Nico tilted his head from side to side, checking the angle. From where they stood, the elevation bent perspective just enough that the moon seemed to rest against the lake’s surface, held up by the water.
“It’s beautiful,” Nico said. “We didn’t see anything like this when we came up here during the real festival.”
Lani glanced down toward the slope below. “Mmmm. Was the aqueduct collapsed again? Maybe you couldn’t get far enough up; it happens every few years,” She flapped once, hovering just off the stone.
“That’s a huge repair budget for a defunct aqueduct,” Zhou needled unhelpfully.
Lani flushed immediately, feathers ruffling as she turned on him. Nico caught the look before it detonated.
“It’s still important to the village,” he said, smoothing it over. “Especially for the festival.”
She brightened at once. “Yeah! And it’s not like we can help the landslides.”
“Do those happen regularly?” Nico asked.
“Mmm well, I just know that’s why they close off the aqueduct. But people will climb up anyways during the festival, and sometimes find it fixed up!” Lani chirped.
“Blowing up an aqueduct isn’t really a landslide,” Zhou said like an asshole.
“I meant the one in reality!!” Lani puffed up again, plumage fanning.
“Yeah, that one.” Zhou stayed unhelpful.
Nico lowered his ears, done with the exchange. The sound of water cascading from the ruptured section of aqueduct below was just enough to blur whatever argument followed. He didn’t have nearly the amount of patience Lani did for indulging the Sage.
***
The bickering fell away on its own as they finally stepped off the aqueduct into a carved hollow of the mountainside.
The lake opened before them, its surface a rich turquoise dotted by lily pads and lotuses in every stage of bloom. A lush field spread before it, populated by pale three-petaled flowers that glowed pink and white in the moonlight, their blossoms swaying with the breeze. The stone walls curved inward, drawing the air into a cool draft that eased the evening humidity. Fireflies drifted low, threading their light through grass, softly lighting a pathway up to her.
She sat on a boulder at the lake’s center, naturally aligned with the moon’s reflection, her silhouette traced in silver by the full moon behind her. Long black hair spilled into the water, drifting outward in slow ripples. Her royal blue linen coat floated around her legs, sleeves adorned in fine lotus embroidery. She turned and smiled, resting her chin on her hand, settling into a relaxed posture.
They stopped at the water’s edge, leaving a careful distance between themselves and the surface so their reflections wouldn’t catch.
Lani ducked behind the alchemists, peering around Nico’s arm. “She’s so beautiful…”
“Is she supposed to be here?” Zhou asked tersely. His gaze swept the flowers and the water. “Didn’t she die in the folktale?”
“Where did you hear that version!?” Lani hissed. “She became the moon!!” Her plumage fluffed in indignation.
“Yeah. That’s what I said,” Zhou replied.
Lani glared at him, then flapped hard, whipping his braid of ribboned silver out of place. Zhou caught the gusts and sent them back just as casually; feathers and ribbons scattered between them.
The princess tipped her head back in pleased laughter. “It’s rare for me to have visitors.” she said, her voice melodic and warm, carrying easily across the water.
“It’s not hard to get here,” Zhou replied. His tone was almost flirtatious if not for what followed. “Maybe you’re just unlikable.”
“W-what!?” Lani sputtered. “He didn’t mean that! The entire village celebrates you every year!” She reached up and started tugging at Zhou’s hair ribbons in protest.
The princess turned her attention to Nico, studying him with an expression that reminded him uncomfortably of Zhou when he teased him—a mix somewhere between amused and omniscient.
“You’re trying to leave, aren’t you?” she asked lightly, swinging her legs over the lake’s surface.
“…Yeah,” Nico answered while his company bickered.
With a warm smile, she stipulated, “Then you’ll have to come to me. I can’t leave.”
“Can you do something about our reflections?” Nico asked.
Lani popped out from behind him, with one of the Sage's ribbon caught on her wing. “Oh, I’ll do it!” She hopped forward and immediately struck an invisible barrier, rebounding with a soft thump that startled her more than the impact itself.
“Sorry, love. Your reflection isn’t in here anymo—”
An earthen spike drove straight into the princess' chest, bursting out her back, spewing out clusters of writhing mana along with it. For a split second she stayed upright, eyes wide and unfocused, before her body collapsed backward into the lake. Her hair and sleeves followed in slow ribbons, trailing after her as her legs vanished beneath the surface.
Nico turned his head, dragging as if in slow motion, until he met the sage’s calm gaze.
Zhou shrugged, thumbs still hooked in his pockets.
Lani and Nico stared at him speechless, mouths agape.
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SPLASH
The lake retaliated for the princess.
Water surged up from the lake and launched straight at Zhou in a pressurized column. With a surge of violet mana, an earthen wall erected in its path. The impact collapsed into heavy mud before the water tore free and recoiled, regrouping midair, spiraling in more water from the lake.
It shot at the sage again in a pressurized blast. Zhou leapt back, seized the current mid-strike, and hurled it toward the boulder where the princess had once sat, splashing the water back unto itself in an explosive wave. The lake accepted its water back and erupting from within. Geysers tore upward, water surging across the meadow. Grass and flowers disappeared beneath the flood. The ground vanished under the sudden rise as the lake spilled beyond its edges, churning blue and silt.
Nico stepped in front of Lani.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Zephyr Veil (A) | "wind shield & sword"]
Wind wrapped around them, splitting the water as it struck the barrier. A chunk of stone tore loose from the aqueduct’s edge and hurtled toward them. Nico angled the veil and snapped a narrow cut of wind forward. The debris shattered midair and scattered into the flood.
He held the veil steady and twisted just enough to glance back.
Lani stood behind him, dazed, dripping from her sleeves, hands still holding the ribbon. When she realized he was looking, she startled and apologized in a rush.
“It’s okay,” he said, shifting his footing.
Another wave struck the veil. It wasn’t strong enough to break through, but the impact was sudden and sharp. Lani flinched, wings folding tight to her sides. Their reflections had left her alone, but the lake’s crossfire was indiscriminate. And—
More mud splattered against the veil as waves crashed from all edges of the lake.
Right. She just watched Zhou kill someone.
“Hey,” Nico said, keeping his voice level. “Can you fly out of here?”
She nodded, then tried to open her wings. They lifted partway before another crash of water ripped across the field, followed by Zhou doing something loud and destructive again. Lani startled and folded them back in, feathers pressed tight to her sides. She looked so small as she looked up to him.
“That’s okay,” he spoke quickly. “You don’t have to. Walking is fine.”
Nico crouched, lowering himself until they were eye level.
“The lake’s only targeting that guy,” he said, nodding vaguely in Zhou’s direction. “And he can handle himself… He also caused this mess, so we’re not the targets. We just need to get back to the aqueduct, alright?”
He waited for Lani to nod.
“Can you walk with me?” Nico asked as he held out his hand.
Lani hesitated, then nodded and took it.
“Good,” Nico said, rising back up. “Stay on my right. I’ll block things from this side.”
|| SKILL ACTIVATED ||
[? Zephyr Veil (A) | "wind shield & sword"]
He refreshed the barrier and guided her onto his far side, keeping himself between her and the lake so she wouldn’t see whatever Zhou was doing to it. As they walked away, he did a quick glance over his shoulder—
Yeah. Still a guy fighting a lake.
He turned his attention back to Lani and kept talking as they crossed onto the aqueduct, giving her something to follow besides the noise. He let the veil drop after scanning ahead for any standing water or reflective angles. Lani didn’t cast a reflection anymore, which simplified things.
“I’ll need you to stay up here,” he said. “I’d like to send you to the village, but I can’t cross the gap. But we’re close to unraveling the core, so it’ll be easy to get you once we’re done.”
Lani nodded and he helped her sit on the ledge.
“I can stay here until you’re okay.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be okay... I'm sorry for getting scared."
"That's normal. I don't want to stop being scared of rifts."
Lani kept her head lowered.
“I’ll come back before the hour’s up, even if the core’s still active.”
“Be careful," she spoke kindly.
“Thank you."
He stayed a moment longer to make sure she was steady, then turned back toward the lake.
“I’ll be back soon.”
***
Nico walked back quieter than usual, even for himself, eyes fixed forward as he followed the moonlight. Not looking down in a field that was now completely waterlogged proved harder than it sounded. The soil had broken down into mud, deepening with every surge that spilled in from the lake, dragging at his steps with stubborn insistence.
So it was very cool that his boots kept getting stuck, because neither of his elementals could help with that. He found himself grumbling about how the guild had plenty of earth–water affinity alchemists just as competent, yet Kai chose to single him out for this mission.
Across the crater, the clamor of Zhou’s battle arrived in indistinct waves of sound and water. It was impressive, how long one man could fight a lake for. At some point, surely, it would be time to reconsider whether this was actually the correct method.
||Skill Activated|| [Dragon's breath | "pretty cool fireball"]
Nico blew flames into a stray wave intent on drenching him, evaporating it on impact. Steam hissed upward, temporarily blocking his view of the battle. Cold water was already touching his calves; he wasn’t in the mood to get full body sopping wet.
He waded to the far wall of the crater, putting decent distance between himself and the lake, because only one of them had killed the princess. A deep sigh escaped him as he looked toward the moon for guidance. It hadn’t come anywhere near touching the lake’s surface in reality, which was a shame. How the rift moon balanced on the water was entrancing. Even with a Sage haphazardly splashing around inside it, it was the reflection layered over turquoise that completely captured his attention.
“…”
There was no way Zhou, singular, hadn’t seen his own reflection by now. He was fighting a fucking lake drowned in moonlight.
Nico looked down.
"..."
The image stayed where it was, not rising to meet his gaze the way the others had. Scruffy ash-blond hair covered the eyes. A nose and mouth sat where they should. It took him a moment to recognize what he was looking at. It’d been a long time since he’d last seen it. Apparently, he had been a pretty cute kid.
He tilted his ears from side to side while watching the boy mirror him, ears comically oversized for his small frame. He remembered being self-conscious about them, about how much space they took up, how visibly red they turned, how impossible they were to hide.
What would he have wished for from the Moon Princess?
The impacts of heavy stone rolled waves through the flooded field, sending ripples across his reflection. It held through the distortion, but the flood, the tremors, the way the world kept rearranging itself, all began to blur into one another.
He wasn’t the type to wish for the past to be different. Even though being a kid had sucked. Another tilt of his ears had the boy doing the same. If he had to guess, probably about ten years old; a few years before he went to study abroad. There wasn’t much he’d brought to Lumere, pictures included, so there was no certainty that this was exactly how he’d looked. The guess came from how small the boy appeared to him.
Behind him, Zhou’s battle escalated, explosions folding into one another as water slammed and earth shifted. Nico stayed where he was, breathing evenly, aware that his heart had begun to beat harder than necessary.
The movement of the water was stretching his reflection, pulling the ears in particular longer, forcing a laugh out of him. He was young enough that the rest of him hadn’t caught up yet.
Another distant crash reverberated across the field, followed by a surge of cold water splashing into his back, to his greatest displeasure. He shuddered, having to shake the chills out through his ears, scattering water droplets from his hair.
He shifted his gaze back down again. The boy looked up at him with the same smallness Lani had earlier. Up until then, Lani had kept her spirits up for them, hopeful even after a year in the rift. Pulled in for wishing for her future. Just as—
His gaze drifted toward the boulder where the moon princess had once sat. Zhou killed her in front of a kid. Then Lani apologized for getting scared.
Annoyed, his ear flicked reflexively. The boy mimicked it awkwardly yet earnestly, making him exhale out a curt laugh against his mood.
What was his wish? He knew he’d grow into those eventually.
“…”
Nico lifted his hand, watching the water.
Then reached through the surface.
SPLASH
I woke up in the dead of night realizing Minny had to be designed before her arc was over. I think the one on the right would be easier to make clothes for but the left has a pleasant chubbiness to it...