“My apologies, I didn’t know it was your birthday celebration a couple of days ago,” Reinhardt held a hand over his heart and bowed his head. “I have been rude.”

“No, not at all,” Yuriko said, startled. It was early in the morning and she had just gotten out of the bath after her morning exercise. She barely threw on a robe before Ryoko answered the door. “I didn’t even know they were planning something.”

“Regardless, let me present my gift to you.” He handed a small rectangular box to her. “Please take it.”

Yuriko demurred but Reinhardt pressed the box into her hands, his fingers lingering for a moment, leaving his warmth across her knuckles.

“A mere token of my affections.” He gave a sweeping bow, “By your leave?”

“Oh. Of course.”

Ryoko shut the door as he left, and her shoulders shook as she giggled. Saki chuckled under her breath while Yuriko looked askance.

“Did you see how carefully he avoided looking at your legs? Hie hie hie!” Ryoko chortled.

Yuriko rolled her eyes and brushed her damp hair over her shoulders. The three of them had developed a camaraderie over the past weeks. While Saki was quiet and unassuming, Ryoko was more vocal and had a sharp sense of humour. Truthfully, the older attendant reminded her of Krystal, with how she often tried to dress her more provocatively than was comfortable.

Yuriko opened the box while Ryoko laid out her Sharom uniform. Inside was a rather ornate fountain pen. The barrel was white jade, and the nib was gold. Familiar runescript lines were etched around the edges. If she wasn’t mistaken, those lines allowed her Animus signature to soak into the ink so that she didn’t have to focus too much when she signed.

“That’s beautiful, young mistress,” Ryoko gushed. “I wonder where he had it made.”

Yuriko looked at the box, but it was unmarked. There wasn’t a note or a dedication either, but she supposed Reinhardt could have just said what he wanted to say to her face to face.

“It’s nice.”

Ryoko giggled then she and Saki took Yuriko’s robe and finished drying her off. Early the last couple of weeks, Yuriko tried to stop them from serving her that way but failed miserably at the sight of their hurt looks and whimpering sobs. So, she endured the rather vigorous scrubbing in the baths and the delicate, yet thorough, pat down they gave her afterwards.

After she was dressed, she returned to her desk where there was a pile of letters. Rejection letters. She had insisted on handwriting each one but now regretted doing the right thing. Five hundred twelve letters each contained the same note.

“...

Thank you for your interest, but I’m not yet ready.

Regards,

Yuriko Mishala Davar”

She had to imbue her written signature with her Animus signature, too. Well, she was only a third of the way through the pile and Reinhardt’s gift was quite timely.

“Are you certain this will lead to no ill-feelings?” Yuriko asked.

Ryoko shrugged. “Proposals are always sent to Aerule Garden. It’s not as if our clan members can marry everybody. Not at the same time, anyway,” she chuckled. “Few, if any, ill feelings happen from this, and for most, the letter and gift is merely a toss of the dice. Who knows, one of ours might say yes.”

“Alright,” Yuriko murmured. She had just enough time to finish a dozen letters before she needed to leave for the city.

“Well, there’s only one sender that’s hard to deny. It’s even in the clan rules that you can’t reject it outright.”

Yuriko looked up warily and arched a questioning eyebrow.

Ryoko sighed dreamily. “It’s when one of the Pia’Vasi make a proposal.”

The Empress’ children?

“Why?” Yuriko asked. ‘The Imperial family, huh?’ Yuriko thought in a daze.

“It’s part of the clan’s purpose,” Ryoko chuckled. “But don’t worry about it. Ehehehe, he didn’t send a proposal amongst these.”

Yuriko hadn’t read all of the letters, of course, though she did try to take note of all the names and family names. Still, there was too much for her to remember easily. Ah, about half of the ones she read contained romantic poetry and nearly all of them contained suggestive words. Her ears burned whenever she recalled the more…open and inviting ones, and she resolved to avoid those clans in the future.

Ah, not all of them were her age. Miya, Ryoko, and Kiyo told her laughingly that more than a dozen were at least twice her age. Damien’s words burned in her mind and she snorted in annoyance.

Later, that afternoon, after she finished her class and her afternoon training with the swordmaster, she and Miya met in the city estate and had secluded themselves in a parlour. After they were served tea and cookies, the attendant was told to leave and make sure they weren’t disturbed.

“Well,” Miya said, “it’s time to teach you about how to control your Mien.” She paused, looked at Yuriko’s tummy, well, towards her navel actually, with her eyes glowing with Chaos Sight. “You don’t have Fertility Control?”

“Ah, no, not right now,” Yuriko hastily answered. “But Aunt Kiyo taught me how a couple of years ago.”

“No wonder it’s too strong right now,” Miya muttered. “Well, you’d better activate it again.”

“But…” Yuriko muttered. “While it’s convenient not to have to worry about bleeding every Moon cycle, after undoing it, it makes it a bit worse right afterwards.”

“Painful?”

“Yes. Cramping too.”

“Those aren’t unusual symptoms but they will not be an issue once you learn Body Sculpting.” Miya added, “It’s the Mishala technique to control the body’s form and aesthetics.”

“I’m aware,” Yuriko answered. “Mum told me during the trip here.”

“Yes, well,” Miya shrugged. “You’ll want your Fertility Control active mostly to regulate your emotions. Strong emotion, positive and negative, makes the Mien stronger but also harder to control. During the middle of our cycles, if the control isn’t active, the Mien’s effects also become more…erratic. We don’t want that, side perks notwithstanding…”

What followed was a rather clinical lesson on fertility, pregnancy, child-bearing, seduction, attraction, lovemaking techniques, what men like against what women like, and so on and so on.

Yuriko’s cheeks, ears, neck, and bosom had long since turned crimson from embarrassment. And curiosity. When Miya started describing self-pleasure and knowing her own pleasure points, Yuriko couldn’t help but interrupt.

“Is this all related to the Mien?” Yuriko asked.

Miya raised an eyebrow. “Yes, of course. Pleasure, yours and others, is the core of the Mien. Pleasure so great that your…target…would do anything to have another taste. The strongest of us…well, Lady Sadeen’s usage of her Mien is so great that should she Will it, anyone who sees her will seek the pleasure of obeying her commands, no matter how harmful it is to themselves. Pleasure. It’s the mind’s way of reinforcing a particular behaviour. Focusing the Mien on another creates a need to obey our will, simply because it creates great pleasure within them.”

“This…this sounds much like controlling minds.” Yuriko shuddered. Her experiences in the Pure Lands, in Euphoril’s Temple, were still vivid. Something tried to control her, and she didn’t like it one bit.”

“Controlling minds,” Miya laughed. “Everyone does it, in one way or another. A mother controls her child’s mind through words and actions if only to prevent them from harming themselves. We Mishalas simply have a more powerful and pervasive method. Besides, if it helps, think of it this way: they want to do our bidding. Our training simply focuses the Mien’s effects so that it becomes more effective. Besides, you have to control your Mien, otherwise, it will control your life. You have so many marriage proposals since you weren’t able to restrain it properly and it affected everyone who saw you, perhaps even those who’ve only heard of you.”

Miya continued her explanations, and Yuriko wondered why it wasn’t Mum or Kiyo, both older than Miya and undoubtedly well-versed in the usage of the Mien, teaching her. When she asked as much, her cousin replied, “Lady Sadeen has a rather busy schedule, and Kiyo Alfein doesn't have the Mien.”

“Aunt Kiyo doesn’t?”

“Not the complete version. Just a minor expression. She isn’t a core member. Now, I’ll describe a set of meditative exercises to allow you to focus your mind and control your emotions. The next step is actually projecting your feelings towards someone, but first, self-control.”

Yuriko sighed as she listened and took note of the meditation technique. Yet another one that she had to do every day. On a brighter note, her Animus Cap felt like it was finally reaching Sollus. It was already approaching two hundred lumens and her Anima had expanded all the way to forty inches from her skin–a full pace. That was more than enough for her to advance to Knight. She could advance soon, within the Season. She could feel it in her bones and she couldn’t wait to get it done.

_________

The Imperial camp still didn’t have a name though Marron heard it called the Northern Gate or the Frozen Camp. Either name was apt, as indeed, this was as far north in Rumiga that the Empire had pushed, and it had been frozen for the entire year.

The Northern Barbarian’s mountain fortress was just a couple of leagues north of the camp, inside a mountainous wall that probably had the Veil behind it. The camp was set in the flatter part of the tundra, and the militia, as well as some Agminis units, had created shelter and a mustering point.

He had just come from a forward observation post, and one of his duties was to snipe at any barbarian attempting to leave the fortress to forage and to warn the camp if there were other tribes arriving. Over the past year, the Iron Skin Tribe had been joined by three others, the Fleetfoot, the Ravaging Claw, and the Frost Dancers. It swelled their numbers to the high thousands and their warriors drastically outnumbered the Imperials. If not for the Colossi, the Plasma Casters, and the numerous Knights, and most distinctly, Knight-Commander Kinnock, the Frozen Camp would have long been overrun.

How long would they have to remain here, Marron wondered. Storming the fortifications would be nothing less than suicide for the majority of the weaker warriors. But just having the Knights rush in would also be foolish. The fortress had been dug into the mountain, so who knew how deep it ran. In fact, several earth movers and surveyors had already ascertained that the mountain wall, much like the one near Rumiga City, was spiderwebbed with tunnels. The entrances were well guarded by the barbarians and under strict surveillance by the Imperials.

“We’ve got to starve them out,” Marron muttered. Their food supply shouldn’t last that long, not when there were that many of them. Unless they had access to a Chaos Channel, but there were no indicators of one existing here. A siege could last years, and it would grow much worse.

Their own supply lines were under duress. There were other barbarian tribes aside from the four already here, though they weren’t as numerous or as powerful. In fact, one of the ways they managed to thin the numbers was to use the logistic transports as bait for barbarian raiders.

Marron trudged back to camp, following the well-trodden trail across the deep snow. It was already the Season of Earth but there was no sign of an impending melt off. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if the base of where he was walking was actually dirt. For all he knew, under the harder packed snow was ice.

When he came to camp, he found it oddly active, with dozens of messengers running on the ground. Messenger cranes weren’t in use here, the cold shattered the paper wings when they flapped and reinforcing the runescript lines would cost too much. Simpler to designate cadets and lower-ranked warriors to the task.

“What’s going on?” He asked a sentry, who was craning her neck to watch a gathering of people not ten paces away.

“I don’t know, sir.” The woman, well girl, now that he had a better look. She couldn’t have been that much older than Yuriko. “I heard that there’s news back home.”

It couldn’t be anything good, not from how the messengers were frowning. Heart racing, he hurried back to his quarters. Niamh should know what’s going on.