//------------------------------// // Page 5: Lioness // Story: A Unicorn in the Clover Kingdom // by LordBrony2040 //------------------------------// The fourth day after the church had burned down, Sunset and her younger brothers set out on their journey to the capital of the Clover Kingdom. Because of the way the kingdom was designed, with the royals living in and around the capital city itself, the nobles a bit more spread out but still highly concentrated around the main city, the commoners with enough magic to keep the land fresh and bountiful with their magic dotting the land, and the almost magicless people of the Forsaken Realm that Hage Village was in, Sunset knew that they had a journey ahead of them just from the name of their starting location. The map that Secre had drawn on the ground for them made her even more depressed. Hage Village was as far as you could get into the northern territory of the Clover Kingdom, with the capital being in the center of the southernmost area. “So, we literally have to walk across eighty-two-point-five percent of the entire country,” she deadpanned. Even that was assuming there weren’t half a dozen different mountain ranges in the way and the map was drawn to scale. Which Sunset doubted. It was the closest thing that there had ever been to actual chicken scratches. “Said all of your goodbyes?” she asked the kids. Although, the only person they had been close to left the day before they did. Even after all this time, human death rituals were a bit odd to her. Ponies carried their loved ones in their heart. They didn’t need to visit corpses. “Yes,” the boys both said at the same time. Sunset moved to the next thing on her mental checklist. “Visited Lilly’s grave?” she asked. Just because corpse appreciation wasn’t a pony thing, but she wasn’t going to step on their traditions. “Yes,” they both said again, slightly more annoyed. “Got the traveling supplies?” she went on. “Yes Mom,” the both said at the same time...again. “HEY!” Sunset yelled. “I’m not THAT much older than the two of you!” Asta gave her a grin while Yuno...well, he didn’t do much...but it seemed a bit less than before. “Alright Sister Lilly, the next time I come back, I’m going to be the Wizard King!” Asta yelled over to the grave markers. Yuno...turned and started walking. “Hey,” Sunset said as she quickly moved to catch up with him. “Everything okay?” The taller boy spared the girl a look and tensed, then let it go with a sigh. “We’re fixing to leave everything I’ve ever known for as far back as I can remember to go to a place I’ve only heard about. Does that sound like I should be okay to you?” Sunset reached over and took his hand. The human body was a mess of failings, but bipedal locomotion at least allowed for some kind of continuing contact. “It sounds like you’re nervous,” she said. “Nervous about new things is good. If you weren’t-” “OUTTA THE WAY SLOWPOKES, I GOTTA HURRY UP AND BE THE WIZARD KING!” The female of the trio sighed and barely kept her head from falling as she watched the boy race past her. “You’d be Asta,” she said after a moment of watching him run down the road. Yuno looked back at her. “Should we try and catch up to him?” “We will, and pass him. Pacing yourself is what’s important when traveling distances.” And so began the journey of a thousand pains in Sunset’s ass… -Night 1- The one good thing about the church being destroyed was that Sunset and the boys could make use of the resources that had been left behind. So when it came time to leave, they were able to pack the sleeping bags that the church had for the children that needed to stay extra warm in the winter. But of course, the boy’s found a problem when it came time to sleep… “Damnit Sunset, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!” Asta shouted. From the place where she had put out her sleeping bag and undressed before crawling into it, the girl crossed her arms under her breasts in a way that pushed them up just a little. “No way, I’m forced to wear clothes all day. I’m sleeping naked. End of story.” “Yuno, you’re the ladies man, back me up here,” Asta demanded. Facing away from the other two in his sleeping bag, the taller boy groaned. “Asta, when have you ever actually seen me go on a date?” Not to be deterred by something as silly as logic, Asta just kept going. “That’s beside the point! She’s a girl! She shouldn’t be naked around us.” A second later, Secre landed in the middle of the three sleeping bags. “You know, for a guy who has a naked girl riding around on your head all the time, you sure picked an odd time to be bashful.” Asta blinked. “...I’m going to go to bed, and hope I just forget I ever heard that.” -Day 3- Asta knew that Sunset was more than a bit weird. She didn’t wear clothes whenever she could get away with it, had a thing against meat he still didn’t understand after just about two years of living with her, and she had some crazy ideas about how the world worked that just didn’t make sense. If everyone was made up of Adams, then why didn’t they look the same? However, the way she had been acting for the last few minutes was...just plain freaky. We’ve got to run along Off to the future ahead We’ll take it all on, no matter what Might try to stop us! “Okay...I’m confused,” Asta said while Yuno looked around with a frown as their sister sang and danced, going on two-and-a-half-minutes. There was a flutter of wings before Secre landed on the boy’s head and sighed. “Yeah, Starswirl did this one time too,” she told them. “Just try to roll with it.” So you can be someone! Just like the hero that was in my head I know someday, I’ll find a way to write down the next page! Yuno let out an annoyed groan as he continued to search the empty sky. “Where’s the music coming from?” -Night 4- Sunset sat in the nice, warm, relaxing bath that she had made with a combination of earth, fire, and water magics. After so many days of travel, a good, long soak was exactly what she needed. Unfortunately, it was a pleasure that two of her other travel companions didn’t look like they wanted to take part in. “Get in the water,” she ordered the boys. Yuno was all the way turned around while Asta looked up at the sky. “N-No thanks, we...we’re good,” the shorter boy told her. A growl escaped Sunset’s throat. “We’ve been traveling four days straight. You’re both dirty and you stink! NOW GET IN THE WATER!” She shouted before resorting to drastic measures. There was a loud pop next to Asta before Yuno’s clothes, that were now vacant of the boy in question, fell to the ground before he appeared above the water and fell into it. As for Asta, he found himself floating in the air and his grimoire surrounded by a shield bubble before he could stop himself from being stripped of everything but his underwear and brought into the bath as well. Then Sunset held up her hand to collect all of the dirt that had washed off her boys with the use of some earth magic and threw the muddy ball of muck out of the water to help keep it clean. “There,” she said happily before leaning back against the edge of her bath. “Was that so hard?” “I see your control over Unicornian magic has improved,” Secre said from her place near the campfire, where the rest of their things were set up. Yuno let out a groan and turned around to look in the opposite direction of his big sister that was actually shorter than him. “Wash my back.” “Sure thing baby brother!” Sunset said happily before fetching a rag from their supplies with her magic. Asta copied Yuno and looked in the opposite direction of Sunset from his side, which meant he was facing the opposite direction of the other boy. “Okay...I’m just going to have to ask, what is your deal with NOT wearing clothes?” he demanded. “I don’t even think you’ve put on a bra since we left Hage.” “She hasn’t,” Yuno confirmed while Sunset scrubbed his back, blushing as he did so. Sunset blinked before she reached down to cup her breasts with her hands, leaving the wash cloth on Yuno’s shoulder. They had grown a little in the time she had come to Clover Kingdom, and she may have put on an inch or two of height as well, but they weren’t so big she needed something to help hold them up. “Eh, I don’t see the point of the things. Or a lot of the stuff you guys wear, for that matter.” Socks and boots made sense, and maybe something to cover the skin, because humans tended to burn when exposed to the sun for too long, but something like a poncho would easily solve that. “THE POINT IS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WEAR CLOTHES!” Asta yelled as he turned around, then froze, as Sunset was facing him with her bare body. Rolling her eyes at the non-argument, Sunset used some earth magic to create a little bench against the back of their makeshift bathtub before sitting down, putting everything below her shoulders in the water. “That doesn’t explain anything. I can understand needing to protect yourself from the cold and the sun, but going indoors solves a lot of those problems. Back where I come from, wearing clothes was a rarity.” “...that explains a lot,” Yuno finally said as both the boys momentarily froze at the idea of an entire country of nudists. “And stop asking for Asta to use logic. You know all his brain power went to his muscles.” Sunset looked over to the taller boy. “Okay then, you give me a good explanation. I did my best not to stand out at the church, but now that I can talk to the two of you without anyone I care about overhearing, I wanna know.” “I’m pretty sure Father Orsi said something about it,” Asta mumbled as Yuno remained silent. “...men and women only get naked when they want to...copulate,” the taller boy finally said with some difficulty. After a few seconds of processing the nonsensical answer, Sunset rolled her eyes again. “Well don’t worry, baby brother. I’m not going to be having sex with you or anyone else, any time soon,” she assured the boy. Sunset’s human hormones might have said that the naked apes were good for breeding, but her pony brain put a big X over that option. “So come and sit down or give me a good reason why you’re just standing there. And if you’re just uncomfortable with it, that can just be solved with some familiarity.” Yuno stood at his end of the bath for several more seconds before finally taking a seat as far away from Sunset as he could get, which was only a few inches. Space that Sunset made disappear a second later, when she began to wash his face off. “I can take care of that.” “Awww!” Sunset pouted before moving over to Asta and fetching another cloth with a bit of magic to slap on his bag and start rubbing. “The two of you are the only ones left I get to take care of.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Sunset knew she had said the wrong thing.  All three teenagers tensed for a moment. “Sorry,” she said. Asta groaned. “No. You don’t have to apologize,” he told her before moving back to the bench to sit down. Taking it as an apology, Sunset created another outcropping on the other side of the bath to sit on. “Um...so…” she looked down at the water, unsure of what to say. There were plenty of things not to say, though. Unwritten rules Sunset had become very good at figuring out. She had needed to in order to fit in. Never talk about what happened. Don’t talk about any of the other orphans. Nash was okay to discuss though, he was still around. Talking about specific events at the orphanage was also forbidden. So, Sunset just said the first thing that popped into her head to end the silence. “I love you.” Both of the boys blinked and stopped looking in her direction to actually focus on her, making Sunset go on. “Not...you know, husband and wife thing, but...sister...I guess?” she said, fumbling around with the logic of it all and looked down into the water at herself. “Huh...now that I think about it, that’s the first time I’ve ever said those words.” At least, said them while knowing the weight behind them. Sunset wasn’t certain, but she might have told the same thing to Celestia when she was so young they didn’t have any real meaning. “Well,” Asta said, just as uneasy as Sunset. “Those aren’t the kind of words you just say all the time, you know.” Yuno slid down into the water until he could lean his head back on the rock behind him. “Maybe they should be,” he mumbled. “I don’t think I told any of the kids that for years. Or Sister Lilly.” “It’s not like they didn’t know,” Asta told him, and himself, most likely. “But, it’s nice to be reminded,” Sunset said. Or just plain told, she thought to herself. Looking back on her life before coming to the Clover Kingdom, Sunset felt a little odd. Ponies were an affectionate species. Hugs were given out like candy to casual friends. Sunset had seen this for herself from the window in her room when she hit a roadblock with her lesson and needed to clear her head. A little shame entered her heart as she remembered her mindset back then, looking down at the ponies just walking down the street as if they were inferior to her. She had been one of them at the start of her life. Worse than them, in fact. Sunset had been an orphan. Nobody had wanted her. Even her own parents had thrown her away. Princess Celestia...well, Sunset had thought the mare was willing to be the pony she wanted the alicorn to be, but that ended up not being the case. With so long separating them and a little more perspective, Sunset still didn’t know if it was because Celestia had just never seen her that way, or had found something wrong with Sunset. Or why she even cared if Celestia did disapprove of her. The old nag wasn’t even a part of her life anymore. So why did it matter to her now? “Please answer me if you are still alive.” Sunset grit her teeth. It wasn’t fair that her memory of the fat horse was so complete that she could remember Celestia talking words she never actually said. And her stupid memory was making Celestia say it like she was hurt or something. A tone she never really used. Curse her traitorous imagination! Celestia wasn’t in her room, crying, thinking of all the things she had done wrong, looking over a book with her cutie mark on the cover, tears falling from her eyes as she waited in vain for a message that never came. She had never once acted anything like she cared for Sunset. Ever. It was always, rules, duty, lessons, friendship with a bunch of self-important assholes as she played the ‘do what I say, not what I do’ card on a daily basis.  Even their special tea times had become ‘this is what you’re doing wrong despite following all of my orders’ speeches by the end.  It had just been a trick! A pathetic ploy by an old nag too scared to come and get Sunset herself. “So uh…” Asta spoke up after what Sunset realized had been a long pause. “We supposed to say anything now or…” Yuno groaned. “After you asked something like that? I’m pretty sure the moment’s been ruined.” A giggle escaped Sunset’s lips and she looked up to her baby brothers. “Well, I already said it so nah!” she teased them before getting up to take a step forward and wrapping her arms around her boys. Then, just to add insult to injury, she leaned over to kiss Yuno on the cheek. Since ponies didn’t really do that sort of thing too much, what with the hair and all, Sunset found it an interesting experience. His skin was smooth, and the Summer air combined with the heat from the bath had brought some sweat out to add a salty flavor that did not endure her to the process of putting lips to flesh. Still, she finished with the tall boy and moved on to the other one before he could get away. Like before, Sunset pressed her lips to the shorter human’s skin and… “Gah!” the not-unicorn exclaimed as she backed up and grabbed the rag floating in the water, tossed aside by one of the boys to cover the offending child’s head. “Asta, wash your face!” -Day 5- “Hey Yuno, you ever wonder why we see the top of stuff before we see the bottom whenever you’re walking up to it from a long way off?” Yuno looked over to his little brother, then back to the mountain range that they were headed towards. “Not really.” From her perch on top of his head, Secre stood up a little straighter. “You’d see it a lot sooner if you could fly.” Since the last member of their group hadn’t said anything, Asta looked over to her. “Hey Sunset, do you know-” “We’re not having this conversation,” Sunset told him firmly. “...huh?” Asta asked. Sunset stopped and looked over to the boy. “Look, you basically just asked the ‘where do babies come from?’ question of archaic civilizations,” she told him. “And I don’t want to get excommunicated, burned at the stake, or answer any stupid questions like ‘why don’t we fall off into the sky then, Sunset? Why don’t we fall off into the sky?’. So you know what? Ask God when you die.” -Day 6- The winding mountain path ahead of her made Sunset groan. Although flying via magic without a medium to channel the energy through usually ended up costing more mana than it was worth when it came to traveling long distances, like running full out instead of pacing oneself, it looked very tempting when they started their trek up the mountain. But before she could tell them this was one of the rare instances that they needed to put forth maximum effort, a boar came out from the bushed near them and charged. It was another reminder how different her world was from the new one. Back in Equestria, even carnivorous animals didn’t really bother ponies all that much. There were some that would make a big show of things and beat their proverbial chest before chasing a pony off with a messed up coat, but that was all that really happened. They understood that ponies were critical to the balance of the world, and only what could be called monsters, which were simply animals mutated by dark or chaotic magics, did more than rough up an Equestrian. Here, animals would kill. They cared about territory, but intruders to that territory were usually wounded in a fatal way rather than simply chased off. There was no basic understanding, just primal instincts that they acted on. It had taken Sunset some time to learn that little fact. And even after figuring out most animals would sooner kill you than just ward you off with a stare, the former unicorn still found herself hesitant to attack them. Which was why Asta, who already had his sword out because he wanted to get some extra strength training in, was able to just jump in and hit the thing so hard Sunset heard a loud snap before it fell to the ground. However, the single blow wasn’t enough to kill it, and the beast was soon letting out screams of confused shock as it thrashed its head about while the rest of its body either refused to move, or didn’t move correctly. “Oh God! J-Just finish it off!” Sunset demanded as she covered her ears to the cries and closed her eyes while her heart thundered in her chest. When it was over a few seconds later, the touch of Yuno’s hand made her look up and put her hands back to her side. “You okay?” “Hey come on,” Asta tried to say in something approaching a sympathetic voice. “It charged at me.” Sunset sighed as her heart started to slow down. “I know, I just…” she looked away, not sure of how to explain it. On an intellectual level, it was a simple matter. The boar had attacked, Asta had defended himself. End of story. But...the creature’s screams… And they wonder why I frown at them eating meat, Sunset told herself. “We should probably stop a bit early today,” Yuno said before looking over to Sunset for a moment. “And, we shouldn’t let the boar go to waste.” “...I suppose not,” she agreed.  It was already dead after all. Not eating it would be...wrong. Right? “Well, duh,” Asta told them before dropping his backpack. “So uh, which knife is good for getting all the skin off?” Not wanting to throw up, Sunset looked around for a distraction. “I’m going to go get some wood for a fire and uh...go pee or...something,” she said. “Translation,” Secre provided after landing near the put off boys. “I’m not really looking for wood. But don’t follow us, idiots.” Sunset learned what she meant by us when the bird came flapping after her not long after. In truth, Sunset didn’t know what she was doing, she just pushed her way through some bushes that didn’t do anything to hurt the leathery pants she had on. That was when she found the boar’s lair. Little more than a large hole in the ground with a bit of elevation at the back to help stop any rain from washing him out. There were no little baby piglets, thank goodness. That would have been a little too much for her Equestrian sensibilities. Although, her eyes spotted how the boar had managed to survive when travelers to this area were on the rare side. The rocks around its home were covered in a green, mossy slime. Despite the stupidity of it all, Sunset actually found herself thinking about going back to the boys in order to save them from being marked as corpse eaters for the rest of their lives. “Hey guys good news, you don’t have to eat meat, look at what I found. We can survive by licking slime from the rocks. We can live off slime!” Not that they weren’t already guilty of what was considered to be one of the absolute worst things a creature could do in pony society. Lilly had happily told Sunset about one time in the past someone had given her meat in payment for healing. “You know, if you went and told them what you were, they probably wouldn’t look at you like you were crazy every time someone brings up the idea of cooking something that used to move around under its own power,” Secre said after Sunset found a good place to sit down. Sunset snorted. “Yeah, that conversation isn’t going to make things even weirder between us.” Humans couldn’t even get along with each other. The chances of them getting chummy with a completely different kind of creature? Never going to happen. “But here you are, going to the center of human civilization in the Clover Kingdom. Do you have any idea how many tons of animal meat is cooked inside that city every day?” Secre asked, which made Sunset pull in on herself a little bit. “Can you guess how badly your nose is going to get assaulted when we’re there?” Since the bird was misunderstanding her, Sunset felt to clarify something. “It’s not the smell I mind,” the not-unicorn grumbled. She had never even smelled cooking meat before coming to the Clover Kingdom. In truth, that was actually a little pleasant. “It’s like...oh God, it’s like my version of being naked. Isn’t it?” After thinking about it for a moment, Secre shrugged. “Well, I can’t really make that call since I honestly don’t know enough about your society.” “Well, you know we’re equines, don’t call us horses cause it’s an insult, that use magic to control every aspect of our environment down to the weather, right?” Sunset asked. Once she got a nod, the girl went on. “So, we don’t really need to wear clothes. Unless it’s the most drastic cold, we’re pretty good. For us, clothes are quite literally a statement made with fashion. That statement being, look how much money I have.” “You know humans like to do that with what they wear too, right?” Secre deadpanned. Sunset threw up her hands. “And I always hated that about clothing,” she ranted. “I lived in a freaking palace, and I had three dresses, three! It doesn’t matter what you’ve got to cover your coat, the only thing that makes you worth anything is what you can do with your horn. But now here I am, prancing around in clothes every bucking day after getting kicked out of the only home I had ever known for over ten years because somebody didn’t want me around anymore!” “Oh, this is one of your getting things off your chest rants,” Secre said. “...are you done?” After taking a deep breath and holding it for five seconds, Sunset let it out before not breathing anything in for another two. Then she looked down at the bird. “I guess,” she mumbled before standing back up. “Come on. I got enough things swirling around in my gut. I don’t need to add being hypocritical to them.” By the time she had gotten back to the boys, they had managed to find some sticks to build a fire and were roasting meat they had carved off of the animal over it using a makeshift spit. The piece of meat was larger than both of them combined. Just the sight of it made Sunset tense. Which in turn had her wondering if that was what the boy’s felt when she flashed them her boobs. “So um...hey,” she said nervously. But, before they could get into any proper resolution… “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Secre shouted at she flew down and flapped her wings in order to hover in front of the boys angrily. “Don’t you idiots know anything about cooking boar! Do you want to get sick? There’s no way a fire of that size is going to cook that pork all the way through! Not to mention the juices that are going to seep into any outside piece you cut off that does manage to not poison you!” The moment delayed, Sunset found herself a seat while the old bird went on, instructing the boys how to properly cut the dead animal apart while the former pony forced herself to watch. It was easier, now that the corpse no longer looked like the animal it had been. She idly wondered what the boys had done with the rest of the body and if she should push for trying to use all of the animal as a small justification for its death, or just let it go for practicality sake since Sunset couldn’t think of a use for the bones, while she knew they didn’t have the means of treating the animal skin properly do it didn’t decay too quickly, not to mention stink. In the end, she went with the self defense moral defense. The boar had attacked Asta, and he had killed it as quickly as he could after injuring it to the point where it could no longer live its life properly. Equestrians might have tried to heal the animal, but they just didn’t have the resources to do that. And who was to say that it wouldn’t attack and kill the next traveler? Sunset asked herself before clenching her fists and bringing things to a halt before she could go to the next thought in that line. Doing mental gymnastics to turn what happened in a heroic act was a damn slippery slope. After the boys had finished following the bird’s instructions, Sunset watched the meat cook with a bit of morbid fascination. Why does it have to smell so good? she asked herself before they took the first pieces off, then cut them apart to examine them better and make sure the color had changed properly. Then, came time for them to eat. At which point Sunset came by to take a piece and hold it in her hand. It felt...odd, and hot. “So uh...you guys are probably wondering why I’ve got a thing against meat.” Asta got an odd look on his face and far off look in his eyes for a second, like he was thinking about something else before he shrugged. “Nah. After the way you acted when the boar died, I kind of get it.” “It crossed my mind before now, yes,” Yuno added as he held his piece of meat on a long knife and took a bite out of it. Sunset found a seat on the rocky path and took in a breath. It was weird to try and think of a way to explain things to the boys since...it was just taken at face value. She could explain why the sky was blue, how the light from the sun is scattered after hitting the atmosphere, with blue being the color that gets sent around the most thanks to its particular wavelength. That was a provable fact. Even their own nudity taboo could be summed up as naked equals time to mate, so keep your pants on. The Equestrian hesitation for not eating meat was...harder. And it wasn’t just because Sunset used to be a little pony. “So...the land I came from, things were a lot more bountiful there,” she began, trying to give a bit of needed background. “We didn’t really have a Forsaken Realm, although there were plenty of commoners. And they had a...talent, you could call it, for working the land. Because of that, we didn’t really need to kill animals to feed ourselves. Everything we needed was grown. Killing another living thing just to go on living when there were other options wasn’t something anyone considered right. Don’t get me wrong, we had controls in place to make sure the dangerous animal population didn’t get out of control, but it wasn’t anything really...inhumane.” Asta stopped eating for a moment and looked down at his food. “You don’t like killing. I can understand that.” “It’s not like we’re going to force you to-” Before Yuno could talk her out of it, Sunset put the chunk of burned animal carcass in her mouth. It...didn’t taste bad, per se. It was...tender? Was that the word she was looking for? A bit chewier than expected. Not much...juice, wasn’t there supposed to be blood or something? Where were the bones you could choke on? When Sunset looked back up at the boys staring at her and moved her eyes away from them. “Yeah well...if you guys can take a bath with me from now on...I can eat corpses with you,” she told them reluctantly. “That’s fair...right?” “We didn’t agree to that,” Yuno told her. Sunset snorted. “Well now you have. Now come up with something else to talk about, because thinking about this too much will make me puke.” Mereoleona Vermillion, the Unconquered Lioness and member of the Crimson Lions sat in the steaming spring she had found two days ago while cutting through the mountains on the border of the Forsaken Realm while on her way up north on a mission. Her brother had gotten some odd reports about a town out in the middle of nowhere experiencing trouble and thought it best to send her to check it out based on what the magistrate had sent them. Because the spring she found was on a large ledge that didn’t connect to the ground or any other part of the mountain path that everyone else could reach without the ability of flight, the young woman had dropped her guard and allowed someone to sneak up on her. No, she thought while focusing her senses to detect in incoming mana better. Two someones. Powerful, and coming in fast. The redheaded woman jumped out of the pool she had been heating with her own mana and spun around while gathering an attack in her hand to launch a fireball right as what her mana senses told her was a wind user to explode directly beneath him as him and his partner just went over the tip of the mountain above her. It was a move Mereoleona had discovered almost by accident during years of combat. If the air around a wind mage was heated, they tended to lose altitude for a few seconds and needed to reorient themselves. Which caused an opening, unless they were extremely skilled. However, Mereoleona didn’t follow up her opening move when she saw the three teenagers drop out of the sky a moment after her flames dissipated. She simply stood there in confusion as a pair of kids that had enough mana to be mistaken for Diamond Kingdom generals and a third she didn’t sense at all worked together to get things under control. The girl showered the air beneath them with cold water before the boy that was obviously a wind user created another miniature tornado that slowed their descent to the point the three of them landed just fine, right as the third member of their pulled out a black sword from his grimoire that looked like it weighed more than he did. “OKAY, WHO IN THE-GAAAAH!” the shortest of the trio, a boy with gray hair in a headband, shrieked. “Lady, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!” As Shorty was still looking around, before he shouted, the wind user pulled out his grimoire, and the girl began to coalesce the mana around her into a tighter defensive posture.  What? Mereoleona asked herself while she watched the girl form a very crude mana skin. Something nobody her age should have been anywhere close to making.  Since the newcomers didn’t attack and it didn’t look like there was going to be a fight, with two of the strangers so put off by her lack of dress that they could barely even look at her, Mereoleona crossed her arms. “No.” The other boy looked to the girl. “What is it with you redheads and walking around naked all the time?” “Oh for crying out loud,” the redhead in the group grumbled. “I JUST SLEEP WITHOUT CLOTHES ON...these days.” Mereoleona blinked at the oddity of the whole thing. They obviously weren’t enemies, but the fact they were coming from the North when she was so close to the Forsaken Realm wasn’t lost on her either. She was practically in the longitudinal center of the Clover Kingdom. Any incursions would have been coming from the West, where the Diamond Kingdom shared a border with them.  Then there was the oddity of their mana. Kids with the level she was seeing appeared maybe once in a generation, the odds of two of them together was mind boggling. And the third kid went from odd to downright freakish when Mereoleona checked him over multiple times and found nothing. Judging by the sword he had just pulled out of his grimoire, it wasn’t because of some anti-detection magic that was used for something as cowardly as assassinations, the boy simply didn’t have any mana. “Hey, where the hell did you brats come from?” she asked while feeling out for her grimoire that was still by the mountain spring with her own magic in preparation to summon it to her. The boy with the gray hair opened his mouth. “We’re…” then he just stopped before frowning down at himself and grumbling something Mereoleona couldn’t quite hear. When that was all she got, Mereoleona felt her very short supply of patience take a nose drive. “I ASKED YOU KIDS A QUESTION!” “Isn’t the one who asks for something like that supposed to give her name first?” the kid with the black hair pointed out. As the oddity of the situation hit her, with these brats with impossible levels of mana meeting Mereoleona in the middle of nowhere, not having any idea of who she was despite looks that should have given it away immediately, and a magical novice calling her on a lack of manners, the Crimson Lioness threw her head back and laughed before looking back at the children. “You know what, you’re right! I like you kids. My name’s Mereoleona Vermillion. I’m a Magic Knight of the Clover Kingdom.” No reaction came from her family name, but the kids loosened the grip on their tension and introduced themselves simply as Yuno, Asta, and Sunset. Then the girl stepped forward and offered her hand in greeting while the boys, free from the assumption that Mereoleona was a threat, quickly turned their eyes to another direction from her. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. We’re on our way to take the Magic Knight Exam,” she said in a much more friendly manner. There was no lie in her eyes, but the absurdity of someone not knowing who a member of a royal family after being introduced seemed ludicrous. “Where are you kids from?” Mereoleona asked before taking the girl’s hand. She intended to give it a firm shake, but the feeling the older redhead was getting stopped her. The girl’s mana felt...different. Not wrong, per say, but not like other people she had felt before. It had a calming, almost friendly presence that Mereoleona would have thought was trying to ensnare her in some way if it didn’t feel so damn benign. It rolled off and around her own aura, almost like the girl’s magic was greeting the woman’s mana as well. “Hage Village,” Sunset told her. Mereoleona tightened her grip on the girls hand. “The town where General Ragus was supposed to have been offed by a pair of brats after blowing away a church?” After a few seconds, Sunset blinked. “Who?” It was nearly dusk as the woman with the fit body and slender facial features that had introduced herself as Mereoleona threw her head back and laughed at the ending to Sunset’s story as they sat in the unnatural hot spring that the woman was heating with her magic. “So, you’re telling me that idiot Ragus shot right at a weapon that reflects magic and got fried by his own attack?” she asked before erupting into laughter again. “Oh man! What I wouldn’t have given to see that.” “Hey!” Sunset growled. “I just got done telling you how most of the people I care about are dead. You can try to use a little tact!” Mereoleona stared at her for a second, then reached up to rub the bridge of her nose. “Right,” she said before looking back at the girl. “Sorry about that. Spending so much time away from other people makes me forget all my manners, not just the stupid ones. I’ll offer my apologies to the dead when I get to Hage as well.” Sunset looked over to the sleeping form of the boys with an even expression. After meeting the woman and making introductions, there was some sharing of information as just what had happened in Hage and why it was taking her this long to get there since the trouble had been so long ago. Instead of being angry with Sunset, Mereoleona gave the girl the sad truth. There just weren’t enough magic knights to send way out there to a sparsely populated place like Hage, with its natural defenses to the north and no important resources. The only reason she was even going was because the guy that had gotten offed was some important bigwig in the enemy kingdom, and if there was something else going on, like Diamond creating some kind of staging area, Mereoleona was to scout out the area and report back. Then came the smalltalk, with Asta declaring that he would be the Wizard King, and directions given by the woman to make sure they were going in the right direction. Secre said she attended the Exam every year to look for trouble in the kingdom and listen to the captains gossip, but getting directions on where to go from a bird when their airtime was limited was just begging for trouble. Which led to it being dinner time and the boy’s remembering the large piece of meat they had to leave back on the ground because the giant boar Asta had had more meat on it than all three of them combined. So, Mereoleona offered to teach the kids how to preserve their food, which took the rest of the day and led to them spending the night halfway on the other side of the mountain. By eight o’clock, Yuno was tired out enough to sleep and Asta had worn himself out as well, deciding to train his muscles if they were stuck in one place for the night. As for Sunset, she found herself considering the first real magic knight that she had ever met for most of the day, studying her as Mereoleona examined Asta out of curiosity and had him hit a fireball with his weapon before also cutting it. The end result of which was that she hadn’t been nearly as tired and joined the woman in the spring after the sun set. “Mind if I ask you something personal?” Sunset asked hesitantly as she sunk into the water a little. Mereoleona leaned back against the rocks and snorted. “Only if you stop asking if you can ask questions and just grow some balls so you can ask them right out.” The woman’s crude response got a groan from Sunset before she sat back up. “Why did you join the Magic Knights, and why is someone like you way out here in the sticks?” “That’s two questions, but at least you didn’t ask for permission again. That’s an improvement, I suppose,” she replied before her eyes got that look human’s did when they weren’t really looking where their eyes were facing, but into the past. “Why I joined the Knights pretty much boiled down to the fact I had power and power and wanted to throw it around. But as to why I’m here...it’s because I’m a coward.” Sunset blinked at the unexpected answer from the woman. “Come again?” Mereoleona snorted. “There are plenty of cowards in the world, kid. Not all of us cower in a corner when the shit hits the fan,” she said before looking down at the water. “It’s not bragging to say that I might be one of the most powerful Magic Knights alive, but I got problems with my temper and tend to blow up when I get pissed off...literally. I burned down my family estate during a heated argument with my brother. When my family tried to make me a magic knight captain, I got out of there as fast as I could and only come back for holidays and other important things. I can’t stand the politics of being in charge. But instead of trying to face my problems and better myself, I just ran out here to punch things and patrol the border.” Then she looked back up at the younger redhead. “So why’re you joining the Magic Knights? People don’t ask a question like that unless they’re either looking for an answer outside themselves, or are hitting on me,” Mereoleona replied as she put her arms up on the rocks behind her, making her chest stick out a little more. “Not that I mind, but you’re a little young for my tastes.” The casual comment about her sexuality was tossed aside by Sunset without batting an eye as she focused on the real question. “Well...that’s the thing,” she said before looking up into the sky. “When I agreed to do this whole magic knight thing, I had a specific goal in mind. Being a knight was just a stepping stone to that. But the more I walk towards that goal, the more I see it as not really being my goal. I’m just doing what other people want me to do...like always.” “Hey,” Mereoleona said. “You can’t just leave me hanging like that you know. I hate it when people lay out a piece of verbal bait like that and don’t follow up on it.” Sunset wiggled her toes in the warm water, enjoying the feeling of the alien appendages as she tried to think of the best way of explaining things. “Well, Yuno and Asta were telling the truth when they said we were all orphans. The part they didn’t say was that I wasn’t really an orphan for as long as them. Back where I come from, I was taken in by another woman around the age of six. She was rich and powerful, and gave me an education. The people under her domain are happy and lead productive lives. I’ve seen her pardon criminals for all but the worst crimes. But...I found out something about her, that she had been lying to me my whole life and when I demanded what I thought was rightfully mine at the time, she kicked me out of the mansion and I ran away using a spatial magic item that dropped me off in Hage Village.” The seconds of silence that followed became a minute, then two, and then several. Mereoleona just stared at Sunset and the girl found herself wilting under her piercing gaze until she sunk back into the water up to her chin. “What was it you wanted?” she finally asked. “I wanted…” Sunset froze before she could finish the sentence and dropped her head. “I wanted her to love me. I wanted her to prove it by giving me power and authority equal to hers. Looking back, I...didn’t say it in the best of ways, but Celestia is old enough to have known that. And she still just kicked me out of her house, telling me to go live in the nearby town.” “...you’re not from the Clover Kingdom, are you?” Mereoleona asked as her eyes narrowed. Sunset simply shook her head in response. “Heart Kingdom...maybe? Talks about love and junk enough,” the Magic Knight went on, mumbling more to herself than asking Sunset. “Eh, who cares?” She looked back up to the girl. “Well, least it explains your personality. You’ve been a good little girl who’s gotten a pat on her head her whole life, never being taught to think for yourself, because the moment you did, the moment you saw your owner as something other than perfect, she kicks you out.” With such a harsh summarization of what hat happened, Sunset frowned at Mereolenoa. What the hell did this woman know about anything? “That’s not what happened!” Mereoleona snorted again and her frown deepened. “Oh really? Okay, so I’ve got a theory. Tell me if I’m wrong here. This Celestia lady, she’s running her fiefdom, and one day comes across you as a little brat. Seeing the amount of mana you got, she goes ‘Crap! This kid’s going to be a real powerhouse some day, and since I’m such a spinster, I better snatch up the bastard to make use of her’. Maybe those uses would have been good ones, I don’t know,” the woman told Sunset with a shrug. “Celestia’s nice to you, she might even be a nice person in general. You said she’s a good noble that helps her people, so I’ll take you at your word since I never met her. But there’s a big difference between being nice to your attack dog and letting it eat at the family table.” “HEY!” Sunset yelled before standing up in the water with a clenched fist at the insult to...her? Celestia? She wasn’t really sure. “What? Don’t like me talking bad about the woman who did things like make sure you can read and write, do math, and all that other stuff on top of magical training?” Mereoleona asked rhetorically before going right on. “Good! You should feel thankful to her for all those things. But from what I can tell, this wannabe mom of yours was no saint when it came to actually raising you. She gives you a good foundation, but doesn’t teach you anything you need to live on your own. You get kicked out of the house, but with no money or anything else, you would have been forced to live in the land she controlled. Hell, she probably expected you to come crawling back after finding lumps in the local bed and flies in the soup.” Her anger starting to crumble at the logic of the argument, Sunset let her butt rest against the warm stones that surrounded the natural hot spring. “But...that’s not...Celestia’s too a good person for that,” she said without much heat in her voice. Mereoleona sighed. “Good people can do bad things, especially when they have a reason they think is good to do it under,” she explained. “I’m gonna be honest. Just from looking at you kid, you’re fucking terrifying. You and that brat with the black hair have as much mana I’ve seen from kids your age and your skills are nowhere near fully developed. Five years or less and the two of you will be walking all over Knight Captains if you get the right kind of training under your belts. If I had to point to the next Wizard King, it would be either you or him.” “Heh,” Yuno’s the one who wants to be the Wizard King,” she said before sinking back into the bath with a little smile at how him and Asta would fight over that. Which...she didn’t remember them doing on the trip, so far. Was that something she needed to be worried about? “Which brings me back to my original question before you decided to deflect me into talking about your wannabe mommy,” Mereoleona asked her, being as forward as anyone possibly could. Sunset looked away and rubbed her arm. “I told you, I’m just...doing it because other people want me to.” “That’s not an answer!” Mereoleona snapped at the girl. “You don’t walk through miles of untamed wilderness, on your way to a test where a ton of mages stare down in judgement at you just because someone else tells you to! A person with that level of conviction would have run back home before nightfall!” The home comment made Sunset clench her fists. “But I don’t have a home anymore! I got kicked out of my first one, and the second I had found some happiness in the second, some bastard mage came along and burned it down with most of the people I love still inside” she yelled back at the woman. “And those two idiots you tried to barbecue are the only two that made it out!” Mereoleona smirked a little before she leaned back again. “So, you want to stick with your family.” “There all I have left,” she mumbled as the anger inside of her slowly seeped out. Nash was little more than a walking doll at this point, and Father Orisi had never really been that special to her. “Yuno and Asta are the ones that want to be the Wizard King, I just...want to be with them.” After a few seconds of silence, Mereoleona smirked. “So, you’re exactly where you should be. That’s good.” Sunset blinked and looked up at the woman as she stood up in the water. “Huh?” “Kid, you’re fifteen,” Mereoleona told her. “If you actually knew what the hell you wanted to do with the rest of your damn life, I’d be worried. Sure, those two brats you’re palling around with got big aspirations, but wanting to be number one and knowing the path you’re supposed to take to get there are two very different things. There’s a reason we only have a single spell in our grimoires when we get them. Life doesn’t come with instructions, you figure it out as you go along. “You want to keep the people precious to you safe? That’s admirable. Going with them to help them achieve their dreams is even moreso,” she went on. “But while you’re holding onto those ideals, trying to figure out what it is that’s going to make you even more happy when you do it yourself. Then see if you can reach out to grab it while you’re sticking to the path you’re on now, or if you’ll need to let the boys go their own way while you chase after what you really want.” When it looked like Mereoleona had finished, Sunset gave her a little smile as she stood up out of the water. “Thanks for the advice, Ms Mereolenoa,” she said as the other woman got out of the water and simply burned off the water clinging to her with a fiery aura. Since she was still trying to look like she had an icy aura, Sunset just used water manipulation to pull off the moisture clinging to her skin before getting her things. Her eyes wandered to the woman’s bright red grimoire, the only type of spellbook that she hadn’t seen with creation magic tied into its pages, as a farming community tended to have earth magic users aplenty. It was just too tempting. “Say, mind if I have a peek at your grimoire?” Sunset asked sweetly. The older redhead gave her a curious scowl. “Why?” Sunset blinked at the question, not sure of how to answer. She didn’t want to lie to the woman, but telling the truth wasn’t really an option either. “Well...I guess it’s for...inspiration,” she finally explained, walking the careful line between truth and fiction. “Plus, I like to look at the illustrations. And seeing how many spells you’ve got is a good measuring stick to see how long a newbie like me has to go.” Which was the truth. Spells were easier to learn with an example to go off of. “Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit. But here,” the woman said before tossing her book to Sunset. “It’s not like you can burn the damn thing.” It was well before dawn as Mereoleona stood over the three travelers she had run into on her way to Hage Village, which probably didn’t need her to go there anymore. But she had made a promise to the redhead to apologize to her family, so there was still a reason to go. After spending a day with the children, she could see that they were holding up great. And that was the problem. Kids their age shouldn’t have been just getting on fine after losing everything. If Mereoleona was going to have to visit the graves of a bunch of kids who had looked up to these three and the woman who had taken care of them, then she would need to make sure that she had done everything possible to ensure that they weren’t a bunch of ticking time bombs of pent of grief that was going to turn to rage and blow up in everyone’s faces. Of course, Mereoleona had noticed a few odd things. Two years was a long time to obsess over some bitch that kicked you out after you found a replacement for her, and while she tried to hide it, Sunset did her best to not look at the dried jerky that the magic knight had made for them while explaining how to do it. Considering that her family had been cooked by lightning magic, Mereoleona could understand her wish to avoid things that reminded her. Out of the three, she was probably the closest to actually dealing with what had happened. Yuno was withdrawn. She had seen his type before, the cool kid that hid everything that went through his mind and tried to be as stoic as possible. He would be the one to hold the most in until it was ready to blow. When people like him broke, they broke hard. As for Asta...from what she could tell, he was in denial. He had plenty of practice at it. The boy talked about wanting to be Wizard King without an ounce of magic after all. “OKAY YOU RUNTS GET UP! NOW! NOW! NOW!” Mereoleona grinned to herself as the three little cubs groaned and slowly rose out of their sleeping bags. Two of them started to get up, but the female of the group just looked around before letting out a groan and flopping back down in her nest. The response to which was Mereoleona pulling out her grimoire and casting a spell that helped give form to her fiery aura. Then she extended her will and stood there as a lion’s paw reached out from said aura to grab Sunset by the head before yanking her out of her bedding and bringing her over to hang by her head in front of a frowning Mereoleona. “When I tell you to get up, I expect to be obeyed.” Hanging naked by a manifestation of flame grabbing onto her head, Sunset didn’t seem that bothered, or even very aware of her situation. “Expectations…” she paused and raised her hand to let out a loud yawn. “Subverted.” Mereoleona tossed the girl into the nearby spring, getting a squawk from Sunset before the girl came out of the water that had to be extremely cold despite being in the grips of Summer to glare at her. “Hey! What the hell’s your problem, old lady?” “I’m thirty-two! That’s the prime of my life!” the older woman shouted back at the kid before moving so she could address all three of them while the girl made herself dry with some minor use of water magic. “Now, from what I calculate, you three brats are about a week from the capital if you can just hop over major obstacles like a mountain range or two. So, that means I can play with you for a good three days to make sure you’re ready for the Magic Knight Exams.” There was a collective stare of disbelief from the three teens before Yuno raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think we’re not ready now, and how are three days going to change anything?” Not used to being questioned by anyone, Mereoleona jumped into the boy’s face. “Because I’m a magic knight, and that means I know what it takes to get on a squad!” she roared before taking a step back. “Now listen up! To be a member of the Magic Knights, you need unshakable conviction, unerring judgement, and passion that lights the air on fire!” “YEAH!” the Asta boy shouted with his fist pumped before both of his companions looked over to him with half-lidded eyes. “Uh...got caught up in the moment.” Yuno rubbed his temple a bit. “And you want to do this, why exactly?” Mereoleona gave him a stern look. “Because I made a promise to your big sister to go to your village and ask your dead family to forgive a slight against them,” she answered him firmly. “And I’m not going to be the one to tell them that you’ll be back to live in the ruins of your old house anytime soon. Of course, you can always ignore my advice, fail, and tell them yourselves.” “You need to stop talking now,” Yuno warned her. Almost immediately, Asta moved to back him up by stepping forward. “Yeah! I’m going on to be the Wizard King!” he said before half glancing over at the other boy for a fraction of a second, then back to Mereoleona. The odd movement wasn’t lost on Mereoleona. As for Sunset, she finished putting the pants on from the day before, but her top was a faded green dress that had obviously seen some wear. “So, we can take down a general of a rival kingdom,” she said, getting a small flinch from Asta, “but just getting into the Clover Kingdom’s defense forces is beyond us?” “Pfft, a drunken monkey with a broken bottle can kill a Diamond Kingdom mage,” Mereoleona replied as she waved away the achievement like it was nothing. As she did though, her eyes detected another minute movement in the short boy’s body. It wasn’t that she had dismissed his accomplishment. Something else was eating at Asta. “So, I’ll spend one day with each of you while the other two are off gathering supplies for your journey. That way, you won’t have to waste time foraging or get yourselves killed by going through a lean area where there isn’t anything editable for miles.” The three kids shared a look again before Sunset gave a pensive groan. “Okay, that...makes sense. The food thing I mean. So...who goes first?” Since she already had an idea of what to do with the girl, Mereoleona pointed at Sunset. “I’ll take you kid. The rest of you, run along now.” -Training Day 1- Okay, maybe I was wrong about this girl, Mereoleona thought to herself as she watched Sunset’s mana condense around her body to form a tight layer of protection that was less than an inch thick. Calling her terrifying had been an insult. She’s downright nightmarish. It wasn’t a stretch to say that Mereoleona was one of the top three mages in the country, counting the Wizard King. She was of royal blood, and unlike many of the powerful mages that just sat around and let their magic come naturally, she developed her powers on the battlefield, then took it one step beyond that by training her body and pushing herself even further past such silly things like limits. Her skills in mana manipulation were second to none, and there were times when she felt like she didn’t even need her grimoire to cast her most versatile spell: Lion’s paw. But the child in front of her made what should have been a struggle look easy. One hour. It had taken her a single hour to go from just hearing about the technique to getting it perfect without any outside influence to threaten her. Most newbies needed a high magic zone pushing down on their mana to help them focus and get used to the process. Mereoleona herself had learned the technique while staving off the killer heat from a volcano. The girl in front of her had done it in the middle of a calm Summer’s day and completed the technique in the time it took most people just to get started on it. It would take an actual battle to see if she could keep calm enough under pressure to maintain concentration and provide mastery of the move, but Mereoleona didn’t see that being a problem for Sunset in the future. “Well that’s interesting,” the little girl said as she examined her hand. “It’s more accurate to call it a cell wall than a skin. This would filter out toxins in the air and help regulate temperature too. I wouldn’t even be surprised if this could throw off enchantments other people might try to cast on me. Wait...this is why the mana zone was so stressful, I didn’t have a way to regulate it properly.” She looked back at the woman. “So, do all mana skins work the same, or does each attribute do things differently?” Mereoleona blinked. Did that little girl just analyze the entire technique and break it down with a glance? It took actual experience to do that! Alarm bells started ringing in Mereoleona’s head like crazy and she found herself taking a step back. “Okay...what’s going on?” The mana around the girl vanished from the visible spectrum and she looked over to the taller redhead in confusion. “Ms Mereoleona?” Trying to find some kind of answer to the question of what the girl was in front of her, she pointed a finger as Sunset. “Nobody learns Mana Skin that quickly, especially without some kind of pressure pushing down all around them!” Sunset blinked and took a step back. “W-Well, maybe you’re just a good teacher.” “BULLSHIT!” Mereoleona roared. After being called on her BS, the other redhead tensed before taking in a deep breath and letting it out. “You know what? Fine...you’re just some crazy lady out in the middle of nowhere, not like it’s going to make a difference, so…” Sunset said before taking another deep breath while Mereoleona prepared for some kind of trick. “I’m really a magical talking unicorn from another dimension that came here through an interdimensional portal after being kicked out of a palace by a pretty pony princess because I said I wanted to be a princess too and she was all like, no about it. Then I came here.” Mereoleona...stood there. Her expression limp. Her eye twitching...slightly. “He...hehe...hahaha….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Mereoleona laughed before falling on her ass, the tension fleeing from her body at the absurdity of it all. When she was done, the woman looked up at the girl with a feral smile. “Okay yeah...you’re right. I was being way too serious there for a moment,” she said before standing back up. “Guess I’m a bit jealous. You’ve got some real talent.” Sunset took another step back and put her hands up to try and ward off the larger woman. “Uh...thanks?” After moving forward anyway and slapping the girl on the back, Mereoleona rubbed her head to mess up her hair. “Okay, now...you’ve got a good grasp of magic, but what about physical stuff?” Still giving Mereoleona a cautious eye, Sunset gave her answer very slowly. “Well...I used to do chores at the orphanage, but...I’m starting to think I need to do a bit more to keep in shape.” “Good!” Mereoleona told her. “Bunch of magic knights just sit on their asses these days, sipping wine and jacking off! You need to keep yourself fit if you want to make it in the Magic Knights. Oh, and...you should also probably get a bra if you plan to exercise regularly too.” Sunset frowned and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Bras are evil.” Hearing that bit of wisdom made Mereoleona snort. “I’ll give you the name of a good seamstress, she can make you some custom ones,” she said before moving on to the more serious topics. “Now, you mind telling me what’s going on with those two boys you’re hauling around. Not to sound like an ass or anything, but...kids your age shouldn’t be doing too good after just seeing everyone they love die.” “That’s not really any of your business,” Sunset told her. Mereoleona frowned back at her. “It is if you’re wanting to join the Magic Knights. The only thing worse and a layabout knight is one that’s unstable. I need to know you kids aren’t going to break down or blow up when performing your duties. I think I’ve got a line on the short one, but tall, mute and handsome is a little mystery. You wanted to get some things off your chest the other day, what makes you think they don’t?” After sitting down on the grass Sunset sighed. “There’s something bothering Asta too?” she mumbled. “I thought I had Yuno figured out, but I’m an idiot for not seeing it in him as well. I guess because he’s always so loud, I expected him to just shout it out at me.” “So you know what’s up with the pretty boy?” Mereoleona asked. “Think it’s something you can handle?” Sunset took in another deep breath. “I’ve got to, don’t I? I’m all they have left.” Seeing the girl tense up, the older woman pressed her lips together. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that she wanted to be responsible for the boys. “You’re a bit young for all that.” “So, I’ll just have to grow up fast then,” Sunset told her. “It’s past time I did, anyway.” -Training Day 2- Mereoleona watched the boy just go through the motions of swinging his sword in precise strokes in an obvious exercise to build up strength as well as muscle memory. She let her mind wander a little as she watched the boy, thinking of his chances of actually getting into the Magic Knights, despite not having a bit of magic. The anti-magic he possessed was certainly no joke. She had gotten a demonstration of its abilities herself by having him cut through a flaming barrier like it wasn’t even there on top of her spells from the first day. It didn’t matter how strong a mage’s defenses were, the boy could tear right through them. Still, no mana meant he had next to no defense, maneuverability, long-range offense, or means of attacking someone at a higher vantage point. He had built his muscles up in an attempt to compensate and could get from point A to point B fast enough that he might as well have had some low-tier enhancement magic on his legs, but the natural abilities of the human body had their limits. At best, the kid would always be stuck at the bottom of the barrel. And, there’s his other little problem, Mereoleona told herself with a frown. “So kid, how’d it feel when you killed Ragus?” she asked right as the boy was getting to the hundredth swing of his sword. Asta tense up at the last moment and the black blade slipped out of his hands, flying a few feet before landing on the grass. “I...it…” he mumbled before looking over to the taller woman. “What?” For a second, Mereoleona thought about taking his sword and giving it back to him, but decided to be cautious and simply walked past it to get in the boy’s space. “That bad, huh?” “I didn’t kill him,” Asta said without that fire in his voice before backing away. “He did that himself.” Mereoleona stood another step forward and made sure to keep her voice calm. This wasn’t something that could be dealt with by intimidating the kid to confront the issue. “If you honestly believed that, you’d still be holding your sword.” After taking another step back and finding a rock behind him to sit on, Asta looked at it for a moment, then frowned. “Okay! So I killed him, so what? HE KILLED SISTER LILLY! HE DESERVED IT!” “Probably,” Mereoleona told him with a nod. The man had done far worse than kill a simple nun in the middle of nowhere. She was just the last on a long list of names, a good many of them from his own kingdom. “But that isn’t changing the fact that you’re letting it eat you up inside. You think the Magic Knights are going to let someone like that rise to the top?” Asta tensed again before sitting down on the rock behind him, his arms resting on his knees. “It’s not that,” he said after a few seconds before looking back up at the magic knight. More time passed as his face told Mereoleona that there was some real thinking going on in his head. “Promise you won’t tell Yuno or Sunset?” After giving him a quick assurance, Asta looked back down at the ground. “I’m happy he’s dead.” When it seemed like that was it, Mereoleona gave him a ‘come on’ gesture with her hand to prompt him for some more. “Okay...and?” “I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE THAT!” Asta yelled up at her before clenching his fist and looking back down. “My life, my entire life, I’ve had people look down on me and make fun of me because I have no magic. But Sister Lilly and Father Orisi have always taught me to forgive, to pity the people who think like that, because they’ve already closed themselves off to so many possibilities. And I have, I don’t hate the people that look down on me. But then...then this guy comes along and-and just...kills someone. And then I kill him. And I hated him. I mean, not right then, I didn’t have the time. But now, I hate him even though he’s gone. And I’m glad he’s dead and I’m not supposed to be like this, but I am and...and...” He looked back up at her with tears in his eyes. “Does that make me a bad person?” Mereoleona walked over a few steps to find another place to sit down and crossed her arms in thought. “Kid, life is the most precious commodity there is in this world. More than magic, money, food or anything else. Each person only gets one,” she told him. “I’ve been on the battlefield for several years now. I’ve seen people take lives and I’ve done it myself a few times. When you kill a person, there’s a weight to it. It’s a weight you carry around for the rest of your life. Good people bear that burden and make sure it doesn’t get to be too much. Bad people choose to ignore it. You can be glad he’s dead. You can be glad that he can’t hurt anyone else. Because the fact that you’re worried the weight of his little two ounces worth of a life is going to weigh you down tells me you’re a good person. Better than a good many I’ve worked with over the years. And as long as you can remember that every life has weight to it, you’ll stay a good person.” With Secre staying back with the redheaded woman to keep an eye on Asta, Sunset followed Yuno as they made their way through the mountains, collecting what they could in one area before moving on. Although Lilly had shown her things like what mushrooms were edible around Hage Village, Sunset wasn’t having much luck finding anything that would help them hold off starvation without some very interesting psychedelic effects added in. So, since they had some privacy and the edible food hunt wasn’t going well, Sunset decided to go after a much more elusive prey: Yuno’s feelings. “Hey Yuno, feel like talking about what’s bothering you?” she asked. The tall teen said nothing for several seconds as he scanned the path ahead. “The lack of food around here, for one thing.” Since the soft but direct approach didn’t seem to be working, Sunset decided to try and get a more autonomic response. “So, Mereoleona told me she thinks that Asta has what it takes to be the Wizard King.” Yuno didn’t even bother looking back at her as he continued to lead them down the trail. “...meh.” Not hearing what she should have, Sunset frowned as she considered her options. Was this just him being in a funk, or something worse? Should she be gentle, or go for the tough love approach? Just the thought of hurting the boy made Sunset’s heart ache...but sparing her feelings to just let the boy simmer in his...whatever it was that was going on inside of him was the coward’s way out. So she took in a deep breath and steeled herself. “Wow. Lilly and the girls must be looking down at you in disgust right now.” Yuno managed to take one last step before his entire body froze. “...what?” he whispered barely loud enough for Sunset to hear. “So what exactly is going through your head? Are you trying to punish yourself because they died and you didn’t? Because you didn’t stop it somehow?” Sunset asked before frowning at his back. “I admit that I may not understand everything, but I haven’t you do your half of the Wizard King spiel with Asta since we started this little road trip, and the only thing that’s changed since then is a piece of trash came along to kill the closest thing to a family that I’ve ever had. So, are you actually using them as some kind of excuse to give up on your dream? Or is it something I’m not getting?” Slowly, Yuno turned around to glare at her. But it was a halfhearted glare, with sunken eyes that just didn’t have any anger in them. “It’s not an excuse,” he finally said. “Everyone I cared about is gone. What’s the point of being the Wizard King if the reason I had to get the position doesn’t exist anymore?” Sunset took in a deep breath and ordered her thoughts. “Huh...and here I thought Asta would have been the subjective one. But it’s really you, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically as she leaned up against the edge of the mountain. “Did you ever even really want the job in the first place?” “Of course I did,” Yuno told her before sighing. “But those were the dreams of a child. It’s one thing to say, we’ll make everyone’s lives better and protect them, when the truth is I couldn’t even think that big when I was six. I just saw my family in poverty and everyone else around me not much better off. The Wizard King was this big shining thing that would let me make it all better if I could get the title. I even had a dozen ideas of what to do when I became king, up until they day they all died. Now, it just doesn’t seem as important compared to holding onto what I have left.” The declaration birthed an uneasy feeling in Sunset’s heart. His last words seemed very much like her own feelings at the moment. But hearing them from him seemed...wrong, somehow. Neither of her boys should say such things. “Yuno...please don’t be like me,” she begged him softly. Yuno raised an eyebrow. “Hm?” “I’m a lot of things. Dishonest, manipulative, but most of all, I’m selfish,” she said. “I’m going on this trip because I just want to be with the two of you. I don’t give a crap about the Knights, the Clover Kingdom, or anything else. I just want to be with my boys. When it comes down to it, the rest of the world could burn for all I care.” Tears dripped from her eyes at the admission before Sunset looked up at him. “But you’re better than that!” she told him. “It hurts, for the people you care about to just...stop. I know it does! But don’t use that as a reason to not be everything you can be! I’m not saying that you have some kind of responsibility because you got a four leaf clover, but not living up to your potential, then looking back in a few years at everything you didn’t do...all you will have is a life of regret over what might have been.” Like her. Yuno reached down towards the redhead. “You’re not selfish, Sunset,” he told her before pulling the girl into a light hug. Considering how little physical contact the boy had gotten in his life it was rather amazing that he could tell she needed one. “But...if you think it would make Lilly and the others happy-” Before the boy could finish, Sunset poked him in the side to get some room and glare up at him. “What I think is that everyone you loved wants you to be happy,” she told him sternly. “Maybe that means being the Wizard King. Maybe that means something else. But what it doesn’t mean, is sulking around and just settling to be mediocre. “I know it’s hard. I know it’s not going to happen overnight,” she went on. “But, you need to stop...standing still. Stop just letting everything take you along. Even if it’s just a single step each day, you need to keep moving forward. Or they really will be angry at you, for letting their memories weight you down.” Yuno gave her a bit of a smile. “Yeah, you have a point there. I need to be able to hold my head up, the day I see them again.” It was a bit morbid, but Sunset supposed it was better than nothing.  The third day came and went, and although Sunset had no idea what Yuno and Mereoleona had done together, the teenager had met them at the base of the mountain with an annoyed look on his face and red cheeks that had nothing to do with strain or damage before bringing her and Asta back to the oversized ledge where the woman had made camp. As for Asta, he looked...a little more chipper than Sunset remembered him being at the start of the trip, but that could have been her imagination since she hadn’t noticed anything wrong with him to begin with. Their last night was spent with Sunset managing to talk the woman into showing off some of the spells she had perused in the woman’s grimoire. Having an actual demonstration made understanding the theory behind the spells so much easier. Even if most of her magic was a little too close combat oriented for Sunset’s comfort, her cutie mark was a blazing sun. Fire interested her more than most of the other magics. On the dawn of the fourth day, Sunset found the woman waiting for them to get up at their own pace with something in her grip. Sunset looked down at the letter in the woman’s hand that was being shoved into her face. “What’s this?” “I need you to give it to my stupid little brother, Fugoleon” Mereoleona told the three of them with a bit of annoyance. “Knowing that bonehead, he’s going to be an idiot and pass on a golden opportunity without me to point it out for him. Show the seal on the back to the guards at our estate and they’ll let you in.” Sunset took the letter and slipped it into the pack with her communication journal. Since Mereoleona traveled the world, she probably had her ear to the ground and saw numerous trade opportunities that most people hadn’t even heard of. Humans didn’t really travel all that much. Then the woman gave them a toothy grin before taking in some of the mana in the area and launching herself into the sky. Once she was gone, Secre made her way over and landed on Asta’s head. “Hey bird, how come you never told me mana zone lets you fly,” Sunset told her. Secre rolled her eyes. “I was a lab assistant, not a combat mage.” “ALRIGHT!” Asta yelled. “NEXT STOP THE CAPITAL, AND ME BECOMING THE WIZARD KING!” After a second, Yuno snorted. “I think you mean, me.”