"Hey, Isolde, what about you? How was your life?" Lyra asked, shifting the conversation toward the noblewoman.
"Now, who is asking without consent?" Nara quipped with a smirk.
Lyra hesitated. "Well..."
Jhaeros leaned back against the log he was sitting on. "You can always do what I did, you know—just tell it."
Lyra chuckled. "Are you sure mine isn't that adventurous?"
"Don't worry, I also like princess stories," Nara said confidently.
The group turned to her in silence.
Nara blinked. "What?"
"Nothing. Just… unexpected," Isolde said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Kalem added, nodding in agreement.
"I suppose I was wrong on this," Garrick murmured.
Nara scoffed, crossing her arms. "I'm not talking about those damsels. I mean the warrior princess stories—ones where they actually fight back."
"That makes more sense," Lyra said, nodding.
Isolde smirked. "Well, did you ever fight one?"
"Probably not," Kalem interjected. "Most of them are surrounded by guards."
"Well…" Nara hesitated for a moment before sighing. "I did challenge one. It didn't go well, and now I'm banned from entering the Kingdom of Desmond."
The group collectively turned to her.
"You need to show restraint," Kalem said, shaking his head.
"You don't get to say that," Nara shot back instantly.
"Well, before you two start fighting," Lyra interjected, raising her hand to cut off any brewing argument, "allow me to tell my story."
The group settled down, turning their attention toward her as she began.
Lyra was born into House Everwood, a lineage of esteemed alchemists and political strategists with deep ties to the Western Alchemical Council. As the only child of Lord Mathias Everwood, she had been raised under the weight of expectations from the moment she could walk.
Her father was a cunning political mind, an alchemical genius, and a man who played the long game with an unshakable vision. Under his guidance, House Everwood flourished—not just through wealth but through influence, subtly weaving its way into the core of the Western alchemical world.
From a young age, Lyra was trained in alchemy, her lessons beginning even before she truly understood the art. She had access to the finest instructors, the rarest ingredients, and the most advanced laboratories. Yet, despite her father's meticulous planning, there was one thing he had not accounted for—
Lyra's unpredictable curiosity.
Unlike her father, who approached alchemy with calculated precision and a political mindset, Lyra was a natural experimenter. She wasn't satisfied with following formulas—she wanted to create. Test. Push boundaries. And sometimes, that meant breaking things.
Her childhood was filled with explosions—glass shattering, cauldrons bubbling over, smoke filling hallways, and frantic servants scrambling to contain her latest disaster.
Her father, despite his immense patience, often found himself sighing as he entered a room filled with charred remains of once-pristine equipment.
"You are meant to refine alchemy, not turn it into chaos, Lyra," he had told her after she had set an entire greenhouse on fire during an attempt to create self-replicating flora.
"But isn't discovery born from chaos?" she had argued back, grinning despite the soot on her face.
Lord Mathias Everwood loved his daughter, but he saw in her a wild streak—one that did not align with his vision. He had spent decades maneuvering his family into a position of influence, and Lyra was supposed to inherit his place on the Western Alchemical Council.
The problem?
She had no interest in politics.
Her focus was singular: Alchemy. The art, the craft, the thrill of uncovering new reactions, discovering properties of unknown substances—she wanted to understand it, master it, and push its limits.
Her father's lessons on diplomacy and manipulation were met with disinterest. While he schemed and planned for House Everwood's continued rise, Lyra buried herself in research, ignoring anything unrelated to alchemy itself.
At first, Mathias tried to balance her interests—encouraging her to excel in both alchemy and politics. But over time, it became clear:
Lyra would never follow the path he had designed for her.
Their conflict reached its peak when Mathias made a final decision.
He arranged for her to take an official seat on the Western Alchemical Council—not as a mere scholar but as a representative of House Everwood.
It was a position of immense power, but one that required political maneuvering, alliances, and restraint.
For Lyra, it was a cage.
Their argument was one of the worst they had ever had.
Her father accused her of recklessness and shortsightedness, of failing to recognize the bigger picture.
She accused him of stifling her—of treating her like a pawn in his long-term plans rather than a person with her own ambitions.
By the end of it, she had made her decision.
She left.
Not just the estate. Not just the family.
She ran away from the entire political world she had been born into.
Her goal?
To study alchemy without interference.
To find a place where she could truly experiment without being bound by House Everwood's expectations.
Her journey led her south, toward Arcathis Academy.
It was a long, chaotic trip—filled with small villages, alchemical side experiments, and, on one particularly notable occasion, an incident involving an accidental explosion in a merchant's caravan.
But the most unexpected part of her journey?
Meeting Kalem.
She had been deep in a forest, collecting rare ingredients for an experiment, when she had spotted him. At first, she had thought he was just another traveler. While accidentally setting off a minor alchemical reaction, she quickly realized that he wasn't the type to simply ignore trouble.
Rather than leaving her behind, they somehow ended up traveling together.
In hindsight, they had chosen the worst possible route to the academy—one filled with difficult terrain, dangerous creatures, and an unnecessary number of obstacles.
By the time they arrived at Arcathis, they were both exhausted, slightly injured, and covered in dirt.
And then, of course, her father arrived.
Lord Mathias Everwood, despite his calculating nature, had panicked when she disappeared. When he found her at Arcathis, his frustration was evident—but so was his relief.
He had tried to take her back.
She refused.
Lyra finished her story, glancing around at the group.
"That's why my father came here so haphazardly to take me back," she said, shrugging. "Obviously, it didn't work."
The campfire crackled between them.
"That…" Nara blinked, processing everything. "Was a lot more intense than I expected."
"You defied an entire noble lineage just to study alchemy?" Isolde asked, frowning slightly.
Lyra smirked. "Wouldn't be the first time someone in history did something questionable in pursuit of knowledge."
Kalem chuckled. "And yet, somehow, our journey to the academy was still the worst decision of that entire story."
Lyra grinned. "Well… it was an adventure."
Nara laughed. "Now that's a princess story I can respect."