PART I - ARKAN PELIDRI

“Good afternoon, Reynard,” a silky female voice said. Callie turned to see Scryer Yulayla approaching the seated trainer next to her. He looked back and over his own shoulder, before nodding to the Elf.

“Scryer Yulayla. Good afternoon.”

The Scryer arrived and took a spot next to Reynard. Then, catching Callie’s look, offered a nod. “Good afternoon, Little One.”

“Hiya,” Callie said with a smile, waggling her fingers in a hello.

“What brings you here?” Reynard asked, craning his neck to try and see the gate entrance.

“My new Scryer is arriving today, a day early in fact. I wanted to be here to meet her. It will be nice to get a little normalcy back to our work schedule.”

“What do you know of her?”

“Not a lot. She’s young. Actually an officer; a fresh sub-captain out of the academy. Not married, nor any children. Apparently she enjoys distance running as a hobby, despite being able to fly.”

Reynard huffed, glancing down at his missing leg. Then he looked back at Jesca. “Maybe someone you can run with in the mornings?”

“Uh, maybe,” the Beastkin replied, shrugging. “I get up really early, though, since I mostly don’t need to sleep.”

“I’ll introduce you in the next day or two,” Yulayla said thoughtfully. Then she looked at the little drakeling. “I believe I heard her name is Iris? She’s quite cute.”

Jesca nodded, reaching into a pouch on her belt and pulling out a bite-sized piece of jerky. “Here. She likes this.”

Yulayla offered the morsel to Iris, who happily rippled her wings in a rainbow pattern before snapping it up. The Scryer actually gave a bit of a giggle, as she offered a couple followup scritches under the Drakeling’s scaly chin. Iris leaned into the affection, her tail rising and fanning out to pulses of greens and blues, obviously enjoying the attention.

“You may want to fall back and get out of here,” Reynard suggested. “They want all of us on display for this … thing. Run while you can.”

Shaking her head from the distraction, Yulayla refocused. “I actually had another reason for coming over.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I received another long relay a short time ago, from two of the researchers in The Nexus looking into that project we’ve been working on.” She smiled, pushing her hair back behind her pointed ear. “I know you’ll be busy this afternoon with all this, but if you’d like, we could review it over dinner. I could bring something to your cabin for the both of us? Sania will be showing the new Scryer how everything works this evening, so I have the time.”

Reynard frowned and then was dismissive. “We could look into it tomorrow, all the same.”

“Oh,” Yulayla said with a very noticeable disappointed tone, glancing briefly at Callie, before also looking at Jesca and Vonn. She coughed nervously. “It was just a thought. Well, a good afternoon to you, Reynard.” She turned and started to walk away, a little angry stiffness in her gait.

Callie looked gape-mawed at her trainer, and then caught his eye. “What the hell, dude!” she hissed in a loud whisper, throwing her arms in gesture towards the retreating Scryer. “If a girl says she wants to come over and study, you say yes!” For good measure, she gave his chair a solid kick.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s totally into you!”

“She isss,” Vonn added, nodding.

“What? No she’s not! We’re just working on something for Thorn.”

“Even I can tell she is,” Jesca added.

“Don’t be dumb! Tell her yes!” Callie encouraged, gesturing with her arms again.

Reynard just had a stupid, oblivious look on his face.

Vonn cleared her throat. “At leassst don’t be rude! She’sss made time to work with you.”

“Fine,” the Foxkin grumbled. He looked back. “Scryer Yulayla?”

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“Yes?”

“I misjudged my schedule. Dinner would be a good time to review those reports.”

“Oh? I …” Yulayla called back, a slightly confused look on her face as her voice trailed off. It took a hard moment, but she finally put two thoughts together and quickly added, her face brightening noticeably, “I shall see you then.” She turned and walked off, her steps noticeably lighter.

“There! Are you all happy now?” Reynard grumbled to the other Rangers as he refocused to the front.

Slapping her hand to her face, Callie could only shake her head slowly. How could he have been so blind? Yulayla did everything short of drawing him a picture to explain she wanted to spend time with him. Was it a guy thing? Then again, she’d apparently missed all of Pixyl’s signs for four weeks, so who was she to actually be judgemental? Then, she remembered that Reynard hadn’t really done any serious dating since his wife had died. This may not be the best of ideas if Yulayla was seeking something even remotely serious. Before her head could go any more down that rabbit hole, though, Callie’s thoughts were interrupted.

“One minute! Get it together, everyone!”

Sergeant-Major Natala made one last walk down the line of gathered recruits and trainers, periodically snapping her fingers and gesturing to someone that needed to stand straighter or get more focused, including needing to do it twice at Callie. There was a growing nervousness amongst everyone that was standing in formation, as a recognition that this might be a little more important than they’d been led on began to ripple through the masses. Marching and formation drills was not something the recruits had ever spent any time on, and that was by Xera’s design. Yet even so, everyone was quickly getting synchronized. Whether this was by the effect of someone’s Command Aura, or in general everyone wanting to do their part, was hard to gauge. Natala grunted at one last someone, jabbing a pair of fingers at her glaring eyes and then turning them to the miscreant, before taking up a spot on Thorn’s left, one step back, who was in turn standing on Xera’s left. To Xera’s right stood the Legate, with Celeste to his right, also back one step.

Callie leaned forward, looking down the formation, trying to get a look as Reynard had been doing. She saw the first team of four korrox come into view as they passed through the gate, soon after seeing Baelneis at the reins of the camp’s supply wagon, which was packed to overflowing with crates, barrels and sacks, two soldiers riding along with her as likely guards. Another soldier was standing in the way playing traffic cop, and directed the Quartermaster towards the provisioning building. Next came a carriage with enclosed seating for people, drawn by a single pair of the donkey-sized korrox, followed by a second, which were both directed off to an out-of-sight receiving area.

The fourth entry through the gate, another people-mover, was quickly pointed towards the front of the assembled recruits and trainers, and Callie could see Xera and the others stiffen.

“All eyes front and at attention!” Sergeant-Major Natala called out, having no difficulty being heard despite facing away from everyone. As one, they all did exactly that, as even-stronger ripples of nervousness washed across the ranks.

The carriage rolled forward, eventually coming to a stop about ten meters in front of Xera and the other officers. Callie didn’t have the best of views, being down the line a bit, but it was unobstructed. She kept her head straight, but strained her eyes sideways to watch while zooming in a bit with Eagle Eye, listening close. The driver had set a brake before jumping down and grabbing a step from where it was stored. He set it in front of the door, opening it wide and standing back out of the way.

The figure that emerged through the door was a surprise to Callie and a sight she hadn’t seen since arriving. He was a slim, tall Elf with white hair and dark, age-worn skin. A thin line of hair continued down his face, framing it in white on either side before ending at a short, goatee-like beard. Compared to most of the Elves she’d seen so far, it was obvious this person was quite a bit older, likely at least as old as Trainer Terrin, and the first she’d seen with dark skin. This wasn’t to say he seemed weak or frail, though. He carried himself with a strength that certainly didn’t match his initial appearance, immediately seizing command of the entire area. He wore simple leather traveling armor which was adorned with a piece of red on each shoulder. Blinking up at the sun briefly, the sight of the camp's Heartwood tree caught his attention, a surprised look coming to his face. Smiling, the Elf fully stepped down, before turning and offering a hand to a young Fairy still in the carriage. She took it, face red and obviously embarrassed to be in front of everyone, stepping out after the elder Elf.

“Sub-Captain Millavana, I thank you for the pleasure of your company on this last leg of our journey,” the white-haired Elf said, bowing his head slightly. “May this first duty be the start of your long and successful career in the Imorian Army.”

“Uh, th-thank you, sir,” the Fairy managed to squeak out. “Wait! I’m sorry! Thank you, Arkan! Oh, damn. I forgot.” She looked nervously out over the assembly, and you could tell all she wanted to do was fade from view.

The Elf waved the apparent mistake away as he turned to take in Xera and the other officers, and Millavana made a hasty sprint to get away from there. He threw his arms wide. “General Xera! So good to see you again!”

“Arkan Pelidri,” Xera said, taking a step forward and touching their fist to their chest. “I welcome you once again to our camp. It has been far, far too long. Your journey went well?”

“Welcomely uneventful, and I had a lovely chat with your new Scryer to make the time pass more-quickly.” He gestured upwards. “A new addition, I see?”

Xera looked confused for a moment, and then realized what he was pointing towards. “Ah, yes. A Heartwood tree. There is a bit of a story as to how it came to be here.”

“I see. Well, I’m sure that can wait.”

“Would you care to review the ranks while your quarters are prepared?” Xera asked formally. At the carriage, three travel trunks had been taken down. Two were well-worn with what must have been a lifetime of travel, while the third appeared almost brand new. Several staff members had closed in, ready to take them off to wherever they needed to go.

“I would love to meet your recruits. Please, lead the way,” Arkan Pelidri said. As the two began to walk towards the far end of the recruit lineup to begin the inspection, Master Trainer Thorn dropped from the officer formation to join them.

“Is Arkan a rank,” Callie whispered out the side of her mouth to Reynard, “or is it his name?”

“It’s a rank in the Cillicine Army. It would be the same as Xera’s rank of General. Now, eyes front and hush, Callie!”

“Sorry!” she quickly whispered back, refocusing forward.