In the hours before dawn, deep within the night, Jeanne was fast asleep. Suddenly, the divine revelation in her mind began to blare like a screaming air-raid siren, relentlessly pounding against her consciousness until she was wrenched awake.
Jeanne sat bolt upright, instantly alert. It had been a long time since she had experienced a warning this severe. For her intuition to blast such a desperate alarm, something truly catastrophic must be about to happen.
She glanced at Talulah, who was sleeping soundly beside her. Gently, Jeanne began to slip out of bed, moving with practiced stealth to change her clothes without waking her friend, intending to scout the situation outside.
"And where do you think you're going?" a voice muttered hollowly from directly behind her, making Jeanne jump so violently that the sock she was holding went flying across the room.
Jeanne spun around, her heart hammering. Talulah was sitting up, her expression a mix of dark annoyance and deep grievance, clearly looking like she wanted to punch someone. Tangled around one of her Draco horns was a sheer black silk stocking, and she was glaring at Jeanne with a chill that could freeze fire.
"You scared the life out of me!" Jeanne accused, immediately going on the offensive to deflect Talulah's imminent wrath. "What're you doing, creeping up on me like that?!"
"You're the one sneaking around in the dead of night, you hypocrite!" Talulah snorted, pulling Jeanne's "stinky" stocking off her horn and throwing it at her feet.
Jeanne looked away guiltily. Okay, fair enough—speaking up suddenly like that would have given anyone a fright. Her reaction was just an involuntary instinct... who was she kidding? She remembered how fearless Jeanne usually was; she could look at things that made Talulah's scales crawl and act like nothing was out of the ordinary!
"I'm not going to ask again," Talulah pressed, the skepticism in her eyes thickening. "What are you doing up, and where are you planning to go, alone?"
She didn't understand why Jeanne was trying to slip away in secret. Was she in danger, or was someone blackmailing her?
"It's nothing too serious," Jeanne mumbled, scooping up her rogue stocking and pulling it onto her foot. "My revelation woke me up. It was a strong warning, but I don't have any specific details yet. I was just going to step outside and scout the area."
Talulah froze. A divine warning? She knew the undeniable power of Jeanne's intuition; that inner compass had never steered them wrong. If it was sounding the alarm...
Then something massive really was about to happen!
"And you were just going to leave without telling me!" Talulah threw back the heavy covers, scrambling to get dressed. If a crisis was approaching, she was absolutely not letting Jeanne face it alone.
"I saw how tired you've been these past few days," Jeanne protested, scratching her head sheepishly. "I didn't want to wake you."
"Tired or not, this is my fight too!" Talulah snapped, her anxiety mounting. What if a single second made all the difference? "Where's my sock? I swear I put them right here. I've been looking for five minutes and can't find either of them!"
She was baffled. Talulah was meticulous about her things, always leaving her clothes in a specific spot. Where could they have gone?
"How should I know where your socks are?" Jeanne shrugged casually. "You really need to be more careful with your things. How am I supposed to—"
Jeanne paused, looking down as she pulled her other stocking up. She froze mid-movement. This texture... She pulled her foot closer for a better look.
It was Talulah's.
Jeanne cleared her throat and turned her head away awkwardly. Talulah followed her gaze, her eyes landing squarely on the silk stocking covering Jeanne's leg. That... that is mine. She glared at her friend, unable to believe the nerve of this woman lecturing her on being neat!
She didn't say a word. There wasn't time to waste on such pettiness, nor did she feel like ripping her own clothing off of Jeanne's leg right now. With practiced efficiency, Talulah pulled Jeanne's remaining silk stocking off the floor and slid it onto her own foot.
Dressed and focused, the two friends slipped silently out of the house. In their haste, they completely forgot about the "prisoner" sleeping in the other room, not even leaving a scrap of a note.
Loughshinny, of course, had heard everything. The whispers, the shifting, the frantic changing—every rustle was clear as day to the trained Draco operative, and she had woken up the second Jeanne started to move.
But as she waited in the silent dark, realizing that they truly had forgotten all about her, Loughshinny sat up and let out a tired sigh. She was torn—should she use this chance to escape? The fact that they didn't even care enough to keep her locked up properly was... insulting, in a way.
She sat on the edge of her bed, watching the twin moons through the window, utterly conflicted. For now, she could only wait, watching the calm night and seeing what the impending storm would bring.
"What exactly did you feel from your revelation?" Talulah asked as she and Jeanne hurried down the silent street side-by-side. Above them, the twin moons and countless stars shone peacefully, offering no hint of an approaching storm.
The tranquil environment contrasted sharply with the sense of urgency radiating from Jeanne. Knowing that Jeanne's inner compass was absolute, a single horrifying thought crystallized in Talulah's mind.
Jeanne's nightmare of the bombardment... Was it happening tonight?
The thought chased away every trace of drowsiness. If that terrible explosion truly was imminent, then every second mattered!
"You've guessed it?" Jeanne glanced at Talulah's shift in posture, realizing her friend had connected the dots. She picked up her pace.
While her intuition didn't give her precise locations or times, the only thing that could trigger an alarm this severe was either a catastrophic, sudden natural disaster, or the devastating artillery strike she had foreseen in her dream.
"Then what do we do?" Talulah asked, her voice cracking with sudden panic. If that was the case, County Hillock was about to enter hell. "Where are those Steam Knights? Are they here?!"
"I don't know," Jeanne said. "They went completely silent a few days ago to keep Londinium from tracking their movements. I assume they're close, but worst-case scenario... they're still a day away."
Jeanne didn't slow down; in fact, she was moving faster than Talulah could keep up with at a walk. The Draco found herself breaking into a light jog to stay parallel with her friend.
But Talulah didn't complain. She pushed her body to maintain the pace, knowing full well what Jeanne intended to do.
"Are you sure you can handle this?" she asked, her concern shifting to Jeanne herself. "An area this large... the energy expenditure will be astronomical. In your current condition, can your spirit even take that kind of strain?"
As deeply as she cared for the Taran people, Jeanne's safety was paramount. If protecting them meant Jeanne sacrificing herself, Talulah would find another way—even if it was a desperate one.
She remembered Jeanne collapsing from exhaustion before after Kazdel launched an attack on Reunion and sleeping for days. This would be the largest-scale working of her Luminosité Éternelleshe had ever attempted in this world.
Talulah's gaze was filled with genuine worry as she jogged, but she didn't just worry. As they moved through the sleeping neighborhoods, her own Arts flared into life.
BOOM! BOOM!
Several rapid explosions cracked through the silent air, rattling windows along the entire street. While the residents might not be able to get out of bed yet, such terrifying sounds would at least snap them awake and buy them crucial moments to react.
It was the best Talulah could do; using her Originium Arts to create sonic booms as a warning, praying that these Tarans would take the chance to prepare, even if it might not save them from a direct hit.
"I think I'll be fine," Jeanne reassured her. "When I was back at Rhodes Island, providing samples for their research, I absorbed a massive amount of Originium energy—enough to fill a baseline reservoir. Using it once here won't kill me."
They arrived at a wide, empty central square. A soft light flickered in Jeanne's hands, and in an instant, it solidified into her standard-bearing flag. She drove the pole into the ground, turning back to Talulah.
"You don't need to worry about my safety. I'm completely confident in my abilities," Jeanne said firmly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Right now, your place is among those Taran workers. They are going to be terrified; keep them from turning on each other. Chaos will only kill them faster."
She looked up at the night sky. With her enhanced vision, she could already see faint streaks of light—falling stars—tracing arcs through the atmosphere.
Her nightmare had turned into reality.