She breathed in the air, drenched in salt water, the scent unmistakenly eerie and clear as day to the young Demi-Human, but it almost felt as though she were looking at it from a completely different perspective. For the first time, she sat there, a spot that often on and off again for the past two years she had frequented, this time no longer as a refuge whom had arrived under fear of the worst the world had to offer, only to stumble upon the greatest of fortunes that could have been offered, along with the negative annotations that too were associated with it. But now, she were different. She stood there as a member of the Blue Pegasus guild, a movement forward in the development of herself, the growth that she had shown, the adjustments that her life had taken and how she in tern responded to them. In a way, it was a new Vyra, but in many respects, more that the people whom knew her best would attest to, there was nothing new about her. She had simply come into her own.

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It was hardly a pleasant journey, one that was plagued with pitfalls and struggles, even despite the warm reception and status within the city of Hargeon that had quickly been afforded to her. The life of luxury that came with being a friend to Blue Pegasus, while something that was to say the least enjoyable, was also one by in she was always viewed as that. Not within the guild, but a friend to it. Not worthy. The term Alisa’s Pet was one that was thrown about far too often, leaving her with only the knowledge that while that may have been the outside point of view, it was not what was felt through amongst those she cared for the most. At least, that was what she had hoped. It was hard to ignore the fact that even though she trusted Alisa with her life, far more than she did any other person, there were no shortage of people even within Blue Pegasus that viewed her in a negative light, that wished to see the Demi-Human brought down a peg or two. To be thrown off from her seat of luxury and back into the despair that had once ailed her. And they had almost gotten their wish.

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The scars that were left upon her, both physically and emotionally, from her past experience with the Witch Hunter Aegir and the rest of her company that existed within Hargeon had not been lost upon her. Nor did Vyra ever expect that it would be something that she could look past. The torture, the emotional abuse that she suffered at them, knowing that throughout all of it that it was simply designed to eventually lead into something more, something all the more damning, not just for Vyra’s own sake, but that of Blue Pegasus as a whole, it left her sick. She recalled how happy she felt to have escaped out of the prison that she had been housed within, to know that she was still in the city that she had as much called home by now. It was a small comfort really, but in the wake of all that happened, of what she had seen, what she had been forced to do herself, to know that home was within relative sight, that the nightmare seemed to be over, was all that she needed.

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Vyra thought that. The reality of her world, the reasoning for why it seemed fair for her to be subjected to such abuses, showed itself against shortly after. The guard, the one whom exiled her from Blue Pegasus, who allowed to let sit in the idea that Vyra was no longer welcome within the residence of the guild, she remembered his voice, even now. It stung as it played within her mind, much like that of Aegir, or that of her darker persona, to hear such venom being spewed from them, it left her physically unwell, and in the wake of everything that had happened, despair overcame her. She in that moment wanted to die, wishing that she had during the course of her encounter with Aegir. That she survived, only to find that she was no longer welcome in Blue Pegasus, perhaps that would have been the more preferrable of the two options. Then at least she could have held onto the illusion that Alisa cared about her, that she would have missed her.

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To have heard differently, to hear Alisa’s voice, to see her running in Vyra’s direction, to see everyone from Blue Pegasus gathering, even now the memory of that brought a weak tear to Vyra’s eye. It was something that she woefully missed, a feeling of belonging. It was deprived of her during her captivity with Aegir, briefly given the illusion of being there by the woman Seras, though just what happened to her remained a mystery to Vyra. But even her, for as much as during that time did Vyra appreciate the woman’s concern, she wasn’t Alisa. She had not saved her from what would have been an inevitable death, did not pluck her up and lead her to a place of fortune that had been otherwise denied to her. This had been new, something that she overwhelmingly cherished. Something that no matter what had had happened in a past life, she was not about to allow depart her again.

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A weak gust of wind brought Vyra’s attention back to the present. The past several days had been an exhaustive one, even ignoring the nature of what occurred via the hands of Aegir. To join Blue Pegasus, the intimacy of the actual her joining the Blue Pegasus guild – a moment that she would hold with her until the day she died – and everything that followed, she couldn’t help but crack a small smile at how things seemed to make the entire world to her feel different. She felt more like that of someone who belonged, not quite just someone who was fortunate enough to be there. The tragic nature of her life within Hargeon, though being one in which there were hardly any reason to complain about. Some of the most basic things that she had never been able to consider for herself, nor would she have been able to adequately cover on her own; housing, food, any sort of medical problems that may have befallen her, none of that seemed to have been her concern while she was living her life previously as a friend to Blue Pegasus.

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It made her almost forget how differently her life may have ended up had she not encountered Alisa on that fateful day. She may not have been here, under no circumstance in her current shape, but may not have survived whatsoever. It was hard to believe that it had been over two years since she first arrived within Hargeon, but there was zero reason to believe that she would have survived those two years. A week would have been even generous to assume that she could have even the light at the end there. That reality brought forth a huge reality for Vyra, the fact that she was a benefactor of a lifeline that most people, if not everyone who weren’t born into such fortune, would kill for a chance at. And Vyra had been handed it, through no other circumstances than being in the right place at the right time.

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A sound echoed through the docks below, causing the Demi-Human to turn her head and watch. This was something that had not changed, her fascination with the oceans, with the docks, and all of the ecosystem aspects that surrounded it. There was a culture here, one that was unique to it and differed from the culture that one may have encountered in a different dock. It gave it its own little taste of life, and for someone like Vyra who sought to hide within there, using it as much in the past as a means of escaping the life she were living, to watch them now, she both could come to appreciate the life they lived. Not only were it that they were doing something that she could not have done from a physical level, they did with a level of ownership and confidence that made them stand out. If she were going to have tried to do it, she would not have been able to replicate the bravado and confidence she saw within them, which made them far more worthwhile to watch than to try and emulate.

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No, that wasn’t something that she felt the need to do. There was a clear difference between what they were and what she was. They were hard workers. People who were born in or otherwise adjusted to that culture, to that work and that lifestyle. And she was someone who came from a completely different walk of life. She had been living the life of luxury as far as they were concerned and they would not have been wrong. Even despite the nature of her life before having arrived in Hargeon, and for that matter too, even in the first few days of being within Hargeon, she had spent most of her time, certainly most of her time within the Hargeon Docks, as a friend of Blue Pegasus and all of the benefits that had gone along with that. However much she may have felt that she related to them, the reality was that because she had benefited from that lifestyle, there was never going to be any reason for those people to view her as anything different than the rest of those who were of Blue Pegasus or of the like. They would never understand their plight.

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And so Vyra simply watched, appreciating them for what they were doing, knowing as much that the world separated them from one another, in a way that she felt even was probably best. The docks were a place that she felt comfortable within, a place that she could as much look back upon, thinking of herself as a child again, imagining the dreams and fantasies that she had believed, but being able to do so with the relief knowing that her life was not as it was before. It was her own life now. Even more than over the past two years. It was just how she felt now, knowing that she was within Blue Pegasus now. To be able to walk among the grounds in the city, knowing that those same people whom once spit upon her would be forced to look upon her with a level of tolerance, to know that she was not just tolerated otherwise but welcome. Hell, even to descend to the lower parts of the dock, Vyra knew that at the minimum, to arrive as a member of Blue Pegasus would carry far more weight within their world than just as she was once upon a time.

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A call ran out through the docks, one that not only Vyra, but everyone who had spent any reasonable amount of time within the docks knew of. Break time. It was a precious time, especially with the summer months creeping in and the activity that came with the seasonal merchants increasing productivity and business within the docks to an all time high. The times like these, where one could sit down for a bit, grab a drink or two, relax and reflect upon what they had accomplished already, they were the moments that were most cherished. Not only by the ones who were working though, but by others like Vyra, who saw this as a chance to more appreciate the docks, to walk among the ships and the unloaded crates, her imagination being able to go wild as she thought back to the fantasies that she once held onto so dearly. As she walked, the scent of the seawater meshed as her feet gently splashed puddles of water along the cobblestone and wooden planks below. She was in her own head, unaffected by the people, unaffected by their bias, worried only for her own enjoyment.

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But for others too, it was a time to greatly appreciate the calmness at the dock. Namely those whom had impure intentions, who wanted to take advantage of what was going on at the docks for their own personal wealth. The docks had always been a volatile situation, and the riots that had been waging did not do anything to help with that matter, but in the wake of the Blue Pegasus festival, it seemed that things had calmed down, if only briefly. It did allow though for those who had aspirations of robbing the ships, much like how pirates had done in years past, were finally able to follow in their footsteps. Young kids most of the time, those who looking for a bit of extra wealth, struggling on their own to survive, or otherwise just chasing a thrill, there were no shortage of reasons why a person may have gone the route of theft. Vyra was no exception, having done this some times in the past, but now as a member of Blue Pegasus, there was something that felt wrong about doing it any further. They had allowed her enough times to avoid punishment, and to further push that luck now with the guild tattoo upon her thigh, she did not wish to risk it.

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It were two of them, a pair of youths, maybe a few years younger than Vyra was, but having nowhere near the amount of lived experience that Vyra had by that point. She had lived a lifetime’s worth of anguish. These two had simply just wanted to satisfy some dumb urge that they had. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t something that worried her, nor was it something that terribly worried her. She didn’t believe them to be terrible person. How could she have when she once walked the very same road as them? But could she have turned a blind eye to what they were trying to do? There had been a time when she could have done that, but not now. Her actions as much reflected that of Alisa now, and to bring disrespect to either her or Blue Pegasus, after everything that she had endured, it was something that she could not bring herself to do. And as she looked to the kids, walking quietly enough such that they would not have noticed her admist their inspection of goods that they sought to steal, she wondered what was going through their heads, what was motivating them. Survival once motivated her, but now it as much to ease the burden that she had put on Alisa. What they had been motivated by, that would be a secret, but hopefully it was one that was worth it. But it would not be today. With a sudden shove, both of the kids ended up in the water, their cries of surprise and shock filling through the area as Vyra walked away, not bothering to touch the goods that the youths had been looking at. There was no need for something like that. Not anymore.

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