For six days and six nights, Marisol's world was nothing but steady motion. There was the relentless pounding of the giant silver ant's legs against the dirt. There was the rattling of carriage wheels bouncing over uneven ground. There was the constant wind screaming past, kicking up dust, whispering through the cracks in the wood. The rhythm of travel had long since seeped into her bones, and yet, she'd barely noticed it.

She'd spent six days in the carriage slipping in and out of consciousness, and it was only on the seventh day—the day of her arrival—that she was wide awake and alert, staring out the window.

Her fingers curled around the wooden box in her lap, pressing against its rough surface hard enough that she could feel every grain of the wood against her skin. She hadn't opened it. Didn't want to. Maria had made sure she took it back with her, and while there was no arguing against the Lighthouse Imperator when it came to accepting gifts, every time her gaze drifted down to its lid, something coiled tight in her gut. It was a feeling she didn't have a name for, so she forced herself to look away. Constantly.

She kept her eyes on the lands rushing past her window, on the endless stretch of desert unfurling beneath the morning sun.

The Luzde Desert was the same as it'd always been, and yet, something about it felt strangely unfamiliar.

The dunes rose and fell like golden waves, shifting wildly with every gust of wind. The hazy horizon stretched infinitely in every direction, painted in deepening shades of amber and violet, while jagged rock formations jutted out of the sand like the ribs of some ancient beast long buried beneath the earth. Most everything out here had been shaped by the wind and the heat, worn down over decades, reduced to only what could survive.

She used to love the barrenness of it all. Used to feel free here.

Now, she just felt restless.

The seat beneath her creaked as she shifted, the tension in her body never fully leaving. She hadn't slept much the past six days. Every time she closed her eyes, she'd see that bluish-golden lightning again, and she didn't want to see it.

She'd rather grow permanent bags under her eyes than to see that light again.

"We're close now." Up ahead, her carriage driver clicked his tongue and gave the reins a light tug, adjusting the giant silver ant's pace. His name was Safi—a bug rider well-trusted by Andres—and he pulled the window slide in front of her, glancing over his shoulder so he could nod at her. "You should be able to see the Luzde Oasis Town any minute now."

She barely reacted, only gripping the box a little tighter.

"... You sure you'll be fine out here?" he asked casually. "I can drop you off right outside of town, but I can also carry you straight to your house if you want. The fare's already paid for by the Imperatrix, so—"

"I grew up here," she said quietly. "I can find my way back."

Safi hummed under his breath. "The desert's a cruel mistress. It doesn't wait for people to catch up, so it might've forgotten you if you've been gone too long."

"That ain't how it works."

"Ain't it?"

Something about that sent a chill up her spine, but she didn't let it show. Instead, she turned back to the window, watching as the morning sun rolled up the sky.

Then her breath hitched.

Just a few metres up ahead, standing battered and half-buried in the sand, was a wooden signboard. The letters carved into its surface had been worn down by time, softened by wind and heat, but she didn't need to read them.

She knew what they said.

Luzde Oasis Town.

Home.

A sharp, involuntary breath left her lungs, and before the carriage even had a chance to slow, she moved. She kicked the door open and launched herself out, barely hearing Safi's startled curse behind her. The wind howled against her ears, her glaives hit the sand—

And then she tripped.

The moment her glaives struck the shifting dune, the sand collapsed beneath her, throwing her balance off. Her momentum betrayed her, and in the next breath, she was crashing forward, the ground slamming up to meet her. Heat seared against her bandaged skin. Grains of sand scraped against her face as she skidded to an abrupt, graceless stop.

For a long moment, she didn't move. She simply lay there, face buried in the dirt, listening to the distant creak of the carriage rolling to a stop behind her. The desert heat pressed against her back, sweat clinging to her clothes, but she barely felt it over the simmering frustration burning through her.

A low chuckle drifted from behind her.

"You good?"

Pushing herself up, she spat sand from her mouth, dragging the back of her hand across her face. She turned her head just enough to scowl at the old man, who'd propped himself against the side of the carriage, arms crossed, smirking down at her.

He tilted his chin at her glaives. "Blades like that must be hell on anything but water. Reminds me—I knew someone like you once. A long time ago. He used to live on a little sandy island with his mama, but then he became a full-time bug-slayer and left to go on a journey across the great blue. I can't help but wonder if he left the island because it was just plain old annoying having to skate on sand."

She ignored him.

Without a word, she grabbed the wooden box and pushed herself onto her glaives. Her muscles still felt stiff, her legs still unsteady, but she forced herself forward.

This time, she took it slow.

Step by step, she skated up the dune, every movement deliberate, carefully adjusting to the way the sand shifted beneath her. She had to keep going. Had to see. The uncertainty had been gnawing at her for six days straight, and now, so close to home, it was sinking its claws deeper into her with every inch she climbed.

She'd been gone too long. Anything could've happened. If even the Whirlpool City—a bastion built to withstand disasters—could be reduced to ruin, then what chance did a tiny desert town in the middle of nowhere really have against even a small brood of Giant-Classes?

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Her breath quickened. Her hands shook. The panic clawed its way up her chest, rising, rising, until—

She reached the top of the dune.

And she saw it a hundred metres below her, bright and brilliant.

Luzde Oasis Town.

Exactly the same.

The small oasis in the centre of town glowed under the soft light of the rising sun, its emerald surface barely disturbed by the morning breeze. Palm trees stood tall along the shore, their fronds rustling gently. The town itself—small, clustered, familiar—stood just as she'd left it. A few hundred sandstone homes, narrow paths winding between them, and about two thousand people moved through the streets, voices carrying on the wind.

Alive.

Still here.

Still home.

Her whole body sagged. The fear that'd been crushing her for days shattered in an instant, leaving her shaking in its absence. She let out a breath—a sharp, shuddering thing—and pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying to steady herself.

Behind her, Safi let out a low chuckle.

"Go on, now," he said, voice tinged with lazy amusement. "You're home."

She didn't respond. Didn't turn and bow. She shot down the dune with spraying discharge boosting her speed, and she crossed a hundred metres in the blink of an eye.

Her glaives kicked up sand and dust alike as she weaved through the winding paths of town. Familiar faces turned, voices called out—asking how she was doing, whether she was back for good, and what the hell was up for her legs—but she didn't answer any of them. Didn't slow down. Didn't even look at them.

Her heart was pounding too hard, her mind too full. She had to get home. She had to see her mama.

She cut through the alleys, past sun-bleached walls and tattered awnings until she reached the farthest corner of town. There, half-sunken into the sand, stood her sandstone house: small, worn-down, and cracked by the desert winds. Her throat tightened. She pushed forward—only for her own glaives to tangle beneath her feet.

The ground slammed into her, hot and gritty. A mouthful of sand. Again. She spat, groaned, and scrambled up, not even bothering to dust herself off. Her fingers clenched around the small glass vial in her pocket, the coolness of it grounding her.

Please.

Every god, every spirit, every force that might be listening—please.

She staggered through the crooked doorway. Ducked under the thick curtain flaps for doors. Shadows stretched long across the single room. The air was stale, thick with dust, and the bed by the window—empty. The curtains flapped weakly. The wooden furniture around her looked untouched, draped in layers of neglect.

She stopped breathing.

No.

No, no, no.

Her pulse roared in her ears. Her stomach turned ice cold. She stood there, rigid, her mind spiraling down dark, ugly corridors.

She was too late.

She'd fought, bled, clawed her way back, and…

…

A shift in the air.

A tremor.

The faintest sound of movement behind her.

She turned, slow as death.

And there—standing in the doorway, hunched slightly under the weight of a basket of clothes—was her mama.

Marisol couldn't move.

She stood there, breathless, trembling, staring at the old lady before her as if she weren't real. As if she might vanish if she so much as blinked.

Her mama tilted her head. "What are you standing there for, looking like that? Sand all over you, bandaged up like you just crawled through a war…" Her gaze flickered down. "And what's that box in your hand? Looks all expensive and fancy. Put it under the bed so you don't lose it, yeah?"

Marisol didn't answer. Couldn't. Her vision blurred, her throat closed up, and before she knew it, she was sliding forward

She crashed into her mama's arms, burying her face against her shoulder as a raw, ragged sob tore from her chest. Her knees nearly buckled. The scent of soap and sun-worn cloth wrapped around her, warm and familiar and real.

Real.

Her mama made a soft, startled noise, but steadied herself, arms curling tight around Marisol's shaking frame. She patted her back, then her hair, her touch careful and soothing. "There, there. I told you it'd take longer than 'just' a few months, didn't I?"

Marisol still couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. The relief was too much. It hurt, like something inside her had finally… cracked open after a year of holding itself together with nothing but willpower and hope. She just clung on tighter, sobbing like a child, like the ten years that'd passed hadn't hardened her at all.

But when she finally pulled away, it was with shaking hands and wet cheeks. She fumbled into her pocket, fingers closing around the vial, and she held it up between them, her grip barely steady.

"Drink this," she choked out.

Her mama frowned at the tiny glass vial, then back at her. "Calm down. Sit first."

Marisol barely registered guiding her onto the bed, barely noticed kneeling before her, gripping her own hands together as she watched.

Please.

She'd come too far for this to fail.

Her mama uncorked the vial. Tilted the glowing blue liquid into her mouth.

And then, before her eyes, the dullness in her mama's skin seemed to lift. Her next breath came easier, deeper. Her mama pressed a single finger against her ribs, her stomach, her throat. Then she blinked, took another slow inhale, and exhaled—her brows lifting in astonishment.

"I still feel a little pain in my legs and lungs," her mama murmured, pressing a hand to her chest, "but, Great Makers, I ain't never breathed this clearly before." Then she let out a breathless laugh. "This really is magic seawater after all."

Marisol let out a trembling laugh, half a sob, wiping at her face. "A-are there any side effects? Do you… do you feel anything off?"

Her mama rolled a shoulder, flexed her fingers. "Can't tell. Probably nothing."

Then, gently, she reached out and ruffled Marisol's hair again.

"Thank you, my little rascal."

Marisol broke.

Her forehead pressed against her mama's knee as fresh sobs wracked her body, raw and unrestrained.

She'd done it.

Ten years of scraping by, of pushing forward, of surviving on the thinnest threads of hope—she'd finally done it.

Her mama's fingers combed gently through her tangled, sand-streaked hair. "Tell me everything, Mari."

Marisol sucked in a shuddering breath.

She barely knew where to start. Her thoughts were a knotted mess, memories and faces and battles all tangled together in the haze of exhaustion… but her mama was waiting, and her mama always listened.

So she started talking.

She talked about Antonio's ship. The crab children. The giant remipede. The Dead Island Straits. The Whirlpool City. The people she'd met—the good ones, the brave ones, the ones who'd stayed and the ones who'd left. She spoke of the tribesmen who could see the colour of auras, the siblings with giant pistol shrimp claws for arms, the pretty lady with a water scorpion tail, the princess who would swirl water around her limbs, the lord of the city she read all about as a child, and the bug-slayer nobody wrote about or mentioned at all in any textbook.

She talked about the fights. The battles. The first time she used Storm Glaives and sent a Mutant-Class flying. The first time she dove into the whirlpool. The first time she ate sweets, fruits, and desserts in the city. Of course, she talked about the bugs as well. The awful ones. The crunchy ones. The ones that made her sick, the ones that tasted like rotten fish, and even the ones that slaughtered her friends.

By the time she finished, the midday sun was at its peak, and the sandstone house felt hotter than an oven.

Her mama was quiet for a long moment.

Then, she sighed.

"I know."

Marisol blinked, looking up. "You… know?"

Her mama smiled faintly and reached behind her dress, pulling out a folded letter. "A bug-slayer came by a few months ago and delivered your message. A Hasharana."

She stared as her mama smoothed out the letter in her lap. The paper was wrinkled, the ink faded in places, but she recognised a few words.

It was the ten-minute-long voice message she'd asked the Archive to send when she first became a registered Hasharana.

"You sure made a long speech about a lot of weird things that happened to you. I'm pretty sure most of your original message got lost in translation along the way as well, but… I got the gist of it. The man who delivered your message could speak a lot of different tongues, so he figured out most of what you were probably trying to say," She gave a small laugh. "I wasn't worried, Mari. I knew you were fine."

Marisol's stomach twisted, her chest tightening painfully.

She should feel relieved. She did feel relieved. But now something else was creeping in behind it, something heavy and suffocating.

For ten years, she'd been moving.

Now, she was still.

And she had no idea what to do with herself.

What would she even do now?

…

Her mama tilted her head. Studied her.

And then, with a sudden breath, she clapped her hands on her knees and pushed herself up.

"Come outside with me."

Marisol blinked. "Huh?"

Her mama was already moving toward the door, stretching her arms over her head. "Come on. Let's go."

She just stared. "But it's… it's midday. The sun's gonna cook us alive."

Her mama waved a hand dismissively. "The healing seawater seems to be working better than expected. Can't I stretch my legs with my daughter a little?"

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