Lucid entered the kitchen of the starlight carriage. He remembered it from when they were first sent to Port Vexis, back when Arthur and Ayame and him were still together in that original crew, before everything became so complicated.
"Oh, what is that smell," Alice remarked within his mind.
'You can smell,' Lucid thought back.
"We do share a body, my darling," she replied.
He walked over and found Arthur at the stove, leaning over a wok, cutting vegetables on a tray and sliding them off the board into the simmering pot with one clean motion of his knife. The kitchen smelled of spices and meat, void creature meat, he remembered now.
Lucid moved closer. He'd noticed almost immediately upon entering how Arthur had registered his presence the moment he crossed the threshold. The knight's perception worked almost the same way as the Chain of Heart, both of them reading each other before either acknowledged it aloud. But the chain had never reacted to Arthur as anything resembling a threat.
"Oh, it's you," Arthur said.
Lucid gave him a small wave. "Hey."
He came to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and looked down into the pot.
"A preliminary assessment indicates an unexpectedly high concentration of dietary fiber and protein," Alice said. "Its nutritional profile is quite robust."
'There she goes,' Lucid thought. He almost started on a different thought, a flicker of orange hair and thick glasses forming at the edge of his memory, and then deliberately let it dissolve before it could fully arrive.
"It's stew," he said.
"I used to make this whenever we sat on expedition, back in my platoon," Arthur said.
Lucid looked confused. "What kind of platoon?"
Arthur went still. "Well, an army group."
Lucid didn't push. He claimed to come from Tyriana. Arthur came from somewhere else. Everyone had their inventory of things they didn't fully open.
Arthur noticed. "We were usually sent out in harsh conditions, near the borders of the land. My subordinates and I were usually in bad shape."
"So I made this stew to keep their bones warm and their fight up while the land stayed hostile."
"It's an ancient recipe, one that's endured in my province."
"Goulash."
'Goulash,' Lucid thought. 'That's something from Earth.'
"That place is destroyed now," Arthur said. "The people have migrated."
"I see."
"Can you slide me the salt," Arthur asked.
Lucid reached to the upper cupboard and grabbed a glass lid. "Here."
Alice spoke. "Your friend, Frederick, was it."
"Arthur," Lucid said aloud, correcting himself.
Arthur turned slightly. "Lucid, since we're nearing Vex and its jurisdiction."
"Address me as Frederick."
Lucid looked at him, confused. "But you said you didn't want to lie anymore."
"I'm not," Arthur said. He sighed, looking up with something like quiet contempt for the name itself. "If that's the name she gave me, I'll wear it with pride and honor. I'm just not worthy to be called that man yet."
"Why?"
"I was always worthy. Both versions of me were. I was just too blind to realize." Then something pulled at the corner of his mouth, almost a grin. "Plus, Arthur has a bounty, doesn't he."
"It does?" Lucid said.
"Yup. Arthur the Betrayer."
He pointed toward the window, where a poster had been pinned. Lucid looked. He'd seen this same poster on a train when he'd first arrived in Vex.
"And apparently that friend of yours must have made someone fairly unhappy too."
"He's worth ten marks less than me."
"Arthur the Betrayer," Lucid repeated. "Seriously. They couldn't come up with something better?"
"Can't negotiate that."
"Pilt the Generous Scoundrel," Lucid read aloud. Valen was listed there under a second alias as well.
He understood now.
"So you're worth twenty and he's worth ten."
Frederick announced, "It's done."
He carried the pot to the table with thermal gloves on both hands, set it down, and shook the residual heat from his fingers.
He looked at Lucid.
"It's alright, really. You can call me Arthur, but try to say Frederick sometimes."
"That's."
"It's not because of me. It's her."
Understanding settled in without further explanation needed. The queen was not merely unpredictable. She was unstable, the variety of ruler willing to sacrifice half her kingdom in the name of order.
Lucid went still for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright. When the time is right, you say."
"Frederick Alexander."
"That too?"
"Normally it's Fredrickson Lionheart. But just call me Frederick Lionheart."
"Geez. Just how many names do you carry."
Frederick wore a quiet tug at the corners of his lips.
It was true that in that instant, Frederick had his names, Valen had his aliases, and Ayame had hers, but none of that was Lucid's to sort through or decide.
Valen came through the opening.
"Is it done? Smells decent, blue-haired guy."
Frederick looked at him like he'd just been mildly insulted.
"Hey," he said simply.
They sat. Ayame came through as well, which drew attention from everyone in the way her presence always managed without her apparently trying. Alice noted it immediately.
"Oh, that female companion of yours is here," she remarked.
Lucid wore a thin grin. "You always keep attention to her."
"I do. After what I witnessed."
Ayame crossed the room and sat next to Lucid without ceremony. Frederick prepared a bowl toward her, and she gently shook her head.
"I do not require sustenance," she said flatly. "For now."
Valen looked at her. "For someone so sharp and blunt, she speaks clearly."
Frederick only nodded. "If you say so."
Lucid looked down at his bowl and was met with something that smelled familiar in a way that made his chest pull sideways. On Earth, warm meals had been rare, reserved for military elites and those deep enough inside a sanctioned outpost. He had survived mostly on canned food through everything that came before. He took a spoonful of reddish soup and put it in his mouth. The void creature he'd handled in the void tasted genuinely good prepared this way.
Valen looked at Lucid eating, then at Frederick.
"Yup," Frederick confirmed without prompting. "He does."
Ayame simply watched beside him.
For a while, everyone settled into their own version of the meal. The train carried on its course, the void visible through windows on both sides, purple and still. It was quiet enough that the banter between them felt natural rather than forced, filling the space left by the motion of the carriage.
"Well, I've had my fill," Valen announced, slumping forward. Three bottles sat beside him on the table.
Lucid side-eyed him. Frederick gathered the remaining plates toward the sink after refusing to let Lucid help.
Alice spoke softly. "So generous of him."
It didn't sit lightly.
Soon he could hear Valen snoring at the table.
Ayame spoke without being asked.
"This Transcendence. We've completed our objective." She paused. "Will she reward us?"
Lucid thought for a moment. The queen was not the most reliable person in the kingdom. After the rift incident and everything that had followed, it was wisest to stay alert.
Ayame looked at him. He looked back.
He could hear Valen's snores. Arthur had moved to another compartment.
"I think so," Lucid said carefully. He considered the next thing to say.
"Are you going to give her false promises the way you promised me things," Alice said.
Lucid didn't linger on that thought too long. He didn't know what exactly he had promised Alice that constituted a false promise. He let the question pass without answering it directly.
"Let's just say," he started, "if the worst comes to it."
He looked around. Frederick was still in the other compartment.
"I'll take the train and bring you back. Where did you come from, it can't be that far. Shenzhou, is it?"
She nodded. "There is an island close."
"Lucid," Alice said within his mind. "Do you understand what you're saying?"
He took Ayame's hand. "You don't have to be my blade or anything. Forget what I told you before. Go and live your life." He said in a firm an sincere tone.
What was the point, it would be selfish for him to bring her along, just so he could pursue this endless quest of going home.
He turned his face toward hers.
"That's enough," he said.
She looked at him, her face blank in its usual way, but there was something slightly different beneath it, softer, closer to appreciation than her normal detachment.
"That is not the agreement you had with the governor," Alice remarked.
Lucid thought for a bit. True, it wasn't what they'd had in mind. But they weren't heading to Tyriana anyway. Frederick and Ayame seemed to be going to Vex, or at least operating under that assumption. As for Valen, he remained a wandering variable Lucid hadn't fully accounted for, and he didn't fully trust him yet regardless.
He couldn't afford to think too far ahead.
But he needed to stay vigilant. There had to be more complications seeded throughout the carriage. Valen's presence alone guaranteed that.
"You're thinking," Ayame said.
She traced her fingers around his hand and held it, leaning in slightly.
"Whatever it is, I trust you," she said. "I'm fine with it."
"Our pact remains..."
'What pact,' Lucid thought, could it be something related to when they first met, inside that cave?
Lucid tried to lean back, but he was already in a corner position, his head touching the glass where the void ran alongside. Ayame was close. Her voice was soft in the way it always was when she dropped the absolute minimum she needed to communicate.
He thought briefly, then refused the thought immediately.
No.
Love was a waste of time he couldn't afford.
His goals, whatever they had become now, required clarity, not distraction.
He wanted to go home.
Suddenly the pendant in his pocket flared with red light.