Ravaged buildings overlook the cobbled city streets, their once proud facades crumbled to the ground like fallen nobility.

Rubble and refuse crowds the city streets as tipped carriages mark the roads where the living once were, their contents gutted and shells cast aside.

A grey mist sinks into the abandoned capital as old ash floats aimlessly through the wind.

The war is over, but nobody is celebrating.

YLISSTOL, A.L. REGINA V

The sound of footsteps broke the gloomy silence as they dodged the bricks and planks of wood littering the streets. The clanking of metal cut into the air while a softer step followed behind. Two girls walked the empty road, armed and cautious.

The stage set here was a mundane one for the two sisters, as it had been for the past five years. The stillness in the air hid a restless anxiety that had come and plagued everyone that was left in this husk of a world. The ones who were still alive were only so by virtue of their will to live, and even that will was slowly seeping into the silence that shrouded the cries of the long deceased. Their only hope of staying alive for the others was to rummage through the ruins and find what had been discarded and lost by a dead civilization. It was late in the afternoon, and they were still empty handed.

The tall girl's name was Severa, a brash, lanky, and pale sixteen year old swordswoman. She carried herself in a somewhat slumpish way, but was certainly more capable than the average mummified barbarian that romed the otherwise empty roads. She lectured her sister.

"Gods, Morgan, you've gotta stop being so cocky if you're supposedly our tactician now. Everybody's counting on you and here you are, almost getting killed."

"Sorry, sis." said Morgan, the younger girl. She was stout, fire-haired, and bright-eyed. "I only thought that... well, why would anybody be attacking this place? Sure this place would've been a great place to attack say, five years ago when there were lots of important people living here, but now? It's deserted."

Severa rolled her eyes. "We've been looking for supplies for hours and what have we found? Nothing. We should just give up and go back. This place is obviously a hotspot for Risen too, so that doesn't help either. We're done here."

Risen, the name given to the mysterious soldiers that had returned from the dead. They were all anonymous, rotten cadaver s, their faces disfigured beyond recognition. Barely even human anymore, nobody was ever certain as to whether this made them more or less frightening. Nobody even knew where they came from. Only that they were dangerous.

Morgan looked at her older sister, the only family she had left. The two of them were resilient, but they were still only mortal. They had to look elsewhere.

She sighed. "Let's go," she muttered.

The two girls made their way through the empty town, the city's crumbling great wall looming over them. Severa could see the different coloured bricks making up the ruined wall. It was rebuilt a few years before she was born, as her parents told her, after the Grimleal had first invaded. The wall was destroyed again when the risen sacked the capital, but this time nobody had bothered to rebuild it, the most anybody could do at that point was abandon their homes, hoping that the risen wouldn't kill them and their families if they were in hiding.

Severa glanced over at her sister as they passed the grey buildings. "I guess we'll have to tell the others that there's nothing here. How the hell are we going to do that?" She pondered.

"Hey, hang on a second, look!" Morgan chimed. She ran over to something.

"Wait, what? What is it?" Severa frantically shouted as she caught up. Her heart pounded. Not only would they find supplies, but she'd actually have something to show Lucina for once. "Spit it out, girl!"

"Hah, we are on Lewyn Avenue! I knew something seemed familiar about this place."

Severa stopped. "...So...?"

"Lewyn Avenue! You know, where... where we used to live..."

"Lewyn Ave-" Severa's face fell. "Oh no... you're not thinking..." She felt something rising in her chest.

"I mean, I'm just saying, we know where everything is already, provided it hasn't been looted..."

"Gods dammit, Morgan, we don't have time for a nostalgic romp through memory lane! We've gotta get back to camp before sundown, remember?"

"I know we do, but I have there's a really good chance that we might find something of value there. You know how much we hate coming back empty handed."

Severa stammered. "Y-yeah, but..."

"Severa. we need to put that old stuff behind us. Our parents are dead, end of story. I don't let it bother me. I only see a possible advantage that we might have and dammit, I'm going to take advantage of it."

Severa looked up ahead, silent and unmoving.

"You can head back to camp all alone if that's what you want to do, sis. Like you said, the place is teaming with Risen." She started to walk down the road. "I, on the other hand, am going to go to our childhood house and see if I can find some gear." Severa knew that her sister knew exactly how to break her. Nobody in their right mind would set out alone when the Risen could be lurking anywhere.

Morgan smiled. "Our parents had some nice things, Sev, maybe even things that would just make a certain blue haired girl think you're the cat's pajamas..." She raised her eyebrows.

She scowled. "Shut up."

Morgan laughed as they walked down the street. "You know, it's really easy to tell when you're blushing, sis."

"I am SO not blushing." Severa's face was red as a tomato. She paused and smiled. "At least I don't have the hots for her dopey cousin."

"What?"

The faint sun rolled west over the blanket of clouds as the shadows on the ground grew longer with each passing minute.

Soon, they stopped in front of a house.

It was nestled next to many other houses of a similar design and size, standing three narrow storeys tall. It was one of the more well-to do neighborhoods in the capital back in its day, but now the houses around were practically reduced to rubble. One would only step inside if they had a death wish. Interestingly, this particular house was in relatively good shape. The windows were shattered and some of the moulding was broken and weathered, but nothing compared to the absolute ruin surrounding it.

Ten years ago, it would have looked like any other house. A house that any father, mother, and two daughters could have lived together in. The father a successful merchant or craftsman perhaps, the mother a caring housewife, the children happy and loved. Each night they would eat dinner, talk about their day, and kiss each other goodnight. However, when the mother is a commander and the father is a tactician, suddenly this turns a daughter's happiness into nothing short of a pipe dream.

"Well, this is it." said Morgan.

Severa sighed. "I can't believe you talked me into this."

"I can." she teased. Severa didn't take this very well this time.

"Well, whatever, let's just look inside and get this over with."

Morgan walked over to the door. She pulled on the handle. "Hmm, it's locked." She told her sister.

"Well, wouldn't you know! We can't get in. Now let's get back before the sun goes down." Severa insisted.

"Hang on! There's a spare key somewhere, remember?"

"Ugh, sweet Naga, you are one persistent thing, aren't you?"

"Oh, look who's talking, Sev!" she jeered. "Here, help me lift up this stone. It's a marvel that this place is still intact, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so." she said. She pointed towards the ground. "Uh, it's under the other one, Morgan."

"Shoot, you're right, sorry. Good thing you still remember." They lifted the stone out from the path. Morgan dug through the dirt. "But yeah, it really does seem strange that this is the only house on the block that hasn't been turned into a glorified pile of bricks. Don't you find that curious?"

"Eh, not really."

She stood up. "Well, at least you're being honest, I suppose." She held up a small key, "Here we are! Skeleton key, unlocks any door in the house. This should help us get into any storages that we might have."

"What would they have even been storing, anyway?"

"I don't know... Preserved food? Medicine?"

"You really think our parents were ones for canning food?" Severa laughed.

"Hey, you never know!" She put the key into the hole. She had to put in a bit of effort before she could quite fit it in. "A little rusty..." She muttered.

The lock clicked as she turned the key and the door opened with a slight hesitation. A musty smell filled the area. Morgan coughed a little. "And... voila."

The house was dark, only lit by the fading sunlight. The outline of the kitchen was made visible by the light shining through where the back door now hung by a single hinge. A chill went over Severa's body as she walked inside, only in part due to the cold. She felt her chest tighten.

Morgan stepped in behind her and closed the creaking door. "Gods, a little dark in here with just the windows, don't you think? Wait, I know what to do..." She walked over to a cupboard in the kitchen. Severa's eye darted towards the living room past the kitchen. She walked slowly towards it, her feet weighed down by the metal in her boots. The house was dusty, and unkempt, but it was still uncannily frozen in time. A shelf full of books. A wooden rocking chair. Morgan's childish drawings strewn about. War medallions.

A rotting oil portrait of a young family hung above the fireplace. The father stood tall in a black coat and golden armor, holding his red-haired infant daughter in his arms. The eldest daughter stood in the front wearing a dull pink dress, a girl who had been scarred, but had no inkling of what was coming. The mother clutched her falcon knight helmet, scarlet hair in a bun, her eyes burning with expectation.

Flashing memories cut through Severa's consciousness like a strobe. The girl in the pink dress now stood in breeches and a loose shirt, armed with a wooden training blade. To the stark-eyed woman standing before her, it made perfect sense to start them young.

Another scene, the parents talking to other adults, boasting about thir children's talents in the arcane, athletics, academics. All eyes were on the child of the brave war hero and the brilliant strategist. But her parents had nothing to say.

The girl was articulate for her age, and had much to later articulate to her parents. Would they not accept her for who she was, rather than trying to groom her into a younger version of their vain selves? They could accept Morgan just fne, but being the oldest comes with burden.

The girl lay on the ground in the dirt in the yard, rubbing her bruised arm, trying to pick herself up from the mud that weighed her wet clothes down to the earth. Her mother stood over and watched as she struggled.

"Hey, are you okay over there?" Severa quickly turned away from the portrait.

Morgan stood in front of her, carrying two plates, each with a bit of fire trapped underneath a glass sitting on top. "Ta-da, makeshift lanterns." she said, sheepishly.

"...Thanks." Severa scoffed as she took one from her sister's outreached hand.

"All right, I guess I'll go upstairs. I might just skip our room since we know there's nothing in there."

"Okay. Just make it quick, got it?"

"I know, I know, we've gotta be home by sundown. I just have a good feeling we'll find something here, you know?"

"Well, yeah. But what happened the last time you went with your gut?"

"Hey man, they didn't die though, remember?"

"Well, I'm sure Brady would've appreciated not running around on the brink of death trying to heal four people at once because you decided to 'go with your gut'"

"...The guy needed more experience, okay?"

"Oh, so we're doing the Mom way of teaching people now, are we?"

"Severa, shut up! We have to focus, remember? You said it yourself." Morgan said as she looked her sister dead in the eye. "I'll go upstairs to check our parents' room and Isadora's suite."

"Isadora?"

"You don't remember our housekeeper?"

"Not really. I was never really in the house much to begin with anyway." she said, dismissively.

"Huh, I'd always figured that you'd remember her better given that you were the oldest."

Severa sighed. "Well, excuse me if I happen to remember the time before we needed our housekeeper to fucking babysit us while our parents were off getting killed because some Exalt was more important than we were!"

"Okay, so we're slandering the dead now are we?" Morgan inquired.

"Alive, dead, I don't give a shit! They abandoned us, and I can't believe that you've chosen to just turn a blind eye and pretend that nothing's wrong!" She was shouting at that point.

"Okay then! Just for that, I'm sending you downstairs! We can get more done if we split up." Morgan said firmly.

It had just dawned upon Severa that they had been standing in front of the door to the basement this whole time. The basement was where their father's study was situated. In the past, they were welcome to come and visit, but in the last year of his life, the girls were barred from entering under any circumstances. After he'd left for his final mission, the study had been left untouched for years. Nobody, not even his closest friends, knew why.

Morgan took the key from her pocket. She held it between her thumb and index finger. She gave her a stern look.

"We won't be coming home empty-handed again. Just like you said, sis."

Morgan unlocked the basement and left for upstairs. Her loud, quick, creaking footsteps grew quieter as she climbed the stairs.

Severa muttered a curse under her breath as she opened the door.