"Yeah I do, that's where we're headed right now."

"Wasn't this supposed to be a date?"

"... Are there any rules in this 'date' thing that says I can't do both? We're headed to a great place, you're going to love it."

While Dax kept his secretive aura around him he and Lilly were currently travelling out of Kingstead by CAS-A7, the only other thing they had with them was a single picnic basket that Lilly wasn't allowed to look in, but from the smell she could tell that it was filled to the brim with Dax's awesome cooking. 

"Fine then against my better conviction, I will trust you this once… So how long until we're there?"

"It should be another 30 minutes, due to alt.i.tude and speed limits."

"..."

"..."

With nothing else to talk about the cabin of the CAS-7A filled with a quite uncomfortable and awkward silence. Just a few hours ago Lilly had prepared herself to kill Dax, even with the budding feelings she held for him so it was quite hard for her to talk naturally with him after that, as for Dax he simply didn't register the silence as awkward and simply started meditating. With silence filling the cabin, Lilly's nerves finally relaxed a little, leading her to let out a quiet yawn as the drowsiness which was the result of a sleepless night finally caught up to her.

"Are you tired?"

"I am, thanks to you."

Becoming angry once more over how Dax had treated her Lilly broke eye contact as she started pouting, leading Dax to form a thin smile.

"Then let me help you get some sleep, I know full well that the subtle vibration of this type of craft makes it hard to get a nice deep sleep."

Getting up from his seat Dax walked over and sat down next to Lilly, making her open her mouth to ask but what he was doing, but before that she felt a large warm hand find its place on top of her head, gently caressing her hair as she felt a strong sense of drowsiness fall over her.

"... When…. The… h.e.l.l did…. You...….."

Not even able to finish her sentence Lilly entered a deep sleep as Dax continued to pat her head as he quietly answered her question.

"From my mom. Lux really loved this when she was younger but now she won't allow me to do it anymore…. I wonder why?"

---

When Lily woke up she didn't find Dax by her side, instead, she was greeted by the gentle summer sun and an intense smell of flowers, making her look out the CAS-A7's open ramp.

"... Wow.."

Looking out Lilly was met with a sea of flowers that had all kinds of different colours. As she quickly stretched and walked out of the s.p.a.ceplane the elver was met with a scenery which could only be described as a sea of flowers. A cloudless sky was all around Lilly, with the only thing that broke the clean horizon being serval large black towers, which Lilly instantly recognized as the same kind of defensive railgun turrets which Dax had previously built in Kingstead.

"3… 5…. 8 in total… Something here must really be worth protecting."

As Lilly counted the towers Lilly noticed Dax in the distance, near one of the closest towers that he appeared to be inspecting.

"Did you sleep well?"

As Lilly walked over while being careful not to step on any flowers Dax noticed her, taking off his reaper mask when she got closer.

"Yeah, I did… Where are we?"

"All will be revealed in good time~ Now you must be hungry after sleeping so soundly for 3 hours, so let's get some food."

"I slept for 3 hours?"

Looking for the sun Lilly confirmed she had indeed been sleeping for a while, much to her own surprise. Walking back to the parked CAS-A7 Dax took the picnic basket with him as he walked along a small path which led from a small landing field to a grouping of several small one story wooden buildings that sat in the middle of a colourful sea of flowers. Walking closer Lilly noticed that there were several people walked around at the small compound, all of which appeared to be women that wore nun habits. As Dax walked closer the nun's walked up to greet him, and after exchanging a few short words Dax walked over to one of the closest buildings.

"Dax what is this pl"

As Dax opened the door Lilly stopped her question mid sentence, the reason being that she finally found out where they were.

"Ah! It's Dax!"

"Dax did you bring any food?"

"Welcome back Dax!"

"Wait, is Dax here?"

After opening the door Dax was greeted by countless youths, which Lilly immediately recognized as former students of the magic academy. Taking a few steps backwards, Lilly froze in place when she locked eyes with one of her former students while she felt the colour draining from her face.

(They hate me.)

Out of all the teachers Lilly was properly the one that took losing so many students the hardest. While some of the others might simply have been happy that some of the students survived and they hadn't been completely wiped out when the demon had been summoned, Lilly looked at it differently.

(I failed them, I failed so many of them.)

With an extremely strong protective/motherly instinct, Lilly believed that it was her sole responsibility to nurture and protect the students, leading to her to having been extremely popular among the students doing her time at the magic academy.

'Don't worry, this big sister will always keep you safe!'

'You can count on me! I am more powerful than I look!'

Her once optimistic words of encouragement to struggling and scared students had become a source of nightmares for Lilly, as most nights she would see all her fallen students blame her for their death, while those who lived blamed her for not saving them all.

"Ah! Lilly is here too!"

"It's Lilly!"

"I told you she was okay!"

Suddenly surrounded by her former students Lilly felt herself become faint, surely they hated her, surely they would start blaming her for the dead cla.s.smates, surely they would-

"Eh?"

"I missed you so much Lilly!"

"Ah! Not fair! I wanted to hug her too!"

Completely betraying her expectations the now fl.u.s.tered elver quickly became the centre of a group hug, something that was so far out of her expectations that her mind blanked out completely.

"Eh? Lilly why are you crying?"

"What happened? Did Dax do something stupid again?"

"Don't worry we will beat him up so stop crying!"

While Lilly cried tears of happiness Dax quietly looked on, in his mind he thanked Mare for suggesting that he and Lilly should come to visit this place.

-

"It's been too long Lilly, how have you been?"

"Yeah it really has, I asked Dax why you didn't visit us but he said that you were sick, are you okay?"

After calming down and playing a bit with her former students Lilly helped Dax distribute sandwiches he had made, then the two of them had their meal together with Jessica and Finn, the only teachers other than Dax and his group which survived the incident at the magic academy.

"Erm… Yeah I was sick for a bit, but I'm feeling better now so it's okay. I'm glad to see you two are okay."

"Yeah… I still can't believe I survived that and that you helped kill a demon, that's really impressive Lilly."

"Ah, it was nothing, I just helped Victor keep it busy for a little while."

"But still, weren't you scared? I don't trust myself to be able to keep it together in front of such an opponent."

With Jessica asking about when she kept the demon occupied while Lux and Terra got Dax back, Lilly remembered what her motivation was at that point.

"Ara~ What's this?~"

Seeing Lilly fall quiet as she started blus.h.i.+ng, Jessica suddenly got a fox like smile on her face as she started poking Dax on the cheek with a single finger, making Dax restrain himself greatly from whacking her over her head.

"So did it work out?"

Also picking up on what was going on Finn started pestering Lilly for answers, as he had some idea of what could motivate someone to face almost impossible odds.

"... It did."

After a few more seconds of silence, Lilly finally spoke up as she covered her blus.h.i.+ng face with her hands, making the fox like couple look at Dax with large smiles.

"... You beast~"

"... I don't want to hear that from you Jessica, but I guess I can tell the two of you... This is a date, even if it's hard to believe."

As Dax somewhat awkwardly admitted why both he and Lilly had visited together, the knight pair turned silent for a few seconds.

"My oh my~ So pure~ I thought you looked cuter than usual Lilly, so this is why… Congratulations!~"

"And I thought you were a completely lost cause… Nicely done."

While Jessica became even more obnoxious and turned her attention towards Lilly (Read as: Prey), Finn appeared to have been greatly stunned as he placed a hand on Dax's shoulder.

(Why is it he seems even more annoying than Jessica!?)

While Dax did his best to not outright punch Finn in the face, Dax's face suddenly turned serious as he received a message from ICI.

"What's wrong?"

"I need to leave now. Lilly do you want to come with?"

"... Sure."

Seeing the sudden sense of urgency on Dax's face, Lilly answered before she had thought about it. 

"Sorry about this, I'll bring some wine next time I visit. Lilly we dust off in 30 seconds."

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm looking forward to some drinking~"

Saying goodbye to Finn and Jessica as quickly he could, Dax almost dragged Lilly by the hand as he left the building. Right outside was the CAS-A7, having flown over to meet Dax as soon as he exited with its engines already spun up, Lilly could see Dax was in a hurry.

"Dax what's going on?"

"She's waking up."