#oc!kleonal

[alluss]

00. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐒 ::..

OOO╔───.───────────.───.╝

SERIES: Barrenborn

SYNOPSIS: The Barrens are the 600 year long aftermath of the venin's first victims. The nation of Linkarsa is long gone, but their descendants still survive unknown to this day. And whether she wants to or not, Kleonal is sent as one of four of the Barrenborn to leave the Barrens and obtain as much information as they can from a nation called Navarre.

INTERESTS: Xaden Riorson x OC!Kleonal of the Maelune Syril

WARNINGS: profanity, mentions of death, blood, mentions of violence, the Barrenborn are highly inspired by Aiel culture from the Wheel of Time, they are basically the same culture, kind've a wheel of time x empyrean crossover

AUTHOR. N: bear with me here, this is the first time i've posted something on tumblr

WORD COUNT: 16.5K

“You were right. There are people living in the Barrens.”

— CORRESPONDENCE OF CASSANDRA LUPHORE TO FEN RIORSON

The sand felt cold under her bare calloused feet—it always did, ever since she could remember, ever since she was born. A third-hand pure white shoufa wrapped over her tangled raven-dark hair and the white veil meant to accompany it was wrapped in a harsh knot around her bloodied palm and wrist. Yet it was not her own blood that stained her peeling, pale, sun-blocked skin. She could not remember the last time she spilled her own blood in a dance of spears.

“Sitting there isn’t going to make that monster come back to life,” A boyish voice said to her, yet it did not take a look behind her shoulder to know who spoke. “Gods, I’d wager they were so far gone that they might as well have been walking corpses.” A boy not far off from her age moved to her right side, huffed and eyed her hand, splattered with the blood of venin, mingled with a few others. His skin was ever slightly darker than her own, a testament to his long searches and missions without any shade, although his hair a slightly sandier colour and his eyes more light than a warm brown. He wore a shoufa, as tattered and blandly inconspicuous as her own, blending into the pale white sand.

She frowned, “I’m not weeping for it, Rykar, nor it’s wyvern either. Just wish I didn’t get as messy—now more water is to be wasted.” She huffed and reached for her bloodied short-spear to the left of her side, gripping its rough wooden shaft and remembering its weight.

Softly humming a tune from a child’s lullaby, she stood up from her spot in the sand, sparing her glance for the men and women in unveiled shoufa disassembling lifeless wyvern bodies and sorting the now dead venin that laid in the pale sand.

“When is that wetlander coming again?” She diplomatically held up a hand for the boy, one that he grasped gratefully as he straightened up from the ground.

“Evening I’d bet, it’s easier to handle the cold than the heat. Dragon rider or gryphon flier, the whole lot of them are softshell roaches. Heard some of the rider folks don’t even think wyvern and venin exist!” Rykar snickered and the girl rolled her eyes.

“Stop lying so much. No one—not even wetlanders—are that foolish. We need to get off our arses anyhow to help the rest, well, unless you want me to tell Naluno about your behaviour—”

“Would you look at that! I think I can hear Tirre fancying my help over there, bye Kleo!” In his hurry, waves of sand flew back behind his trail and she could only shake her head with a smile. Her grin was quickly swept away in the sun’s heat, although her feet lay cold, the rest of her body smoldered in the cage of her own skin. Cooled only by the engraved runes on the soles of her feet ever since infancy, Kleonal and every other one of the Halsyr’ak survived in the dunes and wind carved caves of the Barrens with the aid of their own runes and training.

Hundreds of years ago, when the venin reduced a once green land of plains into a pale sand swept waste, the original inhabitants of the land faced only tragedy in massacres. So grave the destruction and death was that the other kingdoms believed there to be nothing left of Linkarsa, nothing more than a nation lost to the venin’s draining, the first victim of the venin and hopefully the last. But that was a lie from reality, or rather a misunderstanding. While Navarre and Poromiel agreed alike on the fall of Linkarsa, deep in white sandstone caves and under white veils were the survivors of the lost kingdom.

Under a new name and new faces, they preserved the language of their ancestors and just as stubbornly refused to flee their now desolate home. Directly meaning ‘of the lost land’ or even ‘of the stolen land’, the Halsyr`ak begrudgingly hid in caves and tents, guarded with century old runes from magic of past riders and fliers alike. And yet, they could not hide forever, the venin and their wyvern found them yet dead on a pyre.

But the Halsyr’ak were seldom defenseless. Utilising the potential of runes that not even century old scholars knew of, the descendants of Linkarsa fought with rune engraved flesh and weaponry even if they themselves channeled no gifts nor signets.

Heeding no respect to the Halsyr`ak’s own name, the retreating venin called them the Barrenborn; barbaric desert savages that fought with no metals other than that of a spear and bow and maybe sometimes a knife, and even then, most preferred to take advantage of the power of their own hands, simply to show that they could. The Barrenborn treated their battles as they treated their dances, in fact, to them, they were one and the same—a series of fluid motions between two parties that often ended in either of their deaths. It was almost impossible to beat a Barrenborn in close combat, especially hand-to-hand even if you were larger or even stronger.

From early childhood, their young were taught to fight with fervour, with readiness to embrace Malek’s withering embrace, should it ever welcome them earlier than most. To die in the dance was an honour—and an even greater one against monstrosities such as venin or wyvern, or to save a loved one from their own embrace.

And there was one Barrenborn girl, at the age of her fourteenth nameday, that was not much different from most around her. Kleonal of the Maelune sept of the Syril Barrens, daughter of Felal daughter of Hyca, often wondered about the fallen venin and wyvern upon their death. No regret ever came to her, of course, by fighting alongside with her kin to protect one another in the face of venin, it ensured her own safety as well as those of whom she cared deeply for. And yet, at the same time, she wondered. Could the venin and their souls be redeemed and salvaged from taint? Could the wyvern ever be given true free will and consciousness just as dragons and gryphons?

She could never ask the Wise Ones these questions, they wouldn’t even spare her the time of day, much less the night. Afraid of scrutiny, or worse, belittlement, Kleonal never dared voice her thoughts. No matter. She sighed and leaned on her spear, with its point facing the cloudless sky. There will be a wetlander soon, perhaps they have already figured a way, if it so pleases the gods.

With blank eyes and a straight-sewn mouth, she stared at the large, lifeless body of a misty blue-grey wyvern, laying unmoving in the sand. Its eyes were black and hollow, twin to an insect’s. With pale sand among its scales and its runestone torn apart from its ribs, the wyvern did not look so grand as it did in flight in the cloudless skies. The wyvern were only one among tools the venin used, and the one in front of Kleonal was now deemed worthless to them. One now deemed to weigh as much as the burning sand beneath their feet.

No more would be sent their way though, as of late, the venin realised that they could wipe out the Barrenborn with enough sheer power, but it would simultaneously ensure the loss of the resources they sent—and their manpower was hardly plentiful although powerful. It is pointless to worry for a dawn that will never come, I will be of further use outside of my head. Gods smite me if Tirre does not ensure that so.

“Kleonal!” Tirre, with her shining black hair and dark oak eyes, frowned. “Rykar boasts of his strength yet he seems to lack just as much precision!” She hit the shaft of her spear onto the top of his head, earning her an offended grunt. “Knock some bloody sense into the damned boy and help with peeling off the scales while you’re at it!”

“Burn me for a fool, Tirre!” Rykar rebuked indignantly with a hand to his chest. “Second-sister or not, you cannot cry and call for Kleo whenever! I am her only first-brother as it stands, I’m certain she’ll take my side—not that there’s anything to side for!” He added quickly and raised a hand with his index outstretched in the air. Kleonal could only sigh as Rykar found another hit to his head’s top from Tirre’s spear. Before Kleonal could sass either of them with a smart remark, an older Barrenborn man reminded them of their duty with a gruff voice.

“Cry and call all you children want, but do it where no ears can hear. You might as well awaken the wyvern with your wailing, call the entire sky down on us, why don't you? Tirre, Rykar, hold your tongue and move your blades! Whining is not befitting of a Maiden of the Spear nor a Red Shield!” Naluno scolded the both of them, leaving them only disgruntled mumbles under their breath. Kleonal decided she did not want the same lecture and got her feet moving. She strapped her short spear to her shin with three identical others—divided in pairs for each leg strap—and instead opted to dual wielding broad daggers attached to the holders in the leather straps around her hips, exposed from under her dusty cloak.

With a final stretch of her arms and a squint at the glaring sun, Kleonal managed to drag her feet to Tirre and Rykar. The last thing she wanted was to be dragged into Naluno's lecture.

Sitting in a less than comfortable position with her legs half-crossed, Kleonal leaned back and squinted at her raised right foot, scraping the loose white sand away wedged in between the rune engravings with her ripped nails. She arched herself and grunted and sighed as her lower back cracked satisfyingly, the hardness of sandstone underneath her bottom was far from the biggest of her worries, but it didn’t mean she had to like it.

Every Barrenborn child was meant to have runes engraved on their soles, and Kleonal was no exception. Tirre was not so lucky however, as she was the only Barrenborn in the last century to have her flesh runes fail. Tirre's soles looked the same, with the rune engravings, but it did not have the same effect, so when every other Barrenborn ran barefoot, Tirre had to rely on the boots looted from the Beyond.

By now, the sun would’ve hung at its perfect centre, casting the littlest amount of shadow in the whole day. Pulling up the large hood of her shoufa, with a small humming of a lullaby, Kleonal hopped onto her scraped feet and rushed out of the smooth, windblown cave with the heat and daylight outside to guide her way.

Settling into a hasty jog as she kept to the left side of the cave’s wall with a single palm feeling the holes and layers in the stone and pumice.

Holding out a hand to try and shield some of the sun’s light from her eyes, Kleonal clicked her tongue and took a deep breath. The desert wind was not so harsh this midday, but the heat certainly was. Clusters of light grey and stainless white tents laid nearby in the shade of Rozlin mountain, glowing a few lights dimmer than the sun not far off.

Tirre and Rykar had watched earlier with curious eyes and arched eyebrows when Kleonal insisted that she needed a few minutes alone before rejoining at camp. Yet they knew her well and long enough to trust that she would make her way back to them quite all right, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that they had not gone far from their original site at all.

Stop stalling and get over there you fool, ta’veren or not, Naluno and Gheald will have your hide if you have been gone for too long. Gods! If they even know you’re elsewhere alone! A dejected sigh left Kleonal as she set herself into a run across the cooling, pale white sand.

She hated being reminded of ta’veren, the Wise Ones spoke of her as if she were dangerous and to be watched. They seldom outspokenly told her it was bad to be ta’veren, in fact, they said quite the opposite.

To be ta’veren was to have the power to change the pattern itself, the threads that the gods themselves held. Every man and woman had that ability of course, but not to such an extent that the people called ta’veren did. One could always make his own decisions, whether it be the simple choices of daily life or who he would one day marry, but only a ta'veren could change his fate entirely, as well as the fates of those around him.

But in the case of ta’veren, simply being in their presence or their aftermath would affect the pattern and affect the people and place surrounding them. People of any nature or faith were drawn to ta’veren like a Barrenborn to a waterhole, whether that attraction be guided by admiration or hatred or curiosity, it was true in the purest sense. Kleonal more than often struggled to believe she was ta’veren, whether it be genuine refusal in her heart or a desperate attempt to avoid the pressuring label, she herself didn’t know.

“Tirre! Rykar!” Kleonal called out, noticing the two quickly approaching figures running away from the camp of tents and towards her. She waved at them with a smile and slowed herself to a leisure walk, feeling no strain at all from her brief run across the sun blocked sand.

However, unlike herself, Rykar made no attempts to slow his pace and barreled into Kleonal, leaving them both sprawled across the ground with sand and hair in their mouths as they laughed while Tirre merely shook her head.

“How Rykar plans to take over Gheald as clan chief, I do not know. Perhaps with luck, he will be carried off by the wyvern before he has the chance to embarrass himself.” Despite her harsh words, Tirre’s cracked lips twitched upwards at the end and Rykar gave her a boyish grin as he shook his head to rid his hair of the sand—instead throwing them over to Kleonal’s hair, now exposed as her hood fell down when she landed back first into the pale sand.

Kleonal sat upright with her bottom in the sand and her legs bent with her knees to the sky, like Rykar, she shook the sand out of her hair until her head ached and the world spun and hobbled. Beside her, Rykar was already back on his feet and had an outstretched hand ready to aid her. Taking his palm with her own, he pulled her from the ground and let go as she dusted off any sand left on her white cadin’sor, adorned with straps and belts tied to daggers and spears.

“The gai'shain have already begun to make wyvern stew, best you hurry before the meat toughens.” Tirre said, she had her arms crossed beneath her chest. “Rykar already snagged you a bowl, and I got you a waterskin only half-empty.” She held her head higher with a sense of pride and side-eyed Rykar as if there was a hint of competition between the two of them. Rykar replied with a firm stuck-out tongue, which he failed to rid of before Kleonal could turn her head. 

“You are both as childish as they come, yet friends of mine all the same.” Kleonal could only shake her head exasperatedly. “Let’s move, you can bicker along the way.” She smiled fondly at the two of them and walked in tow with Tirre, caught up quickly by Rykar.

“Tirre managed to leave out that there is a wetlander woman at the camp, she rode on a dragon! I think it’s in one of the larger caves in the mountain—dragons look an awful lot like wyvern, Kleo!” Rykar exclaimed excitedly and Tirre nodded along as well, although she did not miss the subtle jab Rykar added to his report.

“They really do,” Tirre agreed. “Although, I suppose I should not have been surprised, the books do say the main difference between them is their fire and their legs. Did you know? Dragons have four legs! It looks incredibly strange, even after seeing the diagrams in the books, I can’t imagine how strange gryphons must be!” Tirre shuddered.

“You really should’ve been there to see it, Kleo!” Her head swiveled to Rykar speaking this time. “It had glimmering green scales, not like the shrubs the ember lizards hide in, but like… like… like the tall trees the Wise Ones say there are beyond the Barrens! Oh, I hope you get to see it, Kleo—do you think the wetlander would let us go into the cave and see it?” His wide smile split his face into two and Kleonal could imagine Rykar’s near-black eyes with sparkles in them, the thought made her laugh lightly.

She could not blame his exhilaration though, she felt very much the same afterall. The three of them seldom saw anything new in the Barrens, she reckoned none of the Barrenborn often did. There was not much else grand to see in the wasteland other than windswept sandstone mountains, dry shrubbery hanging onto life with a thread, and the occasional horde of wyvern and sometimes their venin too.

Even if there were anything mildly intriguing in the Barrens, she doubted any wetlander in right mind would venture in anyway. Sometimes, even the dry air and the dust storms were too much for the Barrenborn. Their home was far from a soft land, and any who could not learn from young often seldom survived long.

“Let’s hope they will.” Was all Kleonal said though and both Tirre and Rykar nodded in hopes that the wetlander from beyond the Barrens would let them see their shining green dragon. “They have names don’t they? Dragons?” Kleonal remembered. “They’re born naturally, have children and have a hierarchy, the books even say they are often smarter than humans, surely they have names?”

Tirre appeared to be in thought for a brief moment before shaking her head. “I’m sure it—actually, he or she, I suppose—has a name, but whether they actually do or don’t we haven’t a clue, the wetlander did not tell Gheald nor the Wise Ones; from where we could hear at least.”

“It could be worse,” Rykar shrugged. “We’re here anyway.” The low tents sprawled around the sides of the mountain, curling in itself to form a secluded area of pulsing light from cookfires and hearthstone encapsulated by pack mules and shoufa-hooded Barrenborn from every warrior society.

More than a handful of gai’shain also roamed the camp, some with heated hearthstones for heating water meant for tea and others to aid in the boiling stews above the pitched cookfires. When Kleonal, Rykar and Tirre came close enough for the gai’shain to notice, they only nodded their heads in acknowledgement and kept silent with their heads down.

The deep black robes and hoods the gai’shain wore were a testament to their sworn oaths of peace and service. The gai’shain were enemy Barrenborn captured in raids or dances fought between the clans of the Barrens or were simply normal Barrenborn who bore an obligation to someone else. Bound by the ways of ji’e’toh, the gai’shain were obligated to faithfully serve their captors for a year and a day without touching any weapon and doing no violence.

Few had ever disgraced themselves and their clan by trying to escape service, but those who did attempt did not succeed much. Runaway gai’shain were easily captured once more and their service would start from the beginning until their year and a day of service had been fulfilled.

Kleonal had once been gai’shain, bound to serve the Quolea clan after she had been bested by a woman training to be a maiden of the spear. It was utterly humiliating to have to wear black robes, but it would’ve been hundreds of paces even more disgraceful to try and refuse the service.

Rykar had also served as gai’shain, although far more recently than Kleonal, and he had done so for two years and two days in total after being captured twice.

His experience wasn’t entirely awful, and he even managed to make a friend from the Nael Clan and two friends from the Yulta’ral Clan. He seldom saw them often anymore, but during gatherings of peace between the clans, he took great pleasure in introducing Kleonal and Tirre as well as some of his first and second-brothers to them.

Tirre had never been captured—a proud achievement she held on to—and often grinned silently whenever Rykar or Kleonal groaned about their own distastes for gai’shain service. Although, she thankfully never outwardly crowed about her continued streak of victories in her dances of the spear.

One of the gai’shain dipped their head as the three of them passed by towards one of the cookfires. A handful of men and women sat in circle or irregular groups, chatting and boasting and complaining all the same. Protected by the shade of the Rozlin Mountain, the Barrenborn of the Syril Clan sat cross-legged in peace in the dry midday air.

Over two hundred or so Barrenborn gathered around the various amounts of tents and bowls of stew, and another three were added to a group of twelve when Kleonal, Rykar and Tirre sat down with them across one of the twenty or so cookfires. Rykar briefly stood up from their spot on the sand to whisper to another boy across the fire, to which he smiled and handed a bowl of lukewarm wyvern stew to him. Moments later, Rykar skidded back to the two girls and handed it down to Kleonal. With a smile of thanks, she brought the wooden spoon of the stone-carved bowl to her mouth and found herself scarfing down the rest of its contents soon after.

The wyvern meat was stringy and crumbly and Kleonal could feel its slimy skin covered in its distinctive, protective mucus. Its texture was never anything to look forward to, but it became normal after a time, even routine, after learning to choke it down for years.

It wasn’t so bad this time. There was a sparing amount of spices mixed into the stew, extracted and crushed from the thorny-leafed shrubs Kleonal sometimes saw upon mere passing.

Kleonal herself knew almost nothing about cooking or preparing meals, and the few skills she had earnt were mostly forced onto her when she spent her time as gai’shain. In her service, she had spent most of her time preparing tea, pitching tents, heating kettles or unbuckling baggage from pack mules and horses or even settling cattle. She had served gai’shain a few weeks after her twelfth nameday, a mere two years ago. It was told to all children of every clan, that being gai’shain was not a great disgrace, but rather a necessity in order for one to fulfill their due obligation to another.

Kleonal didn’t necessarily disagree with that viewing, especially as gai’shain were an integral part to the system of honor that ji’e’toh was. Although, she would be lying if she said that she wasn’t at least partially relieved that neither the venin nor their wyvern knew the ways of ji’e’toh. Afterall, you could only take gai'shain and be one yourself if you and the other person followed ji'e'toh.

Once Kleonal had licked her grainy stone bowl dry and wiped away the excess with the rags of her cloak, she passed it back to Rykar with a smile. “Thank you, Rykar. Are you sure you are not hungry yourself?” He took the bowl and shook his head as his answer.

“Tirre and I already ate our share for the day, same with the water—that’s probably where Tirre went, to go get the waterskin she hid for you.” He said as got up to his feet to stride over back to the other boy across the cookfire, returning the bowl to him with a grateful smile and a few exchanged words before sitting back down next to Kleonal.

Illuminated by the flames of the cookfire and emphasised by the shadows of the canvas tents, Rykar’s dark hair seemed to be akin to the night in a reflecting waterhole. Ever since they were young, Rykar had stayed by Kleonal’s side not only as her first-brother but as one of her closest friends. Born from the same mother and father as a pair, they were seldom found far apart. 

And eventually, as they grew older, the same went for Tirre as well. Perhaps their blood was not as close, but their friendship seemed to make up for it and more. Born of two mothers that were first-sisters of their own, Tirre was a year younger than Kleonal and Rykar, and Tirre herself was often the one who caught the other two at the heart of their antics and pranks.

A few years in recent passing however, Tirre had gradually changed from snitching on them to joining them. It was a welcome surprise to the two of them, yet Rykar and Tirre seemed to be trading glares whenever Kleonal wasn’t looking.

“I’m back!” Settling down to Kleonal’s left, Tirre stretched out her legs and grunted with a crack as she tossed a half-empty waterskin into her friend’s hands. “Drink the rest of it, and then we can go find the wetlander woman.”

As soon as the waterskin landed into her grasp, Kleonal felt the volume of water inside and panicked. “What! I can’t drink all of this, a half my arse, Tirre!” She began to push the sack back to Tirre right as she shoved the waterskin right back to Kleonal in turn.

“The more you fuss over it, the less time we’ll get to go see that milksop wetlander, regardless, Rykar and I already drank our own shares. To take anymore would be denying us our own honour.” Tirre huffed. She had caught Kleonal in a scorpion’s net, the two of them could argue until dawn’s wake, but neither of them could argue against ji’e’toh—honour and obligation. Every Barrenborn lived by it, nothing was more important to a Barrenborn than honour, and nothing more taxing as obligation. And the poor girl could hardly do much to her friend’s logic, especially when she wasn’t at all wrong.

It seemed a bit unfair to her however, Kleonal was a considerable part more enduring than others her age. She could go without water for five days at most while even older warriors like Gheald and Naluno could only go for three—although, to be fair, by the fifth day, she often felt so nauseous and numb that she could no longer speak.

Still, she only answered Tirre with a disgruntled groan as she uncapped the waterskin with a pop and held it to her dry, peeling lips. “Just so we can see the wetlander sooner.” It took a lot of restraint on Kleonal’s end not to strangle the girl in a headlock at the notice of Tirre's triumphant smirk.

The mirth plastered on Rykar’s face didn’t go unnoticed either. He rarely ever kept silent, but whenever Tirre was arguing with anyone that wasn’t him, he could adopt the silence of even the meekest gai’shain. It was a skill that only seemed to make itself known in the most convenient of times for him.

The warm, dusty water sliding down Kleonal’s throat went some lengths in dragging her mind away from her two insufferable companions. Cold water was only ever obtained by the aquifers buried deep beneath the skin-gripping sand of the Barrens, and even then, when the time came to store it safely in waterskins, hours spent in the stone-baking sun might as well have boiled it clean. To the people beyond the clearless skies of the Barrens, the Barrenborn's water must have been vile enough to splash it onto dead bark—but to anyone of the Barrenborn, any water short of boiling might as well have been a gift graced as a divine blessing from the gods themselves. 

By the time Kleonal tongue ran dry and coarse again, she tilted her head back down to feel the weightless empty innards of the waterskin and the drying dribbles of water trickling down her chin.

Rykar smiled, “You didn’t come up for air, I was starting to worry that you might’ve drowned.” And both she and Tirre laughed softly.

No Barrenborn had ever died of drowning, and a fair few believed such a thing wasn’t even true. To die of too much water? It was unheard of, something only a crazed boy could imagine in his strangest dream-plagued sleep. Death by drowning was no more believable than the falling of the supposed ‘snow’.

When Kleonal’s chest ached and her thigh had gone red from slapping, she coughed up a last laugh just as the three of them went red in the face after noticing the numerous pairs of dark eyes on the whole lot of them. And perhaps it was because of that brief embarrassment that Kleonal did not notice the pattering of feet behind her.

“Good to see you three having fun at least.” A semi-deep voice behind them chuckled, and Rykar was the first to jump onto his feet.

“Aeltarc!” The bouncing boy squealed with the grace of a desert vulture drowning in snow as the pairs of eyes around the cookfire drifted off to their own individual conversations with friendly smiles and waves on their faces.

As soon as Rykar managed to release the other boy short of suffocation, Tirre cackled to herself at the colour just now beginning to enter the other boy’s face while Kleonal merely shook her head with a smile.

“A welcome warmer than the sun itself, Rykar. Although, I would’ve fancied it much more if I didn’t start seeing black spots. Word of advice, you’re meant to hug the torso—not the throat.” A short burst of laughter befell all of them and the other boy was quick to settle at Kleonal’s side; where Rykar had once been before he jumped up to hug him.

Aeltarc of the Maelune Sept of the Syril Barrens, son of Jalundr son of Urrarlo, was a boy a year younger than Kleonal and Rykar, he shared the same year of birth as Tirre, besting her only by a mere couple of months in age. They had first met years upon years ago, in Moon Pool Hold, where they had all grown up together. Yet no matter how young they were, Kleonal could clearly remember Aeltarc, who curled unblinking in the darkest corner of a cave tunnel’s end. Aeltarc, who didn’t shed a single tear when news came on his sixth nameday, news that told him his father, a warrior of the Brothers of the Eagle society, had died from a conflict raid between the Yulta’ral clan. It was jarring, and unnerving. Aeltarc, who had to be dragged hand to hand by Kleonal to go out in the sun and remember to walk on scarce grass and plentiful pale sand. Aeltarc, who only ever talked to Rykar and Kleonal, and before then, he simply refused to speak.

It was a bleak time, and if Kleonal thought she had trouble forgetting them, it would be impossible to imagine how Aeltarc recalled it. Even if he only smiled and laughed now, even if those were memories that no one wanted to reminisce on.

But they were years long gone now, and only fond memories stood in its wake, fond memories that reminded them how if Tirre, Kleonal and Rykar were the ones doing the mischief, Aeltarc was the supposed model child covering for them and supplying them all they needed in the shadows out of sight. One could rarely ever find him at the heart of the trouble, but he would always be there somewhere close to it regardless.

Just like Rykar, Aeltarc was a newly accepted warrior of the Red Shield society. Red Shields were one of the twelve warrior societies that a Barrenborn could choose to be if they wished to fight not only wyvern but other clans.

Functioning as an enforcement of the law of ji’e’toh, Red Shields took honour and obligation as seriously as it came. Even if Rykar, of all boys, seemed to have the maturity of a hairless newborn, he still carried out his duty as a Red Shield as well as any other. It was yet another thing that bonded Rykar and Aeltarc together, although the pair of them were friends long before.

And naturally, through the first connections between Rykar and Aeltarc, Kleonal and Tirre had time to get to know him.

The two girls were in a way similar to the boys, as both were Maidens of the Spear, women and girls who had essentially been ‘wed’ to the spear as a testament to their faith and sisterhood to each other. It was no secret that the Maidens swore no marriage as long as they held the spear, and if they ever chose to wed a man instead, they would sever their ties as a Maiden and thus, their spear-sisters—others who had also wed the spear. These societies, Maidens of the Spear and Red Shields, were important homes to every Barrenborn a part of one, and some societies even held stronger than clans themselves.

Warriors or not however, all four of them were generally new to their societies and had much to learn—as Naluno often liked to remind them. They each had had their own fair share of scoldings and lectures from Naluno, even Aeltarc, for the few times that he’d somehow been caught.

“Kleo!” Aeltarc regarded her. “Have you seen the wetlander? I saw her, and she looks like a wetlander alright. She might pass for Barrenborn if the woman grew two hands taller. And completely changed her eyes and hair. That and a shoufa too.”

“We already told her,” Tirre clarified and smiled. “We were just meant to go and see them, right before you came, Aeltarc.”

Kleonal perked up. “You could come with us! I know you’ve already seen them, but we’re going to try and see if we can take a look at their dragon too.” 

“I don’t mind.” He shrugged placidly. “The last I saw of them, they had just left one of the Wise Ones’ tents though.”

Tirre was already up on her feet and stretching out her hands behind her head with a grunt and a satisfying crack. “That settles it then, you lot coming or what?” She grinned.

Rykar was the first to join her, followed just as swiftly by Kleonal then Aeltarc.

As they walked, Kleonal was spared as the other three took to igniting a discussion that involved the reminiscing of a time Tirre had nearly gotten herself killed by a gara as a toddler just beginning to walk. Tirre had seemed to just roll her eyes and knock Rykar on the side of his head.

Gara were tiny and mildly dangerous lizards that were around sixty centimeters and had the ability to kill both you and a bull just from a bite. Kleonal thought them cute. They were only a problem for small children really, with their silver and white striped scales. It had taken to camouflage for its hunting of prey, yet most Barrenborn could spot them just as easily as if they were bright red. Kleonal much rathered forcing down skewered gara meat to boiled wyvern stew. They occasionally ate goat and cow as well, when the cattle raids the Syril Clan commenced had some to spare. Such delicacies were often reserved for annual feasts of peace between clans however, held in the few places in the Barrens that commanded no blood be spilt. Of course, the wyvern and venin took no care of those rules, but Kleonal doubted they even knew such laws existed between the Barrenborn.

Kleonal took to idly listening into the conversation between her three friends, all the while she took the time to scan her surroundings. She knew what she was going to find, but it always reassured her to take another look. Tirre desperately attempted at explaining her fear of gara was met with Rykar clutching his stomach and trying to force his mouth into a straight line—and failing—just as Aeltarc flashed quick faces and looks at Rykar, which only bolstered his laughter further. It served as perfect white noise.

Their voices mingled with the crackle of boiling pots over cookfires and the soft, buzzing hubbub that flowed through every sitting circle and low-hanging tent that she walked by. Through some of the breathable canvases she could see the faint but familiar glow of a temporary firepit in them, the flames and heated hearthstones used in sweat tents. Absently, Kleonal recalled books that claimed wetlanders dipped themselves in entire holes of water—or even strange things called ‘rivers’—to clean themselves. 

The sweat tents that the Barrenborn used were essentially community ‘baths’—to be shared with your own gender and trusted ones of course, no one in their right mind would share a sweat tent with another gender. Inside said tents, the fire at its center would be gradually quelled with a kettle of boiled water, dousing the heated stones and filling the tent in warm vapour. And such water vapour would cleanse the tent’s inhabitants of the dirtiness clinging to their skin via the alleviation of sweat. The idea of anything else—of dirtying an entire hole of water—was so outrageous that the book Kleonal had read it from had been closed the book and stuffed it in the tunnel of a small roll of carpet, with the rest of her extra belongings, never to be touched again. That rolled carpet would still be back home by now, in an open ceiling cave system called Moon Pool Hold, named after a discovery made when first scoping the tunnels; the only pool left with water in the entirety of the Barrens. And at night, when the moon was at its highest peak, its image and light would reflect into the pool through a hole in the open ceiling.

She hadn’t seen home in months now, and missed it even more upon thinking of it. More often than just a handful, she had voiced these worries to Tirre in the comfort of a sleeping tent under silver belts of stars, surrounded by other Maidens of The Spear, though they slumbered undisturbed on their piled rugs in their own tents. Occasionally, she missed sleeping under the same roof as her first-brother, back when she wasn’t a Maiden and he a Red Shield. She hadn’t regret anything despite it though, Kleonal could’ve never have settled for being a roofmistress or even a Wise One—and looking back at it now, she doubted she could qualify for either position even if she wanted to. She knew as certainly as Tirre that she was born to know a warrior’s life, and if it meant forsaking the marriage of men to attain it, she would.

It was a shame though, the Far Dareis Mai—Maidens of The Spear—were bound to their spears as if wed and there was no other society except the one that accepted women and girls as warriors. Red Shields, Water Seekers, Black Eyes, and every other one were exclusively for men. But Kleonal supposed it was not her place to judge hundreds of years of tradition and culture—even if she felt it wildly unfair.

Two soft taps on the shoulder from Aeltarc however was enough to rouse Kleonal from her drowning thoughts of home and societies.

“Sorry if you were thinking about something important,” He smiled apologetically. “I was just worried you were getting sidelined, with Tirre, Rykar and I all blabbing our mouths away. Are you okay?”

She returned his smile, though hers carried reassurance instead. “Nothing to worry over, Aeltarc. Just thinking about some information I’ve read about wetlanders and our societies. I think all this talk about them is rubbing off on me, do you think they have societies like us? Or something like?”

Focusing his lighter brown eyes on the sand in front of him, he seemed to give it real thought. “Maybe? Newer books from the Beyond—Poromiel, I think it was?—say there’s a war. I don’t see why they wouldn’t have something like our warrior societies, arrow and spearpoints alike never do harm. Spare for the enemy, of course.”

She nodded in agreement, “Poromiel is the realm with gryphons, they’re fighting both Navarre and the venin I read. Similar enough with us, what with the wars with the clans and the raids with the wyvern.” Kleonal sighed through her nose, there was still a chance those books were outdated, maybe their war with Navarre was already over, even if their other conflict with the venin wasn’t. That wasn’t even taking into account that they still might not have warrior societies like the Barrenborn, it would be foolish of her to assume such distant people would share the same ways as her. “Hold on,” she thought, and Aeltarc raised an eyebrow questioningly. “Do we even know the name of the wetlander? The one here right now?” She asked, holding his gaze to hers.

“The woman is Cassandra Luphore of Tyrrendor, Navarre, if I remember correctly, she’s as tall as sapling I tell you, stick her in a crowd and you’d never find her!” He exclaimed with a scoff, as if he himself couldn’t believe it, and Kleonal couldn’t either. Surely wetlanders were not that short, despite what the books said. This was the first time in the history of ever that she had heard of anyone from the Beyond entering the Barrens, much less seeking to speak with the Barrenborn themselves, a people that wetlanders were not supposed to even know existed.

Straying from their talk of gara, Tirre and Rykar now seemed to be more interested in the dragon the wetlander woman had brought with her, and she had to admit that while its presence certainly wasn't usual, she was equally interested in both the dragon and the wetlander who had brought it.

Kleonal was in no way enraptured by the craft of books and literature but she would’ve lied if she said she was completely dull in the books extracted from the Beyond, a place that laid characteristically beyond the Barrens.

In these books, she had seen and read diagrams and paragraphs of wetlanders, dragons, gryphons, maps and herbs. Granted, they had all been obtained from the realm of Poromiel. No Barrenborn sent on an expedition had ever dared to go to the realm beyond even Poromiel, not when there was supposedly an active war between them along and past their borders. And in these extracted books, she had read that most wetlanders were pitifully short, sun-skinned, weak, and dishonourable. At best. Kleonal hoped that those books were wrong.

And then, a woman hidden beneath piled robes of the darkest black approached the lot of four before any of them could even murmur a single word in.

She was gai’shain, with skin like dull but smooth white-blossoms and a hooked nose strongly resembling a desert vulture’s beak, the woman; Ualaye could’ve fooled any man and woman into thinking her meekness was second nature.

“The Wise Ones call for you, Kleonal, Aeltarc, Tirre, Rykar.” Her back seemed to be locked into a stiff, permanent bow, with her eyes like dark pools turned low at the white sand. Those same eyes had triggered nightmares in Kleonal and Tirre alike during their first few months as Far Dareis Mai. And even now, it gave her whiplash to see how Ualaye could hold her tongue and shove down her head when she needed to.

“Why would the Wise Ones call for us?” Tirre had her arms crossed beneath her chest and narrowed her dark eyes at the low-bent woman in front of them.

“I am only told what is required of me. Please follow me to the Wise Ones.” Kleonal caught the slightest of twitches at Ualaye’s left eye, but missed the opportunity to say anything of it as the woman was already stepping lightly on the sand to the tents of the Wise Ones. She and her friends had no choice but to follow.

The Wise Ones were the last women you wanted to anger. Roofmistress, sept chief, clan chief—they all fell flat in the face of a Wise One, even the youngest of the Wise Ones had the power to set any famed Barrenborn warrior straight if she so wanted to. Even clan chiefs had trouble arguing with them, at most, they could try to bargain or reason; but if a Wise One told you to jump, it was in your best interests to jump. Wise Ones were women equal to—and sometimes beyond—clan chiefs. And they were certainly nothing to snark and scoff about, despite what Tirre decided she could get away with when no one was listening.

To the Barrenborn, Wise Ones were much more than just matriarchal leaders. They were spiritual guides, advisors—even if their advice had you grinding your teeth to powder—and were women who had visited the city of Rhuidean twice.

Rhuidean, a city or ruins, moss and dust looked to be only a remnant from the long dead kingdom of Linkarsa, but it was much more than that; or at least the Wise Ones said so.

Only two types of people could enter Rhuidean, and both needed the permission of Wise Ones to do so; men hoping to become clan chiefs and women hoping to become Wise Ones. Life was never guaranteed in Rhuidean, nothing could ever be in the Barrens. Though it bothered little to no one, afterall, life was merely a dream, they were taught. Malek would come for them, young or old, man or woman. And the day that Malek did seek them, they were to accept it with honour and treat it as any obligation. But just because a dream was doomed to end did not mean it had to end that very second, no Barrenborn was afraid of death, but they seldom ran towards it.

But then again, Rhuidean was one of the few instances where the Barrenborn did run towards Malek’s arms.

A man can only visit Rhuidean once, the Wise Ones said, and a woman twice.

Kleonal could remember the days as a girl only of her ninth nameday where she dreamed of becoming a Wise One. Every hold had at least one, and Inysha, a tall, wrinkled woman with streaks of silver and grey in her hair was the Wise One at Moon Pool Hold, one of the only few soft-spoken kind ones that sang nursery songs and lullabies to children for means of slumber.

Sometimes, Kleonal could even remember the smell of Inysha’s burning flesh on the pyre. She had died from a raid on the Moon Pool Hold from the Last Spring Sept of the Yulta’ral Clan.

How long ago was that?

Her tenth nameday maybe, a year after she had originally wanted to be a Wise One.

Not noticing that she was yet again humming a tune from one of Inysha’s lullabies, she glanced at the back of her hands, examining the outline of her bones with glazed over eyes.

Soothe your sweet hearts and settle your sleepy heads.

Sleep in the nettles where a snake does shed.

Do make its home your sweet little bed.

Sleep in the nettles and hear a soothing song overhead.

Death does come for us, do not be afraid.

There is a god that welcomes,

and his sweet nettles will claim where you lay.

Whenever she envisioned Malek, she always saw him as a snake, shedding in a bed of stinging nettles. Of course, she had never even seen stinging nettles, nor had she seen a child who had even been foolish enough to die by something as weak and cowardly as a snake. Death does come for us, do not be afraid. She remembered.

Yet she could not remember the name of the child’s lullaby, nor the rest of its verses either. Just those two first ones.

Before she knew it, she stood side-by-side with her friends at the entrance to a wide and low tent of freshly cleaned canvas. At the edge of her eye, gai’shain scurried with their heads bowed low and their backs bent humbly, carrying bowls and woolen bundles and sleeping rugs, brewing kettles and pots and cups for tea.

Ualaye, the gai’shain in front of her stepped aside from the crack of the canvas tent and hung her head so her gaze met the ground and bent so far that her nose could’ve touched her knee.

“Kleonal of the Maelune Syril, Rykar of the Maelune Syril, Aeltarc of the Maelune Syril and Tirre of the Maelune Syril.” As the dark robed, former Maiden announced them, a soft but firm reply answered them through the thin canvas.

“Enter.” A woman inside called.

And so they did.

Silk cushions braided in woven gold lay scattered in clumps atop the wide circular rug underneath it, veiling the soft pale sand beneath. Sitting in the shape of a short upturned ‘U’, four Wise Ones and a stranger sat cross-legged amongst the embroidered cushions with their feet bare and their shoulders tensed.

A small, level table crafted of varnished dryheart wood laid in front of them each. It looked to be made to be portable and light while only meant to handle a cup of tea or two and perhaps even a book or a scroll. The stranger—evidently the wetlander of the name Cassandra Luphore—was discernable by her short, cleanly cut light hair and even shorter stature. She sat with a face of smooth stone with two Wise Ones sitting at each of her sides and cradled a silk cushion at her lap, as if the position was an every-day occurrence.

Just as the four had entered, with their shoulders touching in a line, standing tall and stiff as a carpenter’s board, two black-robed gai’shain handling kettles and cups of hammered silver carefully and quietly laid them onto the small tables in front of those who sat.

“I see you, Kleonal. I see you, Rykar. I see you, Aeltarc. I see you, Tirre. May you find shade and water." The wetlander said, and the surprise must have been plainly evident on their faces, as not even moments later of the wetlander woman greeting them, she grinned.

Kleonal was shocked to find that someone born from the Beyond knew even the basics of Barrenborn courtesy, even if all she knew was a widespread greeting and a nod of acknowledgement. Kleonal was the first to return the wetlander’s address—though not with a bow—and she was hastily followed in succession by Aeltarc, Rykar and Tirre. And Kleonal had a sneaking suspicion that Rykar and Tirre had forgotten the wetlander woman’s name and was grateful for not needing to acknowledge her first. Kleonal could not keep her own thoughts away, even as she sat down amongst the Wise Ones, following the ‘U’ shape, even as a blossom-faced gai’shain boy laid a silver cup of tea at her table and flashed her a small smile.

Aeltarc said he had last seen the wetlander leaving the Wise Ones’ tents, so why is she still here? Why did the Wise Ones wish to see us? All four of us? How does she know the common greeting, it hardly seems like something the Wise Ones would tell her upon first meeting. We wanted to see the wetlander, but not like this... Why?

“You may leave us.” Kleonal tensed her jaw, and for a near second, she feared that wise one; Sileveiad, had meant those words for her. Such irrational thoughts were quickly quelled as the two gai’shain that had poured and brewed their tea scuttled out of the tent with nothing more than a deep bow as their hands laid flatly on their laps.

Sileveiad was first-sister to the dead Inysha and was twin to her features in every way, yet whenever Kleonal tried to look her in the eyes, she found no remnant of Inysha’s well-meaning compassion. All she could see was Sileveiad’s fiery gaze that could break a man as well as a poison tipped spear, if not better.

“Good. You all seem to already know this woman.” Sileveiad shed no smile as she looked to the left of her, nodding her chin at the wetlander woman right next to her side.

As if desperate to not let the Wise One introduce herself for her, the woman smiled in Sileveiad’s stead and spoke. “My name is Cassandra Luphore, Countess of House Luphore of Tyrrendor and Field Marshal of Navarre. Pleasure to be of service. Though unfortunately, I may only be useful on the battlefield. Or the dance, as you call it.”

Kleonal did not know half the words the woman spewed.

Of Tyrrendor and Navarre, she knew. But a house? What was a Marshal?What was a field? And what in the gods did counting have anything to do with it?

Sileveiad scoffed before draining her cup of tea and replenishing it in succession with the kettle left by the gai’shain. “Selling yourself short after you bargained for the moon and more, are you, Cassandra?”

“I do nothing of the sort, Sileveiad.” A cold smile cracked her cheeks. “In my home of Tyrrendor, humility is a valued trait ingrained in many. My actions are merely a reflection of those lessons.” Cassandra did not do so much as spare the Wise One a glance her way, instead opting to sip at her tea just as Sileveiad did and a disturbing silence befell the two, and in extension, everyone else in the tent.

Kleonal held her cup with two hands, her left palm flat to the cup’s stool as her right fingers gripped the side gently. She took the time to lift it to her nose and sniff lightly, blinking at the strong smell of dried sceaene root and white-blossom pear petals, before leveling it to her cracked lips to swallow. The strange but familiar bitter-sweet swept across her tongue and raked against her pained throat. From over the rim of her silver-hammered cup, she could see a fidgeting Tirre with Aeltarc at her side, sitting closest to the Wise Ones. Kleonal herself sat at the end of the upturned ‘U’, sitting next to only her first-brother Rykar.

“Pardon me, Wise Ones. Sileveiad. Cassandra.” Rykar was the last person Kleonal expected to speak first and nearly everyone else seemed to think the same, though some hid it better than others.

“I’m sure you didn’t just invite us here for tea," He said. "nor a chance to see Cassandra from the Beyond. I... do not mean to speak out of turn, but all time is valuable. As you know, I am sure. I wish to waste as little as I can, and I hope the same for my friends.” The Wise Ones kept silent and unmoving, though most empty cups now laid on the small dryheart tables.

Quaepha, a younger, more newly initiated Wise One with not a strand of grey in her hair was the first to earnestly answer Rykar. She sat next to Aeltarc, across from another Wise One who herself sat to the right of Sileveiad. By meeting her steel gaze of light brown to his own whilst meeting the stares of the other three, she heaved a sigh and held herself straighter.

“You all have been called because of what we can suspect and decode of a prophecy. It is a relatively knew one, only thirty years old. And it is one that must remain known to only the people in this tent and no other, knowledge is more dangerous than any wyvern, to you and to others. We can only tell you what you must, for all sakes, not just your own.” No ice-cold smiles or sipping tea in silence interrupted Quaepha.

“That is outrag-”

“What can you tell us?” Kleonal had to stop Tirre before she even got the chance to start. She shared the same feeling of outrage as her, but yelling at Wise Ones and throwing silk cushions would do as much good as a child in a tantrum. One that was thrashing and screaming, one that would be waited for to calm down before being ignored and moved on from.

Quaepha opened her mouth, but was not the one who responded to Kleonal's inquiry. “The first verse.” Sileveiad said, droning her stare to the four of them.

“Cry to the skies, heed the coming of verdant scales.

Cry to the skies, heed the emissary of long gone light.

Cry to the skies, green is your warning, you run on short time.

Cry to the skies, await the dawn the shields and maidens do ride.

Cry to the skies, await the dawn the shields and maidens return from their blight.

Pray for their sweat and blood.”

The silence was anything but welcoming and Kleonal wished she had let Tirre throw her tantrum. Though, as she snuck a glance at her second-sister's face, she could see only a face of utter shock and incredulity that she suspected mirrored her own.

Shields and Maidens. Red Shields and Maidens of the Spear. Kleonal thought.

“Precisely.” Sileveiad nodded. Out loud apparently.

“Then what’s stopping you from choosing any others? We're certainly not the only Red Shields and Maidens of the Spear. In fact, we are among the youngest of them." Kleonal said, and caught a glance at Aeltarc. She had never seen Aeltarc so tense before, not even when receiving a rare tongue-lashing lecture from Naluno, not even when he was first taken as gai’shain. 

“Because that single verse is not the only thing we can show you.” Quaepha explained, sneaking a glare at Sileveiad. “The first lines of the next four major verses state it clearer than the first verse does.”

No one was excited to hear the rest of it, though it was clear that the Wise Ones and Cassandra—why Cassandra? What did the wetlander have to do with a Barrenborn prophecy? An emissary of long gone light, the first verse said...

When Quaepha spoke next, Kleonal was relieved to find that this time, she did not think out loud.

“Know that she is the one who sings the snake's destiny.

Know that he is the ally to the enemy.

Know that she is the one wrongly scarred.

Know that he is the son of a young fallen eagle.

These are each the first lines of the next four major verses. Coupled with the fact that we run on short time, we must choose now—and you four match more than well.” No other Wise Ones argued Quaepha’s recitation of the lines, not even Sileveiad.

Heilsav, the older Wise One who sat at Quaepha’s right side nodded in agreement and spoke to the four. “Kleonal, it is no secret that you hum the verses of the snake in 'The Gods in a Child’s Slumber'. Rykar you are a friend to a boy of the enemy. Tirre, your sole runes failed upon etching them, and Aeltarc, your father died young as a Brother of the Eagle in a raid from the same clan of Rykar's friend.”

“There is no question that the prophecy calls for you four.” Sileveiad reiterated, and Rykar sputtered.

“Call us? Call for what? You still have left that out.” He grated and clenched his fists, forcing them still in his lap.

“To go to Navarre with me.” Cassandra’s face was all hard edges and a wave of dread swept over the shields and maidens. “Part of the Beyond, as you call it.”

“And why are you here, again? Why did you come here in the first place?” Tirre snapped at the wetlander, a look of accusation and ire clouded her eyes.

Aeltarc shared a worried look with Kleonal. "Tirre-"

“Because I’m sent under orders.” Cassandra held her chin high and looked at Tirre with a sense of superiority that shut her up quickly. Cassandra wasn’t by any means wrinkled or aged, but she held a number of decades over Tirre and most others in the tent.

“Orders that believed there were people living in the Barrens. Orders that showed it was in my best interests to earn those people’s trust and knowledge of wyvern and runes to exterminate the venin for good.” She glared with a fire in her light eyes. “And your Wise Ones believe that if I want help from them, they will give it, but I must grant them something in return. They believe it best to send Barrenborn—ignorant children, it seems—to the Beyond, further than Poromiel, further than your people have ever been, to see what they can learn and bring back. They have told me all the books and furniture you have is looted from Poromiel. Navarre is too far a journey on foot for your people to traverse reliably without being spotted from prolonged exposure. That's why I am here. To help you as much as you can help me, and if me or my coworkers start feeling like you're running us cheap, I'm shipping you kids right back to here. Come with me and learn what you can for your Wise Ones. Of Navarre, of Tyrrendor, of dragons and our ways. And your Wise Ones will tell me of what they know themselves. Of the Barrens, of forgotten runes, of wyvern and their ways. Knowledge for knowledge. That is why I am here. That is why, girl. Satisfied?”

Silence followed by a string of grumbles and curses escaped from Tirre, leaving a raised eyebrow on Cassandra’s end. But a curt, begrudging nod from Tirre was enough for her, and the woman nodded in return.

Aeltarc shook his head in disbelief, staring into his untouched cup of tea. “How long will we be gone?”

“As long as needed.” Sileveiad said as if it were fact, it might as well have been.

“Should everything go as intended,” Cassandra assured. “I plan to train you for your education at a war college called Basgiath. There, you’ll go through further trials, and if you pass those, you’ll acquire yourself a dragon. Exciting, ay? There's a shit ton for you to learn there besides dragons, plus—our war, our outposts, our hierarchy and how we fight. Good deal for you. You four will be listed as adopted children—not in the same family, unless you want that—of some of my coworkers. Disguise shouldn’t be a problem, there are plenty of fair-skinned and dark haired people in both Navarre and Poromiel alike. As long as you learn to cover your accents as well as adopt our slang and mannerisms, plus staying hush about your true origin, everyone else will be none the wiser. The only thing I can’t cover is your people’s abnormally tall height, but you could try to get away with chalking that up to the lucky genetics of your fake dead parents.”

Kleonal was taller than most other girls and women for her age, and she was considered tall even for a Barrenborn, but even then she wasn’t outrageously so. She matched the height of most men, and she was not even considered a woman yet—though she had a hunch that she had peaked in her height. Kleonal had never considered that wetlanders were significantly shorter, and to them, the Barrenborn must’ve looked outrageously tall, while for the Barrenborn, the wetlanders were simply outrageously short.

“How are we going to get information back to the Barrens if we’re going to be all the way back in the Beyond?” Rykar asked.

“We’ll send you off with a desert vulture each.” A drowsy-faced Wise One said, she had stayed quiet thus far. “Along with a few sheets of paper, though I’d imagine they’d naturally have some over there too.” Felaize, the drowsy Wise One, often had an out-of-touch dreamy expression on her face, and most tended to confuse it with obliviousness. But, after those same people spent more time simply in her presence, they began to realise she was nothing of the sort. A Wise One was a Wise One after all.

“You plan to hide vultures in Navarre? And presumably Basgiath?” Cassandra scoffed and smiled amusingly.

“We do not know of this war college, nor of this Basgiath.” Sileveiad husked. “But we do know desert vultures. I assure you, Cassandra, the trained vultures of the Barrens know how to stay out of sight and complete their tasks with the haste and diligence of a gai’shain. It would be a disservice to the vultures’ honour by comparing them to the brainless messenger pigeons I believe your own people use.”

Completely ignoring Sileveiad, Cassandra instead opted to open the air and speak to everyone at once. “I believe that is all that needs to be said, yes? And remember, you do not speak of it to anyone else. Clear?”

“No.” Kleonal muttered, and was close to regretting it when every head came swiveling her direction. Her tensed shoulders and tightened fists mirrored her first-brother’s—she could feel her uneven nails digging crescents into her palms.

“No?” Cassandra seemed more curious than angry. “Do tell.”

“When you say ‘disguise’ you mean abandoning our ways for your own, don't you? To learn how to speak like you, fight like you, and defer to you too I’m guessing. None of you have given a clear answer on how long we’ll be in the Beyond, but I can’t imagine it’ll be something as short as a one year trip. We won’t forget the Barrenborn way, but it’ll be hard to go back... Things seldom stay stagnant in the Barrens, it’ll ruin much of our own lives—to go on errands for you and the Wise Ones, with no regard for what we ourselves wish.”

With a face as if she were about to yawn, Cassandra simply blinked. “Well, in that entire spiel, I heard only one question, and it was the first sentence, so I’ll answer that. Yes.” Cassandra smiled mockingly. “Anyone else?”

How much honour would I lose if I shot an arrow at this tunnel-rat of a woman? Not enough. Rykar looked at her with dark eyes that seemed to say: I’ll help you do it, but now is probably not the best time in the world.

“Kleonal.” Felaize cooed the sun-blistering glare on her face. “You will need to take up wetlander ways. All four of you, that is undeniable.” She stared with half-lidded eyes at them in turn. “It will not be easy, but it must be done. It is beyond you now, beyond us all. It is a prophecy, and we would not ask you of this had we not known the need. You four are the only ones who can do this, and it serves a good greater than you could ever know.” Despite Sileveiad being first-sister to Inysha, Felaize was the one that reminded Kleonal most of her so.

Perhaps Inysha was not as drowsy and young, but soft-spoken and compassionate all the same. It was more than hard to hold on to anger and embarrassment when spoken to like that.

“Back in my prime,” Sileveiad scoffed, souring Kleonal in less than a minute. “if a Wise One asked a girl to jump. She would ask how high. If a Wise One asked her to wrestle a wyvern, she’d do it alone. Not so much as a peep out of her, either. And if a Wise One asked her-”

“Your prime is long past Sileveiad, your pack mules could run faster.” Cassandra heaved an exasperated sigh, and Rykar and Tirre attempted to stifle a laugh while Felaize donned a half-grin and Quaepha giggled softly. Heilsav stayed stone-faced.

“Well, I am more than confident that all that needed to be said was said.” A satisfied smile painted Cassandra’s face. “Kleonal, Rykar, Tirre, Aeltarc.” She called. “I’ll be in the east most cave of Rozlin Mountain, you have an hour or less to pack and then we’ll get going. Say whatever goodbyes you need to say and meet me there.” The only farewell she gave to the Wise Ones was a modest bow before Cassandra stalked out of the tent, leaving a sliver of afternoon light trickle in and onto the carpet.

Sileveiad huffed with indignance, murmuring curses and profanities in the wetlander’s wake before dismissing the Shields and Maidens, leaving the four Wise Ones to speak to one another.

Standing on her bare feet, Kleonal felt the tightly woven red carpet beneath her and was the first to bow to the Wise Ones as she took their permission to leave. “May you find shade this day, Sileveiad, Quaepha, Felaize, Heilsav.” Heilsav spoke only once, and shortly, during the entire meeting, she seldom said much, even less than Felaize, and she wore a constant face of nothing.

Disappearing through the crack in the low tent, Kleonal let the golden afternoon light dance on her skin and warm her unhooded, dark hair. Savouring the satisfaction of cracking her fingers and stretching her back, she found that someone else was beside her.

“This is ridiculous, how can they just expect us to- we…” Tirre’s face flashed between a mixture of anger, injustice and grief, though most prominently anger. “We haven’t even been back to Moon Pool Hold in months and now this!”

“Do you regret it then?” Kleonal murmured, and caught her friend’s attention. “Becoming Far Dareis Mai?”

A mix of a groan and a sigh escaped Tirre’s lips. “That’s the worst part, I don’t regret it, not anymore than you do, I'd wager. I don’t think I could ever settle for staying in any hold my entire life, laying my bridal wreath before a man and becoming a roofmistress, even if it’s Moon Pool Hold. I should’ve been born with a spear in hand and a quiver on my belt.”

The two girls shared a laugh together, standing a few paces away from the tent they had left not even a minute ago.

“My feelings are hurt, how are you two already having fun without us? A voice scoffed behind them, and the two Maidens found Aeltarc lightly hitting Rykar on the head, earning a soft ‘ow’ of indignation.

“Fun should be the least of our worries, does anyone have any goodbyes to say?” Aeltarc said, and they all exchanged looks at one another.

Rykar shrugged. “I’ll probably say my goodbyes to Naluno and the rest of our spear-brothers, he did help you and I by kilometers in our training. Lectures or not, I owe that much to him.” A nod of agreement passed between the two boys. Naluno was the head of the Maelune Red Shields, so it made sense for the two of them to give their goodbyes to Naluno.

For Kleonal and Tirre, Byshkhan was the head of the Maelune Sept Maidens of the Spear but was with another raid party off southward closer to Yulta’ral territory. The two girls had no one to say their goodbyes to, except the rest of their spear-sisters. “We’ll give our goodbyes to the other Maidens.” Kleonal shared a look with Tirre and told the boys. “Meet you by the cave, then.” A last, but unfinal smile mirrored their faces and they walked off in pairs as the sun peeked over the horizon line with a golden glow and the sky above it bled red.

Kleonal absently touched the back of her scalp, unable to feel the rune through her hair but remembered the memory of its engraving.

Like the runes on their soles, all Barrenborn children were given them upon their first nameday. The function of the one on her head however was to ensure her skin never tanned—so it stayed pale and easily blended into the sand as a method of survival. A Barrenborn’s pale skin matched the white rocks and sand near enough, and hiding their dark hair with a white shoufa made them near unfindable. Coupled with the white veil that naturally came attached with the shoufa, the veil would’ve hid them even more if they donned it at all times, yet the Barrenborn only wore their veils in a dance.

To kill a gai’shain is a sin worthy of death. To kill a child is a sin worthy of torture. And to kill with your face bare to the world is a sin worthy of eternity.

Never kill without veiling your face, it was a lesson taught to the youngest of children, second only to the lesson that death was an embrace to not fear. Kleonal thought of that lesson and others often, lessons engraved into her as deeply as the runes on her scalp and soles.

She had other runes of course, like every other Barrenborn, but they were unimportant to her head now. In fact, she remembered a time when she asked Inysha why the Barrenborn couldn’t have another rune on their scalp to make their hair lighter, if being paler would help with camouflage. You’ll understand runes one day, Kleo. Was all she said to her.

In truth, Kleonal didn’t think she’d ever understand runes. Anybody could make them, with enough practice and concentration, but she recalled hearing from Inysha the very same day that You need to channel magic to weave runes. So how come she saw women carving runes into babies’ flesh with no more than a ragged cloth, a steaming cold rod and precise hands?

“I see you, Kleonal. I see you, Tirre” A woman, at least a decade senior to the two girls disturbed her face with a small smile and stood in front of the two of them.

Kleonal and Tirre had only just set foot into the Maiden-claimed section of the tent site. Surrounding them with laughter and whispered giggles, Maidens as young as Kleonal and younger shared jokes with Maidens as old as Sileveiad and older. Some stood on the sand, others heard from within tents while the latter still sat around doused fires, remembering the smell of boiled meat and stew.

The woman who spoke to Kleonal and Tirre was a stiff-faced Maiden with shaggy inky hair, cut to the shoulder and layered in a cut that Kleonal thought was reminiscent of a wolf, though she had been told that it was called the Maiden’s cut when she first asked. “I see you, Nalschayl.” They repeated in unison with a smile of their own.

“I was told you were sent to see the Wise Ones? As a spear-sister you must know I am worried—what happened?” She asked and every Maiden nearby seemed to have their ears angled towards them, though their mouths moved the same and their eyes were faced away. One that must remain known to only the people in this tent and no other, knowledge is more dangerous than any wyvern, to you and to others. She recalled Quaepha's soft but firm words echoing in her head.

Knowledge is dangerous. Only tell them what they need to know. The best lies are not lies at all. No lies. Refuse them outright and they will only grow more curious. She thought, but what came out was,

“Tirre and I—and Aeltarc and Rykar too—have been ordered by the Wise Ones to help the wetlander on a separate expedition, we won’t be off hunting wyvern or what not but we’ll likely not be back for at least a few weeks.” Kleonal stated with a sigh of annoyance—that one was not quite fake—and Tirre nodded at her words, smiling apologetically at Nalschayl with uncharacteristic doe eyes.

“Ah.” A small frown came onto the woman’s face, did the woman ever do anything but small movements? And she nodded as if in understanding. “Errands for the Wise Ones, well, who are we to refuse them? I wish you well on your journeys.” Nalschayl dipped her head in a small bow, it was more than Kleonal and Tirre was owed. “May you find shade and water, Kleonal, Tirre.”

“May you find shade and water.” One echoed.

“May you find shade and water.” And then another.

“May you find shade and water.” And another.

“May you find shade and water…”

In times and places like this when Kleonal had grown comfortable and safe around her spear-sisters, she did not realise when the women around them inclined a small bow and farewell, a mutual sense of empathy and well-wishing between them.

“Ah! You will need to pack, no? I’ll help you!” Nalschayl remembered.

“I will too!” Another echoed.

“May I?” It echoed once more. “We do not want you late on a Wise One’s orders afterall.” Before anyone else could offer, Kleonal shut them down as politely as she could.

As much as she loved these sisters, she would’ve much preferred not having them look at her belongings if she could ever avoid it, even if she had nothing to hide.

“Nalschayl will be plenty enough, Tirre and I are not so weak that we cannot handle our own packs.” She said, then panicked. “But thank you.” She added at the end.

As soon as the three of them begun to walk away with a more quick 'thank yous', Tirre bumped her shoulder and whispered, “Ta’veren, huh?” Kleonal rolled her eyes and smiled, bumping her back. “It would’ve worked just fine if you talked to them instead.” Despite her outward demeanour, Kleonal hated talk of ta’veren, a strange quality she was born with. Something that made her able to manipulate her fate, a fate that everyone else had little to no control over. Not only that, but being ta’veren meant drawing in the attention of people more strongly than without, ta’veren could accidentally manipulate the people around them as well as their fate in the pattern of fate woven by the gods.

“Come,” Nalschayl ushered the two of them. “Linta was right about one thing, we do not want you late on a Wise One’s orders. We must hurry. You say Rykar and Aeltarc come with you, yes? Well, we mustn't be bested by Red Shields, they are as boorish as Thunder Walkers, I tell you!” They all shared a soft chuckle at that, sharing more and more stories and petty grievances of the men of the other warrior societies. Brothers of the Eagles, Black Eyes, Water Seekers, Stone Dogs, Knife Hands, the rest of the twelve, excluding the Maidens of course.

“I still remember when Rykar asked you to dance, Tirre," Nalschayl recalled. "the two of you fought over who would drink the waterskin, you looked ready to make him choke the water down as if it were your last task.” Nalschayl and Tirre cackled, gripping their stomachs, they had been for past moments as Kleonal led them to the tent she shared with Tirre and a few other spear-sisters.

“There are only three things you can do with a man like that," Tirre scoffed after settling. “Stay away from him, kill him, or marry him. That sore excuse of a Red Shield could not stay away until I drank his waterskin, and I would rather run naked, chased by a wyvern from sunup to sundown before I married a second-brother. The only possible option left was to kill him." She shrugged.

“Or,” Kleonal slid in. “You could’ve just drank the waterskin he offered to you?”

“Oh? Like how I offered a certain waterskin to a certain spear-sister today?” The cocky smirk on Tirre’s face was enough to get Kleonal to punch her if she was anyone else, but the up-and-down twitching of her eyebrows made Kleonal burst out laughing instead. So did Nalschayl and Tirre herself.

By the time, Kleonal managed to grasp her stomach firmly until no more throat-choking laughs escaped her, she found herself already in front of the low-pitched white tent that Kleonal remembered sleeping in for the past three or four nights. Inside, a warm, golden-amber glow pulsed through the clean canvas.

When Kleonal pushed the tent-flap aside, she found a Maiden close to her own age sitting cross-legged in nothing but a cadin’sor, piled under her shoufa and a few more layers of white cloth, although her face was clear with her shoufa hood down.

Beneath her was an old, circular sweat-stained white carpet and matching cold, silk cushions with golden tassels and braids. An oil lamp taken from the Beyond dimly lit the tent from the middle and cast a great shadow of the girl occupying the tent with a cushion hugged in her lap. The girl looked up with her brown pooling eyes like dryheart wood and smiled fully, flashing her teeth, setting down her bookmark along the book at her side. Her skin was fair and dry, peeling at the edges just like every other, and her shaggy raven hair flowed messily down her shoulder, nearly covering her eyes.

“I see you, Mulba. May you find shade and water.” Kleonal greeted and smiled at the girl’s return to both her and Tirre and Nalschayl.

“What’s going on?” Mild concern plastered Mulba's face and she held herself higher. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing at all, we’ll just be off for a time. Wise Ones’ orders I’m afraid.” Tirre smiled apologetically, and glanced a fraction of a second at Kleonal. If Nalschayl and Mulba weren’t Maidens themselves, Tirre would’ve flashed the signs and fingers of Maiden handtalk at Kleonal.

“Are you hunting wyvern? If you are, I don’t see why you’re leaving so early.” Mulba frowned. Gratefully, Nalschayl remained quiet as she seemed content on letting Kleonal and Tirre explain what was happening.

“Not wyvern, you’d know if it was. We’re due some duty with the wetlander, Tirre and I, and Aeltarc and Rykar too. Nalschayl’s here to help us out with packing, don’t let us disturb you.” Kleonal explained and approached the rolled up carpets and chests stored at the back-end of the tent behind Mulba. But before she could take a step further, the Maiden jumped to feet and met Kleonal eye-to-eye, standing in her way.

Though Mulba was a hand shorter than her and had to tilt back to look her in the eye, she wore a face of determination that only further confused Kleonal.

“I still have toh to you, Kleo. Do not dishonour my blood by denying my offer to help you and Tirre pack.” She declared stubbornly, yet Kleonal shook her head and she seemed to only grow more steadfast.

“You owe me no such thing, Mulba. I would not take you for gai’shain then, nor will I do so now. I will not even let you help us pack, with Nalschayl, there are more than enough hands to help us.”

“Nalschayl may do as she pleases, my toh is to you. Not her. Not after I betrayed you so shamefully.” 

“Only a fool would take to blurting me out as ta’veren as betrayal, I did even tell you to keep it secret, you violated nothing. And such a time is long past. Do not be silly. Sit down, Mulba.”

“A fool!” She laughed dryly as if she was the one to have a right to be exasperated. “It was not my secret to tell, and it spread like a wyvern’s blaze. 'Long past' you say and yet I have not repaid it. You refuse me as gai’shain and refuse my gifts over the years just as profusely. Simply let me do this Kleo, I will likely not even see you for long, you have said it so yourself. Do not dishonour me, spear-sister.” Mulba glared at her defiantly, daring Kleonal to argue back, until a few tense seconds passed and Kleonal groaned in defeat, lighting a triumphant smile on Mulba’s face. A smile also mirrored onto the quiet Tirre and Nalschayl.

“Fine! Do not make a big deal of it, I doubt there is much to pack anyhow! Much of Tirre and I’s belongings is in Moon Pool Hold. Now make haste, I will shoot an arrow through the eyes of Rykar and Aeltarc if they are by the cave before us.” Sharing a large laugh and just as equally taking turns making fun of Rykar and Aeltarc, and all Red Shields as a whole, the four Maidens took to bundling weapons, books, cadin’sor, trinkets and waterskins.

Cadin’sor were the uniforms only worn by the Barrenborn of all the warrior societies, Red Shield, Waterseekers or Maiden—all of them. They went hand-and-hand with shoufa; a sun-blocking pale hood attached to a cloudy white veil. Cadin’sor meant ‘working clothes’ in Old Linkaric, the dead tongue of the long gone nation of Linkarsa. Equipped with numerous belts, pouches, braces and layered white cloth and leather, cadin’sor was one of the only things that felt natural to wear to Kleonal anymore, and like every other Barrenborn, she went to sleep naked under her sleeping rugs after a good half-hour in a sweat tent.

“I think you’re the only Maiden I know who uses the bow and arrow arguably more than the spear, Kleo.” Nalschayl smiled, she was packing away three quivers stuffed with wyvern scale tipped arrows, plumed at the end with the white and grey feathers of desert vultures.

Kleonal shrugged and smiled as Nalschayl bundled up the quivers in a wrap of ram wool, folded and tied together with a frayed braid of meticulously weaved hemp. “Wyvern were made to be shot down from the sky, their pale scales mocking the clouds are laughable. A child could spot them from the heights of Rozlin Mountain.”

Tirre was grumbling to herself, rerolling a carpet over and over again to ensure the edges were even. “I’ll leave the horned bows to you, Kleo. I’ll always be better with the spear than the arrow.” Mulba and Nalschayl shared grunts of agreement as they tied bundles and sorted rugs and cloths.

Kleonal stood up from her crouch at the back-end of the tent to gather up her sleeping rugs, three of four hypnotically embroidered carpets stacked atop each other to form a semblance of a ‘mattress’ as Kleonal had remembered reading. Wetlanders slept on mattresses, with their head resting on head-sinking feather-stuffed pillows, clothed under a heavy, suffocating quilt. She read that their children even embraced bear cubs called teddies in their sleep. In other books, Kleonal read that bears were grizzly beasts that lurked in the shade of forests—which were a whole thing entirely that Kleonal had trouble believing in—and had a bite capable of killing grown men. Kleonal thought less than a sand grain of wetlanders, but if their human children could wrestle a bear's children in their sleep, then perhaps they were not so weak as she had thought.

Kleonal rolled the sleeping rugs separate from each other and hauled the pile of them at the back-end of the tent, bundling them together with frayed rope and stretching upon finishing.

“There’s nothing else for us to pack, carry a fair share and let’s head outside.” Kleonal told them, and realised one moment too late that she had accidentally instructed them. Mulba might have been perfectly content with it, and she doubted Tirre and Nalschayl even noticed, but despite that, Nalschayl was a decade her senior and Kleonal had just acted as if their roles were switched. As she silently berated herself and her foolishness in her head, she hauled a small dryheart plank chest under the crook of her elbow in one arm, gripping a rolled rug on her left and right hand and curled her vacant arm around two, small ram woolen bundles.

Nalschayl left through the crack in the tent first, carrying a chest in her arms and a rolled rug under an armpit. Kleonal followed in stride soon after and took a moment of appreciation at the now-golden sun drowning from below the horizon, peeking over just slightly with the top of its head. The clear sky above it was painted a wispy conglomerate of rose pink, reds and darkened blues at the highest, hinting at the approaching night and its generous sprinkle of stars.

“You mentioned a cave in Rozlin Mountain?” Mulba recounted, looking at Kleonal then Nalschayl as she and Tirre emerged from the canvas tent. 

She and Tirre nodded, “East most cave, that is.” Kleonal told them. With no further pause, the four Maidens made their way off with their hands full and their arms heavy with chests, rugs, bundles and holstered wyvern scale tipped spears.

As they strode by doused, wispy cookfires and a few chattering Maidens, many waved, smiled or greeted them. All of them offered to help carry their baggage, and all of them were equally turned down.

Vague footprints in the white sand echoed behind them, imprinting their feet and filling the engraved runes on their soles with even more sand, all except Tirre. She wore knee-high leather boots stitched and refurbished over the years she wore them. Her father was the one who attained them for her back when she first became a Far Dareis Mai, a gift to remember her father by and a gift to further her new future as a warrior, her father said. He had looted them from a building in Poromiel after being sent with a few others from different warrior societies on an expedition to obtain books and maps and anything that could be of use. Like all expeditions of warriors sent to the Beyond, they never lingered long and were never spotted, and anyone who were lucky enough to see them were either killed quickly or left to be deemed a madman by their neighbours.

The four Maidens arrived at the tall, wall-like slopes of Rozlin Mountain, with holes of varying sizes that acted as entrances to wind-shaped caves and human-carved pods, Kleonal picked out the easternmost cave on this side of the mountain. Picking up her pace to the equivalent of a horse’s trot, her spear-sisters followed her example and eyed the large cave opening at the far east of the mountain’s slope.

Gritting her teeth, she already saw three people near the rim of the opening—a pale blonde woman of short stature with two taller Red Shields, each whom were wearing their shoufa unhooded. As soon as Kleonal noticed them, they noticed her and her companions, and Rykar cracked his face with a grin worthy of him being fed to a wyvern.

Tirre should’ve killed him over that waterskin. She thought, and held her face stone cold. Perhaps it was foolish of Kleonal to be so stubborn, but it was true. She was determined to show him just how unbothered she was, and looking back at her spear-sisters, it seemed they shared the same thoughts.

“Are some bundles and rugs too heavy for two Maidens to carry?” Rykar teased with his ever-present smirk. “You could’ve asked the Red Shields for help if they were such trouble.” Aeltarc rolled his eyes and jabbed him in the side, though Rykar might as well have thought it was the desert wind brushing against him.

“Unlike Aethan Dor, Far Dareis Mai actually bear a strong sisterhood," Kleonal scoffed. "we aid each other not from need but from love. O’ I wonder why you do not have your own shield-brothers aiding you? Perhaps it is because you know as well as I that asking a Red Shield for aid is like asking a toddler to sing. They will only end up embarrassing themselves as they try to prove their worth to you.” She spat at the sand with her own retort and cackles of laughter bursted from the other three Maidens as Kleonal wore her own smug grin.

Rykar scoffed and grumbled, but he said no more, and he wore his own faint smile still present on his lips. Aeltarc chuckled a little and shook his head, nudging Rykar, who kept muttering indignantly until he raised his hands in the air in defeat.

Cassandra merely looked confusedly between the Maidens and Shields as if she understood nothing of what happened in between them and simply shook her head. “Glad you’re having fun, but I told you only you four—” She pointed at Kleonal, Tirre, Rykar and Aeltarc. “are coming with me, the other two need to go.”

Without question, Mulba set the rugs and bundles in her hands into Kleonal’s, in the perfect areas to ensure they did not need readjustments. “My toh to you is far from paid, Kleo.” She huffed, and Kleonal rolled her eyes in amusement and exasperation. “But you will not be gone long, yes? The next you see of me, you will have me as gai’shain. You will. And rest easy, Kleo, I see your nervousness." She chuckled. "Rest easy. Rest easy. For you will be forever a spear-sister. You will forever be a Maiden of The Spear. You will forever be Barrenborn. I hope only honour for you, dear sister of mine. May you find shade and water, Kleonal.” Before she could even protest, Mulba was already walking off with Nalschayl, who had given her share of the baggage to Tirre.

“Mulba? Mulba!” She knew full well that the girl heard her by Nalschayl’s ill-stifled giggling and Mulba’s too-stony face to be anything other than purposeful ignorance. After the second calling of her name, Kleonal groaned and simply gave up with Tirre laughing at her side.

“All three of you are impossible.” Kleonal shook her head and scoffed, with Tirre trailing behind, bearing a grin that could rival Rykar’s.

They stepped up to the elevated cave entrance, placing their feet—and boots—on flat, even white stones and as soon as she reached the top she noticed a pile of ram woolen bundles and chests and embroidered rugs stacked near each other atop a large, thin beige blanket.

“To make it easier for Breithe to carry.” Cassandra clarified, already taking a few bundles from Kleonal’s hands before she could protest, placing them inside the perimeter. Tirre quickly put her own accumulated baggage onto the blanket just as Kleonal did with hers and stepped back as Cassandra pinched the corners of the thin cloth and folded, tying a knot in the middle.

“Who’s Breithe?” Tirre inquired as Cassandra grunted, hauling the blanket-bundled trinkets by her shoulder.

“She’s the dragon I’m bonded to, and I had to do a lot of convincing to have her willing to carry your shit in her mouth. She told me she wouldn’t burn it.” She said, then paused as if thinking. “Probably.” And shrugged.

“Assuring.” Aeltarc muttered, walking near them, accompanied by Rykar at his side.

“Hah! She’s more accommodating than most. Most dragons wouldn’t even let you come near them, much less have four extra idiots ride on their back.”

“We’re doing what, now?” Rykar asked blankly.

“Come on kiddos, follow me.” Cassandra ignored him and dropped down from the cave entrance, precariously balancing on loose stones. She missed every stable rock she could’ve landed on. Kleonal thought, but followed her regardless.

“What was the point of meeting here if we’re just going to start off somewhere else?” Tirre caught up to the woman first, skipping the stones entirely and landed with a thud on the white sand at the bottom. Kleonal, Aeltarc and Rykar followed in pursuit.

“I’d also like to add—I saw your green dragon enter here earlier, when did it move somewhere else?” Aeltarc said.

Cassandra stopped suddenly and turned on her heel, staring down—or rather up at—Aeltarc. “She. Breithe is a she not an it. Call wyvern it, I couldn’t give a care in the world, but you address dragons with the proper respect or you just might get flamed as soon as you meet her—prophecies be damned—every dragon has their dignity.”

Aeltarc fell silent, then said “Noted.” For an uncomfortable while, the only sound among them was the mixed crunching of feet and boots against sand, mingled with the howling of the night wind.

It looked no different than any other place in the Barrens.

With flat, unimprinted white sand yet to be engraved with the trudging feet of a Barrenborn hunting party or raid. Or perhaps it already had been, and their traces were merely erased from the passage of time and sandstorms.

Cassandra Luphore had led the Shields and Spears to the other side of Rozlin Mountain, where nightshade swept the lands, dousing them in a cold fire. A fire that left Cassandra herself shivering—though she did try to hide it—and had the four Barrenborn wandering as if nothing were amiss.

Resting in a curled swirl, a mound of bewitching green scales sparkled in the dancing of moonlight. She was smaller than some wyvern and larger than others, but her four legs and sharp, stained claws made it clear she was no wyvern.

“She’s beautiful.” As soon as Kleonal said it, deep, slitted red eyes stared back at her, and everyone stopped dead, everyone except Cassandra that is. A shadow of a smile creeped up on her lips but forcing it back down, she walked up to Breithe as she uncurled and clenched the blanketed bundle in her jaw. Strings of saliva dripped onto and sunk into the blanket—Kleonal was suddenly grateful Tirre’s belongings were set above her own.

Four desert vultures sat calmly perched atop the horns of Briethe, one was even pecking at it curiously, although the dragon seemed to think less of nothing regarding it. The vultures were trained in a manner, so they wouldn't attack anything that wasn't living—especially humans—spare for it's own self defense.

“We don’t have all night and it’ll be a long ride. You lot better hurry on before I tie you to Briethe’s tail instead!" Cassandra shouted back at them, already mounted on Briethe—where her serpentine neck met her spiny back—cloaked in shimmering verdant scales.

Tirre and Aeltarc were already striding to the dragon, but Aeltarc lingered at Kleonal’s side, patting her on the shoulder with a smile that could’ve warmed the moon. “You coming, or what?” He held out a hand for Kleonal to take.

It was hard not to mirror the same smile he wore, and eventually she seemed to give in, her hand hovering over his.

“And let you get there before me?” She grinned. “Red Shields never learn.” And she shoved her hand in Aeltarc’s face as she raced off towards the green dragon. Leaving only their long gone laughter in the night wind.