Destiny is neither a tangible thing nor is it believed to be real in this Empire. Hailing from a province with barely anything to do, filled with adults that turned older and older by the year, children who grew up only to leave, Leopold never thought he’d be one of them, nor that there is some greater calling out there for him.

Feravis never had that thought either. His eyes kept still on the broad back of his oldest friend, his childhood friend, Leopold. He was his second shadow and as hard as Leo try to keep Feravis away from danger, he knew the only way for him to stay safe is if he is as well.

But that wasn’t a luxury for the oldest child in the province who had to take care of the other kids whilst the adults travel to mine a mountain.

Now, they find themselves at the docks of Amphitide Peninsula with two other people that stowed away.

“Shouldn’t we be going over the plan again? In case I forgot.” Truscott mutters.

The dock slowly grew empty of people, only soldiers cleaning up the immediate area are left. The group of four are ways away from them.

“I feel like I forgot something already!” She clutches her satchel, eyes darting everywhere.

Leo pats her shoulder, “you’d be just fine.”

"It won't be that bad, probably." Feravis adds. "Quick! Who're we supposed to kidnap?"

"FERAVIS!" Everyone reacts.

"No one's around. Why're y’all yelling out of nowhere? Truscott's the one who started it with her plan talks."

"Do not place the blame on my sweetheart." Gray grabs her ears. "Truscott was vague."

She pushes Gray away. "Aren't any of you curious about the beast attacks though? Is it a coincidence that the same time that lady ran away, beasts began terrorizing this place? It could've been her evil plan all along. And now, she's found under the cliffside, unconscious and cold to touch on the same day that more beasts are attacking! Almost like she's feeding her life to this beast to destroy the empire. Plus, we have a mysterious client that wants us to kidnap her and drag her to the middle of the continent! Like someone wants to severe her ties to the waters."

She raps all of that in one go, her eyes and facial expression growing more exaggerated, flailing her arms as she shares her theories; believing more and more in the words she says.

“Sounds like a perfect dream honestly.” Gray muses.

"I don't think she's magic, Truscott." Leo replies. "Not unless she has a deity to sponsor her powers, she ain't born magic s'far as I heard."

"The sea's deep! We don't know what's down there... beasts, sure. But a deity." She glances around to see if anyone is looking, walks closer to Leo with a whisper. "The empire never tells us anything about deities, isn't that weird? It's weird! Almost like they know that only a deity can destroy their reign."

Gray whispers as well. "Again, what is the downside here?"

"Okay, y'all settle down. That ain't why we're here." Leo stops them. "We're here to, y'know," he mumbles under his breath, "idnap-kay the ady-lay."

"Alright, crazy. You're hard to talk to."

"Wait a minute, you said we’re here to make sure the empire doesn't get destroyed?" Feravis asks.

Leo glares at his friend, knowing his boredom coincides with his desire to stir chaos. “Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Truscott raises an accusatory finger, invading Leo's space. "You never ask why we have to do that though. Why kidnapping her is saving the empire?”

“Well, I didn’t ask any of you to come along.”

Gray huffs, “it’s a bit too late to kick us now, handsome.”

“I’m just sayin’. If any of you wanna question this whole thing, feel free to just go back.”

“Why can’t you be honest? You told Fer–––” Truscott hiccups, covering her mouth.

“Told Fer what?” asks Gray.

Feravis looks at Truscott, grins. “I can tell you––”

“No!” Truscott pulled Feravis aside, clinging unto him.

“Truscott.” Gray says stern.

“No!”

“Feravis!” He turns to the other.

The lanky man shrugs, hands gesturing to Truscott wrapped around him. “Sorry, man. Do you really wanna upset your sweetheart?”

Gray turns to Leo, “explain!”

“I said, feel free to leave. I ain’t keepin’ any of you hostage. That means you too, Fer.”

“You insolent–––” Gray bites his tongue, walking away in a huff. “We will have a word after this, Truscott!”

“One of these days, your one-word commands will work.” Feravis calls out.

Leopold shakes his head, grabbing Truscott away from Feravis. “If you knew who we were workin’ for, why’d you still come?”

“Because I wanna know why.”

“I can’t give you that. You do know that Gray’s only here ‘cause of you? It ain’t worth his or yours to continue stickin’ ‘round.”

Narrowing her eyes, Truscott slowly points a dagger at him. “I will find out your secret one way or another.”

Leo gazes at the dagger pointed at him, then back at Truscott.

He lowers his head, sighing. “Your grips wrong.”

The breeze picks up by the dock. The heavy grey clouds stalks towards the land mass where the Glasse Knights sailed to, lightning flashes with no sound of thunder to be heard.

There's a storm terrorizing the Gonage Village. Be it of monster or these clouds, Leo senses something unnatural about it but says nothing seeing that they needed to focus on the task at hand.

Yet he couldn’t tell if it was the right thing to do.

>><<>><<

Lady Sunniva Glasse, the only daughter of Duke Percival Glasse and former Duchess, Lady Catalina of House Laux. She's well-known as the fiancée of Crown Prince Nikko Silverion. Her beauty, upbringing and disposition leaves no doubt amongst the eldest noble houses.

But recently, she caused a stir inside noble society, different from the usual topics of her marriage; She disappeared.

A gossip began circulating amongst noble ladies, Sunniva Glasse, cracks under the pressure! A blasphemy that could have their tongues cut by the Empress herself. Yet, her focus is elsewhere.

Only the second Ducal House of Glasse expended their men to look for the missing noble lady. The Crown Prince has yet to make a statement nor appear in public.

Her position is at risk. Despite that, she lays in the soft embrace of her bed, in a peaceful slumber. No remnants of her weary state upon being found, fainted on the cliffside.

Inside the bedroom of one Sunniva Glasse. Cream-colored silken drapes adorn the glass door that leads to the veranda, where only the smallest ray of sunshine seeps through the clouds, caressing the soft carpeted floor. Slightly adjacent to the glass door is a canopy bed, too large for one person.

Smooth wooden beam holding heavy curtains, each tied to a post with ornate golden cuffs, as a dainty image of a lady drowned by the mattress and the pillows lay.

Eyes fluttering open, the consciousness welcomes her with a vexing sensation, as if doused by a million needle and kicked in the stomach.

She gasps for air only to choke. Vision still blurry, she turns to a fetal position, keeping her eyes shut, enduring the pain in a muffled groan.

Hands gripping on the bedsheets, her labored breaths slowly steady. Finally opening her eyes, reality dawns on her.

As she scans the room, her once steady breaths increases once more.

"What... huh? Where am I?" She speaks in Tagalog with a crisp voice, as opposed to how she knows she usually sounds.

Slowly crawling out of the bed, her knees buckled in her attempt to stand up. She places a hand on her head, the ringing in her ears disorienting her more.

"That's not my voice.” She gasps.

“Ah! What is this voice? Whoo! Whaaaa."

Stretching her vocals was fun but it didn’t clarify her confusion much. She curls and uncurls her toes on the rug.

It's unbelievably soft!

No matter how much she blinks, none of it still makes any sense. She kneels on the floor, processing everything. Her hand instinctively ruffles her hair.

"My hair's not curly." She mutters to herself.

She looks down to realize she's never worn such an expensive dress before, not knowing it's a simple silk nightgown.

She looked back at the bed, it's huge! And then looked around her some more. Everything's too big for what she’s used to.

A passing thought in her head suggests maybe she's confined in a really fancy hospital.

She scoffs. "Who the fuck would send me to a rich ass hospital?"

Searching across the room for her phone, she notices too much abundance. Gowns inside a walk-in closet, bejeweled and heavy. Jewelries in full display, she dared not to go near of them in fear of accidentally breaking anything.

"And they had time to curl my hair too— Oh, fuck. Did a pervert do all this?"

The woman darts out of the closet, tried ducking under the bed, hitting her head as a small thump of an object falling on the floor caught her attention.

Hissing, she glanced at what caused the sound. Only to find her phone!

“Bitch.” She let out an exasperated sigh, grabbing it.

Her wallpaper is an image of a smaller older woman whose features shown the years she spent alive, some sunspots marking her face, and the wrinkles around her eyes, her smile bright and big.

Beside her, a similar looking woman, taller than her by a lot but both are small in figure. She has the older woman’s eyes and smile, though hers is bigger.

The older woman wears a crisp new dress that looks baggy on her, her hair neatly straightened with the younger woman wearing a white blouse and brown pleated skirt, and a tarpaulin behind them saying Batch of ’19. She has a diploma in hand.

Surprisingly her phones at full percent— she doesn't notice this nor the reflection of a face she’s not familiar with.

Phone in hand, she crawls herself under the bed for more comfort before losing track of her surroundings.

Checking any messages from her mother; nothing. She types to send a period to her dummy account full of class notes; it failed to send. She clicks open her data; it says no connection at all. Her search engine isn't loading; her social media apps aren't loading. She goes to open her online wallet but it's continuously loading. She can feel her face growing red in frustration.

"Monica, you stupid fuck. What part of no internet do you not get?"

When she went back to the messaging app, the period is now marked sent... then it's marked received... then seen.

Brows furrowed, zeroing on the portrait bubble next to her message. She never opened that dummy account after making it, she'd already forgotten the password to that. Now, a text bubble from the account pops up.

She placed the phone down. "Clearly we're hallucinating all of these. Uhm." Then picks it back up again.

Monica crawls out under the bed and walks to the door, her mind still glued on the emerging chat bubble. She sat down, her back against the door, feeling much safer as a part of her subtly listened for any sound coming from the other side.

It's not a busy corridor though she's not able to tell the two guards posted by the door so she has no reason to believe anyone is there at all.

When she couldn't wait any longer for the message to send, part of her wanted to do nothing but she didn't listen to that part of her, she taps the call button.

Hearing the phone call connect, everything around her fades. She comes face to face with her own face, at least, the one that she was born with. The woman on the other side, wearing her smile, greets her.

"Good morning, Monica."