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Quick heads up: What was supposed to be Chapter 4 turned out to be rather long (like 17,000 words, lol), so I split it into 2 parts. Since this half doesn't have much super crazy awesome deluxe fluffy fantasy action, and the second half is ALL that stuff, I'll upload the other part in the next couple days rather than next Friday like a normal update so y'all aren't waiting forever to get to the good part, and then regular updates will resume on Friday with Chapter 6. So yeah, that's my PSA. Have some character development, let me know how I'm doing, etc. Take it away, Mr. Black.

Chapter 4: Help Is on the Way

"Richard, are you shitting me?! How long have you known you could do that?"

Seth was understandably bewildered by Richard's ability to spontaneously produce fire, because... aw, come on, do I need to explain it? Richard could shoot powers out of his paws. I'd be freaking out too. "Since just now," Richard blurted out, "I don't know how it happened! We were just talking and I got into the conversation and, well, boom. Fire. Out of my paws. What the fuck am I supposed to do Seth?! This isn't even legal!" Seth shook his head, and responded in disbelief, "Good lord, Richard, I think whether you're 'allowed' to do it should be the least of your concerns. I mean, think of the situation we're in. General Galahad Noblefur thinks we're the best thing since sex, we're wolves and have the best armor in the army, and Harry's allowed to snap a fox prostitute's spine upstairs. I don't think anyone will take offense to you being able to incinerate furs with your mind."

Richard fell speechless, and Seth asked if he could do anything else, well, magical, to which he answered, "I don't know. I'm not exactly going to try to throw a fireball inside. You know how I was able to deflect Mith's attacks, though? Maybe that was magic, too." "Yeah," Seth concurred, "I thought I noticed a blue light coming off your shield whenever you stopped one. Magic might explain that." Richard looked at Seth, appearing quite stressed, "What do I do with this?" Seth was confused, which made sense because the answer seemed fairly obvious, "Um, Richard, you use it. You know, to help us win? We should start practicing with it tomorrow, and on the bright side, if we ever need to burn another camp down or start a campfire or something, we'll be completely covered." Richard stumbled back to his bunk, "I, uh, I think I need to lie down. Can we put off that talk?" "Don't worry about it," Seth told him, "Can't be easy suddenly findin' out you're a mage."

Seth wordlessly rolled back over and resumed staring at the ceiling, and before long, the exhaustion of the day began to consume him. At least he hadn't gone to bed with a female, he laughed inwardly. He didn't know where the others got that energy from. Though that thought did lead him into a nostalgic memory as he started to fall asleep...

*****

That's right everyone, it's time for another "Lydia Flashback Dream Sequence"! On this episode, we delve into one of Seth's favorites, at least in the sense that it led to many of his favorites. We catch up to Seth and Lydia about a year after our last flashback, in which they decided that they preferred each other's exclusive company to the company of others. In layman's terms, they started going out. So, after the previously mentioned span of time, Seth and Lydia were exiting another dance, though they weren't headed for the forest to have a ridiculous tennis match of love confessions this time. They had already done that once, and it was a little passé, you know? So on this occasion, Seth was simply walking Lydia home, expecting some quality time with his girl, a snuggle or two, and maybe a little light, wholesome wolf-on-wolf action before calling it a night like the gentleman he was. That's what he was expecting. Lydia evidently thought that was getting a little too mainstream, though, and was going to try to change things up. But we'll get to that.

Lydia was walking paw in paw next to Seth, giggling and nuzzling him and letting him know in no vague gestures that he was the only thing in the world that she was paying attention to. Like, there could've been a coyote mariachi band that showed up out of nowhere, and she wouldn't have even noticed, nor would she have cared. As a side note, I would like to establish rights to any time-traveling and/or teleporting coyote mariachi-themed stories before anyone rips off that idea of sheer brilliance that... actually falls somewhere between Neville Chamberlain's appeasement strategy and the double-decker couch. Hey, it's a stupid idea, but it's _my_stupid idea. Anyway, Seth responded to all this attention by generally feeling like a total boss. Keeping the mariachi scenario, if they had shown up Seth would've just given a look that somehow conveyed all of the following: "Yeah. Yeah, see this hot piece of tail here? Yeah, she's all mine. Go ahead, be jealous. I'm the luckiest male alive, I'd expect nothing less." All of that, one look. That's how Seth was feeling.

So they merrily frolicked all the way to the Greyclaw inn, thoroughly enjoying each other's company. When they got there, Seth walked Lydia towards the door, but as they got close, she squeezed his paw and he took the hint that that wasn't exactly where she wanted to go. He pulled her into a crushing hug against an adjacent wall, told her he loved her and then put his muzzle to use, starting that wolf-on-wolf action he had been looking for. Lydia wasted no time reciprocating in kind, as she pulled him in closer than he already was and held him tightly, preventing him from escaping should he have gone completely crazy and wished to for reasons that no sane male could have understood. After going at it for a few minutes, Seth's paws started wandering, and Lydia, who had always stopped him from doing that, did so again, and pulled her mouth off of his. Seth was about to apologize for overstepping his bounds again, but Lydia retained her hold on him, saying something very different from the norm this time, "So, um, Seth... You're, I mean, um, we're planning on getting mated right?"

Seth wasn't at all sure where this was going, but affirmed, "Sure. I was going to get mum and dad to arrange it this week. Why, is something wrong...?" Lydia looked at the ground and burned redder than Sasha's hair as she replied, "No, no, not at all. I love you, of course I still want to mate you. It's just... um... you don't have to work early tomorrow do you?" Right, so every single one of you probably knows exactly where this is going, but bear with Seth here. Remember that his previous relationships had consisted of a misguided accident with the princess, almost falling victim to a psychopath, and an assortment of one-offs that were collectively less interesting than Wuthering Heights, none of which had gotten into his pants. So understand Seth's confusion when he asked, "Yeah, we're ahead of schedule. Not much to do tomorrow. Why is that making you blush like that though?" Somehow, Lydia managed to get even more embarrassed as she explained, "W-well, it's not actually that, it's really... I, um, oh god, what am I saying? Alright, when I left to go out with you tonight, mum said, um, that she had, well, saved a room at the inn because we're 'close enough' to being betrothed and... and..." Lydia paused before spitting out, "Do you want to spend the night with me?"

It took Seth a minute to process this information, and at first he was about to wonder why a strong female like Lydia would need someone to sleep with her, and then it all hit him like an NFL linebacker. Seth's teenage brain recalibrated itself and more efficiently translated the last sentence into "SEX! SEX! GLORIOUS SEX! SAY YES FOR SEX!" It then took Seth approximately zero seconds to respond positively, but because he was smoother than I, put his paw under Lydia's chin and pushed up so she was looking at him, then leaned down so their noses were touching and said, "How could I ever say no to that?" Of course this was still thinly veiled teenage wolf for "YES TAKE ME TO SEX PLEASE THANK YOU", but it sounded much nicer than that, and Lydia relaxed and kissed Seth again before deciding to go through with her offer and leading him to the room that Mary had "reserved" for them.

They walked into the room, and Seth closed the door behind them as Lydia stood by the bed and asked, "So, um, have you...?" Now it was Seth's turn to shyly scratch behind his head and look away, "Um... no... Have...?" Lydia fidgeted with her paws as she confessed, "No... So... how do we... start?" Seth mumbled that he didn't know, nervously removing his shirt. Lydia had seen a topless Seth many times before, but in that context, she looked away and started breathing irregularly, knowing that the shirt wasn't the only thing coming off this time. Deciding to take the initiative, she slipped one strap of her dress partly off her shoulder and asked Seth to come over, which he gladly obliged. Both wolves were trembling as he put his paws on her hips and leaned in to kiss her, her paws sliding up his chest and around his neck. They relaxed after a few seconds, and Seth's paws began to wander again, though Lydia didn't stop him this time as he explored new parts of her. Soon after, his efforts became more ambitious, nibbling her neck while he attempted to pull the dress straps off her shoulders. Lydia gasped, then pulled her arms back and let the dress fall to the floor before holding Seth's head against her neck. When she released him, she started going after his neck, while simultaneously loosening his pants. Once the deed had been accomplished, she took hold of his head and gave him a firm, but not strong enough to do any damage, bite on the neck, a pre-intercourse gesture that had essentially become universal wolfess body language for "fuck me".

Heeding Lydia's desire, Seth gently lifted her and laid her down on the bed before climbing on top of her. She ran her paws over his chest, feeling his heart racing out of control, before grabbing the back of his head and pulling his snout towards hers. Seth reveled in the feeling of her fur on his as he asked her if she was sure that was what she wanted, and after she squeaked out that it definitely was, he prepared to finally make his female his.

A very short time and a scene skip to keep this from getting an "adult" rating later, Lydia walked back to the bed, tossing a rag to the side as she went, commenting, "Well, luckily it comes off easily." Seth lied face down on the bed, face buried in his arms, clearly not feeling like a million gold pieces as he stated, "God, that was a disaster." Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said it was a very short time. Apparently Seth's first attempt wasn't exactly an award-winning performance, and right after its conclusion, the bulky wolf was semi-inconsolable. Fortunately for Seth, Lydia didn't want his male-ego to be damaged by his first attempt at physical mating being... less than satisfactory, so she tried to cheer him up. She crawled over to him on the bed, kissed her way up his back, then straddled him and began massaging his shoulders, "What's wrong, Seth? You can't be the first male that this has happened to." "But I failed you," he grumbled, "what if this happens every time? How is getting mated going to work?" "Good lord, Seth," Lydia quietly exclaimed, "It was your first time. How many things have you done perfectly on the first try? And you didn't fail me; I love you, Seth. I'm not going to run off with Andrew Lightfoot just because you got me a bit sticky."

Seth sighed deeply and asked what they were going to do now, considering all that happened, to which Lydia calmly replied that they were going to try again. "Wait," Seth interrupted, picking up his head and looking back towards Lydia, "Try again now? I don't know if I can... um, do that." Lydia formed the most devious smile Seth had ever seen on anyone, let alone his normally not-devious girlfriend, got up off of him and told him to roll over. He tentatively obeyed, and she explained, "There's something I wanted to try," before pressing her mouth to his chest and working her way down. I think you can use your imagination to figure out where that was headed (heh), and not too much later Lydia lied down, her head parallel to Seth's, and stroked his chest as she observed, "I think I solved that problem. Ready?" Seth was still shocked from the way Lydia had taken control of the situation, as well as from the fact that he never expected her to do... that. Not right away, anyway. But Seth was able to regain some composure, more than a little inspired by his partner's efforts. From his perspective, she clearly still wanted him, so what was he gonna do, say no? He rolled over on top of her and readied himself for round two as Lydia ran her paws through his hair and the fur of his neck, telling him to relax and just love her.

A few minutes and some bed creaking later, Seth rolled off her and lied beside her as she rolled on her side to face him. As he mirrored her position, Lydia huffed out, "Much...better..." and kissed him, taking his paws in hers. Seth nuzzled her neck before giving it a soft nibble, the post-coital universal male wolf body language for "I love you and am invested in this relationship permanently", a gesture that one tended to see only in, logically, betrothed or mated couples. Conversely, if it occurred in a different setting, like after solicitation of a prostitute, it was usually a sign for the hooker to avoid repeat business with that costumer at best, and at worst it was a signal to take the money and run. But Lydia was not a hooker, so she was delighted that Seth made the gesture of commitment to her, and told him so, adding an "I love you" or two at the end, to which Seth professed his shared feelings in return. Lydia inched closer to Seth, prompting him to hold her as she declared, "I'm glad we did this. It feels good knowing we're completely together now. Who would've predicted years ago that I would be married to Seth Black?" It had seemed like ages prior to that night when Vanessa's referral to Seth as her mate made him ixnay that relationship, and his reaction to Lydia's similar expression was quite different. He tightened his grasp around her and answered, "The same fur who could have told me I'd mate the most wonderful female in the world."

*****

So yeah, that was what Seth was thinking of as he fell asleep after a hard day of starting and extinguishing fires, a fond memory that, as previously mentioned, led to many more fond memories of the couple's antics. With that said, however, Seth did indeed fall asleep, so instead of being boring and creepy and writing a paragraph about what position he slept in or something, we're going to rejoin another of The Five (I think that one might already be trademarked. Damn) to see how his night went. Well, Harry's night was mostly uneventful, though he did find that he agreed with Cyrus, and that he really didn't have a taste for foxes, and Alistair's night went pretty much according to plan, with the vixen he was put with guiding him through everything. So that leaves Cyrus, who, if you recall, made a wager with a busty lupine prostitute named Susan as to whether he would be the best lover she had ever experienced. We join them shortly after our bright-furred archer finished up...

The fox and the wolfess lied next to each other, panting, for a few seconds, trying to catch their breath from their energetic romp. Cyrus rolled over and caressed the wolf's cheek, brushing his lips against hers before asking how she liked their encounter. "You're amazing," she complimented, kissing his cheek and drawing circles in the fur of his neck with her fingers. Cyrus hovered his snout above hers and asked in a hushed, loving voice, "How amazing, my beautiful wolfess?" "The best, sweet fox," Susan asserted, staring mesmerized into Cyrus' eyes, having succumbed to some of his verbal charms, "and you're such a gentlemale, too." Cyrus gave a quick smirk, then started pressing his lips all over her muzzle before resting his head in the warmth of her breast. Susan chuckled and started petting his hair before speaking, "Hmm, fox, I'd love to stay and hold you for free but there's still a matter of pay- ... oh shit."

She quickly pushed him off her and rolled into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, putting her head in her paws. Cyrus recovered immediately and kneeled behind her, rubbing his paws over her upper arms, and asked what had happened. She angrily shot back, "What happened?! You won your bet, you son of a bitch. I just wasted a lot of my time to not get anything back for it, so I need to get down there and find someone else to make at least something tonight. You fucked your wolf and you fucked her for free; I hope you're satisfied." "Well, not quite," Cyrus admitted, winning him a roaring "WHAT?!" from Susan. The fox remained calm and explained, "One of my favorite feelings in the world is a simple one: falling asleep next to a wolf. That's what I want, just for you to stay with me." She clenched her paws into fists and stated, "I can't. I need to eat. I can't stay with a fox just because he asked me too; I need that money." Cyrus could feel Susan's shoulders drooping, indicating hesitation about leaving, so he inquired, "If money was no object, would you want to stay here?" She paused, almost completely still, and then gave a shallow nod of affirmation.

Cyrus tenderly kissed her neck and told her quietly, "Close your eyes and hold out your paws. I'll be right back." She tried to express her concern, but he interrupted her and implored her to trust him. She sighed and complied with the fox's order, and soon she was rewarded, feeling one paw holding hers from below and Cyrus' other one pouring currency into her paws before he let her open her eyes. When she saw how much he had given her, she nearly had a heart attack, "God, this is... this is more than twice what I charge... well, anybody... Who- who are you?" She looked over at him as he nobly bowed, "Cyrus Fox, wealthy son, legendary archer, and classic wolf lover, at your service, milady." Susan choked on her words in surprise, "F-Fox? But... the Foxes hate wolves... Why are you doing this? Besides, I can't take this; you don't owe me anything." "Ah, yes, my family does still have a reputation for being racist pricks, don't they," Cyrus sighed before taking up position behind Susan and sliding his arms around her waist and resting his head on her shoulder, "Though as I have said before, I'm not one of them. And you're right. I don't owe you anything, but I'm not _paying_you to stay with me. You said you wanted to do that anyway. I'm just solving your financial issue that would prevent you from doing that." Susan reached over and placed her new income on a table next to the bed and asked Cyrus if he was sure of what he wanted. When he said yes, she leaned back against him and placed her paws on his arms, informing him quietly, "You have your wolfess."

"Hm. Good," Cyrus whispered before kissing up her neck and moving his paws up to her chest, "Will you lie with me, my gray-furred beauty?" "Of course... Cyrus." "Ooh, first name basis, I like it," the fox said before pulling her down with him. After some bodily maneuvering, Cyrus wound up on his back with Susan on her side, leaning on him with an arm over his chest, smiling contently. She nudged his muzzle over to face her and happily kissed him a few times before commenting, "At least you finally gave me my paw back." "Well," Cyrus tried to explain, stroking her hair, "I guess I had no need for it now that I have all of you." "Oh," Susan said, taking the paw on the far side of Cyrus' body and placing it on his chest before interlocking her fingers with his, "Well, whether you need it or not, I'd like to give it to you for safe-keeping until morning. Wouldn't want some other smooth-talking fox to come and take it from me." "Fear not; your paw is safe with me," Cyrus claimed, squeezing her paw and pressing his lips to the top of her head before adding, "As is the rest of you." The pair proceeded to fall asleep happy and in the arms of another, a phenomenon that hadn't happened to either of them in a long time.

Morning came all too quickly, though, and for one of the first times since he joined, Cyrus wished he wasn't in the army and didn't have to report to duty. He attempted to extricate himself from Susan as silently as possible, trying not to wake the peacefully sleeping wolf, and initially appeared to do so effectively as he got out of bed and started begrudgingly putting his clothes back on. He was struggling with the button above the hole in his pants that his tail went through when he heard footsteps behind him, then felt another pair of paws fixing the button for him. When she finished, Susan wondered, "After everything you did last night you weren't even going to say goodbye?" Cyrus swallowed her up in a big hug, then, still holding onto her, moved his face in front of hers, "I didn't want to wake you." "I'm a big girl, Cyrus. I can survive being woken up early," she countered. "Just because you can doesn't mean you have to," the fox stated before kissing her yet again and starting to break the hug. As he started to walk away, however, Susan took hold of one of his paws and told him, "Wait. I just wanted to say, well, thank you. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance again. You just made me feel so... wanted. I've... never really felt like that before." Cyrus stepped back toward her and said, "The fact that no one has ever made someone as perfect as you feel wanted before is a crime against all sentient life. Tell me Susan, will you be staying here for an extended period of time?" "Yes, I, um, have to. It's a long story," she informed him. "Well then. I can tell you that I'll be back, and, if you don't mind, then maybe we can repeat this event." "Maybe I'd like to," Susan bantered coyly, regaining her normal demeanor, "Though maybe next time you should skip the 'wolfess seducer' bullshit." Cyrus smiled and shook his head, and then she hugged him again and told him to be safe, to which he responded, "Of course, milady," and walked out the door.

Cyrus walked down the staircase of the brothel/inn/tavern/whatever to where his teammates were standing like he was the goddamn Male of the Year. The others seemed unimpressed at the display, and Harry asked derisively, "What're ye so jolly for? You fucked a whore; you want a medal?" Richard stared somewhat judgingly at Cyrus as he responded, "It's a long story, but let's just say I am a rather happy fox at the moment." After a short pause, the formerly aristocratic archer continued, "Besides, did any of you do anything any more impressive?" Without changing his facial expression, Richard held out his paw and effortlessly produced a small flame. "Well that answers that question," Cyrus muttered, "So did you catch it from the crazy sorcerer chap, or...?" "I don't really know how it happened," Richard reiterated, "But maybe I wouldn't have even found out if I was-" "Richard," Seth spoke chidingly, evidently already quite over the pair's widely differing philosophies on sexuality despite the group only being together for a couple days, "We've talked about this. Let it go." Richard snuffed out his flame, crossed his arms and begrudgingly nodded his head. Seth then sighed and led his team out of the inn, and this is the part where we skip a few things because, well, they're boring.

So, since I'm not going to take thousands of words to describe what I can in much fewer, A SUMMARY! For a few weeks after the start of the Battle of Kishath, Seth and the others operated along the north coast of Senkhar, helping to capture Kishath as well as a couple other port cities and stopping numerous Senkhari counterattack attempts. During this time, the team began to grow tighter as they depended on each other for support and survival. Hell, even Cyrus and Richard started being less dicks to each other. Some things didn't change, however. Seth was still consumed with returning to Lydia, whatever the cost, a sentiment that at times had to be mellowed by the rest of the team, especially Richard, who began to worry if the obsession was affecting Seth's sanity. At some point, Richard suggested writing letters home, and Seth agreed to this. The placement of his feelings on paper did achieve at least something similar to a calming effect on Seth, as Richard had hoped, and they sent out their letters at some point during the middle of our summarized period here.

In other news, Richard had spent those weeks quickly learning how to be Sub-Zero's worst nightmare, mastering his ability to do fire magic as well as perfecting his technique of turning his shield into something of a kinetic barrier. On the total opposite side of the practicality spectrum, the team observed Cyrus getting into a weird pseudo-relationship with Susan, with the fox going to her literally every night they returned to the inn and the wolf waving off other potential clients to have him. Beyond that, there were also the unusual interactions, like greeting each other with hugs on the ground floor and Cyrus carrying her up the stairs while she giddily laughed and threw her arms around him. Cyrus never really went into much detail about any of that though, evidently preferring to leave the rest of the team in the dark. When he wasn't presumably banging or snuggling his mark, Cyrus continued to try and press Alistair into practicing his "skills" at night, which the younger fox did not often actually do, citing how he didn't really feel good about what he was doing. On the other paw, Harry was taking full advantage of his options, conducting a weeks-long Tour de Female and going for all the girls he could possibly get (with the exception of Susan, who curiously had a threat from Cyrus attached to her), at least until a different event happened, which slightly slowed him down. But we'll get to that soon.

So, now we rejoin our heroes- or, well, actually, we'll just call them protagonists. "Heroes" conveys too much moral alignment which conflicts with that whole "moral ambiguity" thing I mentioned earlier, and, well... you get the point. So Team Timbria, Fuck Yeah! (that was probably the worst) met near the door of the inn, as had become custom, with Cyrus looking like he was on top of the goddamn world (also custom) and headed out to meet General Noblefur to see what their tasks were going to be for the day. "We have a situation," Noblefur stated grimly as the team walked into his command post. "Of course we do," Cyrus retorted, "If we didn't, then we could just go home, couldn't we?" Ignoring Captain Snarktopus, Noblefur carried on, "We've been trying to get forces into a flanking position of the city of Golemsh, south of here, in preparation for the next major offensive. To do this, we sent a column to go around a hill the locals call 'Houshmar' to the southeast. The plan appeared effective; the Senkhari army doesn't maintain any scouting positions there and the pass provided a direct route towards Golemsh. Unfortunately, something seems to be disrupting our activity in the area. We've sent reinforcements there, but the regular army doesn't seem to be able to handle whatever's out there. That's where you come in."

"Great," Harry responded with a grin, "So we charge in and stomp out whateffer's chewin' up our guys, and then we're done. Simple and easy." "Except it's not, or they wouldn't need us," Richard countered, crossing his arms, "so do we have any idea what we're fighting?" "None of the reports we've received have been coherent enough to give us reasonable information. We can probably determine that Senkhar isn't behind this though," Noblefur enlightened the group. Seth looked at the general skeptically, "Right. How do we know that?" Galahad looked away, then returned his gaze to the brawny wolf, "We've been here a couple months now; our intelligence has been spread all over northern Senkhar. Believe me when I say that there is _nothing_in this region that could be massacring us like that." Alistair looked a bit uneasy, "Massacring? Just how bad is this?" "I won't bullshit you all; it's a meat grinder. Several fox units have outright refused to deploy there." "Lord..." Richard muttered, finding himself compelled to look at the floor. "Sounds about right for those bleedin' cunts. The fox divisions wouldn't know a pair of bollocks if they were shoved down their throats," Harry growled irately. "While I feel like I should resent that, in this case I couldn't agree more," Cyrus added bitingly, "Seth, we should get going before this turns into more of a bloodbath than it needs to be. Maybe we can find more information on the way over."

Seth concurred with Cyrus' plea for urgency, and the party bade their leave from the general, who understandably granted it. They left the command post in full regalia and started on their way towards the outskirts of Kishath when Alistair posed the fair question of how they were to acquire the information of which Cyrus had spoken. Richard smirked, a typical sign that he had come up with something crafty, and responded, "Already thought o' that, lad. Harry, you think we could stop by Petra?" The lupine tank's eye's widened, and he stammered out, "A-aye, of course." A short time later, Timbria's finest reached the southern edge of the city, which had effectively been turned into a refugee camp. The place consisted of ragged shanties, fire pits, a marked lack of resources, an aura of defeat and depression, you know, the whole nine yards. The sheen of the soldiers' metallic armor contrasted brilliantly against the state of decay in the newly established slum, and many of the younger coyotes, hyenas and such cowered away from the outsiders, hiding behind tentposts and mothers' skirts.

Near the terminus of this encampment, however, at the edge of the edge of nowhere, there was a coyote female that awaited the troops with a knowing expression. Petra Tavala was a woman who, for lack of better terms, had seen some shit. She was born to an upper-middle class family in the Senkhari capital, Peshakni, but her father sent her away to Kishath at a rather young age for monetary compensation. Before you attempt to burn me at the stake for misleading you about life in Senkhar, I'd like to establish that overall it was much better than Timbria, but that doesn't mean there weren't any bad dudes or shady bullshit. Petra's father just so happened to be a bad dude who liked to participate in some shady bullshit. Sucked for her, but hey, it makes an interesting story, right? Yeah, you can attempt to burn me at the stake now. Anyway, Petra lived out her younger days as a maid and servant for several rich families in the port city, suffering abuse at some, ambivalence with others. When she came of age, the family who essentially controlled her at the time married her off to their youngest, and by extension least important, son, fellow coyote Osias Tavala. Osias was a junior officer in the Senkhari Army, and as a husband he could have been described as... aloof. He never did anything wrong or aggressive towards Petra, and they had four sons together, but she never really felt as strong an attachment to him as she should have. Still, life was better than it had been, but everything came crumbling down starting with the first Timbria-Senkhar war.

During that conflict, Osias and her second child were killed in the same battle, and her first-born was captured shortly thereafter and never heard from again. Things stabilized a little again between the wars, but she never remarried, living supported by her two surviving sons. Her third son was killed during the first day of the Battle of Kishath in the second war, and three weeks after that, her youngest and dearest son Marko went missing. Cue the entrance of Harry Wood. Harry was meandering around the refugee camps, taking a break from essentially causing the creation of said camps to catch a glimpse of his surroundings. As might be expected, it was a sobering experience. When he walked through what passed for "streets" in the piteous shantytown, he witnessed the camp dwellers cower from his presence like he was some kind of monster, a sentiment that would not mellow in the weeks soon to come. Despite this, there was one female that didn't hide; rather, she sat stoically staring off into space, and continued to do so after Harry's arrival. Confused, concerned, but more than anything else, intrigued, the formidable wolf took a seat beside her and casually greeted her.

I'd tell you what happened during that conversation, but that'd be kinda redundant considering I've basically already told you. Her family was dead, except for Marko, etcetera, and now Marko's gone. Right. Completely disregarding the anomaly of Petra's lack of aversion to talking to strangers, Harry took the opportunity to play knight in shining armor, a statement which, given the sheen of The Regiment's equipment, could be taken more literally than I had initially intended. He vowed that he would search for any sign of Marko in Kishath throughout his adventures and bring peace to the troubled mother, as he said, and I quote, "A lass who's been through so much don't need a' be dealt another bad paw." So for days Harry looked high and low for a trace of Marko, using what physical traits his mother had used to describe him to bring about any luck. Foreseeably, considering there was a war going on, he didn't find a damn thing. But he continued to return to the coyote to give updates and, more often, just chat with someone who wasn't armed and/or didn't want to rip out his spine. Over time, Harry, possibly just as predictably, became more attached to the similarly-aged female, finding that she not only had a wealth of knowledge on the region from a lifetime of experience, but also that she was something of a kindred spirit, and that the fur of her paws was much softer than he had expected when he first laced his fingers through hers.

After a few nights in the camp looking up at the stars together, Harry decided to have one alone with his own thoughts in a different district of Kishath, and fatefully came across a group of teenage Senkhari attempting to loot a pile of still fresh-looking corpses. The unarmored, unarmed wolf told them to beat it, but one ambitious jackal attempted to charge him. The jackal's bold move did not pay off, however, and he wound up plastered into an adjacent wall, prompting the other hooligans to make like trees and get out of there, much like my movie references should. At any rate, Harry investigated the bodies the kids had been searching, and he noticed one freckle-faced coyote in particular, who happened to have a scar on his left arm. The mountainous wolf's heart skipped a beat when he saw the name "M. Tavala" etched into one of the soldier's pauldrons, but then sank completely when he realized that there was no right pauldron, or really any right anything. The poor male seemed to have been laterally bifurcated, with only his left half remaining, a grisly sight that even turned a berserker like Harry's stomach in the cool air of the desert night. He knelt down beside the boy and wondered how he would tell the news to Petra, fearful that it would break her heart beyond repair.

When the time finally came a couple days later, the female coyote collapsed to the ground in despair after hearing of Marko's death, and spent what seemed like, and may well have been, hours sobbing into the fur of Harry's arms. Eventually she asked if it looked like he had gone quickly and painlessly, and Harry hesitated briefly before telling a blatant white lie, the word "yes". Though he wasn't sure what weapon could have done such incredible damage to the kid's body, he knew it probably wasn't merciful. Petra didn't need to know that though. She tearfully told him that, now that she had closure, he didn't have to come back if he didn't want, to which he kissed the top of her head with gentleness unbecoming his physique and replied that he would still return. Coincidentally, Harry seemed to not find himself in the company of the tavern hookers again following that night.

Back in the current story, the dirty-blonde, dark tan furred older coyote took the big wolf's now un-helmed head in her paws and quickly kissed him before looking out at the rest of the squad, who removed their headgear as well. She immediately released Harry's face and posed the question in her typical American-sounding accent, "Oh, so these are all of your friends?" Harry grinned sheepishly and introduced the others in a word or two, his demeanor prompting Alistair to lean over to Cyrus and jeer, "He looooooves her." After some snickers, Harry got to the point and asked the coyote what she knew of Houshmar. She raised a skeptical eyebrow and asked, "Houshmar? Why? Planning on taking a tour, tigherka?" using the diminutive traditional Senkhari word for "foreigner" that served as her chosen term of endearment for Harry. "The Timbrian Army is attempting to get to Golemsh," Seth explained casually, "they're trying to avoid the main road by going by Houshmar instead." Petra sighed and shook her head, "What imbecile made that decision?" "No clue, but it's Timbria. Just about anyone with power falls into that category," Cyrus cynically pointed out, "what's the deal with Houshmar? Something we should be aware of?" "The highway exists for a reason," Petra affirmed, "Houshmar itself translates roughly to 'bug mountain'. I've never been near there myself, but nobody really goes there. Years ago some monster race from the East set up a colony there, and we've learned not to touch it. If your comrades are up there you need to pull them back now before they get annihilated."

Richard shuddered, "Bugs? They're... they're not spiders, are they? I can't do spiders..." Petra shrugged and stated, "Like I said, I don't know. Never seen them. Never heard of any giant spiders in Senkhar anyway, but I suppose anything is possible." "That's not reassuring," Richard mumbled under his breath. "It doesn't matter though, because you aren't fighting them. Take your males out of there," the coyote reinforced. "With this information in paw, I wish we could, but we don't have that kind of power," Seth responded, "we don't make the decisions; we just execute them. And with that said, if anyone can handle a tunnel of creatures, it might just be us." Petra was visibly upset, and spoke directly to Harry, "I've already lost my entire family to war with your country, and people here are already looking at me strange for being attached to the enemy. I don't want to lose you too because of a stupid decision." Harry looked the female in the eyes and simply said, "You won't."

*****

Sometime later, the group was nearing the wolf unit camp in the hills near Houshmar, and Richard, much to Seth's frustration, had opened the proverbial can of worms that was Cyrus' involvement with Susan. Cyrus chaffed, "What, all of us prying into Harry's business today wasn't enough? Maybe living vicariously through me since you don't have the plums to find a female of your own?" "Glass houses, Cyrus," Seth chided, "as far as we can tell, you've purchased 'your' female. Not to judge or anything, but I'm a bit curious as well." "I know what her profession is," the fox spat back testily, "and I don't care. It's none of your concern." "Are ye worried that she may be foolin' ye for more money? I can imagine you must be generous," Harry wondered. "No more than you're worried about your Senkhari mistress selling us out," Cyrus retorted, again with uncharacteristic attitude. Harry conceded defeat, but Richard pressed the issue, "Look, Cyrus, I didn't mean to start anything either; I just had one question." "Well spit it out then, tinderbox," the archer urged. "Does she remind you of Matilda? No pressure to answer if you don't want to, but we're your friends. You can be honest."

Cyrus took a deep breath, then candidly spoke, "Honestly? Yeah, at first. They have different faces, but their bodies looked practically identical. The first night or two I was probably playing a bit of make-believe, but it's different now. It's more. You can judge me if you like, but I'm aware of the potential consequences and I firmly believe I can deal with them." Richard smiled from under his helmet and said that he didn't doubt it, he just knew there was something going on and wanted to see if his hunch was right. Cyrus replied in shock, "You? You of all people don't have a problem with it? Good fucking god, the world must be coming to an end." "Nay, I'm happy for you, male. It's probably the closest I'm gon' get to see you settlin' down," Richard laughed. For once, it seemed like Cyrus didn't have a witty retort, and the fox remained silent as the five soldiers finally came across the encampment.

The camp could euphemistically be described as "unfortunate". More accurately, it could be described as a "nightmare". Placed in a valley surrounded by low hills, it looked like a MASH unit from hell, with despair and suffering seemingly palpable in the air. "Petra was right," Harry said quietly, "no one ever should have come here." As the armored soldiers descended into the camp, they caught the judging eyes of the wolves who hung around the ramshackle tents, some sporting gruesome wounds, and perhaps even more worryingly, many showing nothing at all. While this may seem somewhat confusing, I'll leave it to one of the non-commissioned officer-equivalents at the camp to explain. The group approached him in the subtly marked command tent from behind, and they could see the toll of the war on his mangy fur, which by now was covered in scabs and scars. He tilted his head and glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, greeting them, "So you're the lads from The Legion, yeah? Come to finally end this fuck-up?" "Yeh, that is indeed our task," Seth responded, prompting the wolf to turn half around and exclaim in surprise, "Och! That accent! Is there a Vulpinum wolf under all that armor?" "Aye," Seth affirmed, nodding his head and removing his helmet, causing the rest of the squad to follow suit.

The wolf turned fully to face them now, and his jaw dropped in shock at the sight of his former "subordinate", "Seth Black? And Richard Forster? Fuckin' shite, I thought you two were dead! What the hell happened?" Seth looked at his fellow villager's dirty face, which now had a makeshift patch covering his left eye, and answered, "We wiped out or captured a good bit of the Senkhari army, with some help from this fancy gear, we're working with foxes now and Richard's a mage," with Richard producing a small flare out of his paw for emphasis, "What the fuck happened to you, Lightfoot? Ye look like hell shat out your mother's haggis." Andrew gave a cynical laugh, then explained flatly, "Not everyone got transferred to an elite unit, Black. The detachment was inspired by what we thought was your 'sacrifice' outside Kishath on the first day, and we took some of the fewest casualties out of all the units. We were doin' just bloody fine occupyin' Kishath until about ten days ago when we got the order to reinforce the guys securing Houshmar. We thought it was gon' be a normal battle, y'know, takin' a hill from some Senkhari pricks or whatever. Then we get here, and we find out we're bein' tossed into a grinder tryin' to outlast some fuckin' monsters so the fox units can have a safer route to Golemsh. You see all the males bleedin' out of their fuckin' dicks an' arses out there? Yeah? And you see how many aren't? Should tell ye something. That's how fast the Scorps are tearin' us apart. Lots a' new meat out there since life expectancy around here's somethin' like a day or two. After Kishath, we had lost only five out of twenty-one, including the two of you. We got full replacements before we came to Houshmar. Seth, there're only three people from that detachment now. Just me, Miller, and Leafley. That's it. All of them were gone by about four days ago too; we're probably only still alive because they rotate units off the front every week. Some don't even make it that long."

Seth and the others stared in shock and horror. For those of you keeping track at home, about 86% of Seth and Richard's old unit was obliterated in less than a week. This is the part where, more than any other point in the story so far, you should be questioning the command structure of Timbria. Lightfoot took a deep breath and asked if the rest of Seth's force was outside, to which he replied that he was already looking at everything. "WHAT? THEY EXPECT FIVE FUCKING MALES TO FUCKING STOP A BUNCH OF FUCKING MONSTERS THAT HAVE KILLED EVERY GODDAMN FUCKING WOLF THEY'VE SENT HERE?! G-god, they really have just forsaken us, haven't they?" The bedraggled wolf fell to the ground, on the verge of tears, "I don't want to die here. None of us do." Seth and Richard could see a clear change in the attitude of the formerly cocky wolf from the time they left Timbria to now, and his current world-weary state made them more grimly aware of what the war was like for the unfortunate wolves in the frontlines. Richard knelt before Andrew and grasped his shoulder, "We may not look invincible, but put some faith in us. Simply put, the generals love us. They wouldn't waste us on a hopeless cause. So we believe that no matter what lies ahead, we can stop it. We just need you and all the other males here to believe that too."

As Andrew continued attempting to regain his breath on the floor of the tent, Seth gathered himself and stated that he and the others should relax, and that the proverbial cavalry would take care of the problem. In a turn of events that shocked the group, especially Seth and Richard, Lightfoot closed his eyes and stood up, emphatically countering, "No. The two of ye saved my tail the first day here, and I'm not going to sit back and have you fight my battles for me. Ten of us go along with you. Ten that know what we're doing and won't get in your way. It may seem strange to you, but we need to win this ourselves too, to make our sacrifice even the least bit justified, so please, let some of us join you." Seth crossed his arms in contemplation, and Cyrus stepped up beside him and advised quietly, "Ah, Seth, I know it's not my normal place to be the angel on your shoulder, but I don't think this is such a fantastic idea. Our job is to clear out these... things, whatever they are, so the next generation of wolves doesn't become just a broken dream. Judging from what we heard from Harry's friendly local and this travesty of a camp, all we'd be accomplishing by bringing a pawful of beleaguered wolves with us is ten fewer fathers for Timbrian posterity. Not that I'd mind too terribly personally, since, you know, ten more wolfesses for me, but ethically, it's an unnecessary risk. Leave the grunts at home; we'll take care of the pests ourselves." "Noted," Seth acknowledged, nodding his head before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

"Andrew," the armored wolf spoke, reopening his eyes, "ten males, granted. But when we're out there, your people answer to us. You do whatever we say. That's not to sound overbearing; it's likely the best method of keeping you alive. You're more in touch with the troops' morale than we are. If you think a valiant triumph of regular soldiers working alongside us will help, then I trust you. Get your males together quickly, I want this whole thing done by nightfall." "Thank you," Lightfoot sighed, slightly bowing his head, "One more thing before you step out: leave your helmets here, at least for now. It'd do wonders if the males saw that The Legion was made up of real people, and even better, that it's both wolves and foxes. Hell, you might as well go to the hill without your helmets. If one of the bugs gets you in the head, you're fucked anyway." "The helmets come with us to battle, but we'll show our faces in front of the troops if that makes such a difference," Seth said impatiently, and Alistair added from the corner he'd been standing in for the last few minutes, "There's a regulation about that, though perhaps it's more for the helmets' safety than ours." Cyrus smiled at the tiny fox, "There's that cynicism I taught you! Excellent observation, Alistair!"

Regaining some of his composure, Andrew instructed the others to follow him outside the tent, and Richard led Harry and Alistair outside. Cyrus started to leave as well, but Seth pulled him aside, "Sorry about that, but I get the need for a win after days of suffering. Maybe we lose some of them, but I don't think this war's going to be over soon, and they need the morale to carry on tomorrow and the day after, and-" "Lord, Seth, I understand," Cyrus interrupted with a grim smile, "should've expected it, really. Can't accept an idea from a fox, right? In any event, this is why you make the decisions and I flirt with the girls. Let's step outside and give the heralds something to talk about, yeah?" Seth raised a corner of his mouth, gently punched Cyrus' shoulder and nodded and walked towards the exit, looking back over his own shoulder shortly before leaving to say, "If I wasn't already mated I bet I could out-flirt you, too." With an uncharacteristic straight face, Cyrus crossed his arms and told his technical superior, "Don't kid yourself, pup. I'm a trained professional."

Outside in the clearing, Seth and Cyrus lined up with the other shinily-clad members of their team as Andrew Lightfoot prepared to speak in front of an already swelling crowd of disgruntled soldiers. "Males," the scarred, scruffy, eyepatched former numbskull began, bringing the audience to an imposing silence, "Some say, even among the ranks present here today, that the Kingdom of Timbria doesn't care about us, the conscripts, the regular soldiers, the wolves, only fit to serve as arrow fodder to prevent blood from reaching anywhere near the carefully manicured paws and groomed fur of a fox elite that sees us as nothing more than glorified slave labor. That's not a hard assumption to make. I know all of you, even the fresh whelps who have never seen anything more violent than their sisters and mothers during The Hours* have seen evidence of this kind of logic. I know you have, because I have. They send us to this God-forsaken hellhole to fight and die against monsters that are strong beyond our comprehension for the sole reason of the foxes being unable to be arsed to male up and fight for themselves for once. Our struggle against the bugs, from the top of our society down, is not justified, it is not justifiable and it is not just, but gallons of lupine blood have been poured out on the sand of this damned rock regardless."

*Author's note: "The Hours" is a yearly affliction that affects certain lupine females near their personal times of heat resembling PMS on roids. Needless to say, be afraid. Be _very_afraid.

At this point, Seth was understandably becoming a little worried as to where this speech was going. Whether someone needed to stab the king in his goddamned esophagus might have been a question that needed to be asked following this war, but in the meantime the bulky wolf was unsure of the purpose of riling up the males like that, and he could see that Cyrus and Alistair were becoming even more unsettled by the heavily anti-fox diatribe. However, he decided to give the confident male some more time before he had to intervene, in one way or another. Not that he would have killed him or anything. Well, at least not in front of everybody. Look, it was going to be a bad day for Lightfoot if he turned everyone against Seth's group, and with that in mind, let's let the poor guy continue.

"However," Lightfoot spoke, much to the benefit of Seth's blood pressure, "today we see something that may go against all of that. Maybe not all foxes, but at least some in high places value our lives enough to give us support to kill the bugs once and for all. Males, I give you, The Legion!" He held out his paw in the direction of the bright, shimmering soldiers beside him, causing a collective gasp among the crowd, as if they hadn't noticed the anomaly before then, and he proceeded, "Look carefully at the unmasked members of this unit. The Legion are not simply supermale foxes with money; our own brethren are in their ranks, and furthermore the foxes among them are respectful of us. This united force, though it looks small, is the greatest extent of Timbria's power. Together the five of these males could easily wipe out the bugs blindfolded, but they know the blood that you all have shed, and that you wish to see spring from the bugs, and have asked for a company of ten males to join them in their crusade to destroy them. Maybe the haughty foxes in their thrones of ivory will never hear of the bravery of the wolves that eradicated the bugs, but throughout every lupine village, and the home of every good fox, the tale of courage and sacrifice will be told until its words linger on the breeze flowing through the streets and through the trees shading your very dwellings. So I ask nine males to step forward and join me in this quest, for victory and for a better Timbria for your children and grandchildren."

Seth scanned the crowd as everybody remained motionless for the first few seconds. Then, one by one, a throng of people volunteered for the job. He couldn't tell exactly how many, but it looked like fifty, sixty maybe? Definitely way more than nine in any case. Speaking of which, Seth returned to that little tidbit. Apparently Lightfoot led from the front now, as evidenced by his willingness to spearhead the suicide mission. Seth smiled inwardly, impressed at his former antagonist's development as Lighfoot inspected his potential crew. "Alright. Miller, Leafley, Jenkins, Briarcliff, Whitewillow, Maroon, Youngblood, Matewick, and Highbranch: you males are with me. The rest of you await our triumphant return," Andrew decreed with a half-smile, pointing out his desired companions. The now fifteen-strong raiding party gathered their gear, with Seth's guys donning their headgear once again and the others setting off in their standard-issue semi-armor, and they headed out of the relative protection of the valley camp and toward what the males had dubbed "The Devil's Chamber Pot". We'll get to how apt that moniker was in a little bit. On the journey, however, the elite soldiers learned more about their less-lucky comrades.

"Hey," Alistair bugged a particularly nervous wolf, perhaps not the brightest idea, but kids, right? Anyway, the fox-lite asked, "Why do you all refer to us as 'The Legion'? No one's ever done that before." The 21 year old, incredibly average-proportioned wolf, evidently the one known as Johnny Jenkins, replied tentatively, "What do you mean? That's what you are... I've never heard you called anything else. I guess if you had a proper name we wouldn't have known it, so it's just what we called these shiny, super-canine males that were running around destroying half of Senkhar." "Oh," Alistair mumbled, looking straight ahead before considering aloud, "You know, 'The Legion' actually sounds much more impressive than our actual name. I kind of want to ask our boss to change it." Jenkins started to get a little more at ease now, and questioned the kit, "What are you actually called? And how did a little guy like you get here? I saw your face at the camp, you must be what, fifteen?" "They call us the 'King's Regiment', or just "the Regiment" for short, which admittedly sounds more dull than listening to Cyrus drone on about the superiority of wolf girls. Me? I'm fourteen, and a bit of a pickpocket, so when I got caught it was jail or the army. Apparently I'm good enough at stabbing things that they gave me all this fancy gear," Alistair explained, causing the wolf to give him a piteous glance, then ask in return, "Don't you have a family or something? And who's Cyrus?" "My parents still live in Timbria, and Cyrus is the other fox among us. He's really great, if a little deviant, and he looks after me here," Alistair explicated, smiling unseen from under his helmet.

"Oh," Jenkins said lowly, looking away, "I have a family back home too. A wife and a son, three years old now. I can't imagine what it would feel like if even ten years from now he had to come here and fight the bugs or... or something worse. I've already been here too long, seen too much." Alistair asked his new companion how long he had in fact been there, and Jenkins replied, much to the little fox's shock, that he had been deployed at Houshmar for 23 days, and he further explained the lengthened stay, "Lightfoot probably told you when you got here that units are cycled out every week and that making it past the first day is a damn miracle, yeah? Well, I have this... ability... Don't immediately think I'm crazy, just hear me out. I... can understand the bugs, in some sense. Like, not as you understand what I'm saying right now, but I can feel moods, emotions, feelings, things they project even if it's not traditional language. Lots of people don't believe me, but I can tell you the ones that stick by me make it out a lot more often, and I've survived far too long for it to be a coincidence." Almost without hesitation, Alistair responded, "I believe you." Jenkins looked at him in speechless surprise, and Alistair continued, "Our first real job as a team involved Richard, one of the wolves over there, deflecting a fireball into a wall of fire to burn a Senkhari mage alive and capture his entire force, and later that night we found out that Richard could use magic himself. I'll believe just about anything short of someone saying they caught Seth with a girl," he paused for a moment, then thought to explain, "he's far too lovesick."

As Alistair continued his moderately pleasant conversation with the potentially gifted wolf, the other members of the team, excluding Harry, walked alongside Lightfoot and his apparent second-in-command, Stuart Leafley, a compact but stout and resourceful wolf from Silton-on-Winterstream, a small village near the border with Kar'gath. Previously, the boys from "The Legion" had learned that Leafley had taken the role of a silent advisor to Lightfoot after Seth and Richard's disappearance outside Kishath, using his well-endowed mind as well as his natural tenacity and perseverance to pull the initially incompetent detachment leader's ass out of the fire on several occasions. If you asked him how he did it, Leafley would likely tell you that a hard life in the Timbrian frontier prepared him for the stresses of war, but honestly that was probably one part truth and three parts shenanigans. The 22 year old male was simply a born soldier with the instincts of an apex predator, but Seth and Richard would never have known it before that walk to Houshmar since he hardly ever opened his mouth. The only survivor from Lightfoot, Seth and Richard's original detachment (jaded Vulpinum-area sixteen year old Fenn Miller joined the unit as a reinforcement during the pacification of Kishath), Leafley noted at one point to Lightfoot that he never had any time to relax in Silton, prompting Andrew to propose that he take some time to stay with the Lightfoots in Vulpinum after the war, and the quiet guy agreed, maybe a bit more excited than he let on to meet Vanessa. Hopefully she would be over Seth by then.

Elsewhere, Harry traveled with the other seven grunts, which formed an eclectic group. As previously mentioned, there was Fenn Miller, a teen wolf (mine are cooler, MTV) that took a remarkably short time to become disillusioned about the whole "war" thing and just go about life like it was business as usual, but with more exposed brain matter. The kid was definitely a survivor, even if he wasn't much for great conversation. Three other soldiers in the group were also from the Vulpinum area, which makes sense, just from a probability standpoint, and included a 32 year old scrawny yet veiny baker and father of six, Michael Briarcliff; a burly 23 year old forestry laborer similar to Richard, Wynton Highbranch; and 29 year old practically nomadic career infantryman Saul Maroon, whose peacetime service had admittedly largely failed to prepare him for the horrors he had already experienced in Senkhar. Two people hailed from the coastal wolf bastion of Downwater, a locale that will become significantly more important later in the story of Timbria. Resourceful 25 year old fisherman Sherwood Whitewillow and 18 year old practiced archer Irwin Youngblood (who had nicked a bow off some fox's corpse at some point, causing his unit's KDR to spike dramatically, which surprisingly matters a lot more in actual combat. Who knew?) both possessed the almost militant anti-fox sentiment that Downwater was quite famous for. The only significantly unknown quantity was a tiny wolf from a village called Timberpatch in the Timbrian interior, 20 year old Sylvan Matewick, who possessed a strange, glowing intensity in his eyes, and in whom Lightfoot seemed to see something that everyone else apparently missed.

So that was a lot of information fired in rapid succession about some ostensibly minor characters. Now this begs the question, "why is this otherwise outstanding narrator wasting precious finger strength telling us about a bunch of glorified redshirts that are only here because someone has to die and it sure as hell ain't gonna be a main character?" Well, simply put, a good chunk of this story is about unremarkable people doing remarkable things, and who's more unremarkable than a jaded teenager, the archetypal "mysterious one", or some guy who's apparently good at both making bread and not pulling out? What are the chances of one of these guys becoming much more important later on? Or maybe I'm just fucking with you and this whole thing's about to go all Klendathu on their asses and all of them die in ways that would make Liu Kang and Kung Lao cringe. Huh. Guess we'll just have to find out later. (That was cruel, but I regret nothing)

...To be continued. Soon. For realsies.