“Good morning, Ensign. Tell me, how are you holding up?”

The middle-aged man, dressed up in the same uniform as me, slides the door to the compartment with his foot. He presents one of the cups of coffee he’s carrying on the table in front of me. I appreciate the gesture, though I don’t drink coffee.

I release a labored sigh. To answer his question truthfully would be pointless. I try to crack a joke instead. “I’ve been better, Lieutenant Tobin.”

Tobin takes the seat across from me and tucks his ringed tail around himself. “I think we all have, Roland.”

It’s late morning, now. Or perhaps it’s the early afternoon. Time tends to lose meaning when you’ve been running on such little sleep. We had to wait this long for an airship to be released from a patrol around Varecia this morning. Not that I was in any hurry to leave.

When the cruiser finally arrived they harried us inside and took off again just as quick, heading on a direct course back to Varecia. I was ushered into this cramped, bare-bones compartment with not so much as a decoration on the beige walls and told to wait. Just as the drone of the stream propellers was lulling me to sleep, the Lieutenant walked in.

He takes a sip of his coffee while gazing out the window of the compartment. We’re intentionally flying low this morning, below the potential altitude that heartless monster would be flying at. “In due time we’ll debrief the other officers in your party, along with the pilot. But we wanted to start with you first. According to the crew on the ground, you were the most composed among the first responders.”

A light chuckle escapes me. To think, the lowly ensign was the most ‘composed’ out of everyone there. Who could possibly stay calm in the face of such a macabre tragedy? Evidently, me.

I suppose I should have expected a debriefing. I’d been so focused on the scene in the hollow that I hadn’t the time to consider what could possibly be in store for me once I returned home. I get the distinct impression this is going to be the first of many closed-door interactions I’ll be having over the coming days.

But before we begin this first one, there’s one lingering matter that I simply must have an answer to. “Lieutenant, may I ask a question?”

Tobin, typically a staunchly uptight officer, inclines his head. “Certainly. I’ll answer it as best I can.”

“W-What will happen to the Commander?” my anxious hands begin shaking under the table once more. “He deserves no judgment for what happened. None at all! Nobody could have anticipated a Lithan would have appeared in Ellynyide yesterday!”

The Lieutenant’s face grew grim as a storm. He angled his eyes and stared at the table a moment before drawing them back towards me. “I understand your apprehension, Ensign. As of right now, this is between you, me, and these four walls. But I have it on good authority that the Queen does not consider Commander Almandoz responsible.”

I gasp, feeling a weight lifted. I was certain that Duncan would be held responsible for what happened yesterday! It was his mission, after all. He told me he gave the Queen his personal assurance the Princess would return safely. “And he isn’t going face discipline or lose rank?”

“What I’ve told you is all I know,” Tobin clarifies, lifting his hands off the table. “The Queen is in a state of mourning, as I’m sure you can imagine. Nothing has been decided, yet.”

My fur settles. The mood in the palace must be horrible, right now. They’re still processing the news that the Queen’s daughter was slain at the jaws of a merciless feral, the first to be seen in Ellyntide in centuries. Although it’s been hours since we first saw the fatal tragedy in the hollow, it feels the full weight of what I witnessed hasn’t fully settled yet.

But at least I can take solace in the fact that Duncan shouldn’t face consequences for this. Quite frankly, the Queen would be foolish to reprimand someone as smart and intelligent as the Commander.

“Alright,” I say. “Um, thank you. We can start, now.”

Tobin takes a long sip and tables the mug. “Very well, then. Can you corroborate what happened after you first spotted the scene in the hollow?”

“It was…” I trail off, painful memories of those first few moments resurfacing once more in my head. The bodies were strewn about, all the blood that flowed…

“Take your time, Ensign.”

Oh. I guess I got a little lost in myself, again. I straighten myself back up and reposition my tail. “We went into the hollow… or rather, Commander Almandoz ran into the hollow and fell beside Captain Durham. I remained there with him and told LaRoche and Bryant to return to the Blue Daemon for help.”

“I see,” says Tobin. “Did you see anything else while the others went to get help?”

I hesitate a moment before shaking my head. “Harper began to survey the surrounding area, but… I stayed with the Commander most of the night. I was trying to keep him company, sir.”

I’ll never know the abject misery Duncan experienced last night. The heartache of seeing your partner strewn about dead before you, compounded by the agony of knowing there was nothing left of the person he was assigned to protect.

I stayed close all night, offering him a shoulder to cry into. Letting him blow his nose onto the fabric of my outer coat. Found him water when he could no longer produce tears. While the others worked the scene and talked to the investigators, I remained with him… it was the right thing to do.

He stayed with the captain until morning, right until the moment it was time for him to board the ship. His face was dolorous, and he ambled slowly around the brambles toward the ship. Once on board I wanted to stay with him until we landed, but we were placed into separate compartments. My only hope now is that he’s given enough time to rest before questions are asked of him.

The Lieutenant keeps his expression even. I’m unsure if that was the response he was hoping for. “And, the unidentified animals. Were they disturbed in any way until the trauma team arrived?”

“No,” I answer quickly. “Harper and Bryant looked them over, but… it was too much for me and LaRoche.”

I stare at the table, feeling shame flow over me like cold water. I’m supposed to be a member of the Palace Guard, not a frightened child. I don’t believe anyone should be numb to grizzly scenes of horror, but I’m not a front-line soldier, either. I enlisted in the guard because I needed a paycheck and a resume, not psychological trauma.

Tobin drew another sip. Our lack of bravery didn’t seem to bother him. “I’ll need to save the rest of those questions for those two, then.”

“Has the team drawn any conclusions about who they are?” I ask, angling my head forward. Might as well take advantage of my rank.

The Ringtail pauses a moment, flicking his eyes to the door, and back towards me. His expression is as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “There are no definitive conclusions yet,” he whispers, keeping his voice low and firm. There are civilians on board this ship. “…But we found evidence nearby that points to Crow Wing. Scouting the area for a potential incursion.”

My face grimaces. It’s exactly as I knew it would be.

Until the Queen’s fall yesterday, the ongoing border dispute had been all anyone talked about. Most people agreed with the Queen and her hard-line approach to the Island floating into our territory. But I thought it was stupid. Dangerous, stupid rhetoric that could quickly escalate into a broader conflict with a nation more powerful than us.

A lump forms in my stomach, internalizing this sordid news. If his theory about a scouting mission turns out to be true, then a confrontation is inevitable.

“But that’s only half the story,” Tobin continues. “The appearance of the Lithan right then and there… makes little sense. Our response to the former is going to depend on the conclusions of the latter, and I’m afraid there are no easy answers.”

That’s understandable. The scene in the hollow beggars belief and reality. The agents from Crow Wing, torn apart by the Lithan. Durham, Laurent, and Bodie, clearly slain by punctures from a rapier, and not so much as a scratch from the Lithan. It’s as if the Crow Wing agents attacked our people and then the Lithan appeared out of thin air, enacting penance for their grave sins.

But the absence of the Princess’s body has been the biggest conundrum. The team on the ground combed the entire weald this morning, looking for any evidence that the Princess might have escaped the horror that occurred in the hollow. But the only thing they were able to find was the remains of a bear and pieces of the Princess’s clothing in the brambles surrounding the hollow. If she truly was… consumed by the Lithan, then it’s unspeakably tragic that it chose her first out of all the animals there.

Agents of Crow Wing, neatly torn apart, while our soldiers remain undisturbed. With the Princess’s body missing, and the Lithan’s abrupt departure, it almost leads you to believe…

…

…Well, no. That couldn’t possibly be the case.

Melicola will deny the attack. And without the Princess’s body, they’ll have a plausible argument to back them up. I do not envy the Queen and the decisions she must now make.

A gentle knock from outside interrupts my thoughts. Tobin rises from his seat and cracks open the door just wide enough for a Ruffy’s snout to peek through. It whispers something into his ear, and the Lieutenant’s face turns glum. The ruffy departs, and the door is slid shut again.

“Something’s come up,” he announces. “Some sort of incident up by Owens Island. I’ll need to finish my debriefing later, possibly back in the palace.”

“The Lithan…?” I ask wearily.

“Perhaps,” he says. “If so, that means it’s heading back north. At least Varecia will be safe.”

I nod slowly. Lithans, sometimes seen roaming the skies over Sarlain, have never attacked one of their cities before. But we all assumed the worst when the news reached us that the Lithan was spotted over the skies of Rhl. If the legends of their fire were truly real, then it could have a been a nightmare.

“Lieutenant, before you leave,” I speak up as he’s about to leave the compartment.

He turns back towards me and slides the door shut to keep our conversation discrete. “Yes, Ensign?”

“When we found Captain Durham’s body,” I speak slowly as the emotions from those first few moments return to me. “There were large feathers draped over him. The Commander moved them out of the way as he grieved, but…”

Was the Lithan moments away from consuming the Captain, too? Perhaps we’ll never truly know.

Tobin’s ears fold back and his face turns grim. He slips through the door without saying another word and slides it shut behind him, leaving me to my thoughts and the drone of the propellers.

I stare into the table, noticing the undisturbed cup of coffee that the Lieutenant offered me. It’s cooled down considerably since then. Feeling curious, and with nothing to lose, I take a sip.

It tastes bitter.