Thief of Time

“Hmm. Dealing with Farah’s parents for once and for all, huh?” Nero sipped at his tea. “Well, that does sound fun.”

“Long period of stay here,” Kemata replied, looking around wistfully. “Time to leave.”

Dia wanted to tell the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny that it was fine if she spoke normally, like she did right before everyone else left back then, but clearly, she had reverted to her more formal — if stilted — manner of speaking due to the chronological gap. She would probably warm up to them over the next few days, however, so speaking up now was pointless.

More importantly, Kemata was staring at the little kid snoozing on the cushion next to Dia. Her eyes were burning with an incredible focus, thereby proving that she could probably compete with Schwarz when it came to babying kids.

“She’s cute, right?” Farah asked, her voice like that of a proud mother. “She’s our pride and joy!”

Farah winked at Kemata. “You two really need to work harder. More kids are better.”

“Stop teasing them,” Schwarz replied. “Also, it’s impressive how you haven’t asked me for a drink yet, Nero. Did you manage to kick the habit or something?”

“No. I am preparing for the moment in which I savour all your drinks in a single night and knock myself out. I haven’t succeeded in that for a very long time. However, now that I have purposely weakened my resistance to alcohol, I heartily believe that I can finally knock myself out with enough pure alcohol.”

“Good luck,” Dia replied. “Seriously. If you actually manage to knock yourself out, the Black God would probably want to know how you did it. Speaking of which…you said something about Claud and Lily wanting to look for the Black God, right? Why aren’t they back yet?”

“Cross-continental travel takes months, so it’s natural,” Nero replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Months…well, it’s been quite a few months, though. How long is the trip exactly?” Dia pressed on.

“Beats me. I don’t remember the details of me being dominated by—”

“Half a season,” Kemata replied.

“…Hmm. Maybe they’ll be back soon, then.” Risti shook her head. “Anyway, are you guys coming with us to Grandia?”

“Heck yes,” Nero replied, before glancing at Kemata, who nodded. Dia observed the whole interaction in silence; it was interesting to see how the two of them were quite in sync. Was it some sort of telepathy trained over a season or two’s worth of cohabitation, or something else?

“Excellent.” Farah rubbed her hands. “Hmm. It’ll be good to have you guys alone. If I can pressure my…parents to withdraw entirely, it’ll be for the best. I suppose resorting to violence is a close second, though. But I should also be more thorough and process the disinheritance of my parents formally.”

“Usually, it’s the other way around,” Dia quipped. “This is the first time I’ve heard of parents being disinherited.”

“There’s precedent,” Farah replied. “Noble families who are irresponsible need a rein. To be honest, I’m more surprised that these idiots allowed me to take over the entire county, rather than anything else. They sure didn’t think it through when they tossed everything on me.”

“If you have everything, why would you need to go back to all this trouble?” Risti asked.

Farah’s face twisted slightly. “Not too long ago, I received a letter from my parents, stating that they had…uh, seen the light and felt that it was inhumane for a child to run an entire county. You can probably see where the rest of this is going.”

Kemata made a snort. “Disgusting.”

“Thanks for saying it like it is,” Farah replied. “Hmm. Did you tell her about my circumstances, Nero?”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Nero replied.

“Eh, it’s cool.” Farah turned to Kemata. “I’m told that you’re also a noble. I’m quite interested in Saran culture, so maybe we can talk more about this in our free time.”

“Very honoured to.”

Dia restrained the urge to pat Kemata’s head. There was just something adorable about how she replied, along with her brown hair and her long ponytail. A certain scythe, which was hanging on the wall in isolation, also spun and twitched based on its owner’s emotion, which simply added to the whole thing…

Hmm. I’m probably just bored…

Dia turned to look at the scythe, which was moving around randomly as Kemata continued to look at little Beth, who was snoozing away on a cushion. The baby was sleeping while sitting upright somehow, and the way her plump cheek quivered every so often was just absolutely fantastic.

She turned back to the ongoing conversation, which had returned to the various processes in which people from a noble family could be officially disinherited.

“…contested, though.”

“They can try,” Farah replied. “Still, there is some risk. It’s possible that the authorities will give them a second chance, and while I’m also a person who believes in second chances, there’s a major problem here.”

“Major problem?” Risti tilted her head.

“Well, you see, this letter coincided with the month in which the two people that I’m forced to call my parents happened to default on their first loans. Thus, there is much motivation for me to believe that this desire to…return to the fold is largely generated by the desire to dump debts on me,” Farah replied. “Furthermore, they might be looking to siphon money from my county to their personal pockets in the hopes of returning to a more luxurious lifestyle.”

“That’s…well, we definitely can’t let them succeed, then,” Dia muttered. “A second chance for them may very well be fatal for people of your county, you know.”

“Exactly. Which is why we’re headed towards Grandia to put an end to them once and for all,” Farah replied. “I’ll need your help, guys. My parents are the shameless sort, but all schemes are powerless before absolute strength.”

“We do owe you for a pleasant trip and vacation,” Schwarz replied. “I’m more than happy to help!”

“You keep the Seekers of Life running,” Risti added. “This is nothing to us. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah.” Dia grinned. “And it’ll be nice to visit the Grandis capital too. It’s a place that people rarely go to, unless they have reason to be there.”

“Rarely?” Kemata blinked, and the scythe hanging on the wall did a flip. “Why? Capitals are popular.”

“This one isn’t,” Risti replied. “Like…you’ll have to have a certain taste for the capital’s aesthetics to fit you at all. Trust me.”

Dia shivered once. “Yeah. It’s…not what the normal capitals look like.”

The fact that the others would have to see what it looked like once they got there was quite exciting, though. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any skills that could preserve the looks on their faces, but there was still some time to stock up on skillstrips if push came to shove…

Well, she wasn’t that evil, so it was fine.

Dia poked Beth’s cheeks as the others chattered on about what the Grandis capital looked like, and then wondered if the toddler was dreaming about her previous life. At any rate, though, Dia hoped that she would also take to Kemata and Nero with ease and accept them as part of her family. The only problem was that Kemata usually had this intimidating first impression of her, undoubtedly helped by that scythe that stood in for her emotions.

She looked at the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny once, and then yawned. They had left rather early, but from the way things were going, everyone was probably going to crash here for the night.

After all, Nero did say that he wanted to faint from drinking Schwarz’s stuff. Who was Dia to stop such an entertaining event? Besides, the bartender himself probably was quite eager to stuff Nero full of his best booze too, and it also helped that little Beth did stay up late last night.

There was something to be said about tossing and turning after being told that they would be travelling to another continent.

“Alright, I suppose I should whip up some lunch,” Schwarz announced. “You guys carry on. I’ll make some of my best dishes for this nice reunion.”

“Nice.”

“Excellent.”

As the others carried on with their own imitation of Kemata’s speaking style, Dia turned to the sleeping baby and popped the little furball on her lap. Beth, who was still fast asleep, promptly curled up and laid her small head on her thigh.

“Cute, isn’t she?” Farah remarked.

Nero nodded. “But I think she’ll be scared if I carry her right now, yes? She needs to get used to the two of us first.”

“Yeah. Well, don’t look so sad. She’s probably going to wake up soon.” Farah yawned. “I suppose we’ll be staying here for the night, right?”

“You didn’t sleep well?” Nero asked.

“Not at all. We had to get pass the checkpoint, remember?” Farah shook her head. “And there are people staring at you two outside. They probably don’t have good intentions…”

“Same old, then.”