The fire, crackling merrily from the hearth, sounded faint to one’s ears.  In addition to that, the flames contrasted darkly with the mood of the occupant of the sofa in front of the hearth.  Staring into the bronzing fire was a boy who had just recently become a man—a youth currently pondering why weather seemed to affect a person’s emotions more than events that had occurred during the course of the day.  Presently, he was unaware of the late hour at hand, tracking time mentally only by observing a light rain that was beginning to patter against the window.  Would the rain suddenly extinguish the fire in front of him?  Within a few seconds the drizzle had become a downpour, and almost immediately thereafter was accompanied by a squeaking door.  The reaction was to be expected, the youth decided, and lifted his head as he turned to peer over the posterior of the sofa at the newly arrived adolescent girl.  Without acknowledging her, the solitary man resumed gazing at the miniature purgatory before him.
     
     Aware that she had been brusquely ignored, the little girl clutched at her plain white night shirt, bunching up the front of it in her pale fists.  A clap of thunder made her cringe fearfully, and she instinctually darted to the sofa some odd feet in front of her, crawling into the lap of its occupant.  The young man barely responded, although he did make some minute attempt at comforting the girl by putting an arm around her tiny shoulders.  There was an element of familiarity the two shared; not quite that of a parent and child, but remarkably similar.  Booming thunder forced the girl’s arms to coil tightly around her guardian’s neck to the point of asphyxiation on his part; the man calmly pried her hands away and murmured a few soothing words.  In response, the girl leaned into her guardian, stifling a cough that soon become something uncontrollable.  Accompanying the sudden warmth of her breath was the dampness of blood on the man’s shirt.  Both sets of eyes glanced down—there were droplets of faded scarlet on the man’s white dress shirt, easily identifiable.  They exchanged glances.

     “How long have you been coughing blood?”  asked the pale man, though his interest was vague.  Little alarm was present in his voice even when thunder rumbled—he remained as stalwart as ever.

     After a moment of heavy silence, the girl answered.  “Since this morning.”

     “Have you slept any?”

     “I’ve tried to…”

     “You should go back to sleep.”

     But there was sudden frustration present in the girl’s eyes, and she stared up at her guardian.  She then shook her head and drew it away from the man’s chest—he didn’t seem inclined to change his shirt.  “I’m scared,” she admitted.  “The lightning is right outside my window!”  Rather than providing consolation, her guardian laughed and patted her backside before putting his arms around her.  The rain continued to pound against the side of their home, and for a while that was the only audible sound (save a cough or two from the little girl) as they held each other in front of the fireplace.  How much time had passed since he, the pale man, had seated himself?  The ability to feel in his limbs was beginning to dissipate and he made sure to keep still as he held the girl both so he wouldn’t experience the pins-and-needles sensation or disturb the child’s tranquil state.  

     To the left of the fireplace was a bookshelf, and past that, a window that the pale man diverted his attention to for the time being, resisting the subconscious proclamation to move.  Thick rain drops rolled down the window panes only to be replaced by droplets of larger volume.  The man’s eyes, right iris dull brown and the left colorless, followed a particular rain drop as it coursed down the barrier it had been thrown against.  The traveling gaze ceased momentarily as the print of a beetle clinging to his window took his attention—at first, the pale man took a moment to smile, tapping the adolescent girl to gain her attention as well, pointing to the window.  However, as she turned, the beetle suddenly began to slide along the glass, and the pale man associated the so-called insect with the color of flesh.  He gasped, his grasp on the girl tightening, heart leaping into his throat before it began to pound against his chest, then ceased altogether as he realized what he was viewing was no joke.  There was a finger—a human finger—tapping against his window—no—writing something?  What sort of person was outside at this hour, more so outside of his own home?  Their residence—his and the girl’s—was in a small cabin just at the mouth of the Garacchia Forest, secluded from every town close by, nonexistent to society.  The pale man did not allow the girl to turn and look like he originally intended; he feared an oncoming hostile situation, and held on to her for his own comfort as well.  What if this person outside intended to rob or kill them?  That was his worst fear at the moment.  Knowing that the little girl was his utmost priority, the pale man lowered his head to her equally pale ear, waiting for her to stifle a cough before giving her instructions in a tremulous voice.

     “Nephenee,” he murmured, “I want you to go to your room and try to sleep.  The thunder and lightning are…”  He watched the tip of the finger begin to move as his speech ceased abruptly—swiftly, rhythmically, in a sloppy cursive print.  The pale man realized the outsider was making an attempt to write something rather than clear his view on the fogged window.  As he regained his senses, Nephenee’s caretaker finished, “…gone.  Just… go now.  I’ll come check on y—“

     On the window was his name written in large cursive letters—and when he thought the disturbance was over, the fingertip appeared once again to add a forgotten accent over the “o” in his name

     Lyón.

     Was there more to be scrawled out?  Now the pale man was truly frightened.  In the back of his mind, as much as he wished to deny and push it away, there was a vague idea representing who this late-night visitor was.  Lyón was suddenly filled with dread and he gestured for Nephenee to return to her bedroom; however, there was a window in there as well.  But if Lyón’s suspicions were correct, the midnight visitor wouldn’t bother with the little girl—whatever business necessary would be solely between the two of them, hopefully with nobody else involved.  When Nephenee refused to depart, Lyón resorted to shouting at her (“Saint Fulein is watching you!”), and the girl reluctantly left the foyer, leaving her disturbed caretaker alone and remaining unaware of the potential, perhaps probable danger approaching.  Lyón rose immediately thereafter, departing the foyer but staying as far from the window as he possibly could in order to avoid detection from the figure outside.  The objective would be to get himself to the front door, and that was a straight path in itself.  

     Once Lyón had cautiously made his way down the short-distanced hallway, he began rummaging through the drawer of a small end table near the door, squinting in the dim candle light as he felt for his object of interest.  He had never handled any sort of firearm before, but the curved hunting knife his hand finally coiled around was something Lyón knew he could definitely wield blindfolded, or with his non-dominant right hand.  Taking a breath, attempting to calm his shuddering self, he opened the front door and waited patiently for his eyes to adjust to the looming darkness before him.  He counted backwards from three and then took his first steps into the bitter November night, trying to keep himself beneath the overhanging roof to avoid the downpour.  What a shame it was he hadn’t thought to bring a lantern to guide himself with as he investigated the appearance of the mysterious intruder.  Lyón did his best to stay alert.  Much to his confusion, he did not come across any disturbances even after circling his small cabin twice and investigating a miniscule area of forest around it.  Although his mind remained restless and worrisome, he retreated indoors after deciding that the threat had other matters to concern themself with that did not include himself or Nephenee.  Lyón returned his knife to its place in the end table drawer, but remained in place near the door, still trembling.

     “Why are you here?” he wondered.

     Lyón was aware of the possible reasons somebody would be skulking around Garacchia Forest, but to go as far as a confrontation with an isolated resident... As much as Lyón disliked viewing a specific person as his tormentor, his mind did not allow him to think of any other.  A police officer wouldn’t attempt such startling means of confrontation, either… That aside, how would a stranger know his name?  A bounty hunter seemed fathomable, but the fact that he lived so far off from society… Surely a bounty hunter wouldn’t waste his time to come this far out into the wilderness.

     He couldn’t allow himself to be overwhelmed by paranoia.  Presently, Lyón could not bring himself to move from his secluded hiding place at the front door.  Hopefully Nephenee hadn’t suspected anything unusual other than the fact that he was drinking much less than he normally did at night.  This culmination spurred Lyón’s craving for alcohol—ignoring his passing in front of the foyer window, the pale man dropped to his knees in front of the kitchen sink, shoving unlabeled bottles aside before selecting a recognizable clear glass bottle, uncorking it with his teeth and spitting the cork off to the side.  Without waiting for the chilled vapor to subside, Lyón drank from the bottle carelessly; it went down hard, and he tasted vodka.  It wasn’t of the best quality (far from it, actually), but Lyón would come to accept it.  Drink was drink, regardless of taste.  To his dismay, however, Nephenee had left her room again in search of comfort, hands covering her reddened lips.  Frustrated with her lack of cooperation, Lyón demanded that she return to her room and sleep—the rest would do her much good and, in theory, lessen the intensity of Nephenee’s current illness.  Or Lyón anticipated that it would; he was no doctor.  Once again she disappeared, coughing accompanied by a few whimpers; she was on the verge of tears.  

     Lyón ignored it.  Resuming his previous location on the foyer sofa, supporting the bottle of vodka between his thighs, he bent at the waist to retrieve a book from the end table to his left, holding it against his chest as he stared long and hard out the window.  The rain had begun to let up, and the writing had been fogged once again—or had it even been there in the first place?  Why he had resumed sitting in the foyer he wasn’t sure—why not just go to sleep?

     But his mind was heavy and no sleep would come for quite some time.  Reluctantly, Lyón lifted the cover of the leather-bound book, eyes lowered to focus on the language incomprehensible to so many people in the world—words that so many people feared and loathed because they could not ascertain and control the words themselves.  In the simplest of terms, it was known as “magic” and its relative concepts, but to the people who lacked comprehension of an alternative to one’s daily lifestyle, it was the most offensive form of heresy.

     To Lyón and many others, it was the future.

     No matter, however—this was the reason as to why he had chosen to isolate himself—to further his knowledge and progressing research of magic.  To his own misfortunate, however, he lived on his own with Nephenee, and now his supposed main priority was to aid the adolescent girl until she was old enough to fend for herself.  Thankfully, that wouldn’t be long at all, for at the age of thirteen, she was an accomplished little girl in terms of housework and other general necessities, such as doing her own laundry and cooking.  Having to take care of this girl was the worst predicament possible for Lyón Noviena, for his own dedication to the arcane art that was magic was second only to the Magistrates of Urierua.  How a legal practice of magic was established, Lyón wasn’t sure, but so far the world had managed to uphold itself following every war it had been through.

     In his hands was a ragged replica of the Sixth Century Sage’s chronicles of the world, Orbis Terrarum.  The Sixth Century Sage, Fulein, had once been a benefactor of the Azelyan Church, but at the same time was also (“And still is,” Lyón thought) a figurehead of the magus community.  How Fulein had harnessed such power, no historian had managed to fathom.  Fulein’s intent of magical prowess had been as pure as the ground he walked on, but the Church chose to misinterpret his foundation of magical arts as a declaration of war against religion.  The controversy sparked numerous outrages amidst numerous sects of the Church—some officials agreed that magic would aid people in their daily lives and even in medicine, while many others believed that magic would mutate into a form of “dark” magic that would later be known as necromancy; inevitably, this did happen, along with branching out into countless other forms of magical proficiency—healing, alchemy, illusions, all sorts of things.  

     Lyón continuously thought back on what he knew of Fulein: the man, following his abandonment of the Azelyan Church, traveled the world with eleven companions to enlighten its inhabitants by explaining the fundamentals of magic and how it was far from heresy.  Unfortunately, the inability to settle the dispute between Fulein and the Church eventually led to a cataclysmic world war amidst the four major nations at that time—a disastrous war that would later be known as Har-Megido.  The question posed by many scholars was this: “How did Fulein remain a saint, if not a God-like figure following his actions that led to such a catastrophe?”

     From her room, Nephenee began coughing violently.

     Having been drawn out of his mystified contemplation of the distant past, Lyón grew tense with anger.  Without thinking twice about his next action, he threw the book in his hands at the wall, brandishing the glass bottle of vodka in his other hand.  Unaware of how much of a crash the book had made when it hit the wall, he continued verbally.  “Shut up!  Be quiet!  You think you have it so bad right now?!” Though he was incognizant of most things around him, Lyón was bright enough to realize that the vodka had affected his actions in a miniscule way.  From then on, not a sound came from the girl’s room, but Lyón remained standing in place for a few minutes at the most.  When he was reassured by silence, he looked to the foyer window.  By now, the thunderous pounding of rain on the roof and against the house had softened; had the intensity of the rain been coincidental with the appearance of what he thought was his nemesis?  After a moment of sincere meditative thought, he retrieved his book from where it had landed and found it just below a section of the wall mounted with yellowed, black-and-white photographs.  Apparently his vengeful toss had caused some of them to collapse to the floor.  Without bothering to return the pictures to their proper place of repose, Lyón let himself fall into an armchair adjacent to the sofa, legs draped carelessly over one side.

     It was his house, and he didn’t have to take care of it.

     People and their intolerance was the subject at hand in his mind.  Lyón stared into the fireplace very quietly, neglecting the book in his lap and lacing his fingers together over it.  There was no clock in the foyer, but he didn’t plan on retiring anytime soon—not when so many burdens were at hand.  Surely the writing on the window had been a hallucination.

     After some time, he was jolted by a sudden clatter, and it took Lyón a moment to register that he had been sleeping. He found his monocle on the bedside table, a look of surprise taking his features as his vision came into focus. Had he been dreaming? Obviously not, he was beginning to develop a headache. From the hallway, an antique clock chimed the hour—one in the morning. Perhaps he hadn’t been out for as long as he had anticipated. “They’ll go away,” he thought to himself, but at the same time he began to dread that this was another visit from his midnight acquaintance. The angle his head had been tilted downward at for the past hour caused a mess of dirty red locks to cover his eyes, and once they had been swiped away, Lyón was fully alert. Somebody was pounding on his front door with great fury, and Lyón suddenly feared the worst—a soldier—no, multiple military men? If that was the case, then he had no choice in the matter at all… The sound of the accompanying rain drowned out any ruckus outside, and Lyón cautiously rose from his place, avoiding passage in front of the windows once again. The deadbolt on his door was hanging; Lyón’s heart leapt into his chest at the thought of an intruder. How stupid that he had forgotten to lock his own house up! How irresponsibly infantile! Nephenee seemed undisturbed by their most recent visitor; Lyón secretly hoped she was asleep as he placed a shaky hand on the door knob, quickly diverting his course of action at the last possible second to find his knife a second time. He literally jumped as the outsider hammered on the door again with no hesitation to refrain from expletives—he then realized it was a younger voice to his own surprise. If that was the case, how much harm could they possibly pose?

     “Even so… it’s not hard to form a ruse,” he thought.

     A boy was standing on his front doorstep, dark hair wet and matted to his face from the previous rain. He looked no older than Nephenee, but much fiercer in facial appearance—he glared up at the red-haired man that opened the door, shivering from cold as the rain battered against the land. “Are you going to let me in or what?” he snapped, although Lyón could barely hear him.

     He said nothing, looking on in disbelief.

     The boy reached above his head and covered it with his arms, although he was soaking wet all the same. Although there was no light outside, the candle light from inside of his home was enough to show him that the boy had trekked through all sorts of mud and shrubbery, and overall, he was a complete mess. Automatically, Lyón felt an urge to shut the door in the boy’s face, as cruel as it seemed in his mind. Just because he was young didn’t mean he was trustworthy, however, and Lyón remembered plenty of experiences with “trust” in the past that had ended badly. There was potential for this situation to be no different. Maybe he just wanted a place to stay for the night—it was possible he was traveling from Azelya to Dalkia, or vice-versa. But on foot and at his age? It was uncommon, yes, but not impossible. Lyón remained silent, eyes wide from behind the door as he continued to peer out the crack he’d made.

     He gave in after picturing a different face to go along with this passerby. What if Nephenee had been in his place? Any person in their right mind would have let them in.

     Lyón Noviena was far from being in his right mind, however.

     “What do you want?”