Yuna had to shield her eyes against the sun that was facing her as a figure appeared on the horizon. It was hard to make out many details in the bright light, but she visibly perked up and rose to a standing position when it became impossible to miss that head of long, blond hair. It looked like one of the Dragonblade leaders would be joining her after all, which Yuna was secretly pleased about. While she wouldn’t have minded another member, she was definitely closest to Caius and Celes.

“Caius!” Yuna waved at her friend to get his attention once he was close enough to the stables, and she greeted him with a quick hug after leaning up on her tiptoes when he approached. She hoped it wasn’t too awkward, and her own action made her blush a little, but really, bowing felt far too formal with Caius at this point. They’d been on enough missions together.

“I’m glad you got my message. I guess this will be our first job together in a while.” She tactfully didn’t mention how badly the last one with the Original Sin had ended up--they had talked through their feelings about Darlene at that restaurant in Provo after all. There was no need to constantly revisit it. That would only make Caius feel bad.

“I don’t mind at all,” she said with a smile when he expressed that picking up Vordun would require a detour. “He’ll make the journey shorter in the long run, and I kind of miss seeing him. I bet he’s huge by now. She hoped what Darlene had done to him hadn’t left a scar--it had been a bad wound that had taken several cure spells as she recalled.

After making sure that she had both her staff and her dagger from Celes, Yuna set off down the path, following Caius’ lead as they went to go pick up the dragon. As they walked, she decided to broach the facts of the current job with him.

“What did you think of the letter?” She asked thoughtfully. “Merchants not returning from the coast...It could be monster activity. I just hope it’s not bandits again.” She wouldn’t put it past the Original Sin to be robbing the supply lines and bleeding Torensten dry, but it also felt too...obvious for them somehow. They were usually better at avoiding detection from the Torensten nobles than this. It didn’t quite feel like their group to Yuna, but she still wanted to see what Caius thought. He had the most experience with them, after all.

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From Caius’ delayed reaction before he returned her quick embrace, Yuna could guess that she had embarrassed him. His cheeks were a little rosier than she was used to seeing them, and she might have apologized for the hug completely if he didn’t say quickly that he’d been looking forward to working with her again.

“Me too.” Yuna smiled at him while giving Caius his space as they set off on a walk. Given what she knew of his background on a dying world, it wasn’t too surprising that he wasn’t used to physical affection with his friends. Yuna herself didn’t like it much unless she felt completely comfortable with someone, so it was probably best to tone it down until he was more ready.

Of course, given what was happening with Caius and Celes, Yuna felt that she might be waiting forever, but that was alright too. Hugs weren’t for everyone.

Yuna had wanted to hear Caius’ perspective on the letter that she’d left at the base, and she nodded thoughtfully when he said it was probably dangerous. “You’re right. I didn’t think about it much, but there should be tourists along the coast, right? It’s odd no one’s seen anything…” And troubling, but it was hard to speculate about what might be going on from here. They wouldn’t learn anything else until they had the chance to get out there and investigate, but Yuna couldn’t help wondering anyway as Caius led the way to a cozy property on the outskirts of town.

“Is this your house?” Yuna hadn’t seen it before, but it would make sense that he’d need a lot of space for Vordun. “I can tell you’ve worked really hard on it. It’s a lot nicer than the place I have in Provo.” It was probably to her detriment that charging people for healing them gave her a guilty conscience, so Yuna was always living from job to job. Still, she didn’t mind much as long as she was good on food and supplies. She wasn’t at home a lot anyway, so it didn’t matter much that her apartment building was a bit...seedy.

Caius gave her leave to look around as he went outside to get Vordun ready, so Yuna took the time to take in the room, including the small collection of books on the table. She supposed that the house was fairly small and patch-work by Torensten standards, but it really did feel like someone had put a lot of work into making it comfortable. It just felt like Caius, so she liked it immediately.

“Ready to go?” Yuna stopped creeping on what books he’d been reading as Caius came back in, and she gave him a small smile as she retrieved her staff and slipped back outside towards the stable with him. A very sleepy and slightly grumpy-looking dragon was waiting for them around the corner, and Yuna stopped walking with a tiny squeak as she caught sight of him.

“When did you get taller than me, Vordun?” Laughing, she held out a hand to allow the blue dragon to sniff her since it had been a while since she’d seen him. “Careful. He’ll be stealing cows from farmers soon,” she teased Caius before stepping back to allow her friend to make any final preparations needed.

Once they were ready to go, she stepped up carefully to Vordun’s side to climb up behind Caius like she had one time before. “You might have to remind me how to buckle into the saddle,” she admitted before doing her best on her own with what she remembered. Once she was strapped in, she settled back to consider the curtain of blond hair in front of her while Caius got himself settled.

“I was thinking maybe we could check the address he gave me first,” Yuna said a little quietly as she looped her staff through one of the straps to ensure it wouldn’t fall during the flight. “I think it’s an area that’s mostly vacation homes for the wealthy. I didn’t want to say anything to him, but...if his wife actually has gone missing like the merchants have, then that could be a good place to start.”

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Yuna nodded her assent when Caius said that it would be best if she were the one to navigate the way to the beach. “Sure, I’ll give you directions as we go. I have no idea how to steer Vordun, so I’ll leave that part to you.” Caius was able to strap himself into the saddle a lot faster than Yuna had, but that wasn’t too surprising given how often he probably did this. Yuna herself had only ridden Vordun once before this, so she wasn’t able to suppress a slight squeak as the dragon pushed off from the ground. Grabbing onto Caius’ waist to steady herself, Yuna watched the ground rush away from them as Vordun propelled them forward with his powerful wings. Her friend’s house was the only dot of brown in a splash of green below them--Caius hadn’t been kidding when he said that Vordun had plenty of space to hunt.

“I still can’t believe you built that house yourself,” Yuna said appreciatively, responding to a comment he’d made while she’d been looking the whole thing over. “Did you learn how to do that back home? I wouldn’t know where to start with anything bigger than a tent.” Not that there was anything wrong with living in a tent. It got so hot on Besaid that most buildings besides the temple weren’t any bigger than that anyway, but they weren’t very sturdy structures. Caius’ house would last him a good while.

Remembering that she was supposed to be navigating, Yuna got them steered in the right direction before striking up a conversation with her friend. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve been up to! I guess I haven’t seen you since that restaurant in Provo…” Yuna supposed that she did have at least one piece of news for Caius herself, so she raised the topic after a moment or two. “I met someone I knew from Spira. His name’s Seymour, if you ever run into him. It’s funny though. He was one of the five most important priests in the world back home, but he’s...different here. Younger. He didn’t remember me.” Even after hearing Caius talk about Ardyn and Somnus, she really hadn’t thought that weird time shenanigans could apply to people from Spira as well, but it seemed like no one was safe from that.

Yuna left her comments about Seymour to that. She and Caius were good enough friends that she didn’t mind digging into the things the maester had done or that Yuna had once been engaged to him, but she thought that conversation was best reserved for when she and Caius both had a cup of wine in front of them.

Actually...she should probably bring up that she had gone on two dates with Faris, but maybe that should wait as well. Judging from how Faris had spoken of Caius, she suspected that their dislike was mutual. Yuna only hoped that she’d be able to force them to get along the next time that they all ran into each other.

Eventually, Yuna glanced at the slip of paper in her hand before directing Caius to land Vordun in a patch of sand right on the coast. The water was beautiful from so high up, even with the towering waves and slightly overcast weather. By the time that Yuna had unbuckled herself and slid off Vordun, she was staring a little longingly at the endless expanse of ocean before them.

“This is actually my first time coming out this far. I didn’t know it would look so much like home.” If only they didn’t have a job to do. Yuna had the urge to take off her boots and walk barefoot across the clean white sand, but there were more important things to do right now than sightsee. Sighing, Yuna led them up the beach towards the closest house that stood overlooking it. She trusted that Caius knew best whether to leave Vordun or bring him along. The dragon was big enough that he definitely made people nervous at this point, but on the other hand, he was incredibly friendly and good to have around when they didn’t even know what they were dealing with yet.

It turned out that they had overshot the house a bit, and Yuna sheepishly apologized as they finally ended up at the right one after walking down the coast a bit. After comparing the slip of paper in her hand to the numbers on the door, Yuna nodded as she took in the bright blue beach house. “It’s pretty big for a vacation house…” Some people in Torensten were incredibly wealthy, and Yuna wasn’t really surprised that their client was one of them. The house was the color of Vordun’s scales, and Yuna found it a little odd that she could see the lamps burning inside even through the drawn curtains. It was the middle of the day, so she couldn’t see what they needed so much light for, but she supposed that it wasn’t really her business as she glanced up at Caius before reaching out to knock on the red front door.

There was no answer.

Yuna knocked again a little uncertainly before raising her voice to call out a greeting. “Ah...excuse me? Lady Xaria? Your husband sent us to check on you…”

Nothing. Yuna glanced a bit dubiously at the lights on inside before stepping back to see if they were missing anything. The left side of the house was nothing but the beginnings of a garden struggling to grow in the thin, rocky soil. To the right, she thought there was nothing but sand at first glance, but the sun had come out since they’d first landed on the beach, and the light was glinting off of something laying on top of it.

Yuna looked at Caius to see if he’d noticed anything before she trailed over to the side of the house to check on what she’d seen. Blinking in the sun, Yuna was a little startled to see that it had been shards of glass sparkling in the light, and after looking up at the window beside her, she quickly raised her staff and gripped it tightly in her hands. The window had been broken from the inside out, and there was no mistaking the tiny dark droplets on the windowsill for anything but blood.

Backing away, Yuna looked around for her friend, keeping her voice low when she found Caius again. “Do you think we should go inside?”

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Caius seemed to agree with her assessment that they needed to go inside as soon as he laid eyes on the shattered window and the tiny smears of blood on the windowsill. Yuna nodded determinedly when he said that they’d have to break in. She didn’t think that she’d ever forced her way inside a house before, so she glanced around for possibilities. They could always break out the rest of the glass from the window and climb inside, but there would be a high chance of them accidentally cutting themselves on the way in. Maybe they could try to force the front door instead? Caius was strong enough that he might be able to, but before Yuna could make the suggestion, he offered her a hand.

Yuna blinked slightly in confusion, but she trusted him completely at this point, so she grasped his calloused hand before she’d even really thought about, it just assuming he had a plan. The next moment, the world shifted into a blue tint as her surroundings blurred and changed completely into a cozy looking study. Releasing her friend’s hand, Yuna stumbled forward and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her surprised gasp as she looked back at Caius and realized what must have happened. He had warped both of them inside using his kingsglaive powers. Well that certainly made things easier.

There were more important things at stake right now, but Yuna still couldn’t resist a whispered comment. “I didn’t know you could warp with someone else. I’ll have to thank King Noctis if I ever meet him.” She smiled faintly before going about the more dire task of taking in their surroundings. They looked to be in someone’s study or office, with a long varnished desk in one corner and some bookshelves in the other. The wooden floorboards creaked under her feet, and the fireplace was sending up thin wisps of smoke as if a roaring fire had been left to steadily burnt itself down to ashes. Besides the shattered window, nothing seemed terribly out of place except for a few scattered droplets of blood across the floor. There wasn’t even any broken glass in sight, which confirmed that the window must have shattered outwards. Someone or something inside had crashed through.

“I’m not sure I like how this looks,” Yuna murmured uneasily as she stepped past the bookshelves. A quick glance told her that all the books seemed to be about various beasts living in the region. The owners of the house seemed to have an interest in monsters. “If something happened, it looks like it’s been hours…” If not days, which meant that they were likely too late to help anyone who had been here. Still, that wouldn’t stop her from making sure, and she was confident that Caius felt the same way.

A stack of invoices had been left out on the desk as if someone had been going over their finances, and Yuna was a bit unnerved to see that the top one related to the purchase of a large supply of behemoth meat, but she forced herself to turn her attention to the door instead as she crept out into the hallway.

“Is anyone there?” She called out, turning in a slow circle while hoping for a response. “We’re sorry to have barged in! Is anyone hurt?” The only answer was the distant buzzing of flies, and Yuna gave Caius an anxious look before peering into the dining room, which seemed to be the source of the sound.

“Oh.” Yuna was forced to cover her nose at the terrible smell permeating the room. Spoiled food lay on plates that the flies were enjoying even if no one else was. All the chairs were pushed back from the long table, as if the guests had left in a hurry. A wine glass had even been tipped over without being picked up again--the red stain across the tablecloth doing nothing to make Yuna feel better about the situation.

“What do you think?” Yuna murmured to Caius, backing out of the room and into the hallway again so she could breathe. The entryway led further back into the rest of the house, but Yuna didn’t have much hope that it would be much different than what they’d found so far. More promising were the stairs that led upward--surely there would be more places to hide upstairs--and the cracked open door that revealed some dark winding stairs down into the basement. Yuna clutched her staff a little tighter and stepped a bit closer to Caius as she noticed the thick scratches near the bottom of the basement door. “Up or down?”

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