There's two someones, so they'll have to fight for it.

Piper felt her soul leaving her body, her life flashing before her eyes. How fitting, that her journey should lead her back to where it all started... Now, she was having a vivid flashback, remembering the kind, pious innkeeper who raised her... She could almost picture her long, sandy-blonde hair done up in a bun behind her head kerchief for the work she had to do; her narrow, concerned grey eyes with crow's feet at the corners, a concerned frown upon her full lips, which showed slight creases at the corner from her age... "Mm, that's so... Auntie Eri would be half the trip from forty to fifty these days... but why am I..."

The unbidden vision of her kindly caretaker suddenly became much less interesting than what she was holding: water! She seemed to have a whole jug of precious, life-granting water, and held a ladle out to the dying diva. Without asking permission, Piper ignored the ladle, took the whole jug and tilted her head back. Guzzling the cool, clear water as quickly as possible was critical! After all, if she didn't drink, she couldn't talk! A fate worse than ****.

"Oh... Ohoh! Ah ha ha ha~!" she gasped, then laughed, placing a hand on her hip in defiance of her near-**** experience. "Piper: One; Reaper; Zero! I live to play another day, I say! Oh, you're a sight for sore eyes. You've certainly saved my sorry skin!"

"So it is you, Pippy!" The woman spoke in the soft voice Piper remembered from her youth. When Piper had left the orphanage to live in the streets, Aunt Eri had become a mother to her in all but official adoption papers. Back then, as it was now, nobody ever saw her Eei shaken except for someone else's sake. For as long as Piper had known her, she'd been an ideal mom, despite having no children of her own... Really, Piper couldn't understand how Eri had never become an actual mother, with her overqualified pretty face. Too much hard work at the inn, she supposed.

Even now, there were only faint signs of new age on it as the woman spoke, although Piper did note she didn't remember her Auntie wearing lipstick before... Although those lips looked different, they curled into a familiar smile. "I hardly recognized you. You dyed your hair again! And it used to be such a pretty red."

"Oh, Auntie Eri, you've done Geod's work...~! Is what I'd say, if he but was to wish work done!" Piper was glad to be revived, but she wasn't about to start doing something silly like believing in Geod because of it. Ever since she'd left Merridan, Piper liked to think she'd broadened her horizons. With her horizons so broad, she could hardly believe there was a magical, mythical Geod who watched over the sleepy town of Merridan specifically, after all she'd seen and heard... On that note, it was coming back to her why she didn't talk to her dear Auntie a little more often. From the slightly strained smile she was now getting, she imagined Eri still hadn't quite become comfortable with the idea that her sweet little street urchin was now a card-carrying atheist.

On the other hand, her wordplay got a creepy laugh out of a voice so close to her, it caused her to jump. She hadn't spared a thought yet for who had helped her to her feet, if Eri was standing on the other side holding a water jug... Now that she looked to see him, there was a fantastically scary pale gentleman with shaggy, unkempt black hair, so long in the bangs it almost shaded his shady-looking yellow eyes. His face was covered in a black, stubbly beard, but was otherwise relatively handsome, and while he looked naturally thin, he seemed to have muscles from training, looking at his exposed neck. The rest of him was hidden by a black vest over a shabby-looking brown tunic, and...

...?!

Everything else about the man became boring next to the more interesting fact of what happened below his waist. His entire lower body first seemed armored, but it didn't take Piper's sharp eyes long to realize that it wasn't armor at all, but some sort of mechanism fashioned like human legs. She could see barely-revealed gears that hinted at the automation... Such automation was very rare in Merridan, last Piper had checked, and she would wager this was more advanced under the hood than anything she'd seen. The strange, uniformly bronze appearance was intricately decorated with carvings of angels that couldn't look more out of place on the spooky-looking gentleman.

Piper was always much more interested in revealing she knew something than that she'd learned something, so she decided to call out what she recognized. "You're Arty the Spider, yay? Of those Companions of Dyna!"

In spite of his otherwise grim appearance, the man returned a toothy grin. "Ho! An outsider's heard of me, eh? It's been a long time since anyone knew me as 'the Spider.' Sounds like your knowledge of that particular legend could use some updating, friend."

"Well, well, well well! Arty, Eri! Seems I owe both of you my life!" Piper wrapped an arm around the shoulders of each, pulling them into a huddle. "The three of us should sit a spell, and you two can tell the telling tales of what life is like in this lovely land of late!"

... To her surprise, the air changed immediately. Eri's smile tightened, a look Piper was only familiar with from when she was giving one of her friendly "talks" after someone had broken something at the inn. The Spider gave her a grin, but it seemed to have a strange tension to it, as though he was preparing for a fight.

"Oh... That's enough, hm, Arty? Piper and I have so much to catch up on, and I have so much to tell her about the Church. I'll just take her on over there... make a little note about our encounter in my log book..."

"Ahah! With all due respect, ma'am, there's not that much for you to write about your encounter with her in an official logbook, is there? I'm the one who made time with these fancy feet of mine to scrape her off the pavement..."

"Now, now, I think you and the will of Geod had equal part in helping her to her feet, young man. I'll be happy to note the part you played while properly and officially dedicating this miracle to the glory of Geod-"

"Hah! Geod? Geod, indeed! I don't see the big man down here propping this lovely young lady up with those world-carrying shoulders of his, do I? Now, Miss Piper, if you'd be so kind, the two of us can get to know each other better-"

"Hahaha!" Piper interrupted the two bickering saviors. "I'm peculiarly popular upon my first steps into Merridan! What is this wacky warring?!"

Her aunt cleared her throat, but didn't release her arm, still trying to pull her to the left side of the gate where a table and seats waited, decorated with emblems of the church and stocked with iced pitchers of that life-saving cool water she'd gotten a taste of a moment earlier. "I'll explain it all, dear, if you'd be so kind as to join me at the table. You'd be making both Geod and me very happy!"

Arty tugged at her arm from the other side, turning on his most charming smile (which, truth be told, was still very shady-looking). "You'll have all the time in the world to catch up later, young miss, but my shift is up very shortly. It'd be my honor and privilege to spend it welcoming a pretty traveler to Merridan." Like his namesake, the Spider cunningly attempted to lure his prey to his web. "His web," in this case, referring to a canopy-shaded stall that looked like it had a tankard and mugs. A tempting reason to join the otherwise foreboding stranger...

Piper needed to pick a pulling partner, or she was about to lose her good lute-playing arms! She could hardly turn down a chance to catch up with the woman who raised her, who was the closest thing to a mother the wandering vagrant had... but a talk with a dangerous-looking stranger who was both a legendary knight and walking on mechanical legs was an opportunity a tale-collector could hardly turn down, wasn't it? It seemed she wouldn't be able to choose both.