When Fuu awoke, the sky was ash-colored, with a trace of dusty blue. Through the window in their room, she could see that the sun had barely peeked over the horizon. Dawn was breaking, slowly.

The blond girl crept out of bed so as not to awaken her slumbering friends. She silently opened their closet door, selecting a simple tan skirt and going into the bathroom off of their room.

Fuu pulled her nightgown over her head and stepped into the bath. The warm water relaxed her as she slid down underneath it, letting out a soft sigh.

Something feels eerie about this, she thought, her gaze wandering up to the ceiling. Something is very out of place.

She dwelled upon that thought for a while. Ever since they had been unable to leave Cephiro, Fuu had felt that there was something wrong. Umi and Hikaru had expressed that they noticed it as well. But there is no reason to dwell upon things, Fuu, she chided herself, climbing out of the bath. You will probably have a relaxing time in Cephiro until we figure out how to get home.

Fuu pulled on the tan skirt and shirt and quietly exited the bathroom. She sat on her bed as she brushed out her hair, looking out the window and watching the sun come up. After a moment's thought, the blond girl stood up and went back to the closet. She selected a white apron, tying it around her waist, and silently passed the sleeping Hikaru and Umi, slipping out of the room.

Remembering the way that Presea had led them the previous morning, the viridian-eyed girl crept through the dim halls towards the kitchen, silent so as to not awake anyone. When she reached the tall doors to the kitchen, she knocked and stepped back.

After a moment the door swung upon, revealing a thin boy holding a circular tray at his side. "Yes?" he asked.

"My name is Fuu," the blond girl replied. "May I come in and speak to Waemi?"

The boy's eyes widened. "Ne, are you one of the Magic Knights?" Fuu nodded. "Oh, Waemi and Nobyre have been babbling about you nonstop!" He stepped to the side. "Come on in!"

"Arigatou gozaimasu." Fuu walked into the kitchen, smiling. It was warm inside and, just like the previous morning, the smells of the foods being prepared hung in the air delightfully. Fuu smiled, walking over to a vertical row of ovens where Waemi was bent over, putting something in the lowest one. "Waemi-san?"

The younger girl jerked up fast, her sapphire eyes wide. "Oh! Fuu-san!" She beamed, shutting the oven. "Why're you here? It's too early for breakfast."

"I know. I was hoping I might be able to help out," Fuu explained, smiling.

"Oh, no, we couldn't ask you to do that!"

"You are not asking me to. I'm requesting it."

Waemi thought for a moment before replying, "Well, if you want to, why not?" She grinned, grabbing Fuu's hand. "Come on, you can help me and my friends over here."

The exuberant girl led Fuu over to a table where four other girls, about Waemi's age, were working. Two of them were kneading dough, another was mixing something in a huge bowl, and the fourth, whom Fuu recognized as Nobyre, was spreading the contents of the bowl over fist-sized loaves of bread. "Minna-chan," Waemi announced, grinning proudly, "this is Fuu, the Magic Knight! She wants to help us this morning."

Fuu smiled as grins spread across the girls' faces. They three girls that Fuu did not know quickly introduced themselves as Yeiry, Hedaimo, and Larumele. The one stirring the mixture in the bowl, Larumele, beamed as Fuu came to stand beside her. "I'm mixing up the spread for the bread that they're making," she explained. "If you want to, you can help me crush the fruit for it." As Fuu nodded, the younger girl with auburn pigtails pointed to a jar of marble-sized yellow berries. "Those are themins," she said. "You can crush those up on here with that round thing over there."

Fuu smiled, picking up the rounded-ended wooden cylindar that Larumele had spoken of and took a fistful of the themins out of the jar, setting them on the thin wooden slab before her. She pressed the rounded end of the cylindar down on the berries and turned it, squishing them. "Like this?" Larumele nodded, picking up what looked like a salt shaker and sprinkled something into the bowl, then continued stirring.

As she continued crushing the yellow berries, Fuu watched the other young girls working at the table. Yeiry and Hedaimo, the girls kneading the dough for the bread, were chatting with Nobyre about someone called Kujin. Larumele kept giggling and blushing, at which her friends teased her. Waemi dashed back and forth between the many ovens and the table, taking the dough over to back and bringing back the finished loaves for Nobyre to spread with the fruit mixture that Larumele and Fuu were making. They mostly talked amongst themselves, but after ten or so minutes Yeiry asked, "Ne, Fuu-san, do you have a boyfriend?"

Fuu's cheeks pinked slightly, but she smiled at the younger girl. "Hai, Yeiry-san."

"Ooooh!" Nobyre squealed. "Who is it? Is it someone here or in your world?"

Fuu gave the berries to Larumele to put in her bowl and then beginning to crush some more. "Ferio," she replied, a smile on her face.

"Ferio-ouji?!" half of the girls squealed in unison. "Oh, Fuu-san, you're so lucky!" cried Waemi, clasping her hands. "The prince is so handsome... He has the most gorgeous golden eyes..."

"Waemi-chan, the bread is burning," Hedaimo said calmly.

"Ah!" The black-haired girl sprinted back to the oven in a rush.

Fuu laughed softly, pausing in her task for a moment to gaze off into space. "He does have beautiful eyes..."

Larumele nodded in agreement. "Yeah... And beautiful hair, and a beautiful nose, and---"

"A beautiful nose?" Nobyre asked. Larumele blushed.

"Yeah, and what about Kujin?" Yeiry added, grinning.

Looking up, Fuu asked as Larumele blushed, "Who is Kujin?"

Waemi, who was returning from the ovens, heard the question and set the tray of baked bread down on the table for Nobyre to attend to. "Kujin's this guy who works here in the kitchen," she answered, grinning at Larumele as her pigtailed friend's face flushed. "He's fifteen and really cute. Larumele-chan's got a crush on him."

Fuu watched as the auburn-haired girl began mixing the spread in the bowl furiously, not looking up at her friends. She smiled, turning back to the themins sitting on the wood and began to crush them again.

The cold air touched her skin --- no, it wasn't the air. Was there air? She couldn't tell. But she felt cold, so icily cold. And she savored it.

She suspected that it was the shadows themselves that caused the tingling chill upon her face. She had long since entered them, had been standing in silence a long time. Did she have to be silent? Wondering, she spoke. Whatever words that had formed in her throat did not go past there. She was surrounded by perfect silence, perfect darkness, perfect cold.

It seemed very empty, but perhaps it was not. She stepped deeper into the dark, not cautiously, but rather boldly. She felt comfortable, calm. She was not afraid. But why should she be? Had she not stepped into the shadows by her own will in the first place? Of course. She wouldn't have come in if she had had doubts. Would she?

No.

Walking through the inky blackness, she did not hear her own footsteps. She didn't even feel the ground beneath her feet. Was there a ground? She couldn't tell. She didn't care.

She supposed she was walking through dead air. Well, she had always wondered how it would feel to fly. This was close enough, she guessed.

Then she saw it. Just ahead, only a few steps away. Through the darkness came a small beam of light, illuminating a thin slice of it. She could scarcely see it, for the light was narrow, but if she looked a bit harder---

Presea awoke. No gasp of surprise escaped her lungs this time. She had awoken from the first dream involuntarily. She had forced herself to awaken from this one. But although she had awoken by her own will, Presea still found herself in a cold sweat, still found her heart beating quite fast.

The dream didn't scare her, not the kind of fear that would make one scream. Neither of them had, so she couldn't call them nightmares. They were just chilling, creepy. Somehow they dug deep into her, making her feel spooked and slightly panicky for a moment when she woke up.

Presea stared up at the ceiling for a long time, focusing completely on the smooth, blank whiteness of it. The previous morning, wakening from the disturbing dream, it had stuck with her for a while. She hoped that by focusing entirely upon anything else --- even the ceiling --- she might be able to force the traces of the dream still there out of her mind.

It didn't work. Not well, at least. She finally sighed and sat up, sitting on the edge of her bed. Presea rested her elbows on her knees and set her head in her hands. She hadn't wanted another chapter in the chilling dream, but it had come, and it looked as though there might be more in the future.

"There! There there there!" Larumele almost jumped out of her chair, pointing excitedly.

"Where?"

"Right there, Umi-san!" The auburn-haired girl grinned wildly. "The one coming in! Look at him!"

"So that is Kujin-san," Fuu said.

Larumele nodded enthusiastically. "Isn't he just perfectly gorgeous?" She gasped as the tall boy turned to look their way with gold eyes, and she quickly returned to her breakfast, her face burning.

"You're very obvious, Larumele-chan," Hedaimo said, resting her chin in her hand. Her friend grinned sheepishly.

"Oh, don't tease," Yeiry said, flicking a little crumb of toasted bread at Hedaimo. "I seem to recall your little infatuation with a certain Ferio-ouji a couple years back."

"You liked Ferio?" Hikaru asked the younger girl.

Hedaimo's cheeks flushed, and she twisted a strand of chocolate-brown hair around her fingertip. "Ano..."

Umi grinned. "Oh, how cute. Ferio is attractive, ne, Fuu?"

The blond girl smiled, nodding. "Hai... very much." She smiled, reaching over and patting Hedaimo's shoulder. "I understand, Hedaimo-san."

"You're so lucky, Fuu-san!" Nobyre sighed, popping a few themins into her mouth. "To be Ferio-ouji's girlfriend... That's something the rest of us only dream about."

"Not me," Larumele said. She smiled, taking a themin from Nobyre's plate. "I dream about Kujin."

"You dream about him?!" Waemi squealed. "What kind of dreams?"

Larumele's face flushed. "Oh, Larumele-chan, you're bad!" Yeiry cried, only causing the pigtailed girl's cheeks to grow pinker.

Umi smiled, watching the younger girls squeal and tease Larumele. "This is so nice," she said softly, glancing at her friends. "To just relax and enjoy ourselves here."

Nodding, Hikaru added, "Hai, it helps me forget about why we're still here."

Fuu stared down at her breakfast quietly. She didn't like to think about their situation --- it made her uncomfortable. She was sure it made Umi and Hikaru feel that way, too. Perhaps talking about it helps them, she thought, but it does not reassure me in the least.