Land of the Blades

16. Spring

Fixing Antarc was another mess altogether. He had been broken entirely, and while I had caught all the pieces that the Lunarians stole, I still had to recover others from the beach near the cliff of origins, and I didn't feel too good going there, so I tried to spent as little time there each time.

And just as Rutile had said, tiny fragments would conglomerate to form body parts even if they didn't belong together originally, the problem is when you have those body parts. I had like four or five pieces that looked like they could be either his neck or part of his forearms or from his legs. Sensei and I spent like a week debating whether a finger was the pinky from the right or the left hand, only to realize it was the index that was still missing some parts.

In all that time I didn't slept properly, just dozing for moments, but every time I closed my eyes I had nightmares. It was either Antarc being broken into pieces and stolen right in front of me, or Sensei being attacked by Lancer, and in both I couldn't do anything. I also had dreams where I was looking for Shirou all around the island, but couldn't find him anywhere.

There was one time when I woke up suddenly from one of those dreams, finding myself in the floor of the infirmary. It was still dark outside, and in the table in front of me were the pieces of Antarc. Before I fell asleep, I had been trying to repair her, with little to no progress due to my tiredness.

—If only we could melt all his pieces he will be fixed instantly.

—Why don't you start a fire, then?

I jumped from my chair, and looked around. It sounded like Shirou's voice, but I had a few auditory hallucinations before, hearing either his voice or Antarc, due to the lack of sleep or by spending too much time among the ice floes. But he was there, still lying on the table next to me, but with his eyes opened.

—Good morning, Phos.

—I-It's already past midnight, dummy —I said, laughing.

The alloy started emanating from my eyes, and I couldn't stop it for a while. Sensei would later tell me that "crying", as he called it, was a flaw inherited from our ancestors, but somehow I didn't feel like it something bad.

I hugged Shirou and he hugged back, and we stayed like that until it become extremely awkward. He was still very weak, and couldn't even get up without help, let alone walk on his own.

—Did you cut your hair?

—Ah, yes. I used it to fill some shards that I lost. It makes me look sharper, doesn't it?

—The others are going to be surprised when they see you, and not only because of your hair.

—About that... —I touched the cracks on my face, filled with the gold alloy. I put him up to date with what had happened since the attack, and when I couldn't find anything more to say, I asked him what he had meant earlier.

—About making fire? You don't know how to make fire?

—Well, we can't use magic like the Lunarians, and fire in the wild is very dangerous, Sensei has told us to drown it with water if we ever see one. Yellow told us there used to be a tiny forest near the school, but it burned down when lighting hit it.

—Fire is dangerous, but you can make it without magic, and with the right precautions, it should be safe.

He told me I what I had to do, and I followed his instructions, gathering dry wood and stones when I went on patrol the next day. I dug a hole next to the school when I came back, put the stones around it, and the wood inside of it. The next part was the difficult one, make friction by spinning a stick against another. It took me quite a while, but I managed to get some sparks, and the fire started.