a moment, not moving.
"I'll see you soon."