When Guard Duty requires that Special Touch...

[Tobias Stalt]

It felt like overkill.

Tobias marched not ten paces from Newalla , eyeing the other youth sidelong. Unlike the troubled rogue, Ozoric carried himself with an air of confidence and detachment, seemingly above the troubles of the column. Reptilian, short winged Wyverns skittered alongside and between the carriages that comprised the caravan, screeching their discontent with the new assignment to the night sky. Flames at the fringes of the road lit the shadows and poured over the group, revealing a heavily armored Aelfric at the forefront of their march.

His honeyed eyes flicked from the front of the long line to the dirt. "We have dragons," Tobias muttered, "but we're playing guards to a Caravan." There was a distinct air of impudence that surrounded his words, a trait that set him apart from the humility of the Drakengard's finest. Ozoric was a world away before he'd spoken, but his disproving gaze found Tobias the moment his words hit home.

"Duty is an honor," Ozoric reminded Tobias sternly. "Or have you forgotten the alternative already?"

Tobias slumped a bit at the sobering words. He still recalled his exploits in Eiskalt, and the dank cell that held him for countless months thereafter. The opportunity to cleanse himself of those faults and find home in a tenuously held together family of brothers-at-arms was a blessing that Tobias had not deserved. He found himself less deserving with each reproach, regardless of who offered it. "So easily it seems forgotten," he muttered.

Heavy armor suited the rest of the band of guardsmen, but it sat heavy on Tobias' mantle and weighed him down. The partisan was a foreign weapon to him, and though it remained strapped to his back, he longed for something familiar. In the event of a battle, his wild swipes would profit them nothing. The murmur of crackling flames in the maw of a passing Wyvern drew his gaze, but Tobias knew better than to stare. They were quick tempered creatures, and eye contact could draw their ire just as quickly as being attacked.

Months of study had taught him a great deal about their culture and beginnings, but Tobias felt as though he might never fully integrate with their ranks. He lacked the chivalry of a knight, and the skill as well. He had a love for the Dragons, but he found no love returned. Perhaps it was true that a Dragon could see into the soul, and whatever they found in Tobias, the mythical beasts found no taste for.

Tobias shrugged the armor into a more comfortable position, though even that felt annoying. "Stop squirming," Ozoric snapped. "We are in formation." Tobias snorted, a sour look twisting his face, but he swallowed the vitriol that threatened to spew back at the son of Dragons.

"Tell me again why we're doing this?" Stalt asked, clearing his voice of venom. He straightened his back and continued to march. He watched the bushes in his peripherals for a long moment, then found his gaze on the carriage directly in front of him. While he saw now evidence of movement within, he thought he heard the giggle of feminine laughter.

[Ozoric]

“As you well know, the Drakengard is a military branch of the Corone Armed Forces.”

Though it now sorely wished to be a separate state, the dragoons were, for all intent and purpose, cavalry specialists. Ozoric would rather be fighting on a windswept peak alongside his mount now too, but to get there, a long and arduous road must be travelled. This road. Here. Now. With these…people.

“You’ve told me a hundred times in the last week alone…,” Tobias remarked.

Ozoric had to concede the point. Just as Aelfric had been with him, Ozoric was perhaps overly strict in the tuition of his new charge. The life of an initiate was comprised of three stages. The first was instruction. By observing, and more often than not, doing the things expected of an initiate a newcomer to the fortress would come to appreciate the life ahead. The second, the most difficult, was construction. To build strength and character by mucking stables, running messages, and generally being your mentor’s squire.

“I’ll tell you a hundred more,” the Lancer said with an all knowing smile. He was all too eager to get to that stage. “We do as our leader commands.” Their leader, on this occasion, was Sei Orlouge. Ozoric purposefully left out that riotous fact.

The caravan moved on unceasingly. Side by side, the duo kept eyes on the road, save for nervous glances n Tobias’ part at the dual threat of treeline and tooth and nail. The wyverns grew increasingly skittish as the wagon began to curve west, around a protrusion of trees that appeared younger, and more spruce like than their venerable counterparts.

“The forest still grows?” Ozoric asked nobody in particular.

Nobody answered. Tobias ruminated, but remained silent. He examined the trees closely, as ever hew did his surroundings, and tried to piece together what could have happened. They were half the height of Concordia proper, and spindly in life and lean. A strong wind could have felled the thicket, and undone its attempts to regenerate.

“They called it the Crane,” came a gruff reply, some minutes later.

Aelfric, beard and battalion in one, appeared around the cupola of his wagon and gestured for Tobias and Ozoric to join him on his wagon. Ozoric broke into a brisk run, then leapt clean the distance between torrid road and comfortable perch. Tobias traipsed after him, feeling ever alienated from the draconic culture he had fallen in to.

“Up you get, Stalt,” Aelfric said as he offered a gloved hand to the youth. Tobias took it, and was whisked up onto the front of their wagon like a ragdoll. “To the left, if you would.”

The Captain gestured to the left seat, leaving Ozoric on the right flank and himself comfortably in the middle. When Aelfric seated himself comfortably, both wraith like men were leaning to one side to avoid a pauldron in the face.

“You said it was called the Crane…,” Tobias said. His inquisitive nature was something that Ozoric valued highly. Asking the right questions got you places, even in the rigid hierarchy of his newfound home.

“Yes. They. The people of Akashima. A battle raged here twixt a divine monster dragon-like in size and twice as powerful.” The Captain pointed into the new tree growth, and whipped the reigns to bring the caravan to a temporary halt. Feminine laughter echoed in his words. He frowned.

“So I was not hearing things…,” Ozoric groaned. He reached for his sword, and found its cold pang uncomfortable and unwelcoming. He leapt from the wagon and landed a few feet away, legs parsed, teeth grit.

“Left flank palisade!” Aelfric commanded.

The distinct sound of a well-oiled military machine echoed against the trees. The wyverns, oblivious and wild, continued their pursuit of the wagons until they stopped. One by one, the beasts began to jitter to and fro, beat their wings, and lash their tails. The presence of something in the woods alone was enough to unnerve the guard and its cargo.

“Ozoric. Sort those recruits!”

With efficiency beyond his years, the Captain of the guard did what he had done for the better part of five decades. Guard. With order after order, he brought shield walls up, archers into parapets on select wagons, and order to chaos. The smell of pine needles in the air was beaten out by mud and the imitable smell of gunfire primed in barrel, and beer and urine flowing free.

“Yes sir.”

The red armour of the Lancer danced with feint flame as he pressed two fingers to his temple and bowed. He reached out to each of the wyverns in their party and repeated each and every command bawled by Aelfric in a crude mix of high draconic and the lesser lizard dialects that made up the vast and complicated linguistic history of Corone’s northern peaks. Only one born a dragon, or at least part, could ever hope to decipher it.

“Done.” Ozoric turned to Tobias. “Less telling, more doing Mr Stalt.” He smirked. For just a brief moment, he let up the façade of mentorship, and showed Tobias that at its heart, and regardless of tithe and title, the Drakengard was a family. It was a brotherhood.

The wyverns arrayed themselves half atop the wagons, ready to pounce, and half concealed behind the caravan so as to not reveal their full strength to whatever opponent was readying a charge. The tactical acumen behind the plan was considerable, yet it was pitched against a less trained foe and assumed to be in the name of war, not peace. Ozoric turned back to the tree line when he realised Tobias’ expression was placed at something asides his own chagrin.

“What…in Chalazae’s Scale. Are they?” It took a lot to dumbfound Ozoric Newalla. His crown regal shattered, and he slouched. He turned to Aelfric, but he was busying his own fortress like armour and rallying the sergeants to their posts.

From out of the trees, uncertain in their intent and form, six ethereal women floated. Half-tree, half-sun, and half wicked barbs, the new trees of Concordia had either awakened something, or given rise and prominence to new life. Either way, their smiles, laced with snarls, proved a decisive factor in how the humans exposed on the road reacted. A shot fired.

Badly.

[Tobias Stalt]

He could smell the piss that stained the pants of the younger, greener infantrymen. He bolted upright when the shot sounded, then seethed. "Belay that gunfire!" the young man called out, chastising the ranks and reigning them in before they were able to cause more trouble than was already encroaching. Thankfully, the wild round had gone wide of any possible target, and the only offense made fostered as a sulfuric stench that wrinkled Tobias' nose. "Next man what fires a shot unbidden has latrine duty for a month."

Aelfric wore an amused smirk at the threat, but Ozoric seemed less than amused. "Latrine duty?" the draconic youth echoed, albeit quietly. Tobias shrugged helplessly, finger prodding accusingly toward the six wild looking women. "Right," Ozoric muttered, "point taken. Men!" the son of Chalazae called out, "arms at the ready, but hold fire."

Aelfric was the next to rise, a mountain among men. Unlike the rest of his contingent, the eldest among them faced the elemental women unperturbed. "Ladies of the forest," he boomed, "we seek only passage, and mean you no harm."

"No harm?" one of the sprites spoke up, clearly amused, "yet your weapons sound and you coil like serpents." There was a chatter of laughter, though subdued, shared between the other five, barbed and thorny vines writhing round their lithe forms. Tobias noted a feral beauty surrounding them, though he'd learned long ago not to let his knob think for him. "Why should we trust you?"

Ozoric exchanged mirthless glances with Tobias. "We are acting guards for a caravan," Aelfric replied in even measure. "If you mean us no harm, we have none to offer you." It was admirable, seeing a man who's features did not move even in the face of danger. Aelfric had faced Dragons, however. Tobias had to wonder if there was anything quite so terrifying in all the world. "Will you grant us passage?"

The way was shut. Vines and roots had ripped up through the dirt and coalesced into a veritable and impregnable wall. Virulent thorns twisted out, threatening those who might be bold enough to test them with powerful poison. Blossoms bright red in color told a tale of deadly beauty. Tobias watched the ground, gaze hardening as smaller vines wormed their way around the feet of their infantry. "I don't like this," he muttered in a low voice.

"What you show them is what they have against you," Ozoric grunted. "They respond to fear with fear of their own. Simple rationale. Animal instinct generally leads to violent response." The pale boy had a point, Tobias had to concede. "We don't trust them. Why should they trust us?"

"Sometimes I wonder if you're more animal than human," Tobias replied bluntly. Then, "hey!" he called out toward the rose haired woman who twisted her head to hold him in consideration. He felt animal eyes move over him, searching his soul. It was a less than welcome sensation. "We have a job to do. Just like you, am I wrong?"

He made a sweeping motion with his hand, and the woman tilted her head. "You're trying to defend this forest, and we're trying to defend these people." One of the other nymphs, blue haired and bright eyed, chanced closer to the wagon. Jerks from several lancers indicated they were going to strike, but Tobias stayed their hands. "Hold," he hissed.

When the blue haired girl got close enough, Tobias could see that her skin was such a light green, one could only discern that color from up close. Her hair was like silk, dyed a majestic blue bright as the sky. Her eyes glittered a golden color impossibly brighter than his own. As she reached a hand out toward his face, vines receded down her arm and coiled like snakes. Her touch felt cold, but his skin seemed to glow with inane warmth.

"You," she began, "are haunted by dark deeds." Tobias swallowed. It was a strange sensation, as though she were flipping through his mind like pages in a book. "But, your heart is kind." When she said those words, Tobias' eyes shot up and locked with hers. The nymph gave him an honest smile as she drew back toward her sisters. "His resolve is strong," she said, "but... his body rejects my magic."

The sisters turned their collective heads toward Tobias, then they chattered among themselves. "Rejects her magic?" Ozoric questioned, "what the hell does that mean, Stalt?"

"How should I know?" the brown haired boy retorted. "A nymph just touched my fucking forehead and said I rejected her magic. Which part of this makes sense?" Behind the two bickering boys, Aelfric cleared his throat.

"Madam," the aged Captain of the Guard called out. "I am sorry to interrupt, but haste is of the utmost importance to our cause..."

[Ozoric]

Ozoric Newalla often ended up in strange and spurious situations. He overcame most of them with dragon fire and oratory wit. So close to a forest, however, and against a foe so alien either option would prove difficult.

“Aelfric?” he pleaded quietly.

“Quite, boy.” The captain rested a re-assuring hand on the Lancer’s shoulder. “Watch.” He pointed to Tobias.

"Let us pass. Then my magic will offend you no more." Tobias folded his arms across his chest.

The ethereal creature approached Tobias once more, practically touching his nose with hers. He smelt her pollen, a magical essence that impregnated the trees she lived in and the grass she walked on with nature's bounty.

"It is not fear We feel." The use of royal we gave Tobias food for thought. He swallowed his pride, ignored his fear, and leant forwards just enough to touch noses proper. "It is reverence,” she continued, a coy smile forming on her withered bark face. She was beautiful, in a primordial way.

The crackle of power in the word reverence seemed to make the creature grow in size. She swelled, making herself bigger to intimidate her supposed predator. Tobias, now realising that the creatures were intrigued, not enraged, did not move an inch. He leant back a little, so that he remained in eye contact.

"Intrigue," Tobias admitted. "Perhaps even a little jealousy." He was not sure exactly what he felt, save that he felt it.

Ozoric finally realised that they were not under immediate threat.