Crow Haven, Satis Orbis
Year: 4998

    Adrastea dangled from the wall in shock, staring at the familiar face of her childhood friend. He looked older, so much older than what three years should have granted him. However, Adrastea could still see the young scout that had gotten her out of so many terrible situations without a scratch and at that moment when she was suspended in midair, the only thought that ran through her mind was that Evert had done it once more. Even though they had not seen each other in three years he managed to appear just in the nick of time, like some sort of guardian angel. It would take a million years to repay him, and Adrastea knew that.

    "Evert...?" she muttered, still not quite believing it.

    He did not answer quickly pulled her up over the wall with ease, putting her lightly down on the boardwalk. 

    "One minute I'm gone is one minute disaster for you," he said. Although his face was strait Adrastea could see a small twinkle of amusement in his green eyes and she could not help but smile with pleasure.

    "Somebody hit me," Daphne suddenly spoke up.

    Adrastea snapped out of her shocked state and looked to her right where Daphne was sitting perched on the top of the wall.

    "I think I just saw you smile so I must be hallucinating," Daphne continued in shock.

    Adrastea coughed and went back to her regular stone face, looking Daphne up at down as though she were chicken in the sky.

    "How did you get up here?" she asked.

    "Uh, I climbed?" Daphne replied, as though it was a regular thing that everyone did.

    Then, noticing not for the first the tall Cieven scout who, for no other reason than it was blindingly obvious, she discovered to be rather good looking.

    "Who is this?" she asked casually in Satarian. "I thought for a moment down their we had been caught."

    "You were," Evert replied, equally casual. His Satarian was far better than Daphne's Arieten, she noted glumly. "Luckily for you it was I and not one of the Crows." He said the last part nodding down to the courtyard below. 

    "The place is crawling with them," Daphne whispered, suddenly realizing the danger they were still in.

    "Precisely," Evert replied. "I suggest you depart the way you came."

    Adrastea, who for a short moment had been softened by the chance meeting of Evert, quickly remembered why she had come and folded her arms stubbornly.

    "I am not leaving," she said stubbornly, her lips a thin line.

   "Yes you are," Evert replied.

   "Oh ho!" Daphne chuckled. "I like him."

   Adrastea rolled her eyes at Daphne but continued to be stubborn, Evert standing there like a father scolding a disobedient child. Which, if he had been slightly older, would have been the case.

    "I am no-"

    Evert quickly covered her mouth with a large hand and placed one finger over his lips, looking off over his shoulder and listening carefully. 

    "This is not safe," he whispered, removing his hand and brushing past the two girls. "Follow me."

    Adrastea stood there for a moment, wondering if she wanted to be contrary or not, but once Daphne quickly hopped off the wall and jogged after Evert she decided it was probably the best way to go.

    They quickly tip-toe-ran across the ramparts and into an empty guard tower with barrels and crates lining the walls. 

    "This is used for storage," Evert whispered. "They removed the guard from here after a smuggling incident."

    "How do you know that?" Daphne asked, slightly awed. 

    "Drunk men love to tell tales," he replied. "Now quickly, hide behind these...I will be back shortly."

    Evert walked out of the guard tower and the two girls wasted no time in hiding themselves behind the crates, crouching low and peaking through a small crack between two of them. Not three seconds later two pairs of footsteps began making soft clunking sounds on the boardwalk, two male voices discussing something that Daphne did not understand. They continued to chat in a casual manner as they walked into the store house and then they stopped in front of the crates, sitting down on the floor opposite the girls. 

    Shefro, Adrastea thought to herself. Shefro twins. And they were at that. The two men had turned out to be fairly young, only a few years older than Adrastea herself, and they both looked identical to each other. It would be impossible to tell them apart, but Adrastea noticed quickly that the one on the right did most of the talking.  

    Like Abban she found there accents pleasing to the ear, sorting of relaxing her tensed state. The two brothers continued to chat and even though she could understand what they were saying, Adrastea was not focusing on their words but once again, their appearance. In likeness to Abban they both had the pointed dark patterns on the ridges of their cheekbones and the center of their foreheads, but even though their redish-blond hair had a colored sheen to it when the sunlight hit and the color matched their eyes, it was not the striking orange that Abban had. Their's was a glowing blue reminding Adrastea of lightning and she found herself wondering if it glowed in the dark. She knew Abban's did not and knew that it was ridiculous as the color had to do with sunlight, but she still wondered.

    Daphne sat to Adrastea's right and found it hard to look through the crack, only able to see a pair of feet, so she gave up and simply waited with pent-up breath. 

    As Adrastea watched through the crack the brother on the left looked up quickly with his glowing blue eyes and stared strait into her green ones. 

    He has seen me, she thought in a panic, yet she found it almost impossible to look away. He continued to look at her while his brother talked and Adrastea felt that Daphne and her were the nearest to death they had ever been in the past few days. Still, Adrastea did not look away and neither did he. 

    Can he really not see me? she asked herself. It seemed almost impossible.

    Eventually the talkative brother realized the other was rather fixated and passed a hand in front of his face, but the latter did not avert his eyes. He did not even blink.

    He has seen, Adrastea concluded.

    "What do you see?" she heard the talkative brother ask, looking at the crates.

    The other did not answer for several seconds and then turned his head away, breathing deep and slapping his brother on the knee. 

    "Nothin'," he said, standing up. "Come now, time is a'waistin'!"

    Without so much as a glance back at the pile of crates the two brothers strode off and Daphne let out a long breath of relief while Adrastea just sat there, still staring at the spot the two Shefro brothers had occupied. 

    "Really see me did they not?" she muttered in Arieten.

    "What?" Daphne asked with raised eyebrows, assuming that Adrastea was talking to her.

    Adrastea did not repeat herself. She was too busy being confused. It made sense that he had not seen her for they both simply walked off without saying anything, but she was sure that he had seen her. Or perhaps he acted as though he had not in order to get help? That possibility scared Adrastea the most, but it also, for some strange reason, seemed the least likely to her. 

    "You can come out now," a deep voice spoke up and for a startling moment Adrastea did not recognize. A few seconds later however Evert's face popped out from above the crates and her nerves settled.

    "Scared me you did," she muttered in Arieten, standing up slowly.

    Daphne had already leaped out from behind them and was stretching vigorously, groaning with every move.

    "I thought we were gonners," she breathed heavily. 

    "You will be if you do not leave this instant," Evert said, a slight edge to his voice.

    "I am not leaving," Adrastea replied once more.

    "Why?"

    "I came here for a reason, Evert. I will not leave until I find what I'm looking for."

    "And what is that?" 

    Daphne took a sharp breath and made a small 'mmmm' sound in her throat, as though they were trying to sneak into a massive bandit hideout to steal something, had been caught, and were now trying to find another explanation as to what they were doing there. Which of course was exactly what they were doing, and not succeeding at that.

    "What are you here for?" Adrastea posed the question quickly, hoping to cover up her uncertainty. 

    Evert folded his arms and tilted his head to one side.

    "Royal business," he replied shortly.

    Adrastea was caught off guard by the word 'royal' and something faltered inside her brain. She had not used that word for so long and never really thought about what Evert was doing now.

    "Royal?" she asked with a slight stutter.

    "Of course. What else would a Scout Captain be doing?"

    "Captain?" Adrastea spat out, quickly covering up her mouth when she realized how loud she had been.

    "Sounds important," Daphne commented. "But what is Cieven royalty doing in Satis?"

    Evert folded his arms and raised one eyebrow at Adrastea.

    "I was wondering the same thing," he said.

    Adrastea did not answer but simply avoided eye contact as though she were a small child. In fact, for the past half hour she had felt like nothing but a small child, and one who was not getting their way at that.
 

                Meanwhile inside the great Crow Haven hall Teo and Berglund discussed the plans Haldit had proposed. 

    "It does sound promising," Berglund said, lightly fingering his goatee. "But our organization has always been content to stay on the sacred soils of Satis, as it is our homeland."

    "Has it though?" Teo asked nonchalantly. 

    Berglund paused for a moment and glanced over at the Prince, a slight twinkle in his eye.

    "Perhaps a few stray bands have ventured to your kingdom, but as a whole we never travel far," Berglund explained.

     "Ah, I see!...It has recently come to the attention of my Uncle that you deal well with information gathering. That is what he hoped you could contribute if we gave you safe passage and free roaming," Teo explained in his most diplomatic manner.

    After several long minutes Berglund sat up in his chair and unrolled a clear piece of parchment, putting paper weights on either end and damping his quill in an ink well.

    "Very good then. Shall we draw up the agreement?"

    "My Uncle has already taken the liberty of doing so," Teo replied, pulling a scroll out of his robe and passing it to Berglund.

    The Grapevine leader looked at it curiously for a moment before taking it, a grin spreading across his face.

    "Your Uncle doesn't leave much room for wiggling does he?"

    Teo smiled but said nothing and if someone had taken the time to examine closer they would have noted that the smile never reached the dark eyes of the prince. 

    Berglund quickly read over the terms and conditions and then signed his name at the bottom of the page with a flourish and the wax seal of Crow Haven. Everything was set.

    "Now for the men," Berglund said, handing the agreement back to Teo. "You probably wish to depart quickly as winter is setting in. I can have twenty men ready by dawn tomorrow morning, if that suits you?" 

    Teo thought about it for a minute then asked, "Do you have transport?"

    "But of course!" Berglund replied, sweeping one hand through the air. "We are not exactly desolate."

    I had noticed, Teo thought to himself. 

    "Then that will do fine," he said politely, nodding his head. "Now I shall have to go back to the Inn. I'm afraid we got very little rest on our journey and both my guard and me would like a good night's sleep before we set out."

    "Completely understandable!"

    Both of them stood and Berglund bowed deep, leading the way back outside. 

                "Look, I do not have the time nor the patience to argue with you," Evert said strictly.

    "There was a time when you never questioned my wishes!" Adrastea snapped back.

    "That is a lie and you know it."

    Adrastea continued to glare at him and he glared back, both refusing to give up, and Daphne had resigned herself to sitting back against the wall to wait until one of them passed out unconscious or something equally as likely. She still had no clue who the strange Cieven in black was but she gathered from the last half hour that they knew each other intimately and had not seen one another for quite some time. Also she noted that for once someone was just as obstinate as Adrastea and she found herself liking the Captain or Major or whatever he was quite a lot.

    "Get over that wall or I will throw you over!" Evert warned.

    "She's looking for a man," Daphne finally said.

    Both Evert and Adrastea stopped there arguing to look at the Human girl, one in surprise and one with a feeling of utter betrayal.

    "Daphne!" Adrastea cried out. "How could you?"

    "Oh you weren't getting anywhere!" Daphne replied, waving her hand about. "Now come on. Figure this thing out civilized people otherwise I will throw you both over."

    Neither one spoke a word and when Evert finally opened his mouth to say something, he quickly clamped it shut, looking off through the guard tower door at the courtyard below.

    "What is it?" Adrastea asked. 

    "I have to go," he said hurriedly. "Quickly, what does the man you are looking for look like?"

    "He has a long scar across his face and he is very tall and burly."

    "A box jaw too," Daphne added, making a square motion around her chin. 

   "Alright, I will not ask why you wish to find him but if you come back to the Inn with me I promise to help you," he bargained.

   "There you go!" Daphne said victoriously. "See how easy it was to negotiate?"

   Adrastea gave her an exasperated sidelong glance and turned back to Evert, nodding solemnly.

   "Very well," she said. "We will meet you by the creek at the end of Elephant field."

   Evert nodded and bowed to Adrastea, turning and doing the same to Daphne out of pure habit. Daphne smiled with a little laugh and waved him goodbye, turning to Adrastea.

    "Where did you pick him up?" she asked. "I like him."

    Adrastea did not answer but simply rolled her eyes, turning back to the wall.

    "Let us depart," she said, clapping her hands together.

    "Don't worry," Daphne reassured her after seeing the reluctant glint in her companions eyes. "Going down is much easier."