Suddenly opening her eyes, Tristessa felt as if her head had been hit with a sledgehammer. The upper part of her eyes ached, and the world spun around her, blurry and nausea-inducing. Her vision didn't seem to want to clear, as if it were better to be in that condition than to welcome daylight into her retinas and get burnt like a vampire from Earth mythologies.

"Mommy, Daddy, she's woken up!"

Lucahn's voice, sweet and filled with the typical excitement of a child, was unfortunately equal to scratching a blackboard with her nails. A deep, indiscriminate headache, an invisible hand maliciously rummaging through her brain.

It was only her head that suffered the aftereffects of the bandits' attack. She felt nothing more than minimal discomfort in her body as she moved her joints, feet, and hands. She was no longer in pain from the slashes courtesy of Katriel Straus, which had felt like permanent tongues of fire going into her body and rummaging while turning everything on fire.

In fact, she felt well enough to stand on her own.

"Wait, or you'll burst your sutures!" she heard Jin almost shout in her ear. He took heavy steps on creaking wood and helped her by holding her with his hands. "Easy, Tessa."

"...where are we?" the girl asked, becoming more alert and noticing the wind blowing in her face along with the constant pounding of wheels on uneven ground.

There was no doubt she was in a moving wagon. With her eyes now adapted to the light and the headache receding, Tristessa found herself facing a clear, blue sky high above, with a morning sun shining serenely. The shadows of the trees along the road played in the sunlight, but that didn't make this wild place, secluded from society, a beautiful and peaceful one... Or at least that's how it seemed at first glance, considering the kind of creatures that lived among those trees. Both human and non-human.

"J-Jin?"

Beside her, she saw the hunter's sweaty face, filled with relief. And he wasn't the only one, as Lucahn had knelt beside her, holding his large book and smiling at her with a shy smile.

Looking down, she noticed she wasn't wearing the black trench coat—it had been her pillow all this time. And beneath her shirt, her chest, stomach, and both arms were wrapped in bandages a little stained with a dark brown liquid, given the blood that continued to flow from the wounds, closing and clotting.

"Thank you for…"

At that moment, the wagon shook as it passed over a pit, and Lucahn almost fell on top of her, almost hitting her with one of the corners of that book. The whole sequence triggered a reflex in the girl's subconscious, causing her to raise both hands and almost let out a cry of surprise.

She may not have remembered it that well, but both her body and soul were vividly aware of Lucahn, by then a victim of the Gradient of Madness, smashing her face with that same book.

"S-sorry!" he apologized, quickly returning to sit next to his mother and lowering his gaze, saddened by a mistake he never made.

"N-no, it's alright, it's… Where's Gaal?" The moment the question left her mouth, she realized that the future written for that pet had finally come, with a certain margin of error. She didn't even need to see the pain that filled the boy's face, or the silence that everyone present kept for a moment. "I'm sorry. I guess the trip was too much for him…"

"Yes. Gaal was too old… We knew this day would come soon," Jin said, releasing a sorrowful sigh. "We had to bury him at the Outpost. At least, we prayed together for his spirit. As family."

Lucahn sniffed, having already cried all his tears while Tristessa was unconscious. Tiara stroked his back and pulled him closer to her, protecting him from the cold southern wind along with the baby that was just finishing growing in her womb.

Without saying a word, she gave Tristessa one of her now-normal sneers. She had the air of someone with a lot to say, and in a completely inappropriate context.

"J-Jin, I…" she tried to say, returning her attention to the hunter. "I wanted to thank you for…"

"Don't bother; it's the least we could do for you. We're on our way to Entrana now. At the speed this vilecross is traveling, we'll arrive around dusk," the hunter explained, surprisingly, with no fear in his voice about their destination. Only tainted with grief for the loss of a close friend. "Isn't that right, Miss Solsong?"

"Indeed!" From the driver's seat, taking Tristessa by surprise, sat the mercenary named Lufreya, her black poncho flapping in the wind and wearing that helmet of hers, never having removed it once, either in this timeline or the previous one. "Gladiolus is the fastest and strongest demon of all. Aren't ya, big boy?"

"RAAARGH!" roared he wine-red-coated vilecross pulling the wagon with quick steps full of motivation.

"I think he said yes," added a new and familiar voice. The voice of someone Tristessa hadn't noticed, and now was looking at her with a dreamy, peaceful smile. Aiming to cheer them up before such a sad moment. "I'm glad you're feeling better, Miss Irandell."

"Ah… I-I…"

She found herself staring into those same eyes that, in a nonexistent past, had wanted to kill her. Eyes that had known madness, hopelessness, and the single-minded desire for revenge against her. Eyes that had ended up being eaten by a swarm of palkuriae.

"…"

She hadn't expected to have such a reaction by having Melian so close to her. She never thought she'd feel her throat close, her windpipe paralyzed, and a sphere of pure fear building in the center of her chest. She thought that she could overcome the trauma, but now that he was right there, no hostility at all in him, she found out she couldn't.

"Miss?" the thaumaturge asked, his peaceful expression tainted by a ghost of dismay. "Is something wrong?"

"N-no… Not at all! I just… The memories of last night came flooding back, that's all. Sorry." Tristessa rubbed the back of her neck with discomfort and averted her gaze for a moment. "Hey, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but why are you two helping us? Did you get paid or…?"

"I was planning to rent one of their vilecrosses…" the hunter tried to explain, but Melian intervened:

"Madame Luchie decided to stay a few more days at the Derelict Outpost before leaving for the Ruined City of Arkos, to the east. She said she'd need more time to think about how to negotiate with the fishermen there. A lie, of course." Melian chuckled, speaking of his employer as if they'd known each other for years. "She was just looking for an excuse to lend you one of the two big boys to continue the journey to Entrana."

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"But the Madame accepted this wagon as a partial payment!" Jin insisted, so as not to sound ungrateful for their services. Melian shrugged him off, with a funny grin.

"Besides, the boss would never forgive us if we didn't help you."

"I see… And how's Reiden? Is he okay?"

The thaumaturge nodded, causing the girl to let out a sigh of relief.

"Yes, don't worry. The poison Strauss had in his possession was a paralytic found only in the stings of the Vraja that inhabit the arid wastelands of the Dominion of Nemasis. A rare poison… But perfectly curable for a natural-born alchemist like Madame Luchie."

Speaking of his employer with pride made Melian overlook Tristessa's strange attitude towards him, something she inwardly appreciated.

"Here, you must be hungry."

Jin had taken a generous slice of stale bread, strips of smoked farross meat, and a waterskin full of water out of his travel pack. He didn't even have time to place them on a small tablecloth before Tristessa began stuffing her mouth with all the food typical of long journeys. The bread nearly broke her teeth, the meat had such a strong flavor it made her nauseous, and the water was going to wreak havoc on her intestines.

It would take her time to get used to it or at least have time to use her own culinary skills, albeit limited. After all, she was a girl accustomed to the food industry of Earth.

"Hey, little man. I see that you are fond of that book." While she was eating, she saw the thaumaturge sat next to Tiara and Lucahn. The boy flipped through the pages without reading, the pain of losing his four-legged friend preventing him from enjoying their contents. "Would you like to see a miracle?

Lucahn looked sideways, that friendly gaze from the man encouraging him to get out of that dark, mental corner called grief.

"Uncle Sev never show me his magic…"

"Maybe that Sev isn't as good as I am," the black-haired man said with a grin from ear to ear and raised the index finger of his right hand. "Watch this, kid."

Tiny, infinitesimal glyphs appeared around his finger, and almost instantly, hundreds of thousands of water particles began to make themselves apparent. They formed clusters of droplets that then converged into a specific shape and floated a short distance from the caster's finger: it was a miniature version of the same book Lucahn was holding, manipulated at will by Melian.

"Ohh, how nice!"

Watching Lucahn laugh as Melian levitated the small, watery book around him, Tristessa sighed.

Her heart twisted at the thought of the blood elf, having heard him mentioned.

"Severus..."

It hurt to think of him. His warm, mocking smile; his enthusiasm and willingness to help. Even his ruthless thirst for revenge against the Shadow Queen... Tristessa adored everything about him and was bound to keep him from intervening in any way. She wouldn't ask for his help, or Auron's, or Astoria's.

She didn't want anyone else to die for her, and that feeling extended to everyone else on that wagon.

She saw Jin sitting near the end-edge of the wagon, keeping watch inside the woods to avoid being surprised by threats like Ghost Daggers or worse.

And Tiara, even while hugging her son, hasn't let her guard down for even a second around her. She probably hadn't even done so when she was unconscious; that thought sounded so typical of her and made Tristessa seethe.

"Is there something on my face?" the girl asked before taking another bite of the last strip of meat she had left.

Caressing her own belly, Tiara didn't change her attitude. Her expression remained the same, analyzing her without rest, stemming from the deep distrust she had in her. Even after everything she told her about the Coven, her daughter, and how she had broken her emotionally, just like in another previous loop.

"Why are you doing all this?" Tiara asked, finally breaking the silence. "What do you gain by trying to save our lives? We are a family hated by everyone. There are people who would even kill us of there's money on the table."

"I think you're exaggerating. For example, the members of Madame Luchie's caravan don't seem to hate you," she commented, meeting the gaze of the black-haired thaumaturge, uncomfortably attentive to the beginning of that heavy-flavored conversation. "What do you say, Melian?"

"W-well, I won't deny that I've always had an...unfavorable view of the Mercer-Archeos. But I'm pleased to say it was pure prejudice!" he was quick to respond.

"And I could never hate a boy as adorable as Lucahn," Lufreya added, still staring straight ahead at the road.

"You see? And just to put your mind at ease, I do hate you," she spat, making special emphasis, and her anger at everything Tiara had done to her in previous loops still alive in her. "So stop bothering me, will you?"

"Stop acting stupid, Tristessa!" Her scream shattered the little peace that had managed to form in that caravan. Almost everyone jumped out of surprise, except the girl in front of her. "Tell me, what good does it do you to fight and risk your life for people you didn't even know a day ago?"

The gray-eyed young woman opened her mouth but had to close it again for lack of a response.

Time was cruel. Its currents and paths traced toward infinity, to which everything and everyone were irremediably bound to, like Death. One could philosophize about the inevitability of fate and its nature as a canvas on which time was simply the brush. Living in ignorance was sometimes bliss; not knowing the future and not knowing when the end was near.

Tristessa could no longer rely on that. She could no longer say that ignorance was the mother of all evils because she was forced to travel back in time with each Death and violate the laws of causality. Without telling anyone about her return to life.

Without being able to tell Tiara and her husband and son that she had known them for almost two weeks, accumulating the repeated days in the time loops. Without being able to tell them that she knew that Gaal was going to die. Without being to tell them about all the times they had been cruelly tortured and murdered. Without being able to tell them that they had died because of her...

The cruelty of time, which had turned her into a real stranger to them.

The pain caused by that emptiness, that loneliness, was unbearable for Tristessa. But it wasn't time to break down, with Tiara's icy, inquisitive gaze upon her, demanding explanations.

"Is it hard to accept that I just want to do the right thing?" she asked in return, responding with the same coldness. "Or would you prefer me to tell you that my goal is to see your daughter die? Because that's what I want. Daiana and her group of maniacs must die."

An answer they both agreed on. Tiara didn't doubt her statement because Tristessa didn't need to lie to express the hatred she felt toward that Priestess of the Black Eye, after all the torment she had put them and Severus through.

"It's hard to accept kindness from people unknown..." the pregnant woman whispered, leaning back and resting against the backrest. Jin sat back down beside her, joining hands and intertwining their fingers. "You must understand that I am a woman who would do anything for her family, Tristessa."

The wagon's progress was against the wind—especially now that the trees in the surrounding forests were beginning to thin out and thin out—provoking a sharp, icy sensation against her skin. Not only did Tristessa not feel that cold, but the heat radiating from the rage that was invading her was hellish.

Her fists ached from how tightly she was clenching, hidden beneath the blanket that was placed over her while she was unconscious. Those same fingers that the woman had broken, along with punches, kicks, and other unpleasant methods, to make her confess that she was a witch of the Coven.

She was never going to forgive her. In any of the loops she was forced to live, she would never forgive the abuse and those three fateful days of torture.

Yes, time was cruel, not only because of the pain of being forgotten, but also because it didn't always heal the wounds inflicted on the soul…

"I know. Don't worry." Tristessa relayed all those messages with a dark look that screamed hours upon hours of agony that Tiara would never remember. "I know exactly what you're capable of."

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