Buck

The recruits cheered as the dragon flapped its wings once, and vanished into the swirling mist. Buck didn’t cheer, because he was looking at Autumn’s face. The girl was paper white, and visibly shaking. Something the dragon had said there at the end really knocked her for a loop.

She grabbed Buck by the wrist.

"We must talk. In privacy,” she hissed up at him.

"My office, I guess, Princess,” Buck said.

"It's Champion. Or Autumn. You faced off with a dragon for my sake, you can call me by name, but I'm not a damn princess!"

“Sorry,” Buck replied because he could tell she was in no mood for even well-meant teasing.

Autumn shrugged and visibly composed herself, straightening her shoulders and unclenching her hands. “I’ll reestablish the Barrier first. It would not do to have this place overrun by Mistborn before it is flattened by an angry dragon.”

“Mistborn?” Tanaka asked. She’d wandered close enough to hear. “I think you said something like that before.”

“That’s what the monsters from the Unformed are called,” Autumn explained. “They’re formed from wild magic and stray energies. Things like nightmares, spells gone awry, even children’s drawings can find new and terrifying life in the Mist.”

“Huh.” Tanaka looked over at the technicolor fog. “What that dragon said, there at the end. He called you something. Mistwalker? Is that like Mistborn?”

“Um.” Autumn swallowed hard before answering, “please forget you heard that word. Never repeat it.”

“Okay, but why? Is it like an insult?”

“Something like.”

Buck didn’t think the girl would get this riled over a simple insult or slur. She looked scared, not angry.

“Are you all right?” Tanaka asked.

“I just faced a dragon,” Autumn said. “That would unsettle anyone with sense and reason.” She shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you all safe, somehow."

“You’ll keep us safe,” Tanaka said, “but who’s going to keep you safe?”

As Autumn clearly lacked any kind of answer to that question she only grinned and ran off to repeat her magic tightrope walk around the base. While she did that, Buck divided the recruits in half. The first ten, he stationed at points around the base, where each could directly see two others. The rest he assigned to count their remaining supplies and weapons.

When Autumn finished her task, she turned to Buck.

“Your office is where?” she asked.

“Right this way,” Buck said.

He led her into the building and up the stairs to his office. He turned on the little “lamp” one of the recruits had rigged for him from a flashlight, so they’d have more than the dim, oddly colored light leaking through the single window.

"Why would you surrender to that thing?" Buck demanded the moment the door clicked shut behind the girl. "What were you thinking? I thought you were some badass fighter!"

"There is nothing wrong with my ass," Autumn said, arms crossed. "I have it on good authority that it is a fine and well-toned feature."

"That's not what badass means! It means you're tough."

"Oh. Yes. Well I am, but that was a dragon," Autumn said, speaking in a tone of voice that told Buck she thought he was the one who had lost his mind. "I am neither trained nor equipped to fight a dragon. Entire armies fight dragons. And usually lose."

"Okay, I can believe that," Buck said, because yeah, he could hardly expect a tiny little girl to fight something that shrugged off a grenade to the face. "How do we hurt one?"

"How many of those grenades do you have?" Autumn asked.

"Three, now."

"Then you don't fight him. When he returns, you agree to whatever terms he and his master lay down."

"Those terms are likely gonna be that we hand you over!" Buck shouted. Didn't she understand that?

"It's... it's fine," Autumn insisted. “I have allies who will come to my aid. You at this moment have only me. Therefore, you and your recruits are the priority.”

“Yeah, no, I am not comfortable with that answer,” Buck said.

"I don’t care about your comfort!" Autumn stepped forward, putting herself face to chest with Buck. He shouldn't have been intimidated, given the variance in their height and age, but something in her eyes made him clap his jaw shut and listen. "That big lizard you told to go screw himself? He could have swatted every last one of you just now. Killed all of you with one strike. You could not protect them. I could not protect them. That's a fact. That's what you're facing right now." Autumn's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry. I'm so far out of my depth now... I don't even know how to tell you, how utterly hopeless this mess is. I can't. I just." Autumn sighed. "Just let me do what I have to do."

"Just stand by and let that big ass lizard bastard take you to do God only knows what to you?" Buck snarled.

"Yes." Autumn shook her head. "Don't worry. Your insane bluster back there bought a little time. Somehow. You amused the dragon, rather than offending it. So that's kind of good. I have time to call for backup."

"You got an army waiting in the wings that can fight this thing?" Buck asked.

"No, but I can call on my mentor to maybe figure out what's going on with this weird Enclave and get you and your trainees home," Autumn said.

"And what about you?"

"I told you," Autumn shook her head. "I'll be fine. It's fine. Once Lord Winter has resolved this situation, he’ll be free to come find me. He’ll do whatever it takes to see me safe.”

"Okay," Buck said slowly. "Okay, sure. And if you weren't utterly terrified, I might consider believing you."