Serafina is looking at me with a mixture of stern disapproval and worry that has me feeling mixed. On catching up to her, I found her among a small group of goblins — four magically decaying corpses with scorch marks and holes in their chests and two that look like theyve been ripped to shreds. She's no worse for wear, but her magic blew them into pieces and scattered them around the area and she decided to stop and wait for me.

  "I thought you died. You were gone for about fifteen minutes and then I felt that deluge of essence preceding that pair of detonations and earthquake. And now you show up looking like you've rolled down a mountain path for a few miles. What happened?!"

  I remove my helmet, feeling a little embarrassed initially, but as I make my way through recounting the events to Serafina her disapproval flows into apprehension and past it into pride.

  "Let me see your codex." I oblige and she turns it on, holding it aloft after tapping at a few runic indicators. It emits a few pulses of green and grey essence that flow over, through, and around me. It's carries a slight tickle with it that I've grown used to. Serafina tuts at the little device and hands it back to me. "You're on the fringe of mild poisoning effects for about twenty five types of essence and at the level of significant poisoning for five others. They're all conflicting, so they're more or less canceling one another out. You need to forgo essence use for the rest of the day or you'll run risks of getting hurt.

  “All of that said, though. Fantastic job. We're within spitting distance of Burrowvale, there's no way that a den that developed wouldn't start becoming a problem for them, especially if you've confirmed they've already interacted with people around here." She ends the whole speech with a big smile and a hand on my battered gauntlet. "Why don't you look happy?"

  I laugh a little, in spite of myself. "I was expecting to get yelled at or told I did the wrong thing, is all. Don't worry about it, it's just a me problem." Uncomfortable as always with being praised so openly, I try to turn it away from me. "You didn't over-exert yourself, right? Are you doing okay?"

  "No, not letting that happen. That trick might work on Garrick — but I'm not nearly as placid as him." She brings herself to standing with her staff as support and puts a hand on either of my shoulders, wincing in discomfort as she puts weight on her wounded side. "Like we talked about in my office: I said I would help you strengthen your heart and mind. You're too good a person to sit and beat yourself up over doing the right thing. Most people would not have done what you did. And, what's more, you did it without even needing your Sanctus essence. That was purely Nyssa. One hundred percent you."

  I'm left a little speechless, "Uh-Yeah…alright, Serafina. I'll try to be better."

  "I'm not asking you to be better, Nyssa. I'm asking you to be you and stop punishing yourself for it. Who cares what anyone else thinks?" She steps away, gesturing widely with one hand while grasping the stave with the other, raising her voice in emphasis. "I don't! Who gives even the slightest damn about what people who wouldn't have done what you did think? Be they Vigil or otherwise!" She spins back around, fixing me with a sly smirk and slight wince, "Seriously, though. I understand the need to be the best you can, but you have look at what has actually been done and judge the event itself, not the infinite ways it could have gone differently. Because if you look at those, you'll find there's just as many positive outcomes as there are negatives — that's how infinity works. Take your outcome, be proud. If you think you could do better. Do better next time, but be happy now."

  I'm left a lot more than a little speechless. In fact it's all I can do to just weather a tide of emotions that rushes to specifically my eyes and heart: making the former tear up and the latter feel like it's seizing. "Okay. I… I appreciate it. It means a lot to hear you say it like that. I think we should get moving…" It's a very weak offer, but with the tempest of everything I'm feeling, I need to focus on something, and moving and scouting is easy compared to any other available option.

  "Alright, Nyssa, I'll let you off the hook this time. But just know that I'm going to support you whether you like it or not, so you're better off learning to like it. Let's head out. We're only a few hours out from Burrowvale now"

  Serafina and I eventually pick up a game trail going roughly in the same direction as our destination, and decide to stick to it since it'll be easier walking on Serafina. Along the way I've been noticing a steadily increasing number of small game animals. What's more, eventually they stop running away from us — watching from afar, and further on they even start to approach and follow us. Most refuse to leave until fed, which is definitely not normal behavior for creatures like this.

  "What's up with the animals, you think, Serafina?"

  "Our shining personalities wooing all of the squirrels and rabbits?" She smiles warmly as she casts around to the growing cadre of small game. Even a single beastslime has wandered along to follow. "Being honest, I haven't the foggiest idea. I know that the people of Burrowvale take a fancy to the critters of the forests, but this seems like an obscene number of interested creatures to account for it. Maybe they're grateful the goblins are gone? They've surely been being killed in droves by them." Small critters dart away in droves when she moves to raise her arms to shrug.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Joining her in the action, I voice my agreement and carry on. They're not remotely a threat, so it's really not worth worrying about, but I keep my Aero-based mental enhancement active regardless for the increased awareness to not get distracted by the critters.

  As evening is falling, we come upon a river, and Serafina has been slowing down substantially in the last hour, finally reaching the limits of her stubbornness. I think seeing the river is what does it, though.

  "If I remember the maps right, and where we should be in relation to the town, we'll probably need to go the better part of three or four hours north to the nearest guaranteed crossing."

  "We're about to get very cold aren't we?" Serafina asks with a grimace, feeling at her wounded side.

  "I am, you aren't. I'm carrying you from this point on — non negotiable. It's starting to get dark and we're near the town, so I'll tough out the last bit and see this done so we can both rest somewhere warm tonight." I try to undercut my firm statement with a small smile, and Serafina seems to sit on the fence of how to respond for a few moments before settling with a sigh.

  "If you must, I will abide by it. Just try to not get too handsy." I go still and silent for a few moments, flummoxed by the statement. "That was a joke, Nyssa. You're among the most respectful people I know, I'm not at all worried about that. I was just trying to cut the tension a bit. This is about to suck." She gives me a smile that puts me at ease quickly.

  "Sorry, just not used to jokes like that anymore." It casts me back to the last time I spent a night with May. She always made similar little jokes, but was always also very overt about those affections. Serafina just strikes me as trying to keep the mood light.

  "If I order you to stop apologizing for things that don't warrant apologies, will that get you to stop? I swear—" She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes with a smile, "—you would apologize to the sun for blocking its light and casting a shadow , Nyssa. And don't you dare apologize for apologizing." Punctuating the statement, she walks up to me. "So, how do you want to take me?"

  I am immediately grateful for my opaque helmet after her word choice. "I think carrying you in my arms should suffice. Any other option feels inappropriate given that you're conscious."

  She cocks an eyebrow at me, "So you only do the inappropriate stuff if I'm unconscious? Maybe I misjudged you as the most respectful person I know… I'm ready, just sweep me off my feet, oh, noble knight."

  I step to her side, supporting her back with one arm, and reaching down to scoop her up lifting from the middle of her back and under her knees. She's a shockingly easy carry. I must be still feeling the effects of all of the Ignia I took in while fighting earlier alongside the benefits of the armor and my own strength.

  She lets out a small yip of surprise when her feet leave the ground, gripping her stave tightly and curling inwards a little. I spend a bit of time adjusting her weight to find the best angles and places to hold onto her, and after I move around a bit, she settles her head against my armored torso.

  "I'll try to avoid getting you wet, but I apologize in advance if I fail to do so." I keep my words neutral and controlled because of the scene in my head. SOmething I've mirrored a great many times with May.

  “Gods Above, Nyssa, stop thinking about May. You're the one trying to distance yourself from her. Stop thinking about her at every single opportunity.”

  I step forward, lifting Serafina a bit higher to chest height and then plunge into the absolutely miserably frigid water. With snow on the ground, and winter chill setting in, doing this without an end in sight that is going to leave me warm and comfortable would be potentially suicidal — but I'll be inundating myself with Ignia in the coming hour of the journey to get to Burrowvale anyways, so I'll suffer it.

  The water fills my armor the moment it can — flooding through essence vents and onto my effectively bare skin covered by nothing else than the bodyglove. It's, gratefully, water resistant, so it doesn't immediately soak me through to my undergarments, but it is still plenty good at carrying the cold through to my bones.

  And carry the cold to my bones, it does.

  I would love to just run my way through the water, but it's moving faster than I'd be comfortable really taking my feet off the ground for. So, instead I trudge the whole way, suffering miserably for the effort — especially as it eventually makes it up to chest height for me. I requires me to lift Serafina higher to keep her dry — which reinforces my decision to do this. Had she been fording this alongside me, she would be fully underwater.

  I suck in a sharp breath when the armor fills up fully to the height of my lungs and feel it constrict my breathing something fierce. Like winter itself just reached into my torso and squeezed the air out of my lungs.

  Around the same time, I feel something bump my ankle, but when I feel around with my foot I don't find anything other than more bone-chilling misery, so I carry on. Being past the halfway point, it's only going to get easier, so I try to speed up a bit. Serafina's weight is the opposite of a problem by itself, but as all of my body's natural Ignia is being sapped into the water, my strength is flagging alongside it.

  Another forty feet and I'm getting above waist level again, but lifting out of the water just feels infinitely worse as the wind hits me.

  "Are you going to make it, Nyssa? You don't seem so great." Serafina's remained quiet for the journey, letting me focus, but I'm feeling a hellish chill and shivering terribly. Her voice is strained and concerned, but I just nod, trying to focus past the full-body suffering to push on.

  After a few moments we're about five feet from the shore and the water is only up to my thighs. "I'm going to need a minute—" I start to explain my plan through chattering teeth but feel something wrap around my right ankle.

  In the split second I have to react, I toss Serafina to the shore unceremoniously and a tug rips me off my feet and backwards. I splash face-first into the water with all of my air being stolen from my lungs as I'm dragged back towards the center of the river again.