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Mentions: Meiyu [@Tae], Ezekiel [@helo], Scratch & Val [@Apex Sunburn], Irrelevant Child [@PoorBabyWithBrokenArmOhWoeIsHim][hr]

She sat alone, poised on a simple bench of darkwood bolted to the Stormrider’s upper deck.

The wind toyed gently with the loose strands of her dark hair as she watched the commotion unfold from some distance away. Around her, the airship bustled with life—passengers laughing, engines humming softly beneath the floorboards, the distant creak of rigging. But to her, all of it was filtered through glass, irrelevant. Her attention was singular.

The woman in the gold and black kimono was the first to draw her eye.

There was violence in her stillness. A perfected calm. Every movement deliberate, every word calculated to control the temperature of the room around her. She comforted the child she had maimed with the same hands one might use to pour tea.

Beneath the woman’s poise, Liana could sense it: the coiled tension of someone who had long since ceased pretending to be good. Not out of malice, but efficiency.

Then came the soldier, or whatever was left of him. Not by uniform, but by bearing. One eye glowed faintly—a sign of lingering arcana. His anger was measured, his morals worn like old armor. The way he stood, shoulders tight, hand never far from the blade at his side—he was a man who still believed the world could be corrected by the edge of a sword, if only he swung it at the right people.

[i]Naïve.[/i]

The Dark Elf—he was a different kind of instrument. Sharp. Detached. The type who didn’t flinch at cruelty because he could already see how it all fit together. He did not guess. He deduced. He was not emotional, but he [i]was[/i] curious.

Curiosity was far more dangerous.

And the girl with him—the assistant, [i]his shadow.[/i] Eager and bright. Liana figured she hadn’t yet realized how sharp the world could become. She would, eventually. The question was whether she'd survive the lesson.

The boy was irrelevant.

Pawns often thought they were players until the board shifted beneath them. This one had tried to steal and learned what hands like the gold-clad woman’s did to thieves. He would walk away from this changed, but not in any meaningful sense. A footnote in someone else's story.

She turned her eyes briefly toward the clouds, then reached into the folds of her coat and withdrew a slender device—a cross between a monocle and a tuning fork, its surface etched with concentric glyphs that pulsed faintly with shifting chromatic light. A quiet chime sounded as she pressed it to her temple.

A flicker of arcane light passed before her right eye, unseen by any but her. It whispered truths. Names, perhaps. Fates. Glimpses. She did not flinch as the device hummed—just the faintest twitch of her brow as it settled with a quiet tone and dimmed.

She tucked it away without ceremony.

The moment she’d activated it, her body language had changed—posture straightened, chin lifted. Not arrogance, not quite. But something just adjacent. A sense of superiority so complete that it no longer required defense.

Her gaze returned to the group. She studied them like one might examine insects in a jar—fascinating, grotesque, and pitifully unaware of the walls that confined them.

They thought they were solving something. That this moment mattered.

[i]How quaint.[/i]

The faintest curl of amusement touched her lips as the scene played on. She did not smile so much as acknowledge the idea of one.

Let them posture. Let them teach their lessons and dress up righteousness in pretty words.

She was of a different ilk.

And them, well...they were simply not important. [/color]