Ranni…
A gasp left her mouth as her eyes flew open and she found herself lying down in the infirmary.
What was she doing here? She should have woken up and been healed first thing as soon as the fight had ended.
Why was she lying down in here?
As she tried to sit up, she could feel her head pounding from an excruciating headache.
“Ugh...what the hell,” she groaned and was pleasantly surprised to find that her voice still sounded like that of her youthful self.
She turned her head to look at a window, and through the reflection she could see that her body was still young as well.
She let out a sigh of relief.
“Its good to see you awake again,” said a familiar voice.
She turned to look at who had spoken to her and realized that it was Fayebel.
“Oh...hello dear,” she said with a kindly voice.
“Its a little unusual to hear you call me dear with your younger voice,” she said with a smile.
“I thought your fight wasn’t until the third round? Only the first and second rounds are taking place today. So what are you doing here right now?” Ranni asked curiously.
“Well, when you didn’t wake up after the match was over, I was concerned and decided to carry you to get some rest. You overexerted yourself against Moyako, and your spiritual energy hasn’t been fully restored yet.”
Ranni sighed in annoyance as she said, “I had hoped that the arena’s magic would restore my energy too along with healing me but perhaps that is too much to ask.”
“The arena only restores enough of your energy to allow you to heal. All the exhaustion and excess energy deprivation stays with you.”
“Well, I must thank you for bringing me here.”
Fayebel waved her hand through the air in a dismissive gesture as she replied, “No need. I figured that it was the natural thing to do for my master.”
Hearing her student refer to her as ‘master’ again warmed her heart, though when she thought of what Moyako said that others would make better use of her teachings, it was like a knife to her heart.
“In fact, there is something that I wish to share with you,” she said which got Ranni’s attention.
“Go on.”
“My fight will be with the Orc Prince Torrs. A truly formidable warrior. If I lose, then I will have lost a bet with my brother to then become a teacher for his ward.”
“You make it sound as if you are certain you will lose, yet…you don’t seem disheartened by it? Do you wish to become a teacher?”
“Truthfully, I do. I would love to pass down what you taught me,” she said, with such a gleeful tone that it made her feel guilty for thinking less of herself as a teacher.
Fayebel must have picked up on her discomfort and asked, “Is something wrong?”
“No…I am simply coming to terms with remaining as a teacher myself. As loathe as I am to admit it, my goal of gaining strength seems far too out of reach,” she said, attempting to sound humble.
“Nonsense! Look at you! You’ve regained your youth! I’m sure you can still...,” Fayebel said, attempting to raise Ranni’s spirits only to halt her words abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” Ranni asked, yet she knew the answer as her voice turned from smooth and youthful, back to its old and gravelly tone.
She looked down and noticed that the skin on her hands were rapidly aging back to how they were before.
Ranni went silent as she tried to process what was happening while Fayebel went still.
“I...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…I’ll leave you alone,” Fayebel stammered as she stood up and left the room.
The silence felt so loud to her as she slowly raised her hands hands to her face, threaded her fingers through her hair, and cried.
Moyako…
Thinking back on how the fight played out between her and Ranni, perhaps she could have treated her with less cruelty.
Although, it would be difficult to dissuade her from a path of gaining strength for the sake of it if she didn’t slam her in the face with reality.
When Ranni came to Moyako and the other Nøkkran Assassins, it was after she and Camilla had already recruited four more. At the time, she didn’t feel like a seventh member was needed. However, Sarah and Nadalia both saw some amount of promise in Ranni that she didn’t understand.
Ranni had heard of the stories of their exploits and was so infatuated with them that she wanted to be strong enough to stand among them.
Yet at the time, she had nothing impressive about her to speak of. She had little skill or experience with the sword, her soul was arguably the weakest among them, yet she resonated with Nøkkra's power quite well.
Moyako allowed Sarah and Nadalia to watch after her and train her, but eventually she saw something in Ranni that bothered her.
Envy.
An envy of those with power greater than her own. This envy of other’s strength would result in her over-relying on Nøkkra's power and using it as a crutch.
Moyako had experienced all the side effects of overusing that power first hand and knew the damage it could do to a person.
Delving into the future too frequently could fracture one’s sanity across time. Warping fate for an increase in power could result in accelerated aging as well as overtaxing the body altogether.
Yet the worst result would come of attempting to manifest a fixed point in time resulting in a victory.
If you failed to manifest that fixed point, it could shatter your soul into pieces trying to make a desired outcome happen.
Moyako has experienced all of these consequences, yet because of the nature of her soul and magic, she lived to tell about them.
Ranni is under the misconception that her body is old and weakened because her soul is weaker than the others.
In reality, overuse of Nøkkra's power caused her body to break down and age rapidly over time.
Back then, Ranni’s refusal to go along with the disbandment had been so adamant, that she challenged her authority. Her thoughts were that if Moyako were to abandon the group, then someone else would need to take over.
She would have accepted the challenge if Camilla hadn’t stepped in and taken the challenge herself. She fought Ranni in Moyako’s place and placed a curse on her that would prevent her from using Nøkkra's power ever again.
Even now, Moyako questions why Camilla was so willing to defend her in that circumstance, but is now so argumentative about trying to save her kingdom.
If not for Cole and Marcus’s arrival in this world, and the knowledge that she had been sent far into the past, then she might have considered helping Camilla.
Things are different now.
Her priorities do not lie within this world, save for defeating Marcus and dragging him back to Terra, by ear if she must.
Her thoughts caused her not to pay attention to where she was going and she ended up stumbling into a man on the side walk.
“My mistake, excuse me,” he said as he pulled away and kept moving.
She looked the man in the eyes and realized that it was Marcus himself who had bumped into her, yet he didn’t seem to pay her any mind.
What bothered her the most though was the haunted look in his eyes.
He looked as if he had just seen something that thoroughly disturbed him.
He put his hands in his pockets and continued walking as if he didn’t even notice her.
She hasn’t had many opportunities to go and see him since the last time they had spoken. Seeing him in this miserable state made her curious to see where he was going or what he intended to do.
Though nothing else about him interested her more than when she heard from Ruvick that he wasn’t human.
What could he have meant by that? Was he speaking in the most literal sense?
If so, then she wanted to understand the kind of person he was and figure out what he was.