The text inside the scroll was written in tidy script as if it was a letter addressed to Yujo herself;

‘To Crossing borders Hume’rl.

We hope today finds itself well with the bad happen.

We sorry for everything that lead to this event. Understood that you came here without meaning.’

Yujo scrunched her face as she read it, trying to make sense of what the person was writing.

‘To solve matter, we pardon with condition;

Crossing borders Hume’rl become Land Ambassador for age (3 hume "year").

This will require subjugate but will un-happen at end of term.

We have hunt pod post on border. If answer yes, please send red scroll to pod.

Thank you very much, please,

Ankahe’a II’

Yujo took a moment to process what was being asked of her. Giving up, she then tilted her head.

“Um… I don’t understand.”

The Communications officer, Ensign Mamusul, stood up and started to explain.

“After trying to understand what was written, we eventually met with the pack that was now stationed at the meeting point and offered them a terminal. With that they recorded their demands in common symphonic. With that we passed the information on to the foreign secretary.”

Yujo noticed Rosemary shift uncomfortably in her seat.

The Grand Marshall nodded to confirm the Ensign’s story.

“In short, what they are offering is a complete pardon of the felony on the condition that you become what they have dubbed a ‘land ambassador’.

He wasn’t surprised when Rosemary and Yujo exchanged a glance of confusion about what that meant.

“Ms. Psalms, what do you know about the lesser selk?”

Yujo looked at Rosemary. She shrugged, having no idea what that question had to do with anything. Figuring there was no harm in answering, she gave the Grand Marshall an answer.

“After the first battle of Abraham, the selk changed their tactics from border skirmishes to ransacking settlements that stood in between their settlements. This was done with the aim of taking as many prisoners of war as possible.”

Yujo took a breath before she continued.

“It had turned out that the selk had found a way to transform their captives into selk like beings named ‘lesser selk’ by the republic governance. This had three functions. The first was to increase their pods’ ranks. The second was to keep prisoners of war without having to keep strategically weak land-based camps. The last was to use their prisoners as intimidation.”

Between having to learn about and teach it in the space of nine years, Yujo had the history of the Territory War memorised. The lesser selk was a subject of much controversy during the war and still haunted both sides of the conflict to the present day.

“Yes. That is correct.” The grand marshal confirmed.

“One of the biggest factors in causing the post-war peace talks to collapse was the reaction to the selk-lands returning their surviving prisoners of war. Many of the lesser selk returned to the selk-lands due to their families or communities diving them back out. There was also several cases of lesser selk being attacked by ex-militia servicemen and-”

The Grand Marshall held up his hand to stop Yujo. “That’s enough. I think we’ve established you know what we are talking about.”

He made a motion to Ensign Mamusul who nodded and started typing away at her terminal.

“Simply put, Ms. Psalms, the queen is requesting that you become a lesser selk. You would then serve her kingdom as a ‘land ambassador’ for three years and-”

Rosemary slammed her hands on the table.

“You can't be fucking serious!”

“You’re telling me that the only way for Yujo to avoid punishment for something that was not her fault is to become that clear bitch’s prisoner?!”

“Rose…”

The grand marshal shook his head. He’d be impressed with how headstrong Rosemary was if this wasn’t the middle of an interview that was being recorded. His head started to tingle in pain at the thought of that bit of anti selk cussing being on the record.

“Had that been all there was to the offer the foreign secretary would have never bothered to humour it.”

“And ‘he hell does that mean?!”

The communications officer spoke up. “The line referring to ‘un-happening’ isn’t a mistake.” She said as she quickly worked through her terminal. Finding the pictures she wanted to show she placed her terminal flat on the table and tapped it.

With a burst two photographs blew themselves up in the middle of the table. One was of a male lesser selk, about Yujo’s age from first glance, with all the tell-tale signs. His stature was shorter than the average selk and The webbing between his fingers went only to the knuckles.

Where the selk eye had a prominent pupil, an all-encompassing window into the soul, a lesser selk’s pupils were smaller, even in comparison a human's eye.

The other was of an almost human like who looked just like the lesser selk. The only thing setting him apart from a normal human being was the pointed ears.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Yujo and Rosemary exchanged a look of disbelief and turned their attention to the communications offer.

In turn she nodded in confirmation.

“We can confirm that the photographic meta-data that these photographs were taken within about two hours of each other and at the same place. The only thing we haven't been able to figgure out is how they took the photographs given the selk don't have the technology to do that.”

“But that would mean…” Yujo interjected.

“Yes.” The grand marshal confirmed her suspicions. “Whilst it isn’t perfect it does look like the selk have a process to undo the turning.”

At that instant, a mess of thoughts ran through Yujo’s head. This was all too good to be true. If that was possible then why wasn’t the queen holding new talks and using this as leverage?

“I don’ buy it.” Rosemary shook her head. “Not one word of it…”

Ignoring Rosemary's comments, the Grand Marshal passed a clutch of pearls over to Yujo to who picked them up. As Yujo turned them in her hands the marble surface of the blue spheres shifted like an ocean wave.

“What's this?”

“We were told that these are a clutch of the queen’s pearls. Simply put the queen has offered this as grantee that she will see to it that the turning is undone.”

Yujo tilted her head, looking at the clutch of pearls which in turn reflected her face.

“From what the pack has told us these represent the queen’s life. Once you are returned to us unturned, we are to give them back. If for whatever reason are not returned to us in your human form we will keep the perals. We would then be within our right to-”

“-to string the clear up?” Rosemary growled.

“In not so many words, yes.” The grand marshal sighed. “On that note, Ms. McKenzie, we are still recording. I appreciate the reason why you have your sentiments, but could you please tone the language down?”

Rosemary looked at Yujo, who nodded, and then sighed.

“… Fine then, sorry. She’s no’ clear.”

‘The Grand Marshall shook his head and then motioned to the communications officer.

“Finally, there’s the matter of what you would be paid.”

The communications officer took her terminal from the table. She pressed it a few times to bring up a new piece of information and then passed it over to Yujo.

She read though the terms of her role as the land ambassador and then got to the part about pay. Her reading stopped as she tried to make sense of the number that had been printed on the paper.

Surely, there couldn’t be that many zeros?

After a second of digesting the figure, she passed the terminal to Rosemary to read who turned pale in surprise.

The Grand Marshall continued, “That is the per year figure. It is the combination of your pay for the two years’ service, which your employment in this role would cover, and the role itself. The pay itself was approved by Mr. Rawoul personally.”

Over the course of three years, that would be more than enough to pay for St. Aldrin’s outright.

Yujo felt weak in the stomach. As much as this all sounded, they had just given her the exact reason why she would even think about agreeing to the mad scheme.

She stammered as she placed the ensign’s terminal on the table and lent on the for support.

“I…I need more time…”

Rosemary made a movement to comfort Yujo but stopped short, holding her hand back.

“Yes. I think that is not an unreasonable reaction.” The grand marshal said and made a final motion to the ensign. She pulled something out of her pocket and walked over to Yujo to give it to her.

It was her terminal, stickers and all.

Tears began to well up as her throat began to tense up.

“Oh…thank you…”

“Oh, it’s nothing at all. We, um, did have to delete the photographs you took like last time. To be honest, I don't think you care about them right now."

Yujo shook her head and wiped her face.

The Grand Marshall stood up, “I have been given authority by the state to give you a week’s leave of your incarceration to consider the offer. Far be it for me to tell you how to conduct yourself but I would give it a lot of careful thought.”

Yujo nodded before she looked at Rosemary. The agitation was still clear on her face when she stood up.

“Well, thank you and him ever so much for the charity.”

Yujo sighed and stood up as well.

“The guards will take you and your guardian back to your home and will return in a week with your answer.” The Ensign started tapping her terminal to and make the necessary arrangements.

“Ms. Psalms?”

Yujo looked at him, “Yes?”

He gave a small smile, stood up and walked over to Yujo. He then offered her his left hand.

“Let’s try to not make this a common occurrence.”

Yujo, surprised by the revelation that the Grand Marshall could smile at all, smiled back and took the hand to shake it.

As the group walked out of the room, the guard stationed by the door stood to attention as they slipped out of sight.

Alone he pulled his terminal out of his pocket and made a call.