Yuriko stared curiously at the bird beastman. She didn’t know what his tribe was called, else she would have referred to him by it instead. The man had been startled at her quick arrival, that she could easily tell. Her Mien was still in Tranquility so he wasn’t panicking. Although she could see his breath quicken in anxiety, but since she was keeping hold of his body, that much was understandable.

The birdman was wearing a sleeveless shirt and poofy shorts that were secured just below the knees with some kind of elastic band. His feet were like a hawk’s: four talons with three facing forward and one facing back. The flesh above his taloned feet had the same scaly look as a bird’s, though it melded into more humanoid legs. They still looked digitigrade rather than plantigrade though, and the bare portions of his knee had the same colour feathers as his head.

His arms were his wings, too, and long feathers emerged from underneath his arms. His hands and fingers were humanoid, except for the tips, which were clawed. A long, luxurious tail poked out of his back and his head was covered in the same feathers as his wings and tail. Facial features were mostly human-like, except for hard crusts around his lips. The colour of all of his feathers was whitish grey, which turned darker the closer they were to the tips.

Aside from his features, Yuriko took note of his gear. His clothes and items were the main reason she didn’t immediately swat him out of the air after all. He wore a small backpack that opened from the bottom. He had a Plasma Lancet…or perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it a gun since it was similar enough to Irvalla’s weapons that she wondered if she had been too quick to dismiss the idea that she and the others had ended up there, or at least in the vicinity of it. He had a knife, with an extra long hilt, as well as a long gun, ‘a rifle,’ Yuriko thought, which also had a long handle, a strange shape to the stock, and an extra large trigger guard.

‘Ah, for his feet,’ Yuriko realised. The guns and the knife were meant to be wielded by the birdman’s feet while he was flying.

Her inspection and mental commentary lasted all of a few seconds, then she slowly released him from her hold. Her Anima perception and kinesis faced some resistance when close to his body. It wasn’t an opposing Anima, but it was familiar.

“Who are you?” Yuriko asked, using Wojan to speak. She’d gotten a bit better with the interplanar trade tongue but was by no means completely fluent. Honestly, she spoke better Karcellian than Wojan simply because she could speak with natives, Douglas, Edison, and Darla, whenever she wanted to. That, and everyone back home who could speak Wojan could speak Verdanian better.

The birdman blinked at her curiously while he continued to flap his wings.

“Strange accent,” he commented. He shook his head, then continued. “Adan Ortiz, Corporal of the Republic of Bresia army. Will Your Excellency allow me the honour of knowing your name?” He said that with a dip of the head, indicating a bow.

Yuriko nodded and smiled. “I am Yuriko Mishala Davar.”

“Well met, Your Excellency. Please forgive this one’s impudence. This one was ordered to survey your ship by my company commander.” His Wojan was strangely accented and some of the words sounded odd to her. But she could understand most of what he said, and she could certainly feel his dwindling fear and growing interest. “Forgive me, but may I know Your Excellency’s intentions?”

Yuriko tilted her head, then said, “Travel, mostly. We are lost and found ourselves…here. This is your Republic’s territory?”

“The border is close, Your Excellency.” Corporal Adan gestured to the east. “It is several dozen leagues directly east.”

Curious that they seem to use the same standard of measurement. Or are Irvallans strange for having a different standard?

“A league is five thousand paces?” Yuriko asked, stretching her arms to indicate the length of a pace.

“Of course, Your Excellency. It is, and always have been.” The corporal eyed her strangely enough that she felt compelled to answer.

“I’ve been to a place where they call it something else.”

“A great traveller as well,” he murmured, then continued. “If it pleases you, my company commander would be honoured with a meeting. We would be ill hosts if we do not offer shelter to travellers.”

Yuriko nodded. “You arrange it.”

She looked towards where the man glanced towards. Somewhere a bit southeast of where they were. The flatlands had given way to rolling hills, ravines, and gullies.

“If it pleases you, I will return to my brothers and sisters to bring word.”

“Do as you will. I doubt you’d have difficulty finding the Wind Darter,” Yuriko answered, nodding towards the sloop.

“By your leave?” Corporal Ortiz sketched a bow.

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“Go ahead.”

Yuriko watched as the birdman flew off, chuckled to herself and flew back to the Wind Darter. As soon as she alighted, Heron walked up to her and asked, “Not hostile, I assume?”

“Locals.” Yuriko nodded. “Quite welcoming, it seems. Wojan works, though they’ve got a funny accent.”

She noticed Heron rolling his eyes. “No, dear. You’ve got the funny accent.”

Yuriko huffed. “No, I don’t.”

“Well, you do. As a matter of fact, we all probably have a funny accent to them.” Heron chuckled.

“I guess that’s a good point.”

“Hmmm, so what now? Are we going to meet with the locals?”

“Yeah,” Yuriko muttered. “We need…”

“Knowledge, yes. You think we can find a way home this way?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it’s better to look, after all.”

“Yes.”

Yuriko sighed, feeling a bit melancholic. This was quite an adventure, but it wasn’t something she expected to happen to her. Only the fact that there was nothing pressing back home, other than her little sibling’s birth, she would have felt far more anxiety about being lost. With Kato dead…

She shook her head and sighed again. She wasn’t really sure of that, but she didn’t want to run away from reality. Was there a way to bring back the dead?

… Didn’t Damien attempt, something of that sort?

The idea took her mind like a flame, and she shivered as she considered all of the implications. However, she quickly ran into a problem. She wasn’t sure if the process was inside Damien’s memories, and if it was, how could she go about looking for it? If she was careless, she could get overwhelmed, and if that happened, she would no longer be herself.

She mulled over the issue for a long while. Her lover and friends left her alone after she asked for solitude. Well, she still transferred a copious amount of Animus into the ship, but she let Gwendith and the others push the sloop along.

A few hours later, the birdman, Corporal Ortiz, came flying back. She hadn’t noticed him the first time and it was only when she felt the weight of his gaze on her did she actually look up.

Well, now that she knew that the locals could fly, she added looking at the skies as part of her habit. Er, she still forgot every now and then, ehehehe.

Anyway, Corporal Ortiz wasn’t trying to be stealthy, or perhaps he was beating his wings extra loudly since she heard him easily by the time he arrived a longstride away from them. He waved his wings and pointed with one of his feet towards the southeast, made a little looping manoeuvre, then repeated the gesture.

“Turn southeast,” Yuriko said to the helmsman, who was currently Devotee. The Chaos Viscount nodded wordlessly and turned the helm. Yuriko moved up to the bow and sat on the railings. The wind wasn’t too heavy, just a light breeze that made her hair flutter.

It's been a few days since they arrived at this place, but the fight with the monsters had been less than a day ago. Even now, there were a few packs of them popping out and charging at the ship. Gwendith and Heron had grown bored with dealing with them, so Yuriko sliced them to bits with her Radiant beams.

Part of her training was to push how much sunblades she could control at once but she also didn’t want to deplete her Intent in a hostile place. She did have a dozen or so keeping pace with the sloop underground, just to make sure that nothing would surprise them. And to survey the place, too, in case there were secrets or treasures hidden beneath. That wasn’t very likely though, considering how vast this place seemed to be.

She breathed in the abundant Radiant energy and felt her Anima and physique. Transformation strengthened both passively, and she grew an inch of reach every day or so. Her progress with her body wasn’t easily quantifiable, but she felt it was minuscule enough that she adjusted easily rather than finding herself clumsy with greater strength.

Was Transformation Stage the reason why Ancients were called that? Her path allowed her to continue growing without weakening over time after all. How strong was Damien in his heyday and how long did it take for him to grow that far? And another important point was that if there were other measures of strength the higher she went.

Physique and Anima were not the only things that mattered. Will and Intent were needed to reach the next stage, but what about the Stage after that? A new attribute each time? Would Damien’s memories hold the key?

So far, what limited data she deciphered was mostly about his everyday life. That man was unbelievably promiscuous…

And if she had thought that those first visions or dreams had revealed his proclivities, those had simply been the tip of the iceberg…

“Haah.”

She only deciphered little pellets of memories. What she did every day wasn’t even enough to lighten the load her Anima bore in keeping his gift separate from herself. Indulging in her desires and allowing her Mien to act freely had lowered the cost by an inch. However, it didn’t go any further than that, no matter how many times…

Hmmm, curious, wasn’t it? Not that she didn’t enjoy it, and not that she intended for their intimate acts to be anything other than that. She was well aware of Gwendith’s mental and emotional scars, but she didn’t know what to do to help her lover recover. Or perhaps she didn’t need to do anything other than allow the other to choose her Fate.

Despite her musing, she noticed Corporal Ortiz’s company as soon as they broke from cover.

“Fancy steeds,” Heron said as he strode up next to the railing. Gwendith followed behind, the two Chaos Lords stayed by the helm.

Heron wasn’t wrong though. The group of eighteen were riding metal golems shaped like horses. Well, some of them. Yuriko squinted at the troupe. Three of them were beastkin, tiger, wolf, and snake.

“Huh,” Yuriko muttered. “I didn’t expect to see Tigris and Ahas Tribesmen working together.”

“From the Bella Plane?” Gwendith asked, “They probably have different relations here.”

“Yes, of course,” Yuriko chuckled.

Corporal Ortiz’s company galloped towards the Wind Darter confidently. The leader was a young man, human. He was clad in a green overcoat that had a few patches at the side. A uniform based on what the others were wearing. Only five were human, despite the fact that another five looked like really muscular men and women, though they had long, sharp ears that were at least three inches long from base to tip. Another five looked as broad as they were tall, though it was hard to tell considering what they were riding, which were kind of like horses, but wider, looked more like the land drakes, but not quite exactly like that. The Sha’ledras group were riding golems in the shape of large birds too.

The group stopped a hundred paces from the sloop, and the leader rode forward. Corporal Ortiz dove down and landed beside the man. They stopped fifty paces away, and the man dismounted.

Yuriko, Gwendith, and Heron jumped off the ship, and with her in the lead, strode forth to officially meet the Bresians.