Alex awoke to the early dawn, lounging and stretching in her tent. It was surprisingly comfortable, but no match for a proper down mattress. Still, she found herself appreciating Tyr for remembered to bring everything and anything. In her dimensional ring, all she had were a few stacks of books, changes of clothing, and miscellaneous artifacts. Paint and half finished canvases, but you couldn't make a meal of those.

Everywhere she went, she had servants. Or adepts beneath her – giving her a new appreciation of all that they did. And she'd never so much as considered thanking them for the service they provided.

These thoughts rolled through her pleasantly groggy head before she recovered her characteristic attitude. Of course they would, that was their purpose in life. Born weak or without ambition, they'd always be small things. A lesson her mother had taught her. Men and women of talent would soar, while chaff sank to the bottom.

Shit!

She jolted awake, scrambling for her robe in the realization that even she knew better than to fall asleep in the wilderness without so much as a guard being posted. Cautiously, she eased her head out of the tent flap and saw Iscari, fast asleep curled up against Okami – and Tyr. He sat quietly at the smoldering remains of the fire, slowly rubbing an oilcloth against the sword he always carried, reading from a book lay across his knee. Just a normal tome, this time.

Creeping from her tent, she joined him at the fire, reaching her hands out toward the warmth. It was cold, so early in this time of year, mist in the air and fine drops of dew patterning everything in sight.

“Who stood guard?” She hissed angrily. He could think of all these things, but couldn't think of that? Surely, he was at least qualified to be a proper vagabond. He'd certainly acted the part these last few years.

He looked up at her with dark ringed, bloodshot eyes – answering her question. It was clear that he hadn't slept. Hadn't in three days, which would normally be fine – but he wasn't immune to exhaustion, constantly forging and wearing himself thin. That's all he'd done for weeks. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the bright light of the kiln, the sweat vaporizing on contact, the shock that rolled up his arms all the way to the shoulder when he struck metal. The tang of hammer to ingot clanging in his head, not unpleasantly. He liked the measured rhythm of the sound.

“Good morning.” He replied softly. “I did. Please be quiet, Iscari is sleeping.”

Having a pleasant dream too, by the looks of it, groping at Okami's fur and giggling as the wolf kept one eye open and on him, either curiosity or amusement. It was hard to read his expressions.

“You stayed up all night?” She lowered her voice to a whisper, creeping closer so that he'd hear her. Even had she been across the clearing, he would've – if he focused. He could hear the creaking of trees and gentle breeze tickling their yellowed leaves. A squirrel rising in its burrow and scratching around. Just one part of all that was life, all industrious and significant in their own way.

“Of course.” Tyr stated calmly, still oiling his sword, back and forth to ensure it remained polished. It didn't need maintenance, but it was relaxing and he'd picked the habit up from Samson. Their weapons, both, were capable of minor self repair and cleaning. But the big man had always asserted that equipment respected and well kept was equipment that would save your life. Tyr wasn't sure if he even could die, but they seemed like wise words – so he did it. Aska's shape and surface becoming intimately more familiar with each repetition. It calmed him, and he felt that the weapon... It sounded mad, but it seemed to like it too.

“Why?” She was genuinely curious, not an ounce of venom in her voice.

“You were all tired.” He shrugged, plucking a cup of steaming tea in an aluminum tumbler that sat nearly inside the fire. An experiment, one he'd consider an obvious success. The scalding hot liquid didn't burn him, even when he took a swig of the near boiling water within. It hurt a bit, certainly, but it didn't leave a mark. Either his regeneration curbed it, or he was growing a natural resistance to heat through his relation to fire. A phenomena of repeatedly refining his world energy, even when he worked or studied. Always breathing in the same rhythm, maintaining the process every second of every day when possible. “You needed your sleep.”

Alex didn't reply, not understanding what had become of this man. She'd felt that way many times in recent memory. Tyr had never been considerate toward her or any other, he was cold and selfish beyond anyone she'd ever known. Alex was well aware of how conceited she could be, but she knew what he'd been up to all these years. Killing and reaving right in the middle of the imperial capital, his father letting him run wild. Sowing chaos that threw the demesne of a dozen families into lawlessness.

People had suffered, and she hated him for it. Without their nobles, the people would fall into anarchy, this was common sense – but he'd still done it. Refusing to present evidence to the courts and let them take care of it in the proper way. To ensure succession and maintain order in the empire while the justice system did its job. Her fathers justice system.

“You smell...” The words hung in her mouth. She'd thought to cut the tension by insulting him, because it always made her feel good to get a rise out of him. Not that he'd give her one at all these days, content to just stare flatly at her until things got awkward and she left. His gaze was as hard and cold as ever, but he had matured in the time they'd been apart. He no longer reacted, not so headstrong and impulsive anymore. Alex wasn't a liar, though. He smelled fragrant and fresh, despite his worn state.

Like the cedar oil used to preserve the bookshelves in her college, and the pleasant smell of the sky just before it stormed. An odd scent, not one you'd expect to smell on a man, but oddly enough – she enjoyed it. Wondering what kind of fragrance he'd purchased in the city. There were many wondrous things, but she wasn't aware of any luxury items. Having access to their vault account gave her that purview. All he spent money on were the odd necessities or school supplies, and deposits toward some business venture he'd invested in. And food, but that would fall sharply under the 'necessities' category, he was quite frugal and rarely made withdrawals. Compared to most nobles, with their tailors, retainers, sommelier's and other ridiculous luxuries. As if she had need of someone to constantly pour her wine for her... Pampered, positioned, petulant, but never profligate.

“You smell... Very nice.” She finished, clearing her throat and feeling a bit heady. At the same time, wanting to kick him right in his perfectly proportioned mouth. He was just so irritating, his complete lack of everything she'd want from him after all that had happened. All that he'd done.

“Okay.” She was acting strange. Tyr was confident that she'd never complimented him before, certainly not his smell. He hadn't bathed in over two days, giving him the impression that she must've awoken to something bizarre in their time apart. “Here.”

“This is?”

“It's called a croquette. I filled it with boar, onions, and green tomatoes. I met an elder in a village located on the Regis demesne...”

They talked like that for another hour. Well, Tyr talked, and Alex listened. The only comment she made was that the croquettes were not very good, but other than that – she listened. It felt strange, to see her staring at him with her bright violet eyes, hair rustling ever so slighting in the morning breeze. Still messy from a comfortable sleep the night before, the puffiness around her eyes from drowsiness. Nothing rude, no comments on what he'd done wrong or how he was the worst thing to ever walk the earth, just listening.

Before long, the others rose as well. Joining them while Sigi cooked breakfast, an affair far superior to Tyr's attempt at making breakfast. They talked very little, until Alex rebuked the group for leaving him on guard duty all night. An odd position of superiority to take considering the fact that she'd done the same, but nobody called her on it. It was, ultimately, a lapse in judgment. But Tyr listened to all those old bits of wisdom the old and more road worn men shared with them. He'd have done it regardless, and wouldn't have complained. He knew now to pick his battles, and that wasn't one that he had any interest in. Better to keep his grievances inside, shouting them aloud had never done much good for him.

The morning chill turned toward pleasant warmth, skies clear with clouds on the horizon. Maybe a storm was coming, it was hard to tell which way the wind would blow with the thick tree cover ahead. A forest still mostly green, the leaves this far south turned yellow slowly, and the most east they traveled the more cover was provided by the mountains to the north. Winters here were mild and the growing season long, but it would come.

In Haran, they'd be finishing up the harvest here in the following weeks and parading about with their gourds and squashes, all carved and painted in patterns. Hallows Eve, when Thanatos himself would 'rise from the underworld' to protect their souls from evil spirits and wrestle with the undead. A holiday of great significant in the north. Hallowjahl in Oresund. Tyr wondered if they celebrated it in the south, but he'd never cared for those special days and festivals of theirs. Didn't even celebrate his birthday, not for many years.

All pomp and no substance, these holidays. Thanatos hadn't seemed like much of a wrestler, but who was Tyr to say? He most assuredly disliked the undead, as any god related to death would, but it didn't quite fit his domain to go about putting them in choke holds.

There was great power in 'significance', Tyr had heard this from many people now. Maybe the holidays were real, or through the tradition they made it real, like some massive spell that protected the known world from hordes of unliving creatures. Maybe there really was a magic flying lizard that crawled down your chimney in the dead of winter to leave presents hidden all over your house and coins in your shoe.

Tyr was riding ahead a ways with Okami at his side while the others hung back. Occupying themselves with some bizarre Varian game where they picked an object from their surrounding and identified it by color. He was terrible at it, and despite his perceptiveness, saying 'I spy something green' was quite grating when they were in the middle of a damn forest.

Sigi and Astrid seemed to enjoy it a lot, Alex had ridden up beside him quietly to join him at the van. He remained watchful of the treeline as he had been taught by Fennic and Mikhail, always expecting something. It taxed his already tired mind, but he'd rather be stressed than find an arrow buried in his skull, and expanding his world energy to take advantage of the 'sixth sense' was just as effective as cultivating it otherwise. Like a muscle of sorts, using it had a similar effect.

Boring, though. It certainly wasn't interesting, bobbing to and fro on the horse, the quiet breeze blowing past them. These Varian steeds were unnecessarily tall, something he had observed. They were famed for their warhorses, now he knew why, feeling unsteady being so far from the ground. Their backs moved more than a horses should and they were thicker, causing him to bow his legs out in a way he wasn't used to. Even if just by a few inches, it was different enough to notice.

They were quiet for a while, and while she didn't seem uncomfortable, Tyr could not say the same.

“Can I ask you a question?” He turned toward Alex, seeking to break the monotony. She nodded. “Are we friends?”

Alex gave him a look one might have upon finding that they'd stepped in manure. “Not really, no.”

“Why do you hate me?” He asked, emotionless. Tyr had always been curious as to why Alex was so opposed to him, even more than the others. But then he'd noticed how rude she was to most other men at the academy, she was sort of just... Mean. Now that he'd gained some insight into interpersonal relationships from Iscari, he found her scorn to be a bit overblown, in his opinion.

“I don't hate you. There are parts of you I don't like, to be sure, but hate? Father always said that there's too much energy in hatred. No point in it.” She replied confidently. “It is quite obvious that I tolerate you, at the very least. But we are most assuredly not friends, Tyr.”

Tyr pursed his lips, biting off a scathing retort to avoid giving her a rise to anger. It hurt him, to hear that, but self reflection was important and he was trying to get better at it. “I'd like to be friends.”

“Are you serious?” Alex laughed, but there was no joy in it. More mocking. After receiving a flat nod in return, she sighed. “Alright. How about you stop running around murdering people?”

“Mages kill people all the time.” Tyr's brow lowered. He could read between the lines of what she had said. After seeing the Regis estate fall into shambles with the absence of its lord, elsewhere might have been even worse. Alex had already protested once about him 'giving her more work' and referring to him as a scourge. With that being said, he didn't understand how these things could be avoided.

What sense was there in delaying their inevitable judgment? He wasn't a hero, and had never thought of himself that way. He had selfishly pursued a goal at the expense of others, and it didn't eat at him as much as one might think. But he also didn't see himself as a villain. She was just a person, easily observed through Varinn's lens. Just a person with a choice, and he did not regret the choices he'd made.

Alex continued to confirm his suspicions. Four baronies, two counties, and a marquisate left bare of leadership, with the wives and heirs left behind lacking any understanding or explanation as to why. Even should they think to protest any perceived injustice, a primus – and by extension the prince – was feared by near everyone, everywhere.

They'd scorn him, but he was untouchable. If his game at playing dumb hadn't been so successful, Tyr would've been a deterrent not unlike his father. Unique in the way that he'd moved less subtly, but crimes might've stopped just due to his presence. All they needed to do was be aware that he was there and watching, as Jartor was. Instead, he'd played at a silly game for his own pride, vanity, or vengeance, and led to mass defections from the empire. Wives and heirs fled the country as soon as their houses had 'earned the ire of the prince', assuming they would be next.

“Blind and silent justice is not justice at all.” Alex said. “Mages kill people all the time, you say. True enough, for the rabble, but even the archmages of the colleges can't go around killing nobles. And for the record, I've never killed a single person, we detain first, we are not judges. There are courts for a reason, and you are not a god. Do you realize the result of your actions?”

“Yes.” Tyr hung his head. He met her long monologue with one of his own, explaining the banditry in the Regis barony. There was a regret in his voice that she wasn't used to seeing. Not a moral regret of one who had seen the deaths of innocents and prayed for their souls, but a selfish regret about being unaware of his flaws. It was a start, at least.

Alex was not as selfish as he was, but she understood well that a calculating mind set to duty was far more reliable and effective than those nobles that loved their citizens. Emotion would not give rise to fair justice. The law gave their feelings no faith, to her it was black and white. Laws existed to define sentences, otherwise they might as well not exist at all.

“It's not that you kill. Under the law, you could kill any noble in the empire and not a soul could bring you to accounting for it, besides your father. What I hate about you is your thoughtlessness. But I can see that you've considered that.” She sighed. “If you can promise me that you'll go a year without killing anyone unless absolutely necessary, and I'll give you another chance.”

Another chance? Tyr would've voiced the question, but Alex was still probably under the delusion that they were childhood friends. Having had, by her word, been very close at one point in time.

Alex was indeed not like Tyr. Mages would kill the odd bandit or monster, but the colleges didn't often carry out death sentences. They would capture alive when possible. If they failed in the attempt to do so, it wasn't a burden on her consciousness. Worth noting was that she'd never killed a man, but she knew that she would without hesitation if necessary. She wanted Tyr to show the same restraint expected of her.

She also spoke from a place that gave her a perspective he did not have. Jartor was, gods forgive her, not a very good father. Her own had tried to explain to her how the primus' were not perfect. The churches might deify them, but they were just men. Better than any man, but imperfect in ways normal men were not. They were born to ultimate privilege, their ears filled with honey and lies by the clergy. His parentage had left a gap in his moral compass, and once his mother had died – it had gotten even worse. Tyr held no consideration of the scars killing left on a man. She didn't think he was necessarily psychotic, but what she'd seen through Astrid's magic was not normal either.

Tyr had held a heavy burden, acting as a butcher from far too young of an age, and his father had allowed it. It was inconceivable, that kind of neglect. And she pitied him for it, through all her loathing at who he'd become.

“Okay.” Tyr replied. Staying out of trouble for a year was feasible and this was as important a challenge as anything else. She did say people, which meant he could still pursue adventuring if he wanted to... “I can do that.”

“...We'll see.”

–

“Okami.”

Their bond was such that the wolf had no need for explicit orders. Five riders ahead just barely visible through the trees and Okami was gone. Flanking around them in his smaller form to avoid detection.

The group was ragged and worn, with hooded heads and tattered robes that would mark them as mages. If it had been bandits, Tyr wouldn't be so concerned, but mages were another story. He'd reflected on his fight with the mage Curtis, finding him a poor standard for how the fight might play out. If one knew of his ability to heal, which anyone might – it wasn't exactly a secret – they could freeze him in a block of ice, suck the air from his lungs, or bury him in stone. There were an infinite ways to kill a man with magic.

Alex huffed beside him. “What's your problem? They are probably just academy students, but you automatically jump to violence?”

“Not violence.” Tyr shook his head. “I remember what you said. You think I'm a monster, and maybe I am, but I don't ride down innocents. Through experience I have learned that it's better to prepare for the worst possible scenario.”

She wanted to argue, considering their previous topic, but she couldn't. Tyr had grown in many ways, both in body and mind. Cautiousness was not foolishness.

“Hail.” Tyr called out when they were in range to allow the group of mages to see them. One of them fell from their horse in fright, as the others wheeled around with their hands extended. “Hoods off, and your purpose.”

He couldn't smell any of the ambient mana present in a spellcasting, that was a good sign. If they had made the attempt, Okami would be on them in an instant. He didn't know if that would count as a failure in Alex's eyes. But all he saw were worn and frightened young men and women, nervously revealing their faces. One of which was very familiar.

“Prin... Tyr?” Tythas asked. “What are you guys doing out here? I haven't seen you in weeks.”

“Who's this old guy? A professor?” Iscari pulled his horse to the fore and pointed toward the mage.

“I'm not old!” Tythas protested with a raised finger, nervously lowering said hand when he realized who he was speaking to. Tyr was a relative unknown, but everyone at the academy would recognize Iscari Longinus. “Apologies, prince. I am of a similar age to you all, I've got a... Condition.”

“How dreadful. Tyr, you know this man? He is your friend?”

Tyr shrugged. “Tythas, are we friends?”

“Well sure. But... Did you forget that I existed? I've been wondering where you were this entire time...” The mage looked downcast, his hair – similar in color to Iscari's own, was frizzy and tangled. They'd been through some kind of situation, but they seemed to be in the clear now based on the fact that they weren't overly eager to pass.

“Yes.” Tyr always did his best to be honest when there was no benefit in a lie. This was no exception, his face flat as he told the truth. “I had entirely forgotten that you were also at the academy. My apologies.”

“...”

“Any friend of my best friend...” Iscari said. His voice was smooth, but there was an audible challenge in the enunciation of the word 'best'. As if he were jealous, or wished to cement some hierarchy on their social dynamic. “Is a friend of mine!” He lightened up at that, riding forward to clap Tythas gently on the shoulder and make proper introduction.

Tythas felt dizzy. Tyr was one thing, rough around the edges but fairly lackadaisical in how he handled people, never overbearing. He didn't know Iscari, though, an heir primus, anxiously accepting the offered hand and giving it a shake.

“Then with my powers vested in me by my position as prince and founder of our sacred order, I – Iscari Longinus – do anoint you as an official member of 'the boys'. It is a great honor.”

“The... Boys...?” Tyr grimaced. “What the hell is that?”

Iscari laughed. “Don't be silly, every gang should have a nickname. As the best of friends, we should have our own.”

“...”

There was no sense in arguing over such a simple thing. 'The boys' indeed. Tythas explained that his group had come as part of a battle magic workshop. Fighting lesser monsters near the 'dungeon'. Only then did Tyr notice that professor Kael was flying high above in the sky, lazily sunbathing on a metallic disc. As one might assume, he hadn't been of much help, leaving his students to fend for themselves. Calling it an 'educational opportunity'. Seniors in more advanced years for the most part besides Tythas.

No deaths or significant injury, though, and to the academy – that's all that mattered. And Tyr was headed to the same place, wondering exactly what he'd find.