2 Chapter 2 - A Small Wooden Trinket

Caelmere is the cosmopolitan capital of the Sefrayle Empire, considered a cultural and economic haven for Imperials and Colonials alike. Guards were in abundance in the city during peace time, where restless soldiers in need of coin took to patrolling the city streets when there was no need for them to be out on the field.

Guards were in abundance in the city during peace time, where restless soldiers in need of coin took to patrolling the city streets when there was no need for them to be out on the field

The city is protected by 15-meter tall walls and over 30 fortified towers, built over half a millennia ago and maintained rigorously by countless royal engineers. It has five gates: two on the north, one in the west, one in the east, and one in the south. As the northern part of the city is where the Imperial Palace is located, the northern gates are the city's most popular entrances, where the merchants have even set up large marketplaces just outside the walls.

As they entered the city through the southern gates, the two siblings and the thief were stopped by a vendor hawking some cheap looking necklaces and knickknacks. He was persistent, so Zephos bought one for Elissa, to the latter's amusement. It was a wooden trinket carved to look like the city's coat of arms; a lance and a lion emblazoned on diagonal stripes, crudely made and entirely worthless to the discerning eye of the thief (or to anyone who had a modicum of taste). She put it in her pocket, something she makes sure she has in every dress she owns.

They continued to walk around the bustling streets of the city, stopping at any sights Elissa thought to be interesting. One was a small park in the south eastern Lamb District, on top of a hill. It had a good view of the Overseer's Tower and, if you squint hard enough, the Eastern Gate Market Square. While Elissa was committing the scenery to her memory, the thief, who knew the city front and back, mostly kept himself to himself, thinking about Zephos' offer.

Zephos' offer seemed to have surprised the thief enough for him to become quiet and pensive while they were walking around the city. 「This man is having me on, isn't he? Me, a Knight? Might as well pick up some other thugs from the slums while we're at it; turn them into champions of the people while they beat the same people black and blue,」 he thought to himself, glancing at Elissa and Zephos.

Elissa and the thief's eyes met once, and he looked away, blushing a bit, and then finally spoke. "You two are from the colonies, right? On those islands from the south?"

"Yes," Elissa said. "We're from the Eprana Islands. It's quite a distance from the Imperial mainland. A galleon would usually take us two months to get here, but we took one of the Empire's new steamships and they're amazingly fast! It only took us less than a week to get to one of the port towns. We stayed there for a bit, and I have to say, their devil squid cuisine was divine!"

"Well, good for you," The thief said, who had gone silent again, mulling something over. This irritated Elissa, since she wanted to talk about her time at the port town some more. She examined the thief: he wore a ragged looking hood that barely obscured his face, and he wore it over a fisherman's vest. Hidden under his hood was messy blonde hair and bright green eyes, and a pale, lightly bruised face. Elissa thought him to be handsome enough, if a bit disheveled.

Elissa stood on her tiptoes and whispered something to Zephos, propping herself up by holding his shoulder. "Hey, Zephos, are you sure you want this guy to become a Knight? He looks pretty weak, and judging from what happened earlier, he isn't even good enough to study scoutcraft. I mean, just look at him. It doesn't even look like he wants to be a Knight in the first place."

"I can't hear you, but I know you're slagging me off," the thief said.

She whispered again, louder this time. "See? He can't even hear me with my indoor voice. I'm not even really whispering."

"Cut him some slack, sister," Zephos said. "He's lost in thought."

"It looks more like that beating he had earlier did something bad to his brain."

Zephos laughed. "By the way, lad, you haven't given us your name yet."

"Neither have you two."

The Knight Captain was quick to remedy this. "I am Zephos Astarte, Captain of the Imperial Military belonging to the Colonial Forces. I have been personally knighted by the Prince Michael Sefrayle, and thus I serve him as his sworn protector." He said it matter-of-factly, like he was telling it to another officer and not a young lad. It was a lot of words that a common thief wouldn't really know or care about, but the thief understood him well enough.

"Oh, yeah, I've heard of you." The thief pretended not to be impressed, but it was clear he was surprised to learn his savior is nothing short of a legend. "You're the guy who beat that traitor in the palace six years ago, when you were still a student at that posh military academy."

"You're well informed, but I didn't capture Lord Verney on my own. In fact, most of the work was done by the rest of Wolf Squad, Prince Michael especially."

「Wolf Squad,」 Elissa thought to herself. They were an exceptional group of cadets from the General Cadwyn Military Academy, led by Zephos and Prince Michael. It is said that their talents in all fields of warfare were rivaled only by several other officers from foreign kingdoms, and even fewer still within the Empire itself. Zephos himself was known as the Biting Gale of the Wolf Squad, due to his mastery of the Seven Winds Style, a school of swordsmanship that originally hailed from the far northern continent.

Elissa had been living in the shadow of her brother's fame for a long time, and it made her both proud and envious of him. Her admiration for him and his achievements is what made her want to carve her own path and become a Knight.

It was Elissa's turn to introduce herself. "And I'm Elissa Astarte, heir of the Twin Glass Sansibar."

She unsheathed her twin swords, revealing two clear, crystalline blades. Each sansibar had a different shape: the one on her left hand had a blade that curved from its point of percussion to its tip, while the one on her right hand had a straighter blade, and had protrusions near its forte. Both swords had a strange, curved hilt made of ironwood, with the Moon Eater Wolves of Eprana exquisitely carved on the pommels. "Impressive, right? These are Dagami and Daza, and with them helping me, I'll become a Knight that can rival the great Zephos himself!"

"I'm right here, you know. And sheathe your swords, sister. You're frightening the other parkgoers."

"Oh. My bad." Elissa sheathed her swords, smiling and waving at the parkgoers as if to reassure them that she wasn't going to do anything bad.

"Well, I guess it's time for my introduction spiel," the thief said, turning to face the siblings. He took off his hood; it seemed like the polite thing to do. "I'm Ezekiel."

Elissa gestured for him to continue, but Ezekiel remained silent. "...That's it?"

"What did you expect? I'm not a noble or a soldier or anything special. I'm just your regular, upstanding citizen."

"An upstanding citizen wouldn't do something as stupid as stealing from a merchant caravan in broad daylight," Elissa said. "With a company of guards around to boot."

Ezekiel put the hood over his head again. "You can think whatever you like; I know I'm not a good thief."

"You can say that again."

"The incident at the gate was supposed to be a one-time thing. I needed the money to buy... something. It just so happened that you saw me and I got blamed for being a part of some crazy Thieves Guild conspiracy."

"You needed the money to buy something? I thought you just needed the money to buy food because you're poor."

"Sister, that is remarkably rude. However, I must admit that I've assumed the same."

Ezekiel narrowed his eyes at the siblings. "I'm humbled by your charitable spirit, it must run through the family." He sighed, then went on. "You know food is cheap here in the Capital, right? That's probably one of the only good things the Emperor has done for us peasants. The problem is, everything else is so expensive that you can't really buy anything else."

"Just tell us what you wanted to buy already," Elissa said. She glossed over Ezekiel's lecture on economics.

He fidgeted a bit, embarrassed to tell them the truth. "It's none of your business. Besides, time's running short. Didn't we have a Knight school to go to?"

The non-thief quickened his pace, walking in a direction opposite to the Squire's Academy.

. . .

The three of them passed by the Eastern Gate Markets on their way to the Squire's Academy, with Zephos having to stop Elissa from wasting all her coin on the cup and ball games. He couldn't stop her trying to eat from every single food stall in the market, but at that point he decided that he might as well spoil her. Ezekiel kept quiet the whole time, occasionally flipping through books in the stalls they pass by.

With the sun almost at its peak, Zephos urged his sister to make haste to the academy.

"But I haven't tried the bapho mutton yet..."

"You'll get a stomach ache if you eat any more meat before taking the academy's exams. Besides, once you've enrolled, you can simply return and eat all the bapho mutton you want."

"What if I wanted to take the risk? My morale would be boosted as long as I don't get indigestion, so I'll ace the test!"

"Then I would stop you. A Knight of the Aefentid need not risk their gut's integrity before a written exam."

Elissa sighed, resigned, and then patted her disappointed belly. "Ugh, fine, let's go." She fixed herself up, patting down any dirt or crumbs that got on her dress, and felt something missing. "Wait, I think I dropped the wooden badge you got me earlier. Um, is it okay if we searched for it first?"

Ezekiel chimed in. "That ugly thing? It's gonna take forever for us to find it while everyone's crowding the markets. Just leave it."

She pouted at Ezekiel. "But my brother gave it to me! It's an awful, terrible gift. It's not useful or even pretty. But he gave it to me!"

Zephos face twitched; a nerve had been struck. "I didn't realize that you thought so highly of me, sister." He began patting her head, rustling her hair so aggressively that it pulled the roots.

"Owwie!"

"You needn't worry though, I'll find it right away." He called for the guard posted nearby to help him search for the trinket, and in just a few moments they were already out of Elissa's field of vision.

"I could have helped him look for it though..."

"What are you complaining about," Ezekiel said. "That just means less work for us."

"Who said anything about less work? Let's search for it too—wait, huh?"

"This looks like a spot of trouble waiting to happen."

Just then, from a distance, a bespectacled girl came running towards their direction. Dark blue hair tied in a braided ponytail bounced around with every step, and her elfin face looked haggard as she lost breath. She tried — and failed — to weave through the crowd, and, in a spectacular show of clumsiness, she managed to bump on to several people, including some intimidating looking men. Her glasses fell to the ground, and she had to get on her knees to try and find it. Fortunately, they were perfectly intact, so she put them back on.

"M-my lady, please wait!" The girl shouted at Elissa. "You dropped this at our stall!" She waved her arm around to show that she had the wooden trinket, all the while trying to catch her breath.

One of the intimidating men's eyes widened as he saw the trinket on her hand. "Wait, boss, isn't that—"

"Yeah, that's the one we're looking for," the most heavily armored of the bunch said, grinning. "Today's our lucky day, boys! Easy pickings. We don't even have to do our raid at the gates anymore!"

「Wait, that conspiracy that asshole said earlier was real?」 Ezekiel thought to himself.

"Hey, you, glasses girl!" The armored man grabbed the girl's.

"Eek!"

"This thing you're holding belongs to our client, see. They sent us to... fetch it for them, since they're a very busy and important person." The armored man unsheathed his claymore. The scabbard was an impractical leather thing that covered the entire blade of the claymore, so it made the unsheathing look quite awkward and silly. "Now hand it over before I cut that pretty face of yours to shreds!"

"B-but," the girl stammered. "What you said is extremely suspect!"

The armored man snorted. "What. Who cares? I've never lied in my life. Now hand it over."

"This dropped from the pocket of milady over there." She pointed at Elissa, who was at center of unwanted attention again. "I have no reason to believe your story!"

「Wow, this girl is an absolute dunce.」 Ezekiel's thought process had become less and less cheery as the day went by.

"So, that colonial had it, then?" The armored man threw the girl to the side, landing on one of the stalls. He looked at Elissa and saw her two swords. It aroused suspicion. Was she working for the High Overseer? "I don't know what you're trying to pull here, girly, but you don't mess with the Thieves Guild and expect to get away with it."

Elissa established her fighting stance, her sansibars at the ready. "Ah, darn. I'm going to have to fight you, aren't I?"

"Hey, are you nuts? He's like three times the size of you!" Ezekiel stepped between her and the armored man. "Hey there sir, sorry about the trinket. We bought it from someone, and we didn't realize he was selling fenced goods."

"Step aside, Ezekiel," Elissa grinned, a fire in her soul blazing in her eyes. She just got involved in a mysterious conspiracy was brewing in the city's Thieves Guild and she was at the precipice of discovering the truth; just right at the edge of finding glory before she even became a full-fledged Knight of the Aefintid.

"Listen to this scrawny twit, girl. You can't possibly beat one of the Thieves Guild's, ahem, debt collectors, in a fight. If you tell me where you got it, I won't have to hurt you."

Elissa unsheathed her sansibars, Dagami and Daza. "First, you have to tell me what your whole Guild is planning with that ugly little thing. Answer that, and I won't have to tear you limb from limb."

"Heh, you've got guts, girly. But they're gonna spill before you even put a scratch on me."

The girl with the twin glass blades looked about ready to pounce. "Only if you're eyes are fast enough to catch me."

With a burst of wind, Elissa dashed towards the armored man, aiming for his head.

"Witness the swordsmanship of the warriors of Eprana!"