SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Time passed, and the academy, with all its polished halls, noble students, tedious classes, and training grounds that never stayed empty for long, returned to its normal rhythm.

Normal, of course, was a generous word.

For Trafalgar, normal meant attending classes when they were useful, enduring them when they were not, and spending the rest of his time grinding every skill that could still be pushed higher before the world became even more unreasonable. He had almost two years left in the academy, less now that the days had begun slipping away again, and Valttair had made it clear enough that he expected him to finish properly.

So Trafalgar trained.

He refined what he had. He tested what he could. He kept his body moving, his mana obedient, and his blade work from growing complacent. The academy might have felt smaller now, almost decorative compared to Void Creatures, Primordials, ancient dragons, hidden domains, and noble families doing what noble families always did when left alone with too much ambition.

But small did not mean useless.

Today, however, he was not in the academy.

He had skipped the day without bothering to pretend otherwise. There were times when attendance helped his future, and there were times when sitting through a lecture while waiting for Rhosyn would have been a waste of oxygen, patience, and several professors’ belief that their words carried more value than they actually did.

Rhosyn had been absent for a while.

Not in danger, at least as far as Trafalgar knew. She had simply been away on her own business, doing whatever Rhosyn considered necessary now that her part of the work with Dravok and Caelvyrn was finished. She had no reason to appear constantly at the domain project anymore. Caelvyrn and Dravok could continue their side without her standing nearby like an elegant shadow.

But she had sent word.

They needed to meet.

Trafalgar had been waiting for that. Aurevane had left him with too many things to report, and Rhosyn needed to hear them from him, not through fragments, rumors, or whatever version Caelum chose to deliver if he ever decided delivery was useful.

That was why Trafalgar now sat near the summit of a mountain outside a small city a moderate distance from Velkaris. Rhosyn had told him to take a Gate to the city first, and from there, the mountain had been easy enough to find. Climbing it would have been another story for anyone without strength, training, or a tolerance for wasting effort on inconvenient terrain.

From the peak, the city looked almost harmless.

It rested below like something built by people who had not yet been insulted by history. Small, at least compared to Velkaris, but beautiful in a quiet way. White rooftops, narrow roads, a lake bright beneath the morning sun, and houses arranged around the water as if the place had been made for vacations rather than politics, bloodlines, and monsters crawling out of Rifts.

Trafalgar watched the lake for a while.

’This place is not bad,’ he thought. ’Close enough to Velkaris to be useful, far enough not to be suffocating. A lake, good views, fewer people pretending they are important. Perhaps I should buy a house here one day.’

His legs hung over the edge of the cliff, boots suspended above the open drop. Wind moved along the stone and tugged faintly at his clothes, carrying the smell of cold rock, pine, and water from the city below. No one else had come up here. There was nothing to gain from the climb except the view, and most people were not stupid enough to spend that much effort for scenery.

Trafalgar was not most people.

He was also waiting.

His senses caught the change before Rhosyn appeared.

The mana around him shifted, not violently, but with the smooth pressure of something opening where there had been nothing a breath earlier. Trafalgar did not rise. He only tilted his head back until the world turned upside down above him.

Rhosyn stood behind him.

Seen like that, inverted against the sky, she looked almost more unreal than usual. An elegant black dress framed her figure, its fabric catching the light without surrendering much of it. Her black hair fell with the same strange depth as her eyes, each strand drinking in the sun until it gave the impression that brightness had made the mistake of reaching for her and been swallowed for its trouble.

Trafalgar, still viewing her from upside down, greeted her as if this were a perfectly reasonable way to speak to an ancient Primordial.

”Good morning, Rhosyn. It has been a while since we last saw each other. How have you been?”

He lifted one hand and gestured toward the empty space beside him.

Rhosyn looked down at him, at the cliff, and at his legs hanging over nothing. Her expression did not change much, though Trafalgar had the faint impression she was deciding whether the position suited him or proved something unfortunate about the Morgain bloodline.

She stepped closer and lowered herself beside him. One hand moved behind her to guide the fall of her dress, arranging the black fabric properly before she let her legs hang over the edge as well. The gesture was graceful, precise, and entirely too composed for someone sitting on a cliff high enough to make most people rethink their relationship with gravity.

”I have been well, Trafalgar,” she said. ”Resting, mostly, after that infernal work. Though enough time has passed that I can no longer use exhaustion as an excuse without sounding dramatic.” Her eyes moved toward the city below. ”By the time you finish the academy, those two should have completed their part as well.”

”You did good work,” Trafalgar said. ”You deserved the rest. What have you been doing lately?”

”Being idle,” Rhosyn replied, with no shame whatsoever. ”Going out with Mayla. Watching how the world moves, and in which direction it is beginning to lean.”

Trafalgar gave a low hum.

That sounded like her. Resting, apparently, meant observing civilization like a patient predator studying whether the herd had noticed the cliff ahead.

”Interesting way to spend your break,” he said. ”And what do you think of the direction our world is taking?”

Rhosyn’s attention flicked toward him.

It was a small reaction. Small enough that most people would have missed it. Trafalgar did not.

Our world.

The words had reached her differently. He could tell. Rhosyn knew he had adapted to this life long ago, knew he had roots here now, people here, obligations here, enemies here. But hearing him say it like that still caught her somewhere unguarded.

Trafalgar turned his head slightly. ”Everything all right?”

Rhosyn blinked once, and the faint disturbance vanished from her face.

”Yes,” she said. ”Do not worry. As for your question...” Her gaze returned to the lake, the city, the soft roofs below, and the world pretending it was peaceful because the morning allowed it. ”I do not like it.”

Trafalgar looked down at the same view.

”Neither do I.”

His voice carried no panic. No anger either. The future was uncertain, the barrier was weakening, the Void Creatures were moving, and old bloodlines were waking in places the world had forgotten how to fear. Yet Trafalgar sat there with his legs over the cliff, watching a beautiful little city beneath the sun as if none of it surprised him.

As if, on some level, he had expected the world to come to this from the beginning.

Rhosyn studied him without speaking.

Trafalgar felt it, but did not turn. His expression remained calm, almost annoyingly so, while the wind pulled at the ends of his hair and the lake below flashed with sunlight.

Finally, he asked, ”Do you believe in destiny, Rhosyn?”