Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Briefing

Well, it was true. I didn't agree to be his student or anything else. It would be foolish to consent to that when I was completely exhausted and not thinking straight at the time. Deckard knew I needed more time to think through all the consequences of such a decision. He himself told me not to rush it, and I wasn't going to. So I just nodded, letting both Captain Rayden and Janina know Deckard was telling the truth.

The questioning stare both of them gave me was very unsettling. It made me wonder how long Deckard had been looking for this student of his.

"Ehm..." the Captain cleared her throat after realizing how inappropriate, given her position, she was acting. So, she straightened her blue jacket with its white lapels, adjusted the collar of her violet shirt, and moved the cap to its proper place. Then she placed her hands behind her back and put on her stoic expression. "It's better if we discuss this further in private. Right, Lieutenant?"

The healer standing next to her was still in shock, her eyes flickering between Deckard and me. So Rayden nudged her in the ribs with a force that made her almost fall to the ground. "Janina!"

"What the hell, San?!" she snapped as she awoke from her stupor, massaging her side.

"Check them." The Captain gestured to the slaves.

"But...," she argued, pointing at Deckard and me, reluctant to leave after what she heard.

Letting out a sigh, Rayden responded with a nod. "I know. We'll talk later. See to the slaves, check Aspen, then come to my office...and bring the others."

While the healer, muttering something about Traiana and ‘about fucking time’, hurried to the slaves, my eyes inevitably went to the city at the mention of Rayden’s office. I was looking for the barracks. Stupid, I know. We were still outside the city walls and not on the main street that could be seen beyond the city gate, a street where the barracks didn't even stand. Yet I couldn't help wondering if it was already repaired. As far as I knew, the Captain's office and the entire floor with it had exploded. 

"You two follow me," Rayden ordered me and Deckard, her tone making it clear she didn't want to hear objections. Thus, not arguing I turned back to the mare, wondering how to get on the horse. But Deckard pointed out that it would be quicker on foot, something I couldn't quite agree with when I was barefoot. So at least I said goodbye to the horse, hoping someone would take care of the animal, and followed the two. 

I had hardly taken a few steps when Rayden stopped in front of the man, one of the master guards, giving him orders regarding the upcoming meeting. Then she turned to the guardswoman coordinating the city guards who were taking the slaves away and clarified her earlier orders. I noticed Janina was checking on Rutledge, but my gaze fell on Aspen lying unconscious on the ground.

She survived. Not what she wanted, though. It was hard to tell what was going to happen to her now. Ward mentioned that the punishment for falsely enslaving someone is slavery itself. An idea that made me shudder and forced her to give up on her life back there in the clearing. I certainly wouldn't want to be in her shoes when she wakes up.

It just, I felt like I owed her when de facto she was just trying to make up for what she did. 

"Miss, sir." Tate, standing next to her, his hands and ankles already shackled, waved at us. A bit awkward, I waved back and couldn't help thinking that he won't end up with a collar around his neck and quite possibly not even behind bars with his luck.

"The fool will take care of himself," Deckard remarked, nudging me to follow Rayden, who was already heading into the city at a rapid pace. Giving those two one last look I walked through the gate into Castiana.

The stone pavement made my feet cold when I found myself within the walls again with the urge to shout 'I'm back!' or something along those lines. Yet, as always, I refrained from such emotional outbursts. Instead, I quietly caught up with the City Guards Captain and followed her at a pace I was sure was slow for her. I, on the other hand, had to jog every now and then to keep up. Following her through the city, I cautiously observed the people we passed by as fear gripped my heart and guts. All it took was for one of them to be tempted by the bounty on my head, and what I've endured and escaped might repeat itself.

I had to keep reminding myself who I followed, who was walking beside me. Because in the presence of Deckard and Rayden, no one has dared to make my fears come to fruition. Thus we arrived at the already repaired gate of the City Barracks with no delay. 

In the courtyard, my eyes immediately fell on the infirmary building. The hole I had fallen through on the night of the attack and the rubble beneath was gone. Even the missing floor, where Rayden's office used to be, already had its walls standing. Only the roof was still missing. I couldn't help but marvel at the local builders' speed, which could more than compete with the builders on Earth who had modern machinery and technology at hand. Needless to say, these builders had 'Skills'.

Despite their speed, the Captain still had to make do with a temporary office in another building for the time being in which I soon found myself. As Rayden closed the door behind us, I could feel the energy emanating from the walls and enchantments come to life. I couldn't see the runes, yet I was sure they were in there somewhere. 

After taking off the cap and placing it on a stack of papers lying on the table, Captain settled into the leather armchair behind her desk. She gestured to the two armchairs in front of it.

"Deck, please," she asked him after he remained standing. It made me wonder again what was really between those two, what he was trying to prove. After all, I was the one having a hard time sitting in chairs and such. He didn't have to deal with wings and tail. But, under her insistence and adamant look, he yielded and overcame his strange aversion to chairs and sitting in them.

As he slumped into the chair next to me, Rayden breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay." She clasped her hands together with vigor, placed them on the table, and leaned towards us. "Now, I'd love to hear what happened in there before I...we go meet Agent Sah and the City Lord. And I want to hear the truth. You met Esu. Why the fuck was he there?"

So after a glance at Deckard, I began to tell her how it all went down, starting with me emerging from the Labyrinth. It wasn't easy telling her about how she let me down when I was captured and enslaved. Nor was it any easier to tell her why Aspen and I had chosen to fight to the last breath. Even Deckard didn't know why Esu was there, and he couldn't help but laugh when he found out that Tate had played a major role in it.

Captain Rayden was strangely quiet when I was telling her about my interaction and training with Esu. Her expression didn't change, but I think she was shocked and had a hard time believing what I was saying. Yet, she listened to the end.

"That's all." I ended my story of what happened, which still took over twenty minutes and made my throat quite dry. "We came out of the woods where we met Agent Sah."

"You didn't attack him?" Rayden frowned at Deckard, still expecting him to admit to it.

He grumbled in frustration. "Who do you take me for, San? I don't go around beating people up. I just insisted the girl wouldn't leave my sight."

"Yeah, I can see how he might not like that," she said after a brief moment of consideration and looked at me for confirmation, to which I nodded. Taking everything I said in, she leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. It took her a minute or two to collect her thoughts, after which she looked back at us.

"So let me get this straight," she said as she clasped her hands back together with her index fingers pointing at me. "You arrived at the old clearing halfway through Esulmor Woods, where the handover was to take place. You and Aspen, after communicating through union rings, decided to go down in a big way. Which you did after the contribution of this workhand named Tate. That's when Esu showed up, yes?"

I wiggled my ears up and down to put more emphasis to my nod. 

"Insanity!" she snapped. "You have not only endangered Castiana, but the entire region. But..." She held up a finger. "I understand why you did it, and I can only blame myself. I was the one who forced you into that desperate situation."

"You said you were ordered to," Deckard reminded her.

"And I followed those orders," she said and closed her eyes briefly. "I'm the one to blame, Deck. Not you Grey, and if anyone else tries to. I'll have to remind  them why were you there and who gave me those orders."

Little taken back and also confused, I got she felt guilty. But the question was whether she would willingly go against her superiors? I didn't think so. From what I could tell, the Captain had been struggling with the City Lord for years, never overstepping the limits of her authority. Was I supposed to believe that had changed now? Well, I wasn't that naive.

"Okay," I replied and saw the sadness my answer brought to her eyes. Rayden knew she didn't have my trust as she had before.

She took a breath to say her piece just when I flinched as a knock on the door reached my ears. Whether Rayden wanted to apologize to me again remained unanswered. She stood up, straightened her uniform, and went to open the door. I would have thought a simple 'Come in' would have been enough given her position, but I didn't dare to question it when I was ignorant of Sahal's customs. Still, I couldn't help wondering if she went to answer the door every time someone knocked? 

"She doesn't have the fancy enchantments she had in her old office. These look more simple, probably temporary things, fewer functions," Deckard explained the reason, seeing my confusion. It was still irritating when someone did that, his answer was appreciated, though. It also made me realize that he saw the runes, unlike me. All I kept seeing were empty walls.

"Sorry, I couldn't find Marcus," Janine said as soon as she entered the room, trying to excuse their late arrival. "Captain, I was taking a nap, what's so important." Chief Healer complained. The fact that he wasn't lying was evident in the wrinkled white uniform the healers wore. "Lass, you're back," he exclaimed with a smile on his face the moment he noticed me. As his eyes fell on the man sitting next to me, his grin grew even wider. "Deck!"

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"Marcus!" Deckard shouted so loudly that my ears rang before grasping the healer's hand, exchanging ecstatic and surely unmilitary greetings. They seemed to be really good friends.

"Captain. Grey, long time no see," swordmaster Blaine said as soon as he spotted me. I gritted my teeth. What was wrong with everyone and their 'Long time no see'? Seriously, we haven't seen each other in, like, four days.

The last man to enter the room was a man with a trimmed gray beard and his hair pulled back into a ponytail.

[Guardian: lvl ??]

He was as huge as I remembered him, and he was in the uniform of the city guards. In his armor, he must have looked even more hulking. As soon as he walked through the door, Rayden closed them behind him, and the enchantments reactivated. While I was trying to find the runes again, she promptly returned to her seat while the others found their places to sit or simply leaned against the wall.

It didn't escape my notice that these were the same people I saw when I first met the City Lord after the attack on the barracks. Back then, I didn't pay much attention to it. Now I wondered what the position of these people actually was.

"Grey, these are my lieutenants." Captain Rayden gestured to the four people behind me as if she had read my mind. I think it was more of courtesy this time, though. "These are the people I trust with my life, my friends. You already know most of them, and it probably won't surprise you that Deckard used to be one of them."

"Yeah, I figured," I mumbled, eyeing the man who sat back down on my left.

"You already know Blaine. The guardian's name is Rhys." She introduced the huge man to me. It didn't hit me at first, but now I couldn't help wondering why Rayden was the only one whose last name I knew. I wasn't their friend so why did they all introduce themselves to me by name? It couldn't have been a stupid reason, like to make me trust them more, right? Rayden didn't and called me Grey. Then why?

I had to put off thinking about this oddity as guardian Rhys gave me the nod and grunted in greeting. At which point my instincts kicked in, and I responded in kind with a low growl escaping my throat. It was weird that I could do it without [Beast]'s help, without going through the change. But I wasn't stupid, aware that it was due to my race change, or rather my acceptance of what I was.

"So, what have we missed?" Marcus asked, ignoring the fact that my growl made Blaine grip the hilt of his sword tighter and Rhys raised an eyebrow. "Jan told me Aspen was involved and that she even resorted to life burning."

"Janine?" Rayden queried her, asking for clarification.

"Her symptoms suggest that," explained the healer, then she scratched behind her ear. "Although her body is perfectly fine. Even the old scar under her shoulder, which neither Marcus nor I were able to heal, is gone."

"Oh, one of the mothers healed her," I put in realizing at the same time that it might be better to keep your mouth shut when Marcus asked. "Whose mother, lass?"

"That would explain quite a lot, actually," Janina said, sparing me the explanation. "Her mind just needs more time to recover."

"Why would she do that? It's a suicide," Blaine remarked, strangely overly taken aback by what Aspen did.

This time I was aware that I cocked my ears in confusion, so the gruff voice of Deckard in my mind didn't catch me off guard. "She used to be in a unit under his command."

"According to Grey, she was fighting over a dozen Shadowbreakers at once," Rayden said, to which Marcus gave an astonished whistle. That earned him a disapproving grunt from me. My ears didn't like that.

"Okay, we don't have much time." Rayden raised her voice. "About thirty minutes, to be exact."

This made the others quiet and made me ask myself ‘time for what’? I'd already told her what happened.

"So, to brief you. Before you got here, I was summarizing what Grey told me. Shadowbreaker company took her to the Esulmor woods, where she was to be handed over to the buyer. As stupid a decision as I think it was, she and Aspen chose to draw Esu's attention to themselves, which they did with the help of a workhand named Tate. Don't ask. There's more, much more."

"Deck, tell me you went toe-to-toe with the King of the Woods," Marcus asked with a smirk and a genuine interest despite what he was told by the Captain.

"Man, if you saw him..." Deckard turned to the Chief Healer. "You wouldn't say such bullshit."

"So, you didn't. What a bummer." He sighed, disappointed and taunting Deckard with his tone for not doing so.

Most likely because he belittled Esu's might, I had the urge to correct his attitude. "In front of my eyes, the moss ate two people at your level in minutes, and I don't think Esu really put forth an effort." I still had that image vivid in my mind.

I could see his eyes wander to my head and the moss on it.

"That's enough!" Rayden slammed the table and released her domineering aura, silencing all three of us. "Guys. Take this more fucking seriously. Grey, especially you should. Because if I understand correctly, aside from the fact that you can resist [Beasts] temptation, this skill allows you to talk to beasts? Right?" 

I stiffened in my seat, instantly aware of my blunder. Though I hesitated upon reflection, feeling that any answer beginning with 'no' would not please her. Yet, I had to set her mistaken assumption straight. "At first, I thought so. I could understand Esu without an active skill, though. On the way here, I even talked to a horse. So, I think my mutations are to blame." That and my race change a detail I haven't mentioned to her yet.

"But you understood him. You talked to him."

"Yes," I said aloud so as not to create any more misunderstandings.

At that, she looked me straight in the eyes. "...and he considers you his cub?"

"Traiana's tits, lass. Is that true?" Marcus blurted out, and he wasn't the only one who didn't manage to keep his emotions in check and their mouths shut. 

"That's..." the swordmaster marveled in surprise, a bit more composed than Chief Healer. "...interesting."

I even heard the Guardian speak for the first time. "Bold claim."

Janina was quiet at first, but it turned out she was thinking. "One of the mutations, Korra?"

Pointing to my antlers, I gave her an answer she immediately understood. "Of course," she said, smacking her head. "You have their antlers...and now their moss too." 

"And that's the problem," Rayden said, practically spelling out the words. "If the Empire was only interested in you before, now you'll have their full attention."

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