“I only got five of them, there’s two or three remaining I believe. Our numbers were a little off.” Seis announces to Lunetta and Usel upon her return.

Neither of them were expecting to see her return with Trinsi and Cheron, but both showed relief at the sight of them.

“Are you okay?” Lunetta strides over to her, promptly taking Seis’s hands and bringing attention to the burns on her knuckles. “Send for a healer,” she orders Cheron, “and put a tent up.”

“It’s alright, I heal quickly,” Seis says dismissively. “Have you heard word from Cloakwood? Cheron tells me you haven’t encountered any Storms, which is what I was hoping.”

“Cloakwood is expecting us,” General Usel answers. “They reported that they haven’t heard from their ambassador in Elkhorn in a week.”

“It safe to assume that they won’t either.”

“We can talk about this tonight, Dux Bellorum Seis,” Lunetta pleads, “get yourself cleaned up and some well deserved rest.”

---

Trinsi hadn’t spoken much during their journey back to their camp. She begrudgingly finishes setting up her tent, wondering why she’s irritated. She just is.

Seis is back, and she’s okay. She should be relieved that the Ester- their last hope, was alright. Instead she has a headache.

Perhaps, it was the voices she hears around Seis. Whenever she uses her power, this happens. She never got the chance to ask what the voices were the day the raven-haired warrior left. The morning after their first encounter, Seis had explained that the sensation she felt was the connection with ‘Mother Earth’, she had never said anything about voices however.

The evening was setting in, Lunetta had decided to campout at the same location from the night prior in order to let Seis rest. Curious, Trinsi decides to wander over and see if Seis is up.

She peers in, and sees one of their healers talking to Seis. The woman notices Trinsi at the doorway and excuses the healer.

“Duka Trinsi, come in.” She doesn’t look surprised, but it doesn’t appear that she was expecting her either. She starts to get up from the edge of her futon, but Trinsi stops her.

“Don’t,” she holds her hand out, then takes a seat next to her. “I- Seis what are you?” This isn’t the question or the way she meant to approach, but… the headache.

Seis furrows her brow.

“You’re not like us are you? Those powers… your ‘connection’ with Mother Earth. You are not mortal, you’re a god.” The knight’s eyes are sincere.

The Ester can’t mock her for the comment, Trinsi is opening up to her, and she could see how anyone would get that impression. “I’m mortal, like you.”

In denial, she shakes her head no. “What you did out there was not in the means of any mortal.”

“It looks more impressive than it actually is Trinsi. Those tricks are not my own, I’m using borrowed power, and I can’t do them on the fly either.” Seis clarifies truthfully, “I have to be in a certain state of mind, at the moment you are no threat to me, so Mother Earth won’t lend me her power.”

Confused and worn out, Trinsi puts her face in her hands, rubbing her tired eyes.

“Why did you heal me?” she asks finally, her face hiding behind her fingers.

“I already answered that question Duka Trinsi, Lunetta needs you.”

“Why? I haven’t done anything of use this entire time.” She turns to look at her dejectedly.

Seis’s eyes darken, “Don’t say that. You’ve done more than you’ve realize.”

“No Seis… you do something and it affects me somehow.” The knight can’t bring herself to say that she hears voices, but it’s what she came here to do. “I can’t move, because you’re sucking me into the earth.”

“What do you mean? Do you feel that right now?”

“No, it’s usually when you’re fighting.” Although, looking into her eyes right now, she remembers that the first time she felt it was before their first spar. Perhaps if she searches long enough- there it is... The feeling of falling into the earth.

What if she doesn’t resist? If she lets the earth swallow her whole, will she stop existing? Seis won’t let her fall in right?

Her face feels hot, and she feels like she’s going to be sick. Concern flashes on Seis’s face. Concern that is genuine. Concern that perhaps her charm didn’t work correctly. Concern that peels away the hard headed exterior, and shows her for the beautiful, well rounded person she is.

Trinsi shakes the feeling away, and the phenomenon stops. . The earth didn’t swallow her. Had she known it would be as easy at that she would have attempted it forever ago.

Seis is staring at her in alarm, her face pale, partially from the evening light. The incandescent glow makes her look like the goddess she refuses she is.

Trinsi needs her to be a goddess, that would make her unattainable and out of reach. Seis needs to be out of her league.

“I’m mortal, like you.”

She reaches out and brushes the woman’s jet black hair out of her face. Seis tenses, but says nothing. Something about this woman is infuriating, but Trinsi is enraptured. Her headache persists, she inhales sharply before pressing her lips onto the Ester’s. The gesture is harsh, angry and impatient.

When it’s over, Seis leans away from Trinsi wide eyed, her cheeks flushed with color.

“Trinsi, I think you’ve misunderstood,” she says slightly shaken.

Trinsi’s face hurts and is flushed as well, “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she blurts out. “Well it meant something, but not what you would believe- I’m relieved that you’re okay and I don’t know- I don’t know how to express gratitude. That’s all.”

The knight can’t tell if Seis nods out of empathy, or because she actually understood her rambling. Either way, she’s too exhausted to attempt another coherent explanation, best she leaves, she decides. She might have apologized, she might have excused herself, but when she gets back to her own tent, she’s too tired to recall.