They made us stand here for hours, they told us they would let us as such until the person that killed Bran, whether intentionally or not, came forward. After approximately five hours, they told us to go and get ready for the simulation, no one had come forward. I guess Dewas didn't like losing control of one of his subjects, especially in a place where his control is supposed to be omnipresent.

Between the moment we walked to the training grounds and the moment they let us leave to go prepare ourselves, I had lost track of Masov and Nila, only to find them a few minutes before the battle, talking and smiling at each other. I already knew that Nila liked Masov, but what I could see, it might be reciprocate. Before I could go any futher down that train of thought, Reain had appeared behind me and whispered:

"They look lovely, don't they?"

For some reason I couldn't explain I felt chills run down my spine, I tried to make abstraction of that strange feeling and answered:

"They do, pretty sure there going to end up together after a few weeks."

He responded:

"Probably, though I would rather bet for a few days."

Before I could answer, the bells rang, signifying it was time for us to go on the battlefield.

As I made my way to the battlefield I stropped to the armory. There were a few choices in the clothes area, but all of them seemed heavy and I knew one of my advantages was my speed. I finally decided on a light grey and pale blue suit that covered my shoulders and my torso, it was slightly open in the back and made my usual black tunic cover the back of my body. As it the suit went down, it covered my legs all the way to my ankles, which I decided to cover with black leather booths. For my weapon, I choose something that wasn't too sophisticated, because it wasn't normal for cadets to know how to use weapons before coming to the front. I stopped my choice on a long yet feather weight spear, it had a split head and another part of it emerged between the two other parts of the head.

After making sure I had everything, I lifted my head and looked around me, I saw Nila who chose a thin yet sharp sword, it looked as long as her arm, but it also fitted her like a glove. She had stopped her armor choice on an imposing black armor that would help protect her from heavier weapons, just like me, she chose black boots. At her side was Masov, he had opted for a heavy sword, and looked like he also had experience with weapons before the simulation. He also had an imposing black armour, though he looked stuck in it, to complement his armor, he chose dark grey boots. Reain was standing to their left, he had also chosen a spear like me, but his was shorter and looked heavier, he had somehow found a dark blue armor that followed his muscles all the way down to his ankles, he has picked grey boots to complete his look.

At their right, I saw the guy for the canteen, Jax, if I remembered correctly. He was wearing a black and crimson armor that complimented his skin tone, he had two small daggers attached to his thighs and, had a sword in one of his hands, it reflected the sun on the snow, and made the snow shine for a few seconds. It stopped after I blinked once while looking at it, and when I lifted my eyes, I saw him looking my way, and smiling, when he realized, I was looking at him, he turned his head and started contemplating his blade.

After everyone got ready, we all headed to the battlefield, the two teams took place at the opposite ends of the terrain, the guard brought us a funny looking fruit and told us we had to protect ours and destroy theirs. It was different than usual, normally, they would just tell us to put a glowing powder on our weapons and whichever teams had the most cadets touched at vital points would lose. The cadets that were the closest of it started to lose focus, as if the fruit was trying to repulse everyone that tried to come close to it. It was good news for us, since the other team would have a hard time destroying ours, but it also created the same problem for us. Unless we found a way to get a reach of it, we would lose.

Most of the cadets decided to change forms to try to see if it would affect us if we were to turn into our wolf form, it didn't the smoke seemingly didn't work on animals. Still, some of us couldn't or wouldn't change forms as to keep our identities concealed. I could see it was the case for the other team as well, approximately three quarters of their members changed, but the other quarter didn't. The ones that didn't change charged in our direction as the others stayed behind to defend the strange fruit.

It was the first time I saw most of these people of their wolf form, since most of us don't transform unless it was necessary, I realized that Nila did transform, she had dark brown fur with slight touches of black here and there, she was tall, yet not as imposing as most female wolf, I guess it was because her strength was in her speed rather than her muscles. As for Masov and Reain, they didn't transform, they were probably children of aristocrats, which wouldn't surprise me since most of the cadets that didn't transform came from aristocratic families. Those who didn't however were possibly in the low percentage of people with almost no aura, they were named Daklers, they could never transform even if they waited centuries, they were most of the time the ones being bullied and ostracized.

The guards wouldn't do anything to help the Daklers since they were seen as a waste of resources, the only reason they could participate in the simulation, was that some of them were what they called late bloomers, it meant they passed the normal age of discovery, but still discovered they had enough aura during the Gemsteps test.

They could still fight, and so were deemed useful to serve in the military, but most of Daklers would end up being relinquished by their families. Their odds of surviving any attack, whether it be from a rogue pack during a patrol or if another soldier lost control of his wolf form and went on a rampage. They were alone in our world. Some tried to flee to the human world or tried to be accepted by the , the siren kingdom, most of the ones who chose the latter died, the others didn't come back to tell the tale. However, there were rumors about the Yual Kingdom having a liquid that made the one who drank it gain the ability to become half siren, they would still have to bear with being an outsider, but at least they wouldn't die.

Some may forget, but after the simulation everyone had to keep their back mark, those who fled were easily identified and brought back before they could even outside of our frontiers. The king used those people as examples from those who thought about running, but the truth was, about two decades ago, some people made smuggling people into the human world their daily work. They had developed many routes and underground tunnels that leaded outside our borders and beyond. When I was young and still living in the village, I heard people from Estol were coming to visit us. 

They did come, but not for the reasons we thought about. They came during the night, they went to the center of the village and brought four people with them. As I watched from the window of my house, I could see the stains of blood spreading across the square as the whip lashed the wind only to end up on the back of its victim. Beforehand, they were fed with , a plant that prevented the werewolf from turning, it was usually used to prevent a young wolf that couldn't control itself from going on a rampage, or in more sadistic cases like this one, to prolong the torture felt by the one who ate it.

It was also used a few times throughout history to make someone temporarily weak to be able to get rid of that person, whether it be with kings, queens or even commoners, most didn't survive being attacked while under the influence of Skisla. Those who tried to change forms were victim of horrible pain and suffering before losing all vital force and succumbing to their attacker. 

It wasn't a easy plant to come by and most had to get it from the black market at an extortionate price, other went up in the in the West of the kingdom, they traveled days in hopes of finding some, many couldn't find any, but some who were lucky sometimes managed to find one and to extract it successfully from the ground. 

The few who found some and managed to come back from the Kuja mountains without getting lost or dying of hunger, told the tales to everyone who would want to hear it. Obviously, most of them winded up dead the next day, and the Skisla they had obtained had magically disappeared. 

The ones that were smart enough to not tell anyone vanished through the records, most I assume had succeeded in executing their plan since some people did die with Skisla in their systems.

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