The squirming lump of feathers in the soldier's hands is a miserable thing.

No
bigger than a hyur's pot helm, its ragged wings droop like broken flags across
either side of the man's gloves, glossy feathers gone grey with dust. Its eyes are
bleary, lids swollen and crusted over with discharge from an infection. Rivulets of
fluid seep down its cheeks. Its beak is dull; one of its feet is missing, the leg
terminating in an oozing stump. The creature pants when it breathes -- dehydrated
too, undoubtedly -- and almost certainly plays host to every parasite Bozja has to
offer.
"Hm," Lyon says.
The soldier holds it as far away from himself as possible, jutting it towards Lyon
instead -- which gives Lyon the opportunity to finally recognize the beast as a zu
chick. "Found it wedged behind a crate on one of the upper airship docks. Damned
stupid place for a cloudkin to squat," the man titters, inebriated by his own joke.
Then he clears his throat, remembering propriety. "We'll dispose of it, of course,
sir! But the tesserarius wanted to check with you first, to make sure we didn't
have some kind of... infestation before it got out of hand."
The blare of disgust in the soldier's voice shouts more loudly of ignorance than
efficiency. Lyon snorts in derision, sparing an ill thought towards the Castrum's
weasel-faced watch commander; he'd only spoken to the man a few times, but each one
of them had been unpleasant. "You see whole nests of zu brooding on the ramparts?
Think you're going to set fire to the towers and scare them out? You've both got
scat for brains!"
He shoves out his hands in silent demand. After an uncertain glance -- not knowing
if Lyon is serious about wanting to touch the thing at all, even with a pair of
gloves on -- the soldier dumps the beastkin into his palms. Lyon cradles it
carefully as he gauges the weight of it, seeing how much energy it has left to
squirm.
It manages a single, pathetic warble, but stays limp; not a good sign. Lyon doesn't
even try to lift its head to see if it can stay upright. "This chick's been
abandoned. Either its dam stored it there for safekeeping and got killed before she
could come back for it, or she died somewhere else and it crawled up to the highest
point it could find, hoping for safety." Watchful of the feathers -- such as they
are -- Lyon shifts the chick's body to one hand and extends one of its tiny wings
with his fingers, checking for injuries. It refuses to open all the way; he stops
immediately upon the zu's shrill of distress. There's an open sore near the joint
of its right shoulder, red and angry with inflammation, but nothing visibly broken.
The major limbs are mostly intact.
"All right," he tells it. "Let's give you a second round."
Dawon hates it in the southern reaches of Bojza. The climate is warmer -- and
stickier -- than the cooler lands where she had hatched, away from the rocky knot
of mountains that straddle Ilsabard's belly. Lyon minds it less; he's seen all
types of weather in his service to the Gabranths. No single land is his native
environment anymore. Arnsbeirgs is a distant dream from his past. Someday, the IVth
will send him to Aerslaent and beyond, and he'll hunt there just as cheerfully,
swaddled up in furs and a hood to keep his extremities from turning black with
frostbite.
But they are short on reserves, and Bozja is the best place to recover while still
making a show of force within the IVth's occupied territories. The last skirmish
with the Dalmascans had been the worst. Rebels had torn through the already-
exhausted War Beasts, picking off any stragglers from the pack while refusing to
confront Lyon directly whenever possible, gouging out each victory without care for
their own costs.
It wasn't just beasts that had been lost. Good soldiers had died. People who hadn't
been soldiers at all. The Dalmascans had slaughtered Imperial civilians with equal
mercilessness, scattering bodies to rot in the sun, or stringing up the corpses in
barricades stitched together with barbed wire.
The Barheim Incident, the reports were calling it already. Like the Bozjan
Incident. Like a toss-up in a tavern somewhere, some brawl that had left ale
tankards rolling across the floor, resulting in blackened eyes and bloody noses
instead of hundreds left dead and entire city blocks decimated into rubble.
The fights themselves had been good, though. Plenty of skirmishes in city
territory, without any forest cover or water to drive prey towards. The narrower
streets had played to rebel advantage, narrowing down the ability to bring in
aerial units -- but offering perfect setups for a charge. Lyon had raced his
stampedes with wild abandon through the neighborhoods, smashing gleefully through
the defenses and laughing as the roars of his beasts had ricocheted in a hurricane
off the walls. The change of pace had spawned a dozen fresh tactics in his brain,
inspiring new ways to apply the resources under his command. He had loved every
minute of action, gripping the fur of the war panther that had borne him onwards
while Dawon had soared overhead, deftly sailing around every arrow slung her way.
The fights had been good.
And then, they hadn't been.
War beasts were made for the offensive. They suffered during prolonged sieges.
Every animal slain was one that couldn't be replaced without weeks -- sometimes
months, sometimes years -- of training to accept a new handler. Each one had its
own needs, its own personality. You couldn't expect to ferry them from one
beastmaster to another like common soldiers reporting to another identical
commander.
With each creature lost, the IVth Legion's arsenal was that much lighter. They'd
run so dry that the XIVth Legion had been needed to relieve them -- and then, as if
making their campaign as much a demonstration to the IVth as to Dalmasca, van
Baelsar's forces had only escalated the death count exponentially. Any hamlet or
village suspected of harboring even a single rebel was decimated. Anyone foolish
enough to surrender in hopes of stemming the slaughter was merely the first person
executed on the spot.
In exchange, the rebellion had hewed their revenge out of any Garlean hide they
could find. Two mastiffs had been killed outright when their meat had been
poisoned, and the rest of the pack had perished in a matter of days when no medic
could stop the vomiting. One of Lyon's beastmasters had been pulled off his chocobo
when it had been tripped in a chain trap; the bird itself had been bashed to death
against the cobblestones before it could even regain its footing, and its rider had
soon followed suit. A handful of rebels had managed to make their way into one of
the Imperial encampments, setting fire to one of the larger stables after
barricading all the doors shut.
Every beast within had burned.
The most unexpected loss had been Ganpp, who had died not from a Dalmascan spear
but from disease rotting him away from the inside out. Regulated to the back lines
as his organs had slowly choked on their own decay, he had also been unable to see
the state of their final defenses. Lyon had barely made it back in time to witness
the last moments of the rasping, withered remains of a man who had become his
friend over the years, and who had borne no resemblance to that person when the
final rattle had exited from his lips.
Ganpp would have liked Bozja, Lyon thinks broodingly, as he hefts himself up onto
the battlement railing of Castrum Lacus Litore, and watches the dawn crawl over the
scraggled trees fighting to dig their roots into the plains. Ganpp would have
winked encouragingly at the exhausted soldiers and blasted terrain, and then he
would have demanded for Lyon to go flying with him for days -- all the way up to
Zadnor and Lake Igalj Kelo, taking count of the local wildlife and all the best
places to lay in ambushes.
But most of Ganpp's griffins are dead now, and Ganpp himself is too, along with an
entire list of graves that stretch from one side of the horizon to the next.
Puffing out his cheeks, Lyon shades his eyes against the glare of the sun, and
tallies the remains of his army: an injured animal left to curl up in its den and
heal on its own, nursing its scars in silence.
He steers his beastmasters back on course with the same patience that he uses for
calming a stable of red chocobos after a scalekin has slithered into their stalls.
Tamed animals need routines in order to feel secure when they're being regularly
whisked away into unfamiliar territories. Beastmasters are no different. Everything
feels off-kilter in Bozja, with the Castrum's bowels humming and clanking along at
unexpected bells of the day, making unfamiliar sounds at unfamiliar times. The
wings housing the magitek unit have alarms that go off every thunderstorm. Sadr's
mages constantly blow up aether in booming reverberations just a courtyard over,
shaking the stones like an earthquake, and then turn up their noses snootily
whenever they're asked to stop.
Everything smells wrong. The water doesn't taste right. No one can get a decent
night's sleep.
To compensate, Lyon sets up practices every other sun, laying claim to one of the
courtyards that had probably been used to rally Bozjan troops back when the Castrum
had still been a fortress. It serves just as well as a sparring ring and animal
pen, feces streaking stones that had been carved with the visages of past Bozjan
heroes upon them.
Another reason not to bother fighting for glory, Lyon thinks, every time he passes
a fresh pile of dung. In the end, all you can take for yourself is your own
personal enjoyment on whatever battlefield you land on.
The rest, you have to let go.
Four times a sennight, they meet to work through communal exercises, letting their
menageries get familiar with each other through individual and group spars. Half
those sessions are scheduled in the morning, stirring up everyone's blood to a wild
rush, exhilaration pounding in their veins as they tussle with mock-targets and in
mock-fights. These are the pleasures that carry them through the rest of the day,
buying them patience whenever one of their beasts digs in their heels and refuses
to obey, or when the mages start arguing over who gets rights to the infirmaries
first.
The other two sessions are evening bouts. The rationale Lyon uses to justify his
decision is that not every beast performs its best in the sunlight; some animals
can't even be roused until noon, and forcing them to be awake will only sicken them
in the long run. The real reason is to give the beastmasters a chance to wind down
after everything they've had to deal with throughout the day. The week. The entire
month. These matches are always the angrier ones, where frustrations are vented out
with attacks that are meant to hurt. They are spiteful, bitter brawls, where all of
the beastmasters are animals themselves: baring their teeth and biting at one
another, screaming their hearts out through every insult imaginable.
Hackles flare. Wings spread. And then -- afterwards, slowly, as they wipe away the
blood from their split lips and set cold compresses against swelling eyes -- they
calm down with the same inevitability of the sky surrendering to the night.
Together, they lick their wounds and pass bottles back and forth while they
grudgingly approve of one another's techniques, and vow to give a better showing
the next time they play.
Unlike some of the other beastmasters in his unit, Lyon has hunted in Bozja before.
His prey in this land has walked on two legs and more; he has spilled blood upon
every corner of its dirt, some of which was his own. Returning to Bozja now feels
like coming back to a den whose bear has left it for the season, where the dusky
smell of former battles still lingers in the corners, causing intruders to tread
softly in case of its sudden return.
He goes out again whenever he can, sniffing through the trails he remembers and
making notes where new predators have claimed dominance. Most of the vegetation has
been stripped clean, and a change in plantlife always ripples outwards to affect
the beasts which rely upon it. Some of the creatures he had recalled fondly are no
longer there: a bird of paradise with glittering poisonous wings, a massive
matamata whose jaws could snap an adult hrothgar in half. They had become weak,
unlucky, eaten. Now, not even their bones are left behind.
There are scars on him that were left by this land. Lyon runs through his inventory
of them one morning as he waits for a herd of red chocobos to drift away from a
water hole, touching each mark and smiling at the memories of the battles he still
bears.
He doesn't need to scout the entire land in person, of course; there are soldiers
for that, and other beastmasters if he wants eyes he can actually trust. But
there's a difference between hearing someone's stories and risking your own neck,
and it's the latter that Lyon knows he learns the most from.
Bozja's animals have changed. Not much, but enough. His beastmasters have changed
too, gaining new faces and losing experienced seniors who could have otherwise
guided them. In order to equip them properly, Lyon needs to learn Bozja's nuances
-- both in terms of threat, and potential.
In the early bells of each dawn, Lyon opens the southern gates of the Castrum,
letting the handful of nocturnal beasts trustworthy enough to hunt independently
slink back inside for their rest. Then the diurnal beasts exit. He watches each of
them depart, committing to memory how they walk, slither and fly past: a blueprint
for how he'll greet them upon their return, pinpointing any injuries that will need
examination later.
Dawon is always the first one out in the mornings. He's always the last.
Regrettably enough, beastkin are only half of what his unit needs to regain their
full might. In this aspect, Lyon doesn't even need to set foot outside the Castrum
to be inundated with choices. Every time one of his units takes the field, there
are always would-be recruits humming around the stables afterwards, thick as flies
on bear scat, offering loud and unwanted advice. Maybe they had a mastiff back
home. Maybe they helped tend the family chocobo. Most just imagine that a
beastmaster simply needs to be the biggest voice on the field -- the loudest, and
therefore the strongest -- and that bravado alone will cause other creatures to
cower before you, willing to obey your every whim.
Then there are the soldiers who think that animals behave better when they're
beaten. They swagger by the pens and talk loudly about use of the whip. Of the
stick. Of breaking the spirit until there's no fight left, and that the ruined
creature left behind is a worthy badge of honor.
But for every fool, there's a smarter recruit waiting just behind them in the
shadows, lingering around between shifts as they watch Lyon work the animals. He
tolerates their interest; every now and then he gets good leads this way, soldiers
discovering talents they hadn't expected when they'd only been exposed to piloting
courses or marksmanship. Several of his beastmasters had never even reared so much
as a sheep before coming to his detachment, but they'd had the sense of it from the
very start.
Sometimes, it pays off. Usually, it doesn't.
The soldier currently hovering around the perimeter of the beetle pen is one of the
latter. Lyon's already read the man's file -- a paralyzing terror of scalekin,
which rules him right out -- and had flatly refused the application for transfer
after the soldier had tried to suggest every means imaginable of changing the War
Beasts to suit him instead.
"I was good with hounds back home," he insists, trailing Lyon all around the
perimeter of the beetle pen, like an overgrown gnat brought in for feeding time.
"Maybe if there was a new, elite unit within the War Beasts that only contained
dogs? I'd be a champion of that one, bet I could teach everyone else things you
haven't even seen before. One of my hounds even knew how to open the gate latch for
me whenever I came home, did I mention that?"
"Lucky for you I'll be visiting them next," Lyon informs him casually. Peeling off
his glove -- the leather would get nibbled on otherwise -- he sticks his hand down
into the pen and clicks his tongue briskly in a three-tone cadence. Instantly, the
nearest beetles swarm up over his arm like a suit of living armor, their glossy
bodies rippling across his skin. They're small, but growing well; the biggest one
is about the size of a dinner plate, and Lyon rotates his elbow carefully to avoid
dislodging them as he examines them all in turn. "Got a canine with a blocked set
of anal glands that needs to be taken care of before they abscess. You ever cleaned
out a dog before? Downright expert at it, it sounds like?"
He already expects the boy to recoil, but still has to flatten back a snort of
amusement when the soldier makes an immediate jerk of his head in the negative,
looking faintly queasy.
Lowering his arm back into the pen, Lyon toks his tongue repeatedly against the
roof of his mouth until the vilekin disembark from his body, letting the air roll
out in crisp, sonorous commands. After they're gone and he's shaking his arm off
afterwards -- beetles didn't tear the skin like clawed beasts, but their legs still
scratched where they held on for traction -- Lyon turns his full attention upon the
would-be recruit, and rakes his gaze deliberately down the man's clothes.
"That your best uniform?" he asks with mock innocence, and then breaks into a
hearty grin. "Let's go grab you a smock -- you'll need it."
After a few passes through the southern reaches of Bozja, the nagging worry finally
starts to ease whenever Lyon reviews the menageries. They're no longer hobbling
along on bare bones. With a few more moons, the War Beasts might even put up a
half-decent fight again. The local beetles were turning out well enough; they were
easy to teach even as adults, and their population levels weren't in any jeopardy.
The hardest part of taming the vilekin was training them to simply not run off to
their previous burrows, trundling along mindlessly as instinct led them back to the
same places he'd scooped them up from.
Bozja has mudpuppies in plenty, even matamatas if Lyon wants to lean a little
heavier on the defensive, with sabotenders and orobons for variety -- but
restocking from one region alone has its own risks. Some territories have their own
peculiar aether, which can work its way into the bodies of its wildlife in
unexpected ways. He'd made the error exactly once when he'd been younger; his
beasts had all thrived while they'd been in Landis, seemingly invincible up until
he had taken them on another deployment, and they had been reduced to trembling on
the floors of their pens, shuddering in his hands whenever he'd tried to lift their
heads to check the cloudiness in their eyes.
So that means raising most of their menageries from the shell up, taking in the
youngest whelps they can find: newborns to be bottle-fed and cleaned, raised in
foreign worlds where very little makes sense. Half of them will have to come from
Bojza, he decides. The rest, taught how to survive there.
Manticores would be a strong addition. The IVth has several beastmasters who are at
the right point of experience to learn how to handle them. Manticores are also some
of the most difficult beastkin to work with. The best breeders are in Dalmasca,
which makes matters worse; not a single pen had gone unscathed in The Incident
Among Many.
Manticores -- when they are still small -- are easy targets for angry hands.
Lyon scowls at his own requisition order as he fills it out, not expecting anything
to come from it, and then shoves it into the logistics queue where he expects it'll
be lost forever.
But the cubs finally arrive by caravan one afternoon, coming in by way of Kralja
along with the rest of the supplies from Dalmasca, mixed in with the ammunition and
grease. Lyon unpacks them from their cages into their new pen while the cubs shriek
and cry louder than any alarm -- causing more than one soldier to duck their heads
into the doorway, eyes wide with concern as they check to make sure the Castrum
isn't about to spontaneously detonate.
All in all, it's a reasonable assortment. Two had died on the way -- poor handling,
the couriers ignoring every single instruction painstakingly listed out on the
crates -- but the rest are healthy enough. They're just old enough to stumble
around, top-heavy and tipping over every few seconds. Luckily, they lack the
coordination necessary to try and climb onto everything they can get their paws
onto. That'll come in a month or two; he'll have to make sure all the windows are
tightly barred before then.
He's in the middle of wrangling them through the last of their breakfast when
Clarricie arrives, her hair still braided up from the morning's sparring sessions.
Her boots are thick-soled, the stiff leather reaching all the way up to her knees.
Ash paints both her hands. She must have been working with the drakes when his
message reached her; he can appreciate that she came straight to him, soot or no.
She deftly lets herself into the low-fenced pen, and then immediately stoops down
to gather up a few of the empty bowls for him, which Lyon's even more grateful for.
The manticore cubs are swarming him, crying around his feet and biting at one
another with their stubbly infant fangs. He hauls the loudest one up into the crook
of his arm, bracing its rump to keep it steady. As an afterthought, he grabs the
closest rag with his free hand; manticore piss had acidic properties, and left
rashes on exposed skin if it wasn't wiped away quickly enough.
The cub in his arm quiets down at least, clinging to him like an opo-opo. Absently,
Lyon checks along its neck and then the hot folds of its armpits before moving onto
its hips and legs; it's always tick season in Bozja, and he'd found three fat ones
feasting on the cubs just the other day.
Clarricie looks sympathetic as she finishes collecting the feeding bowls. "I
thought they'd have more coordination, especially since their torsos and arms are
developing so fast."
Lyon snorts. "They're like any other sprats at this age: shitting all over
everything, throwing up on whatever you happen to want to keep clean, screaming
their lungs out in the middle of the night." He shifts the cub to his other arm,
hefting it up as it promptly grabs onto his braid and yanks hard. His head tilts
into the pressure like a bell being rung. "You ever have any of your own?"
"No. My husband was slain before we were so blessed." Clarricie makes a rapid shake
of her head, her eyes fixed on the manticore cub in the crook of Lyon's arm as it
squirms, and then belches noisily. Its breath rolls over them both in a hot, rancid
haze of stench. Then she narrows her eyes uncertainly, forcing herself to ask the
question. "Did you... wish for me to take one?"
"Of the manticores? Gods no, you have to take at least two to keep each other
company, or else they start getting insecurity issues. Break down entire walls to
get to you." Freeing himself partially as the manticore cub gets distracted by
trying to chew on his headband next, Lyon reaches out his other hand and snags the
data tablet from where he'd safely stuck it on top of a few crates that the cubs
hadn't toppled yet. "No, I know you have a preference for different breeds. Take a
look at this one. The Munatia Pens sent over the profile for a mammoth calf -- same
stock as the one they found a while back in Coerthas Western Highlands, or so they
claim. Want me to get it for you?"
Clarricie is quick to scan the details, taking in the creature's size and weight
with the rapidity of an expert, and then tallying them up together until they mean
something more than basic figures. She enlarges the image with a flick of her
fingers, making certain to pay close attention to the mammoth's feet, and then the
state of its ears. "This is quite the rare beast. Are you sure you would trust me
with it?"
"When it comes to breeds this uncommon, you're one of the best tamers we have," he
tells her honestly, distracted by the sharp clawing of tiny paws as a second
manticore cub begins to scale his leg with single-minded determination. "You know
-- fuck, fuck, ow -- your husband's term of service will be up in just over a year.
Have you thought about what you want to do next with yourself? Will you go back to
the Eschva?"
Judging by her surprised expression, Clarricie had kept far less track of her
enlistment than he had. "I didn't -- I didn't realize it was so soon." Her
calloused fingers lower the tablet away from her face, and then even lower, so that
the display dips down to brush the heavy folds of her dress, reinforced with chain
and aether. "Since my husband's death, the future... it didn't seem like something
which mattered anymore. Such things belonged to other people. Not me. Not anymore."
She bites her lip, looking away as the cubs tumble and squeal around them. One of
her thumbs rubs absently against the data tablet, fretting in time with her
thoughts.
Lyon lets her keep her deliberations in silence. The manticore cradled in his left
arm slumps against his shoulder, its prickly bulk drifting away into sleep; he
hefts it more firmly into place to keep it from slipping out from the crook of his
elbow, while the other cub slobbers happily on his ear.
Unlike the other conquered peoples that Garlemald had engulfed, the Eschva had kept
their own sovereignty. They were not forced into citizenship; their caravans
continued to roam freely across the borders. There was a place among them for
Clarricie to return to -- if she still wanted it.
Finally, Clarricie glances back down to the data tablet, tilting it up to regard
the tiny, forlorn mammoth outlined with mechanical detail on the screen. "This
particular breed takes a while to mature," she ventures aloud. "Mayhap... mayhap I
will stay long enough to make certain it is raised properly, and to ensure that
another beastmaster will be available to take adequate care of them. It would be a
shame to simply allow a creature this uncommon to waste away in neglect by those
who cannot recognize its full potential."
Lyon's mouth quirks. He watches as she wraps both hands protectively around the
tablet, as if imagining the beast already arrived within her care.
"Aye," he agrees simply, shrugging a shoulder as one of the manticore cubs plasters
itself bodily to the side of his head, threatening to poke out an eye. "It would."
In the next shipment, Dalmasca sends him a mixed batch of panthers and coeurls
together, which Lyon would have complained about except that he likely would have
raised them like that anyway. As a whole, coeurls take less effort to parcel out
once they've been introduced to the relationship of handlers -- but that
interaction has to happen while they're still young, or else they'll never listen
as adults. The extra work isn't that much trouble. Lyon doesn't mind a few kittens.
He's handled coeurls for decades, long enough that his hands already know how to
check the usual gambit of eyes, ears and coat, how to keep them held in place and
get medicine down their throats without getting a nasty shock, how to feel for the
shapes of their organs underneath the protective looseness of their skin. Coeurls
are familiar, easy. They do well just about anywhere, and that makes them easy for
his novice beastmasters too.
He keeps the first batch of kittens together, planning for them to be distributed
and bonded to their new masters after they've hit maturity; someone else can deal
with their heat cycles. In the meantime, they have all the frantic energy of
growing, wiggling bags of fur that have yet to learn about the concept of
consequences. They chew on everything they can reach, tearing apart both of Lyon's
gloves one afternoon when he's careless enough to take them off. One of them
promptly gets a hematoma in an ear, and Lyon spends the next few suns chasing all
the rest to check for mites. Their playroom constantly needs new toys. Unlike
canines, he can't take them out into a yard to let them work off their energy;
they'll be leaping onto the walls and then out into the wilderness before he knows
it. He'd tried containment fields once in the past, only to get a kitten wedged up
all the way between the top generator and the wall, and had had to climb the eighty
fulms up himself.
He's not making that mistake again.
He hunkers down with the kittens one day just before the midday bell, bringing in
scraps from his meal so that they can go wild with begging, wolfing down the
unspiced and unsalted meat. One keeps licking the floor in search of a final taste
-- and then it switches to his hands, gnawing on Lyon's fingers as if he might
suddenly surprise them all by turning into a roast chocobo on the spot. The rough
bristles of its tongue rasp across his knuckles. Its breath is rich and stinking,
as savory as a stew left out to age on a windowsill for several suns in a row.
He fans his fingers across its muzzle, grabbing for its skull with his broad,
menacing palm. It flails at him with its front paws in an attempt to play back,
rolling over to rabbit-kick at him with its hind legs -- a disemboweling move that
can shred through the tendons of an unprotected arm, even at that young of an age
-- but Lyon's already wisely angled his elbow up, and the kitten only catches empty
air.
Amused, he roars at them all in mock-annoyance, bellowing as he rolls the whole
clowder over and paws at their heads to groom them. Their bellies are soft and
boneless; they squirm excitedly before leaping away and back again, whiskers
trembling as they try to pounce on every part of him, claws fishing for his feet.
Once they're wound up enough to scatter across the floor -- bolting away and
chasing each other across the room, smashing over stacks of empty boxes -- Lyon
sits down on one of the piles of cushions and blankets in the corner. One of the
panthers has already sprawled out for a nap; another pads over to join him even as
he's stretching out his legs. All the kittens know him well enough by now to trust
him, and they're worn out enough to go slack when he runs his gnarled fingers over
their fur, smoothing down the disheveled tufts.
Eventually, another of the coeurls curls up against his hip. His hand wanders down
to stroke it absently, and it wriggles and stretches deeper into sleep.
And after that, well -- Lyon doesn't have much choice except to lie down the rest
of the way completely, if only to keep the kitten from slowly oozing slowly into a
position where he might squash it by leaning the wrong way. Another panther flops
down heavily against him, shoving its rump into his neck. He shifts enough to make
sure that its tail is folded down instead of up, and then shoves his cheek against
the furry flank of the kitten on his other side, his ear pressed against its body,
hearing the gurgle of its innards beneath the rhythmic bellows of its purr.
One by one, they drift off, paws twitching as their whiskers jerk in distant
dreams. Both of his hands are curled around a kitten each, palms cupped
protectively over their bodies. His scent mixes with theirs and theirs with his:
musk smearing over skin, mingling together in a communal blend that means simply
safety, and kin.
They breathe, and breathe with him.
He jerks awake some time later, coming to full alertness even though his body is
still sluggish. The kittens have already woken up first; it was their tension that
must have alerted him rather than any specific noise, for the room is otherwise
quiet.
But they're all looking towards the doorway that leads into the hall, left open to
allow the air to circulate, and -- after a moment -- the person lingering there
comes into view.
It takes Lyon a moment to recognize his guest without the armor. Menenius is far
more slender without an entire smithy's worth of metal shaped around him; his
shoulders are thinner, rounder. His ears are the sharpest parts of his silhouette.
The man advances all the way up to the inner gate of the pen and then stops there,
one hand resting upon the latch.
Lyon lets his head flop back down against the pillows. "Oi."
The grunt is enough invitation for Menenius to enter through the wire gate, careful
not to let any of the felines scamper out around his feet. He checks to make sure
it's securely locked behind him with the same precision as a marksman reloading
their firearm. At the intrusion, the rest of the kittens scatter, leaving Lyon
exposed to the cooler air and already regretting the visitation.
"Not to interrupt your little... nap," the elezen announces cooly, regarding Lyon
as if it had been an effort not to call it something else, like cuddle time, "but I
wanted to catch you before our meeting at the thirteenth bell."
Flexing his ankles gingerly as he tries to remember the day's schedule, Lyon
manages to gather enough of his wits sleepily together to at least recall a basic
framework. Coeurls run hotter than hyurs; he's coated in enough sweat for a fever
to have broken over him, fur sticking to every ilm of his skin. His beard itches.
"No, no, it's fine," he relents, flapping a hand at the ceiling. "I'd have slept
through it otherwise. What's bothering you this time?"
He tracks the soft clacking of Menenius's boots as the tribunus pads forward
through the room. Even in plain clothes, the man cants his weight when he walks.
Lyon's seen the same behavior in every Garlean officer he's ever known. Wearing
that much armor makes a stranger out of your own body, stripping away the
proportions of your native bones. Over time, that armor takes precedence as the
soldiers who wear it unconsciously try to compensate for how much extra room they
know they take up in the world, an artificial bubble of space forced between them
and everyone else.
Lyon's never been one for any of it. He likes being able to walk into a room
without needing the pause and sheepish shuffle of various officers trying to
arrange themselves single-file so that they don't smack the door frames -- or each
other -- with their pauldrons. He doesn't need to be stripped of his armor someday,
and then fall all over himself forgetting that his arms have several ilms less
padding than he's used to. He likes being able to sit down in chairs.
But Menenius is as much an addict as the rest of Garlemald, and it shows in the
extra degree of distance he adds to every motion of his body. He walks with his
balance off by small degrees: a heavier tread on the left foot to compensate for
holsters on that hip, a turn of his entire torso where another person might speak
carelessly over their shoulder. He has worn his armor for so long that it has
remade him, and his own skeleton lies about the shape of his true form.
The man makes his deliberate, sweeping way over to Lyon and the cushions, and then
comes to a halt; when he folds his arms, there's a moment before he realizes he can
hold them closer to his chest. "I need to discuss the costs of the modifications
you're requesting for the Castrum. Foodstuffs are one thing, but you already have
one set of stables in the western wing. Explain why you need a second -- and all
the way on the southern side, no less."
Ah. Lyon stretches his neck idly to the side as he considers the challenge, and
then pushes himself up reluctantly into a sitting position. "Wind direction," he
grunts. "You can't stable griffins where coeurls have pissed, and you can't train
coeurls like hounds to just hold onto their bladders until you let them outside.
Either you give them free rein to come and go as they please, or you'll have stains
in every corner. And the smell of it agitates cloudkin, so I need to split the
stables further out if we're to have proper menageries."
Menenius's nose wrinkles. "I am aware of the odor," he retorts with clipped
disdain. "Every soldier within the Castrum is. In fact, that is precisely what the
magitek engineers are complaining about. They say the fumes make it impossible to
work upon the equipment in storage without becoming physically nauseated in a
matter of bells. Moving more of your detachment directly into the same wing will
incite a riot on the spot."
Exasperated, Lyon slaps his hands on the cushions beside him, sending up a cloud of
dust and fur. "Well, unless Sicinius wants me to have them shitting in his
laboratories, that's not something I can compromise on! These are beasts, Menenius
-- you can't bargain with them."
The elezen looks unsurprised, a smirk shadowing the line of his lips. "Then it's up
to you to explain it to him this afternoon, then."
"Bastard can go swive himself. That's how I'll explain it." Already weary of the
argument -- which hasn't even started yet, technically -- Lyon sticks his hand up
towards Menenius in a demand for a lift. Not all of it stems from pure laziness.
His knees are a little stiff, even with the morning's exertions, but it's hard for
him to summon any energy to stand when the only reward for doing so is having to
attend a meeting that will leave him angry before the end.
Menenius glances disapprovingly at Lyon's outstretched fingers -- and then sighs,
reaching down to grab them with the intention of hauling him up.
It's a generous act, on principle. But in those few vital seconds where Lyon tries
to rally enough interest to force his body to obey, drowsiness triumphs over
gratitude. He's too relaxed from napping with the coeurls; his limbs feel just as
slothful as any of the kittens, just dead weights attached on his bones. His own
instincts are stubborn enough to insist that he be the one to exert the greater
force between them, and -- without even feeling the least bit guilty about it --
Lyon simply yanks Menenius down instead, a hard jerk that takes the elezen
completely by surprise.
Thankfully, even sleep-ridden, Lyon's reflexes do their job: he rolls backwards the
moment he sees Menenius lose his balance and topple forward, stumbling over the
mire of the cushions until the elezen finally pitches forward into an uncontrolled
fall. His elbows sail towards Lyon's head; his face contorts in panic. And Lyon --
not wanting to get kneed in either the stomach or the stones -- splays his legs
quickly to give Menenius a safe place to land in the cushions instead, reaching up
to catch Menenius's weight, one palm on either side of the man's torso to hold him
in the air like an oversized bullpup.
They stare at each other for a moment, each startled by the turn in positions.
Menenius speaks first. "'Tis hardly my fault you are a heavy, useless lump."
"I don't know if it's the same for you elezens," Lyon parries conversationally,
"but with hyurs, once you pass your sixtieth nameday, your muscles just start
melting off your bones. Look at me, I'm barely more than a twig these days. But
you," he continues, and then pumps his muscled arms once, dipping and lifting
Menenius's body as easily as if the man was just another bar of weights. "Seems
like you've already turned frail, playing around with all your fancy machines
instead of getting a proper workout."
Menenius looks unimpressed, even as he continues to be hefted up and down like a
sack of grain. "You should know, Lyon, that inevitably -- should I continue my good
performance with the archaeological digs -- I may garner a promotion and you a
demotion, and this would be considered assault on a superior officer."
"How is it that you're still endlessly yawping?" Lyon works through another few
repetitions, deeply satisfied both by the burn in his muscles, and the way that the
loose strands of Menenius's hair swing back and forth around the man's perturbed
expression. "You're not sas Lanatus yet. Maybe your new armor will give you twice
the mass."
He smirks when he says the title, tasting the formality like a drip of tartness on
his tongue: it's dizzyingly pleasurable to have a chance to scorn it in advance. On
the next heft of his arms, he drops Menenius down even lower this time, so close
that Lyon can feel the man's shirt brushing against the skin of his belly.
"Admit it," he grins, only ilms away from Menenius's face. "You love being
manhandled by a tough old beastmaster like myself, don't you?"
Menenius's eyes narrow. His jaw tenses, refusing to allow himself to even curl a
lip in scorn -- but he glares back at Lyon without hesitation, not looking away.
Even though he's not beast-trained, the ferocity with which he holds Lyon's gaze is
like nothing short of staring down a behemoth, where a moment's flinch is an excuse
for a bloodthirsty lunge.
It's then that Lyon catches it.
At first, he thinks it's just from the stress of being braced at an angle,
Menenius's ribs protesting how they're supporting more of the man's weight than
they were planning to. Then, it happens again, impossible not to notice anymore: a
flaring of Menenius's nostrils as the man breathes in deeply, over and over,
willingly tasting the mixture of sweat and musk that ferments on Lyon's skin,
drinking in the stink of his breath and oils of his unwashed hair.
Lyon can feel it against his palms. He can see it in Menenius's pupils, opened up
dark and wide. Underneath all the elezen angles and Garlean armor, Menenius's body
is still no more complicated than another animal -- and Lyon stares, hypnotized, as
he watches Menenius take Lyon willingly into himself, into every crevice and cranny
of his flesh, swallowing Lyon down with each swelling of his lungs.
But despite all of that, Menenius's voice is impressively steady when he speaks,
flat with affected disinterest even as it goes a little strained from Lyon's thumbs
shifting just below his ribcage. "You are scarcely more than a beast yourself."
It takes a moment for Lyon to remember to bother with words at all; every
instinctive response he has is a physical one. He lets his arms shift again,
allowing Menenius to descend another ilm closer, sinking like a man sliding into
quicksand.
"You haven't even scratched the surface of what that looks like," he rumbles. He
can smell Menenius too by now. It's impossible not to; their faces are too close.
"Want me to give you a demonstration?"
He asks the question impulsively, following the same whim that got them both
tangled up like this to begin with. He doesn't know how to respond whether Menenius
says yes or no. The only thing that's guiding him forward is the same levin-fast
instinct that has carried Lyon through countless battlefields, shifting plans
without notice as twenty different factors suddenly combine to warn him of a hidden
opportunity. Changing air pressure against his skin. A brackish tang in the river
water. Silence in the trees.
The sky darkening a little too quickly in the east, warning Lyon that the storm he
was planning to outrace was coming in faster than expected, fast enough to ambush
his own flank and pin him between its fury and the enemy -- and it was time to
ride, ride hard, hellsbent into whatever fate might catch him, or else be devoured
whole.
Menenius is that storm now. He hangs in the air above Lyon, his own hands braced on
the pillows on either side of Lyon's head, his pale eyes as cryptic as the innards
of any warmachina.
Then he breaks his gaze first, using the implicit excuse of glancing away towards
the floor so that he can begin to stand up properly. One knee lifts and then
another. It does not escape Lyon's attention for how carefully Menenius refuses to
glance down towards their legs -- avoiding the intimate way they're tangled
together, Menenius's hips only a hair's breadth away from rubbing directly against
Lyon's own -- even though it makes him clumsier on the dismount.
The man promptly puts distance between them both as soon as he regains his footing,
dusting himself off with pointed, exaggerated flicks of his hands as he bats clumps
of shed fur off his clothes. "And in regards to the shipment of additional
manticores you've requested for the next month?"
Lyon kicks a foot against the cushions, trying to decide if he should increase the
amount, just in case of more deaths in transit. Summer always means neglect when it
comes to properly cooling the crates in transport. "Have to have them sent from
Dalmasca. We can't breed 'em here," he adds helpfully. His necklaces jangle as he
sits upright. "Manticores need a lot of room for fucking."
Menenius pauses in his cleaning efforts long enough to shoot him a displeased look
that makes Lyon immediately hope that the elezen's imagination is running wild in
graphic detail. Vast, graphic detail. "I shall take your word for it," he states.
And then, under his breath, "Why do I tolerate your animals and all their mess?"
"Because you want healthy beasts, that's why." Fishing around the cushions for his
headband, Lyon doesn't even pretend he missed the question. "And I want 'em healthy
too, which is why I put up with you. They're here to die for you, not dance. So
keep giving us what we need, and we'll hold up our half of the bargain in return."
It's a reasonable enough explanation by Lyon's count, but the answer makes Menenius
pause. The elezen frowns at his boots, and then slowly turns that same inexplicable
displeasure upon Lyon, as if the beastmaster's mere existence is a half-squashed
beetle on the floor, riotously flouting its innards for all to see.
"Is it truly just that simple for you." This statement is even softer than the
last, a scrap of rhetoric that does not even bother to fit itself into the lines of
an inquiry. "How remarkably easy it must be to make your decisions."
"Simple?" Incredulous, Lyon finishes tying his headband in place, and rakes his
fingers through his hair to unsnarl any strands that had been trapped beneath the
fabric. "There's naught that's simple about living beings, boy. They're not like
your magitek toys. They hate you and love you and want impossible things from you
-- oftentimes, all at once. And you've got to be there for them no matter how
filthy or foul-smelling they might be, else you've got no right to demand their
loyalty. Caring for things means accepting the fact that they are messy, Menenius.
You of all people should be smart enough to know that."
There's a fair amount of scorn in his voice -- enough to shut the teeth of any
junior officer -- but Lyon doesn't care enough to make his words into an honest
threat. He's not angry by the shallowness of Menenius's accusation so much as he's
bored; it's a common assumption, one he encounters so often that he barely pays
attention to it anymore. The only rudeness in it is that Menenius bothered to say
it out loud at all.
He half-expects Menenius to babble some nonsense about how beastkin don't have to
worry about paying colonial taxation rates -- but this time, the man holds his
tongue. Whatever answer he decides upon, he keeps to himself. Instead, Menenius
merely glances away, and crisply resumes his task list. "Very well. Is there aught
else that you require before I formalize the requisitions?"
There is. It's a far less flippant topic to broach. Lyon hadn't added it to the
meeting on purpose; he'd wanted to catch Menenius separately, and there's no better
time than this.
"Aye," he says slowly. "Pagaga. Ganpp's whelp."
Menenius blinks, and then rapidly reorients himself. "The apprentice he ended up
adopting?"
Keeping a student had been Ganpp's -- admittedly poor -- excuse for dragging a
child around a military camp; Lyon doesn't bother to clarify the misunderstanding
now that the man is dead. "She came to us already scrawny, barely any meat on her
bones. We've no proof of any birth records. Even though Ganpp fed her up, any
recruitment officer with a working pair of eyes will mark her as not even past her
fifteenth nameday yet."
Menenius is smart enough to keep pace, already at the conclusion Lyon is veering
towards. "She'll be too young to enlist."
Lyon nods.
He can see the calculations wheeling up in Menenius's thoughts, sterile equations
with numbers and efficiencies attached. By surrendering himself to the XIIth
Legion, Ganpp had forfeited any claim to whatever holdings his family might have
struggled to rebuild in Ala Mhigo. Pagaga could not expect any form of welcome
among the Vochsteins, let alone from the rest of the Ala Mhigans. Only a few of her
possessions even truly belong to her. Some clothes. A hair ribbon that Ganpp had
made himself out of a length of silk he'd found in Leá Monde, cursing colorfully at
his own inability to cut fabric into straight lines. A worn riding harness that
would have otherwise been discarded -- and the remains of Ganpp's entire menagerie,
including two of his fledgling griffins: invaluable prizes who traced their
parentage through Berda and Obda's bloodlines, the envy of any beastmaster who'd
ever handled a bird.
Alone -- without a proper territory, stable or feed -- it would be impossible for
Pagaga to take care of them all. The griffins were barely hatched; they couldn't
hunt for themselves. Several of the other beastkin needed supplemental foodstuffs
sent in from what would have been their native habitats. She'd have to fight to
carve out a new den in whatever wilderness they landed in -- and fighting meant
injuries, injuries which wouldn't have the luxury of the same medical care that the
IVth offered to them now.
Orphaned twice-over, with no home in Garlemald or Ala Mhigo or anywhere else in the
world to return to, Pagaga would never be able to provide for them fully on her
own. Either she would have to relinquish the beasts back to the IVth, or else watch
them starve. That, or release the menagerie in hopes that at least some of the more
mature beasts would be able to fend for themselves on their own, which would be
even worse: she would have to leave them in unfamiliar wilds, knowing that they
would wait loyally in hopes of her return, watching the sun rise and set without
even a whisper of her voice for comfort.
She would have to abandon them, just as she had been left in the woods to die.
Completing his estimations, Menenius makes an answering nod back, equally grave.
Judging from the way that his eyes narrow even further, the final conclusion is not
in Lyon's favor. "Are you certain? Should the IVth reclaim Ganpp's menagerie, those
griffins would go to you."
It's a tempting idea. Lyon would be deceiving himself if he claimed otherwise. With
even one of those cloudkin in his menagerie, he'd be able to work miracles on the
battlefield. Two -- along with Dawon -- would allow him to destroy entire cohorts
all on his own. His legacy would be wrought from equal parts legend and terror. No
nation would be safe from his reach.
The number of things he'd be able to fight would be astronomical.
"Aye," he decides, finally shoving himself resolutely up on his feet, and off the
cushions. "Make sure Pagaga gets 'em. The girl's one of the War Beasts too. She's
one of us."
Castrum Lacus Litore gets better over time, as the sawdust and sand permanently
work their way into the fortress's stonework floors and halls. The stables get
properly outfitted with the right number of gates, walls knocked down to make
enough room for the animals and their handlers to spread out without killing
anything in the process. The warning systems in the magitek wings get toned down.
Slowly, the War Beasts ease into their new territories and stop looking skittish
enough to bite at the slightest provocation.
Lyon settles into Bozja's mornings in much the same way, learning the humidity of
its warmer air, his instincts ingesting the way that the scents linger longer and
hang on the breeze. He sleeps better, no longer twitching awake at every sound. The
kitchens work out a deal that allows them to get more orobon meat into the
beastkins' diets, and Dawon even finally throws a viable clutch: her first one
since Lyon's tamed her, with the two previous attempts producing eggs too inert to
hatch.
He's as pleased as she is, even though this round offers only one egg with any
viability. The remainder are small, their contents already decaying: decoys to keep
predators from claiming the real prize. Normally, they would eventually be eaten by
scalekin or kicked onto the ground to break. Lyon knows to wait until Dawon starts
shoving them aside to the corners of the nest before he goes in to remove them
himself; even then, he plans the act with care, just in case she has no patience
for his interference.
He gathers all the spares up while she's distracted with her midday feeding,
checking on the temperature of the single egg left behind -- good and warm, still
promising -- and then promptly passes the entire sack over to the hapless soldier
who's been tagging behind him all morning.
The man looks both astonished and terrified as he comprehends what he's holding.
"What should I do if she comes for these?" he stammers -- Hernais pyr Longus, that
was his name, another hopeful come to beg for a chance. He bobs his head down
towards the bag, hunching over it before realizing that doing so might only incite
Dawon's rage further. "Will she attack if I break any?"
Lyon is tempted to admit that he's not sure -- he's never actually been that
careless in front of Dawon -- but Hernais looks nervous enough already. "For
starters, don't spread your arms to try and make yourself look like a bigger
predator. Griffins are too bright for that. They'll go for one of your hands with
their beak," he elaborates, pinching his fingers in demonstration, "and tear off
your other arm at the shoulder with their talons while they're doing it, since
you're all nice and exposed. If you're lucky, they'll rip you in half in the
process. If not -- well, you won't be getting very far."
Shrugging nonchalantly, he waves Hernais back a few steps and then whistles Dawon
down.
She comes over easily, knowing what it means when he's directing her towards the
circle painted on the floor. The presence of an onlooker doesn't deter her. She
plants her feet exactly as she should -- loose and equidistant from one another,
looking directly at the far wall -- and lets her massive wings hang half-open,
holding at attention without keeping her muscles locked tight in rigidity.
Lyon's already moving towards her before she even shakes her wings out. He starts
with her left shoulder, running his palm over the dense feathers that layer her
lion's body like scales. Two sennights ago, he found a lump the size of a
lalafell's fist underneath her foreleg, in the hollow of the armpit. A clogged
gland is his guess -- but the mass could also possibly be tumorous. Not worth the
stress of calling in the chirurgeon yet. Soon, perhaps. It might be too early to
tell.
Concentrating on his sense of touch, he circles his fingers carefully along her
skin, following the way her muscles layer across her body. He finds the bump again
just when he had started to hope it had drained on its own -- lurking like a
misshapen pearl-- and takes the measure of it with his fingertips, careful not to
squeeze and rupture the mass by accident.
Still about the same size. He'll have to make a note.
Her other shoulder is clean, and her belly doesn't have any unexpected lumps
either. Her stomach is pliable; there's no flinching or squawks of protest. Once
he's made it all the way to her hindquarters, Lyon grips her tail like a furry
cable and lifts it up to look for evidence of worms or other discharge. She'd come
back a few months past with bloody diarrhea caked on her feathers, and he'd had a
maddening time trying to figure out what she'd eaten; Dawon was mature enough to
hunt on her own, and smart enough to know that he'd let her do it, so trying to
shut her up in the Castrum would have only earned him a broken gate and someone
dead.
Thankfully enough, the sphincter has no surprises this time, which he's relieved to
see: only the usual traces of leftover shit, no inflammation or other reasons for
concern.
The worst part of the checkup complete, Lyon drops Dawon's tail and heads around to
her other flank, giving her leg a light double-tap of his fingers in a command for
her to lift her paw. Last week, one of the pads had been irritated, the skin
cracking open and dry; there'd been no way to salve it up without Dawon promptly
smearing the ointment off, so he'd had to settle with cleaning it out and tying a
cloth around it, which Dawon had simply yanked loose with dark-eyed scorn.
Cleaning it had been good enough, at least. The pad is still flaking, but nothing
seeps out when he presses it gently, and there's no evidence of swelling or
sensitivity. Even after Lyon's satisfied, however, he cups the foot in his hands
for a few more moments, feeling Dawon bracing herself against him. "So tell me,
Hernais, why the War Beasts?"
He can hear Hernais jerking to attention, a nervous little shuffle of his boots
against the hay. "Sir?"
Letting go of Dawon's hind foot, Lyon moves methodically on to her front paws. He
doesn't bother to look back at Hernais; he can't waste his attention when he hasn't
completed Dawon's examination yet. "Don't play the fool with me, boy. Everyone's
got a reason they end up here. What's yours?"
He hears Hernais take a breath and then let it out again, with no words to shape
it. One moment goes by, and then another.
"It was during Dalmasca, sir." The announcement comes blurted without any warning,
no clearing of Hernais's throat to indicate how much courage it must have taken to
speak. "During the recent uprisings. I was among the forces stationed there, and
had the privilege of seeing you in action. It was like -- like you and your beasts
were of one mind, one soul. It was like naught I'd ever seen before. And then,
afterwards..."
Of course. Still facing away, Lyon screws up his expression, not sure if he should
be amused or exasperated. He should have expected another would-be recruit tagging
along because they'd become enamored by the idea of vicious beasts obeying their
every command -- like magitek convoys mindlessly following every tap on their
controls, unable to protest otherwise.
He checks Dawon's mouth next, coaxing her jaws open while he leans in to stick his
face right next to those curving fangs. He takes a deep sniff of her breath: just
meat, nothing of the sweetness of some lurking disease or organ failure. Her tongue
is good, without any grey film or other coating.
"Afterwards?" he prompts.
Hernais's voice is like a mouse trying to roar. "Afterwards, I saw you doing
exactly this. Taking care of them. You'd ordered them out to fight on the front
lines, but you didn't forget about them either, even though you were still injured
yourself."
Lyon's hands pause in pulling down Dawon's lip to check her gums.
He would like to show off longer, just on principle -- Dawon would have ripped the
face off anyone else who'd been bold enough to attempt the same examination -- but
he can feel her restlessness at Hernais's presence through the slight shifting of
her paws as she rocks back and forth. When he finally lets go, she doesn't even
wait for his dismissal before leaping into the air, and heading back for her perch.
He wipes his hands off on his pants, and then finally turns around, considering
Hernais more seriously this time. "You and your husband just got yourselves a
little girl, am I right?"
Caught by surprise by the abrupt change in conversation, Hernais shuffles back a
step. His right hand automatically darts to his left, fingers touching where a
marriage band might have lain if it hadn't been stripped off for duty. "Aye. That's
right, sir. My husband's family knew hers -- her parents were traders, and went
missing a while back. She was staying with her grandsire, but he's been getting on
in years -- meaning no offense, sir," he adds on hastily when Lyon arches an
eyebrow pointedly. "I mean, he's just... old." Another eyebrow. "I mean -- my
husband says she's got a knack for letters! She's as bright as any scholar trained
in one of the cities, even reads along whenever I send a message home! She can
almost write her own name without any help, probably end up better'n I am at this
rate -- "
Lyon rubs his chin, feeling the hairs of his beard chafe his hand. "Listen up,
boy," he interrupts, before Hernais can mortify himself further into a coffin of
brittle cheer. "Tell me, you think you can put a knife in the hand of your little
girl and tell her to go onto the battlefield? Because that's what being a
beastmaster is all about, every day. You ask your animals to go out into a strange
world and die for no other reason or understanding than you were the one who asked
them to do it, and you've got to love them for it every minute of the way. And when
they die -- when, not if," he stresses, one thick finger jabbing the air towards
Hernais's face, "you'll be grateful for the fact that they loved you too. That's
the kind of soldier I let into my unit. Not ones that think that war beasts are
just some fancy piece of equipment they can use to make themselves look better. You
don't think you can give that to them, then get yourself assigned somewhere else,
because there's no room in my unit for that kind of cowardice."
He snorts, already halfway regretting wasting his breath; it's a fancier kind of
rejection than he prefers, but the bile of it has been building up in him like a
blister, compounded further with every halfwit glory-seeker bothering the beasts.
"That's as good a speech as you'll get from me, boy. So -- you think you can still
do this? Is this the kind of future you want?"
To be fair, Hernais pays attention to every word; Lyon can tell by the way that the
man's confidence slowly diminishes, his mouth flattening down solemnly. But then
Hernais firms his jaw, squaring his shoulders as he snaps off a crisp salute,
frantic enough that he almost smacks himself in the face. "Yes, sir! That's why I
want to join the IVth's War Beasts, sir! You care about your unit -- not just the
beasts, but the soldiers too. You pay attention to everything living under your
command, whether they're a Garlean or a common vilekin. And that's what makes you
better than any of the other officers out there. It's not a weakness for you, sir.
You don't treat your beasts like objects to keep from hurting when they're gone.
You've turned all of that into a strength somehow -- and you're the strongest
person I've ever met."
The fervor in the man's voice drives him forward; Hernais jerks forward a step
before he can stop himself, as if thinking to throw himself bodily to the floor in
a plea, and it's Lyon's turn to be startled. All of that praise sounds much fancier
when it's put into words like that, dressed up like some minstrel's poetry. It's
uncomfortably like something Ganpp would have said, as if his friend were alive
again and smirking in front of him, wagging his finger after Lyon had intervened on
behalf of one beastmaster or another.
He can still hear that teasing, wry reminder: and this kind of thing's exactly how
you got stuck with me, remember?
He clears his throat and turns his voice stern, the same way he'd use on an
overexcited drake flailing around in its stall. "I think you give me far too much
credit, boy --"
But -- just like a charging buffalo -- it's too late to even attempt to steer the
conversation back onto a safer course. Hernais only takes another step closer, his
eyes shining with ideals far nobler than the shit of the animal pens.
"If I follow your path, then I know I'll learn those same truths, sir," he insists,
his hands balling into fists. "That's the kind of soldier I want to be -- no, the
kind of person I want to be! Let me join the War Beasts, sir. I won't disappoint
you, I swear it!"
Baffled by the complete refusal of the man to listen to reason, Lyon stares. He
makes a deep, weary sigh that he doesn't have to fake, confronted with all that raw
passion that's being sloshed onto him like a heave of hot manticore vomit.
But he stops before he says anything else, and lets himself look past the fresh
nicks on Hernais's face from shaving too close to try and impress his seniors, and
the boy's damnably short service record -- to look, the same way that Lyon would
evaluate any other creature that came under his watch with a questionable pedigree.
He's read Hernais's file. Only twenty-one years of life so far, with everything to
prove and family back home depending on him.
Hernais is far from the best option available. The soldier's record is lackluster
in almost every way; he's not a master of the blade or cannon, and had scored below
average in unarmed hand-to-hand. Plenty of stupidity, that's for sure. Probably
hadn't had a lick of training when it came to beast handling. Stable-mucking must
have been beneath him; his parents were weavers, not warmongers. In terms of
potential, Hernais isn't any better than the rest of the trainees -- scraggled and
unpolished, trying to make sense of rules that didn't match up with what they'd
already experienced in their lives. Misfits even in a legion of outsiders, trying
not to let their comrades catch even a single sour whiff of fear.
Like others that have come into Lyon's hands before, in all their shapes and forms:
as orphans, as mistakes, detritus washing up onto the edges of the IVth because
they'd stopped fitting in anywhere else.
"What a mad, feisty little whelp you are," Lyon marvels under his breath, and then
shakes his head ruefully, bemused by the faith of it all. "Won't take no for an
answer then, eh? You think you're ready for all of this?"
Wiping his hands off on a rag, he nods towards the nest hunkered down in the far
corner of the room. "Dawon's chick is due to hatch any sun now. Write me up a plan
for what you think their feeding and exercise should be for the first year, moon by
moon, and bring it to me at the southern gates before the fifth bell tomorrow
morning."
"Sir!" The haze of dismay that had been starting to creep over Hernais's expression
instantly clears. The man jerks to attention, slapping his hand up once more in a
frenzied salute. "Yes, sir! Ah... but --" he falters, and then darts his eyes up to
where Dawon is preening herself on one of the ledges, pretending she'd never gone
through the indignity of having her teeth checked. "What... exact breed of griffin
is Dawon again? Sir?"
Laughter roars out of Lyon, bright enough to make the entire day worth it. "She's
right there, isn't she?" he barks, and then gives Hernais a hearty clap on the
back, brisk enough to throw the soldier forward and knock the air out of his lungs
with a grunt. "You're a bright boy! You figure it out!"
Mornings in Bozja come in cool during what passes as the winter months, soldiers
waiting until midday before they have to furtively lift their helmets and mop their
brows clean of sweat. The breeze is a little sharper when it comes in from the
east. The air is a fraction less humid overnight.
Lyon puts on heavier gloves.
The sun paints the clouds in the same colors each dawn -- but the clouds themselves
are always shifting, wandering in different courses across the sky. Lyon lets the
last of the coeurls back in through the gate, and then watches the Castrum rouse
sleepily to life, the night shifts trading places with the day.
In the courtyard below him, Clarricie is out with her newest acquisition; the tiny
mammoth barely comes up to her knees, and it follows her everywhere with its long
trunk twined nervously around her arm. Hernais scuttles about with a rag tied
around his head, furtively cleaning up with both shovel and broom, getting the yard
clean and ready to be used for the evening bout.
They're one face short, but not for long. Pagaga's official paperwork needs a few
more stamps on it -- but only from formality alone. Once the officials finish
sniffing disdainfully at the bother of it all, her path back into the War Beasts
will be clear.
Menenius had come through on that count, too.
Their menageries are slowly growing again; their animals are healthy and strong,
with no diseases that would mandate a cull. Alchemists from Valnain provide a
steady supply chain, stocking the shelves with medicines: everything Lyon's
beastmasters need, dewormers and breeding suppressants and cleaning solvents to
keep the coeurls from constantly spraying every single door in the Castrum. Proper
nutritional powders to supplement the range of diets. Ointments and other tonics
for when they catch things from their beastkin, and to prevent their animals from
catching anything back.
Mite repellent -- for everyone.
Bozja is a mess still. It's snarled up with other people's ambitions, and infested
with rebels that never seem to go completely away, just like its perpetual tick
season. There's nothing tidy about what Lyon and his people are doing here -- not
like the metal and alloys of magitek, which can afford to get left in storage until
their operators can be bothered to pay attention to them again. Animals aren't
books of magicks to shove on a shelf and garner dust. They're living weapons, all
of them, and being alive means being something that's awkward and accidental,
misshapen with whatever scars you've picked up along the way, filled with lumps and
tumors and other imperfections.
Nothing about their work is as clean as a polished blade or a precise thaumaturgic
incantation -- and none of Lyon's beastmasters are either, himself included.
Clarricie's mammoth finally manages to rear up on its hind legs without stumbling
over, trumpeting its success in a high-pitched blare. She shrieks back at it in
delight, mimicking the same motion with her arms stretched upwards, encouraging it
to try again -- to rise higher and higher, an equal partner in its joy.
Lyon grins.
On the horizon, the sun finishes lifting itself into the sky, drifting free of any
tethers to the earth. Lyon can feel its heat begin to press against his back,
inviting him to join it. There's nothing official waiting at the Castrum that can't
bide its time a little longer. Even if there is, an unscheduled scouting patrol
makes all the difference sometimes.
Fitting his fingers in his mouth, Lyon gives a piercing whistle. The sound tears
through the winds around the Castrum, and one of the hulking shapes lurking on the
ramparts detaches from the roosts. The creature's silhouette is asymmetrical as it
dives towards him: one foot missing, its right wing jerky on each downbeat, but
just as determined to do its best.
Without bothering to look down first, Lyon sets one hand on the battlement wall and
flings himself gaily off. The air roars past him in a torrent as he laughs
uproariously, hearing the alarmed cries of soldiers as he plummets by -- trusting
in his beasts to be there before he hits the ground -- and then goes out once more
to hunt.