Chapter Text
Cor knew they were young for the Crownsguard, it’s why they had him and Fides driving ambulances and mostly out of the fighting. They needed all the bodies they could get in the field, and it was old tradition in Lucis to send your children to serve the Crown from a young age. And of all the areas of royal service, the battlefield was the most honored in Bahamut’s city-state, so they had long ago found ways to use everyone they could. Cor’s whole family had made almost a law of it. Both his parents had joined the service at age 15; it was how they met, the youngest people in their class, and he’d heard that story so many times he could repeat it before he was five. He secretly suspected it was the source of half their issues.
Thirteen was old enough to be an adult, and thus old enough to serve by law and by tradition, but the Crown was moving away from that after so many years of peace behind the Wall, and so most of Cor’s agemates that volunteered were assigned to cook and keep the camps and haul supplies, even if it took three of them to do the work of two adults. But Cor had passed his combat assessment with flying colors, and already knew how to drive, and most of the safe jobs in the camps now were being taken over by wounded Guards, so he had been allowed to join the ambulance squads. It was still mostly a safe job; Niflheim generally left the ambulances alone, though not always. It depended on the Niff commander, which seemed to change by the day. He didn’t pay close attention to Niff politics; it seemed like an even bigger headache than war.
So Cor knew he and Fi were supposed to be the youngest pair he’d be able to find in half a day’s walk in any direction, even counting the cooks. Despite that, he was constantly surprised at how childish the people around him were. It was ridiculous.
And of all their childish behaviors – fighting over food, dumb pranks, dumber jokes, whining like children at the slightest hint someone else got something they didn’t – the one he hated most was the gossip. They tried to avoid it as much as possible, but even if he could escape to do KP or practice his sword work, Fi had a much harder time avoiding the other daemons, and they loved to corner her and ask her all sorts of questions. She and he would try to work out afterward where the insults were, but they both knew some of the references were going over their heads. So they both agreed that Fides should just ignore them if she could, but it was harder than it sounded. Sometimes asking about whatever the camp’s current favorite gossip subject was the best way to distract the other daemons from making it her. But they were so dumb, most of the time! Neither Cor nor Fides could figure out why they had to put up with this foolishness when they should be concentrating on, you know, the war. And surviving it.
When Cor said this to the medics one day as they were taking their lunch break – the commander he was under right now was very strict about making sure they actually stopped and ate lunch rather than taking it on the go if it was at all possible, which was annoying, but Cor supposed he could see the benefits, as this crew had stayed intact the longest of the three he’d worked with so far – the man had just shaken his head, looking pitying. Cor hated that look almost more than he hated gossip.
“You’ve seen enough things go sideways, kid, to know that it’s not always the people who are hurt the worst that die first,” he’d said, looking resolutely up at the sky and nothing else, though his daemon Medea, a weird animal from Tenebrae he’d said was called an echidna, had settled next to Fi shoulder-to-shoulder on the ground below. The Guard’s daemons were mostly dogs, loyal and alert, who could hunt and fight alongside their owners, but the medics were often armored or prickly in some way. He’d heard the Oracle’s daemon was similar, but who actually knew? Still, he thought it might be a fun form to try, if they could ever stop pretending Fi was a dog. But he was pretty sure even his skill with a sword wouldn’t be enough to keep them out of the kitchen if people knew she hadn’t settled yet.
The man had taken a puff on his cigarette but still hadn’t looked anywhere but the sky. “I’m not even talking about the ones we just…mess up on, either, like when you miss something internal or just get distracted. You know we’re not perfect. Flames blind you!” He’d spat at even the indirect reference to the Infernian, narrowly missing the daemons below. “But sometimes, people just…have seen too much. Done too much. They don’t want to keep having to see,” he gestured around them, but kept his eyes still firmly on the sky, “everything.”
He took another drag on the cigarette, and Cor took a bite of his sandwich, chewing angrily. Finally, the older man had continued. “So if they want to look around and see juicy stories they can use to get one up on each other, let them. They could be doing a lot worse.”
Cor had been on two crews since then, and he didn’t even remember the man’s name anymore, just his unusual daemon, but he’d tried to remember the advice. He and Fi got better at distracting people, too, making up stories that were too silly for anyone to actually believe if people hadn’t been so certain that the two of them didn’t joke, and amusing themselves watching how those stories morphed in the telling by the time they got back around to them.
So Cor hadn’t actually believed it was true when he heard that the King was going to be visiting their little corner of the line of defense. The bulk of the Crownsguard had been stationed in camps spaced evenly just inside the coast along the length of the continent, and theirs had done their fair share, but weren’t anything special. The Niffs couldn’t fly their ships far enough to actually drop behind their lines yet, so the lines were still holding, but Cor marked their progress almost as closely as the commanders did. He figured they had a year, maybe a year and a half, before the dropships improved enough they could make it to Lucis proper and back home without using up all their energy, or they got enough of a toehold on this side of the Wall they could start landing here to refuel, rather than just barely creeping over above the curved bulwark of the Wall to parachute their soldiers inside it (often into the open water, which did half their fighting for them, thank Leviathan) and then abandon them to fly home before they ran out of gas. Then Lucis would have to pick their fronts more carefully.
But for now there were just a bunch of small bases a very long way from Insomnia. There was no reason the king should be there. He and Fi had both blamed the other for starting the rumor and not telling their partner, which had caused a very tense day where neither had spoken to each other. That night, though, they’d curled up together like usual, unable to forgo the extra warmth, and, close enough to hear each other’s heartbeats, they’d finally been able to believe that someone else was the root of things. They’d even had fun trying to ferret out who had been clever enough to come up with such an outrageous lie, to little result. There was a lot they could overhear because people just looked past them or thought that since Cor didn’t join their dumb games that he was stupid and so they didn’t mind their tongues. He knew that he and Fi would figure it out eventually.
So it a great shock one evening about a week after the rumor started floating around when Cor limped his rather damaged vehicle (it wasn’t his fault, okay? a lesser driver wouldn’t have had an engine at all after the Shade popped up literally underneath them just before sundown, before sundown, and he’d somehow managed to kill it before it killed any of them on top of that, so, objectively, they should be thanking him) home to base to discover the king was, in fact, there.
He’d been annoyed – Fi called it pouting – at being wrong, and neither Fi nor he had felt like talking much during dinner that night, especially after the chewing-out he’d received from the officer in charge of the motor pool, which for some reason was in charge of Cor and his ambulance rather than the Medical Corps. (Yes, he’d heard all the puns. All of them.) The screwy chains of command had caused his crews and his superiors headaches more than once, which of course they vented on Cor since he was the root of them. So he and Fi’d gotten their chow as quietly as they could and headed to the darkest corner they could find and curled up there to listen to what people were saying about the king. Cor figured that would probably be the closest he’d get to him, other than the parades he remembered from when he was a kid back in Insomnia.
But things never went the way they should, so of course they were pulled from repairing the bus just after morning meal the next day to drive the king around instead. The official royal driver was apparently sick, and the Lord Shield hadn’t wanted to drive so that he could be available at a moments’ notice to do his actual job. Everyone else who could drive well enough to be trusted with the king was out in the field already or being forced on leave for an illness or injury of their own. No one really wanted Cor driving the king, either, but he was the best they’d had left.
It hadn’t helped Cor’s bad mood, either way. He didn’t want to deal with the extra protocol from being near the king, and he didn’t want some other idiot touching his ambulance. Plus, you weren’t supposed to snap back when the king or his retinue made short jokes, which Cor had found was an inevitable fact of life whenever he met someone new on the front lines, even from the people shorter than him. He did his best, however, to restrain what his CO called his resting “laser eyes” and gritted his teeth through the bows and introductions and excuses from his superior’s end and the raised eyebrows on the retinue’s. He was young, not blind.
Thankfully his work required him to sit in the front and keep his eyes on the road so he wouldn’t have to look at them too much once the polite frothy little time-wasting was done and they could get on their way. He held the door like he was supposed to, then carefully closed it without slamming it and hopped in the cab, Fides curling up out of the way under his feet like usual. Cor had seen one fool try to smuggle a kitten into camp that way and nearly die when the kitten ran under the pedal, but of course Fi was much smarter than that and could stay out of his way. It was nice having her close like that, and they didn’t have to work nearly as hard keeping her looking exactly right when she was so hard for other people to see. That was one comfort, at least – the armored jeep the king was using at least had almost as much legroom as the ambulance, so they didn’t even have to shift things around.
It was actually a surprisingly practical vehicle, all told. Almost identical to the rest of their fleet except newer, and the walls were thicker with armor. It actually had windows, too, even if they weren’t up at the moment, which was a bit of a change. Insomnia was using a lot of glass at the moment and it was driving up the prices – he’d heard the complaints from his mater back home and from the other drivers out here whenever a windshield got cracked beyond use, so he figured it was probably true – so they generally didn’t bother with anything but the windshield. It was actually kind of fun to drive, well-maintained and relatively smooth, even if it was a little heavier and clunkier on the turns.
Fi nudged him in the left leg and he tuned back in to what was being said in the vehicle. Apparently the king wanted to check out the Niff base they had just cleared out to the north. Cor frowned. That wasn’t what he had been told was the itinerary. Was it worse to upset the king, who could squash him like a bug and blame it on the Niffs with no real consequences or questions but would be gone in a few days at most, or go against his direct superiors who generally had to follow protocol but could make his life hell for…years, at this rate. He frowned, then made a point of relaxing his eyes as Fi nudged him again. Getting stabbed right now for glaring murder in the general vicinity of the king was probably not the best way to solve that dilemma. He’d put off the problem until someone ordered him directly to go somewhere else.
Unfortunately, no sooner had he thought that then the king’s huge vulture of a daemon, Queen Vanth, hopped up on the seat next to him. Cor deliberately didn’t cringe away, even with how close she was or what damage she was surely doing to the rather nice upholstery. “Listen sharp, kid,” she drawled, the clack of her beak and the deliberate slowness of her speech an eerie contrast with her proper Citadel accent. “Your orders come from the Lord Shield, but he’s never going to actually gainsay Mors unless it’s immediately dangerous, and probably not even then.”
Cor knew she was his daemon, but it still felt wrong to hear someone speak of the king with just a name. No title, just a name. Like he was a normal person. Cor had seen the Wall stretching beyond the range of vision to either side, never wavering even as the ocean pounded away at it day after day. They never saw the Wall in Insomnia, but here it was just about all that stood between them and overwhelming hordes of enemy soldiers. The king was not just a man.
There was a trace of amusement in her voice as she continued – perhaps Cor had not concealed his discomfort as well as he thought he had. “That means it saves you time and energy to just go with what Mors wants even if the order hasn’t officially been given.” She gave a croaking laugh as the rest of the car continued to bicker politely but loudly over her. “You’ll learn.”
She launched off the seat then, nearly clipping the back of Cor’s head if he hadn’t ducked. He really had earned his position as a driver, though, and so he kept the car steady even so. He could hear the king laughing in the back seat, and Cor gritted his teeth as they came to the fork and he turned north, just as she’d advised. He didn’t want her to come back down after him.
“You know, kid,” the king drawled from the back seat, just as smooth and lazy as his daemon. “She doesn’t talk to just anybody. Take it as a compliment.” But he laughed afterwards, and Cor couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not. He figured it was safest to just ignore it until Fi nudged his leg again.
“Yes, your Majesty,” he said, trying to annunciate clearly through his clenched jaw. Mater and Papa would kill him if he were discharged for disrespecting the king over something dumb. “Make every breath deliberate, make every step count,” he could hear them saying in unison, even now.
Cor managed to stay out of things for the rest of the trip to the former base. It was only about half an hour out, but it was still novel to be able to drive to it directly, without veering off to evacuate someone or dodge enemy fire. It was a pleasant morning, too, as the morning mist burned away, but it was impossible to relax, especially after Queen Vanth returned to the car, landing on the front seat between him and the Lord Shield and perching there rather than staying back with the king. Fides shifted uncomfortably beneath his feet, and he kept his eyes peeled. Dog senses were weird; she might have smelled something and not recognized what. Even if she hadn’t, and was just feeling territorial, better to be prepared.
They got to the base without incident, but Cor was still on edge. He wanted to check the engine just to have something to do, but he also wanted to be ready to go ASAP. He settled for inspecting his mater’s sword, which he’d left leaning out the window like a flagpole as they’d driven in. The Lady Advisor looked at him oddly as they prepared to explore the base. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m guarding the car, ma’am,” he said, as politely as possible. “I don’t think you need my help out there; Colonel Leth knows the base better than I do, and I’d just get in your way trying to fight. Better to make sure you have a way out if you need to leave in a hurry.” She gave him another odd look, but nodded and followed the three men.
The tour seemed to go well, by all accounts, but Cor was glad he didn’t have to deal with it. He could hear conversations but not really make out the words, which was fine by him. He pulled out lunch and ate it as quicky as possible while the rest of the group was in one of the buildings, giving Fi his sandwich crusts. He didn’t want to have to watch his manners in front of the nobles, and who knew when they’d next stop?
Cor kept an eye on the last bits of morning mist as the party finished looking at whatever they were looking at, remembering how the Shade had appeared in the shadow of the ambulance before proper darkness had fallen. No Shades jumped out this time, though, and the danger didn’t come from the forest. Instead, one of the warehouses that had looked collapsed and he was pretty sure they hadn’t gone into yet exploded behind the king and his company, and some of the soldiers in the newer body armor, the one that made them move like they were robots, literally crawled out from the flaming building and the others near it.
Cor jumped into action, starting the car before he’d even closed the door. He slammed it through a three-point turn and backed up down the main thoroughfare of the base toward his passengers, now running full tilt away from the blast site. He floored it about halfway to them, then took his foot off the pedal and let the road slow him down the rest of the way. He kept his gaze moving around – behind so he didn’t hit anyone he shouldn’t, to the side to make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed again, and forward so the way out was still clear – but that didn’t mean he didn’t notice as the king released a barrage of lightning at the Niffs, causing the whole group to twitch unnaturally and collapse into smoking heaps. Who knew how many more of them there were though? Better to get out quickly while they could. The rest of the group seemed to agree, with how fast they were winging it toward Cor.
He finally bothered to apply the brakes when they were actually close enough to get in, but he didn’t let the car come to a complete stop. He made sure everyone was inside and slammed the clutch and shifted through the gears as fast as possible, trying to look everywhere as he went. Normally he had a lookout system worked out with whichever crew member was sitting up front with him, or had Fi up on the bench seat, but he wasn’t about to assume his signal system was universal. That meant he had to do everything himself, and this car shifted just slightly differently than his bus, meaning his sense of floating the gears required a little more attention.
Which is why he was able to swerve around the first squad that stepped out from between the trees, but not the second. Two filmy bubbles, one smooth and one fractured into holy hexes, formed around them as they skidded sideways, shattering on impact but absorbing most of the force. Cor tried to keep driving but the engine was stalled; there was too much noise around them for him to be able to say more clearly what was wrong. He shifted to park anyway, and turned it off, then threw open the door, grabbing his mother’s sword automatically as it fell.
The Lord Shield grabbed the back of his collar before he could go any further, and he backed up a step to relieve the tension around his neck so he could turn around. “What?” he barked, annoyed. This was his job; he knew where he ranked on the ladder, and it was definitely the lowest one there. Lord Amicitia could drive them out if he needed to, but Cor couldn’t command this base, much less an army. He was expendable.
“We got this, kid,” he said, nodding to where the king had already vaulted over the door without bothering to open it, his daemon soaring overhead beside Lord Amicitia’s skull-headed eagle and the Lady Advisor’s colorful falcon. There were no answering daemons from the Niffs, but Cor was long used to that oddity. That didn’t stop them from still speculating over it still; it was one of the best conversations to steer people to that wasn’t Cor, as a matter of fact. “You see if you can fix the car, that way we can get out of here if there are more of them.”
That made sense, so he nodded and jogged around to the front of the car and propped the hood open, resting his sword against it. Without being asked, Fi prowled around the entire car, watching his back and making sure he could focus. It looked like the crash had just jarred a few things loose, rather than there being any major issues. It should be something he could fix. He whistled Fides over, glancing around to make sure everyone was still absorbed in fighting – they were, and it looked like more Niffs had joined the party – and whispered where he needed her to go. She turned into a little desert mouse he didn’t know the name of but had seen in Leide on their way out here that was perfect for dealing with hot engines – it had tough little paws and was nimble as a sparrow, especially with Fides so eager to be something new.
They were able to get things more or less in order, and he added some extra coolant and oil just to make sure. He set Fi to watch the engine and cranked the key. The engine turned over with a gratifying noise that both sides heard loud and clear, and he knew that this was crunch time. Thankfully Fi was already a dog again, anticipating the eyes that would follow, but that meant she wasn’t able to release the hood without people noticing something. They swapped places and he slammed it closed, grabbing his sword where it still rested by the wheel.
Another squad of soldiers burst out of the woods beside him, too close to the car. Half out of instinctive protection of his vehicle, half aware that everyone else was still too far away, he drew his sword and charged them before they could attack. People always underestimated him because he was young and small and carried a huge sword that looked like it should be more of a hazard than a help. That second of pause, especially when he ran right at them, was often his biggest advantage. Plus it kept him too busy to be afraid.
Cor threw the scabbard at the solder on the far right, causing them to drop their gun, then huffed out a breath, planted his feet, and used his now free hand to heave his mater’s katana around with all his might, chopping through the stomach and neck respectively of the two on the left. He took a step forward, kicking away the first soldier’s gun, and pulled the sword back down and across the leader and rear left soldier before they could move away far enough from its massive reach. Another head rolled and another body collapsed. His mater’s blade was made for fighting Shades and beasts and imbued with the fighting spirit of three generations of her line. Humans, even armored humans, weren’t much of an issue for it.
The last living member of the ambush squad recovered from being bowled over by the thrown scabbard and grabbed his leg, stabbing it with some sort of concealed knife. Cor cried out, but kept his grip on his mater’s sword as he pulled his own standard-issue knife and stabbed it through the soldier’s throat. This close, it was impossible not to notice something was wrong as body convulsed. It didn’t even sound right – no choking for air or attempts to speak – and the dying soldier didn’t reach for their throat either. When Cor pulled his blade back out, the wheeze sounded more like his engines than his usual passengers, and a fine whisp of dark miasma, followed by white sparks and fine gold dust, rose from the wound. That…wasn’t normal.
He looked around to make sure he hadn’t missed any more of them and that the car was still clear, then wiped his blade, just like his mater taught him, sheathed it, and pulled out a roll of bandages, winding them tight around his calf. The weird soldier had already yanked their knife out, so it was the best he could do. He checked again, and it looked like the king and his entourage were making their way back to the car as well, so he scooted one of the other Nif soldier’s heads – which was also just leaking sparks, dust, and miasma, with no blood, but at least looked somewhat more like he’d expect across the cut surface, though he hadn’t made a point of examining his enemies’ bodies -- toward him with his sword, scooped it up, and walked as normally as he could back to the driver’s side.
Fi had the driver’s door open for him, because she was the best daemon he could ever ask for, and she even slammed it behind him after he hopped inside. He looked over his passengers as they piled in, but they seemed to be fine. “Anyone need medical attention before we leave?” he asked anyway; it’s not like he was being open about his injuries, so he couldn’t expect to be able to see signs of theirs, but it was still his job to check. “Anything that can wait fifteen minutes can be taken care of behind our own lines,” he cautioned, glaring at each one of them, which usually worked with his crews and their patients alike. His injury certainly fell in the latter category; he wasn’t being a hypocrite.
“His majesty already dealt with it, kid, but thanks for the concern,” the Lady Advisor said, smiling wryly. That…made sense. He had heard the king was the one who made potions, but he generally didn’t think about that outside of counting how many of the carefully horded treasures they had. That might explain the recklessness of this trip at least. But speaking of the Advisor…
Then again, better to get underway first. He hit the gas and eased back onto the road, listening carefully to the engine. Everything sounded fine, but he missed his usual bus with a pang. It was a rickety old thing and it turned like a sleepy garula, but he knew exactly how it was supposed to sound and move. Here it just felt like guess-work. But Fi was on top of things again, even as Cor divided his attention between the car and the road, and she grabbed the head where he’d left it on the seat, lifting by the hair as she clambered up to show it to the back seat. It was just a thing now, after all, whatever it had been before. It wouldn’t hurt her to touch it like a human would.
“What is that?!” the colonel squawked. Cor winced in embarrassment. He hoped the king and his retinue didn’t think the rest of them were that green or squeamish. He waited for Fides to answer, then realized she literally had her mouth full. What a pain. “The soldiers back there were weird,” he explained, exasperated. “Sir,” he tacked on as an afterthought. “They didn’t bleed, and it looked like dust and miasma came out of them. I thought the Lady Advisor might want to take a look at one.”
“I’ve seen one, Ensign,” she said dryly. “That’s part of why we’re here.” Cor flushed, but kept his eyes on the road. He could feel Fides slump down, ready to slink back to the floorboards. He got angry instead, then; she shouldn’t have to hide or be ashamed. Fides hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
“Then maybe you should have said that. Or brought more people if you knew something was weird,” he snapped, glaring.
“Careful,” drawled Lord Amicitia beside him. “That’s the king’s orders you’re questioning, kiddo.” Idiots. Cor was surrounded by idiots.
“So being king means he can’t make bad plans?” he spat. Maybe that was a mistake, but he didn’t have the time to deal with stupidity when he was navigating the tricky curves on this hill. “Though if you’re really planning on dropping the Wall, your majesty, maybe you just need better advisors. That’ll be great. Then they can just ship the troops in without having to fly back or set up real bases a whole year before they'll be able to do it on their own! A lot can change in a year. And we can blast a lot of ships to ash in a year and cost them money and supplies. Why don’t you just talk to us rather than waste your time with all this skulking around like kids playing Royal Guards?” He supposed he shouldn’t be talking like this to the king, shouldn’t be glaring him down like this now that they were on a straight-away, shouldn’t be relying on rumors at all. But this was really dumb and he didn’t want to fight for a dumb king. And they shouldn’t talk to Fides like that.
Fides dropped the head into the backseat and bared her teeth, then spun around and leaned against his side. Cor shifted his glare from the rear-view mirror to the road. He wasn’t backing down, but it would be equally dumb to die because he hadn’t been watching where he was going. Behind him, the king started laughing, his daemon cackling along beside him. It was terrifying, honestly, but Cor kept his back straight and his driving smooth. If he was going to be killed by the king, no one was going to say he’d gone to his death a coward, or worse, incompetent.
“Fair enough, kid,” he finally drawled. Cor glared harder at the road. He was really beginning to hate that word. “You willing to put your blood where your blade is?” Cor snapped his gaze back to the king, who had become the most dangerous threat at the moment. Fi, ever watching his back, focused her glare on watching the Lord Shield in the seat next to them, who was still slouched against the passenger door, looking amused, his daemon soaring in lazy circles above them.
“What do you mean?” Cor asked, suspicious. He was going to have to pull over soon if this got any weirder, which would show he was having difficulty keeping up, but would probably be safer.
“I mean, you’re a pretty good driver, kid. Decent behind the wheel, decent in repairs, decent with a blade. Why don’t you put your service to better use and be my permanent driver, tell me what’s really going on, watch my back as part of the guard.” What. That didn’t make sense.
“And who’s going to stab me in my back while I’m watching yours because they were replaced by a teenager?” Fides kept watching the Shield, but her hackles were lowering. Cor could feel it where they were pressed together.
The king barked out another laugh. “Don’t think you’re good enough to watch my back and yours, kid?” he drawled. Cor was beginning to hate his voice, but the offer had been enough of a shock to his system he wasn’t quite mad enough, in either sense of the word, to say it. “But fair enough. Prove yourself with me, and once Jani is back on her feet,” the Advisor snorted at that for some reason, “I will send you to my son, let you bend his ear instead. Connect with your own generation, as it were.”
Cor hated walking in blind, but asking what would happen if he didn’t prove himself implied he thought it could happen, so he wouldn’t. Besides, that’s what the king wanted him to do, he could tell. “As you command, your majesty,” he hissed, instead. The king laughed again, and this time his Shield joined in.
“You are going to be one to watch, kid,” the king finally said, still chuckling, as the camp pulled back in view. Cor realized then he hadn’t stopped at the waypoint like he had intended, but headed the whole way back out of habit. Like he was running towards home. What a great first impression. “I look forward to it. And here,” Cor felt a swoop of air across his shoulders as his beret was ripped off his head, then something hard shattered against his skull, causing a tingling sensation to trickle across his body. The wound in his leg, which he’d almost successfully ignored, itched fiercely then abruptly felt better. “The perks of the job start now. As thanks for the MT head. That was good thinking and done well.” He actually ruffled Cor’s hair. Fi shuddered and climbed into his lap as the king laughed.
Cor deliberately ignored everything and focused on getting through the base and parking. The various bird daemons came in for a landing, Queen Vanth dropping his beret on top of Fi as she did so. Cor went around and opened the doors for the Shield, the king and colonel, and then the advisor, deliberately gazing past them as he saluted so that he didn’t provoke any other brilliant ideas. He was already mourning his bus with each slam of the door.
“I’ll take care of the transfer,” Lord Amicitia said, as the group walked back to camp. The Advisor was actually carrying the head Cor had brought back, which was slightly mollifying. “You say your goodbyes, kid.” Cor scowled on reflex. “And kid—”
“Leonis,” he finally snapped.
“Leonis,” the Shield acknowledged. “Welcome to the team.”