After three days, the usual training on the little airplanes ended. and Ingrid was taken through the morning mist to a fighter jet for the first time. It was quite tall, and there were two ladder-like pieces of metal hanging from a very long canopy opening. Like a long tube with a pointy nose and stubby triangular wings, it had a large mouth-like opening on the bottom and the usual cross-like configuration of surfaces on the back. It was painted bright white with a handful of blue and green stripes. There were four long tube-like things hanging from the wings, facing forward, each with a sharp cone at the tip. These tubes looked to have their own small fins on them.

Princess Natasha was standing under the forward landing gear inspecting one of those tubes.

Wait no, not Natasha, Ingrid realized. This woman had a mysterious sadness in her eyes and in her gait.

She was younger than Natasha, and she did not wear the uniform of a pilot. Like Natasha, she wore a cacophony of different colored gems on a golden mesh about her shoulders, and her hair was the same dark-brown color, though cropped above the shoulders.

Ingrid locked eyes with the woman for a moment, and the woman looked away.

"Princess Vaska!" Glenice said. "What are you doing here?"

"I arrived yesterday," Vaska said in a voice that sounded not unlike the rapid chirps of a shy female cat. "I wanted to observe the trainees directly. I don't trust these idiot Taisians to not modify the results. They see everything as a chance to make propaganda."

Her eyes glanced back at Ingrid.

"No offense," she added.

Ingrid gave Vaska her best, most heartfelt smile.

"You speak the truth Princess Vaska," Ingrid said, and bowed as best as she could. She had never seen royalty before, let alone tried to bow to royalty. She didn't know the proper way to do it. She must not have been far off the mark, because Vaska chuckled.

"What do you know about the concept of truth?" Vaska asked.

"Well," Ingrid said. How could she possibly reply to that question? She just said the first thing that came to mind: "I think that there are a lot of people who wear smiles on their faces even as they say mean things when you are away. I think acting like that is probably not the truth you are looking for."

"To find truth in the negative, by finding what it is not?" Vaska asked, excited. "So you get it! You get it!"

Ingrid was astonished by this outburst, and she must have shown it on her face because Vaska's excitement vanished.

"Sorry, I got excited and said the wrong thing again," Vaska said.

"No, what you said made me happy."

"Regardless, I have stolen too much of Glenice's valuable time. I will stay silent and just observe from now on."

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Glenice gave Ingrid not one but seven individual gems. There were no less than four of the red-blue gems, one of the turquoise-orange variety that could summon Air Elementals, and two solid black gems without any swirls.

"Why do the black gems not have any swirls?" Ingrid asked.

"OH!" Vaska shouted. "I forgot to ask you your name. Also, why are there only seven gems? Glenice, why are there only seven gems? And you left out the most important ones!"

Glenice looked at Ingrid and waited. Her eyes seemed to say you answer first, this happens all the time, the Princess is indeed a scatterbrain.

"My name is Ingrid."

"It's nice to meet you Ingrid!" Vaska said. "I am Vaska, and I'm not just a princess, I'm also an aeronautical engineer. There are tons of princesses in the world, but I bet you could fit all the aeronautical engineers in the whole world in a single airplane. A very small one at that."

"Very true," Ingrid said. Vaska looked satisfied with herself.

"Princess," Glenice said. "If there are usually additional gems given to pilots, I have not been authorized by my superior officer... to speak of such things in front of the students. It might just confuse them."

"Nonsense," Vaska said. She plucked two gems off her shoulders and handed them both to Ingrid. "Here, take these. You can keep them. I'll tell the banks to never summon them back to the Empire. They will wonder why I returned without them, after all."

Ingrid was completely astonished. One crystal was a swirl of green and purple. The other was a pure black crystal like the others, but much, much larger. "Keep... something so valuable. Why?" She asked.

"I can't explain it," Vaska said. "Something feels wrong about this. These ones will help protect you as you fly. I promise!"

There was a brief silence, broken only by Glenice saying: "There is one red-blue crystal for the engine, one for the hydraulics, and two that are used for the Ice-Two missiles. The turquoise-orange crystal is for the sound and oxygen in the cabin. The two shadow crystals are for the Dark-Three missiles."

"Tell her about the two I gave her," Vaska said.

"The commander..." Glenice began.

"Tell her now." Vaska hissed. "I command it!"

"Fine. The green-purple crystal is used to strengthen the body against G-forces. The large shadow crystal is used to summon an ocular demon, which is used for navigation in bad weather and at night, and also to warn against incoming missiles. Also, experienced ocular demons can give advice on how to avoid incoming missiles."

"That all sounds very important," Ingrid said.

"It is," Vaska said. "Wasting time training students without those crystals. Idiot Taisians. No offense."

"Let's just get started," Glenice said. She handed Ingrid a sheet of paper with seven commands on it.

"Also missing the important commands," Vaska noted. "Ingrid, summon the green gem. You just need to say 'Life!'"

"Life!" Ingrid said, and a swirl of green mist congealed in front of her. It was very tall, and looked something like a mix between a woman and a tree.

Vaska pointed to Ingrid. "Strengthen her body against the forces of flight!" The green tree-woman dissolved into Ingrid, and then was gone.

The large shadow crystal summoned a pair of large yellow eyeballs with red irises, each imbedded in a purple body shaped like an octopus. These little octopus-eyeball creatures just sort of floated around. Ingrid heard a pair of female voices speaking in tandem in her mind: Time to go flying?

Ingrid was speechless.

"Read the rest of them," Glenice said.

"Fire, go into the engine!" A Fire Elemental formed and was sucked into the craft through the mouth-like opening on the bottom. "Water, provide hydraulic power!" An orb of water appeared, and that too was sucked into the craft through the air intake. "Wind, protect our ears and preserve a sea-level atmosphere!" A misty woman with a flute appeared and floated up into the cabin. "Water, hide in the inner missiles, and prepare to seek fire elementals!" Two women that looked like they were made out of ice appeared and vanished towards the wings. "Shadow, hide in the outer missiles, and prepare to hunt souls!" Two wolves made out of darkness appeared and then also vanished.

"Alright, everything is ready," Glenice said. "Climb up and take the front seat. I'll teach you how to fly a fighter jet."