The King's Knights

Chapter Twenty: Grown Up

It was a shielded window looking out onto the world of Falcov below.

Unholy energies were coursing around the place, especially in the asteroids. That and the less inhabited regions. The ships of the Dreamer Empire had been moving in a convoy system, absorbing and purifying as they went.

And it was taking a lot of time and effort. The surface of the world had only a few green patches. One significant area, surrounded by many mountains, sheltered it. That with access to a brighter patch of sea. You also had a chain of islands off that, where the Dark Elves apparently lived. And there were many brownish areas where things were livable outside of the wastes.

But by and large, the place looked like hell.

Lines of fire streaked out across the northmost continent, their hellish glow visible. A vast asteroid belt encircled one side of the planet. And beneath it, meteors descended in a barrage on the wastes below. No amount of money from the Karsif Corp mining operations could compensate for this.

Someone had to go to a lot of trouble to make a world once inhabited by trillions look this bad.

Or a lot of someone.

And now Kiyora Yagos had grown up.

The blue and black jumpsuit that went with her hair only served to highlight it. Kiyora wasn't the teenager she'd been before. She'd gotten taller and looked almost like an adult now. Her hair was much longer now, and she'd had to tie it up with a headband.

"Ugh, I hate these new bunks," said Kiyora, sitting up. "You can't dream at all in them. I wish William were here.

"Who am I kidding? He's busy." Even drawing him here to help her would be hard.

Kiyora was not a kid anymore.

She still felt like a kid.

So, she went about her routine alongside the other cadets. She brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and donned her operational suit. It was explicitly designed to filter out unholy energies that leaked through. When it came in, it made her whole body feel weird, and the more they worked, the worse it got.

Two more weeks of this. Assuming the mission wasn't extended, which Kiyora privately hoped would happen. The longer she stayed out here, the more time she had to learn.

Brush teeth.

Comb hair.

Put on the uniform.

"Why skintight jumpsuits?" murmured Kiyora. "Does it help? I mean, I guess it looks really good."

"Oh hey, Kiyora, how are you doing," said Grace. "Fancy running into you so early in the morning."

"We room in the same barracks, Grace," said Kiyora, walking down the hall.

Looking and feeling neat was very important, or so Belora said, how you felt affected how you worked. Spiritual readiness and purity were critical in this operation.

"Oh, silly me," said Grace. "You look really nice. Did you know they let me get a custom jumpsuit? I said I wanted orange, and they let me change it."

"Well, I guess orange is an obvious color meant to ward people off disaster, so it fits," said Kiyora.

"Maybe I could be a traffic cop someday," said Grace.

"That sounds like a realistic ambition," said Kiyora. "Go for it."

"Wow, you have a lot of faith in me?" said Grace.

"Yeah, sure, you can do anything," said Kiyora. "As long as it doesn't get somebody else hurt."