It popped into her head. Nobles would be joining their camp tomorrow! But why did she need to be at her best? Was she going to fight with them?

She recalled Arik and Rorik had both fought against the Xirxus children a couple months ago. Arik won and Rorik lost, so maybe they were going to look at Kaara as a tie breaker?

Surely Tadios would be a better representative of the strength of her generation? Why would she need to fight?

Well if they wanted a fight when they came, then Kaara would accept it and she’d win for the glory of the Tibur clan. She strengthened her resolve. She’d been training as a huntress for the last half a year! There wasn’t anything those nobles could throw at her that she couldn’t immediately shut down. Her magic was one of the strongest among other kids her age, and she’d become quite adept with a spear and bow. She could shoot arrows with her feet if she had to!

With fire in her veins, Kaara prepared for bed, holding a serious grimace on her face. It was her war face, she’d practiced looking real serious and scary. She held that face when she slid into her skin fur sleeping bag.

She was a fuzzy potato scowling intently at the hundreds of battle simulations in her head. Kaara saw exactly three billion universes where she would win, only ten percent of them where she accidentally killed her opponent by sheer accident.

Her mother walked in, “Why are you making that face?”

“I’ve adopted a meditation of total seriousness.”

“...None of that made sense.”

“I’m gonna beat those Sir-sucks tomorrow for the honor of our clan.”

“You’re gonna what?”

“Don’t worry mother, I’ve figured it all out, I won’t lose tomorrow.”

Tika looked at her, utterly bewildered, “Well have you at least figured out how to curtsy?”

“Oh yes, I shall grant them the courtesy of a swift and honorable defeat, motherly unit.”

“Why are you talking like that- You’re not fighting the nobles, Kaara. I don’t know where you got that idea. Do you remember what I asked you to practice last week?”

Kaara ran through it in her head, what had she talked about? It was completely gone from her memory. Almost as if she hadn’t paid attention in the first place.

The only thing she could think of was the time her mother had extensively womp wah womped last week.

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“You didn’t practice your greetings did you?”

“Hello good sirs or madams, nice to beat you,” Kaara raised her fists from under her sleeping bag.

“Oh abyss take me. Kaara! You are helping me greet them tomorrow. We are traveling to meet them halfway tomorrow night and you will be having dinner with them!”

“Wha-” Kaara said with a blank stare.

“Get up, we’re going to practice your manners.”

“Huh? But I already know manners! Plus I’m comfy,” Kaara said receding into her sleeping bag like a turtle to its shell.

But her mother was a jaguar with fangs that could punch right through. She lifted the bag and poured her out, “We don’t need you embarrassing us during the dinner. You wanted to be a huntress right? That means learning proper customs and manners too. A huntress must also maintain good relations with the local lords and ladies. It’s their land you’re going to be hunting monsters in when you get older, after all!”

“Aw cmon! If someone doesn’t want me to hunt a monster on their land I’ll just punch ‘em and hunt the monster. Simple!”

“Nobles have started feuds for far less, and they’ll look for any reason to discredit our clan and their duty. You’re the chief’s daughter, so you represent our next generation more than anyone. Now come! You’re going to learn until you’ve got everything down to a T.”

In the end, after a bit of chasing and arguing, Kaara was sat down at a wooden table and made to handwrite every last word her mother told her to write. Strict memorization until she was ready to pass out from sleep deprivation.

At the very least, she got to sleep on the way to their meeting point the next night. She only dreamed in forks and spoons of varying size, tangled webs of jargon filled dialogue trees, and eating way too god damn slow.

At least Tulos had been of some help during her cramming.

Even if he was incredibly smug about how little Kaara knew of noble culture.

But someone like Tulos was so informal and mischievous that Kaara hardly thought the people they were meeting would be as stuck up as her mother said they would be.

What did she know anyway?

Kaara had resolved to be as quiet as possible and let others do the talking. From her experience with Tulos, nobility loved to talk about themselves a lot. She was confident that once she got them talking about themselves, they wouldn’t stop until the dinner was over.

Her mother had dressed her in the finest clothing they had. Her hair had been braided with gold and ivory beads. Her clothes were a mix of fur and cloth, embroidered in silver swirling patterns to denote her birth element.

A drake tooth necklace hung atop her fur collar. Runes of good fortune had been carved into it. Kaara had to wonder if it was a countermeasure for her curse.

She liked the new necklace.

Kaara felt the pace of the Wulviir slow down. That usually meant they were about to arrive. She wanted to go back to sleep, but her mom kept shaking her, “Time to wake up.” she said softly.

Kaara rubbed her eyes, yawning. She leaned back into her mother, spotting a large out of place tower which looked as if it had sprouted from the earth this morning.

It likely had.

A wall surrounded the perimeter of the tower, several well-equipped guardsmen patrolled the area. Kaara spotted the crest of a Venator Knight on a couple of the warriors.

Kaara spotted an archer as he nocked an arrow atop the tower. Were they pointing it at them?

“Hey mama, why’s that guy look like he’s about to shoot us?”

Tika trained her eyes onto the archer, “That’s because he is.”