CHAPTER NINE

  The afternoon sun hung low and lazy over the open road, painting everything in warm amber light. The kind of afternoon that made even a rough frontier road look peaceful if you didn't think too hard about where it had been.

  The party settled near a narrow waterway just off the road — clear water running over smooth stones, the sound of it quiet and steady beneath the rustling of the trees overhead. The grass here was soft enough to sit on without complaining about it. Good enough.

  Packs hit the ground.

  "I'll go bring some wood."

  "Sure," Dara said without looking up.

  Ashen headed toward the treeline.

  The forest was cool and dim compared to the open road — tall trees filtering the afternoon light into thin gold columns, the undergrowth thick enough to muffle sound from outside. Ashen moved through it easily, crouching to collect fallen branches, checking each one by weight and dryness without thinking about it.

  "So," Yue's voice came from somewhere to his left. "Things went smoothly."

  "Yes. All according to your plan," Yue said.

  "Good," Ashen replied.

  A brief comfortable silence. Leaves shifted overhead in a light wind.

  Yesterday — back at the ship, before Ashen went to sleep.

  "Let me give you a solution,"

  Ashen glanced sideways at the empty air. "Really? That would actually be easier." Said Yue

  "Can Nue jam the connection between the forward forces and their base command?"

  Nue's voice came through the bracelet immediately. "Yes sir. Given sufficient preparation time and a clear signal window — completely viable."

  "Wait," Yue replied. "This world also has communication systems?"

  Ashen explained to Yue and Nue what to do, as both were not experienced in combat.

  "It's nice to have an expert guide us," Nue said.

  "It's all experience. Nothing much," Ashen replied.

  Back to the forest.

  Ashen picked up another branch and added it to the bundle under his arm.

  "Also," Yue said, with the energy of someone who had been waiting to drop something and had decided now was the moment — "I learned your language."

  Ashen stopped walking.

  The forest was very quiet around him.

  "...When."

  "Nue helped with the framework. The rest was just observation." A pause. "I've been able to understand everything around you for a while now."

  "How long is a while."

  "...A while."

  "You see, Nue was able to generate some electricity and make an electrical device which was installed with your language. Nue decoded your language and I just absorbed it," Yue said.

  Ashen stared at the empty air beside him with the flat expression of a man doing rapid mental inventory of every conversation he'd had in the past several weeks.

  Then he turned and kept walking without another word.

  "Also," Yue continued cheerfully, "that girl—"

  "So you noticed," Ashen interrupted.

  "She's a noble."

  Silence.

  "Noble?"

  "Noble. Possibly high noble." Ashen's voice was matter-of-fact, like he was reporting the weather. "In this world commoners have black hair, nobles have golden hair and royalty have white. She's using magic to alter her appearance. But the mannerisms are the real tell — the way she sits, the way she holds things, the specific way she controls her expressions when she thinks nobody is paying attention. She's trying to act common but the habits are too deep."

  "The point is—"

  "If she's a noble why is she here?" Yue asked.

  "That I don't know."

  "And her hair is black."

  "Magic. Obviously."

  "It explains a few things," Ashen said.

  "Doesn't it." A pause. "You know yourself well enough — you don't want to get involved with that type. Why did you let her join?"

  "I didn't let her do anything," Ashen said. "She just appeared. Same as the rest of them." He ducked under a low branch, expression somewhere between resigned and genuinely baffled. "I've tried to keep distance from nobles before. Every time I put enough space between myself and that world one of them shows up somewhere I didn't expect. It's like they're tracking me."

  "Do you have some kind of national treasure hidden somewhere?"

  "No."

  "Famous family name?"

  "No."

  "Remarkably handsome face?"

  Ashen turned to look directly at the empty air beside him.

  "Makes sense," Yue said immediately. "Why would she follow an orc."

  "HEY." The word came out louder than intended. A bird somewhere above them launched itself out of a tree in alarm. "Who are you calling an orc."

  "Anyway — you said they. You mean the whole party?"

  "Stop changing the subject you asshole." Ashen pointed at the empty air with a branch. "Where are you right now. If you had a body I would beat the shit out of it."

  "Relax old man." Yue's voice had taken on the specific quality it got when he was enjoying himself at someone else's expense. "Don't tell me you're thinking about hitting on young girls."

  "Oh maybe you did hit on some before I came here."

  "You're twenty-eight here."

  "And if we add it with mentally back on Earth..."

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  "That's not—"

  "Hello," Yue announced to the forest at large. "Someone please come and arrest this old man. He's hitting on young girls."

  "Damit, if only there were cops." Ashen pressed two fingers to his temple. "Shut up you virgin."

  Dead silence.

  "...Who," Yue said, very quietly, "are you calling a virgin."

  "I'm calling YOU—"

  The argument that followed scattered every bird within two hundred meters. It covered a considerable amount of ground, touched on several unrelated topics, got progressively louder and ended only when both of them simultaneously realized they had absolutely no idea which direction the camp was anymore.

  Meanwhile — near the waterway.

  "Hey, is this mine? Thank you!" Fen reached for the larger pot.

  "Hey — that's Ashen's, not yours."

  Fen's face collapsed into something genuinely tragic. He looked at his own bowl. Then at the pot. Then back at his bowl with the expression of a man confronting a great injustice.

  "That pot has more meat in it compared to ours. It's so mean."

  "Shut up and be happy with what you have."

  "But why are you even interested in him?" Fen said, gesturing expansively. "He's not even that handsome. And on top of that he keeps ignoring you and keeping his distance."

  Dara turned to look at him.

  It was a very specific look.

  Fen became very quiet very quickly. His eyes got slightly wet. He was almost, but not quite, crying.

  "Come on Dara, don't keep making him cry all the time," Bren said, with the reasonable tone of someone who genuinely believed this was a helpful contribution. "And he isn't wrong though."

  Dara turned the look toward Bren.

  Bren and Fen found themselves in approximately the same condition simultaneously. They gravitated toward each other without making a conscious decision about it — two grown men huddling together like they were sharing body heat in a blizzard.

  Sola laughed so hard she nearly dropped her bowl.

  Back to the forest.

  The forest stood around them in the sudden silence, completely unbothered.

  "...This is your fault," Ashen said.

  "This is entirely your fault."

  "I was collecting wood peacefully—"

  "You started it—"

  "Damit, if it weren't for the darkness." Ashen looked at the trees around them, which had become significantly less distinct in the time they'd wasted. The light between the branches had gone from gold to gray without either of them noticing.

  "Same," Yue said quietly. "I have bad experiences with darkness."

  Something in his voice made Ashen not push further.

  They found their way out by following the sound of the waterway — emerging from the treeline with their armfuls of wood and their carefully neutral expressions.

  "Oh, Ashen! You came back — why did it take so long? I was worried about you!"

  Fen's face was doing several things at once — relief, residual distress and the particular expression of someone who had recently been through something they were not yet ready to discuss.

  Bren looked exactly the same. They were sitting slightly closer together than usual.

  Ashen decided not to ask.

  "Fire," he said, dropping the wood.

  Dara handed him a bowl — the good one, with noticeably more of whatever was in the pot than the others had received. Then she turned to Fen and Bren with a smile.

  It was a very specific smile.

  Both of them accepted their portions with the careful, slow movements of people handling something that might go off.

  Yue drifted close to Ashen's ear.

  "See."

  "...And this always happens?"

  Ashen brought the bowl to his lips and very carefully pretended to be entirely focused on his soup.

  "Pretty much."

  "Nobles are terrifying."

  "Agreed."

  Across the fire Dara looked up and caught Ashen's eye. She smiled — brief, natural, completely unguarded for just a second before she looked back down at her bowl.

  Both brothers went completely still.

  "She's dangerous," Yue whispered.

  "Hmm," Ashen said, and stared very hard at his soup.

  Later. The fire had burned to comfortable coals. Most of the group had retreated to their bedrolls. The three moons had risen — different phases, different brightness, casting overlapping silver shadows across the grass that shifted slowly as the night moved.

  Ashen sat with his back against a tree, keeping the quiet half-watch that had become muscle memory after years of it. The kind of watchfulness that didn't feel like work anymore. Just existing with your eyes open.

  "Ashen." Yue's voice was low and sudden. "She's coming. From your left. Don't look back."

  "What—"

  "She has a knife."

  "What do you mean she has a — don't look back?! What if she stabs me?! Are you letting your brother die, you traitor—"

  "You have the suit."

  "...Oh." A pause. "I almost forgot about it."

  "Yeah. Old age gets people. Even after dying, apparently."

  "You—"

  The footsteps were soft. Practiced. She sat down beside him — not close enough to be obvious, not far enough to be nothing — with the careful casualness of someone who had rehearsed this in their head and was now doing their best to ignore that fact.

  "Who were you talking to?"

  Her voice was different at night. Less guarded. Like the darkness gave her permission to sound more like herself.

  "No one," Ashen said. "Just talking to myself."

  She was quiet for a moment. The waterway moved behind them, steady and unhurried.

  "You have people, you know," she said. "You can talk to them." A pause. The faintest color rose in her cheeks, visible even in moonlight. "You have me, too."

  Silence.

  She held something out — the way people hand over things they've decided to give before they can think too hard about it. A knife. Dark wood handle worn smooth with age. A blade that caught moonlight with the quiet confidence of exceptional craftsmanship.

  "My grandfather gave me this," she said quickly. "You can have it."

  She stood. Turned. Walked back toward the tents at a pace that was very carefully not quite running.

  Ashen sat with the knife in his hand and watched her go.

  "Hey," Yue said after a moment. "Maybe she's into you. I can basically guarantee it — I've seen this exact sequence of events in approximately fifty anime and movies."

  "I watched them too so shut up." Ashen turned the knife over slowly. "And what if it's some kind of trap?"

  "...That also makes sense actually."

  "Yeah."

  Both of them looked at the knife.

  "Looks premium," Ashen said.

  "Can be compared to a treasure. That quality of material doesn't come cheap."

  The moonlight moved across the blade. Neither of them said anything for a while.

  Inside the tent —

  Dara sat on her bedroll with her knees pulled up and her face in her hands.

  "Why did I run," she said to the tent fabric. "It was right there. I was right there. Damit — such an idiot I am."

  Sola sat across from her and said absolutely nothing for exactly as long as it took to be funny.

  "You panicked," she said finally.

  "I know I panicked."

  "It happens."

  "It does not happen to me."

  Sola smiled into her sleeve.

  "Don't worry," she said, a little more gently. "There's always a next time. So don't worry."

  Dara lifted her face from her hands. Sat up straight. Pressed both palms flat on her knees with the focused energy of someone making an executive decision.

  Then she slapped both cheeks. Once. Firm and decisive.

  "Okay. Next time for sure."

  Ashen's pocket vibrated.

  He pulled out the communication device. A small holographic display flickered to life above it — pale blue light washing over his hand and the grass around him. Nue's face appeared, precise and composed, looking exactly like what he was.

  "Oh," Yue said. "He looks so android."

  Nue and Yue said nothing, both keeping a straight face and looking toward Ashen.

  "...Well whatever," Ashen said. "What is it Nue?"

  "Sir. The teleportation system refinement and the invisibility cloak — both complete. Full functionality confirmed on both."

  "Both?"

  "Both sir."

  "Nice," Yue replied.

  Yue explained what he'd been planning — quietly, efficiently, the way he always laid things out when he'd had time to think them through properly. Ashen listened without interrupting, eyes on the three moons tracking their separate paths across the sky.

  When Yue finished Ashen was quiet for a moment.

  "I see," he said.

  Then again, softer —

  "I see."

  Something in his voice had shifted. Yue caught it immediately.

  "Hey." Yue's voice lost its usual edge. "Don't be like that. You helped me back there. And back on Earth too — when I was useless and everything felt impossible. Shouldn't brothers help each other? That's literally what the word means. Blood or no blood — we still are, and we still will be."

  Silence from Ashen.

  "That's so gay," he said finally.

  "Yeah, right—" Yue caught himself. "What? Stop joking around you grandpa."

  "If I'm a grandpa what does that make you."

  They talked for a while after that. Small things. Stupid things. The kind of conversation that doesn't need to go anywhere because being in it is the point.

  Then quiet settled between them again.

  "Look," Yue said. "Cheer up. And look at me — I'm still useless too. I can't do much by myself. Without Nue I'm just a useless soul wandering around. Even after being trapped for centuries I only evolved to this level — nothing great, nothing terrible."

  The firelight had gone almost completely now. Just the faintest glow left in the coals.

  "So will you keep helping me?" Yue asked.

  "No," Ashen replied.

  "...Brother."

  "Yes. Of course I have to." His voice was warm in the way it only got when he wasn't trying to make it anything. "I know how many mistakes and problems you create. Someone has to watch over this foolish boy." A pause. "And you too Nue — let your big brother handle things and take care of you."

  The hologram was still running. Nue's face on the small display was doing something that wasn't quite an expression — but was close enough to one that both brothers noticed it.

  "I am just grateful," Yue said quietly, "that I was able to meet you both. That's all I need to feel good about. And this time — we both live it to the fullest. What do you say?"

  "Yes," Ashen said. "To the fullest."

  "Yes," Nue said from the hologram. "To the fullest."

  A beat of silence.

  "See," Yue said. "You can even inspire an AI."

  Ashen laughed.

  It started quiet and grew — real laughter, unguarded, the kind that doesn't care about being heard. Yue's followed a second later, and somehow even that was audible — present in the night air the way his voice always was, as real as anything.

  The sound of it rose up through the dark and scattered into the sky above three moons.