Gíla Arsinoe stood in the smithy with wide eyes and thundering heart.

Her captain, Jira ne'Jiral, stood beside the gift she had prepared for her second. Her dagger-thin lips were spread into a painful yet genuinely mirthful grin, and her cold steel eyes darted from it to the Drayheller in anticipation of her reaction. For some odd reason, this was far more disorienting and unsettling to the Drayheller than had it been any other type of smile. In the nearly five months that she had known this ethereal woman, genuine - actual genuine - joy was as much a rarity as Gíla's desire to fight in another battle.

"I had been having these specially made for you since you were made my second," Jira revealed after Gíla remained silent for nearly a minute. Her voice was calming, soothing even. "I decided you should have equipment that differentiates you from the rest."

Gíla's breath was hitched in her chest as she stared in awe at the panoply. Set upon a mannequin of similar stature as the bear-maiden, the suit of armor was perhaps the most impressive, though the hammer was also utterly beautiful. She walked up to it when movement was returned to her limbs, gobsmacked and voiceless.

"Well? Do you like it?" Jira asked, subtle impatience striking her voice.

The Drayheller sniffed and walked up to it. Silent she remained as her eyes devoured each detail of the suit, and finally, when she found her voice, all she could say was: "This is incredible." She whispered the words; her voice drenched in the tone of uncertainty. Is this real? Is this a real gift for me? Jira moved away from the armor, adding to the bear-maiden's uncertainty.

"Is that all?" Jira chuckled.

What more was she to say? What could she properly enunciate to convey the emotions boiling inside her heart? Everything about it was, observably, immaculate. Everything she was told over and over that she would never have.

She reached out and ran her fingers over the metal of the breastplate almost at will. She marveled at how smooth yet hard it felt, how reflective it was for something so dark. So polished that it provided a look back at herself. Like the polished void armor of the lost Deukian Lions. Unbreakable, camouflaging. The entirety of the set had been made out of midnight-black steel, set over a pitch black arming doublet threaded and studded with silver and padded black trousers. Each segment was smooth and visibly seamless, particularly with the breastplate, plackart, rounded-square pauldrons, and fauld. The latter was decorated with purple studs, while the pauldrons were adorned with small spikes aligned in such a way as to resemble open jaws. Thin purple enameling had also been provided, running across the plates in various geometric patterns, with the rondels, couters, and poleyns featuring a more discernable pattern of dual-colored roses edged with thorns.

"Poor Orinus had to work night and day on this," Jira said. "Cost me a lot of my coin to have him prioritize it whenever possible."

Why did she do this for me? Drayheller have never worn full armor, not once in their history. Why am I to be the first?

Gíla's eyes fell next to the cuisses, greaves, and soleless sabatons, which featured only the geometric patterns yet gave her the greatest inkling of protectiveness. When she trailed her eyes back up, it was the helmet that took her breath away the most as it fully settled in her sight. Unlike the standard beaked helmet of the Duke's knights, this one was uniquely bestial. It resembled the placid expression of a true bear, solid black with a gold-toothed snout extended for Gíla's own. The visor was designed as two empty sockets for the bear-maiden to see through, and the crown of the helm featured a long braid of white fur from which animal she could not tell.

"I don't know what to say," she finally admitted with a brittle, shaky voice.

Jira snorted and walked up to the bear-maiden, placing her hand on her massive shoulder. "It took a while to figure out the necessary measurements because of how much you've…" She made a motion with her free hand. "Grown over the past few months. But I think I got it spot on."

Gíla laughed nervously. "I never thought I'd have such…armor. I mean, no one ever-"

"I'm not 'no one,' Gíla," Jira interrupted, her smile faltering a sliver. "I'm your captain, and I say you've earned it."

"Earned it?" the bear-maiden asked, incredulous yet still hit by unshakeable gratitude. "How have I earned it? I've only fought once and was dreadful at training the others. I mean, I'm scared to hurt them. You had to replace me almost immediately."

"I disagree," Jira countered. "Your physical training for them may not have been that helpful considering the disproportionate distance between their limits and yours, but you have been teaching them a great deal during study sessions. I've heard more people from the Contemptors talk about history that no other guild talks about. Your damned Acominatus and the rest. Intelligence and wisdom will keep them alive just as much as any sword and shield. I'm not running a band of idiots."

The bear-maiden's nerves lessened for a bit from the praise. "I suppose, but…" Her golden eyes narrowed, settling on the empty sockets of the helmet. "Is that really worth such extravagance?"

Jira exhaled through her nose and moved in front of the Drayheller, running a hand along the left pauldron as one would do to their lover's face. "When I was given my first suit of armor, I was elated," she explained, looking back at her second. Her expression was still mirthful as she did it, but her eyes still told of something that startled the bear-maiden. Just as they had at Vucan.

"I am elated, Captain ne'Jiral," Gíla hurriedly exclaimed. "I just…wasn't expecting to have such a suit made for me in my lifetime. Or…ever. No Drayheller has-"

"Ever worn armor beyond leather or hide, I understand that. But times change, and you need armor. Remember what I told you?"

Gíla smiled graciously. "I need to stay alive."

"Exactly. That and that this war is going to get worse. More fields of Vucan bloodied and such."

"Do you think the Raech will be as bad as Vucan?"

Jira shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how well Orlantha can hold the tower while we hit them from behind. Or if we can even hit them from behind. Either way, we will kill some of them."

Gíla's ursine lips crooked in thought as her eyes inevitably fell to the weapon held in the mannequin's hands. A war hammer, explicitly built for Gíla's massive hands, capable of being wielded in one hand or two. She was uncertain if any, save for perhaps Zane the Colossus or Ham-fist Torin, could lift such a monstrous thing. The black-iron head featured a broad hammer and a curved horn spike etched with triangular gold shapes. The iron shaft was engraved with decorative gold lines and wrapped in black leather bindings. If the bear-maiden needed to use it as a stabbing weapon, a spiked pommel was affixed to the end of the shaft.

Gíla's face darkened as she stared at the great beast of an armament. "Should have given you a hammer," Goscelin had said at Vucan. "Would have kept your hands clean, done the same thing."

Jira lowered her hand from the suit and crossed her arms. "You don't look pleased," she said. Her face had fallen to a worried, nervous smile.

Gíla breathed in sharply as the hammer morphed into something bloody and dripping. She saw herself holding it, the raging waters of what she assumed was the Raech rushing behind her. Rannulf's body, crushed and deformed, lay at her feet in twitching agony. Why would I? I wanted to leave. To home and forget this war, but I stayed. I stayed for the history of it.

"I'm just remembering Vucan again," Gíla said truthfully. "The boy I killed. He won't leave me be."

Jira lowered her head.

The bear-maiden reached forward, brushing her captain aside and gripping the cold shaft of the war hammer. Practically ripping it out of the mannequin's hands, she held it up in front of her face, the weight not even noticeable to her. Her eyes were furrowed, and their gold was heightened to an almost flaring degree. "I'm not wanting to fight again. Vucan was enough for me."

Jira stepped closer. "Gíla-"

The bear-maiden stopped her with a small twirl of the hammer. "But I know we have to. I know that I signed on for this. As Tamas once told me: ' It's appalling, inhumane, and ruthless.' And I need to get used to it."

Rain fell on the camp in sheets. Crackles of lightning danced across the sky in forked tangos. The wind howled like dying wolves, and thunder roared like rockslides - a perfect storm of untamed nature. Whatever voices carried between the soldiers barely seen were deafened by the downpour. Gíla shivered under the canopy of her tent as she struggled to absorb any noticeable details, gazing out into that staticky darkness dotted by struggling campfires and dim lanterns. Hear muscles tensed as something significant trotted by from the veil. A horse, noted to her by a quickly drowned scent of wet mane, but something still momentarily startling to see walk by as a large shadow. Direwolves are of similar size. Or so I've read. Forest drakes too. We're nowhere near a forest, but…still.

Rain had troubled her ever since she was a child. Her parents had entrusted her to carry a parcel to a nearby town as her first solo outing. It was a monumental affair for any Drayheller to be given the opportunity of venturing out into the world on their own, developing their skills of adventuring and discovery. The first night went as well as one could hope. Unassailed, unhindered, unbothered. A perfect start to the trek. The second night was not. Darkness had fallen quickly, shrouding the world in a blanket of black. Beasts of the night awoke and stalked from bush and branch. Then the rain came, the torrential storm that drowned her fledgling senses, leaving her lost in the darkness for hours. She tumbled, twisted her ankle, and slumped through the muck, crying for her mother. Only by the kindness of a traveling merchant did she escape that fate. And how she shivered in his cart, soaked and frigid, parcel still tucked under her arm. Now she shivered again, dry and warm from the thick fur of her body and tucking her hands under her arms.

It was foolish, she had decided. Stupid to be so bothered by a natural weather event. She should be able to endure anything without worry, like her parents and all other Drayheller. Fearless and bold for the acquisition of knowledge and experience. Not tepid and frozen because of rain. Yet, she stood, unwilling to walk out from her canopy and cross the camp for food. Fish and vegetables and stew were the meals for the night. She could smell traces of it wafting through the downpour. All she had in her tent was a bundle of berries, red and blue, and a few loaves of pepper bread. Nothing worthy of being called a meal.

"Come on…just walk," she said to herself. A crack of thunder and blue lightning bombarded the sky as if to counter her. She breathed hard and shook her head. "Just walk out there and…get food. It's a simple task. Just walk."

She took a step forward; eyes clenched shut as the droplets touched her foot. Another step brought her halfway out from under the canopy. Rain touched her head in sharp spikes, clinking against the studs of her arming-doublet. Just a simple walk. A simple- Thunder boomed with a catastrophe of lightning, driving the Drayheller back under the canopy and pedaling into her tent. Breaths came dagger-sharp from her lungs. Then escaped a growl, low and rumbling like the thunder outside.

Her glare fell to the nearby standing mirror, polished to perfection inside a frame of engraved steel. A tall and robust Drayheller looked back at her, clearly capable of instilling fear and bravery among all those around them. She walked to the mirror, the expression in its reflection growing increasingly enraged. You have been made the second-in-command of the Argent Contemptors. Rain should not-

"You look distressed," a voice said from the darkness.

The Drayheller spun around. A fair woman with blazing red hair stood at the entrance of her tent. Lithe, dressed in rain-glistened grey mail with a red cloak clasped to her shoulders by red-streaked black ravens. "Captain Quills," Gíla said hurriedly, bowing her head and saluting. "How can I help you?"

Orlantha Quills walked inside, the grey of her mail clashing violently with the vibrancy granted by the lanterns of the tent's interior and that of her own hair. Gíla shared her examination. It was austere compared to many, save for the bundles of tomes and scrolls the Drayheller had sequestered away before the week-and-a-half march to Murlay and its tower. Various accounts of arcaeno in the effort of discovering whatever ailed the captain. Those and the suit of armor laid out on the bear-maiden's arming table. Orlantha walked over to the bundle nearest the bear-maiden and picked up the top leather-bound book. "A Military History of the E'aura Elves," she read aloud, turning it over to examine the summary on the back. "By Corvus Hawthorn. I know the man."

"Have you read it?" Gíla asked, her voice as neutral as she could manage. Orlantha turned to her and shook her head. The bear-maiden smiled all the same, "You should. It's insightful."

Orlantha placed it down and picked up another. Gíla watched with a vested but nervous interest. Orlantha Quills had, in the short time of knowing her, proven to be almost as unsettling as Jira ne'Jiral, but for entirely different reasons. Most notable being her unusual questioning of the Drayheller, asking her a myriad of questions about her skills, time in the Contemptors, and time in the Eye. Even occasional questions about her opinions on Jira ne'Jiral. Any attempts at answering this particular line of inquiry were, curiously, cut short by happenstance and coincidences.

But, in private, it was far more terrifying. With Jira, it was the magnetic od that she held in her breast. An unending depth of charisma that served her no purpose as a mere captain. Only a sliver does she use. A sliver to draw the loyalty of the five hundred. A sliver to not be an outcast for her appearance. A mere droplet of rain in the ocean of what she hides. Gíla had no issues serving the knight, despite her apprehension of the woman herself. Serving her was simple. She was the guild's teacher of the land's history and lore, its second-in-command, and she was treated with overdue and unaccustomed kindness. It was what she hid behind the masks that only she seemed to notice and drive away that disturbed her. But Orlantha Quills of the Bloody Ravens was different.

Jira was a typically cold woman who masked herself with intensity and passion, some of it even genuine depending on the circumstances.

But Oralntha Quills was a blank. A wall of gray with a blood spatter in the most random of places.

People were the Drayheller's forte. That is how Gíla Arsinoe had survived this long, reading the people and learning their ways and how to avoid death and persecution - or, at least, the more severe natures of it. She could not read Orlantha Quills. She could not see beyond the toothy grin, the assertive stare of her startlingly green eyes. She could not see what Orlantha Quills was capable of.

The captain of the Bloody Ravens placed the second book down on top of the first and gave Gíla another stare. "You read a lot," she said, her voice lacking any distinct tone. "How do you have the time to read so much leading the Contemptors?"

The bear-maiden gulped and licked her lips, which had suddenly grown dry. "I'm the teacher for the guild. I teach them history and culture from Khirn's past. I-I focus a lot on the central lands. Aslofidor, Dekun, Belanore, Veoris, and Tarihr. They are really interested-"

"I get the idea," Orlantha interrupted. She picked up a third book and considered it far longer than the previous two. "Why are you so interested in arcaeno, bear-maiden? Are you a practitioner?"

The bear-maiden quickly shook her head, her eyes widening and glowing like tiny suns. "No, of course not. I never have or will."

Her face remained neutral. "That's good. If you did, I would have to report you to Mille."

"I am not practicing," Gíla reiterated. "I'm not even sensitive to its energies.

Orlantha put the third book down and picked up a fourth. "I knew a practitioner upon a time. Back when we all served the King. Do you know what arcaeno looks like in use? Do these books describe it in depth?" Gíla opened her mouth to answer, but Orlantha cut her off. "It's ravishing but disastrous. A remarkable thing to see. Are you aware of the sprites, as Sarda Kahlim calls them?" She flipped open the book with a finger, holding it by its spine in her right hand.

"Yes. They are exhilarating."

"Imagine those sprites mingling, forming a single conductive ball of energy that sinks into the ground to summon the earth for your control. And imagine that earth wrapping around your body, mingling with every strand of flesh you possess. You become an extension of the planet and yourself. Limitless things you can do with the rock, roots, vines, and thorns. It's beautiful."

"What happened to them?"

"They were killed," Orlantha answered plainly. "They attempted to use it to assassinate Aslofidor and his wife for the Dekunians during the border wars, but Zane the Colossus cut their head off with his ax."

Gíla lowered her head and clasped her hands by her stomach. "I see. I am glad that such a crime was averted."

"Are you? You fight in this rebellion. You seek to end the sins of the royal family, as it is called. Are you glad his wife wasn't assassinated?"

"Of course. There is a difference."

Orlantha finally took on something of an expression. Curiosity. "What difference can be made between a foreigner assassinating a royal and a band of kinsmen rebels cutting them down in their homes?"

Gíla took a while to respond but finally said: "Goals. The Dekunian sought to kill the royal family for the benefit of his home. The Duke seeks to depose the royal family for the good of the Aslofidorian kingdom."

Orlantha shifted her expression into a smirk if it could be called that. "Do you believe in the Duke's goals?"

Gíla took on a voice of some returning confidence. "I believe in the goal of myself. Of the adventure. I just want to see the end of it. What will come of it? I wanted to leave after Vucan, but Jira convinced me to stay."

Orlantha snapped the book closed. "Jira. Where is your captain?"

Gíla blinked at the sudden change in subject and stammered. "I'm-I'm not sure; I believe she might be at the tower."

"She's not. She is not at the tower. Where would she be?"

"I am uncertain, Captain Quills. I can only guess."

Orlantha's gaze bore into the Drayheller, stealing whatever nerves remained. "Then guess."

"Perhaps the river coast? But I-"

"What are your thoughts on her as captain?" Orlantha had begun pacing the length of the tent, her eyes locked onto the bear-maiden the entire time.

Gíla blinked again and inhaled sharply. "I trust her…with my-with my life, Captain Quills. She is skilled. Dutiful. Dedicated." A liar as well, but…I have a feeling Orlantha already knows that.

"She is also the only one the other captains do not question the presence of. Unusual, isn't it? To see her be so majestic around all the others and not have a single wary glance in her direction. Except, of course, that old bulldog."

"Captain?" Gíla had unclasped her hands and nervously flexed them repeatedly into fists.

Orlantha stopped near the entrance to the tent. "Worry nothing about it right now, Drayheller. Just focus on staying alive. And you should not fear the rain, just as you should not fear fighting. There's plenty of it to come. Get used to it."

With that, Orlantha Quills departed the tent and vanished into the darkness outside, leaving the bear-maiden alone to listen to the falling rain and booming thunder.