"We must fight!" Rouge roared, slamming one steel clad fist against the the table, causing teas cup to rattle in its saucer. The Mercian ignored her, staring down at the reports with a frown. Rouge was left to seethe for a moment longer before he shook his head, "the peace is shaky enough as it is, and i'd prefer it if we all got to Forossa alive."
"one islander iz worth a thousand Atleans" .
Tea gave an amused snort, "so we take a few thousand with us! I mean, Its not like they have a couple million robots to chuck at us to soften us up first."
He sprang up from his chair, slamming his hands down on the table with enough force to send the cup and saucer flying. "OH WAIT. THEY DO."
Their eyes locked, and the tent descended into a frigid silence. Then Rouge flung the table aside and tackled him out of the door. Sending them down the hill in a mass of flailing limbs and loud curses.
The other islanders exchanged worried glances before they rushed after them. Out of all the members of the delegation, only fights between these two were a cause for alarm. With good reason.
Tea had gained the upper hand, with a tight hold on her arms, he was slamming her head into a tree. Moments later she had tripped him up and was trying to beat his head in with a rock. Then she screamed as he dislocated her arm, slapping her aside with the rock before scrambling up and sprinting back to his tent. After painfully relocating her arm, rouge rushed back to her own tent, but by then the islanders had already raced after Tea, leaving the trainee to deal with the knight.
Rouge fixed him with her one good eye, giving him a view of her blood stained teeth as she hissed out a warning, brandishing her lance in both hands. He ignored her, focusing instead on the swords weight in his hand, trying not to remember how easily she'd turned an ursus major into a pincushion with that ungodly piece of iron. Oh great, he was thinking about it. She lunged with a roar.
He stepped aside, batting the lance down into the dirt. As it lodged in the dirt he struck her across the head with the flat of his blade. Only when she fell and didn't rise did he realise what he had done.
"We'll thats a good enough answer"
The trainee spun with a surprised cry. Tea was in a fresh suit, his rapier held in one thin fingered hand. He moved swiftly, slipping behind him and swatting the sword out of his hand with a grunt of disgust.
"We cant have you using steel, Mercian can't compromise. Usually we'd get you something from the forges, but Grau's is just as good."
The trainees mouth was dry and his chest hurt, he was still alive? He tried to listen to Tea's prattle, but he couldn't hear much over the sound of his thundering heart.
"Mercian?"
"You brought down a Caisian knight, tradition and a number of old laws now decree you're Mercian." He frowned and scratched his cheek thoughtfully, "well, you don't have the life long training or hereditary semblance, so more like a honorary mercian, but that doesn't change anything, so enough yapping we've got to get you prepared." Tea looked down at the unconscious knight. "She wasn't wrong about needing to fight. Just not here."
The sky was beautiful. For as long as he could remember, the trainee had loved the night sky. The shattered moon hung among a sea of twinkling stars, each pinprick of light the result of a thousand year journey.
His breathing was louder than a siren in the death like silence that cloaked the wood. The trainee felt a sharp pressure on his sternum, And from the pressure spread a fuzzy warmth. The feeling became more intense, like jolts of electricity. Then it died almost as quickly as it had come, and silence beat down on him once again.
"Thought you said he'd glow?"
The trainee's eyes flickered over to where Oz was perched on a nearby cobblestone wall, then to Tea, who was rubbing his chin, a look of confusion on his face.
"He should have"
"Then why dint he?"
"How the bloody hell should i know!"
"You're meant to be the expert, mate"
Tea let out a groan, almost doubling over in exhaustion, but steadied himself. Adjusting his top hat, he glowered at the other man. Who began laughing heartily, before he rolled back off the wall, vanishing from sight.
Tea took a deep breath and gestured to the trainee. "Let's get back to base, these are tomorrow's problems".
If the base had been bad when he had first arrived, then this was a new low. Most of the group where sat around a blazing bonfire, made of the camping chairs Oz had brought in a village a few weeks back. It was no surprise for scotch's gang to be doing something stupid, but the trainee was surprised to see rouge among them. Shed of her plate Armour, she almost looked normal, though as she turned the horrific twisting scars that covered her left half shattered that illusion. Still, She actually looked somewhat... Happy, a rare enough occurrence for any Caisian, even rarer for the bitter knight. Though the empty bottles that littered the ground could explain that.
When the group saw the trainee, they let out a drunken cheer, greeting him with a storm of crude congratulations and bawdy tuness. They didn't ask, it could be that Oz had already told them, but it was more likely they simply didn't care. For Mercian's activating ones semblance was a solemn occasion, for other islanders it was simply an excuse to drink.
Surrounded by warm smiles and hard liquor, the Trainer, no, the Mercian felt accepted for the first time in a lifetime. In the back of his mind he realised both Tea and Rouge where nowhere to be seen but his usual curiosity was drowned in alcohol, and he silently agreed with Tea.
Tomorrow's problems.