Chapter 3: Arrival at the Vella Crean
So it was that the group of UNIS officers and a few of their cadets gathered within the Draconar's courtyard of the Nidus a few days later. Lance was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Hana, awaiting their volunteers to bring them to the first of their destinations.
His friends, all of them, were standing at ease in rank and file behind him when two large dragons settled down in the center of the courtyard. These were ones endemic to the Vella Crean, though Lance found it intriguing that they looked so very different. He wasn't completely unfamiliar with either of their riders; Ameliae Cn'cheri and especially Fawzia Tengris had spent time among the UNIS training facilities on and off again; both the ex-messengers and the ex-military society had a little overlapping in common: discipline, physical fitness, and a sense of structure to withstand their time thorugh the mists being king.
Much more rarely had Lance met with, let alone spoke with their dragons. Now, he did his best to include them all. "Ms. Tengris, Ms. Cn'Cheri. We're in your and your dragons' debt. What can we expect with our first trip offworld?"
"The Vella Crean's a lot like us, actually, given another fifty years or so." Ameliae, the open-faced draconar whose great bronze Kalipath sat behind her in a casual repose, launched into explanation with easy friendliness. "Their settlement started on another world, too, and moved. They've made a great go of it. The Vella Crean -- which refers to the city and the planet -- is one of the major trade hubs across the Nexus, so it's a busy place. You're going to see a lot of unfamiliar faces, a lot of unfamiliar kinds of faces. Now, from what I understand, we'll be going directly to the dragonry itself, which is where the ruling council is seated as well, so I'm not sure how much of the city itself you'll see. If you get a chance you should check it out, though."
There was a funny atmosphere between the two riders; as Ameliae talked, Fawzia seemed to be doing her best to look anywhere but the other woman. Their dragons kept shooting little looks at one another, weirdly full of opaque intent. It was not, perhaps, the dynamic Lance had expected between two experienced draconar from the same original location.
Ames had moved on to describing the Empress and her courts, a little of the history there, which seemed to interest the cadets. Hana stood like a wooden plank beside Lance, absolutely no look on her face, which was itself telling.
If the second Draconar seemed to be caught on Ameliae's hook, Lance paid it no mind. Sometimes the less charismatically proficient among his number would do something they were completely unaware of, but he had to figure that it was some kind of lack of self-awareness. If Ameliae wanted Fawzia to stop, he'd absolutely step in... but this seemed like a personal dynamic.
Instead, he nodded along with their guide's crash-course. He'd had a little of this from Hana, too, and glancing at her confirmed that she'd far rather allow the younger woman to do the heavy-lifting. Lance, finding a decent place to step in, replied, "this sounds like a decent place for fieldwork. Did you all get that?"
Their youngest cadet, Angani, had actually pulled out her booklet and was busy scribbling notes. Skahl and Martall stood by with an at ease expression, though Skal stood a head above the rest and had a way of looking a little off-putting on his digitigrade legs. Never the less, everyone answered a smart, "yes sir" with more or less formality as suited them, and Lance nodded along to Ameliae. "Well that settles it. We've got our runner bags. I think we're ready to hit the road. Or, the sky, as the case may be." He quirked his trademark grin at her.
A little more quietly, he nodded over his shoulder to one of his cadets. "Indie is recovering from an injury. Is she going to have any trouble en route? Flames and downpours wouldn't keep her off this mission."
"I'll have her ride with me. As long as we can get her up on Kalipath, it shouldn't cause her any distress." The rider glanced up at her dragon, who nodded. "The transit itself should be quite smooth. Easy going for your youngsters." Apparently Ameliae had pegged him as a mother-hen sort, and her tone was reassuring.
Fawzia, with Ames having wrapped up the lecture, was taking charge of splitting the cadets into two groups and ushering them each to a dragon. The two Court dragons were middling in size, and a double handful of cadets would be a challenge on any lengthy trip, but the harnesses that wound over their chests and shoulders had been modified down their backs as well, with extra snap-straps and carabiners set up for the additional passengers. Red Tengris bowed her shoulder patiently as Fawzia boosted each cadet up to take their place.
Playing passenger on a dragon was a strange feeling. There were a pair of ancient trucks that the UNIS deployed; things that had at one point been driven straight through the portal that had once linked Earth stably with the world that his forebears had built their outpost on. Though both the portal and that world were no longer in the equation, a lot of the technology was still with them, and there was a good chunk of the UNIS that had come up learning to preserve and expand on it.
Needless to say, a ride aback a dragon was not the same thing as being carted around, and Lance looked across the way at Hana as the pair of them clung on for dear life when they were, all of them, finally brought up and out of the Nidus.
Even stranger, then, when Ameliae called over her shoulder to hang on, and their world, their very bodies blinked out from under them. Lance found himself floating for eons, or milliseconds, not entirely unlike the moment that he'd been given his unwanted augury.
He came out the other side shell-shocked, and as the pair of dragons wung their way down to the unfamiliar landing pad, it took three full shakes to pull Lance out of his stupor. Outside, he looked a little taken aback, but nothing more. Internally... well. Atomic fire and melting, searing, world-ending pain filled his mind and overflowed for a moment.
Something felt wrong.
He touched down without the extra help, thankfully. It pained him to show at all that anything was wrong, embarrassing when the cadets looked at one another and back at him as Ameliae asked him if everything was okay. He had to admit, though...
"I might need a minute. Maybe if we can arrange for some rooms, that would be best." He glanced meaningfully at Hana, then. "The tour can probably wait, right?"
Hana had hopped down from Tengris's back the moment after her rider, wind-touseled and expansive with leftover exhilaration.
"I hadn't pegged you as one to get teleportation-sick, sir," she called back, though she sobered quickly and completely when she caught proper sight of his expression. "I'll see what I can do about accommodations," she gave a sharp little nod and disappeared around the other side of the red dragon.
Jabilo, the unit's physician, was next off of Kalipath's back, and he set to scrutinizing the captain the moment he touched down. "Looking a little peaky, sir," he observed in his rich and rolling accent, peering as he did.
"It's nothing," Lance said, raising a hand a little in a gesture that said not now as he turned a wan grin on their guide. "I'm sure you and your compatriot have some catching up of your own to do, and I'd hope that we can properly announce ourselves to the Empress with all the proper respect such a title entails. Country bumpkins or not." By this point, he'd managed to regain enough of himself to give Jabilo and Ameliae a cheeky wink.
Hana returned in short order, by which point Lance had well convinced his cadets and crew he was fine. The cadets were too well-disciplined to be milling per se, but Fawzia had taken their apparent, curious restlessness in hand by pointing out landmarks and giving everybody a quick primer on what was where and how to navigate around the city. When Hana rejoined the group, she waited politely until the draconar finished describing the main road up to the castle before she made her way to Lance's side again.
"I've got a place. Plenty of rooms, though the crew may have to bunk up a bit depending on how full they are. It's walking distance, I'll lead."
"You're a saint," Lance uttered under his breath. He was holding himself together alright, but there was some small part of the back of his mind on red alert, sirens going off that maybe this place was related to his vision. It didn't feel right, but he couldn't be entirely sure up until the moment struck, could he?
He cast a look at his senior officers, the ones who spent most of their time herding the cadets, and they made their ordered way down the street, some hefting UNIS-edition hexagonal suitcases from a single strap over their shoulder, others wearing the more traditional packs woven from cotton and wool or sewn from leather, depending on their access to the group's limited resources.
All around them, Lance could make out signs of... something. Something off about the city. "So it's true about the war, isn't it?" He felt troubled, moreover a sense of impinging upon the hospitality of those currently in the middle of something much more important. His sense of responsibility burbled up and he cast a look at Hana that she knew all too well. If these people need helping, we're here for it.
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