[Official NPC]

Riders Iosen Lysaedra and Ainetto Sylvea had spent much of their time while on patrol discussing the Elysians who had come to Vynett and the ramifications of their arrival in Acantha. They had not been particularly quiet about their discussions, so when Wing Master Adras Tiana was assigned as the head of a task force to be sent through the portal, they were the first on her list of potentials to approach. "I have been tasked with scouting the realm they came from," Tiana had explained as they lounged against their mystdragons at the top of a mountain overlooking the jungle. The mist alone had shrouded their presence but the dragons were still on edge. Malaki raids had become ever more frequent of late, so Lysaedra suspected there was more to this task force than mere scouting.

"Didn't a couple of riders from Eimel already scout around over there before the Elysians even got here?" Vynett was not on great terms with the neighbouring village, as evidenced by the fact that Eimel had not bothered to alert them to the portal's opening. However, they were as close to the Badlands as Vynett so suffered the same volume of raiding, and had suddenly decided to share intelligence.

"Yes," Tiana acknowledged, "but we have no way of knowing if the intel they have so gallantly offered-" The Wing Master pulled a face. "-is legitimate or complete. The Sky Lord wants us to do our own. Besides that." Tiana's dragon, Dacao, flashed green and snuffed at Yarai when Lysaedra's myst shook out its tail. "The Sky Lord is hoping we can reach some sort of agreement with the Elysians. A small group of them survived a Malaki raid and even took out most of the hunting party all by themselves. We know first-hand they are better ground fighters than we are. He - we - hope we have something to offer them in exchange for them bolstering our defenses."

And so, the scouting party was led through the portal by their Wing Master. They were awed by the differences between their realms, and disappointed when the first few settlements they encountered turned them away. The people there were so beautiful, Rider Sattar Fhen joked about never returning home. The worst was the realisation that Elysia had suffered its own losses: Trees throughout the forest had been felled and entire tree-top villages destroyed. Recognising the similarities with their own homes, the Mystriders empathised but feared the worst.

Finally, they reached a portal and bravely passed through, their goal of finding someone willing to discuss their proposal firm in their minds. They exited the portal in the midst of a bustling square surrounded by square structures full of people, sounds of shock, surprise and even horror lashing across the rumble of voices. Unaccustomed to being on the ground, the mystdragons flashed red and white alarms and their shrouds thickened. "Let's just hope someone here can translate like Alain and Jericho."

[Kiel]

Like, Kiel was offskies so he was visiting a healer in the inner city to be all, like, stock up and check in 'cause the dude had helped him a couple of times when he'd sprained an ankle or pulled a muscle or something while running courier jobs for Marty. Alex wasn't licensed by the Coalition and he was totally skiving off his sister, who ran a pegasus stables, so he didn't have any of the usual expenditures, so he was crazy cheaper than the other healers in the city. Since the dude had asked him for a favour, Kiel wound up not having to pay for his potions the last time he was there, so it was pretty cool, you know? Like, maybe he'd have a few more errands for Kiel to run this time, too, you know?

But then as he was passing the plaza, the bustle of regular traffic changed to something kinda sinister. People sounded shocked and scared, so Kiel just, like, wedged his way through the crowd to see what was happening. Like, he was off duty from the Guard and all, but he always carried a weapon or two these days and, like, he was a Protector so he was never really off duty, after all.

“Wahhhhh.” Spotting a familiar vapour that, like, clouded his view of the portal and the figures there, Kiel darted forward faster but came up short when he recognised Lysaedra and her squaddies. “Dude!” He paused to ogle the group, then shot forward and, like, hugged the Mystrider to death. “Dude! Guys, like, what the heck, man, for sers? I thought we'd never see you againnnnnn. You okay? Like, I kinda got the sense the Malaki were going to be all, like, rawr and stuff at you for ages.” He made claws with his fingers and mewled like a baby blue panther, then stepped sideways like a crab to try and pet Lys's dragon. Yarai flashed green and snuffled at his hand, which Kiel totally took to mean 'hi, welcome, how do' and 'can we play?'

“So, like.” Beaming at their leader, Tiana, who had that kinda sour, uncomfortable look on her face again, Kiel grinned. “What's up, guys?”

[Official NPC]

Lysaedra was beginning to feel incredibly overwhelmed. She had heard of Ohani cities that speared into the sky like the giant trees of the Chinyelu, but she had never seen them for herself. Life in Vynett was quiet (raids notwithstanding), and even the human villages in the east could not compare to the bustle of this place. The whole group was beginning to panic, out of their element and unable to make themselves understood. Though one of the reasons Lys had been assigned to the task force was because she had begun to learn Elysian from their cartographer during his own efforts to learn Chinyela, the sheer number of people surrounding them and the cries of surprise and fear were overriding her attempts to be heard.

And then a man she recognised appeared. Lys could not keep up with his chatter, his accent stranger than Aifric's, but her shoulders slumped in relief nevertheless and that in turn calmed the mystdragons a little. “Kiel! It is good that you are here.” She shook her head to display her struggle, deciding to ignore what she had not understood in favour of explaining their presence.

The rest of the task force raised their helmets belatedly. It was rude to leave them down while on the ground, but they had exited the portal expecting to find very little - much the same as they had in the forest - and been startled by their surroundings. Keeping their dragons under control was more important than manners.

Seeing that they were physically very similar to themselves, the Elysians also calmed a little, though most still kept their distance and stared. The spot between Lysaedra's shoulder blades practically hummed.

“Wing Master Adras Tiana, you remember?” Lys gestured respectfully at her commander, and went on to reintroduce the others. “We are here in...” She fumbled for the words, her hand rotating vaguely, before finally settling on a request she knew would help. “Jericho or Alain, perhaps?”

[Kiel]

“Uh,” Kiel said, like, totally intelligently. His gaze skipped from Lys to the others, recognising faces now they'd lifted those intimidating (but so totally awesome) masks out of the way. He looked at Lysaedra again, following her hand movements and, like, for once just keeping his own trap shut because even he could tell when the language barrier was causing problems. He was kinda disappointed that she was looking for that pompous pillock, of all people, until he realised she'd also mentioned Alain and, like, wondered if maybe it wasn't Jericho she wanted so much as anyone like him. Like, he wasn't sure how much Jeri and Alain had mentioned about their telepathy or that there were tons of other fish like them in the sea, but it would sure help bridge the communication gap if he, like, took these guys to someone who could read and project past the language barrier, you know?

“Ummm, well, like. I dunno about Jeri, haven't seen him since we got back, you know?” He waved a hand vaguely 'cause he didn't expect her to fully understand him anyway. “And last I heard, Alain was on patrol with the Red Wardens.” He'd even tagged along on one such patrol, but he had no idea if Alain was still out there. “I don't really know anyone who can...” He flapped his hands between himself and Lysaedra to encompass conversation. Like, he was pretty sure Tad would like to get his hands on them in the name of science (like, pushing the boundaries of telepathy and all that) but Kiel seriously doubted his brother would remember to come up for air long enough to actually do the translatey bit.

“Oh, hey! I know, I know! There's this dude at the... Yeah, so like, come on, come with me. Uh, like, you might wanna send the dragons to the outskirts of the city or something, though, you know, 'cause they're kinda... freaking out the dashiri and stuff.” He didn't mention that the dragons were also freaking out basically everyone on the streets (and there were a heck of a lot of folks to freak out, you know?).

[Official NPC]

Lysaedra let her shoulders slump so Kiel would register her disappointment when she realised he meant that neither Jericho nor Alain would be available to act as their translator. She thought to ask after Aifric since the cartographer was learning Chinyela and may be able to fill in the gaps in her own understanding of Elysian, but he had wandered off with his group into the forest, in the general direction of another village, and as far as she knew had not yet returned to Vynett as he had promised. It was unlikely that he would have returned to his own home without first stopping by to let them know he was alive and well, so she must assume he was still travelling. (The alternative, that he was dead, did not bear thinking on.)

Her shoulders snapped back when he mentioned (or she thought he mentioned) that someone else was going to help them. She frowned in consternation, tripping over his request that their dragons remove themselves from the premises. She turned to Wing Master Tiana so they could confer for a few moments, with Fhen chipping in a few words he had picked up even while actively avoiding her lessons with Aifric. When she turned back to Kiel, eyebrows pulling together, she gave a sharp jerk of her head.

“They will not leave us. They...” She shook her head, not sure how to explain. He had not been surprised before by the bond between Rider and dragon, but the lack of surprise meant little in the way of understanding. Though the dragons could fly overhead easily enough, keeping their Riders in sight or close enough to be satisfied, they could not really be trusted in a foreign environment. Any small thing might set them off, and already these Elysians had proven themselves easily frightened. Mystdragons utilised their flashing colours to intimidate, so that was not at all surprising; but Tiana did not trust either party to not cause some sort of incident while they were trying to talk to whoever was in charge here.

Instead of trying to explain, she merely repeated: “They will not leave us.”

[Kiel]

“Oh! Um, like, well, okay, then.” Kiel bit his lip and hummed, bouncing on his toes and surveying the group as he thought. Like, they weren't a particularly large group, but they weren't small either. With the dragons in tow... Like, even though mystdragons were smaller than wyverni, they still had a pretty significant presence, you know? He wasn't sure how he'd get them all across town to the City Hall -- because he figured that was the best place to take them. Like, he was no diplomat, you know? Best he escort them someplace where there were diplomat types.

“Well, can you get them to be, like, less conspicuous or something? You know, like, less with the flashy and the rawr?” He fluttered his fingers and pulled back his top lip, grimacing into a silent growl. “Only, you know, the whole thing about Acantha and the Malaki raids has got people pretty spooked and I don't wanna get you guys killed or, like, potatoed or something, you know?”

[Official NPC]

Lys pulled back her head and tucked her chin, trying to decipher Kiel's gestures and words without taking offense where it likely wasn't intended. He seemed fixated on the dragons, but that was nothing new. When he had visited Vynett to help them fend off the Malaki, he had been equally infatuated. It had confused Lysaedra because she was certain he had indicated that he himself was bonded to a dragon, though from his reactions, perhaps not the same as theirs.

A combination of his incessant flow of words, hand manoeuvres, and the still-nervous stares of passers-by suggested that the dragons were going to be a problem. Kiel had already said as much in asking them to leave, so it wasn't much of a stretch for her to assume he was requesting something along the lines of a subtler approach. Less flashes? Less... What was that thing he was doing with his face?

Understanding dawned when he mentioned the Malaki. Lys glanced over her shoulder, trying to assess her companions with fresh eyes. The masks and the coloured lightning were all devices they had developed over centuries to make themselves appear more intimidating, so it was little wonder they made these foreigners wary.

She conferred for a moment with Tiana, speaking in hushed tones even though she was reverting to her native language, and finally turned to Kiel with an abrupt nod. “They will... be friendly?” To underscore her agreement, Yarai flashed green and tilted his had up as if preening or seeking the sun. “This is enough?”

[Kiel]

Despite his own bond to Pria, Kiel, like, never got over how awesome mystdragons were. The flashing colours had scared the crap out of him at first, but, like, then he'd seen how they could manipulate a kind of steam cloud (that wasn't like steam 'cause it wasn't hot or whatever) around themselves to make the flashes even cooler and even more frightening, seen the way it had kinda freaked out the younger Malaki, and went from being, like, intimidated to basically fangirling over them instead. Kind of like how he'd always fangirled over his own and Zeph's dragons. And Shane. And, like, pretty much every cool thing that ever cooled.

“Dude, that's awesome!” He bounced on his toes, beaming at the lot of them, but especially at the dragon behind Lys when it flashed green. The light show was still pretty scary - or, like, he guessed it was. He'd been kind of inured against things most people found freaky, anyway - but the passers-by (like, most of whom were scampering away rather than actually passing by) seemed less likely to lob maces at them or something.

“Okay, okay. Like, if you wanna, like, follow me or something?” He tipped his head to his left, indicating the route he would take to City Hall, then bounced on his toes and pivoted. He went slow so they could keep up, or, like, arrange how they would travel (he was still kinda hoping they'd get the dragons in the air, at least. Like, it was going to be awkward getting them all down the street. Alexandria didn't have broad roads like the White City, you know?), chattering about the city sights along the way.

[Official NPC]

Lys kept only half an ear on Kiel's voice, the rest of her attention split between Tiana's orders (which essentially amounted to getting their dragons overhead where they would still be within easy reach in an emergency but could circle as reconnaissance and simultaneously stay out of the way) and their surroundings. Blonde hair spilled across her shoulders, back and forth as she twisted her head this way and that, straining to see over the heads of the taller Elysians at strange buildings made of something gritty and far more solid than their treehouses, at the cobbles and mosaic tiles beneath her soft leather boots, at the varying fashions clothing the residents, at the frightening number of people who were armed. At home, though Malaki raids were common, weapon caches were placed strategically so residents had no need to carry their own about their villages. There was an alarming variety here, too, compared to the simple crossbows and knives common to the Mystriders, or the axes and runkas common to their enemy. Lysaedra was almost afraid to wonder how dangerous life was here if so many individuals thought it necessary to arm themselves; how dangerous it was that they needed so many different types of weapons to defend themselves.

Her gaze followed Kiel's gestures as he pointed out building after building, but was unable to understand most of what he explained. Once beyond the bustling square where they had spilled out of the portal, the streets grew broader and the buildings fewer between, spaced out by carefully pruned greenery. Kiel's home was not remotely similar to her own, and she wondered all the more at his and his friends' ability to adapt and accept so readily what must have seemed completely alien to them.

Then again, Aifric had indicated that Elysia was diverse in ways that the Sky God had not allowed Acantha to be, so perhaps the Elysians who had visited Vynett had seen more already than this sheltered, cultivated world.

Finally, they arrived at a huge, sprawling building that, as they drew nearer, turned out to be several structures connected by brilliant white hallways around a much larger square capped by a green dome. The road they were using to get there was set back from the building Kiel called City Hall by at least a hundred yards of equally cultivated grass lining a broad pathway, and by black iron fencing. Closer to the structure, in front of the hall itself, was a fountain and, on either side of that, long rectangular pools.

Lys turned wide eyes on Kiel, mirrored on either side and at her back by each and every member of their task force. “This is...your god's palace?” Was that what Kiel had meant by "city hall"?

[Kiel]

Kiel laughed. Well, like, it was meant to be a laugh but came out more like a bark, kind of similar to the noises the Malaki made when they grunted and shook their spears at him back in Vynett, and kind of like the sound he'd heard carsers make when they were defending their food. It made his throat sore, right in the back where the air had choked across his voice box, and he winced.

“Like, dude, wahahahaha.” How did he explain this to them? Like, Mystriders were pretty similar to Nymphs and Therians in that there was very little pomp and ceremony around their leaders. Like, their chief's hut (Aifric had chosen that title because they hadn't a clue what the real one was) had been pointed out to them but it didn't actually look any different than the others in the tree-top village so if Kiel had been asked to find it again, without assistance, he'd have gotten completely lost or something. Looking at City Hall through alien eyes, he could totally see why they might think this was a temple or something. Like, it outshone even Danae's actual temple in terms of aesthetic appeal and just, like, sheer obnoxious in-your-face wealth, but that was kind of the point of it, he thought. Like, there were a bunch of other buildings in New Alexandria, within the bounds of the wall, that displayed just how wealthy a city theirs was, so of course the main seat of the shire's government needed to out-wealthy them all, you know?

“Uh, like, no, like, um?” He waved vaguely at the back of his head, a finger twisting into a lock of hair under his hat. Like, he was getting pretty desperate for a hair cut, you know? It was long enough to tickle the edge of his jacket collar now, but between work and rebuilding, he'd not really had chance. His old barber had been crushed by the wall of his shop.

“Like, Xanth's kind of, well. Like, she doesn't mingle with the mortals, you know?” That wasn't strictly accurate, as he'd met her personally and was sure Zeph had encountered her way more than once. There were also rumours that the Voice was going ahead with building a temple that she would actually be visiting for real, instead of just, like, a shrine or whatever in her honour, but that was all very complicated and hearsay and he didn't want to muddy the waters. “This is where our leaders, the Thirteen, Consuls, you know, our, um, our chiefs? This is where they work. Like, they don't live here, though, so you're lucky it's daytime, wahahaha.”

He let that sink in, the corners of his bottom lip pulling down in a nervous not really sure this is going to work expression. “You, um, like, you wanna go in? With me, obviously, because, uh, yeah.” They wouldn't really need him to act as a diplomat or whatever. He wasn't a talker or a translator or anything like that, he was the fisticuffs guy, but they might feel more, like, at ease or whatever with a familiar face.

[Official NPC]

Consul Etienne Lacroix was glaring across his broad ravenwood desk at Consul Maria Fowler when one the guards stationed outside his office door tapped politely and walked in without awaiting an invitation.

"Sir. I think. You might want to take a look outside?"

The guard was young and fairly new to the job. Most of City Hall's security force had been loaned out to the City Guard after the quake. Though the Council had feared the consequences of using new recruits to fend off potential threats, the city's need had been greater than their own.

"I assure you..." Etienne could not remember the young man's name, so he waved a hand airily. "I have already seen the gardens. Yes, they are magnificent. If you would excuse us, Maria and I were in the middle of a discussion."

Maria arched a sleek eyebrow at him. He wondered briefly if she plucked them. He distinctly remembered them being much thicker before she acquired the much coveted position she now held. "And here I was thinking we were arguing." She may look more suited to the role of a leader and public figure, but her acerbic attitude had certainly not improved.

"Then I suggest you acquire yourself a dictionary, my friend. Perhaps a heated debate, but—"

The young guard had the audacity to interrupt. "No, but sir, ma'am, you really need to look outside."

Etienne sighed. Maria's eyebrow returned to its default position, the corner of her red-painted mouth quirking up. It was a garish colour on her, but Etienne had been destined for politics since birth (thanks to his father) so he had more diplomacy than to tell her as much. He merely followed her to the window and sneered over the top of her shiny black hair. "Honestly, I cannot think what the fuss is about. I hope to Xanth there's not another accident with the dashiri. We can ill afford another jam—Bugger me."

"My dear Etienne, there are dragons on our lawn."

Etienne ignored the proprietary way she referred to the city's greenery and scoffed. "I take it we are to have visitors. Perhaps we should greet them in the hall."

[Kiel]

A guard came to get them. Like, Kiel didn't have much to do with the City Hall guys so he'd never actually been on the premises and had no idea how it worked. Like, he'd heard about meetings and stuff between guild leaders, and one of Zeph's customers had been pretty high on the bureaucratic ladder so she told Kiel stories sometimes, but that's all they were, really: stories. He had no idea how to actually gain, like, an audience or whatever, or who to ask for that audience with, so it was pretty cool that someone he vaguely recognised (like, dude, there were a lot of guards in the same boat as him, you know, on loan from some protecty guild or another or, like, new to the job and pretty much dumped in at the deep end because they were desperate; Kiel hadn't met all of them because the Guard operated on a cell-by-cell basis, unless one Watchtower had a dire need and others loaned out their recruits) came down, marched right up to Kiel as the only one of the group that could understand (probably; they didn't know about Lys) and, like, 'invited' them inside.

Like, Kiel called it an invite, but he was pretty sure it was a command. He wasn't sure if he should be warning the Mystriders to flee or, like, waving them in. They were a small group on unfamiliar turf, but he didn't think City Hall had an army hidden inside it, you know?

“So, like, this dude's saying the Thirteen are, like, woah, for sers?” He blinked and gaped his mouth at the other guard. The dude looked to be around his own age, but didn't have slitted pupils so wasn't a 'Varian. “The council's all meeting up so they can meet with you and, like, that's a lot of meeting going on. Like, the Thirteen, they're our elected leaders, kinda like your Sky Lord but there's more than one of them? So, like, you wanna go?”

[Official NPC]

Kiel was making no sense whatsoever, and Lysaedra wasn't entirely sure it was her own lack of understanding that was the cause. She frowned at him, slender eyebrows furrowing, and lifted a shoulder in answer to Tiana's query. She finally got the gist of what he was asking and put the question to the Wing Master, who immediately agreed.

Five minutes later, their small group were gathered in an elaborate hall that outdid even the Sky God's throne room, their dragons sunbathing on the huge lawns outside under the watchful eye of Sattar Fehn. He wouldn't be able to prevent the dragons from responding to distress calls since he shared a bond only with his own, but he would at least be able to stop curious Elysians from getting too close or vice versa.

"And you are?" One of the thirteen leaders (Lys had to wonder how they got anything done with so many voices fighting to be the loudest) looked at Kiel. They had all swapped names, and the thirteen leaders had given brief summaries of their job descriptions and how they might pertain to their visit, but it was a lot of information to digest all at once. Thankfully, there were at least two of the blue-slit-eyed people here, like Jericho and Alain, so the job of translating was not only on her own shoulders.