Solunarian Airspace, Over the Crystal Sea
46th of Searing, Year 125 of Steel
46th of Searing, Year 125 of Steel
“My soul is in the sky.”
While he might have wished to sail the skies over the Crystal Sea in Searing Victory—he was inordinately proud of the Air Defense Force's flagship, and prouder still that he was its ofttimes captain—it would not do should anyone think he was saber-rattling as the Gelerian Imperium was wont to do with their 'humanitarian aid,' and on the off chance that everything went horribly sideways, he did not want that most impressive of Zaichaeri vessels to be lost to the desert elves.
'What would Brenner say?' he wondered idly, squinting at the horizon where the continent of Ecith was a vague smudge. He had tried to ask, but the—they really needed a better word it—miracle of Brenner's bones hadn't yielded the full man, not yet. Progress willing, one day, it would. While they had at times admired Hytori or Re'hyaean faculty for conquest, their lips had curled at the sharp ears of those conquerors, Eitan's even more so given the fervor with which he had applied himself to the humans-first ideals of their home.
Their flight path had veered far to the east in order to avoid flying over the Orkhan jungles. For that, they would have required Searing Victory. Well before fabled Tertium resolved on the horizon, however, an airman called his attention to the black shapes that turned out not to be sea birds.
Per agreement, the wyvern-riders formed an honor guard to guide them to Tertium. There, the civilian ship was boarded, respectfully inspected, and then led to skirt the mountains toward Solunarium and Mount Sorokyn.
The Luxium was something out of a fairy story, and everyone not focused on the logistics of Black Swan's descent were on deck to observe. Some hoped to see dragons circling the volcano's crater. Some sought to marvel at the glitter of gold below. High Sentinel Angevin had hand-picked those Watchers who would accompany him, and Admiral Angevin had crewed Black Swan for the journey.
The airship was small and simple enough that he could probably manage to fly it without help; of course, that was hardly optimal. As this was not a military mission, there were only a handful of airmen aboard. All of them would stay aboard to keep the ship trim and ready to fly at a moment's notice, except for Captain Kämpfer and Lieutenant Dornkirk. The former was occasionally strange, but he was effective and had been in the Admiral's line of sight while he was considering the proposed entourage. The latter was, in some ways, Angevin's protégé, and he wanted him to experience things that would better prepare him to be a leader of their people.
“Take pains,” he told his men. “Be perfect.”
There was a buzz aboard as they moored where directed and Angevin led his men from the deck to the desert kingdom's sovereign territory, even if it wasn't, to be entirely precise, sovereign soil.
So far, the carefully manufactured uniforms of the Watchers were keeping them cool and preventing undue incursion into their minds, auras, and the like. When he and Foreign Minister Fuchs had agreed an envoy should be sent to Solunarium and agreed that he was the most capable candidate, First Minister Dornkirk had been nearly apoplectic. They had worked him around, but mostly by channeling his anxieties into pushing nascent magical technologies to ensure his brother-in-law was as safe as possible on such a venture.
Once he was assured that safety was given due attention, it wasn't much more of an effort to get Reiner on the mission.
When he met his black-clad counterpart, a faint smile ghosted over his lips. The black-clad High Sentinel of Zaichaer was treating with the black-clad Sentinels of Solunarium halfway across the face of Ransera. His heels clicked together, a staccato prelude to a short, sharp bow, elegant, perhaps, for its economy of movement.
“Well met by sunlight, proud Sentinel,” he said in careful Vastian. “I am Sentinel Eitan Angevin.”
