Jurata couldn't have been happier.
Another morning dawned above the kingdom of Vale, and the Amber Castle was as busy as it always was - a handful of culture events were planned for later today, and the Faunus whom the Castle's "queen" took under her wing and gave a place to live. Walking through the corridors, she did not even attempt to hide her wide smile and occasional giggle under her breath - to the point where a few attendants passing by would start to notice and nod, even if they did not fully understand what she was happy for. How could she not be happy, though?
As the call from Frigga, aboard the Mantlean Fleet, confirmed last evening, everything was proceeding exactly as she had foreseen. Had she not been able to keep a lid on her overjoyed heart, she might have broken down into a full, gleeful cackle in the middle of the corridor.
Jurata moved to the left and swung open the doors that led to a small hall now refurbished to a studio for her news broadcasts. Already, a handful of her employees and operators were present, getting the cumbersome recording machinery ready for a morning "world news and coffee", as they say. A computing machine the size of a double wardrobe stood on the other side from the table, with a clunky metallic keyboard, a small gray monitor for previews, and an enormous appetite for Dust. All for a filtered video that obscured her beautiful golden locks with that ugly grayscale. Sadly, this was the best they had if they wanted to broadcast what's recorded to the world at large.
Surely, though, great improvements were just beyond the horizon, perhaps even in Jurata's lifetime. Some of her underlings were certain that one day, these computers may weigh only one ton!
"Miss Glaesa!" one of the workers called out to her as soon as she stepped inside, bringing a drafted speech in his hands. "We have received the information from our, um, reporter in the field in Sumire. Are you sure you want to speak straight to the public with this information, rather than coordinate with the Kingdom, Miss? This could cause a gigantic panic..."
Jurata stopped. Like a switch, she turned off the smile on her face, putting on a serious demeanor. Most of her employees were completely clueless to the source of her information about the invasion of Sumire, and for good reason - but the size of the Amber House and its wide breadth of contracts with various services meant that they could easily assume that she received info from an independent contractor. As far as cover stories went, it was passable.
She placed her hand on her chest, a somewhat exaggerated lament. "I wish I could, dear Kauks, but I am appalled at King Ozymandias' negligence as much as I am at the Mantlean scourge. The people deserve to know this. If we do not take off the lid and reveal this negligence to the Kingdom at large now, then perhaps it never will be..."
"Right..." Kauks muttered, slightly taken aback, but merely sighing his concern away. He wasn't paid to worry about this.
"Alright, I'm moving the camera over here, please take your seat, miss..." one of the operators announced, waving his hand to get the large camera lowered to eye level. A few other clerks were still setting up the connection between the camera and the computer which would allow them to "go live", as the slang says, so the man glanced to Kauks, speaking:
"Gotta say, I feel a bit worried... makes my hands shake a little."
"What for?"
"I-I mean... you know, now that Mantle has done something so insane as to flatten Sumire to the ground... I don't think there's any way out now. You ever wonder how weird it feels like to live in world-changing times?"
"Psh, you're having it easy," a dark-skinned engineer called out after raising his eyes off the computer screen. "My son finished Lantern just a week ago and immediately got deployed past the mountains. Now we're... well, not even sure if he's still there..."
"Good brothers, I'm sorry..."
"Ehem," Jurata coughed to bring attention back to her, then took her seat in front of the camera and ran her finger through the papers in her hand. All of their moping about the present and worrying about the future was getting a little annoying. "You will be able to chat later. Please, let us begin."
The workers hurried in response. The camera was lowered and fixed in position, Jurata pulled out a small hair comb and ran it through a few locks which had moved out of place - for a moment, one of them showed a corner of her gills, but she quickly closed that gap.
Kauks showed a thumbs-up. Jurata took a breath through her nose.
"Good morning, Vale. I am Jurata Glaesa, and on today's news, we have a breaking story to tell..."
"...while the full number of deaths all throughout Sumire can only be guessed, initial observations from our reporter put the likely number in the hundreds. The response from the Valean Rangers, however, was effectively nonexistent, if they were aware of this brazen attack at all. While theorizing is not my forte, here at the Amber House we are highly concerned by King Ozymandias' persistent ignorance about the threat posed by Mantle and Mistral, which we were warning about for months before. It seems that this ignorance is likely what caused the tragedy in Sumire - and if this ignorance also means that our Kingdom's army is unprepared when the forces of Mantle are on our doorstep, then-"
Queen Nehrung switched the knob on her Parchment, turning off the video, then placed the bulky device down on the coffee table. She and her husband were atop the palace's observation tower, even though it took her a lot of effort to manage to get all the way up here. The circular room remained silent for a few seconds, only the sound of a cool morning breeze from the Forever Fall forest could be heard in the background.
"Oz... is Firre there?" Nehrung finally asked, with a somewhat shaky voice.
King Ozymandias, sitting on the other side of the table with his hands clasping his cup of coffee tightly, was taken aback by the answer - not because he did not know the answer, but because Firre's fate had not even entered his mind yet. It was all centered around the greater picture in there. What should his next move be - is it worth taking the loss and waging this war, even if it means humanity will become more divided than ever? To think that just a decade ago, he assumed that he was almost there... as much as it pained him to think that, and as much as he's told himself numerous times in the past millennia that there is always good to be found in humanity, he couldn't help himself but get a bit frustrated at this self-destructive short-sightedness.
His eyes glanced up to the queen, then retreated to his cup. "Yes." Immediately, she covered up her face with her hands.
"Oh, gods..."
Another pause. Ozymandias was gloomy, Nehrung breathed heavily into her palms, then let out a pained cough. That got her husband to raise his finger, about to ask her to take it easy because of her sickness, but she spoke first:
"Why didn't you stop him?"
"I..."
The question got Ozymandias to pause, at least for a few seconds, then, with a defeated sigh, he answered:
"I tried to tell him that going on a hunt all by himself was not a good idea, but he wouldn't listen. You know what Firre is like - and even if there was a way to stop him... he's not a child anymore. I assume he was at least aware of the risk he took."
And frankly, knowing him... he might have even wanted to take all that risk.
"I know, but..."
"Please, Nehrung," Ozymandias suddenly interrupted her. "Understand that everything will be fine. We'll figure it out. Worrying too much isn't good for your health."
This hardly comforted her, though. "How can I... not be worried...?" she said. "Our son is now... thrown into the wild. He could be injured, or captured, or perhaps even already... dead... and even if all that hasn't happened yet, he doesn't even know the real extent of the risk that will befall him."
Nehrung leaned forward slightly, her eyes staring at the king, attentively - to the point where he even became a little concerned.
"What you are. And... what that makes him. If he doesn't know that, then he doesn't know who to be most afraid of. Not the Grimm, or even Mantlean soldiers..."
The fact she had in mind was left unsaid.
"I'll do what I can to get him out of there," Ozymandias answered after a brief silence. Still, his voice was uncertain. "If I can. Right now... my hands are tied. There will be riots in the streets, demanding war. The Council will follow next, as they cannot ignore the voices of their constituents. I will be forced to raise an army, to prepare for an offensive. And if that happens... Gods know where Firre will end up in that quagmire."
"Is there really no other choice?"
Hearing Nehrung's question, Ozymandias focused on his mug. "All other paths, they... they've been closing, rapidly, for the past decade." Politics, politics, politics - that's all everything boils down to. He's had to play as nobles and viziers several times in the past, but his experience at playing the political game was frustratingly limited - and never in a situation as volatile as this. He's had to make deals and sign treaties, but never with an enemy so ideologically bankrupt. He's had to wage wars, but never one that might just encompass the entire globe.
And none of those times was war his preferred means. If his mission could have been accomplished by brutally beating down the opposition and forcing them to submit, he'd have done that millennia ago. But how can he stay true to his mission when it seems that half of Remnant wants him dead?
"Frigga is still in the Mantlean Army, isn't she, Oz? She knows us. Can't you... talk to her about this? If not to stop the war, then at least do an exchange of prisoners and allow Firre to return here..."
Merely hearing her name soured Ozymandias' expression further. He took a small sip from his cup, and said:
"I'm afraid Frigga is no longer the person we once knew."
He still didn't fully understand how and why, but he's had enough time to reflect since what happened to come to that conclusion. Ozymandias' finger then tapped on the Parchment's screen.
"This 'Jurata' is suspicious as well."
The first rays of sunlight pierced through the trees, after the longest night in Ashen, Reza and Yche's lives.
A long column of people was slowly marching through the forests of the Frontier, mostly silent - the majority of those marching hardly had the energy to engage in casual chatter. They hadn't had the chance to sleep the whole night - nobody dared to ask for the column to stop, not when everyone knew that they had to get as far away from Sumire as possible. They weren't carrying any water, only leftover food which the Rangers had seized from the stores of Velinn Flare's company moments before the first shells fell. Faunus were carrying those dry packages and sharing them around - to the surprise of a few Rangers, they were on surprisingly good terms with the human civilians evacuated from the city. It took some convincing for many of the Valean refugees to accept the paltry food offered to them by people they usually looked down on somewhat, but hunger and exhaustion managed to bend even the most devout supremacists.
None of the three women leading the column asked for food, though.
Yche was at the front, carrying the unconscious Firre on one shoulder, and several bags on the other, as well as Dømmesmo on her back. If she could have, she would have certainly taken more, especially the refugees who were unable to walk at a decent pace - at a point, however, her commanding officer cut off her offers. Yche's eyes were focused on their path, past the trees. To her curiosity, their journey had been completely free of Grimm thus far - even though, as far as she recalled, it always had at least one roaming pack, and their column must have been a magnet for them. She couldn't really explain it, but she wasn't going to question their luck, either. It would be a nightmare to try to keep everyone alive if we had to constantly fend off Grimm, too...
Behind her, Ashen hastened her pace, until she reached her friend and began walking besides her, then asked:
"Yche, how are you holding up?"
"Huh?" the taller Ranger asked, surprised by the question. "What do you mean?"
"I-well... you see... uh..." the words in Ashen's throat got stuck. It wasn't that she didn't know why she brought it up, it was that she didn't know how to express her reasons. After a sigh, she tried again. "...It's been a horrible day. And... I have a feeling it's not going to be the last for some time. I just wanted to ask if it hasn't been weighing down too heavily on you."
"Ah," Yche said. "I'm... still processing it all, honestly. And I've never really been good at this 'thinking' thing, ya know? Seeing the Mantlean bombardment was horrifying, but then I saw that people needed helping and it all faded away."
"Right..."
"But... this isn't what I wanted my Ranger career to be either, ya know," the bulky Ranger continued. Ashen didn't answer, but she immediately gave her teammate a curious look. "Not that I didn't expect this entirely... I mean, we knew from the beginning that Rangers are soldiers, not just keepers of the peace, and everyone should have seen this war coming from a mile away, but, still... I'd rather be hunting Grimm than running away from artillery shells."
"Can't say I disagree..." Ashen muttered in response. For a few seconds, she simply walked along with Yche in silence. Thankfully, her teammate did not reflect her questions back at her - Ashen wasn't sure how she'd respond, especially in a way that would not offend her and everyone else, including herself. She's... seen a bit of death before, and it has rather dulled her emotional response. No, no, that's behind you. You're a good person now.
At the corner of her vision, she saw Reza - who was taking a bit of a distance away from the other rangers and writing something down on her notes. Slowly - exhaustion after over 24 hours of continuous consciousness was starting to set in, and she needed to be precise when putting down her intrusive thoughts about what happened yesterday, and how certain people on the Mantlean side may have been involved. Splitting off from Yche's side, Ashen approached, asking:
"Hey, Reza, how are you holding up-"
"Don't bother me," her commanding officer shot her down, briefly glaring at her, before returning back to her notes. Such an answer surprised her, but Ashen didn't let go:
"I just wanted to know how you're feeling..."
"I feel like I've made a horrible mistake, that I am responsible for dozens of deaths, and so are Firre and my mother. Happy?"
That last word held such a sharp tone of defeatism and finality that Ashen had no option but to simply accept that she was not breaking through Reza's shell and step away. She found herself another spot in the refugee column, closer to Yche, but still distant enough from everyone else that she could keep to herself. Another twist to her stomach from the hunger got her to faintly groan under her breath. Her body felt weaker than ever before, and that she was only pushing herself forward out of obligation.
How many miles have we walked so far? Thirty? Forty? If she didn't know any better, she'd have thought that they must be getting close to Vale itself at this point - but, no, that wasn't happening.
Yche leapt past a few rocks and crawled up on the tallest one, sitting by a thick oak tree and overgrown with moss. After scanning through the distance, she shouted back to the crowd:
"This way!"
She still moved with enthusiasm, even though the crowds behind her were on their last legs. The trees were getting thinner, and the grass beneath their feet was clearly tended over by someone - less fallen leaves, sticks and rotting wood to trip over. Finally, as if emerging from nowhere, a clearing in the forest unfolded, dotted with houses, their architecture similar to the cottages and homes they saw back in Sumire. The sky was still somewhat dark, but had the familiar early morning glow, and some people were already awake, tending to their morning duties. Soon, all their eyes were set towards the new arrivals, though.
How could it not be? A huge crowd of people had just emerged out of the forest, after all, led by a team of distressed Rangers - that wasn't something you see in the Frontier every day, if ever.
"Welcome to... welcome to Altar, I suppose..." Yche said back to the refugee column, then turned back towards the townsfolk, herself unsure how to handle this. She assumed that her home town would give them shelter, but that was more a guess than a certainty.
The door of one of the houses nearby suddenly swung open, and a man in his late forties, with a short prickly beard and a balding head, marched out, yelling:
"What's all this then-Huh?"
"Dad! I-" Yche yelled out, but stopped herself before she ran up to him, like she'd normally would when meeting family after several months. A sigh left her lips, and she waved her hand towards the people behind her. "A lot... has happened. All these people need shelter, and... you're all in danger, too. Please... you all have to help us."