It took a while, with directions from the civilian seated to the council as to Larel’s location, to find the woman. She was still a part of the Morning’s Shade which was now an official policing force under the civilian council’s control, the counterpart to the army which the military half of the council led.
Larel was a Gold rank fist and ice magic fighter. She was one of the only Gold rankers in the organisation, the kingdom, even. With a specialty in ramping damage and quick speed, she was uniquely good at taking down single, slow targets that could take massive amounts of damage. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t dangerous outside of situations like that, any Gold ranker was. It was more to say that Zalia had seen this woman take down a Gold rank elemental by herself while she was only Silver rank and that was not something anyone could do. Zalia doubted even she would be able to do that.
Being both quick and dangerous, the council often had tasks for her that were on the edges of Endaria. This included taking down high-rank threats that were approaching their borders and protecting the smaller border towns that lived on the edges of their civilisation more than anything else. Zalia sometimes envied her in the work, until she remembered that she could and often did do the same thing.
She had looked for the woman the last few times that she’d come to the capital and was pleasantly surprised to find her in a tavern, one that belonged to a man she remembered. It was Harrick, the Gold rank chef with a brewer specialisation that Ember had often went to for drinks during the days spent in the war camp that had been east of Nature’s Reclaim. That was now a small town in its own regard, founded by the people who had stayed behind after the army had left to reclaim the capital.
“Harrick!” Ember exclaimed, walking past Zalia and giving the man a hug.
“Ho! Ember, good to see your face once more. And Zalia! Our saviour and the hero of Endaria. Is that the ever curious and hungry Boreal I see behind you?”
Zalia stepped aside as Boreal padded up and sat politely in front of the man. Her young ones, however, were not so polite. Seeing Ember hug the man, they approached warily. Smelling the delicious aroma that often followed the Gold rank chef, they swarmed him.
“Oh my, good gods, you’ve multiplied!”
Zalia chuckled as he desperately searched for something to satiate the hunger shining in the young cats’ eyes and turned to search the tavern.
It was much, much larger than the previous establishment the man had owned which had been a small affair in the war camp. The place held a dozen or so large, round tables each with eight or nine chairs around it. Where the previous tavern he had owned had been mostly empty at the time Zalia had visited, this one was packed. There must have been half the city's Silver rank population in the room, many sitting in big groups with three or four extra chairs from nearby tables pulled over, while there were some more solitary people amongst the crowds.
Zalia spotted the twins, a powerful duo who used combined magic that often hit with a power that was a rank above their own and gave them a single acknowledging nod.
She also spotted various other Morning’s Shade members amongst the people there and realised that in truth, the majority of them were from the organisation.
Harrick moved around behind the island along one edge of the room that served as his bar and found some dried meat snacks for the young cats and Zalia finally spotted Larel as she came out from a door behind the bar. She quirked her head at the woman, confused as to what she had been doing behind there, until she gave Harrick a hug and a fond kiss.
They were together, apparently.
“Larel! Larel!” Zalia called over the din of the tavern.
She turned towards where Zalia called her name and spotted her, waving as she approached, lithely sidestepping the many cats along her path.
“Zalia! Hey, long time no see.”
Zalia accepted her proffered hug and followed the woman to a nearby table next to the bar that was mercifully empty. Ember and Aylie joined her while Boreal oversaw the young cats' joint harassment of Harrick.
“I hope you’re doing well,” Ember said in greeting once they were sat down.
Larel gave a bright smile.
“I sure am! Life couldn’t be better.”
Zalia found it a little strange but mostly cute that the two Gold rankers, probably the only two in the city, had found each other.
“And you?” Larel asked before turning to Aylie, “and Aylie, right? You’ve grown… a lot.”
Aylie gave an obliging smile and greeting.
“Oh we’re doing pretty good, all things considered.”
Larel snapped her fingers.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Oh! Right, I did hear you lot were going to find the Astar. How did that go?”
Zalia almost winced, watching Aylie to make sure she was okay. The teenager didn’t visibly react.
Ember spoke up, answering.
“It went… terribly in some ways, excellent in others. You’ll probably be invited to the meeting when Faian gets back to town. We’ll explain then.”
Larel nodded, some of the cheerful enthusiasm fading for just a second, showing concern.
“You’ve been out of town a lot this past year Larel, what have you been up to?” Zalia asked, changing the subject.
“Oh! Well, this and that. For the most part I’ve been dealing with stray elementals that hadn’t been destroyed or gone back to sleep after the war. There were quite a few outside our borders that wandered in from time to time, causing trouble. Most recently though, I’ve been investigating that demon you lot killed up north, you know, the strange one?”
Ember nodded and Aylie smiled, memories of her victory that day probably flashing through her mind.
“Yeah, weirdest thing. I couldn’t figure out how it was killed until Faian told me Aylie had done it with some kind of dream magic. Seems like a strong ability, that one. Anyway, I haven’t found any other demons like it since, so I’m hoping it was a one-of-a-kind mutation maybe? It’s hard to tell, what with most of the demon dens having been hunted to extinction by now.”
Zalia nodded. With the Morning’s Shade and the army regularly destroying discovered demon dens, they were getting less and less common. She figured it wouldn’t be long until the things were gone from Endaria entirely, with only the odd few outside their borders. They wouldn’t survive long out there though, with how dangerous some of the wildlife got. Hell, the bunnies in the north could probably take out a den with how savagely aggressive they were.
“Sounds fun! You must be travelling nicely along towards Emerald rank doing that kind of thing day in, day out,” Zalia replied.
Larel wagged her hand side to side in a “maybe” gesture.
“Kind of. Quick for the rank, I suppose, but still taking forever. It is going to be a while yet before I catch up to Hildebrandt. Though, with how much time she spends tending her garden and cooking on that barbeque of hers, I think I’ll catch up eventually.”
Harrick chimed in from the bar, where he was trying to remove Prance from his shoulders.
“Nothing wrong with settling in and taking your time with these things dear.”
Larel rolled her eyes but the smile on her face showed that she took it in stride.
“Oh you know me, I couldn’t slow down even if I tried. I’m just too quick.”
Zalia laughed as Harrick finally managed to life Prance down only for Rush to appear on his shoulders, stealing the piece of dried meat from the hand he was holding away from Prance.
“That’s a lot of cats Zalia, how do you deal with it?” Larel asked.
Zalia gestured to Boreal who was looking tired.
“Seeing Boreal deal with all the things she put me through lends me endless energy.”
Larel and Ember laughed, even Aylie giving a small chuckle.
“I feel for her,” Harrick said.
Boreal looked at him approvingly and as he managed to get Rush down, she lightly bapped Pounce on the head as she tried to jump up to his shoulders too.
With some effort, she managed to herd the five teen cats to the table under which they proceeded to play fight. Zalia felt her feet and legs being run into or pounced on with regularity and knew the others were suffering similar fates. Boreal, who was absolutely massive, sat at the table, now taller than any of the sitting people.
Larel leaned sideways to look down at Boreal’s claws, then back up and to Zalia.
“You know, when you showed up to the Morning’s Shade a Tin ranker with a kitten, I really didn’t expect you to end up here. I didn’t expect to end up here myself either, to be honest.”
She shrugged.
“Shit happens, I guess. I never properly thanked you for freeing us from the prison that day Larel, so, thank you.”
It was Larel’s turn to shrug.
“You would have done the same and as a result, you spent a long time down there in Cormaine. Then you came back and proceeded to give us the means to win the war through Nateysta. I think you’ve repaid my actions many times over.”
Zalia was going to protest but Ember nudged her.
“She’s right, you know.”
She grumbled a bit, but accepted it.
“Alright, alright. Still, you took a risk on freeing us and I’m glad you did.”
“So am I,” Larel agreed, giving a wide smile.
They spent the next hour talking companionably while the young cats slowly ran out of energy. Eventually, Zalia and her family left Larel there with fond farewells, though they would probably see each other later that day or the next for the meeting anyway.
Zalia took them all up to the keep on top of the hill and was given a space where they could all relax and wait until the meeting happened. It would be another four or five hours until the generals and Hildebrandt made it back and they had nothing to do until then.
They spent the time productively, Zalia showing the others how she made the anti-teleportation armbands. She wanted to have quite a few of them ready and spent the next hours mass-producing them. These would go to the council as it was important that they had some type of protection as soon as possible.
The hours passed and Faian, Ballast and Hildebrandt arrived at the keep, surprised to find Zalia and her family already there and settled in.
They came back an hour later to tell her the meeting would be the following day so their family was given rooms to sleep.
The next day came, Zalia having spent the entire night making armbands for the council. Ready for the meeting and ready to finally do something about the Astar, they left the often disruptive younger cats with an aide and made their way to the council chamber. They had seats on the outskirts and settled in for the long haul, hoping that some of the council members would have good ideas for what, exactly, they were meant to do about this.