“Duuuude!” Ethan tackled their mysterious new teammate in a neck hold. “What kind of charm did you use on her? Isn’t that, like, illegal? Forbidden? Restricted in here?” but the crow only shook his head. “Wait, it’s not illegal?” Ethan asked more stupified while receiving an unamused half glare. “Oh, you didn’t charm her?? Then how did you convince her so easily?” he asked, more mesmerized, while Alexander chose to ask the more logistical questions. 

“And what’s your name, bird meat?” Alexander asked, amused by the nickname, and earned the focus of that silent half glare. “What, do you not have a name?” The stare somehow seemed to grow colder. “Alright, what if I called you Feathers, since she was staring at your feathers for so long?” 

He huffed his response and turned away, half rolling his eyes. Alexander followed the direction of the stare, walked to the side of the desk, and caught a quick glimpse of the clerk’s screen while she bickered with the next team.

Ethan watched Alexander’s face shift from amused curiosity to puzzlement, flashed with bewilderment, before ending with a defeated shake of the head as he walked back. “Yeah, I won’t be calling you that. Feathers fits you just fine. I saw it said you graduated this year from the same academy we both went to, so you’ll probably know I’ll have to ask. Where did you rank in the overall leaderboard?” 

Sometimes, the way Alexander asked questions made it clear he wasn’t really looking for an answer—he just wanted an excuse to share something. In this case, it was his academic placement, which he was clearly confident about—and Ethan knew it.

Feathers held up three fingers. “30th?” Alexander asked, a bit cocky but unrelenting and the three fingers were pushed forward again. “33rd?” the gator looked to his first partner, who shrugged. Frustrated now, Feathers shoved his three fingers into Alexander's scaled chest before pulling out his holographic extrapulator screen and turned it towards Alexander pointedly. Right there before his eyes was Feather’s certificate of graduation and that year’s evaluation score out of the entire graduating class. 3rd place.

Perplexed, Alexander looked between the raven and his screen. “3rd? I don’t remember seeing you in the match-ups or any of the after ceremony.” The only answer he got was a swipe, slide show of the pictures that were taken of what is most certainly both that year’s graduation tournament and ceremony. “I don’t remember seeing you there at all.” “Neither do I,” Ethan said, peering around Alexander’s large forearm to get a glimpse of some of the pictures. “I do remember I did have one really hard match up with a guy right before our fight, Xander, but I don’t exactly remember what he looks like…” Ethan trailed off, thinking back on it hard, while their teammate blatantly showed the pictures that were taken of Ethan's fight against Feathers's. 

“Huh, well, I guess it was you!” Ethan said jovially while patting him on the back. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize ya there. I probably was so focused on the big fight at the end that I hadn’t paid much attention to the ones I was having right before, huh?” he laughed, but Feathers only sighed exhaustedly. 

As they talked, the information for registration had filed through the system, and they all received a notification. 

”Congratulations, your team is now recognized by the Adventurers Guild! Please fill out the remaining information.” 

“That’s right!” Ethan jumped to a start, “There are three of us now and that makes a team!” opening the extrapulators, they all looked over the remaining information that needed to be filled. 

“The Team Lead will be___”

“____ is the official name for your team.”

The leader of the team was registered by vote. With more organization, the vote would have been unanimous, but for the trio, the first cast of votes came back as a tie.

“One for each of us, huh?” Ethan laughed while looking around. “Who voted for who? And why so?” he asked more nervously while looking between the three of their screens. “I voted for myself.” Alexander answered first, “While sure, you gathered most of us together, I just don’t trust that you would be capable of handling such responsibility,” he stated blatantly while crossing his arms. 

The criticism wasn’t entirely misplaced, but it visibly took the wind out of Ethan’s sails before he turned to Feathers. “And what about you?” he asked nervously. The bird then pointed to Ethan, who then nodded in understanding. “That would make sense because I voted for you,” he gestured back. “But why did you vote for me?”

Feathers shortly replied by simply pointing to Ethan and then holding up a number one, acknowledging that it was Ethan who earned first place in their graduation.

“That makes sense again,” he laughed. “I voted for you because if you hadn’t joined at the last moment, we wouldn’t have a team at all. And your timing was perfect, otherwise we would have to wait in that super long line again or worse… be put on a waiting list.” 

Feathers nodded while refreshing the voting process for the team leader. While Alexander put in his vote right away, Ethan paused a moment to think about it, but it was a moment too slow. The quick, clawed hands of the corvid reached over and voted on Ethan’s screen for him silently and almost unnoticeably, if he had blinked at that moment.

“Hey!” he retaliated and reached for the other screen, only to find that all 3 of their votes had been cast and the results were in.

“The Team Lead will be Ethan Lupisulvian.”

“____ is the official name for your team.”

Alexander groaned while craning his neck back. “I have a feeling that this will be a horrible idea,” he muttered. “So what will our team name be, Captain?” he said with a mocking salute, a salute that robbed almost all the glee from Ethan's eyes as they glazed over in a soft haze. Alexander didn’t even care to notice, but Feathers did. He recognized that look before Ethan was able to mask it away.

“Well,” Ethan started with a cheerier version of himself. “Since we wouldn't have had a team if it wasn't for Feathers, what if we named it ‘Soaring Feathers’?” He emphasized the name with his hand arching above him as if it were written on a neon sign. 

“I refuse to be a part of a team with a dumb name like that.” Alexander turned to walk away, but Ethan stopped him. “Hey! Hey, wait, I was just trying to think of a way to incorporate us all in together, you know, as a team?” Ethan stammered. “Then why don’t you name it off of your little speech from earlier?” the alligator retorted, and the life lit back up in the shifter’s eyes. “That’s it! ‘The Soaring Dawn’!”

Before Alexander could say anything, the name was already being typed into the form and sent without a moment’s notice. The information was immediately received and registered into the system, letting their new party know with another unanimous notification. 

After having stopped, Alexander slowly turned back towards the entrance of the Guild Hall. “Well, no point in trying to change your mind on that now.” Shoving his hands into his pockets, the transparent extrapulator screen fizzled away as he made his exit. “Let’s see how far will this ‘Soaring Dawn’ will take us, huh, kid?” he muttered to the newly appointed team lead.

Feathers and Ethan watched the alligator leave. When they realized the other was also watching in silence, without a word or attempt to stop him, Feathers gave Ethan a more suspicious squint. “What?? Don’t look at me like that, he’s always like that. He always grumbles! And he always broods!” Ethan called after the raven while trying to catch up with his quick but fluid pace. 

One by one, they exited the Adventurer's Guild Hall, each following after the other as the sun was beginning to set in the skies, a dawn was beginning to break in their new horizon.