Happy Lorelei day, kids. Comments appreciated.
They woke early the next morning, while Luke expected the inn to still be quiet. Instead, there were already the sounds of people waking up in the town around them. Farmers started their days much earlier than did Baticul's nobility, after all.
At the edge of town, Luke saw a flash of white robes again, this time headed off towards the wilderness to the north. He stopped, watching Ion head off alone.
"What is he doing?" he asked, as much to himself as to Tear at his side.
"That road leads to the Cheagle Woods," she said. "Perhaps he's investigating the thefts?"
"He shouldn't go alone," Luke muttered. "There's probably monsters in there - what good is that Fon Master Guardian if he's leaving her behind all the time?"
Tear didn't answer, but she brushed her hair out of her face and looked down the road south, just briefly, before turning towards the road Luke clearly intended to start down.
Indeed, that was all the agreement he needed to tail after Ion's disappearing speck towards the forest in the distance.
By the time they reached the forest, the sun was halfway its peak, and Ion had been visually lost in the greenery for some time. Tear, to her credit, didn't suggest turning back; if anything, the few monsters they fought upon entering the forest had strengthened Luke's argument thatsomeone needed to keep an eye on the Fon Master. The fights left the two of them - both fairly athletic, if unpracticed - breathing hard. It wasn't hard to imagine how difficult they would be for Ion, not only smaller and younger but known to be of poor health.
Indeed, when they do come upon Ion, the boy was in the center of a ring of monsters, a pack of the small wolves native to the area. Luke was prepared to rush in, his sword half-drawn, when Tear caught hold of his arm. "Wait, Luke - "
Ion's hand, raised above his body as high as it would reach, glowed with a bright light, and the boy slammed it into the earth, a white fonic glyph blooming around his feet. The arte blasted the wolves with light, until they were little more than dust. It was beyond doubt the most powerful arte Luke had ever seen; he glanced back at Tear as his vision cleared, nodding his thanks. If he had been caught in that... It probably wouldn't have been the end of him, but it would have been near enough.
The fonons of the arte dispersed back into the surroundings, leaving a tottering Ion in the center of the clearing. This time, Luke's progress towards the boy was a bit more cautious; the hand he offered to the Fon Master was nothing beyond polite. "Are you alright, Fon Master?"
Ion grabbed onto his hand like it was a lifeline; Luke was surprised to suddenly be supporting most of the boy's weight, even if it was slight. "Ah, thank you - I'm just a bit tired. The Daathic arte I used was just a bit too powerful..." Regaining his balance, Ion looked the two of them over, his green eyes brightening with recognition. "Ah, you're the two from Engeve yesterday!"
"That's right," Luke said, feeling suddenly glad that he was rarely invited to court affairs with people as highly ranked as the Fon Master. If he had been, he's certain that Ion would have recognized him instantly. As it is, he hesitated before giving his name, doing his best to tone down the obvious Kimlascan roots of his accent. "I'm Luke."
"'The light if the sacred flame'..." For a moment, Luke was certain that Ion has recognized it, but the boy just smiled warmly as he released Luke's supporting hand. "It's a nice name."
"I'm Locrian Sergeant Tear Grants. First Platoon, Oracle Knights Intelligence Division, under Grand Maestro Mohs' command." The well-practiced speed at which Tear's rank rolled off her tongue was almost fast enough that Luke's brain couldn't catch up to the implications of her family name.
"Oh! You're Van's younger sister!" Fortunately or not, Ion was perhaps taken a bit less by surprise. "I've heard of you, but this is the first time we've met, isn't it?"
"You're his sister?!" Luke choked out in absolute shock. And though he could now see some similarity that it had been pointed out - the color of their hair, the shape of their cheekbones - it still didn't look to him like they could be siblings. Tear was pale, small, and slim aside from her obvious curves; Van was dark as a desert native and stood above nearly everyone who stood beside him.
Before he could ask anything more, Tear shot him a look that clearly meant keep your mouth shut. A rustle in the bushes provided a change of subject so perfectly timed that he had to wonder if she has planned it. Luke automatically put a hand to his sword again, but all that appeared was a small creature, with bright pink fur and ears each nearly the size of its body.
"A cheagle!" Ion whispered, but even that was enough to startle the beast, and with a small squeak it turned and skittered away into the brush.
"That's why you came here, right?" Luke asked, and Ion nodded, starting to follow after it along a trail that wrapped around the bush. Luke let the the boy get a few steps ahead, out of earshot, before turning to Tear.
Before he could ask any of the questions that were burning in his mind, she shut them all down with, "I told you, it's a personal matter," and started after Ion. Luke was left to bring up the rear, wondering on what planet 'fratricide' was merely a personal matter.
Glimpses of cheagles lead them slowly in what Luke hoped was the right direction, along the stream that flowed through the wood. Soon, they arrived at a clearing where the cheagles seemed confident enough that they didn't scuttle into the brush at the first hint of anything larger than themselves.
In the center of the clearing was a massive tree trunk, and a little investigation found a path across the stream into the underside that tall enough that Luke didn't have any trouble entering the tree hollow. A few apples were scattered near the base.
Luke bent and picked one up, rubbing it clean on the leg of his pants before examining it. "This is Engeve's stamp, isn't it?" he said, showing the fruit to Ion, who nodded.
"It seems they really are the thieves. But, I'm sure they must have a reason." And without any further comment, Ion stepped past Luke and down the little path into the tree. No wonder his guardian keeps losing track of him, Luke thought as he followed.
The inside of the tree was massive, and the floor at Ion's feet, already littered in scraps from Engeve, was rapidly being overtaken by a huge group of cheagles, all squeaking over each other into a cacophony that echoed all the way up the tree hollow. Luke and Tear both had to be careful to not step on any of them as they went to stand behind Ion, who crouched down to speak to the cheagles directly.
"Please let me through," Ion said, with the same gentle and respectful tone he used towards humans. "I'd like to speak to your elder."
There was another flurry of squeaking before the creatures parted; one, obviously elderly and clutching what looked like a bangle in its front paws, tottered forward on its back legs.
"And for what purpose have you come here?"
The nasally voice unmistakably came from the cheagle. Ion didn't seem surprised; Luke glanced at Tear, expecting her to have the same look of shock that he was wearing, but instead her eyes were slightly glazed over, and a faint blush was rising to her cheeks.
"We came to investigate the thefts from Engeve," Ion said, settling down to sit on his heels as he spoke. Luke awkward sunk down as well, sitting cross-legged and tapping Tear on the hip when she didn't follow suit.
"I see." The cheagle's ears, already droopy, flopped even lower, as though even the attempt at holding them up was too much. "So, you've come to exterminate us."
That seemed to knock Tear out of her reverie; her outburst was disbelieving, accompanied by her hands tightening on the divided skirts of her uniform. "What? Of course not! Cheagles are sacred to the Order."
"Why have you been stealing food?" Luke cut in on the tail end of her words. "We saw the apples out there - you clearly aren't eating it."
The elder's ears perked up, then flopped again. "To preserve the cheagle tribe. One of our youngsters caused a fire in the northern forest, and drove the ligers that live there out of their territory." From somewhere near the back of the assembled cheagles, there was a small whine. "If they go hungry, the ligers will turn to prey on us."
"That's horrible," Ion said quietly. Luke couldn't disagree, even as he turned the implications of the situation over in his mind. He had hardly expected the first real test of his political studies to be a bunch of monsters in a forest halfway across the world from Baticul, but surely there had to be some solution...
If the cheagles didn't stop taking food, then they would be eaten - and when they were gone, the ligers would probably move south, towards the villages. But Engeve couldn't afford to feed a pack of ligers on top of its usual crops.
"Would the ligers be willing to negotiate?" Luke asked. The tips of the elder's ears twitched in response.
"It's possible, though I doubt you'll get very far with them. They do not speak the human language."
"Would it be possible for us to borrow one of your people as a translator?" Ion asked sweetly.
There was a pause, and then the elder nodded. Turning back to the group of cheagles gathered around them, it squeaked a short command into the crowd. A blue cheagle, a bit smaller than the rest, came forward from the back, ears flicking nervously. The two of them spoke for a moment in a series of hushed squeaks, before the elder turned back to the three humans seated on the floor of the hollow.
"This is the child who started the fire to the north. I will send him with this sorcerer's ring to be your interpreter." The elder let go of the ring, then gestured for the young cheagle to step into it.
"My name's Mieu!" The little cheagle's voice was potentially the most high-pitched, grating thing Luke had ever heard; he wasn't able to avoid wincing at the sound of it. "It's nice to meet you!"
Their new companion was perfectly happy to chatter all the way to the liger nest, to the annoyance of Luke alone, and the cheagle was also happy to demonstrate its control over the Fifth Fonon, which was significantly less obnoxious. Though even the cheagle was surprised at its range, enhanced as it was by the sorcerer's ring; according to Ion, the fact that he could breathe fire at all was quite precocious for a cheagle, who normally didn't have the ability until sexual maturity.
In short, Luke learned far more about cheagles over the next two hours of walking through the depths of the forest than he had ever thought he would have a reason to know. It came in handy, however, when it came to burning out the bottom of a rotten tree to make a bridge across a stream too deep to cross on foot.
Of course, it turned out the stream wasn't only keeping them on the cheagle side of the forest, because it was only after that that they began to encounter roving ligers. The predatory monsters were much more agile than the large birds and floating snails elsewhere in the forest, and even just keeping them away from the vulnerable Ion was a significant task.
Luke wiped the sweat off his face as Tear's hymn finished and turned the lurking predators into drowsy creatures, which slumped over onto the forest floor. They were trying to make it through without actually harming any of the ligers, for fear it would impact any potential negotiations, and that made the trip through the forest even more difficult.
"How many of them are there?" Luke muttered to himself, though perhaps a little too loudly, given the look Ion (cheagle clinging to his shoulder) gave him.
"This does appear to be a very large pack. It's no wonder they're having difficulties finding enough food in the forest."
"Let's hope they don't decide to go looking in the village," Tear said quietly, as the three of them slipped past the sleeping ligers and further down the trail. Luke couldn't help but wonder if just killing off a portion of the liger population wouldn't be an easier solution than trying to talk with them. But he had been the one to bring up the idea in the first place, and Ion seemed determined to try reaching a peaceful solution first, if they could, so he didn't voice the thought.
Another liger, a bit bulkier than the others, guarded a burrow up ahead, large enough that Luke could enter without stooping too much and Ion wouldn't have to duck at all. As soon as they were within range, Tear's voice lifted in song once more, and soon the liger had curled up at its post, tail faintly twitching in the depths of some dream. Luke held his breath the entire time they snuck past.
The den proper was a bit further down; the passage leading to it was full of stones and had a ceiling patched together by roots, but the liger queen slept within a much more open area, one floored by mossy rocks and lit by scattered beams of sunlight from above. She was a massive creature, even curled in her nest; when she stood, Luke thought she would be more than half again his height. Her ears twitched in the direction of the humans and cheagle as they entered.
"Oh, dear," Ion said quietly, confirming that he had noticed the same thing Luke had about the scene; the liger queen was curled around a group of eggs, perhaps four or five, each themselves as large as a human's head. "Mieu, would you please go speak to her?"
"Yes, sir!" The cheagle jumped off the Fon Master's shoulder and hopped a few feet towards the liger queen, squeaking as he went.
The queen stood up, body protectively over her eggs, and roared, a sound that wasn't so much a sound as a blast of foul-breathed wind. Luke barely caught the cheagle that was sent flying by the roar, grabbing the ring around Mieu's body to pull the cheagle to his chest.
From that position, clinging for dear life to Luke's coat, Mieu translated, "She said her eggs are about to hatch, so go away!" The cheagle's ears twitched furiously, and he ducked his face under Luke's collar. "She's really mad that I burned down their home."
"This is bad," Tear said. "Ligers are even more aggressive when protecting their young."
"And when the young hatch, they'll need even more food," Luke pointed out.
"Could you ask them to leave this land?" Ion said to Mieu, and even as the cheagle hopped down from his shirt, Luke was fairly sure that they were past talking politely about it at this point.
Sure enough, the response from the queen was an even louder roar - one that rattled stones free from the ceiling, dropping onto their group. Luke just reacted, his sword coming out to knock away the rock that would have slammed into and squashed the small cheagle below it.
"Th-thank you..." Mieu scampered back over to Ion, still shaking from the close call. From behind the Fon Master's ankles, he continued, "The queen says she's going to kill us and feed us to her children."
"Then that's the end of negotiations," Luke said, readying his sword. Behind him, he heard Tear draw the staff that was her primary weapon - her knives wouldn't do much more than annoy the queen, unless she managed to get a lucky shot in the beast's eye.
"Fon Master, please step back," she said, and that was all the time they had before the queen charged. Luke saw Ion, with the cheagle in his arms, duck behind a rock and out of the way, but that was all the concern he could spare for anyone else.
The liger queen was far more powerful than her kin outside, and those had given Luke enough trouble, though some of that had been from trying to pull his blows and keep from injuring them. There was none of that here; even with his full strength behind it, Luke's sword barely cut into the queen's flank, and Tear's artes weren't doing much better. Indeed, when the queen's claws cut deep into Luke's leg, Tear had to abandon trying to do damage at all in order to focus on healing the growing list of his injuries.
"Ignore my arm!" Luke told her, as another blow of that paw left three deep gashes all the way through his clothes and deep into his shoulder. Lifting the arm above his head would be impossible for now, but he was much more concerned with being able to move across the wet rocks and keep out of the queen's range as best he could.
"But - !" Whatever Tear had been going to say was lost in another roar as Luke switched his sword to his left hand and slashed it into the sensitive pads of the queen's forepaw. A painful blow, but not a particularly damaging one in the long run; even with the limp, the queen was still fast enough that it was hard for Luke to keep out of her reach in the small space.
And he and Tear were both tiring much more quickly than she was. There was an all-too-high chance that they would die here, out in a forest in the middle of nowhere. The thought gave new energy to Luke's blows - not here, not while his family wouldn't even know what had happened to him...
"Allow me."
Luke's conscious mind, so focused on the battle, barely registered the voice at first. What he felt was the rise of fonons in the air, barely enough warning for him to get out of the way before the arte crashed into the liger queen. Splash was a fairly standard arte, but well above Luke's own ability. And certainly he couldn't have followed the torrent of water with the Thunder Blade that crashed down almost immediately after, the remnants of the water serving to boost the power of lightning.
The liger queen twitched and slumped sideways, sprawling with her paws spread. Her labored breathing continued for a moment, then abruptly went still. Luke watched a moment longer before awkwardly sliding his sword into the sheath that was still attached to his left hip, and looked back to the entrance of the cavern.
It was the Malkuth officer from Engeve who stood there, hands tucked into the pockets of his uniform as though he hadn't done anything particularly interesting. Luke found himself immediately reassessing the man's ability, and thus the potential threat he represented. Behind the man, Ion had come out from his hiding place, still holding Mieu, and Tear was stowing her staff in her position nearby.
As concerning as it was for them to have been rescued by an officer of the Malkuth military, Luke couldn't be anything but grateful. He sank to a seat on a rock as Tear approached, already speaking the incantation of a healing arte.
"I didn't expect you to be ambidextrous," she said as she finished, the golden warmth of Seventh Fonons settling into Luke's right arm. "Though I suppose I shouldn't be complaining. I don't know if we would have lasted until the Colonel arrived if I had had to heal your sword arm as well as your leg."
"I'm naturally left-handed," Luke said, shrugging the shoulder before testing the motion in the rest of his arm. "But it was a problem growing up," he continued, carefully avoiding any mention any mention of the royal court, "So I learned swordsmanship right-handed, along with most everything else."
Behind Tear, the colonel and Ion had approached the nest of liger eggs; they had been in the radius of the fonic artes, and were all broken, as far as Luke could tell from his seat. Even if they hadn't been, he was sure that the electricity would have sterilized them.
"It's probably for the better," Ion was saying, and though Luke couldn't see his expression, the Fon Master's voice carried remorse.
"Indeed. A nest of this size would have put the village in danger," said the officer. "Though I can't approve of you running off and putting yourself at risk like this."
"I'm sorry, Jade," Ion said, surprising Luke with how familiarly he referred to the colonel. "But the cheagles are sacred to the Order, so I felt I had to take some responsibility for the trouble they caused." From where he was being held by the Fon Master, Mieu gave a small whine.
"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to," Jade said, with a look past Luke and Tear toward the entrance to the cavern. "Isn't that right, Anise?"
Luke followed the man's gaze as he stood up, and it was fortunate that he did, otherwise the girl who bounced into the cavern at the words would likely have just run right over him on her path to the Fon Master. "Ion! What were you thinking?" the tiny Fon Master Guardian exclaimed as she came to a stop near her not-much-larger charge. Ion gave her a somewhat sheepish look and scratched at Mieu's ears.
"I'm sorry, Anise. But I had to get to the bottom of things."
"Ugh." The girl fixed Ion with an unimpressed look. "As long as you weren't hurt, I guess." A thought which caused her to look towards Luke and Tear, her expression first thoughtful, then relieved and apologetic. "Thank you for protecting Ion! I know he can be a lot of trouble sometimes."
"It wasn't that much trouble," Luke said, a polite lie. Protecting Ion hadn't been that difficult, but he was the one who had dragged them into trouble in the first place.
"It was an honor to protect the Fon Master," Tear said, and Luke had the feeling it was with about the same degree of sincerity.
Behind the two small members of the Order of Lorelei, the colonel chuckled slightly, and Luke got the distinct feeling that at least one person had seen through him. "Anise, could I speak to for a moment?"
Rather than answering, the girl just took a few steps backwards so that Jade could lean and whisper something in her ear. She nodded vigorously, then twisted her face into an overblown pout. "Fine, but you'd better take care of Ion for me!"
"Of course," Jade replied, straightening and pushing his glasses back onto his nose. "And his new companions, as well."
Anise looked apprehensive at that, but then nodded and darted for the entrance. Within the span of a breath, she was gone.
Ion looked after her for a moment, then turned his attention to Jade. "The letter arrived, didn't it?"
"It did. So there's no need to stick around this forest any longer." If he weren't so calm, Luke would have thought the man was in quite a hurry.
In Ion's arms, Mieu perked his head, ears twitching. "But we need to report to the elder!"
Ion nodded and gave Jade a small, apologetic look. "The cheagles do need to know what happened here."
Jade sighed. "I suppose as long as you make it quick."
Luke had hoped that the walk through the rest of the forest would provide him and Tear a chance to distance themselves from the Fon Master and the Malkuth Colonel, but it seemed he wasn't going to have any such luck. Jade kept a careful eye on the both of them; more careful, in fact, than the eye he kept out for ligers and other monsters on the trail. Not that Luke could blame the man; battles that left him and Tear overcome with sweat were now over in the time it took Jade to cast an arte, leaving the two of them on nothing more than glorified stalling duty. At least now, there was no reason to hesitate against the ligers that attacked them; after nearly being killed by their queen, it was hard for Luke to feel any particular remorse about the predator's corpses they left behind them, either.
When they arrived at the hollow tree, Mieu jumped from his position on Ion's shoulder to speak to the elder in a series of squeaks and chirps. The younger cheagle forfeited the ring, and they spoke a few more words to each other, Mieu's ears drooping at the end of the conversation as the elder turned towards the group of humans.
"Mieu told me what happened. You faced great danger on our behalf, and we are very grateful," the elder said, with a small incline of its head that looked very much like a cheagle bow.
"Of course," Ion replied. "Aiding the cheagles is a part of Yulia's teaching."
"Even after two thousand years, I am glad that someone remembers Yulia's promise." The elder nodded, satisfied. "But the original cause was Mieu burning the ligers' home, so he needs to atone for his mistake."
"What are you going to do?" Ion asked, concern in his voice.
"I will exile Mieu from our tribe, for one turning of the seasons." The elder turned away from Ion and hopped in Luke's direction. Confused, Luke knelt down closer, so that the small creature didn't have to strain itself trying to speak up at him. "I hear that you saved Mieu's life. Cheagles do not forget their debts. For the period of his exile, he will serve at your side."
"...I see." Luke wasn't exactly sure what to say to that. He hadn't intended anything like this when he saved the cheagle from the falling rocks; he'd just reacted. But even as he watched, the elder retreated back to the group of cheagles and turned the ring back over to Mieu, who had been at the center of a family of similarly-colored cheagles. Mieu bounced into the ring and then over to Luke, giving him as big a smile as possible.
"I'll do my best to be useful, Master!"
Luke supposed he would have to get used to that shrill voice. He gathered the cheagle up and steadied the creature on his shoulder, the way Ion had done before; Mieu's tiny claws clung to his collar and held the cheagle in place surprisingly well.
"Are you sure? My home is..." Luke glanced at Jade in the corner of his vision. "Very far from here."
"Mieu... I'll be okay." The cheagle scooted so that he was right up against Luke's neck.
"Well, I'd say that takes care of our report." Jade adjusted his glasses and started towards the exit, forcing the rest of the group to follow. Luke lingered a moment, watching the cheagles that waved Mieu off before following. A few left the hollow on his heels, and followed the humans along the trail for a bit before disappearing into the forest. Soon, they disappeared into the shadows.
Anise was waiting for them in the center of the path at the edge of the forest, her pink and white uniform impossible to miss amidst all the green. "I brought the Tartarus just like you asked!" she said brightly as they approached, gesturing out to the fields beyond the forest. Sure enough, the landship was not too far in the distance.
"Then I guess this is where we part ways - " Luke started to say, but he was cut off by a strange gesture of Jade's that lead to a spear point materializing at his throat. Mieu gave a frightened squeak and jumped onto his head, yanking on Luke's hair as he went.
"Jade, what's the meaning of this?" Ion asked, looking quite worried - so he hadn't been in on this plan of Jade's. Probably because it didn't seem like the Fon Master could lie to save his life; Luke wouldn't have told him, either, if he was planning something like this.
Malkuth soldiers stepped off a side path behind them, cutting off the path of retreat. "Don't worry, they won't be hurt," Jade reassured the Fon Master, before directing his last comment at Luke and Tear (who had a hand inching toward her knives). "As long as they don't resist."
Luke carefully raised his hands in a gesture of nonaggression, and Tear did likewise after he gave her a brief glare. So much for getting out of this without being noticed by the Malkuth military, he thought bitterly as Jade pulled the spear from his throat and started to lead the group towards the Tartarus, wearing a somewhat disconcerting smile.
"Be good now, you two."