The lake was a sheet of black glass, tucked deep within a valley where the air hung heavy with the scent of damp moss and ancient stone. The water was unnervingly still, broken only by the gentle ripples radiating from Areia. She floated lazily on the surface, her skin as pale as moonlight against the dark depths. Her snow-white hair fanned out around her like a silken web, drifting aimlessly in the cold current, while her purple eyes—sharp and crystalline—stared unblinkingly at the bruised clouds rolling overhead.
On the muddy shore, her discarded gear lay in a messy heap: leather travel boots, a travel-worn cloak, and her lethal equipment, all looking strangely abandoned in the presence of the serene water.
"It's rare to see a lonely girl in these parts," a raspy, grumpy voice called out, the sound grating against the silence of the valley.
Areia didn't flinch. She didn't even turn her head, remaining perfectly buoyant in her undergarments. "Hostile or friend?" she asked, her voice as cool and smooth as the lake itself.
"Friend," the man replied. The rhythmic clack of a wooden stool hitting the earth followed, along with the dull thud of a crate. He began the slow, methodical process of setting up his fishing tackle, the metallic zip of the line being the only other sound for hours.
The sun began to dip behind the jagged peaks, casting long, skeletal shadows across the water. The man, having had no luck with the fish, finally scratched at his salt-and-pepper beard and broke the silence again.
"There's a legend that's been circulating about my village for as long as I can remember," he began, squinting at the dark horizon. "Apparently, there's some sort of monster in these waters. Is it wise to just lay in the water like that, girl?"
"If I die, then it'll be of my own stupidity," Areia said coldly. She didn't move a muscle, her eyes never leaving the sky.
"You're young," the man persisted, casting his line back into the obsidian depths. "Are you wandering these parts alone?"
"People only ask those questions if they have ulterior motives, old man," Areia called back, her purple eyes finally narrowing as a small, her lips in her usual neutral state. "Are you sure you're a friend?"
"I'm an old man," he laughed, the sound wheezing through his chest. "Besides, judging from your equipment on the shore, you seem quite capable with a blade. I'd be demolished if I tried anything."
"You're awfully honest," Areia said simply, her body drifting like a ghost toward the sound of his voice.
"It's just how it is. If you were to try and take my life, I doubt there'd be much I could do," he said, a small, weathered smile tugging at his lips.
For the first time, Areia turned her head, her sharp purple eyes locking onto him with an intensity that could freeze blood. "I don't kill for fun, just so you know. You're safe—as long as you're not hostile." She shifted her weight in the water, drifting away from his fishing line to avoid tangling it.
"You seem confident," the man laughed.
"I just know my current limits," Areia sighed. She broke her floating position, her slim, athletic frame cutting through the water with effortless grace. She wasn't built like the tavern girls or the noblewomen of the capital; she was lean, her muscles corded and fit for the singular purpose of combat. She began to swim slowly, her purple eyes scanning the dark, murky depths before she suddenly inhaled and dived, her white hair vanishing beneath the surface like a sinking shroud.
"Young lady, I don't think you should do that!" the man yelled, kicking over his stool as he scrambled to his feet. He stared at the spot where she had disappeared, the black depths of the lake offering no sign of her. He stepped back involuntarily, a primal fear of the deep water clutching at his heart.
The surface near the shore began to churn and bubble violently. The man stumbled further back into the sand, his eyes wide. Suddenly, Areia's head popped out of the water, followed by her shoulders and torso. She walked out of the lake, her skin glistening under the rising moon. In her hands, she hauled a massive fish, easily three feet long, its silver scales thrashing against her grip.
She walked up to him on the shore, her wet legs kicking up fine grains of pale sand that stuck to her damp skin. Water dripped from her undergarments and ran down her slim thighs, pooling around her feet as she held the struggling prize out toward him.
The man was dumbfounded. He stood paralyzed, staring at the girl who had just emerged from the "haunted" depths with a monster-sized catch in her bare hands.
Areia stood her ground, her expression unreadable. "Are you ogling me?" she asked, her tone flat and devoid of any emotion.
The question snapped the man out of his daze. He immediately looked away from her face, focusing instead on the dark treeline. "I'm not like those men who go after girls barely out of their teens," he said slowly, his voice steadying.
"Well then. Not that I care anyway," Areia said, still holding out the heavy fish. "Can you cook this? I'm not a good cook. I'm hoping you'll be able to make something good out of it."
"Sure, but I wouldn't be able to do much here. Why don't you come to my house?" the man suggested. He reached out to take the fish, but as the weight transferred, he let out a sharp grunt. His knees buckled slightly; he had expected the creature to be light based on the effortless way Areia had carried it, but it was like holding a heavy sack of wet stones.
Areia didn't offer a hand. She turned back to the lake, rinsing the scales and slime from her pale fingers before walking toward her pile of discarded gear.
The silence of the valley was suddenly shattered. A large bush up ahead rustled violently, followed by the frantic snapping of branches and a heavy thud. A man tumbled out of the foliage, sliding across the damp sand until he fell face-first just a few feet from where Areia was pulling on her pants.
He was a rugged sight. A large, weathered straw hat was cinched tightly to his face by a fraying string, and a massive brown cloak, thick with forest debris, billowed around him. Messy brown hair poked out from beneath the brim of his hat, and the hilt of a heavy sword peered over his shoulder. He groaned into the sand, looking more like a fallen branch than a warrior.
Areia stared down at the back of his head for two seconds. Not a second longer.
With clinical indifference, she finished pulling up her travel pants and fastened her belt with a crisp snap. She donned her tunic and structured jacket, then slung her heavy black cloak over her shoulder. Every movement was efficient, her slim, battle-hardened figure disappearing beneath the layers of dark fabric and steel. Without so much as a glance at the man groaning in the dirt, she turned and walked back to the old fisherman to relieve him of the heavy fish.
"Is he okay?" the old man asked, his eyes wide as he looked between the unconscious stranger and the ice-cold girl approaching him.
Areia adjusted the weight of the massive fish in her arms, her purple eyes as flat and unbothered as the lake behind them.
"There's sand in my pants," she replied.
The moon hung like a silver coin over the valley, casting long, distorted shadows of the pines across the pale sand. The man in the straw hat groaned, pushing himself up from the dirt. Sand clung to the rough fabric of his brown cloak and dusted his messy brown hair as he straightened his hat, the string digging into his chin.
"Wait, can I accompany you guys?" he wheezed, dusting off his knees. "I've been searching these woods for a sign of life for almost a month now. I'm a friend, I promise."
Areia didn't even turn her head to look at him. Her white hair, still damp and heavy, clung to the back of her black cloak like a frozen waterfall. "Let's run away," she urged the old fisherman, her voice a flat, chilly monotone that suggested she was perfectly serious.
The old man, still struggling with his fishing crate while Areia effortlessly balanced the three-foot fish, looked back at the stranger with a mix of pity and hesitation. "But he could be hurt," the fisherman countered, his breath visible in the cooling night air. "And it'll be even worse if he's hungry too. This forest is no place for a starving man."
"Don't trust strangers that come out of bushes," Areia said, her purple eyes fixed on the path ahead. She spoke with a grim, clinical gravity, as if she were reciting a fundamental law of physics. "It never ends well."
The stranger stepped forward, the heavy sword on his back rattling against his leather scabbard. "But you're a stranger, aren't you?" he called out, his voice a mix of desperation and confusion. "And yet, here you are."
Areia finally paused, her slim silhouette cutting a sharp, dark figure against the moonlit lake. She turned her head just enough for the light to catch the icy violet of her gaze.
"Believe me, I wouldn't have bothered the old guy if he hadn't struck up a conversation first," she replied simply.
The trio moved away from the water's edge, their boots sinking into the fine, moon-bleached sand that bordered the obsidian lake. The beach was a narrow ribbon of pale grit, littered with smooth river stones and the skeletal remains of bleached driftwood that looked like giant white bones in the darkness. Behind them, the lake remained eerily still, a dark mirror reflecting the jagged, pine-crested silhouettes of the surrounding mountains.
"Why are you so against strangers and bushes?" the old man asked, grunting as he shifted the weight of his wooden crate and stool, trying to keep pace with Areia's effortless stride.
The man in the straw hat followed closely behind, his heavy brown cloak swishing against his shins. He stayed silent, but his eyes were wide and attentive, fixed on the back of the girl's white head. Areia paused for a moment, her purple eyes clouding as she sifted through her memories. The wind tugged at her damp cloak, making the heavy black fabric snap like a flag.
"A while back... long before I was anywhere near this lake," Areia began, her voice a low, icy hum. "I happened to help a man despite my better judgment."
She didn't mention that the man had literally sobbed and clung to her travel boots until she relented.
"I rid his family of a curse that had been plaguing them for generations. In return, he offered me a place to stay. Since sleeping in these valleys is an exercise in stupidity, I agreed. He was a single man with two sons." She adjusted the three-foot fish in her arms, its silver scales glimmering like cold steel. "One day, I returned from roaming the valley and found the bloke and both his kids huddled together, sniffing my laundry."
She stopped walking and looked back at them, her expression as flat and unreadable as a frozen pond. "My master told me a girl's things are private. I knew then that what they were doing was bad."
"Did you kill him?" the man in the straw hat asked, his voice a mix of horror and genuine curiosity. He adjusted his hat, the straw rustling loudly in the quiet night.
Areia stared at him for a long beat, the moonlight catching the sharp, lethal line of her jaw. "I don't kill people because they sniff my dirty clothes," she replied after a while, her tone suggesting she found the question slightly absurd. "But after giving all three of them a good kick to their manhoods, I left their shabby house and never looked back."
She gave a small, indifferent shrug of her slim shoulders.
"I see," the old man muttered, a bead of sweat rolling down his weathered forehead. He took a very deliberate step further away from her. "Note to self: stay away from the laundry."
The man in the straw hat winced, instinctively shifting his weight as if he could feel the phantom pain of Areia's boot. They left the sandy shore behind, entering the deep, grasping shadows of the treeline where the scent of pine needles replaced the salt of the lake.
The village was a graveyard of memories. Skeletal remains of cottages lined the narrow, overgrown path, their thatched roofs caved in like sunken chests and their windows staring out like empty eye sockets. Moonlight bled through the gaps in the ruins, illuminating the dust and the encroaching vines that had begun to reclaim the stone walls. Only one house at the end of the lane showed any sign of life, a faint amber glow flickering through the cracks of its sturdy door.
Mandevor, the man in the straw hat, slowed his pace, his hand instinctively twitching toward the heavy hilt of the sword on his back. His eyes darted across the silent, desolate street with deep suspicion.
"It seems your village is deserted," Mandevor spoke, his voice echoing too loudly in the hollow air. "Is there a story behind it?"
"A story? No, not at all," the fisherman grunted, setting his crate down with a heavy thud as he fumbled with a rusted key. "The valley is crawling with monsters. Naturally, people leave when they value their skin more than their dirt."
"Then why didn't you leave?" Mandevor pressed.
"My wife died here," the man said simply, his voice devoid of self-pity. "I'd like to die here too, if that's possible."
He pushed the door open, the hinges screaming in protest. "Make yourselves at home. I know it's not much; just sit anywhere."
The interior was a cramped, claustrophobic maze. For a single man, it would have been manageable, but with three of them, the air felt thick and heavy. The room was a chaotic collection of broken furniture, stacks of firewood, and jagged stones piled in corners. A soot-stained fireplace sat in the center of the room, surrounded by various rusted tools and oddities that Areia couldn't quite identify.
Areia didn't complain. She moved with clinical efficiency, shifting a pile of wood and a few heavy stones to clear a small patch of the dirt floor. She sat down, her movements fluid and controlled, her slim frame disappearing into the shadows of the corner.
Mandevor took a seat opposite her, leaning against a rickety table. He watched her with an intense, lingering interest that didn't seem to faze her in the slightest.
"Say, may I know your name?" he asked after a long stretch of silence, the crackling of the small fire the old man had started being the only other sound.
"You haven't even said yours, and you're asking mine," Areia responded coolly. She unstrapped her blade from her waist and placed it across her lap. With a piece of cloth, she began brushing the fine lake sand and forest dust from the dark, polished sheath.
"Call me Mandevor. I'm a wandering swordsman," he said, a small, confident smile playing on his lips as he tipped his straw hat back. "Now, your turn."
Areia stopped her cleaning for a moment, her purple eyes locking onto his with a gaze that felt like a physical weight. "I'm Areia, the Knight of Dan Shula," she said slowly. She drew a few inches of the blade, the cold metal catching the firelight and throwing a sharp, silver reflection across her pale face.
Mandevor looked around the cluttered, decaying room, his brow furrowed. "You're a knight, but I don't see your master," he noted.
"We're not together at the moment, but it's only temporary," Areia said, her tone final as she clicked the blade back into its scabbard. "We both have things to settle."
The old fisherman began to gut the massive fish near the hearth, the sound of the knife against scales filling the room as the two swordsmen sat in a tense, silent appraisal of one another.
The firelight flickered across the cramped, cluttered room, casting Mandevor's shadow against the stone wall until it looked like a towering giant. Outside, the wind howled through the skeletal remains of the village, but inside, the air had turned thick with the heavy scent of steel and old magic.
"Say, may I cross swords with you? Even if it's for a brief moment," Mandevor asked, his voice low and vibrating with a sudden, restless energy.
Areia didn't even look at him. She lay back against the pile of shifted wood, her snow-white hair spilling over the rough timber like silk over stone. "If you're trying to scale my battle prowess, I'll either shatter your expectations or fall short of them," she sighed, her purple eyes fixed on the cobwebs clinging to the rafters. "Either way, I don't like fighting. Go hunt monsters if you want to wet your blade."
"To be honest, I haven't felt this strongly about someone in a while," Mandevor continued, ignoring her dismissal. "It's been nearly seven or eight years since I last felt this way."
He reached back and drew his sword. The sound of metal sliding against leather was sharp and clean. The blade was a terrifying thing—pitch black and engraved with strange, glowing runes that seemed to swallow the firelight. "After him, I haven't been able to meet anyone good with the sword. I hunger to find a worthy opponent."
Areia stared at the dirty roof, listening to his rambling with the patience of a statue. When the silence finally returned, she spoke without moving. "Are you one of the Kins of the Sphere?"
Mandevor paused, the black blade resting across his knees. "If I am, are you going to attack me?"
"No. I'm just curious," Areia said, her voice a flat, icy breeze. "You're one of the people who brought ruin to the human kingdom. I don't particularly have a grudge against any of you, but that being said... if my master orders me to kill you, I would not hesitate. But right now? I don't feel like fighting one of the beings capable of leveling a great kingdom."
Mandevor let out a sudden, boisterous laugh that shook the small house. He looked at her—this slim, pale girl in her travel-worn black cloak—and shook his head. "You're an interesting girl. I don't think I've met anyone quite like you before."
"Yeah, I'm pretty unique," Areia said coldly, closing her eyes as the smell of the cooking fish finally began to drift through the room.
The old fisherman continued his work at the hearth, his hands steady despite the two monsters sitting in his living room, their conversation enough to freeze the blood of any ordinary man. The black sword remained out, a dark stain in the middle of the room, while Areia simply drifted into a light, guarded sleep.