The Back of Beyond

[Finn]

A part of him wanted to chastise Arvælyn, a humorous part, but also a part that wanted to glow with Aværys' own radiance. He kept that part in check, thinking it would be better to allow the brothers Phædryn to bond. Finn had already gone through his pack, but went through it again in case anyone had added or removed anything; he oversaw the others, as well. He refrained from checking every buckle and strap of armor, though he was in a heightened state now that all these people depended upon his leadership

"It will be good to have two for aerial reconnaissance," he was saying, "but Raithen, do be careful. In magical null zones, it is quite possible you may be grounded Avialæ wings are magical in nature. That's why most shapeshifter mages can't just put on similar wings and fly." This was, quite possibly, already known, but he was doing his due diligence. "Arvælyn's, I think, should be untroubled by null fields."

When everyone seemed ready, Finn concentrated, remembering where he had last been in the Zonam, and wove the slipstream to his will; a portal opened without fanfare, and he led the way across the threshold.

"Move out."

When his last little duckling had waddled through, he tied off the weave and let it dissipate. With a curt nod, he led them through the outpost that had grown up around the familiar cavern. There was little reason to waste time there in the so-called civilized presence. This was where they would fall back if they got separated, injured, or similar.

"Decius?"

The Sembler nodded, opened his senses to the environment, and then to Finn and the others. Through his Rune, they were able to sense the shape of the caverns ahead. Each of his unit had a map in their pack; the maps were based on those he had begun when spelunking with Cetus. Cartography had become a necessary skill when Zef initiated him into Traversion. He nodded.

There was a thrill of eureka from Decius when he found the nearest slipspace beacon. He glanced at Finn, who nodded.

"Excellent. The first one is within reach, at least."

This time, he concentrated all the harder for how the aether flowed differently down here. Once he had the connection secured, he double- and triple-checked everything to ensure he hadn't left anything to chance, and then opened another portal. This one crackled occasionally around the edges, and he held up a hand to forestall crossing until, between his own sense of the slipspace coupled with Decius' input, he was able to ensure it was safe.

"All right." Once again, he took point. If he had fucked up somehow, he would be the one to suffer, not the others.

Once through, he carefully unraveled the weave of aether that maintained the portal, not wanting the disorder to cause any strange reactions. Then he looked to Decius, who was already scouting ahead. He shook his head even as Finn was able to examine the shared Sembling.

"Now, we walk."

[Raithen]

Making his way through the assembled group, most of whom he had met in passing or at least knew were Sentinels by sight, Raithen clasped arms with each, saying a few words of greeting. Introducing himself was not something he expected to have to do and this instinct proved itself correct when each of the men used his title in response to their own. Last, he came to the brother that would be accompanying them. Raithen didn't quite understand why he was coming, or even why he was allowed to be. Technically, there weren't that many people who could have refused him the right, but there were some.

Very little of the way that Arvælyn had been raised, in childhood or to his rightful place after his arrival in Solunarium, made sense to the Avialae though, so this new oddity simply went into a mental box already full of them. The fact that his newest brother was bringing up their one previous adventure together felt like a good thing. He nodded, expression remaining a friendly neutral, as it had been for everyone else, tinged with more respect than was due to the others.

After bowing his head the correct amount he held his arm out to clasp as he had to the others, waiting to see if the friendly overture would be extended to the point of the camaraderie Raithen tried to share with all fellow soldiers.

"Indeed, you handily turned the tides in that encounter. I've no fear we won't manage this challenge as well."

This was true in that Raithen wasn't sure he had felt fear since he'd wriggled out from under the mantle of childhood. There was some worry, but they had managed to be seen publicly together on many occasions without any of the awkwardness that had settled between them apparent to any eyes outside the family.

When Finn began to instruct them he turned his attention and nodded at the instructions directed specifically to him. Grasping his pack he allowed the others to pass ahead of him through the portal. Rearguard was the position he fell into naturally; able to see everyone in his group and any dangers they might be walking into while standing as a barrier between anything that might be following.

The portal snapped shut behind and, after an initial glance to see that they were in a safe space, Raithen closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the residue of the magic translated by his mind through his rune. He was trying to learn to recreate portals that others had cast by their afterimages. He could have opened a portal to the room they had left on his own, but the point was to learn how to do it with places he did not know. When his eyes opened he took in the small settlement with mild interest, marking the places that might serve as places of defense were they forced to retreat from the caverns this far. More than likely, if there was a problem that caused them to quit the mission so thoroughly, and they couldn't use aether to escape, they wouldn't make it so far, but it never hurt to mark defensive positions.

As before, Finn took point and Raithen drag, watching attentively as the superior Traversionist carefully unraveled his weaving. When this was done, they set off.

"Is that an order?" He asked, jauntily looking up at the high ceilings of the part of the cavern they now found themselves in. The reference was to the comment Finn had made about them walking. If allowed Raithen would rise up and begin scouting in his own way. Of all his military training scouting was the thing he had spent the most practical time doing.

[Arvælyn]

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"We shall see..." Arvælyn replied, uncertain as to whether or not his flight would be hampered by the same obstacles Finn suggested might impede Raithen. When the same half-brother extended his hand in greeting, the draconic elf cocked his head in a fashion that seemed to favour his father's side, before clasping his hand about the forearm of the Avialæ. His lips were taut, even as he smiled, perhaps because the gesture and the scenario felt soldierly. Finn was more likely to recognise it as the sort of perfunctory formality that had increasingly become Arvælyn's default the more time he spent with the ancient creatures that composed his paternal side of the family.

With that bit of cordiality out of the way, the mission was at hand. If sibling bonding was to take place during this expedition it would be a side quest to the main focus, upon which Finn seemed intent as he directed the party. Arvælyn would move more toward the front and keep close to Finn, when at all possible. He was no longer terribly accustomed to making new acquaintances outside of exceedingly curated contexts, many of which were so formalised they may as well have had scripts. He was naturally more comfortable around Finn and, heading into the treacherous environs promised by the Zonam Mysteriam, he would wish to be near enough to safeguard him from harm.

As the prince stepped through the portal into the first leg of their trek proper, he glanced around the broad cavern that stretched into shadow before them. The walls were quite smooth with little in the way of outcroppings. Not a stalactite or stalagmite in sight- all smoothed down as if by millennia of erosion, albeit by nothing currently visible. What there was, however, was a bit of detritus surrounding the Traverser's Beacon, an enchanted crystal that stood atop a pole that had been lodged into the otherwise smooth ground. Upon closer inspection, of the surrounding debris, Arvælyn would observe:

"Signs of a camp, I should think... That stands to reason." It had been the studium parties who placed these beacons, so it made sense that they might have camped in the area during the installation after making the trek on foot from the abjinurium-infused entrypoint they'd just circumvented.

Arvælyn crouched to inspect some of what had been left,

"I wonder which group it was..." It might be too early on the trip to find useful clues, but it didn't hurt to look, if Finn didn't urge him on. Whatever the case, it wouldn't be long before it was time to continue their delve and proceed deeper into the Zonam. The Princeps picked up a discarded torch, as he stepped away from the glow of the beacon and into shadow. A rattling grumble churned in his chest as he inhaled, and a burst of white briefly lit the room as his exhalation set the torch alight. The light quickly dimmed as the less intense blaze set its orange glow to dancing around them.

[Finn]

"Down here," he said to Raithen with a smirk, "I'm the Crownwyrm." The other sentinels froze, but it didn't last. They could hardly fault an empyreal lord for blasphemous humor. Aværys Invictus would smite him or not; best stay out of it. "Please do err on the side of anything I say being an order while on mission. You can go aloft and get a bird's eye view while we investigate the campsite..." Arvælyn already was, and Decius had that look in his eyes when he was dropping into a half-trance to tune out the obvious and focus on the subtle. "And we will have you scout regularly, but as we don't know what we are getting into and there is the possibility of your magic and your wings failing you, I don't want you often so high that you could be damaged if you fell."

There was a hint of his genuine care and concern held into place by command, if not Command.

He nodded to Raithen, allowing him the upper reaches of the cavern should he choose, and went to attend to Arvælyn, who was vomiting dragonfire to light a torch.

"Showoff," he muttered fondly for the prince, who could have as easily excited the torch to flame with mere elemental magic. But his thespian's roles were now circumscribed by necessity, so he didn't mind him getting to play adventurer, spelunker, and dragonborn pyromancer if being a prince was growing occasionally wearisome.

He glanced back at Decius, who stood rooted by the beacon, and the others, spiraling out from there with precise steps as they had all been taught to investigate anything from a crime scene to a ballroom.

Then, back to his husband, "Any insights, my love?" His own gaze was slowly taking in the scene. "I am trying to empathize with these highborn youths... I suppose they saw this as a game, much like the games they seek to play in court. Showing off for their proctors. Making a name for themselves above and beyond their family names..." There was no judgement in his voice; he was trying to step outside his own upbringing to think like them, to better anticipate what they might have done, and how the evidence might help him reverse engineer the situations they faced.

[Raithen]

The Avialae flashed a returning grin to the expedition leader. Even with the niggling feeling that Finn being in charge when Arvælyn was there was socially incorrect, Raithen was still happy that it was so. He had never known his newest brother very well, but the changes that had been wrought since his arrival had been noticed. There was a reptilian coldness to him that had not been there the first time they had met. It was to be expected, and not racially out of the ordinary, but the change wasn't something that made the prospect of trying to form a bond easier.

As Finn continued to lay out the immediate plan, spiced with additional 'all the time' order Raithen gave a distinct nod. His ability to fly was magically enhanced but he had trained to fly while in magically null spaces so that, if he ever was cut off he could at least drift to the ground safely on what lift the physical only abilities of his wings gave him. He did not say so at that moment, if there was a major issue, having slowly drifted in circles to come back to the group from a great height would still be very much less than ideal.

Instead, he saluted properly, his respect for this commander not feigned, and leapt up into the air just as his draconic sibling made use of his own racial abilities to provide them with light. Circling up high enough to get a bird's eye view of the area, both the camp that was being investigated and its surrounds, was second nature to Raithen. His mind grabbed onto any relevant details that were available only to him. There were enough well-trained sets of eyes and minds in the camp itself that his addition there would be superfluous.

[Pharaoh]

Arvælyn shrugged, smirking slightly, at Finn's teasing. Granted, it may have been a bit of overkill, but he had yet to take on the Rune of Elementalism, so it was more practical than it may have looked to the bystanders. When the team leader asked whether he'd any insights, he grimaced, shaking his head. He was sure there must be more to glean, but nothing else was jumping out at him. It was only when Finn spoke on that something occurred to him.

"Of course! You're right, Fi-... Captain. It was a game to them... a competition. We need to consider that this sort of evidence has likely been intentionally stripped of identifying factors. There is even the possibility that we'll find clues that are intentionally misleading. We're not looking for random explorers who got lost and need rescue- We're looking for savvy opponents who were trying to get ahead of the others and misdirect their competition."

With that observation made, the Semblers amongst them would put their Craft to use in the vicinity of the beacon where magic still seemed to be functional, if muted. Fortunately, the Semblers Finn had conscripted were more seasoned than the upstarts who'd embarked all those months ago and they were able to confirm and even add greater detail to their mission map of this first leg of the journey. It was soon established that there was no need to linger too long at this first set of clues, and the route led them northward into tunnels with more magical dampening than those in which they began.

Arvælyn trudged on foot for part of the trip, but as the caverns began to broaden into even larger chambers it seemed to warrant another set of eyes in the skies and so, after requesting permission from Finn, he boosted himself with a Kinetic Push before spreading his wings and taking flight.

The first leg of the journey was uneventful, but the party was able to find clues about the surrounding environs. There were patches of smooth stone here and there and fossils protruded in a few of the walls and floors. Small fish-like skeletons and shells that might have belonged to some sort of mollusk. These caverns had once been filled with water. There were still signs of water sources, and the latter part of this leg followed a subterranean stream, which was occupied by simple forms of life, but no overt dangers presented themselves.

Eventually they reached a gap in the magic-muting web, which had been marked on their maps as the spot where Traversers should begin to seek out the next beacon. It had been a full ten hours by the time they reached this point, and Arvælyn alighted before Finn to ask:

"This area looks secure. Should we camp here or do you want to portal us to the next beacon and make camp further into the Zonam?"

[Finn]

Like a good captain, he tried to make best use of the human resources at his command. Once they made the mental shift to the fact that their prey had likely deliberately obfuscated their path. Decius reported the odd magical ruse. The more mundane trackers caught several details that the youths had likely not considered, so focused on magic were they. Space permitting, he let his winged boys fly.

Like good soldiers, they obeyed, even when they passed through a rocky corridor where he demanded utter silence, certain without knowing how that too much noise would trap them under falling rock. If they thought he was wrong, at least they complied, and better safe than sorry.

At the beacon, he looked up in time to turn his face away as Arvælyn's wingbeats kicked up dust. But he considered the question for a moment before deciding and raising his voice so they could all hear him:

"We camp here. I'll take first watch, and I will open us a portal when we have all rested. If it opens into danger, we will, at least, be be fresh."

Finn didn't shirk when it came to setting up a spartan camp, and they at least ate together. Princes ate the same as paupers here.

Before anyone fell asleep, though, he took advantage of the beacon to trace a path through the slipspace back to a Sentinel safe room where they could send the various fossils and other bits and bobs they had collected for perusal by experts. If they were all cleared and not deemed too valuable for archaeological research, he hoped to give one to Syrena, and one to Hilana. He thought they would appreciate them.

He wasn't planning to fuck with reaving on this trip. There was too much opportunity for drastic failure that could put him out of commission, and he was not going to fail his small company. But he was well enough armed as he walked a circuit, right around where he felt the range of the traversion beacon begin to fade.

There were echoes of symphony, perhaps those of the students, but voidrillium or something else had made them too chaotic to read, really. He didn't let himself. That way lay madness, perhaps.

[Raithen]

When the caverns opened up wide like the Umbrium, it felt like home, when they ceiling came low Raithen could tell himself he was in a building, which was no bother, but when passages narrowed till they were almost forced to turn sideways in places, he had to turn his breath meditative and his mind to numb else panic started to creep in at the edges. The dux had learned very early that his fears were not to be taken into account, not by his mother or siblings, not by those assigned to look after him, most especially not by the gods he must serve. His Divine Radiance had sent Raithen flying over hundreds of leagues of open ocean and despite the abject terror that being in deep water caused him, he had done as commanded without hesitation. So, here too, when he had to, he tucked his wings close so he would not feel them brushing the stone and put himself away until it was safe to be Raithen again.

The first time he had noticed a terrain feature which his captain should know about he circled low enough that he could easily see the walking company and opened a minuscule portal by Finn's ear to explain the little flow of water they would come to soon and how it ran very deep. He continued to do this through the day, passing on scouting information when needed and sometimes listening in if he could see that the soldiers below were holding a conference. This was familiar territory from his time working with mercenary crews, but this group was significantly better equipped, aetherically speaking, than any of those had been.

When he heard the decision on where to camp he folded his wings and let himself fall just because it felt good to know he had to space for it. When he neared the ground he flared them back open and glided to a gentle touch landing before moving to help with what chores he could. Technically he could have set up the entire camp in probably a single minute with Kinetics but that wasn't how one formed a comfortable working connect with fellows soldiers. Working with a man told you a lot about what fighting beside him would be like, and that was important.

He did wait for a moment when he could speak to Finn, not privately, but when the captain wasn't otherwise distracted, to ask him if he wanted to set up a Mesmer net with Finn so he could see into his mind whenever he wanted as he scouted. Telling someone was never as effective as being able to show them and he had allowed Mesmers to net him whenever it was helpful. Maybe there was a reason Finn wasn't doing it, but maybe he just didn't know that it was something you could do. He had been raised outside of Solunarium, and, based on the little Raithen had learned, maybe hadn't had a proper teacher. Even the best trained mages sometimes ran into a person who had developed a new technique, or tribes with ancient methods that just hadn't suffused the common knowledge.

[Arvælyn]

Arvælyn nodded, as Finn declared this their campsite. Unsure of what to do to help set up, he searched the Symphonies of the more seasoned explorers and exploited that ability to do the next step on their personal lists before they finished the first. It was actually quite productive, in addition to making him seem more knowledgeable than he was. He knew how to survive city streets, but he wasn't a practised spelunker.

When things were set up, and people seemed to be finding places to relax, to converse or to eat their rations, he returned to Finn as Raithen was approaching to pose his question.

"If the next stretch is like the last, our Mesmer is dampened. I can use it unimpeded here, but I assume that's why they selected this site for a beacon. The Abjinurium and whatever else is obstructing our magic isn't as dense here." Where the effect was at its worst, it wasn't just in the stone of the walls, it was in the dust they kicked up, as if it infused the very air.

"Sorry. You weren't talking to me." Arvælyn pursed his lips, and glanced askance, waiting for them to finish their exchange or engage him further. When there was a moment to change the subject, he bit his lip and cleared his throat.

"So, um... Raithen? We haven't talked much about our pasts, our... childhoods and that. I see much more of Phocion and I was wondering... what was it like growing up with him? Was he ever a child, or did he hatch fully formed from an Umbrian boulder?" The prince's cordial smile was vulnerable, and the question and the jest about Phocion seemed, if not rehearsed, then certainly premeditated in some way. Raithen may not realise, but Finn certainly would, that this was Arry consciously trying to bond with his sibling. One who, as his mother and others pointed out, had more in common with him than the others, and not only in the superficial sense. It wasn't just that they were golden boys with wings, it was also that they were outsiders in their own spheres of influence.

[Finn]

Finn had certainly appreciated the airborne intelligence throughout the day of travel. And once the camp was set up—palatable aromas rising from Decius' camp stove—Finn was content they should be able to relax a bit, eat, and then sleep while he kept watch. He knew Arvælyn did prefer his creature comforts, but Finn did enjoy occasionally roughing it, remembering how to thrive with less.

The sometimes bard began to play. His camp song gently urged his men to take their ease, the better to have restorative sleep, and, of course, when the brothers were speaking, he introduced a bit of a bridge to bridge the emotional gap between them. As always, his Mesmer was gentle, a suggestion, rather than a Command.

His lips pursed slightly as Arvælyn answered. "Demerit for Subvigil Arvælyn," he tsked quietly, but smiled. "I doubt we will be able to rely upon a Mesmer net, but we can set it up before we move out on the morrow and see." If anything, the abjinurium and voidrillium and whatever other deleterious dragonshards hereabouts would disrupt the magic rather than harm them. While he knew there were Assessors to rectify any mental or emotional damage they might incur, he would rather just avoid causing it in the first place.

Finn's smile was soft as he listened to the joke at Phocion's expense. Sometimes he would hum a quick harmony with his music, but it was largely pleasant background noise. His own rapport with Raithen had felt easy, even too easy when he initiated him with a Rune and they had ended up in the Ætherium for a while. Phocion had been a harder nut to crack. He wasn't even certain he had cracked him so much as he had slowly proven himself useful and trustworthy and so that slow trickle of shared confidence had grown to a perceptible relationship.

Marriage was different here from what he knew, and so, it seemed were all familial relationships, and even family.

Finn would eat with his men, and eventually send them to their bedrolls while he kept watch. One concession to love would be pillowing his prince's head in his lap if Arvælyn wished it, then spooning him—or being spooned—until "day." He didn't anticipate trouble from the lack of signs, but he was always prepared given circumstances could change.