Germaine Pov
One benefit of training with my master was he always made sure to provide a good meal after. The sun will rise, objects fall, and my master provides meals after training. Of course, all such rules of the universe can be changed if a powerful enough force is applied, but that was not the case this morning. I had a stack of pancakes piled high, some sweet syrup, honey, butter, and bacon layered between each cake. A healthy side of various fruits were in a bowl to the side, and I would alternate between the stack before me and the fruit to the side. I could feel the bemused energy of my master to the side as he drank a glass of chilled fruit juice and pointedly ignored him. Nothing would ruin this moment for me.
The doors to the dining room burst open and Beuforlos emerged yelling. Something about something not standing? I washed down my current mouthful of pancake with some milk, took a bite of fruit and watched him as I parsed what he was…oh. I forgot. He was the acting Merlin of the Shielding Council. So of course, he got the message I sent before breakfast about my master's intent. I glanced sideways at him, to see him ignoring everything as he grabbed a biscuit and poured some meat filled gravy over it. I finished my bite of fruit and cleared my throat.
“It’s too early for yelling, why don’t you have breakfast first?” I asked.
“Breakfast!? BREAKFAST!? This could topple over a century of policy! Cause cracks through the foundation of humanity! What will happen if next century he chooses to side with the Night again and takes the secrets of humanity's defenses with him!?” Beuforlos waved his hands in the air in outrage.
“What secrets?” My master asked idly, reaching for another biscuit to clean his plate.
“Secrets” Beuforlos said as he glared at my master. If I didn’t know better, I would think he had a death wish. But no, that was just his dedication to his job showing, the man would dive into hell itself if he thought it would fulfill the ideals of the council.
“He probably already knows any of them worth knowing, Beuforlos, the only reason he wouldn’t is he never bothered learning.” I said before pointing at a seat with a fork. “Now sit and eat some breakfast, it is truly too delicious to skip.”
I turned back to my stack of pancakes and wondered if I should get thirds. I took a bite of the bacon covered in sweet syrup and let my entire body relax while Beuforlos grumpily slammed himself into a chair and started grabbing food. He paused for a moment at one of the containers, giving it a sniff before finding one of the bowls at the table out pouring out some kind of thick soup and settling down to eat that alongside his bacon and a few biscuits.
Beuforlos finished half his soup before looking up to see me going for seconds, but this time layering sausage patties between the pancakes instead of bacon slices.
“So how do you think this will work?” He practically growled at me as he chomped a piece of bacon.
“I have some people in mind to contact, and figured I would ask for volunteers. I doubt the church will send anyone from their forces, the hunters are a scattered force at the best of times, the army will likely send someone just to see what is happening.” I watched him as I continued.
“Seraphina will go of course” He snorted at me.
“Of course, I’ve already been overruled by the council on that.” He glared out the window in the direction of the Shielding Council Headquarters. HE had made his views on that quite clear already.
“Do you have any others who you think would benefit from this?” I asked.
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He turned and glared at me. “You know they wouldn’t send any students to this except as an excuse to disrupt it and try to steal knowledge from THAT.” He gestured where my master was humming and arranging his bacon into a smiley face on his plate.
Beuforlos turned back to his soup and grabbed a spoonful before finishing his reply. “I’m not sending some brats to die because their teachers want to take a chance.”
I snagged another bowl of fruit and nodded in agreement as breakfast continued. A polite knock at the door announced the arrival of Seraphina who I waved into the room with my mouth full and pointed at the last remaining seat waiting for her.
Finally able to swallow the slightly too large bite I had taken, I spoke. “Grab as much as you want, there is more than enough, plus with the changes Dawnbreaker made to your body you're probably starving.”
She nodded and grabbed a plate, piling the food on it and diving in. The food vanished at an astonishing rate, which I approved of. She had a healthy appetite before, but it seems the changes had really left her starving; she was on a second plate before Beuforlos had finished his first. My master had found a collection of blackberries and was eating them one by one. Occasionally with a dollop of honey as well.
He paused in his eating for a moment to grab Dawnbreaker from his side and toss it down the table to Seraphina. Now with a dark red scabbard that reminded me of blood. She caught it instantly, even mid bite and under Beuforlos’s piercing gaze and my inquisitive one pulled it from the sheath in a single motion. She inspected the mirror shine of the blade, I noted that Drakule’s eye was hidden once more, the gold of the hilt forming seamlessly over where it rested. Hidden until it was needed, I assumed.
She looked up from the blade. “Thank you, Mr. Crimson, I can feel it feels better than before.”
He waved his hand casually. “It is fine, the blade was just nearing time for its maintenance, and I wanted to take care of it before you left.”
I carefully kept my face from reacting. Maintenance my ass, I had seen him maintain the sword before and it was not like what he did last night. The sword would be more in tune with its wielder, any wear and tear would vanish, and it would be a bit more magically charged to the senses for a while. Now I didn’t feel that same charge, but I knew the sword was far more powerful than the previous time I had seen it wielded. More awake, more powerful and likely going to grow a bit more before this war was over.
After a while more, I glanced down at my empty plate and sighed, checking everyone else, my master was playing with his food, again, this time a frowny face made of berries and honey. Beuforlos was nearly done with his plate and somehow Seraphina was on her third plate as well. With a moan of distress, I pushed back from the table. I had definitely over eaten, but someone had to! Else it would not have been doing this splendid meal justice. I sighed as I looked over at Beuforlos.
“We need to go.” I told him.
He looked up from his meal with a frown. “Already?”
I nodded.
He cursed. “It hasn’t even been a night.”
“Is it any surprise that they would launch an attack if they already had assassins ready for us?” I asked.
Beuforlos’s grimace was his only reply. Seraphina was looking between us as we talked, and my master had finally stopped drawing faces on his plate before eating them.
My master spoke. “Do you need to retrieve anything from your rooms before you go?”
I, Seraphina and Beurforlos all shook our heads no and my master stood up.
“Then I shall send you all off personally, I have a teleportation ritual set up in one of the side rooms.” He spoke and led us out of the room.
“Where will you be sending us?” I asked curiously.
“No worries, I have a good spot in mind, quite close to where you need to go. Consider it a small surprise” He answered, and I sighed, him saying it was a surprise meant he wouldn’t be sharing.
He led us into a plainly decorated room, with a large spell circle inlaid into the floor, a quick scan of the ritual and it was indeed just a normal teleportation ritual. I glanced at Beuforlos to check, and he was scanning it himself, seeming to get more annoyed with every diabolical trap he failed to find. I stepped into the ritual and the others followed me, my master remaining outside the circle.
He looked at me and spoke as I felt the magic gathering to him. “I’ll visit you in a month.”
I nodded, and Beuforlos stood close to Seraphina, ready to shield her in case anything went wrong during the teleportation. In a flash of red light, we ceased to exist, for a single eternity that was less than an instant, we were nothing and everything, alive and dead, real and fake, outside of time, space and reality, and then we were standing in Beuforlos’s study at the Shielding Council’s Headquarters. Seraphina looked queasy, Beuforlos appeared apocalyptic, and I was carefully, carefully, locking away the memories of what I saw beyond space and time. Sometimes having the ability to alter your perspective is not a blessing. The others would have simply blinked and been here.
I shook my head as the last of the memories were sealed up behind a barrier in my mind I used specifically for this purpose and turned to Beuforlos with a smile.
“See, I told you any secrets you had were probably already known. Do you think he knows about your mistress or not?”
What can I say, I get my charming personality from my master. And if he is going to poke Beuforlos’s stuffiness by teleporting us through the best defenses he and the shielding council can muster without an active squad of wardens on site? Then who am I to resist? That it resulted in Beuforlos bodily throwing me out of his office because I was laughing at him too hard to walk was merely an extra ladle of syrup on top.
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