After an endless day’s travel from the capital to the easternmost port city, they were finally in the sky and on their way home.

It had been hundreds, if not thousands, of years since any coastal settlements were built with seaworthy vessels in mind. It was unfortunate that monsters were capable of spawning underwater as well, but their initial invasion of the seas had rendered most ships useless, unable to withstand the fury that only voranders could create.

Thankfully, the elves had created a solution that had helped solve the transportation crisis:

Sky ships.

They were crafted from the enormous trees that grew in the elven lands, and magically reshaped and resized until they resembled a bird with its wings outstretched, a shape they insisted on, and enhanced with the maximum amount of protective and auxiliary formations that each ship could safely utilize.

Nowadays, the only seagoing vessels one could see were tiny fishing barges that only dared to tread the shallowest of waters in hopes of catching whatever fish were nearby. Port towns and coastal cities evolved from storing and maintaining seaworthy vessels to handling their larger and more relevant cousins, the skyships.

The skyships were only half a solution, however. The formations that powered them, while necessary, were also expensive, and thus not realistic to be used for constant long-distance travelling.

That was where the web of teleportation formations came into play.

There were numerous islands and landmasses that dotted the seas between the continents, and any island that met the necessary requirements were used to host a spatial formation. Eventually, chains of formations that covered the entire sea were established, which meant skyships only had to travel part of the distance instead of the entire way.

Going from one teleportation formation to another until they reached the mainland was tedious, and nauseating, not to mention time-consuming, but it truly was the best solution at hand. Beasts couldn’t be expected to haul passengers through the skies or the seas, not to mention both routes weren’t always safe to travel through.

Afon was just distracting himself with the logistics of their travels, so he didn’t have to think any more about their… ‘guest’.

The young man they were tasked to escort back to their homeland was…disturbingly similar to what he thought of as a beastkin. The elder that was in charge of this task had suggested that the human not be left alone for too long, lest he reveal himself to be a villain and attempt to flee or assault them. With what he knew of the young human mage, it seemed unlikely, but… it was better to err on the side of caution.

The human mage did the same things for the two days they were on the skyship. He woke up an hour before sunrise, performed a complex breathing technique that drew in essence to his body like a carcass drew in scavengers, and went on to do some…odd, but repetitive movements of his body. Jumping up and down like a frog, pushing himself up and down against the floor, nearly squatting on the floor before standing up again only to do it over and over, there were dozens of them.

After that, he moved on to weapons training. The young man only had a single shortsword, crafted in the human style, and he even asked permission to go through his forms before Afon allowed it, curious to see how well-trained the mage was. He hadn’t been an envoy for long, and had infrequent interactions with humans outside of their yearly festivals, but he had heard that mages tended to favor learning spells over honing their bodies, while warriors and knights did the opposite.

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Unfortunately for the young mage, it seemed to be true.

He looked like a cub who had just been handed a blade for the first time. For all that he repeated his sets of movements, swinging and thrusting, adjusting his footwork when he noticed an error, he clearly had little affinity for the weapon, as he made mistakes that even an amateur would not.

It seemed like he was attempting to walk the path of the spellblade, utilizing both magic and weapons in combat, but his training was clearly not good enough.

After training, he would take out a large book and flip through its pages, staring at the words as if they held all the secrets of the world within them. When Skarl, the younger of the two wolf tribe cousins, approached him and asked what the book was about, the human mage smiled and began describing it.

A merchant’s diary from thousands of years ago.

It was clearly out of date, as Skarl took great pleasure in correcting him whenever he read out a part of the book that was incorrect, though they all laughed when he rolled his eyes at the author describing his lover for the tenth time.

The human would only stop reading during mealtimes, when he pocketed half of his food, storing it in his pack for a ‘midnight snack’. Humans had odd turns of phrase at times.

Between lunch and dinner, he stared out at the sea, though there was very little to look at beside the endless pale blue waters and the occasional island or whale breaching the surface.

After dinner, the human did some movements for unarmed combat, which were equally as appalling as his blade skills, until he performed his breathing technique once again before falling asleep.

He had a routine, which spoke to discipline.

He understood the value of history, with how fixated he was on that age-old book.

He knew he had to improve, which was why he kept training despite the lack of results.

And, not wanting to cause further offense, the human asked if he should continue to speak in their tongue once they reached the mainland, or whether the elders would find fault with him. He realized the boy had a poor memory and was not being obtuse deliberately, so he repeated the words he had spoken earlier, that it would likely be seen as a good sign.

It was obvious the boy was being sincere, both through his words and his actions.

Humans had been known to conceal darkness within them, but this little human thus far had shown great respect and humility, qualities he had found most human nobles he interacted with were lacking. It was possible the human was faking his contrition, but from how easily he got flustered when asked about his lovers, he doubted the boy was capable of that.

If it were up to him, Afon would declare the human innocent of any wrongdoing regarding the ash house. The human, Rhaaj, had claimed he was ignorant of how significant it was when he did it, and Afon was inclined to believe him.

The man was a terrible liar, after all. He hadn’t won a single dice game thus far.

Unfortunately, his words and his support would mean very little to the elders deciding his fate. He was an envoy, which was barely a step above a messenger. Anything he said would likely bring more trouble to Rhaaj instead of tipping the scales in his favor. His brothers from the different tribes were of a similar mind to him, when he brought up the topic. Yet their collective support would still not be enough to sway the elders’ minds.

Rhaaj the human was walking to a possible death with peace on his face and in his heart.

If nothing else, that earned the respect of those meant to escort him there.

It also meant that despite his terrible swordsmanship and small frame, the human had the true makings of a warrior.