@rizki_fatih · since 2026
"Dark fantasy, minimalist prose, morally complicated people making impossible choices."
They rested among the trees. Everyone looked exhausted, or maybe frightened. Max and Edric eased Piccaron down between them, still catching their own breath. Carmilla moved to try healing magic.
The day finally came when Piccaron got his assignment. He and Princess Anastasia's group would be scouting one of Elmar's outposts, the infiltration set for nightfall.
At the barracks, Piccaron and Princess Anastasia arrived at a run-down room — the last one still unoccupied. "I'll send for you when there's a mission.
In the carriage, Piccaron looked visibly weakened, fresh blood already trailing from his nose. "You're bleeding. Here." Carmila held out a handkerchief. "That ability of yours." Princess Anastasia studied him.
The child cried, though no sound came with it. None of the usual tantrums a kid that age throws. At an age this small, he'd been handed a truth too heavy to carry. "Did you steal me away from my parents?
Screams tore through the air from every direction, and the weight pressing down on the atmosphere itself pushed Piccaron closer to something past reason.
A middle-aged man dragged a ladder over and reached for a book on a high shelf. He pulled it down, wiped the dust from its cover, and something like real pleasure crossed his face. "His ability's been confirmed, sir.
"Let me lay it out for you. Your job is helping us slip through and handle close-quarters work if it comes to that. Open combat — I'd say we're better suited for that than you are.
The show's audience wasn't nearly as full as it would've been for Love at the West's Edge — but "My Wretched Soul" had already pulled Piccaron in five separate times since the Marion troupe first arrived in Marina.
Piccaron drifted down the street like a man half-lost to himself, and today even his favorite pastimes — drinking, smoking, bedding some beautiful woman — all of it felt hollow, tedious.
The new commander arrived in Merrie and summoned Pine, May, and Serena — the three strongest assets his unit had. Commander Samuel didn't waste time on pleasantries. "The claim's secured." His eyes settled on Pine. "Now.
"Spirit-callers." Piccaron said it plainly to Gaia. "You're an ancient tribe — one with a very particular method for manufacturing wandering ghosts. Nearly impossible to engineer normally.
"You don't get to tell me to leave! A moment like this is exactly when I become someone from the Golden Cloud again." May's fury was raw, unguarded. "Cool your head.
"Burned through your protection just like that, friend. I half expected you'd be dead by now." "Truth is, I'd have been fine without it." Piccaron poured himself a glass, unhurried. "This city was a blur to me at first.
The bar was, to put it kindly, a dump. Still — it was the only one Merrie had, and a city with only one bar tends to treat it like scripture. Piccaron took a stool and signaled the bartender. "A glass of sterin. Please.
The twenty-seventh night came the way they'd both been waiting for — slow, unhurried, dressed up as something ordinary. Mr. Jay and Ms.