Eng Version:
File 1
Raindrops beaded along the edge of Gilberta's umbrella, each droplet swelling with borrowed weight before surrendering to gravity. Before one could shatter against the ground, she caught it midair with a flick of the Arts and let it balance on her fingertip.
This was her first journey beyond Rhodes Island. The skies were always a weeping steel. She walked unhurried, pausing whenever she felt like it.
Her gaze drifted between the distant horizon and the letter in hand – Warfarin's assignment, her first duty as a Talos-II Messenger.
She'd lingered too long on the road watching burdenbeasts amble, flying wing-to-wing with fowlbeasts, even letting raindrops on her umbrella's edge steal her attention.
Warfarin never set her a delivery deadline. Just an encouragement: "Go see the world."
Gilberta understood Warfarin's message: she needed to deepen her bond with this planet before answering her calling. It was something she genuinely wanted to do as well.
But where to next? Her eyes wandered. A strange glow shimmered at the foot of a mountain. Wild creatures circled near a tower on the open plain. A breeze stirred the curtain at a distant mail depot. Every sight pulled her forward.
"Take it slow, I've got plenty of time," Gilberta thought to herself as she looked at the letter sealed with the crest of an industrial company.
"Just a little longer. I'll be there."
She then flicked the raindrop into the stream before her. As the skies cleared, the Messenger closed her umbrella and resumed with her journey.
