Hendrick, moments after realizing Riona was gone, bolts around town asking any and everyone if they’ve seen his daughter. Each hurried inquiry—each “Have you seen my daughter?”—was met with shrugs, shakes of the head, or murmured apologies. His heart pounded harder with every empty answer until, finally, with no other leads, he made his way to the castle.

He bursts through the double doors shouting, “ALRIC!”

Alric runs out of his room and walks down the curved stairs around the throne, “What, what is it?!”

Hendrick tells him the situation.

Alric sits on his throne exhausted, “So, she’s just gone?” he asked, rubbing his temple as Hendrick frantically paced around the throne room.

“That’s what it seems like,” Hendrick admitted, his voice thick with worry, “We had an argument—she stormed off to her room. Her window was open, so I assume she climbed out. Her armor and sword were gone too. Along with her snack stash.”

Alric leaned against the arm of his throne, resting his cheek on his fist. “What was the fight about?”

“Well, she wanted to go investigate that blight thing that guy was talking about yesterday, with Cass.”

“Oh yea, the mage.” Alric says with mild disgust, “ I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. The mage talked of a blight but I’ve only ever heard talk of little shortage. If it were serious, I’d know.”

“Maybe, but…” Hendrick stopped pacing and looked Alric in the eye. “What if she gets in over her head? She’s not ready for what’s out there.”

Alric gets up and places his hand on Hendricks shoulder, “Listen, I’ve seen that girl train before. She is one adaptive warrior, probably one of the most capable squires I’ve seen since-well you. She definitely takes after her father.”

Hendrick calms down for a moment and smiles, “Thanks.” his worry immediately resumes and he continues pacing.

Alric gets up from his throne, “I hate seeing you worried like this, alright, how bout this. Do you think she’ll be fine until morning?”

“I’m fairly confident she’ll be fine until morning.”

Alric puts his arms out, “Great! Then I’ll send out a battalion to search for her at dawn. All I ask of you right now,” he puts his hand back on Hendricks shoulder, “is that you get some sleep.”

Hendrick looks down in hesitation.

Alric moves his head to look Hendrick in the eyes, “Try, please?”

“I’ll try.”

Alric nudges him in the shoulder, “Great, welp see you in the morning.”

Hendrick walks away, his face still rushing with disappointment.

Alric calls before he walks out the room, “Hey!” his tone quiets, “We’re gonna find her–ok?”

Hendrick gives a small smile before heading home. He lays in bed staring at the ceiling, his mind still flooded with worry, he got no sleep that night.

The next morning Alric called together a herd of senior squires, giving them each a bundle of missing posters with a picture of Riona on it, and a call code to contact if she was found. In the picture Riona was holding her mothers sheathed sword in her left hand and the strap of her book bag in the right hand, a warm smile dawned on her face, clearly a photo calling back to better times. All the seniors are saddled upon horses, the horses dawned with tack decorated with the Vermillion Academy sigil. The horses stood side by side in a straight line facing forward, the seniors' faces looking stoic and almost unfeeling, some looking tired, likely due to the last minute summoning. Hendrick, dawned in his armor, walks along the horse line, looking at the faces of the senior, then looking at the academy sigils, then back at the faces.

Hendrick turns to Alric, “You assigned me students?”

“They’re senior volunteers. Students are trying to get their service hours done during break, so I figured this would be a good  opportunity for them.” Alric responds.

Hendrick looks back at the seniors, he notices a woman, equipt with a spear, rather than a sword like the others. He immediately looked away after noticing. His mind at the moment was trying very hard to avoid any ‘unwanted reminders’. He walks in front of the horses with a single flier rolled up in his hand, far back enough for all of the students to be able to see him, his own horse standing behind him. He began pacing back and fourth down the line, as he spoke with a volume loud enough for all of the squires to hear.

“Listen up! You’ve been gathered here today because we’re looking for a girl named Riona Thomas, she’s a junior here at the academy, she is my daughter.” he unrolls the flier and shows it, “It’s likely you may have seen her before, since you go to the same school. We aren’t confident in what direction she went in, so you all will be split into four groups and sent into an assigned direction.” he gestures to the respective directions as he calls them out, “Group one will go south, group two will go west, group three will go north, and group four will go east. I will be with group one, taking the front exit along with group two, while groups three and four will take the side exit. You will be following the path, visiting every town, kingdom, and village for any sign of her. Ask around, and hang up the fliers.” he stopped pacing and faced straight forward, “I won’t be able to supervise the groups outside of the one I’m in, but you are still working for me, and for as long as you are working for me. You are knights! So I expect you to act like a knight. You might be the new generation but the public consciousness won’t give you a pass because of that, don’t give us a bad name.”

“Sir yes sir!!!” the students shouted.

Hendrick looks over to Alric, then back at the students, “At ease, we’ll depart soon.” he walks over to Alric, noticing he wasn’t in any armor, “Hey, where's your gear?”

Alric looks down at himself before looking back up, “Oh, what me? I can’t come.”

“But we need all the help we can get.”

Alric gestures to the knights beside them, “You have all the help you’ll need right here.”

Hendrick looks at the students with an uncomfortable expression, “But, Ricy-”

“Hendrick, it’s not that I don’t care. But sometimes I think you forget, I’m king. I have a kingdom to run, I can’t just leave for days on end. It’s already risky enough that you are, that’s why I gave volunteers and not the elites you're used to. We need some kind of protection and leadership here in the kingdom at all times.”

Hendrick makes a disgruntled face, “I-I suppose I understand.”

Alric gives a thumbs up, “Great, now go find your daughter and ground her for life.”

Alric walks back into the castle and Hendrick walks back in front of the volunteers and mounts the horse that was waiting for him in front of them. 

“Follow!” he shouts.

Hendrick rides off down the town's decently sized markey path, at a relatively slow starting pace. The other knights followed behind him in two parallel lines. 

As they pass the side exit, Hendrick gestures his arm out in the direction of the side exit, “Groups three and four, go!”

One of the two lines of knights departed for the exit.

“Remember your assignment, stay focused.” Hendrick remarks before they depart as well for the front exit.

As they speed off down the path, Hendrick thinks out loud, “Riona, you are in so much trouble.”

✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

Thistle's eyes slowly open as he wakes to the morning light. He sits up and stretches before looking around, he sees Riona, still fast asleep, and Cass’s sleeping bag completely empty. Thistle raises his brow in surprise before darting his head around looking for her, his eye sight passes the dock by the beach, he does a double take before realizing Cass was sitting at the end of it, staring solemnly into the water.

Thistle gets up, puts on his boots, and walks over past the beach to the dock where Cass is sitting. When he gets closer he realizes that as she’s staring into the water, she drops a small pebble into it every few seconds, from a pile of pebbles next to her.

He walks next to Cass, she looks up at him before he sits down next to her, crossing his legs, “Mornin’, you’re up pretty early.”

Cass continues making eye contact with the water, “ Good morning, yea, I’m used to getting up pretty early, for the shop and stuff.” she says with a slightly sad tone.

“Oh yea the shop, is it gonna be ok while you're gone.”

Cass looked at him with a slight smile, “It’ll be fine, I cashed in a favor with a friend.”

“Oh, ok.” Thistle watches Cass drop another pebble into the water and stare into it, “Um, I don’t know if you're trying to skip rocks, but I don’t think that’s how you do it.”

Cass chuckles, “No, my mom told me that sometimes, water ripples will show the future. Not specific events or anything, but just, you.” she drops another pebble in, “It’s never worked for me, but I like to think that if I smile into the water, then that’s my future. Happy, and content.”

A concerned expression grows on Thistle's face, “Are you not happy and content now?”

“Well, I can’t say I’m not happy. But content? No, not really. I’ve lived in Sienna my whole life, I don’t hate it, obviously. It’s just, really samey, all the time, everyday. Nothing new ever happens over there and it gets really boring. My parents found out I was pretty ok at magic so they got me this,” she raises her arm to show the imbued crystal on the dorsal part of her hand, “I use it to practice but they refused to let me get lessons in the kingdom.”

“Oh, well you pick up my teachings pretty fast. If it means anything, I’m proud of you.”

Cass smiles, “Thanks,” she looks back over the water, “I’ve been looking for opportunities to practice that lasso spell, so while I was dropping pebbles in the water, I was thinking of unique ways to use it. Like this!”

Cass stands up and reels back, her hands begin to glow before she swings them forward and sprouts a hard light net into the water. She dissolves the net before it can sink.

Thistle looks in surprise, “Wow, that’s awesome. I never thought to use it like that.” he looks up at her, “That’s very clever.”

Cass looks back down at him and smiles, “Thanks,” she sits back down on the dock and looks back down at her reflection, rippling in the water, Thistle looking out at the far distant islands, “Thistle?”

He glances down at her, “Yea?”

“You travel a lot, right?”

“Yea, plenty. Why?” he smiles.

She scratches the back of her ear and loses eye contact, “Have you ever seen anyone like–me?”

Thistle’s smile faltered, and his eyes widened ever so slightly, the kind of reaction that would go unnoticed if you weren’t paying close attention. He hesitated, his words caught somewhere between caution and instinct. “Uh—no, not exactly,” he said finally, his voice steady, though a bit softer than usual. 

He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, forcing a faint smile. “Guess you’re one of a kind, Cass.”

Her searching look lingered in disappointment for a moment before she turned back to the water. Thistle shifted uncomfortably, the fidgeting of his hands betraying the calm expression he tried to maintain. The dock fell silent again, save for the soft splashing of tiny waves. The silence was suddenly shattered as the barrier from the staff suddenly faded back into visibility, its shimmering edges violently contracting back into the staff. A ripple of energy surged inward towards the camp, rushing past Thistle and Cass in a sudden, disorienting wave.

“THISTLE?!” Riona’s voice cuts through the chaos.

Both of them shot up from the dock, spinning toward the campsite. There, Riona stood face-to-face with a crooked creature. Its body, a grotesque amalgam of wooden shell and tree sap, twisted into a bipedal shape as it pulled fiercely at Thistle’s staff, Riona pulling her own side on the other end.

“Riona!” Cass shouted, as she and Thistle sprinted towards her.

The creature hissed, a sharp, grating sound and shoved Riona to the ground before shoving the staff into its mouth. With a sickening crunch of leaves creaking wood pieces, it bolted, bounding through the forest. Riona scrambled to her feet, grabbing her sword. She gave chase, Thistle and Cass followed close behind, dodging low-hanging branches as they ran through the dense foliage. High above, the creature leaped from branch to branch, its movements erratic yet eerily fluid. Cass reeled her arm back, sparks flickering in fast bursts from her palm. The energy swirled, condensing into a flickering orb of fire. With a sharp thrust, she hurled it like a fastball. The flaming sphere struck, cutting through the creature's shoulder like butter, and melting the sap holding its left arm in place. The creature falls to the ground and scrambles in a panic, before Riona takes a sharp swing at it, severing its other arm. Its back pinned against a tree, the creature kicked desperately at the dirt, its broken body spasming as it screeched in a crazed frenzy. Thistle lunged forward, grabbing the staff and wrestling it from the creature’s grotesque jaws. With a final wrenching pull, the staff came free, dislodging the creature’s lower jaw, which clattered to the ground like dead wood. The creature’s wild gurgling faded to a pitiful sputter as it sagged against the tree. Thistle raised the staff, ready to strike, but he stopped himself. He looked down at the fragments of the creature scattered around him. Its wooden limbs lay dull and lifeless, drained of color.

“Wait, you’re–wilting. The blight’s affected you too,” he watches as the severed arms of the creature slides across the ground, like a sappy conveyor belt, glistening like a dark amber in the rays of sun coming from the trees. The limps slipping back up its torso and reconnecting at the shoulders with a wet, squelching sound, “You’re probably starving, huh?”

The creature let out a low, gurgling whimper, its posture shrinking in what could almost be mistaken for shame.

Riona approached cautiously, her sword still gripped tight, “Um, what’s happening?” she asked, stopping by Thistle’s side.

Cass joined her on Thistle's other side, her wary gaze fixed on the strange creature.

“This is a forest dweller,” Thistle explained, his tone softer now. “They feed on the small bits of magic found in plants. But this one… it’s starving. And if it’s in this state, there’s probably more nearby just like it.” Thistle puts his hand in the orb of his staff and pulls out a small pocket knife, “Here,” he takes the knife and scrapes off a flat shred of wood from the hooked end of his staff, and offers it out, “it’s not much, but it’s the best I can give you for now.” 

The forest dweller hesitated, its trembling form leaning closer. With a sudden swipe, it snatched the shard from Thistle’s hand, tossing it into its mouth. The piece dissolved into the sap that composed its body. 

“I promise,” Thistle said, his voice steady, “we’re going to fix this.”

The creature’s posture straightened slightly, then, without another sound, it dropped to all fours, moving with a strange, loping gait. Its wooden knuckles and feet propelled it forward, disappearing into the underbrush with a rustling crackle.