Ares had been waiting eagerly for dinner to come so he could ask everyone to send over someone to join him on his quest to the West. He wondered what he would call the escapade, and then another idea flashed within his mind.

‘I should make this into a story…’ Ares thought as he looked up to the sky. Runar slapped him across the face as she came into view and Ares winced. “Oi.” He said as he brought her down off of his shoulders and then began to tickle her with various raspberries before then bringing her to his chest. He reached down to then tickle her nose with a finger.

“Damn… if only there was a way we could make paper…” Ares looked over to the wood. Apparently the wood, he forgot the name of it, was pretty great for making items out of wood in general. He wondered if maybe they could make paper out of it though…

Then he thought about water powered mills. ‘We should probably focus on that…’ Ares sighed and then brought Runar up to his cheek to rub his against hers. ‘I need to play around with Ozar and Ozri too.” Runar then began to squirm so he dropped her down.

Runar sauntered around the area, exploring the place. She reached down and picked up a stone and then brought it up to her mouth, though Ares quickly picked her up and tossed the stone away. Runar reached out to his hand to take the stone back, stared at it, and then began to cry.

“Yeah, yeah, I know… let’s go get you a dummy…” Then Ares stopped. There weren’t any dummies…

“Seriously…” Ares groaned as he then began to rock Runar in his arms before heading back to the main area where his personal tent was. He had yet to get his own building, he wasn’t sure where he wanted it, how big it needed to be, and so on. Since Lana was going to be his Queen, he’d need to speak to her as well. He blushed at the thought of it.

“What’s on your mind?” Called a familiar voice.

Ares turned to see Jin. “Jin? Oh, nothing…” Ares said as he cleared his throat. “Did you need anything?”

Jin nodded. “We’ve been moving between hunting grounds and have been finding a lot of meat, but we need to expand our range otherwise it will become an issue in the future.”

“Hmm…” Ares reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sure. Go ahead and scout around for new places to hunt. I’m not sure about deeper into the mountain though…”

“We were thinking about it. We know that there are plenty of drakes up ahead, we could hunt a few of them and then increase the population of whatever they were hunting to hunt for ourselves. My family knows of such methods.”

“Alright, well, I’ll leave you in charge then.” Ares smiled. “You can be the Head Hunter, or something like that? I’ll think of a name.”

Jin smiled, his eyes beaming with joy. “I will accept the honour whenever you wish to bestow it upon me, Ares-kin.” He bowed his head as his ears twitched rapidly.

Ares laughed. “You’ve been doing a lot for me, no, you’ve been doing a lot for Rivea. I’m very glad to have someone as reliable as you in our Kingdom.”

“You have been a great King to serve, that is all.”

“You’ll make me blush if you keep that up.”

“Is that why you were blushing earlier?”

Ares laughed. “Perhaps that is so.” Ares continued to chuckle as Runar head butt his chest, striking the metal. She stopped and then looked at the metal before crying. Ares kissed her forehead and then rubbed it, quickly making his way to a shaman. “You idiot.”

When the evening meal had come, Salea had come to find him. “Ares-kin, we have an issue.” She said before then the gong began to sound.

Ares looked up to the watch tower nearby to see that the flames were lit. “Well… is it urgent?”

“No, not that urgent. I’ll bring Rori to deal with it instead.” Salea nodded to Ares as he leapt out of the tent.

He ran to find his Flying Wolves, seeing them already mobilising with snarls and barks, swiftly grabbing onto their wolves. Ares ran over to find the black wolf laying around.

“So, want to go for a run?” Ares asked as the black wolf lay there, glaring at him. “Alright, fine…”

Ares said as he turned to look at Ark. “Are you ready?”

Ark shouted out to the various Captains, four of which replied back. “Almost. One Squad were out training.”

“That’s fine. Stay back with your Squad…” Ares thought about it. “No. Leave another Captain with their squad and have them ride with the tired Squad, tell them to not move too swiftly.”

Ark nodded and then Ares leapt up into the air, shifting into flames of white and gold before he circled the area waiting for Asylla, but she was not here, and so he flew towards the watch tower.

Ares flew swiftly, though his body felt heavier with each passing second. It seemed as though he wasn’t completely recovered from his previous illness, though he did not worry about that for now. He would need to refrain from using the form for too long, luckily he could fly quite swiftly, and even if he flew at the same pace as the wolves, he could still appear at the fort a little quicker.

He dropped down when he approached the base of the mountain, dropping down to an awaiting Leitenant. He saluted Ares and then quickly spoke.

“Ares-kin! Humans, many of them, they are camping a little ways away, they outnumber us about three to one.”

Ares nodded. A few hundred humans wouldn’t be much of an iss-

Ares furrowed his brows as he rounded the corner to see the five Companies of beastfolk that he had stationed here.

Oh… he had stationed more here earlier…

He looked out into the darkness, seeing many little dots miles away. “So there’s that many humans…”