28 The Council of Sages (2/2)
Reed mulled over the query with great frustration; he wished to tell them the truth, but at the same had the old goat's advice buzzed in his head. He turned to look at Lu'um and she did was shrug indifferently — either she didn't care about the topic, or was unconcerned with Reed's dilemma — something that pissed him off.
Astrid said, ”Look, it's alright if you don't want to talk about it, or if you can-” Reed stopped her with a raised hand and sighed.
”Ahh, whatever. I trust you guys, so it's fine if I tell you what happened. Just make sure to not break my faith, or the old man will literally kill me — I mean it,” said Reed.
Reed slowly tapped his left foot, let out a soft groan, and said, ”Where do I even begin? I'll need to tell you all a bunch of other stuff in order for it all to make sense.” He revealed to them many things they never knew about him: his supernatural talent with Anima, the fact he'd already reached the cusp in comprehending how to exploit space-time. His unexpected journey into the void... and the temporal displacement he encountered on the way back home...
In the end, Reed kept his mouth shut when it came to Maya; that's where he drew the line. He felt bad, but couldn't risk telling them the truth. Not even Axtorius knew the real truth. Reed fed them the concocted story that the old goat had instructed him to repeat and apologized to them inside his heart. That was all he could do...
By the time he finished regaling them with his adventure into the abyss, they'd all gone pale as the snow that lay outside. Various expressions of shock, disbelief, amusement, and joy flashed upon their respective faces.
”You're not messing with us, right? Damn, dude... you're a crazy-ass bastard, you know that?” said Sebastian, breaking the silence.
Lu'um gazed imperiously at Sebastian and said, ”Careful, Redhead. The way you speak is blasphemous and I... will not tolerate that.” Her gaze was frigid and penetrating, like the one a ferocious predator would have in the heartless wilderness. Sebastian instantly felt a tremendous pressure of unknown origin and shivered in response.
Reed let out a flimsy chuckle and stepped on one of Lu'um's feet. The menacing girl immediately caught on and scoffed in protest, but acknowledged his demand, nonetheless. Lu'um deftly switched her tone and said, ”Gotcha! I was just messing around, relax.” She snickered and threw another chocolate in her mouth. Sebastian would live to see another day.
Everyone caught on to the... odd interactions between the two and made their own judgments about it. Astor heartily let out peals of laughter as he pointed at Sebastian in derision. Some things never changed.
None of them aside from Sebastian made any comments concerning what Reed had told them. Perhaps it was because they didn't know what to say, or for a simpler reason — they didn't care. All that mattered to them was that their friend was safe and sound. Either way, they made no special note of it and instead let the matter rest after that...
Once the elephant in the room had been dealt with, the mood returned to its previous state. Merrymaking and jubilation in the air.
Reed learned about what transpired since he'd left after he asked them about their side of the story. After they completed their basic Anima training, they were all put work — live training, they called it. From what they said, it was a rather grueling affair; they'd been tasked with hunting and survival missions in some of the most godforsaken wastelands in the North.
The wild creatures that inhabited these frozen territories were not particularly amicable. They were feral, merciless hunters that encapsulated the essence of their home and of the natural environment. More often than not, they hunted civilians, with extreme ferocity when they left the safety of their protected cities.
These predators treated the empire's citizens as open game. Their metal cities? Henhouses that raised their delicious meals, as far as they were interested.
It was a tradition in the North to send rookie contenders to clear out their numbers when they grew too abundant and started threatening the smaller, less-protected cities. The purpose was two-fold; to exterminate the damned pests and also to test their youngsters with actual combat.
Horatio commented that these missions served as a prelude for the final part of their training: a ”coming of age” test for them as contenders, but noted that not even he knew what that encompassed.
Ophelia remarked that he returned on a good day because they frequently weren't in the spire for very long. Violett would send them on missions every other day, so most of their time in the last three months had been out doing fieldwork.
”Now that you mention it, we'll probably receive our set of marching orders by the end of today... tomorrow's going to be truly interesting,” said Astrid. She gleefully looked at Reed and Maya.
Reed shrugged his shoulders and kept silent. He was a bit ticked off with how Astrid was looking at him but kept his cool. Her inner crazy was starting to slip out, which made him uneasy. Last time he saw that face, she yanked him down the goddamned sinkhole...
He wasn't looking forward to the next day at all. His buddies, on the hand, looked delighted...
Why? What was up with them? He'd soon find out.