//------------------------------//
// Chapter 30 
// Story: Hegira: Option Gamma 
// by Guardian_Gryphon 
//------------------------------//

It turned out that the armory was a massive hollowed out space buried deep inside the mountain.
The complex was protected by foot-thick iron doors with steel plating, at each of its four entrances.

Fyrenn imagined, judging by the complexity of the machinery that governed their movement, that they could snap shut instantly with enough force to slice any living creature, regardless of size or armor, in half.

The armory contained a warren of rooms connected to a single vaulted hall that housed armor and weapons enough to equip an emergency defensive force of four hundred Gryphons at a minute's notice.
Beyond the central hall, there were storage rooms for materials and completed gear, forges, and curing leather.

The space smelled strongly of the aforementioned substance, combined with the tang of burning coal in the forges, and the distinctive scent of super-heated metals.

As Fyrenn stood taking in the sights and smells, two burly male Gryphons approached from a side-chamber.  He immediately noticed that they were very much alike, except for subtle differences in their blue and black patterning.

Both sported leather sashes hung with a variety of small tools, and both looked as if they'd spent a lot of time recently in proximity to a bellows.  They were caked with coal dust up one side and down the other.

The one on Fyrenn's left smiled broadly, "Ah! So you're on-time!  Good!  Welcome to the armory.  I'm Serath...."

The one on Fyrenn's right picked right up, "...and I'm Sorath.  Twins, if you hadn't guessed."

Fyrenn smiled, "Nice to meet you.  Isn't that rare for us?  Twins?"

Serath nodded, "Oh aye.  But sometimes a family can have two eggs at once, and of those times very occasionally, you get twins."

Sorath picked up the conversation right where his brother had left off, "So you'll be wanting to forge a proper set of armor then?  Something you can pass on with pride!"

Serath nodded, "Alarian?  Aren't you?  Right!  Try to keep up!  We've got lots to do, and according to orders from higher up very little time to do it."

"We usually prefer to do armor over the course of a week...."

"...But it's not impossible to get it done, and done right, in a day."

The way the twins finished each other's sentences and lines of thought was starting to make Fyrenn's head spin.  The visually similar pair lead him back through a series of rooms, passing by stacks of sheet metal, cylinder ingots of pure iron, and crates of diamonds, finally arriving in a large domed stone room with an enormous forge set into the opposite wall.

The heat was so intense, Fyrenn was already slightly uncomfortable at the entrance.

Several other Gryphons were hard at work, one of whom was removing some sort of crucible from the sun-like intense fires.  Fyrenn could see that the iron inside wasn't just molten, it was so hot it was nearly evaporating.

If the furnace could do that to iron, that begged the question;  What was the crucible made of?
It wasn't even red hot.

Fyrenn asked the twins, eliciting a chuckle.

Sorath pointed, "The crucible?  Twice-recrystallized diamond, with mica lacing.  Celestia's sun probably couldn't melt it..."

Serath snorted, "...But it's so brittle you could break it jus' by sneezin' on it."

Sorath shrugged, "Right then!  Shall we?"  He lead the group to a side room, insulated from the furnace's heat with extra thick walls.  Most of the room was occupied by a shaped-stone table, covered from end to end in the Gryphon equivalent of drafting paper.

Fyrenn noted that most of the designs were for variants of armor plates.

The twins began their own hushed high speed conversation, "So he's an Alarian..."
"...which means he'll be needing...."
"...oh aye.  That, and a set of good gauntlets..."
"...true but what about...?"
"...of course that too..."

Fyrenn coughed, loudly, "Uh...  Care to include me in the design phase?"

Sorath looked up apologetically, "Ah sorry 'bout that.  We tend to go on at times..."

Serath smirked, "Aye that we do.  Come have a look."

Fyrenn leaned over the table, taking in the central design, and the myriad of smaller sheets the twins had assembled around it.  The basic layout was reminiscent of the armor he had worn on Earth, but the design was more intricate.  The other diagrams were variants on designs for nearly every component.

Fyrenn could just barely make out the Gryphic for 'Alarian,' and noted that it appeared on all the sheets.  Apparently, Sagittars had a different set of designs.

That sparked another question in his mind, "So what about Paladins? Do they have specific armor?"

Sorath nodded,  Serath shook his head, both spoke in turn, "They don' 'sactly have *a* specific design..."

"...They just get to come back and have access to special materials, and help to have their current set modified however they like.  Usually after a few years o' battle, a warrior has some idea for modifications an' enhancements."

"We've seen some suits four or five times over, as they were passed down from father to son, modified then, and then again every time he advanced in rank and so on..."

Fyrenn whistled, "Well, I'll just be happy to have something to call my own.  I feel... odd.  
Not having my own gear set."

The twins smiled and spoke in perfect unison, "We know 'sactly whatcha mean."

Fyrenn leaned over the table again, and gave the diagrams a thorough once over.
He then spent the next fifteen minutes plying the twins with questions on the functionality, durability, weight, and complexity of the various combinations of components.

He found it easy to visualize completed designs, and it didn't take long for him to come to an internal consensus on the components he wanted.  He even had a few ideas about modifications that might be of use to him in combat.

He gestured to some writing implements, and the paper, "May I?"

Sorath nodded, "They're copies rubbed from permanent etchings.  Have at it."

It took him a few minutes to get down the changes he wanted.

Serath and Sorath counseled him in several places, and occasionally asked questions on the purpose of a change, or what Fyrenn's English written notations meant.

When he was done, he had a sleek aggressive suit of medium weight flexible armor, with a special notch in the right gauntlet to assist in multi-arrow nocking,  deployable hidden blades in both arm guards and lower leg guards, and hidden wicked looking snap-out curved blades in the wing-joint guards.

He glanced at the twins, "It's not... *Too* unique is it?"

"Nah! Every suit of Knight's armor is unique."

"All similar..."

"...but all unique..."

"...and they tend ta' get more unique wit' time."

Fyrenn jerked his head at the assembled sketches, "So can we build it?"

Sorath chuckled, "Do axes leave very big dents in skulls?"



 

Sorath and Serath offered to take forge duty, but Fyrenn wanted some experience in every part of the process, so for a few minutes he endured the sweltering heat of the open flaming maw, and got a lesson in using a crucible to melt ores, and create alloy.

Much to his astonishment, Sorath informed him that armor and swords were made of a titanium like alloy, something Fyrenn thought only humans had the technology to create.  The process was taxing and expensive however, so steel, bronze, iron, and other easier to refine materials were preferred in the construction of anything else.

An even further shock was the discovery that Gryphons had developed some sort of special secret method for melting, molding, and re-crystallizing diamond into a matrix of incredible durability.  Armor plates thus consisted of leather backing, to ease contact against feathers and fur, a thin alloy plate, a woven matrix of diamond crystal, and then another slightly thicker alloy plate.

The entire assembly would be almost exactly as thick as the solid metal plate in any other armor, but would be much more durable.

Fyrenn commented on the fact, as the Twins brought down molding clay from a shelf.

Serath nodded, "Aye.  It's so durable, that Celestia herself pays us to make armor for her royal guards..." 

"...and her sister's night guards," Sorath finished.

Fyrenn chuckled, "What does she pay you in?"

"Corn, and Apples."  The twins said in unison.

"Apples?"

"Oh aye.  Most varietals won't grow up here, winter's cold kills tha' trees..."

"...and tho we dun' need em,' we do like em..."

"...'sides which, it augments our harvests and hunting nicely.  Big appetites and all."

The trio turned to making the armor molds.

Fyrenn was not surprised to find that the armory stocked metal inverses of the basic molds, which would be used to make the actual base clay mold.  Once it was complete, it would be modified to suit a particular unique design, baked solid, and then it would be ready for the molten alloy.

Each individual piece of the armor would require two molds, one for each layer of metal.
The crystalline weave sandwiched in between would be created while the molds were cooling.

The twins wouldn't let Fyrenn help with the mold creation process.  Time was short, and even a tiny mistake would be costly.  It was a task best left to professionals.  Fyrenn watched intently, however, and extracted a promise that they would let him come back and practice mold making at some point in the future.

He found himself deeply fascinated by the armor and weapon making process.
He wondered if perhaps he hadn't found himself a peacetime calling, but that was a question to explore in peacetime.

Once the molds were finished, baked, and cooling, the twins introduced Fyrenn to the crystalline matrix creation process.  Some parts of the formula were secret, known only to those who made the substance, but the actual creation of the matrix was very simple.

Water was poured into a large sheet-mold of hexagonal spaces, and a specially treated diamond dust, plus the secret chemical, were added to the mix.  Within moments, the matrix rubberized.
It could then be laid over the base piece of armor.  The top metal layer would be partly reheated before being affixed, and the temperature transfer would flash-harden the weave.

Pouring the alloy into the molds was easy from a skill standpoint, but was a slow painstaking process that required care to avoid spilling liquid metal onto a limb.  Sorath took the helmet,  and greaves, Serath took the leg pieces and back-piece, and Fyrenn took the chest-pieces.

Once the task was complete, Fyrenn sighed in relief.
The twins offered him some water from a chilled canteen, which he gratefully imbibed.
The work had been hot, tedious, and a bit frightening.  A single slip in concentration would result in painful disaster.

The diamond crystal matrix could not be applied until the metal plates cooled, so the next item was cutting the leather for the backing, assembling buckles and straps, and creating the mechanisms for the six deployable blades Fyrenn's design called for.

Most of the required springs, catches, and pivots were already stocked by the armory, so it only took some miscellaneous filing to bring them up to specifications.  The leatherworking was easy;  The knives and shaping tools were intuitive and well made.

By the time they had finished creating all the individual pieces of the armor, Fyrenn's stomach told him it was almost dinner time.  He understood why the twins usually insisted on spreading out the process.  Given the nature of each stage, it would be easier to do armor in groups, taking it at a stage per day.

By that point the metal plates had fully cooled.  Applying the leather backing, and crystal matrix was easy.  The three Gryphons divided it into an assembly line;  Fyrenn riveted the leather backing on, Sorath applied and straightened the matrix.  Finally, Serath heated the top plate and affixed it.  The temperature did not have to be raised by much, the plates could even still be handled with bare claws.

Once it was all said and done, the final step was adding the myriad straps and buckles, and finishing up the blade mechanisms.

The completed set finally sat before the trio, laid out on the stone of a large workbench.

Fyrenn smiled, "So...  Can I try it on?"

Serath shook his head, "Needs decoration..."

Sorath nodded in agreement, "...got ta leave your mark on it."

"Now you can't paint it red, you're red, and it would just blend...."

"...and you can't use blue, it'd clash...."

Fyrenn considered, for a moment, while the two bickered good naturedly, before finally interjecting with his own opinion, "How about Bronze? it's strong, and a good color match for unpainted silver, and my red feathers."

Sorath beamed, "Aye! Bronze! Why didn't I think of it?"

Serath chuckled, "Because you're the dumber of us."

"At least I can hit the broadside of a door, you can't aim for pinfeathers."

"Shall we bring up your abominable axe skills again?"

The twins continued to argue, good naturedly, as they set to heating a small quantity of bronze.
Fyrenn sketched out some designs for the placement;  He primarily wanted to use it as trimming along edges and joints.  He also wanted his clan and family combined emblem in the center of the chest-piece, which the twins told him was a very common request.

It took another two hours, and all three Gryphons were quite hungry by the end, but once the modifications were complete the armor looked amazing, even as pieces strewn out over a table.

Sorath chuckled, "*Now* you can try it on."

Serath clapped Fyrenn on the shoulders, "We never let a Knight leave until his armor looks as good as it actually is."

Fyrenn carefully, slowly, strapped on each individual piece, making sure it fit properly and comfortably when cinched before moving on to the next.  When he was done, the twins whistled in unison.

Sorath grinned, "My my, you look *quite* the business."

Serath laughed, "Aye! that you do! Let's find you a mirror."

It turned out there was a mirror in one of the antechambers, put there specifically for armor fitting.  When he saw his reflection, Fyrenn pulled up short, and stared.

He did indeed look 'the business.'  The bronze highlights made a perfect counterpoint to the gleaming silver of the plates, and the red of his fur and feathers.  The angles and curves had materialized exactly as he envisioned them.  He didn't just look intimidating, he looked incredibly dangerous.

He finally remembered to breathe, and set about testing the deployable blades.
His claws and talons and beak were already formidable sharp weapons, but the addition of blades to the gauntlets and greaves would let him do added damage through other arcs of motion.  The blades in his wing joints would turn them from an impact weapon, into a surprise instantaneous killing blow if used at the right time.

Fyrenn tore his gaze off his reflection, and looked back at the twins, "Thank you.  This is...  Well...  It'd be the first armor I ever got sentimentally attached to.  And that's saying a lot.  I hope you'd be willing to teach me more if I came back."

They nodded.  Sorath spoke up, "We need a new designer, one of our best died a few seasons back..."

"...but you'd have a lot to learn.  Still, you should consider it."

Fyrenn smiled, "I'll keep the idea in mind."



 

Since the training 'day' lasted long into the night, dinner was being served to training groups wherever they happened to be.  Most were, as Fyrenn discovered, quite far afield doing combat exercises, so he had to seek out the commissary and collect some food himself.

He took a large portion of scallops, some bread loaves, meat skewers, and a tankard of apricot juice up to the great hall.  The room was deserted, and the only light came from the setting sun, and smoldering coals in the massive hearth.

Fyrenn stoked a few of them up, and had just begun to heat his skewers, when he noticed he was being watched.  He looked up to see Neyla standing in one of the entry ways.

He waved, "Join me?"

She hesitated, but upon seeing the food, she ambled over.

Much as she was obviously trying to avoid it, she couldn't take her eyes off Fyrenn's new armor.
He hadn't removed it, he reasoned he needed to break it in.  Truthfully, he just wanted an excuse to wear it some more.

"Hungry?"

She nodded, "Famished actually.  I got caught up in the library again.  Lost track of time."

Fyrenn nodded, "Here..."  He divided his food swiftly into two equal portions.

She smiled, "Thank you."  She paused, then nodded at his shoulder, "Your armor is quite well made.  I wish I could afford a complete set."

"You don't have a full set of armor?"

She shook her head, and bit into a scallop, "Being a Sentinel doesn't always pay well, and I burn through my citizen stipend quickly with travel expenses.  I haven't had a major contract yet, so I could afford either good armor, or good weapons to start out.  I decided to go with good weapons."

Fyrenn chuckled, "Good choice."

They ate in awkward silence for a few minutes, before he tried to jumpstart the conversation again.  Neyla looked melancholy, and he figured he had already had success cheering up one sad Gryphon that day.

"So...  What do you need with old clan records?"

Neyla sighed, "You might as well know the story."

She bit into a piece of bread, chewed thoughtfully, then began, "Once, my family was part of a clan.  But it was a small one, and mostly wiped out during the first Diamond Dog war.  My father's father was stubborn, and refused to merge, or start over.  So our family, the last, became Sentinels by trade.  My father continued the tradition.  I'd rather not."

"Oh?"

"No.  I respect his decision, but I am not my father, and he knew that.  I was hoping to find a record I could use to lay claim to clan assets.  Once it's official, I can bring in other clanless Gryphons looking for a home.  The only other way is to marry into a family with assets who are clanless, or willing to split off from a clan.  But...  Well...  I'm not interested in that."

Fyrenn laughed, "I know exactly how *that* feels."

She glanced over at him with renewed interest, "You do not wish to settle down with a mate?  You mentioned it at the feast but...  I find it hard to believe.  Most creatures are social, we are no different."

"I just...  Well I was never comfortable with the loss of control.  Everyone tells me that will change when the right person comes along but... I doubt it."

Neyla seemed to relax, and she chuckled, "Well it's nice to hear someone say that.  Our kind is chivalrous, but can be a bit forward.  I hate meeting a new male, only to find out he sees me as a potential mate."

Fyrenn snorted, "Well I can see why.  You're intelligent, kind, and..."

She cocked her head, and smiled, "And?"

"Well I was going to say beautiful, but I was afraid you'd take it wrong."

She blushed, "At least you're honest, though I think you give me too much credit."

Another long awkward silence passed, before Fyrenn made another attempt to smooth things over, "So, any luck with the clan records?"

She sighed deeply, "No.  A lot of records that were kept in various villages were destroyed in the war.  I'm afraid any documents entitling me to land, or resources, are long gone."

"So what will you do now?" Fyrenn sipped his juice, then offered the tankard to Neyla.
Gryphons didn't seem shy about sharing cups, and she accepted.

"Keep traveling I suppose.  I can always hope the records exist somewhere, and I need to find a new contract before I exhaust what meager savings gold I have."

"Why not become a Knight?"

Neyla scoffed, and passed the tankard back, "Me?  A Knight?  Hardly.  I wouldn't be able to handle the structure.  I prefer my independence, and I'm too used to it to have to obey a command structure, however flexible it might be."

Fyrenn grinned and cocked his head, "I wouldn't have taken you for the rebellious type."

She laughed outright, "If my father were still alive, he'd probably want to nail you to the wall.  
I was a roving terror when I was a fledgling.  Drove him out of his mind some days."

Fyrenn smiled, and stared down into the remaining liquid in the wooden vessel, "My father would have said the same.  My one dream was to be a pilot"

Neyla raised an eyebrow, "Those metal airships? You called them 'Scythes'..."

Fyrenn nodded, "It was all I thought about, all I talked about, and I used to run screaming through the apartment with this set of flying goggles on, pretending to be up there...  In the clouds...  Of course I could have never known how much better it is to do it on your own wings.  But I did manage to break a vase and a lamp or two."

Neyla guffawed, "Somehow, I can visualize you doing that just fine."

Fyrenn inclined his head, "I do have a habit of shooting, slicing, exploding, and crushing things."

There was a third silence then, but it was amicable, and not the least bit awkward.
The two Gryphons had bonded and gotten a basic understanding of one another, and each found the other to be free of the suspected characteristics had that privately worried them.

As they finished, Fyrenn let Neyla explain some of her hopes and dreams for a new clan.
She had a head for logistics, and visions of a highland castle on the frontier, full of love, friendship, strength and opportunity.  It sounded like the kind of life Fyrenn himself would want, assuming everything eventually settled down.

Finally, Neyla trailed off, and Fyrenn got up, "Well, I have to return all of this..."  He gestured to the eating implements, "...And see about a sword."

Neyla nodded, and smiled, "Thank you for the meal.  And for listening."

Fyrenn smiled, "Anytime."



 

Sword forging was such an intricate and technical process, that rather than making them in the armory furnace, the Gryphons had set up a specifically constructed forge just for making bladed weapons.

The structure was outside the mountain, built at ground level out of the smooth seamless shaped-stone that seemed so ubiquitous in Gryphic construction.

Fyrenn arrived to find a thinning, older, impatient looking auburn and white male Gryphon waiting for him.  The moon was just rising, and the silvery light gave a strange cast to his feathers.

"Good! You're here.  We need to get started right away.  I'm Keilal, you're Fyrenn.  Now that that's out of the way, we need to get your grip size, blade length, and balance point figured out."

What followed was a whirlwind tour of twenty different swords, all of varying make, as Keilal forced Fyrenn to repeat the same set of maneuvers with each so he could evaluate his stance, style, and grip.

Once he was finished, he shoved some blank paper and a quill at Fyrenn, "Now, I expect you'll want to design your hilt.  I have to go begin the heating process for the alloys."

He stepped to the doorway, which lead into the furnace room, and cast a glare back at Fyrenn, "Don't touch anything."

Fyrenn fell to sketching.  He wanted something significant, but he couldn't think what.
As Keilal hurried back through with a stack of metal sheets, he inquired as to what most warriors put on their hilts.

"Mmmm...  Most like to use their clan symbol, and inset it with a chunk of their eggshell.  But you don't have an eggshell.  So... I wouldn't know."  With that, the hyperactive Gryphon hurried back to the forge.

Fyrenn sat and tapped the quill against the page a few more times, before inspiration struck.
He scribbled furiously, and finished just in time for Keilal's return.

"What did you decide on?"

Fyrenn showed him the design.

The auburn Gryphon sniffed, "It looks like a constellation.  Or a rune."

"It's a cutie mark.  A memorial to a friend, who died."

That seemed to resonate a bit with Keilal, who nodded appreciatively, "A noble and worthwhile choice then.  Let us begin.  Just so you understand, you are here to watch only.  This is a delicate process, and I can't have you upsetting it."

True to Keilal's word, the creation of the blade was a mesmerizing, confusing, and delicate process that seemed more art than science.  It involved heating and cooling in certain patterns, layering malleable white-hot metals back on themselves, with shafts or sheets of diamond crystal sandwiched in, and finally pouring some sort of molten substance over the whole object, then sharpening it while it was still hot.

Keilal placed the blade into a special tray, and set it partly into the furnace to keep it glowing, then set about making the hilt.

Fyrenn was amazed to see the Gryphon's claws work on pure metal with such alacrity and precision.  Most of the tools involved had small precise tips, and sometimes Keilal used the tips of his own talons.  Fyrenn wondered if years of dipping the tips into red-hot steel had dulled any of their textural sense.

When the hilt was finished, Keilal asked him to test the grip, then abruptly repossessed it, and set about attaching the blade.  The hilt had been forged directly into a shaft of pure diamond, which stuck out from it approximately half a foot.  Keilal slowly, but surely, shoved the shaft into the still malleable metal of the blade itself, cementing the length of metal to the hilt.

He then dipped the weapon swiftly into a standing vat of oil.
The resulting steam cloud filled the forge, and when it dissipated, Fyrenn beheld the complete weapon.

The blade was silvery, but had a slight blue specular to it when the light caught it.  The hilt was steel, with Skye's cutie mark inlaid in bronze.

The weapon was of middling length.  It could be used with one claw, or two, making it a 'one and a half claw' sword;  A common Alarian melee weapon standard.  The balance, Fyrenn discovered as he twirled the new weapon, was made, literally, just for him.

The entire process had taken nearly seven hours, and the moon had passed its apex.
Keilal seemed much more friendly and relaxed, now that his work was done.  Given the precision demanded of him by his job, Fyrenn realized it was amazing he was as controlled as he appeared to be.

"It is beautiful." he remarked, tilting the blade so that the moon brought out the blueish tint.

Kielel nodded, "That's nearly unbreakable metal now.  The flash cooling permanently cements it.  You'd be hard pressed to dull, scratch, melt, or bend it.  You still need a scabbard though, to keep it clean, and yourself safe.  That I am willing to let you make.  If you helped with the leatherworking of your armor, then you should be capable enough."

Keilal supplied him with a pre-cut piece of leather, some bronze filigree, a riveting tool, and a few heated coals in a stone dish, to make the bronze malleable if necessary.

Fyrenn spent half an hour assembling the leather covering, carefully working his clan design into the outer mid-section with the bronze.  The metal turned out to be surprisingly easy to work with.
When he was finished, he strapped the scabbard to his back, beside his bow and quiver, and placed the sword in it.

Kielel nodded, "Now you look the proper warrior."

"Thank you.  I'm quite glad to have a sword to call my own."

"Treat it well, and spill much enemy blood with it."

"Oh..." Fyrenn grinned deviously, "I intend to."



 

Fyrenn returned to his room.  He wasn't sure where he was supposed to meet Kephic and Varan for their evening's activities, so he figured he would drop off his bow, and parts of his armor.
The gear was designed so it could have components removed, and still work as passable light armor.

He needn't have worried, however, as Kephic and Varan were already waiting for him.

Kephic whistled through his beak, "That's quite a suit of armor."

Varan raised an eyebrow, "Well designed.  And I see Keilal has been busy..."

Fyrenn nodded, "I'm *thrilled.*  I haven't been this happy to get something new since Christmas as a ten year old kid."

He removed his helmet, parts of the armor, his quiver, and bow, placing them on the armor stand in their appropriate places.

Kephic gestured for him to follow, and he and Varan led Fyrenn through to mountain in a general downwards direction, "We need to select our final team-mate."

Varan grunted, a sound Fyrenn assumed was intended to convey displeasure, "There's a list?"

Kephic held up a sheaf of scrolls, "Five Candidates from Sildinar.  Two Alarians, three Sagittars.  All with impeccable records."

As they descended, he read out the description of each, which included a small but detailed evaluation of their personalities.

Finally, the group reached a long, low hall, that Fyrenn realized with a start, connected to one of the Armory entrance-ways at one end.

The space was full of packs, crates, and supplies of all kinds.

Varan had a mental list of the gear they would need, and they went through the stacks of provisions, selecting the required materials.

It was a short list, Gryphons traveled light on hunting trips.

It mostly consisted of basic emergency medical items, a small cache of non-perishable backup food provisions, and a small kit of tools for maintaining weapons and armor.

If they split the load, they would each be carrying less than ten pounds of gear.  Most food and water would be collected in the wild as-needed.

The brothers gathered around the small pile of gear, and a moment of silence passed.
Kephic snorted, "Ignoring it won't make it go away.  We need to select a candidate."

Fyrenn voiced their shared sentiment, "It's not that any of them sound...  Unpleasant...  It's just that none of them sound right for the group.  Does that make any sense?"

Varan nodded silently.

They stood for a few minutes, deep in thought, before an idea occurred to Fyrenn.
He was slow to voice it, but it took hold and worked its way into his head.  An insistent little voice of inspiration.  Or Providence.

"What about Neyla?"

Varan looked taken aback, Kephic looked intrigued.

When they didn't immediately shoot the idea down, Fyrenn continued, babbling a little in his haste to express the thought, "She needs the gold.  We could pay her with my first stipend, I don't need it and I'll likely have a second one by the time we get back..."

Varan stared at the wall, pondering, but Kephic spoke, "Are you sure that is a good idea? We don't know her all that well..."

Fyrenn nodded, "But I know her better than any of us know the Gryphons on that list, no offence to them."

Kephic nodded, "No, I see what you mean, but I'm asking if you're *sure.*  This is an important decision."

Fyrenn nodded again, more emphatically, "Yes.  I think she's a good fit for the group.  Call it instinct, and a flash-judgement of character."

Varan finally added his input, "I'm with Fyrenn.  Better the companion you know, than anyone else."

Kephic looked pensive, then nodded his agreement, "Very well, I agree also.  Have you mentioned this to her?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "No.  It just occurred to me, though I'm surprised it didn't earlier."

"Alright, then you propose it to her.  We'll be in the great hall making a final check of our personal gear."  Kephic hefted half of the assorted items on the floor, and Varan went for the other.

The speckled black and white Gryphon shot Fyrenn a final glance, "I hope you're right about her.  I'd much rather have someone along who will get along with us."



 

It took Fyrenn several minutes to find Neyla.  He started in the library, correctly assuming she would still be there, searching.  The problem was finding the section dedicated to clan records.

In the end, he just kept guessing, until he found her, lying on a large pillow digging through a pile of scrolls and making notes on a small piece of paper.

"Burning the midnight oil?"

She glanced up, an expression of curiosity on her beak, "What?"

"Human expression.  Pre-electrical lighting in some eras relied on oil lamps.  Means 'staying up too late.' "

Neyla snorted, "Sleep is for the weak."

Fyrenn chuckled, "Maybe."  He paused, and took a deep breath, "I have a question for you.  More of a proposition."

That seemed to get her full attention and she stood, looking a bit nervous.

Fyrenn forged ahead, "We need a sixth member for our group.  We're hunting a Diamond Dog pack in the northern wastes, they can lead us to high up leaders of the PER, a faction of terrorists on Earth.  I want you to be the sixth member."

Neyla's expression worried him, so he continued, more quickly, "We'll pay you, or rather I will.  My whole first stipend."

She looked shocked, "You would part with that much....  Just to have *me* along? why?"

"Because I know you better than I know any of the other candidates, and I think you'd be good for the group."

Neyla looked torn.  Fyrenn couldn't even begin to analyze the myriad of variables that must be worrying her, influencing her final decision in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

After almost a minute, she locked eyes with him, "This is for a good cause?"

"These terrorists? They take away people's free will and choice."

"And the rest of the group?"

"I don't know if you'll like IJ.  And Stanley...  Well...  He's a good guy deep down, but hard to get used to."

Neyla hummed pensively, "At least you're honest."

"That seems to be the running theme."

She chuckled, and thought for a few more moments, "Alright.  I'll do it.  I need the gold, the cause is good, and I think I can handle the group.  Kephic and Varan seemed nice enough when I met them at the feast, and you're..."

Fyrenn smiled, "What?"

Neyla smirked, "Well I was going to say 'a wonderful Gryphon' but I was afraid you'd take it wrong"

"At least you're honest."

Neyla laughed, "Haven't we had this conversation?"

Fyrenn grinned, "Wasn't it the other way around?"

She shook her head, "You have quite a sense of humor.  Well...  In short, yes.  I'll come with you.  Though once you find out how troublesome I can be, you might end up regretting it."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Somehow, I doubt that."