The air hums with distant birdsong. Light cuts in golden rays across the stone floor. Katrina, still twirling the whip between her fingers, walks toward the door with long, measured strides.
She doesn't look back.
But her voice slices the silence like a blade.
Katrina
(grumbling)
"Okay... just because it's you, I'm doing this. Who even is this kid?"
Behind her, Madhav chuckles, slow and dry like tea leaves crackling in hot water.
Madhav
(scratching his head with zero guilt)
"Ashwin… or Ashlin? One of the two. I forgot."
Katrina stops in her tracks. Turns around, one brow raised so high it could slice clouds.
Katrina
"…You forgot his name."
Madhav
(shrugs, with the air of someone who has watched empires rise and fall)
"Happens. Age and wisdom go hand in hand — except when they don't."
Katrina
"Do you at least have his address?"
Madhav's eyes twinkle.
Madhav
(grinning)
"Well… as a matter of fact…"
(beat)
"I don't."
Katrina stares. Blinks. Throws up her hands and walks a few more paces before spinning again.
Katrina
"Then how am I supposed to find this kid, Gramps?"
Madhav
(calmly, as if discussing the weather)
"They'll come. That's how these things go. Threads pull threads."
Katrina
(deadpan)
"That sounds like one of those fortune-cookie things you mumble when you forget where you left your boots."
Madhav
(ignoring the jab)
"They live in Brevia's main town, that much I know."
Katrina
(muttering)
"Main town, huh… Prodigies getting born in well-to-do families now? I doubt."
Madhav
(eyes soft, but words precise)
"You don't always need a sad backstory to be unique."
Katrina stares at him for a beat.
Then she clicks the whip into its holder on her belt and adjusts her coat.
Katrina
"Alright then."
She turns again, stepping out of the guild's shadow and into the sunlight, boots tapping against cobblestone.
Just before the last step—
She stops. Looks back over her shoulder.
The wind plays with her hair as she speaks.
Katrina
"I'm not training him for a day if he's worthless. So one month?"
(her eyes flash)
"That's a long shot."
Madhav
(to himself, as she disappears into the road ahead)
"…And sometimes, all a spark needs is one strike."
Brevia – 10 A.M.
The boots hit packed dirt with a soft crunch.
Katrina stood at the edge of town, scanning the rooftops.
Brevia's main town had changed — not with glass towers or magical elevators, but with rows of freshly painted homes, tighter fences, cleaner paths. More people. More voices. More children laughing somewhere down the road.
She stepped toward a tall tree just off the roadside. No one was around to stop her — not that they'd dare — and in seconds she'd scaled up the trunk, settling into a wide crook that gave her a good view of the town's spread.
Katrina
(muttering)
"It's getting developed… Last time I was here, half these houses didn't exist."
It felt strange. Familiar, yet not.
She was technically a part of Whisper's Light, the local guild, but most of her missions had taken her island to island of the west sea. Brevia was just a place her letters went to die.
Now she was back, sitting in a tree like a bored hawk.
Katrina
(flat)
"Alright. So. Where do I even begin looking for a kid who 'stands out'…"
Her eyes scanned the cobbled streets, the shopfronts, the distant school bells echoing across the houses.
Mafia bosses?
Easy.
They slipped up eventually — a name, a weapon, a deal too big to stay quiet.
Pirate captain changing faces? Cakewalk.
Even the time she traced a smuggler through six disguises and three fake deaths — manageable.
But a child?
Some 'prodigy' Madhav barely remembered the name of?
She sighed.
Katrina
"Should I go stand outside every school in the area?"
The image played in her head — a woman in full gear, whip clipped to her belt, magic discharge device glinting in the sun, loitering near classrooms like some villain in a parent's worst nightmare.
She snorted.
Katrina
"Yeah. That wouldn't end in a mob chase at all."
One leg swung slowly off the branch as she looked down at the town again.
Children. Families. Chatter.
All blending together in a kind of blur.
Nothing 'stood out.'
And that was the real problem — this wasn't her kind of mission. There were no trails, no heat signatures, no bad habits to track.
Just a name. Or maybe two.
And a vague "you'll know when you see him" from a man who forgot the boots he was wearing while wearing them.
She scratched her temple with the corner of her glove.
Katrina
"Maybe I find a tavern. Sit. Watch. Ask around."
Her voice was level, like she was talking herself into following a lead she didn't believe in.
But her boots had already started climbing down.
She wasn't good at waiting. But she was better at reading people than most mages were at reading spells.