Mirai leads the protesting Nozomi back up to their room.

Setting her tail and ears free, she lets out a sigh of relief, finally able to relax.

“I like Sora!” Nozomi starts, sitting on the bed, head cocked, watching Mirai scuttle around the small space in preparation for work.

“Have to get ready, No’mi. I’ll be back around the usual time.”

“Your eyes were smiling a lot!”

“Lunch and dinner are paid for and will be brought to the room.”

“And I like it when your eyes smile.” Nozomi nods, reaching her long awaited judgment. "So I like Sora."

Mirai’s face burns as she tries to refocus entirely on the day of labor ahead of her and push Sora to the back of her mind. She doesn't understand why she let her guard down like that. It made her nervous and confused.

But now is not the time to dwell. Sora is gone, and that is for the best.

Mirai takes her sister into her arms, letting Nozomi’s warmth wash over. The hardest part of Mirai's day is letting go.

The young girl is used to being locked away for days without seeing anyone. Half a day alone waiting for Mirai to return was nothing to her.

Before Mirai stole her away, she lived a tragedy at the hands of the mother who gave birth to her. Her resilience to the abuse she received was disconcerting, and that resilience was the very reason she was used.

For better or worse, Nozomi's biological response to despair was to produce hope. Even in a world where hope is power, a proper sense of despair is necessary for survival. When up against a predator, knowing when to flee is still often necessary to continue living.

However, Nozomi was an anomaly. 

Nozomi's father considered her to be his wife's failure to produce a son. After her failure to birth another child, he was quick to abandon Nozomi’s mother for his concubines.

Upon learning of her child's strangeness, Nozomi's mother saw a chance to recover her standing as a wife. 

She used her daughter. She used her daughter as a literal source of material to try to rebuild her status. Any affection and any love that she showed was wielded as a tool until not even she could tell the difference.

Nozomi's father scoffed, "At least she's good for something." He continued to ignore his wife's efforts to regain his affection, and he did not take any interest in Nozomi's power either. 

He was an archduke of the King, after all. 

What need had he for a woman who could not bear him a son? What use had he for the aberrant daughter of a failure of a woman?

If it wasn't for Mirai, Nozomi simply would have continued to endure the cruelty. For better or for worse, that was her nature. 

She was simply a child. She did not know how to wield the power she possessed. She did not even understand that she possessed power. But the worst of it was that her body simply did not respond to threats by resisting or fleeing. She endured her treatment with hope.

Hope for another moment of affection from her mother if she did as asked. Hope that she could see Mirai at the end of her periods of isolation. Hope for a future better than the present.

And something better did come. Living with Mirai the past month, she knew a kind of love she never knew before. Unconditional and whole. 

She knew that the reason Mirai went away for so long every day was to take care of her, and she never felt alone for it. It filled her heart to the brim, knowing this.

“No one can make my eyes smile like you do, sweet No’mi.” Mirai gives Nozomi one final squeeze and a kiss of the forehead.

Nozomi's heart flies like fireworks, which Mirai received gladly. 

With a smile in her eyes, off she went, leaving Nozomi to idle about in their room for the coming hours.

Nozomi was giddier than usual today because she met a person that brought out a side of her sister that she'd never seen. In her eyes, Mirai smiling around a stranger was a magical feat that could only be accomplished by someone special.

This was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Now that she saw it, she couldn’t just let it slip away. Plus, this meant there was fun to be had. 

Nozomi wore a mischievous grin and giggled to herself as she threw herself onto the bed, legs kicking, humming a tune that her mother once sang.

⋮

Sora stepped out of the inn onto the dirt road, and the morning sun streamed through a canopy of trees, forcing him to squint. A caravan of horse-drawn wagons and travelers on foot ambled Eastward towards a gated entrance upon a looming wall.

On the immediate outskirts of the city of Pyrytyl, the inn was surrounded by small houses and shops scattered throughout a sparsely wooded area of towering trees with trunks ten arm-spans in circumference. While just beyond the protection of its walls, the small village found safety and livelihood in its proximity to the bustling city.

Away from the city, the woods thickened into a dense and sprawling forest. The trees were tall—ten times taller than any tree Sora had seen before. In the denser parts, it was like the trees were elbowing each other for access to the skies, while the small trees pressed their way upwards through the thicket of interwoven branches above them.

Sora takes a deep breath to taste the air—the freshest air he'd ever known.

He had felt a bit of pressure to part from Mirai and Nozomi. It didn't feel like they were pushing him away, but he could sense Mirai’s caution. 

For as well as they got along, Sora didn’t want to impose upon them, and the event from the night before was completely forgotten to him.

Moreover, his excitement to venture out and explore had only grown the longer he spent time with them, so he was eager to set out. 

Mirai and Nozomi had given him an unfamiliar sense of safety. The kind that made him feel hopeful, alive, adventurous.

These were not the kinds of feelings he carried with him in his old world. He was more familiar with an anxious dread and cynicism. He found joy in the small problems that captured his interest at work and in experimenting with new recipes when he had free time to cook at home. Big hopes and dreams seemed foolhardy, and he was used to being alone most of the time. 

Sora was not aware of how deeply impacted he had already been by his brief encounter with the two girls. They brought out a person who was always there in him, waiting to live.

He remained fixed in place just outside the inn. After taking in his surroundings for a few minutes, he rustled his own hair in thought and quirked his lips.

"Guess I'll check out the city. Maybe they have food carts. I'll have to see about making money." 

And he set off towards the gates.

⋮

Mirai snuck out the inn's back door, crossed through the surrounding woods towards the city, agile and graceful as a fox. 

Looking around cautiously, she lifts her scarf to cover her face and shuffles into the steady flow of travelers entering the city.