"…"

The blood elf's silence was worrying.

Tristessa hadn't considered his possible reaction upon hearing this truth, which carried such a titanic weight. She hadn't considered the possibility that he might not believe her, or that he might be offended by even suggesting a scenario in which the family he knew for years was in danger.

Now that she had finally gotten that grim news off her chest, leaving her selfish feelings hidden in the darkest corner within herself, she waited.

His handsome face and mesmerizing eyes, which didn't match his somewhat clownish and childish demeanor, remained unchanged, as if expecting something more from Tristessa.

More information? Some form of contradiction? Something that would tell her that what she had just said wasn't true?

Tristessa was slowly beginning to doubt her actions, fearing that what she had planned from the beginning wouldn't work out as she had hoped. She even feared a dark and dreadful outcome, like the days of torture Tiara had made her suffer...

"S-Severus...?" She whispered his name, timid and with extreme caution.

Saying it made the blood elf react, asking his first question, still staring into her gray eyes filled with uncertainty:

"And how do you know about such attack?"

"Because I saw the eldest daughter of the Mercer-Archeos before my eyes, boasting that her lord Moebius had predicted the massacre that day," she replied, in a convincing way of blending fiction with reality.

With the mention of those two people, Severus was forced to hold onto a chair to keep from losing his balance, and he let himself fall onto it at the mercy of gravity. He partially covered his mouth with one hand. He kept blinking and looking at the sides of Tristessa's face, deep in thought and far from her gray eyes.

That was the unfolding of an unconscious duel between them. A duel of trust.

"She said Moebius saw an inescapable future in his [Book of Sin], and she's going to make sure his prediction comes true," she continued, taking advantage of the elf's silence and with utmost confidence in her words, not elaborating too much and avoiding dangerous territory. "That happened two days ago. They…they killed your mercenary, Viktor Enma. And now they're going to kill them. That's why I came looking for you."

Naming the lost mercenary at the Sea of Trees only worsened Severus's disposition. His mind seemed to race, analyzing all that information until he fixed his gaze at Tristessa again and, with the index finger of the hand covering part of his mouth, pointed at her.

"Viktor is dead? Why you…? How did you...? No, wait..." he said, rephrasing his question with extreme caution. "Are you a witch of the Coven?"

Severus maintained a neutral expression, but Tristessa knew what lurked beneath it: that perpetual hostility and hatred toward anything related to the extinction of his kin.

His left hand tightly gripped his magical cane, which was resting on the table, and its crystal began to glow as it had a few moments before, manifesting the same elemental thaumaturgy he had used to save the coffee cup.

Glowing violet glyphs appeared around Tristessa, four of them, ready to crush her from all directions using gravitational fields. To pulverize her bones and implode her muscles, organs, and veins alike.

"…"

It was impossible not to feel the fear of dying. She would never get used to that dark emotion that took over her heart and made it fall into a vortex of hopelessness.

But Tristessa knew the kind of person Severus was. She trusted him, what he stood for. And against him, she was prepared for that kind of critical argument, and she risked using the same method she had used against Tiara when faced with a life-or-death question.

"I don't know, Severus… I have amnesia, remember?" she said, making his dazzling eyes sparkle and his lips curl with all the anger he couldn't contain, also reflected in his knuckles, reddened from how tightly he was holding his cane. "Perhaps I am a servant of that lord Moebius, perhaps I worship the Dark Lady, I can neither confirm nor deny it… But!"

Before the blood elf could finish his spell, his blue eyes flashing with anger, Tristessa rose from her chair and placed her hands on the table, showing how determined she was, even with those gravity glyphs ready to be activated and murder her.

Even on the brink of Death, she managed to summon courage where there was none.

"But… What I do know is that I want to save the lives of Jin, Lucahn, and Tiara," she said with absolute sincerity. "They welcomed me into their home. They gave me a roof to sleep under, food, and company. I learned several folk tales from Lucahn. Jin cared for me like a daughter, and Tiara… well, she hates me and I hate her, but I understand why she cares so much for her husband, her son and the baby that is about to be born."

Thinking of that family, united and dining in peace as she had seen several times, calmed her anxiety. She even managed to elicit a smile, catching the elf so off guard that he placed his left hand on the table, slowly and gently, unlike the other, which was about to crack the metal from which the cane was made.

"They told me so much about you... About what a great friend you are, the only person who still cares for them and helps them whenever he can. Just by mentioning you, I saw hope in them, when all around them was solitude and pain."

Still smiling and unable to get the elf she had seen comforting Lucahn that fateful night out of her mind, Tristessa dared to take Severus's free hand. It was very warm, filled with that violent energy imbued in his blood, thirsty for revenge. But she didn't care, and she caressed the man's knuckles with the affection she had wanted to show him since he had saved her life in a past that no longer existed.

"That's why I walked from the Sea of ​​Trees to his city, running away from Death on several occasions. That's why I'm facing Death right now," she concluded, her voice nearly betraying her with a sigh thick with fear. "Help me save them, Severus."

Tristessa had nothing left to do but wait for the blood elf's response, while the supernatural presence of the glyphs floating around her made the hairs on her skin stand up like static electricity.

She waited for an answer that would be the difference between living or returning to the past to start her fifth loop from zero, all her efforts wasted, just like all the deaths that had happened to bring her to this time and place.

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If so, he was going to break her heart… And she feared the possibility that those feelings that made her appreciate the elf so much for the person he truly was would die and be replaced by hatred.

"Severus…"

To come to hate the man who saved her from the vargs, who killed her out of mercy so she wouldn't suffer a worse fate at the hands of the witches, and who stayed with her until the very end inside the Evil Dream…

"I won't let you die in this cursed place alone."

She wanted to believe in him, in herself, and pray to the gods that those feelings would never die.

"Tristessa…" The blood elf's voice sounded powerful, like when he uses thaumaturgy, and it made her flinch and her heart jerk violently. His expression was so dark, so filled with ancient hatred…but it eventually softened, his angry eyes closed for a moment, and his grip on his cane weakened. "For someone I don't know, I admire how convincing you are."

With a gesture of his free hand, the gravity glyphs vanished and freed Tristessa from their dangerous influence. She had been holding her breath this whole time, and feeling this liberation and hearing his answer, she let it all out and slumped back in her chair.

"Ugh… Ah… I thought I was going to die!" she exclaimed, glaring at the elf. "I can't believe you were a second away from staining the walls of your house with my blood and guts!"

Severus grinned before bursting into laughter. He shook his head, still staring at his guest in amazement.

"You talk to me as if we know each other," he commented. "Putting that kind of trust in someone you don't know is pretty foolish."

"W-well, Jin and Tiara were constantly talking about you. Severus this, Severus that… Even Lucahn would not shut up about his Uncle Sev. It got to the point where even I felt like I knew you," the girl retorted, placing a hand on her chest as she felt the pain of the past creeping in when she said that. "You're the last friend they have left."

"And what about you? Aren't you a friend?" he asked.

"I... I don't know if I'm worthy. I caused them so much trouble…" she said under her breath, all the horrible memories of that family dying over and over again in her mind. "Bah! That doesn't matter! The important thing is that you'll help me save them, yes?!"

Severus lowered his gaze, and Tristessa felt the imposition of the silence that dominated the workshop. The intensity of doubt and distrust that everyone in that world naturally felt toward her.

"I know it's hard to believe, I know, but I swear that I'm not lying!" she spat, leaning forward on the table. She only needed to review the way they were butchered in previous time-lines. Or even worse, the already doomed fate of that mercenary whose phantom echoes resides within herself. "What they did to Viktor… It was abominable! If we don't do something, in three days the Mercer-Archeos are going to…!"

Suddenly, the elf silenced her by reaching out and placing his index finger on her lips.

"Tristessa, be quiet," he demanded. "Look at this face you'll fall in love with and listen to me."

Her face flushed with embarrassment and anger. She agreed, remaining silent for him to speak.

"Put yourself in my shoes and think. Imagine if a stranger -I apologize for using that word- came to your house saying that the mercenary he hired is dead and that his loved ones are going to be murdered. A suspicious person, with such a dark soul and so much Discord that it literally makes you sick just by being nearby. What would you do in my place?"

That was when he liberated Tristessa's lips so she could respond with the anger that dominated her.

"It doesn't matter that I'm a nobody. You have to do something for them, even if you don't trust me. You're their friend…"

"Yes. And they're my only friends, too."

"Then…!"

Severus stood up, leaving the girl speechless, and walked toward the stairs. He looked over his shoulder and gestured with his hand.

"Come, follow me."

Tristessa climbed the stairs, careful not to break the fragile old wooden steps, and followed the elf to a room with no door, no windows, and a small lamp in the center of the ceiling glowing thanks to thaumaturgy.

The interior was filled with chests, racks crammed with dusty clothes, and miscellaneous objects piled high, such as tables and chairs, books, and other items.

"The belongings of the Mercer-Archeos. What they left behind when the Imperial authorities came to imprison them," Severus explained, crossing his arms and staring at the mountains of objects that didn't belong to him. "I saved what I could… I may be the only one in all the city who cared about them. That's another reason why I'm being looked down upon."

Walking slowly toward one of the piles of clothes to take a closer look, Tristessa noticed that the vast majority of them were burned. And not just the clothes; almost every object seemed to have suffered at the hands of the flames.

"Severus, all of this… Did people set fire to their house?" the girl asked, receiving a silent acknowledgment.

"Since the Massacre of the Endless Night and the banishment, I fear for them every day. Do you know what it feels like to know, for ten years, that my only friends in this world are living in an abandoned house far from civilization, on the edge of a forest full of dangers? To know that they could be attacked at any moment by wild beasts, bandits, or the Coven itself, and that no one will move a finger to save them?"

The frustration in his voice was more than evident. Tristessa looked sadly at all those objects filled with forsaken memories, almost reduced to ashes by a hatred that the entire city shared toward the Mercer-Archeos.

"Every day fearing for their lives. Every time I traveled to visit them, there wasn't a time I didn't feel my heart on the edge of the abyss when I reached the end of that damn hill and saw that house in the distance… Fearing to enter and see their corpses torn to pieces and rotting… Or seeing everything abandoned and no trace of them…"

Turning around, she found herself face to face with Severus. The ethereal light from the lamp gave him an aura of mystery, combining the color of his red hair with the blue glow and shadows of the room surrounding him.

"And now you're telling me that in three days the Coven will make one my worst nightmares come true…"

His eyes, precious as jewels, seemed on the verge of shedding tears. The pain of someone who carried a permanent dread, a phantom of doom on their shoulders. A feeling Tristessa knew perfectly well.

"I wonder who the hell you are, Tristessa Irandell…" he said, reaching out to tuck a lock of her black hair behind her right ear. Tristessa felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach at that slightest touch. "An agent of evil, or a savior?"

A more than interesting question that she, unfortunately, couldn't answer at that moment.

"I wonder who I am too, Severus. Saying I serve the Dark Lady sounds very repugnant, but a savior?" Tristessa almost burst out laughing, so absurd it sounded. "No… Impossible. Not in a million years."

Being a savior was synonymous with being a hero. And a heroine saved people and possessed the strength and spirit to do so, prevailing over any threat no matter how difficult the path.

For Tristessa, the Dullahan was waiting outside. The Coven was waiting outside. Anyone who, by feeling the Discord in her soul, would judge her as scum, sympathizing with a tyrant who wanted to plunge the world into darkness, was waiting outside.

She was light years away from being anyone's savior. On her own, she was nothing more than an ant walking among giants, with the whole world against her from the first minute.

"I don't know who I am. I can't save anyone's life. I can't do anything right," she said with a broken smile. "That's why I'm coming to you. Only you can save the Mercer-Archeos."

Severus sighed, pressing his lips together as if he wanted to say something but couldn't bring himself to do so. Finally, he stepped forward and took Tristessa by the shoulders. A light but affectionate grip, without any hostile intent.

"I don't know what they've told you about me... I'm someone guided by an oath of vengeance, for my exterminated kin," the blood elf explained, squeezing the girl's shoulders lightly. "But for those I hold dear... I have no doubt I'd give even my life to save them."

"S-Severus...!" she exclaimed, a new smile forming on her face, which the elf mimicked.

"We're going to save the Mercer-Archeos. You and me, Tristessa."

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