"So what's the deal with this beastkin?"

After traveling for an entire week with a eerily silent pa.s.senger that spent most of her time culled up in a ball in the corner clutching 2 poorly maintained short swords, Terra finally broke the silence.

"I believe I already told you, I picked her up. I asked if she wanted a trip south and she accepted."

"Nononono! She didn't 'accept' it, she said, and I quote: I will follow you wherever you go. That's not f.u.c.king normal, right Lilly?"

Not being able to convince Lux alone Terra called in reinforcements in the form of Lilly, which in hindsight might not have been such a smart idea.

"Just let the child do what she wants, she's not hurting anyone."

"No she clearly threatened to kill me when I offered to share some of my food!"

Having all her complaints fall on deaf ears Terra only exhausted herself further until she decided to just leave to cool her head a bit and opened the top hatch of the AEHWP transport to step out onto the roof. It was around noon so the air was quite nice, greatly enhanced by the cloudless sky and beaming sunlight that made her cover it from her eyes.

"It sure is a great day."

Basking in the sunlight for a moment Terra looked around to see the surviving AEHWP's in formation around the main transport she was currently standing on top of. The last fight had with the fallen angel had been quite a costly one, 1 of the closed personal transports had been destroyed while 2 of the 3 Reaper type drone carriers were heavily damaged and one of them had to be scuttled while the other had to break off from the convoy and return home by itself. One of the high caliber Guardian-G097 indirect fire railgun carrieres had also been damaged and lost its main armament and reduced to a glorified Rex-0999 machine gun platform, in total the AEHWP's numbers had been brought down from the original 15 to 12, with one no long able to fulfil its original purpose. Inventory had also suffered a lot, Dax had expended 18 of the 28 Viper cruise missiles while the AEHWP type Monition manufacturing and storage plant still worked hard to replenish spent small monition's even a few weeks after the attack.

"The sky sure is blue today…. Well so is everything at the moment."

Looking around her all Terra saw with exception of the AEHWP's and other drones swarming around was blue, blue sky, and a blue ocean.

"If I told dad that Dax have carriages that moved faster through water than the Kingdom's navy he would properly think I had gone insane…"

Terra weren't the only one surprised when they had finally reached the ocean and Lux just commanded the drones to advance, but apparently they could move across any kind of extreme environment with ease and according to Lux herself it wouldn't be that much of an issue even if was a sea of acid or even molten rock. After traveling for 2 more days the group made temporary landfall at a tiny unnamed atoll to quell the… unique side effects some members of the group had from traveling at sea for a long time.

"Wow~~~ Look the ground is moving, hey Abel look, the sky is waaaaaaving at me~~~~ I need to wave back!~~"

"Today I learned: Elvers and the open sea do not mix, at all….."

Facepalming hard Lux contemplated sedating Lilly that acted like she had smoked too many mushrooms. She had started acting like that approximately 10 hours ago, and had gotten so obnoxious Lux had considered starting a vote to throw her overboard, or at least tie her up and gag her. The beastkin were also adversely affected by the constant movement by the waves, and the moment they hit solid and unmoving ground she rushed off the transport and then promptly fell over limply on the beach before pa.s.sing out.

"Terra please check if she's still breathing."

".... Sure."

The same time as the beastkin's vitals were confirmed Iris peaked out from the transport, noticed the blinding sunlight, then quickly retreated back inside.

"Then I'm going to set up defensives and call Dax to arrange for a resupply."

Scanning the horizon all the way round Lux formed a rough draft of a defensive formation and a potential drop zone for orbital resupply she was about to go around the small atoll for a quick look when she spotted Abel standing around being bored.

"Wanna come with me for a quick look around?"

Extending a hand and a warm smile Abel hesitated briefly before tenderly grasping Lux's hand.

"Now that's not how you do it, come here~"

Using Abel's hand as leverage Lux gently lifted Abel up and sat him down on her shoulders.

"Now this is way better, now second in command Abel let's commence this inspection!"

Shouting with enthusiasm like some sort of instructor right out of a kids show Lux hoped imparting some fun into the child's day.

"O-okay!"

Hearing that it had somewhat worked judging form the part nervus part enthusiastic shout from above her a small smile formed on Lux's face as she remembered when Dax had done something similar for her as a child.

"Is big sister Lilly going to be okay?"

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"Yeah, she just got a bit dizzy from seasickness and taught drinking hard alcohol would solve it. Whatever you do Abel don't grow up to be an adult like her…."

"Okay."

With Abel falling silent after that Lux didn't try to strike up a conversation and instead silently inspected the atoll and discovered that the central lagoon was surprisingly deep and completely void of life due to a high concentration of sulphur.

"Big sister Lux, are you strong?"

Out of nowhere Abel struck up a conversation with Lux as they reached the furthest part away from the others on the atoll.

"Yep!~ I'm strong, incredibly so. In fact in this world there's only one person that can beat me!"

Answering with absolute confidence as she formed both her hands into fits Lux started shadow boxing with Abel still on top of her shoulders as a display of her power.

"W-who is it that can beat you?"

Having somewhat grasped the power of Lux over the past months traveling with her, Abel was surprised hearing her admit that there was someone stronger than her out there.

"Don't worry I'm talking about Dax, he's my teacher and the one that adopted me after I lost my parents when I was about your age."

Bringing up her own parents Lux wonder how long it was since she last taught about them while wondering how exactly it was they looked, something she could no longer remember.

"... Do you miss them?"

Still as she expected that question it still did sting a tiny bit, but in the end she didn't really get to know them that well before they had died all those years ago.

"Of course, but it has been so long now I've come to pace with it."

"You're not sad?"

"Not really. You see both my mom and dad were a very special kind of soldiers, the same kind I am now and Dax have always been. When they died I was incredibly sad but after becoming a soldier I learned that they had sacified themself to save a lot of people the sadness turned to respect and admiration."

"..."

"Was it too hard to understand? That's completely fine that you don't understand, you're still a child after all."

Lux knew that what she was saying would properly be too hard for child to understand, but she wanted to answer the child's serious question as honestly as she could with her own honest feelings.

"I think I understand."

"Huh?"

"It's the same thing my father said to me."

"Your dad? Could you please tell me more about him?"

But unexpectedly Abel did understand, and for the first time Abel spoke about his family, a subject he had so far refused to talk about even with Lilly or Iris there were the closest to him.

"... I'll tell you, but I fell this is something everyone should hear about."