When it became obvious that Faynel was not going to play along with his repeated attempts at flirting, Eldran turned his attention to Mason. Somehow he wrapped even the most mundane of questions with disdain, but Mason acted as if he were being perfectly polite. If he were honest with himself, and he wasn’t, his calm demeanor probably had a great deal to do with Faynel’s behavior. She stuck to Mason’s side almost attentively, and though she clearly had a history with Eldran, that fact didn’t seem in the aristocrat’s favor.

They stuck to the main road now, which was more of a trampled dirt path made dusty by the steps of the refugees. Eldran had insisted it was safe, both because it had been scouted already, and because if any threats cropped up, he would be able to thwart them effortlessly.

“So, human, tell me of your people. Are they all as reckless and brazen as you? What of culture? Do your kings and councils treasure the arts?”

Mason rolled his eyes and considered ignoring him. If Eldran were any more obsessed with being pretentious he’d be a bonified caricature. As it were, he reminded Mason of a wealthy hipster at a renaissance fair. He had thought Marra was a modern planet, but apparently Eldran missed that memo. “We’ve got all sorts on my planet. Businessmen and scientists and drug addicts and people who just want to sit around and watch Netflix. Uh, television.” He squinted at the sky as he tried to summarize, “Like theatre but you can watch it in your own home any time you want. But whatever, there’s something like eight billion people on my planet, so think of a way someone can be and you can probably find it.”

After a few more steps, Mason noticed that the other two weren’t with him any longer. He turned to look at them and saw they were frozen. Their dark skin, even lit as it was with mana sight, looked pale.

“What?” Mason asked.

“Say that number again. How many people live on your planet?”

“Seven, maybe eight billion?”

Faynel’s eyes bugged, “It might be a stretch to say we have a single billion Marrans. How could you… but that’s so many people!”

“It’s a big planet. I mean, I don’t know how big Marra is but surely you’ve got space for people to grow? Once we had the world covered with roads and airplanes and mass produced food, people just kept reproducing. Our science and technology are pretty advanced too, so we have the medicine to keep most people alive for a long time, and well- I think a century or so ago we had a much smaller population.’

“Your people sound like vermin,” Eldran said as he gawked. Mason had the vague inclination that hadn’t been meant to be a direct insult- the noble was just naturally rude.

“I’m sure you’ll waste no time letting them know that if they ever meet you. But if Marra has a population of almost one billion people then New Marra is just a small slice of the population, right? Do you know how the selection works? Was it a location pulled to this world, or… well it couldn’t be age group, or relative strength…”

Faynel shook her head and bumped her hand casually against Mason’s, “There doesn’t seem to be any way to guess who will come through. The starter city, before we upgraded and fortified it, was in the style of what one of our small cities would have looked like maybe fifty, sixty years back? But the population is hardly homogenous. Obviously whole families came through, but that wasn’t consistent by any means.”

“It seems no coincidence that two of our great families were selected to represent our people,” Eldran boasted with a gesture toward his chest. “My grandfather perished, of course, but my father and I have both been nearly essential at helping to establish the city.”

“Of course your noble family refuses to serve in either the Roving Bands or the Defense Forces.”

He sneered at her, “We do not sully ourselves with taking orders. We are better suited to leading, and you’ll remember my father serves honorably on the council. And am I not here, risking life and limb for the cause of the city?”

“Miles away from the battle and abandoning your post? If you cared about helping, you would have shared your spell runes, at the least. You have a blink spell! Do you realize how much safer our scouts would be if they could master that?”

“If. If! These are no mere party tricks that any commoner can master in a night. My family has honed its magical aptitude even as it has gathered our extensive collection, and I myself trained relentlessly before gaining access to the greater spell runes. Would you risk lesser casters destroying the bands with backfiring spells?” Eldran stood taller now and bore down on Faynel, and though he was haughty in all of his movements, this outrage seemed more genuine than the great majority of his personality.

“Is there a history between the two of you that I should know if I want to follow this conversation, or…?” Mason interrupted, moving slightly between the two to break up the tension.

They both gladly redirected their irritation at him, “Learn your place and mind your own business. If either of us required your presence in this conversation, we would have given you the information you need.”

“I’m sorry, I was busy trying to figure out something which might be important to why the hell our people were getting dragged to this place, but no, go ahead and bicker about family politics and who should or shouldn’t use this magic or that magic. I’ll wait,” Mason threw up a hand as he walked a little faster ahead of them.

The three of them huffed back and forth for quite some time. A great deal of their arguments were about nothing. A greater deal of their arguments were about whether or not Eldran’s family truly was greater than any other. Either way, despite multiple attempts by each of them to move the conversation along productively, all failed. In the end, they settled for a tense silence to carry them down the road.

Mason was the last to notice they were finally approaching the caravan of survivors, so his first indication was when both of his travelling companions held out a hand for him to stop. His first instinct was danger, so his hand went straight to his sword, but despite their tension, neither of the others looked ready for a fight.

“Human, it would be prudent for me to move ahead and alert the defence force to your presence. Since I was forbidden to execute you, I’m certain others will consider taking that mantle upon themselves,” Eldran explained.

“I find it baffling that somehow everyone thinks I’m such a threat, but right, whatever. Faynel?”

She nodded, “It’s the right call. I’d have hidden you and gone ahead in any case if he weren’t here. Try to contact Torysen and either my mother or grandmother if you can. We need people to know Mason is here that don’t want him dead.”

Eldran looked down and away from Faynel, but he said, “Yes, of course. I’ll find what companions of yours that I can.” Without waiting, he turned on the spot and rushed off.

“You really don’t like him, do you?” Mason asked when he was no longer in earshot.

“Well, you’ve met him. There’s not much to like.”

~~

Even with- or perhaps because of- the early warning, Mason’s arrival to the caravan was met largely with unveiled distrust and almost outright aggression. He and Faynel moved slowly among the crowd, and somehow there always seemed to be a foot in Mason’s way. That was only marginally better than the frequent glints of steel or sudden bursts of mana that greeted him around the less savory looking groups.

In time, Leornal and Sentir backtracked through the crowd to join them as well, and the both of them looked as if their nerves were shot simply from being near Mason, though they greeted him kindly. Faynel stayed close, almost matching Mason step for step, Leornal walked a few paces behind, and Sentir stood ahead of them utilizing the full gamut of his scouting abilities to sense and avoid dangerous people.

It was strange to be so distrusted, and stranger still to have an escort. Mason began to wonder about the sustainability of this partnership with New Marra if his closest companions were afraid he’d get murder even among this sea of people.

But there was a part of him who understood. Who hadn’t heard about his arrival in the city, especially after his trial and the bold speech he gave? A great many people turned out to watch his first spars with Faynel, and even more had been involved in attacking him on his last night in the city.

He was a known threat and wildcard, and more than that, known for sacrilegious powers, and had appeared hardly more than a week before their entire city had been levelled. And the state of these people…

New Marra had never been a high-class city, but it was clean. The people milling about the city for the most part looked like city-folk. Most of them bathed often, maintained their clothes, and lived trusting their high walls and established combat teams to keep them safe. Those same people, only a day later, wore their anguish plainly. Mason saw a great many injuries- makeshift slings, acid burns covered in salves and herbs, and heavily tattered clothing were commonplace among the refugees. Everyone was covered in dirt from the explosions and evacuation.

What really stood out was how little possessions most of these people carried. Most had bags slung over their backs or around their waists. A few dragged more along behind them, but in comparison to the size of their moving population, they had practically lost everything.

So if they mistrusted Mason, or needed someone to blame, he understood. It didn’t make him resent them any less for the subtle attacks and less subtle looks they shot him, but he knew he’d be much the same if the roles were reversed.

He watched a mother shepherding along one of the youngest children he’d seen in the Trials. The kid kept shouting and pulling back against her, obviously missing something, and the mother just keep dragging the child along with a blank look on her face. The people around her kept looking away, unwilling to get involved, and haunted by their own memories of the attack.

The child finally seemed to grow irate, and just dropped to the ground, but even as its legs gave out beneath it, the mother just kept her grip firm and dragged the child through the dirt, until it finally realized it had lost and fought to get its feet back in place.

An elbow nudged Mason in the side, and suddenly his escort was merging into a larger group. Torysen’s band. It was the full band, not simply the small group that had gone to protect Mason originally, but even still the numbers looked low. Mason turned back toward Leornal to ask him how the battles had gone, but the words fell still in his mouth.

Leornal’s hood had shifted, and Mason had seen under it if only for a moment. His skin was warped and mottled on one side of his face, his lips moving stiffly as he breathed. Mason thought he saw it stretching down his chin, and realized then that Leornal wasn’t wearing the same outfit as earlier, either. Even he wasn’t tactless enough to ask how much of his body had been burned, and seeing one of his own friends wounded suddenly made the whole experience that much more real.

It was easy to detach himself from the suffering of the city. These people didn’t like him or want him here, and they definitely weren’t his people. He would help them, and support them, but that was more out of personal sense of heroism than out of a genuine compassion. His eyes snapped away from Leornal’s face and he remained silent even as Faynel talked with Torysen and orders were explained. When had Leornal gotten hurt? While he was under the staff’s curse? After?

This was a magical world, so surely a healing potion or a spell would be able to repair the damage, or so Mason hoped. Those damned Corrosi. It occurred to Mason that he didn’t even know what had prompted them to attack the city. It wasn’t worth anything at this point, surely. When he had left, other than the walls the city was mostly a sea of rubble. For all Mason knew, they had attacked for the fun of it.

And how was that different from how gladly he fought against them?

Mason clenched his fist and remembered the confidence they displayed as they attacked. The Corrosi fought like exterminators, aware that their prey could cause problems, but with the absolute certainty that they would wipe them out nonetheless. It was written deeply into the careless tactics they used, sending goblins in as cannon fodder and mercilessly assaulting anyone who survived.

When he was rested, and stronger, he’d strike back. Perhaps a pile of dead Corrosi would convince the Marrans to trust him. Mason would just have to find out through practice.

He was unconsciously gripping his sword as he contemplated his newfound determination to wage war on the Corrosi, and only tore his thoughts away from battle when he realized Torysen was walking next to him now and desperately fighting for his attention.

“What, what?” he asked.

Torysen sighed and muttered, “Get yourself together. We need to know if you are truly back to normal. Faynel insists that you are, but frankly if anyone outside of our group gets wind of what happened back in the city, I’m worried it’ll interfere with your role as ambassador.”

Mason blinked, “Ambassador?”

“You speak on behalf of the humans, and in favor of the Biord, or do you not remember that?” Torysen’s eyes narrowed.

“Yeah. Yes. Absolutely,” Mason recovered. “I’m sorry, I’m just worn out. But yeah. No more rampages from me.”

“How can you be certain?”

“He’s certain,” Faynel insisted as she rejoined the conversation. “It was a one time thing.”

Mason shook his head, “No, I’m not.” Faynel looked to be about to fight, but Mason looked Torysen in the eye as they walked, “I have to figure out my limits, and whether or not whatever happened to me is something I can control, or have to figure out how to fight. But I’ll do it, I will get it sorted out. I can’t say what it’ll take, but I’m not going to let it stand in the way of my doing the right thing for all our people.”

The ground shook, and great plumes of smoke went up in the air about a quarter mile back in the sea of people. Every single person in the area reached for their weapons at once, and Mason heard screams and sobs from beyond his personal entourage. Before anyone could move however, several runes shot up throughout the refugees, one after another, and each of them signified a stand down order.

“An accident,” Leornal surmised. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a great many more of those soon. I’ll take it upon myself to see that an experimentation area is set up and secured once we’re settled into our new residence.”

Mason looked at him, confused, and the archer shrugged, “These people just lost everything, but nothing more than the false sense of safety the high city walls gave them. There’s no telling what sort of half-baked runes or ancient spell systems are being passed around the survivors even now. Many more will be trying to learn to defend themselves after this.”

“It’s about time,” Sentir said. “There’s no reason so many people should be so afraid of making themselves useful. If our whole city had been prepared, rather than our small fighting forces-”

Torysen stomped and interrupted him, “Enough. What’s done is done. Mistakes were made, and mistakes will be made. But each of us will ultimately die trying to do what we think is right.”

The group fell quiet. It was an easy tendency for the Roving Band on the best of days, but in the wake of the living nightmare they had tried so hard to prevent, with a great deal on their minds, they fell to the tendency like a horse to a gallop.

Mason felt forgiven and trusted by Torysen’s declaration. In peacetime he had seemed like an atrocity. His willingness to try dangerous things for survival made him appear reckless and even foolish. New Marra had no need of desperate measures when they had high walls and trained forces capable of repelling most common dangers.

But the refugee Marrans would have to learn. When you’re threatened, you fight back with whatever is at hand. Mason just hoped they would learn before someone struck too hard at him out of fear.