Callida was so sick of traveling. It had taken weeks to get to the Bear Tribe border when all of her previous trips to and from the Bear Tribe had only ever taken a small fraction of that, and several of those trips had been made through snow and storms. Traveling just with her own family was slow because it was hard, and it was hard because it was slow. Multiply that by a factor of thousands. This was why she’d been looking forward to today, for today was the day that she would travel by herself to negotiate with Bear Tribe leader Recht over which edge of their borders the Bear Tribe would be the most amenable to having a new neighbor take up residence.

She got up at first light, getting herself cleaned up and ready quickly before the rest of the camp had truly roused. Rogue, for one, was still half asleep despite feeding the boys breakfast.

“Rogue, I’ll meet you back here in a few days?” she said, offering a rushed kiss on her way to grab a toasted slice of stale bread to eat on her way out.

“Yeah. Just three or four days, right?” Rogue processed sleepily.

“Yup! Five, maybe six at the most. I’ll send word if it goes longer for some reason.” She strapped on her weapons belt, holding her toast in her teeth as she did so. “Bye!”

“Whoa! Hold on a moment, M’lady,” Rogue scolded.

“What’s up?”

“I thought you were going to take Gravis with you.”

“I was?” She frowned, feeling frustrated for yet another delay.

“Yes. You can’t go alone, Callida. We talked about this.”

“The commanders are needed here.” She groaned, becoming petulant.

“Right. The commanders. Gravis is a captain.”

He was splitting hairs. “You know perfectly well that I lump Gravis in with ‘the commanders’. He was a training captain which is about the same as being a commander, just without the change in official rank. And that’s not the point! I can take care of myself.”

“M’lady, take Gravis with you. I will feel infinitely better about this if you don’t go alone, and it’s not like we can’t spare him.”

“Fine,” she grouched, realizing that it would be faster to surrender and wait for Gravis to get ready than it would be to argue. “Hey, Gravis!”

“I’m ready, General.”

“You…. Where did you come from?!” Callida stepped back with surprise as a fully dressed and ready Gravis magically appeared next to her.

“Rogue told me we were going to the Leader’s Lodge today,” he informed her, and Callida caught the smug self-satisfaction on Rogue’s face out of the corner of her eye.

“I… you… fine. Come along, Gravis.”

“Have a good trip,” Rogue ribbed, and Callida shot him an irritated scowl before ultimately leaving a parting peck on his lips.

“Bye,” she huffed.

“Bye,” he laughed.

She couldn’t be too annoyed, all things considered, because Gravis was an easy travel companion. For one, he had even longer legs than she did, so he kept pace with her easily and maybe even pushed her to move faster than she might have on her own. For two, he wasn’t the type of person who became awkward if the conversation was nonexistent for an hour or two, and Callida was craving the absence of both noise and people after weeks unable to escape either. Companionable silence with a solitary, brotherly figure was an acceptable compromise.

From the Bear Tribe border, it was only a half a day’s journey to the Leader’s Lodge, the “capital” of the Bear Tribe, but it was a fairly steep climb up a mountain following a series of switchbacks through coniferous forests to make the ascent manageable with merchants carts and the like. Compared to the sparse deserts of the Lion Tribe, the Bear Tribe was starkly lush, and the air was thick with the fresh scents of evergreens floating on the cold, morning mist. There was still snow on the ground here, some of it recently fallen, and the increasing snowpack the higher they climbed created a certain stillness that Callida relished. Unconsciously relaxing as she hiked, Callida felt like she was home somehow. And she felt happy.

“Hey, General, is that the Leader’s Lodge up ahead?” Gravis asked, breaking Callida out of her reverie.

Callida looked to where he was pointing through the trees to the east and shook her head. “That’s the trading post. That,” she said pointing northwest, further up the mountain to an odd web of wood structures, “is the Leader’s Lodge.”

“Huh. That’s not what I was expecting.”

“Mhm. And up there,” she pointed again, this time more directly north to where she could just make out the tops of a few of the bigger buildings above the trees, “is the main Bear Tribe military base.” Gravis nodded and resumed the hike, leaving Callida to her thoughts again.

She’d lived on that military base for a brief period when she was eighteen. That was back when she was a member of Squad 14, back when her brother was her captain — back when Germanus was still alive. Now, she probably didn’t know anyone living on that base. That thought made her sad.

They arrived at the Leader’s Lodge alarmingly quickly after that, though Callida was less nervous than she’d anticipated that she’d be. Submitting their travel papers for inspection by a cluster of guards first, they were permitted entrance and an escort to The Great Hall, a building at the center of the Leader’s Lodge and the center of the Bear Tribe government. Callida only half listened through the handoff from their escort to the people at the entrance of The Great Hall, but a few minutes later, she was being ushered inside. She’d been here once before, a massive council room designed in concentric squares of desks and benches that lowered by degree with each ring until it came to a large, open platform at the center. Entering at the top, Callida, with Gravis as her shadow, peered past the rows of sparsely filled benches, down the long flight of stairs to the platform below, and she smiled.

“General! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Tribe Leader Recht,” she greeted the kindly woman with a shallow bow.

“Please, call me Seliga.”

“In that case, call me Callida. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“The pleasure is mine, though I don’t think it will surprise you to know that we’ve been expecting you.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Callida chuckled at that. “No, I suppose not. I’m sure you’ve been paying close attention to the massive migration of people heading your direction.”

“Perhaps you would care to clarify what your intentions are for this migration? The Council of Elders and I have merely speculated based on rumors and hearsay what this is all about.”

“I feel that I owe you at least that much.”

“In that case, come join me, Callida,” Seliga invited her down.

“Find a seat, Gravis,” Callida whispered and then began skipping down the stairs, pausing a moment to look around when someone cleared their throat rather aggressively as she passed. Of course! Professor is a member of the Council of Elders! Spahen subtly twiddled his fingers at her when she met his familiar blue eyes. The Bear Tribe was a calm place, and it showed. In the Lion Tribe, she would be trembling with anxiety right now. Here, she was grinning to herself as she arrived at the platform. “Alright, Seliga, where would you like me to start?”

“The beginning. What happened to bring you here? Now that you are here, what are your intentions? And what is this we’ve been hearing about the fulfillment of the Last Prophecy?”

Callida took and released a deep breath. “With respect, Seliga, you might want to take a seat. We’re going to be here a while.”

***

The Council of Elders had picked apart Callida’s statements thoroughly, and Callida had been very patient, answering with a frankness that was unusual, even in the Bear Tribe. Naturally, the council had been most interested to obtain proof of the rumors that Callida was the Mother of Prophecy and the prophecy was being fulfilled. Seliga had found her response most intriguing. “I’m sorry, but I do not believe in the prophecy, and so far, it has been my experience that people will see what they want to see concerning the prophecy regardless of any actual proof from me. I will not encourage rumors that I don’t believe are true to begin with, so I will not provide you with proof.”

Such an answer had shut down the council’s inquiries about the general’s alleged claim to be the Mother of Prophecy, and the subject had naturally shifted to address her request to pass through the Bear Tribe and stake a claim on a piece of land for a colony beyond their borders. Seliga had been impressed by the humility with which she’d made this request, giving the council all the power to select the direction of her company’s travels and a say in which land they claimed. It had made it very easy to accommodate her request, so while the Council of Elders slept on the evening’s events before returning to the matter of which direction they’d prefer to have some new neighbors tomorrow, Seliga invited Callida and her traveling companion to join her for dinner. And for another, more private and less formal chat.

“The last time we met, I was in the Lion Tribe to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the end of the Great War,” she recalled.

“True. It’s been… a while.” Callida began counting the time on her fingers. “Almost five years.”

Dinner was eaten between exchanging pleasantries after that: getting to know each other, catching up on the last few years as though they’d been close friends before, discussing the recovery of the Bear Tribe from the Great War…. Callida was very adept at directing the conversation away from herself, Seliga realized after yet another inquiry into the wolf’s personal life that was redirected to somehow segue smoothly into a discussion on Bear Tribe culture without answering the original question. The getting to know you part of their conversation was very lopsided. Seliga realized that Callida’s brother had been similar, though perhaps a little less guarded. Bear General Germanus Animo had been a good friend during the short time that she’d known him: polite, well-spoken, unusually competent and confident, but also reserved — an intriguing combination to be sure. But where Callida was private almost to the point of being secretive, Germanus had been more outgoing. Seliga’s ulterior conversation was going to be difficult.

“Callida, I’m wondering, if you don’t mind, may we speak privately?” she asked when dinner was finished and the group had relocated to a sitting area.

The younger woman blinked and turned to her companion, a rather large man for a lion who hadn’t said more than a handful of words all evening. “Gravis, would you please wait outside?” The man bowed out without a word, and Seliga adjusted in her seat to lean forward eagerly.

“I don’t know if you knew this, Callida, given that you don’t believe in Spiritualism, but the Bear Tribe is something of a leader in religious matters. We have an extensive library on the subject and many experts and scholars who have studied not just the prophecy, but also Spiritualism before the prophecy. I, myself, have studied Spiritualism and the Last Prophecy since I was a little girl.” Seliga paused to gauge her guest’s reaction, and it wasn’t very promising. Callida was closing off, becoming defensive. The hope that she’d more readily open up with fewer people in the room appeared to be a vain one. “Personal beliefs aside, we are both already facing many questions, but perhaps we can better answer them together.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to offer, Seliga, but I must respectfully decline. As I told your Council of Elders this afternoon, I have no intention of supporting rumors that I don’t believe in, so I have no intentions of cooperating with people investigating their validity.” The Bear Tribe leader slouched back into her seat at that answer, her elbow landing on the armrest to prop her chin and cheek against her thumb and pointer finger as she studied the woman in front of her and contemplated her own, hampered objectives.

Seliga had received the months-old buzz that the parents of prophecy had been identified and confirmed in a Lion Tribe temple with a healthy dose of skepticism, but the rumors had only continued to trickle in and through multiple different sources. She’d done her due diligence and sent people to investigate. What came back had shocked her. Guardians were traveling through the Lion Tribe, preaching the good news and testifying of their evidence. The Lost Tribes were restored! And their mother was the Lion General. Her team of investigators had returned excitedly, relaying the testimonies and evidence purported by the Lion Tribe Guardians.

“I want to be sure that I heard you correctly. The Lion General is the one who’s been declared the Mother of Prophecy?” she’d asked. Met with confirmation, Seliga had set to work, researching the ancestry of the Animo and Yudha lines. Her findings had been interesting. And then they’d been compelling. Combined with her first hand knowledge of the type of person she knew Callida to be, the types of things she’d accomplished at such a young age, the people she associated with, the family she’d come from — Seliga found that the rumors made sense. And what the blonde wolf in front of her did not know was that she already had most of the puzzle pieces. The only thing she lacked was concrete proof and a first-hand witness that her information was accurate.

“May I ask why you do not believe in the Last Prophecy?”

“I just don’t,” Callida answered without hesitation or apology. “It has never made sense to me. Spiritualism or Primordialism, the prophecy, all of it — it’s never made sense to me.”

“Well, Primordialism is a sub-sect of Spiritualism. Most people get that confused or use the terms synonymously, but they are distinct from each other. I don’t agree with the things Primordialism tries to add and change about Spiritualism, but I do believe in Spiritualism.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” was the rather flat reply.

“What about ‘all of it’ doesn’t make sense to you?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t.”

“What do you even know about Spiritualism?” Seliga pressed her suspicions.

“Not much,” Callida admitted crossly, and the bear smiled in subtle victory.

“I see. Perhaps that is why it doesn’t make sense to you.”

“Are you going to try to convert me?”

“No. Spiritualism is as much a journey as it is a religion, and it’s a personal journey at that. I will not force you to learn any more than you want to on the subject. But I will say that I think it would help you to try and understand it, even if, ultimately, you still don’t accept it, and, if the time comes that you are ready to begin that journey, it would be my honor to help you get started.”

“That’s a fair point, and I appreciate the sentiment,” Callida acknowledged, but her body language remained disinterested. Seliga would have to be patient in seeking her proof.

“Well, tomorrow the Council of Elders will vote on the matters concerning your colony. I don’t anticipate there being any problems in allowing you and your people to pass through our lands, though your followers will be subject to our laws while they are in Bear Tribe territory. And which section of unclaimed land beyond our borders you wish to colonize is immaterial in my mind, though I suppose the Elders may have opinions that I do not.”

“Thank you.”

Tribe leader Recht smiled. “I hope we will develop a positive working relationship, Callida. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to support you in this endeavor. After all, I already owe you a favor for helping to expose the conspiracy behind the Great War.”

“Then, this favor — allowing colonists to pass through your territory — should clear your conscience of that debt. That way, we can start this working relationship on even ground.”

“Well said.”