Levin ran to catch up with Nadin after he had finished with his negotiations. He would normally be too nervous, but he decided to go with a trick he was taught by Asa and Rolwen. The more you think about it, the harder it is. Hesitation reinforces your nervous behaviors. So, it’s better to just run straight in and dive into the conversation quickly. Make yourself engage in the conversation and you will naturally be forced to catch up with it just to avoid looking like an idiot.

And, it was usually the case that there was nothing the person you were talking to could say that would even approach something that warranted how nervous you were about beginning the conversation. So, most of the time, it really was better to just jump right into the conversation.

[Umm… uncle Nadin? May I talk?] Levin greeted the imposing elder of the tribe. ‘Uncle’ seemed to be the general name of address all the children were supposed to call the older males of the tribe, whether they were family or not.

[Hmm..?] The elder tilted his head and looked over his shoulder. [You are… Levin, yes? The young one who was a companion to young Asaren? I hear that you had left on the bandit raid where these ones came from.] He said, gesturing with a tilt of his head toward the group of rescued refugees from the camp.

[This was the second raid you went out on, yes? I hear everyone who took blood has been invited for some ritual with Asaren. You are not there with them?] He asked.

[Umm… no… I… I was at the back.] He stammered.

Nadin just broke into laughter when he heard that. [Ahaha! Yes. That is fine! You are young. You are six cycles, yes? The children of the tribe are usually ten cycles at the youngest before we send them out to hunt against other humans. I would not have thought you were ready, but Asaren was going, so I suppose you went along as well. I suppose you must grow up fast to be a partner to an elf child. Strange because elves are the ones who grow slow!]

He seemed to find the whole thing incredibly amusing. It was a strange experience. The man still struck a very intimidating visage, and Levin knew what the man was capable of. However, he was slowly starting to relax a little as he was casually joking around and looking for points of friendly conversation. It was then that he realized. This man was using all of the same tricks for talking to others that Asaren had told him.

It was on purpose. The man was intentionally putting in the effort to be friendly. And, in some ways, it came off more than a little awkward. Like he wasn’t really used to it but really wanted to make the effort.

The strange sense of incongruity threw him off. He really didn’t know what to make of it.

[Umm… well…] Levin tried to think of a way to respond to all of that, but his mind was coming up blank.

[Don’t worry, don’t worry!] Nadin said with a large sweeping gesture of his arm and a giant smile. [It is nothing to be ashamed of! You are doing well! Now, you came to me. There was something you wanted to talk with me about? What is it?]

[Oh, yes! That.] Levin’s mind suddenly managed to get back on track as Nadin prompted him. [Asaren said that me and Rolwen should go on another special training mission she gave us, and…]

[Hmmm…?] Nadin made an interested sound at that. [And what kind of training mission is this?]

[Well… she wants us to go with the group to bring back the people to the city, and we need to enter the city with them and find out as much as we can. Rolwen said I should ask someone here in the tribe about it first, to find out as much as I can before we go in so we know what to expect.] He said.

Levin blurted all of that out at once, feeling like he would loose his train of thought if he did otherwise. It was a good thing he did, too. If he had been thoughtfully watching for Nadin’s reaction as he talked, he might have very well stopped half way through the delivery. Ever since the words ‘enter the city with them,’ the man’s entire demeanor had changed from that thinly worn veil of a man who was jovial and laughing personably back into someone who was harsh and disapproving, and ready to stand like a solid brick wall against something he found distasteful.

[Go in with them, you say?] He asked. The disapproval seemed to just drip from his voice and every mannerism of how he held his body. [I can tell you what you like about the city. I think we should speak about this idea of you entering the place though. I cannot approve of this. It is Asaren asking for this, so I will speak with the matriarchs. They may have to speak with her about this. You may wait outside of the tent of lady Kiiria. I will come to speak with you later.]

After that, Nadin left with a purposeful look on his face, and was going straight toward the matriarch’s tent. Levin couldn’t help the feeling that he had somehow done something wrong. Was something bad going to happen now?

As shaken as he was, his mind was trying to catch up and find something he could do. Only one answer came to his mind. Rolwen. He had to talk to Rolwen. Maybe together they could come up with something.

***

“Well, it’s not a rejection. You did say you dropped Asaren’s name, right?” Rolwen asked in a surprisingly unconcerned fashion.

Levin had caught up with him right at the very destination Nadin had told him to meet at. It seemed like Rolwen had come straight back to the tent in order to inform Kiiria and Eirlathion about what was going on with Asa. Right now, they were hanging around outside the tent, conversing in English so they didn’t bother everyone else around with the details of their conversation.

After Rolwen’s question, Levin suddenly started to doubt himself. However, Nadin very clearly said something about having to talk to the matriarchs specifically because of it being Asaren who asked. So, he must have said it.

“Yeah.” He answered.

“Well, it’s all good then.” Rolwen said. “I would count that as good information too, by the way. His reaction tells us a lot. We’re going to know more once he gets back and gives us details, but his first reaction when you said that was to put you off and talk to the matriarch, probably to try and talk Asaren out of this scheme. He’s going to fail, by the way. You can count on that. Asaren knows exactly what buttons to press and what strings to pull. We’re going on this mission, you can count on it.” Rolwen said with complete confidence.

“Anyway,” he continued, “the fact he just went off the way he did tells us a whole lot more than words ever could. There’s some kind of situation between the tribe and the city that carries quite a bit of weight. Or, maybe not. Could just be because of our age. Either way, it’s something for us to build on when Nadin comes back to talk to us. Excellent choice, by the way. I think you chose the right person to talk to.”

“Uhh… really? Well…” Levin stammered. The conversation had completely gotten away from him with Rolwen here, and now he just felt lost. “Well, but… what do we do now then?” He asked.

“Well, I’m sure all the matriarchs of the tribe, as well as the lead matriarch’s entire family, are going to be all in a big kerfuffle for a while trying to figure out the etiquette to contacting Asaren given the rules she put into this ritual of hers. That gives us time to plan out our strategy. We’re going to need more info before we can figure out exactly how getting into the city is going to look, but until then, let’s talk about what we will be looking for once we get there. Asa said we’re supposed to choose our subject of what to look into, right?”

“Ah.” Levin nodded and then got to thinking. With Rolwen dominating the conversation, he was desperate now to contribute something.

“Well, we are training to be ninjas, right? Asa keeps making sure we know that pretty much was just the Japanese word for spies. So… wouldn’t we be looking for things like how strong their military is and stuff like that?” Levin suggested.

“Haha! What. It’s not like we’re trying to invade them or something!” Rolwen scoffed, shaking Levin’s confidence on the spot.

“I… yeah, I know! But this is training, right? Like, it’s just for practice, not real, so… maybe we should find out how strong their military is so we are practicing for the future.” He pushed on, trying to justify his reasoning against Rolwen’s criticism.

“Hahhh…” Rolwen heaved a sigh that seemed to be full of exasperation, which just got Levin even more irritated.

“Well…” Rolwen seemed to be carefully considering what he was going to say next. Levin had never seen that look on his face. Had he just convinced him? Had he just… won against Rolwen for once in his life? Those hopes were quickly dashed with Rolwen’s next words.

“Look. Let me tell you a little about how I served over in my tour in the middle east.” He said. “Our mission there was not like a normal fighting mission. It was more like we were constantly guarding ourselves against attack by some random people all the time, but that wasn’t even the main goal of what we were doing. Most of the time, it was all about being diplomatic with the local people. What we had to do was meet with the local people in power, train the people over there how to fight and protect their own country, and keep the local civilian population safe as we facilitated programs to put in infrastructure over there and teach them work skills and give them job opportunities.”

“It was a fairly complex mission.” He continued. “And, it required us to have a lot of different skills. I learned quite a bit about what things you need to really know about a people in order to win a war like the one we were fighting.”

“Anyway,” Rolwen kept on going, “The main things we needed to know were things like the local customs, religious beliefs, the dispositions of the people in power. We needed to know how the society was structured and who the important people to talk to were. Information like that is a lot more important and valuable to find out than just how many soldiers some group has. Also, information like that is more transferable.”

Rolwen turned to Levin, looking like he was ready to deliver the conclusion to his speech. “Asaren told us we could choose what subject we were going to gather information on. I don’t think that means it doesn’t matter what we decide to research. I’m thinking part of this test is determining what information is important enough for us to be concerned with. Military numbers are going to be just a data point that applies to this one city and nowhere else. But, if we learn about the culture and customs and things like that, we will be finding out something that applies just about everywhere we’re going to go in this region. Plus, our cover is that we are trying to find out things about the city because Asaren, an elf child who can’t enter the cities without creating a big commotion, wants to know more about them. Things like the culture is exactly the sort of thing that would fit in with that explanation and wouldn’t raise suspicion. Looking into military stuff, though. That’s dangerous for all the messages it would send.”

Levin groaned as he sensed that Rolwen had finished his speech. He really couldn’t argue against that reasoning. But, once again, this meant Rolwen was right and once again that made Levin just a dumb kid.

“Hey, it’s alright.” Rolwen said. “This is the kind of thing you need to learn from experience. I mean, working together and stuff like this is also part of the training, right? And it’s also my job as someone more experienced to teach you what’s what. Just follow my lead here. We’ve got this!”

Levin felt really awkward hearing Rolwen’s words. Yeah, he was encouraged a bit about the mission right now, but… he also felt a bit put down at the same time. It really was frustrating. He wished there was something he could do in all this, not just be the dumb follower kid all the time.