Chapter Text
Three sixteen year olds sat in a park, one had his trouser leg rolled up showing a red and swollen knee with still healing cuts below it where his lower leg used to be, the second had only one eye, and the third was struggling to hold anything as she had recently lost several of her fingers.
"I take it your parentals were as bad as you expected?" The man asked both of them.
"They had a ritualist there ready to seal my rank! And when I refused they told me I would get no help from them as a gheyo." The woman with seven fingers snapped, she was upset but unsupurised by the actions of her parents as she had known since before her inheritance how they viewed certain ranks but to be thrown out by your own parents was difficult even if you did expect it.
"Mine said that they had faith in my great aunt, and didn't understand why I wouldn't let her conduct her ritual, and wouldn't support me turning my nose up at family." The woman with one eye said.
"This is the ritual that in every previous test permanently blinded the participant right Matilda?" The other woman asked.
"You got it Anfa, but don't worry she's redone her calculations and is really sure this time." Her tone was thick with sarcasm and hurt, she knew why her entire family were desperate to remain in the good books of her great aunt, she had bonded into an incredibly rich circle, but the fact that they evidently valued money over her own sight was a bitter pill to swallow.
"Offa what did your parents say?"
"I've told both of you about the circumstances of my birth," he began "how my parentals were contracted guards for a ritualist who was examining an abandoned realm as no child lived past birth, and while there they agreed to have their first child following the end of the contract but unfortunately as so many fertility rituals had been cast before the realm was abandoned the agreement was enough for five members of their circle to become pregnant, the submissive, the advisor, and all three the parayas.
For obvious reasons they had to break the contract but the ritualist decided to sue for breach of contract and as he was we technically correct there was no provision written in for breaking the contract in the event of pregnancy he was within his rights to demand the entire sum he would have paid over the entire 30 year contract, the courts were as gracious as they could be awarding the damages to be paid over 40 years and the ritualist guild did step in and offered my parents a very generous contract guarding some of their ritual sites, so they've been able to make the repayments and look after us kids but they can't have an untrained gheyo around the ritual sites, it wouldn't be safe. They did give me a name that might be able to help, when my uncle lost his arm he went to the Splint Circle who helped him get a prosthetic and get used to it and they had quite affordable rates, so I was going to suggest we go to them and see if they'd be willing to help us." He trailed off as all three felt at a loss as to what they could possibly do, stories of feral untrained gheyos were well known and none of them wanted to become another cautionary tale, but the idea of going to a circle of strangers and practically begging them was not something any of them relished in.
"Unless either of you have any ideas I think we don't have a choice." Anfa said when both of them shook their heads she stood and helped Offa up and onto his crutches then linked arms with Matilda, a habit they had taken up as she was struggling with her depth perception with only one eye and she didn't wish to bump into anything.
Offa lead them to the estate his uncle has mentioned and as then the three knocked and waited in a tense, a young looking paraya answered the door.
"Greetings and good fortunes, I am Athe paraya sylven in training with the Splint Circle, do you have an appointment?"
After awkwardly glancing at each other for a moment Anfa took the lead again,
"Unfortunately we don't, we were involved in the incident with the Green Tor training circle and were advised that the Splint Circle may be able to be of assistance." The paraya hesitated slightly and then welcomed them inside and directed them to an office with a promise someone would be with them momentarily.
The three hesitantly sat down, a couple of agonizingly slow minutes later the door swung open and a storm beta walked in, all three went to stand in greeting but Offa still wasn't used to not having two legs and pitched forward only to be caught by the beta who had spent time with enough recently injured people to have expected this.
"Greetings and good fortune to you and yours," the beta started "I am Thomas Splint, beta of the Splint Circle, our paraya in training gave me an overview but would you be able to talk me through it in detail?"
Anfa wondered if it was an indicator of their future ranks at this point when Offa and Matilda both again deferred to her, but none the less she began explaining how they had all inherited within the last six months and had been enrolled into the Green Tor training circle, how their training had been going well until one day two of the newer trainees who had arrived with a grudge against each other had been arguing all day and the training ace was sick of it and so sent the whole cadre on a punishment run, how these were designed to help gheyos learn to act as a unit and so each person was tied to at least two others forming a grid pattern and the two who caused the problem were tied together in the middle with strict instructions to figure out how to get along.
They were all instructed to run up the hill then fly back down three times, and it was designed to be hard they'd all been training all day and so were already tired and the ropes weren't long enough to give much room especially when flying so clipping anothers wings was a constant worry especially since if you went down you often brought several people down with you and the rule while flying was if even one of you touched the ground everyone had to run back to the top and start the fly again.
They had got to the last run, after the first flight needing to be restarted twice and the second had taken four attempts and everyone was tired and in pain and more than slightly pissed off when one of the two troublemakers tripped and went down hard bringing everyone he was attached to with him including the person he'd been fighting with all day.
They decided that this had been on purpose and he completely lost his temper screaming at the one who'd fallen and since we were all newly inherited he lost control of his element, causing a rock slide and how the fear caused by this meant most of the cadre lost control of their emotions as well meaning they were all trapped in a rock slide with parts of the hillside on fire and a heavy thunderstorm with gale force winds swirling around prevented the instructors getting to them for a long time, especially since the river running down the hill burst it's banks and seeped into the dirt also causing a mudslide.
Anfa finished by explaining that of the 27 eight died including both of the instigators, ten were fine following medical attention and nine were seriously injured, the other six had families able and willing to help them but none of the three of them did and they had been told Offa's uncle came to the Splint Circle for rehabilitation after he lost his arm and they were hoping that they'd be able to come to some agreement.
The beta had sat calmly through the explanation nodding in the correct places as Anfa explained their tale of woe.
"Listen Anfa, Matilda, Offa what happened to you should have never happened and I hope the Green Tor circle get what's coming to them. However the training we offer is rehabilitation for already trained individuals, we take in broke wing gheyos, fully trained gheyos who joker shift, and gheyos who are." He cut himself off in the middle of the sentence as he froze before shooting up and calling out "Nikei!" As he ran out of the room. Anfa, Offa, and Matilda had been steadily sinking in their chairs as the beta was going through a rejection speech but all startled as he ran out of the room and after glancing at each other decided to follow him.
An open door towards a courtyard where shouting could be heard gave a clear indicator of where he had gone and as the trio ran through they saw a horrifying scene, two feral jokers were fighting each other in order to attack a dragel who was collapsed on the floor, at a closer look the dragel on the ground showed them to be newly inherited with their wings slick with the blood that heralded a first transformation, one of their deep purple wings was painfully trapped beneath where they lay on the ground and the other was wrapped around their face and torso to try and protect what they could and showing how the very base of the wings transitioned to a navy colour and the size and armoured plates marked them as a gheyric paraya, the dragel was bleeding in several places and one of their legs was clearly broken looking like it had been stomped on.
While the trio, and several other members of the Splint Circle who had also arrived took in the scene in front of them one of the jokers was able to gain the upper hand and threw the other one several feet away before going to stab the bleeding newly inhereted dragel on the floor, Offa was the closest and pushing himself off of his crutches he threw himself over the helpless body on the ground.
That's when something none of them expected happened, as soon as Offa landed gracelessly soul sparks appeared at every point of contact, the shock of this was enough to startle the joker out of his feral mind and he immediately went to try and subdue the other joker sitting on him quite literally.
Another figure in the grey and red robes of a healer ran into the courtyard and sank to her knees talking softly to the person who was apparently Offa's soul bond as she ran scans. Matilda and Anfa who had been frozen saw Offa struggling to move and each grabbed one of his crutches and moved towards him to help, Matilda however was still struggling with her depth perception and instead of handing the crutch she was holding to Offa like she meant to she instead rammed a hand into the prone dragel, which triggered a second set of soul sparks. The dragel on the floor began to move their arm at this in order to grab hold of one of their soulbonds hands but due to the amount of blood spilling from a head wound they couldn't see properly and ended up grabbing Anfa instead which caused a third set of soul sparks.
Everyone in the courtyard at this point was dumbfounded, three soulbonds in such quick succession was almost unheard of, and none of them other than Thomas were even sure who these three were.
After a splint had been conjoured for their leg and they had been fed some healers blood the two jokers were left under guard and the alpha of the circle guided the group inside so they could sit down and discuss what had just happened, unfortunately things went wrong almost immediately as the group entered with the injured dragel being supported by the healer the paraya in training Anfa, Offa, and Matilda had met was already in the room looking like she had been pacing anxiously she ran over when the healer entered but as soon as she got close enough to sense the newly inherited dragel she dropped into a combat stance and hissed angrily, and then the injured dragel still leaning on the healer growled and bared their teeth in response.
The Splint Circle beta was not in a mood to entertain this and immediately grabbed Athe by her upper arm and marched her out of the room before returning as everyone settled with all four of the new soulbonds sitting as close to each other as they could.
"Right then, you three names, ranks, and why you are in my home." The alpha barked at them.
"Jami, they were meeting with me they were injured in the Green Tor training circle incident and heard we offered support for injured gheyos as their families wouldn't or couldn't." Thomas cut in.
"If you're all gheyo pages, why don't you have soul bond blockers?" The healer asked.
"They charged extra for that service," Offa answered "and we couldn't pay."
The healer stood and began striding out of the room saying she needed to make the courts aware of this as it was an additional crime to be laid at the feet of the Green Tor circle.
As she left the alpha turned back to the gathered group.
"Soul bonds are always a blessing even when unexpected, I welcome you three to our family even though we wish the circumstances were different. " A chorus of welcomes echoed from the other circle members present, the beta then decided to pick up where their previous conversation had dropped off.
"As I was part way through telling you we only work with those already fully trained, but one of our ace's parents are the Ludwig Circle, who are a training circle who train those who require non standard support up to gheyo knight rank, and I'm sure they would have taken you on regardless but they definitely will now we're family."
"Nikei should go as well." One of the parayas who had the same eyes as their new bonded spoke up.
"Mera?" Anfa, Offa, and Matilda's eyes all snapped to their new soulbond as they spoke for the first time their tone thick with confusion.
The paraya who spoke moved until she was knelt in front of her child, "my dear, none of us expected you to be a gheyric paraya and going to the Ludwig circle for training will allow you to embrace this rank you've not had any training for, and you'll get to get to know your new soul bonded." She brushed a lock of hair away from Nikei's eyes and pressed a soft kiss on their brow before returning to her seat.
Nikei thought for a moment, they'd expected the payaric instincts that now flooded them, the instincts to protect their bonded and their circle, they'd say through seminars on these instincts and how to safely process them, but the unexpected gheyric instincts were wreaking havoc on their brain, they had nearly attacked their sister when she hissed at them. Additionally spending time with these three who made their soul sing was something they were not willing to give up.