"Is it... because I took your pink rabbit trinket from Eastiel...?"

Arkai asked. Arkai did arm-wrestled his right to take ownership of one of her cutest trinkets. Eastiel had been flaunting it too much, and Arkai had his eye on it from the moment it caught his attention in the Athenaeum.

Cecilia blinked back at him innocently. "Yep. I thought you liked cute things."

"Because it is yours." Arkai’s eyes narrowed. "I like cute things because they are yours."

"So, you do not want it?"

"I want it." He said quickly and immediately. "Thank you."

"Wear it, then."

"..."

Arkai stared at her and she stared back. The shawl, draped over her hands, seemed to wait with bated breath. Rinne, standing beside the table with frosting still on his lip, watched the standoff with delight. So... this was how to defeat his father!

Finally, Arkai took the shawl and draped it over his shoulders.

And then he stopped. The warmth was immediate. And it was a perfect warmth. This... this made him feel as though he were standing in gentle spring sunlight, regardless of the winter cold outside.

"Eh? See?" Cecilia asked smugly. "It is enchanted with extreme temperature control. It is perfect for you, whether you go into the freezing cold forest or the extremely hot volcanoes. You will be completely safe."

Safe.

Cecilia had probably not intended it to land like that, or perhaps she had. Perhaps she had chosen this gift specifically because she remembered that he should’ve died in that fire and ash.

Cecilia still felt afraid for him.

Even now. Even after everything had passed. Even with the volcano behind them and the future uncertain ahead.

She was still afraid and decided to wrap that fear in wool and bunnies and sheep. The problem was... he was a wolf.

Rocking this would make him look beyond ridiculous, no? Well... not really.

Arkai rubbed the corner of the shawl between his fingers. The wool was soft and the whole thing was so absurdly, aggressively cute that he should have been embarrassed to wear it.

It was cute.

And so what?

It came from her.

***

Whoosshhh... shhhh...

The wind was blowing high outside. But inside the building, everything felt normal.

There was an old altar. Not ancient in the way of temples and empires, but old like it had been built by hands that were no longer there to maintain them. The stone was cold beneath the young girl’s knees, the winter wind threading through the hollow spaces of the shrine.

She was small. That was the first thing anyone would notice, if anyone had been there to notice anything at all. A small girl, eight years old, her black hair falling past her shoulders in a straight, heavy curtain that seemed to drink whatever pale light the grey sky offered.

Her robes were simple. They pooled around her kneeling form, too large, the sleeves rolled up at the wrists, the hem swallowing her bare feet entirely.

Her eyes, when she opened them, were silver-white. The color of moonlight on still water, or the color of mirrors. Almost not quite human, and quite possibly had never been taught to pretend otherwise.

She tilted her head.

"P-please talk one by one..."

Her voice was high and clear, a child’s voice, but it wavered at the edges. She winced, her small face scrunching in frustration like someone trying to follow multiple conversations at once.

"You are talking over each other..."

She scratched the inner curve of her ear with her pinky finger. It was an absent, childish gesture a little girl usually did when she was annoyed. Her silver-white eyes wandered away from the altar, drifting toward the empty air beside her, then toward the cold stone floor, then toward the grey sky visible through the broken roof.

She looked like a child listening to her parents bicker. A little annoyed, a little scared, a little tired. This had been going on for a while and she was not certain it would stop anytime soon.

The shrine, of course, was empty. Completely empty. No voices echoed off the cold stone. No whispers disturbed the winter wind. The grey sky pressed down in silence, and the bare trees beyond the broken walls offered no commentary.

But the girl was listening.

"Okay."

She nodded. Solemnly.

"Yes." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Another nod. Her black hair swayed with the motion, strands catching the faint light like threads of shadow.

"Mm-hm."

A third nod. Whatever she was hearing, she was absorbing it carefully.

"On it."

Despite the casual vocabulary, her tone was incongruously reverent. Solemn. Like an acolyte receiving divine instruction.

"I will."

She straightened her small shoulders. Her silver-white eyes, which had been wandering, snapped back to the altar.

"Okay. I am bracing myself. Yes, you can give me the vision now."

And then she lay down.

She looked like she had done this before and knew what was coming. She somewhat had learned that it was better to be horizontal when it hit because her body would not cooperate and her legs would give out.

The cold stone floor was, at least, solid, after all. She stretched her arms out at her sides, palms up, fingers slightly curled. Her black hair fanned around her head like spilled ink against the pale stone. Her silver-white eyes stared up at the grey sky through the broken roof, and she braced.

Her eyes turned white.

Not silver-white it was but white. Pure, blazing, absolute white. A spiky halo erupted around her irises, jagged and radiant, like light forced through a fractured prism.

She gasped.

Then her eyes cleared. The white receded and the halo faded. The grey sky was just a grey sky again, and the cold stone was just cold stone.

She panted. Her small chest heaved and her fingers, which had been relaxed at her sides, curled against the stone, nails scraping faintly against the cold surface.

Her black hair was damp now, clinging to her temples and the back of her neck from sweat.

"This..." Her voice was hoarse and frightened. "S-should I tell someone...?"