New normal

With a ring of metal, the axe blade bounced off the truck of the red maple taking out only a small chip before deflecting. "No, you have to maintain the angle during the entire swing. Don't just flail your arm either boy. Follow through with your whole body. You'll never bring the tree down at this rate!" Dean scolded D yet again about how terrible his form was when swinging the axe. They were in the process of clearing some of the red maples and Dean thought it would be a good time to teach him a few basic forms. The hatchet they had was too small and light for the work but with proper form, Dean was sure they could easily fell the tree. But D seemed to only be half paying attention and seemed more annoyed with the instructions.

D glared up at the blonde one armed ranger before dropping the axe and winding up briefly then simply punching the tree. His first rapidly covered in first scales then bone plating while his arm bulged slightly. With a loud crack, the maple tilted then started to fall while D just maintained his glare. "Yeah yeah, you've got power but no skill. You can't always rely on just raw power! Look, I'm trying to teach you for your sake. Do you know how many would kill to get private lessons from a Royal Ranger?" Dean huffed, annoyed that again the boy seemed to have a simple solution to the problem presented him.

"Come and eat before you two devolve into just grunting at one another, again." Rachel called over from the fire pit where she'd finished making their breakfast. For a bit, the two males locked gazes before turning almost at the same time towards the woman. It had been a few days since the fight with the wasps. Their fight with the local gang caused a bit of drama, but no one wanted to mess with the dangerous group that had taken out one of the more formidable gangs in the region. After turning in the quest D found nothing else worth doing and so they bought a few supplies before returning to the corps.

For the last week they had been cleaning up the little grove and D had been working on more permanent wards. It was difficult without a proper spell quill but he was making progress. In the meantime, Rachel not knowing what else to do had started tutoring the girls, including the pale child. Rachel had eventually named her Nuala which no one raised any complaints about, after all calling her pale girl or the immature god was annoying. So far though the girl hadn't spoken even if she seemed to understand things well enough. She knew when it was meal time and could follow simple instructions but mostly she was a mystery. If not given a direct order she would wander around acting more like an inquisitive child than anything else.

Pena spent more time helping out with clearing the area than the others, despite looking delicate she was stronger than she appeared due to her true nature. Jane had put on some weight starting to fill out from her almost skeletal scrawniness but was still far weaker than most girls her age. She worked with Mil tending the animals and even starting to learn a bit about driving the wagon.

Dean spent most of his time trying to train D or using the few basic tools they had acquired to start working on a house. Being a Royal Ranger Dean had built countless camps over the years including some makeshift cabin shelters. Applying his knowledge towards making a more permanent shelter wasn't that difficult. His main problem came from missing his dominant arm, yet he stubbornly refused offers of help or to give up. Slowly, over the last week, they had cleared a number of the Red Maples and currently had most of a simple frame up.

Dean and D came to sit around the campfire on simple wooden stools D had made with Dean's guidance as a teaching point for basic woodworking. Once they arrived the others joined them with Nuala moving her little stool closer to D before sitting down beside him. Jane's eye twitched slightly before she pushed a stool even closer on his other side and sat down. Pena opened her mouth to tease the scarred up younger girl but Rachel interrupted her. Rachel had been a dorm mother at the academy and had taken to maintaining the peace in their small camp. She quickly learned that Pena and Jane often didn't get along. She already knew Jane had more than a little crush on the boy but she still couldn't quite understand the relationship between Pena and D.

That didn't mean she hadn't quickly learned that if the two girls got into it, that their fighting could last hours. Nuala was even more of a mystery to her than either of the other girls. Since she never talked it was hard to understand what she was thinking. But no one had missed that she tended to stay close to D whenever they were gathered together. Mil being someone like D who grew up living on the Fringe adapted well and actually found the security of the warded camp with no real responsibility relaxing.

Slowly, the hodgepodge group started to find their groove and their hidden home in the swamp was starting to become more than just a temporary camp. Dean wolfed down the meal almost as fast as D did before standing up. "Alright, come on, it's time for another scouting run. We also need to check those wild onions we found. Might be about time to bring them back even if they aren't ripe. We can start a little garden."

D groaned. Scouting runs mean he would circle around the camp in an ever widening path while Dean droned on about how to track or pointed out useful plants. D's only condolence was that they had found a number of edible plants and even a few animals for meat, well meat for those not able to easily stomach monster flesh. Had D any real other option at that point he might have left the group. But little would change for the better if he struck out on his own and if he was honest, he'd grown used to having others around him. During the week they had been living here it allowed him to contrast his life from before the academy, his time during his stay there at the academy, as well as his new situation. While he missed the easy life of the academy, so much so he almost… almost thought fondly of Larian's crazy drama fueled plots. He had to admit that compared to his life before the academy the current situation wasn't bad. Even Dean's constant nagging was better than the year in the orphanage or stuck being little more than monster bait for his previous owner.

Dean and D were just about to leave camp when Rachel stood up, her face scrunched up. "So what, are we just going to build a little house and live here for the rest of our days?"

Dean stopped making D who had originally just ignored her complaint stop as well. "Lady Orion, you know the situation. Normally I'd have to make you stay just to maintain secrecy but things are far from normal. If you want to go, I won't stop you. But, as far as we know the Gelian Kingdom is as good as destroyed. Your house borders one of our enemies, I'm sad to say but they are most likely already gone. Until something else happens the only thing I can think to do is protect the girl, er Nuala." Dean gave a one armed shrug to the pretty young woman who currently looked torn.

"But won't they come for her?" Rachel asked.

"If they could, I would have expected them already. That nutjob Larian seems to have taken out three other kingdom's arch mages at once. A loss like that is nothing to sneeze at. Plus she wasn't fully developed, I'm no mage to know the details but she doesn't seem that different to me than a normal girl." Dean looked at D. "Can they find her magically?"

D shrugged. "Dunno, she's not normal but compared to me..." He hesitated before adding. "Or some others she seems more normal by comparison. After she stopped glowing… she didn't feel that different honestly." D had a rare look of deep thought on his face. After that Rachel sat down with an almost defeated look on her face. With no other interruptions, Dean and D departed shortly after that to start their scouting patrols.

**********

Deep within the swampy wasteland, the king of the wastes stirred for the first time in centuries. Beneath the murky waters of a lake sized pool of water was the hidden entrance to an underwater lair. Despite the soft swampy ground a large underground cavern existed, the walls a weave-like mass of ancient vines and roots so thick they formed almost a wooden cave. The only entrance to this hidden cave was the tunnel connecting to the large lake that was home to many deadly creatures. Yet the lord of the marsh slept without fear knowing that even the deadliest of the creatures in the swamp would never pose a threat to it or even risk attacking them in their sleep. It slowly sucked in a deep breath shifting slightly causing thick layers of phosphorescent moss to fall free revealing black scales in the pale light. Such a tiny insignificant thing, a slight shift, and a deep breath. Yet, many of the monsters dwelling in the swampland trembled with fear born only of instinct. Death itself was slowly beginning to stir within its domain, death's name was Eirlog the Malevolent, the last of the true black dragons.