One thing was for sure. I didn’t like the mud. 

It didn’t taste good, earthy, maybe a little rotten. That was the best way I could describe its taste. But it was not the mud in my mouth that bothered me the most. That was those grits of sand or whatever between my teeth. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried to spit them out - or swallow them - some always remained stuck in my teeth.

“You don’t like that?” Ronnu asked, eyebrows raised, amusement in her eyes. 

I didn’t, so I shook my head. It was the best answer I could give her without reverting back to my human form, which I didn’t want to do. First of all, that would have left me naked, and secondly, I had no idea what was going to happen next. Another round? A beating? Prison?

“Next time, listen to what I’m saying. Your ears are big enough.”

»Yes, ma’am.« I snarled back, trying to wipe the mud from my eyes. As the downpour continued to wash it off me, it kept dripping over my eyebrows. It was annoying as hell.

On the bright side, Ronnu seemed to understand the meaning of my growl and nodded back. In fact, she fixed her eyes on me, on both of us, assessing our sorry asses, probably looking for the right insults. For some reason, let’s call it a hunch, I had a sneaking suspicion that we couldn’t hope for words of praise.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect much,” Ronnu eventually said. “It’s good to have low expectations, you know. You avoid disappointment - and in your case it paid off. I was not disappointed. But you didn’t impress me either.”

Yeah, there it was. 

“For one-star warriors, your skills are sorely lacking.”

“Our skills, ma’am?” Stella asked, almost as if she had read my thoughts. I could understand my shortcomings; I was aware of them, but Stella? She was trained by the best teachers her mother could afford, and her mother was, I gather, filthy rich - by Castiana standards.

“Swordsmanship is not just about using swords. I’ll admit, for holding someone else’s blades, yours was fine. You knew how to move, how to time your attacks, and how to coordinate with your beast friend, though you still have a lot of kinks to work out there. But that’s about it. I’d even dare to say that you’ve spent your life locked behind palace walls,” Ronnu said - surprisingly not too far from the truth - and paused, waiting for Stella to say her piece.

“I didn’t...”

“So, not a princess, huh?” Ronnu didn’t let her finish; that short answer was all she needed to hear. “Good, those are just trouble and too much effort to make decent knights out of.”

“Ma’am, if I may be so bold, what do you think I’m lacking in?”

“Looks like the shifter isn’t the only one with bad hearing. I’ve already said that there’s no intention to kill behind your swords. That wasn’t a joke, or a mere provocation. Why is that? I don’t know, and I really don’t care. But I won’t let you on the battlefield with that attitude.”

Stella wasn’t the only one surprised by the High Commander’s assessment. I found it bewildering, too, especially after my own experience fighting my squad leader. Back then, she wanted to kill me - and she did. 

‘Maybe Ronnu didn’t provoke her enough?’

Another shock for me was when Stella basically tucked her tail between her legs and admitted that Ronnu was right. “I see, ma’am.” Like, seriously, what the fuck? We were trying to get to the battlefield, we had to be there in three days, and she just gave up? I was speechless. On the other hand, it was hard to argue with someone who brushed off your strongest attack like it was a breez. Hell, not even her clothes - the breast wrap - were the least bit charred.

“Oh, you’re not going to argue back?” Ronna raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by Stella’s attitude as well. “You had more guts back in my tent.”

“I just don’t see the point when you gave us a chance to prove to you that we have what it takes, and we blew it, ma’am.”

Ronnu laughed. “That’s more like it. Doesn’t change a thing, though. I won’t let you on the battlefield. But - get your shit together, and we’ll see in, say, a week.”

‘A whole fucking week?’ That was basically telling us to say goodbye to going home this cycle. It sucked.

“Do you have something to say about that, shifter?” asked Ronnu as I grunted slightly at the thought of spending more days here than I would have liked. The shake of my head didn’t meet with much approval this time. “I’d appreciate it if you would shift back when you’re talking to me. Or do you have a problem with that? Like someone seeing your bare ass or your tits? Fucking ridiculous, I tell you. You’re going to see a lot more of men and women on the battlefield. Torn to shreds, their guts out, crying - even the strongest piss or shit their pants when they’re at death’s door. So I say, don’t be afraid to show what you’ve got while you’ve got it in one piece and where it should be.”

‘Was that why she was parading around in just her underwear?’ A thought I kept to myself. Instead, I shifted back, covering my chest with my wings and my waist with my tail.

Seeing that I was still uncomfortable showing everyone how I was made, Ronnu sighed. “You’re a damn weird shifter. I thought they didn’t care what they looked like or what others thought of them. Well, I guess it’s different when you’re forced to,” she said, referring to how I got my mutations and Dungreen. “Anyway, since you’re so shy, a word of warning: don’t be surprised - both of you - if a guy or a gal asks you for a fuck. A good shag will actually help you get over the horrors of this place. So I honestly don’t care if you feel the need to bang every guy here, be my guest. All I ask of my men is that they do their best on the battlefield. I just hate to leave them there. Do you understand?”

“”Yes, ma’am,"" Stella and I both said, though I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole ‘shag’ thing. Was it really Traiana? I was finding it harder and harder to believe. 

“All right, that will do,” Ronnu said, smiling and stretching her neck. “It was quite fun. I look forward to seeing what you show me next - until then, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Knight Commander Stouch. He’ll provide you with a tent, food, training, and whatever else you need.”

‘Wait, that was it? What about my evaluation? Any advice?’

Ronnu turned to her men instead of giving me any. “Show’s over. Get back to - whatever you were doing!”

“What about me, ma’am? What did I do wrong?” I dared to ask when it looked like she was really going back to her tent.

“I think you know,” she said, no hint of amusement or mockery in her voice. “You’re not weak, shifter. But you’re not strong, either. You have the basics, but you lack mastery of them, unlike your friend. On the other hand, you don’t lack the determination to throw everything into the fight, unlike her. Anyway, I’m not a shifter myself, and I’m not going to pretend to be the one with all the best advice on this stuff. Knight Commander Stouch will introduce you to someone in our unit who is willing to show you a thing or two.”

“And the Cages, ma’am?”

“What about them?”

“You said I was to spend the night in them.”

“In your beast form. Yes, that still stands. Knight Commander Stouch will see to it. That is, if you have the courage to do so and the determination to defend your honor hasn’t left you. Anything else...no? Then, dismissed, I’m off.”

I watched her return to her tent with very mixed feelings, struggling to find the words to say, let alone the courage to try to convince her that we had what it took to go to the battlefield. This cycle was lost.

“I kind of feel sorry for that Stouch,” Stella said, her eyes on the same tent. “Ronnu seems to be dumping all her work on that guy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. He may have been a commander, but his position was nothing to envy. “She’s definitely not what I expected.”

Stella nodded. “Tell me about it.”

“So what now?” I asked after a while. “Where do we find this Stouch?”

“That’s Knight Commander Stouch to you,” came a voice from behind the curtain of rain. The sudden appearance of the man startled me. I didn’t hear him coming, nor did I sense him. He was completely hidden from me. Something even Sah could not do. ‘Was it the rain?’

Instead of pondering over it, I stood at attention. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“WE didn’t mean to...” Stella corrected me.

The Knight Commander, rather short for a man, even shorter than me, glared at us. And then, as I felt drops of cold sweat between the rain and mud dripping down my eyebrows, he laughed. “Your faces. That’s what gets me every time - rookies.”

“Sir?” asked Stella, no less confused than I was.

“Don’t take this place too seriously, you two.”

‘What?’ That wasn’t the advice I was expecting from a commanding officer.

“Look, I’m not saying you’re free to goof off and disrespect your superiors, but we don’t have to be so uptight here all the time, do we? We’re not on the battlefield. So relax a little.”

I heard him, but I still wasn’t sure, and neither was Stella.

“The High Commander had that effect on you, huh?” he smiled, smoothing his wet mustache. “Or did I take my joke too far? Either way, welcome to the 7th Rosicrucian Knight Order. I am Knight Commander Stouch, one of the twelve commanders under High Commander Ronnu. If you have any questions, concerns, requests, anything, come to me and don’t bother the High Commander. That said, don’t let her get under your skin.”

“What do you mean, sir?” asked Stella.

“What I said. She can seem hard on her men - and she is. But she’s like that because she hates losing them on the battlefield. In fact, I’d say you’re lucky to be under her command.”

“How so?” I asked the obvious question.

“Seventh is the order with one of the lowest casualties.”

“T-that’s great to hear, sir,” Stella stammered. Despite how it might sound, Stouch didn’t seem to be bragging. He was just stating the facts. Though - there was a little pride in his voice.

“Like I said, as long as we’re holed up here in the encampment, don’t take it too seriously. It wears on your mind when you have to be on edge all day, every day, for weeks, months, years. Now, let me give you a quick tour of the place,” he said, pausing at the sight of me. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you put some clothes on.”

No, I wasn’t so ignorant that I didn’t know I was standing there practically naked. It was just that I was reluctant to put anything on, since the mud was still dripping off me despite the downpour.

“Isn’t there somewhere I can clean up, sir?”

His mustache twisting funny, he looked up at the murky sky and then at me. The question on his mind, all too obvious: Is this woman fucking kidding me?

“Forget I said anything, sir,” I said quickly, and with a few quick steps I reached the pile of my clothes. Though I only tucked them under my arm with no intention of putting them on. Not when I was still covered in mud and soaked to the bone.

Seeing me ready to go, Stouch smoothed his mustache and straightened up. “All right, follow me. First stop, the most important place in the order, the crappers.”

And so we got a tour of the facilities of the 7th Rosicrucian Knight Order. From the latrines, or crappers as he put it, wash tents, and dining tents to the armory, recreation tents - believe it or not - and living tents. It was no small place, housing some six hundred knights, not counting the support staff.

“Now, about where you’ll be sleeping...”

I cleared my throat to stop him. “High Commander Ronnu spoke of me spending the night in the Cages.”

“Is that normal, sir?” Stella asked. “I mean, sending new recruits in there.”

He sighed, twirled his mustache, and looked at us. “Look, you have to understand that the High Commander is concerned about the safety of her men. That’s all it’s about. Don’t see this as some kind of retaliation, a grudge against Dia Eichenralke or shifters in general.”

“But she’s sending me there because I’m a shifter...sir.” I don’t know if it pissed me off somewhere deep inside, if it was my beast instincts that didn’t appreciate such treatment, or if it was the fear of knowing what awaited me there that came to the surface, but I put in more spite and blame than I meant to. After all, I understood why Ronnu wanted me to do this.

“Yes, because you’re a beast-shifter,” Stouch nodded, understanding in his eyes. For a man of his rank, he was quite nice, unlike the other officers we had met so far. He almost seemed like he didn’t belong here. “We’ve had some bad times with the likes of you - even in our order.”

“But High Commander Ronnu mentioned that there are shifters among the Order.”

“They are, but they have proven themselves on the battlefield. I’m not a shifter myself, so it’s hard for me to talk about it. However, as I understand it, when you shift into a beast, you are in for a battle with your inner beast, a beast connecting you with old roots in us - roots that go back to our primal selves. What I’m trying to say is that shifters not only have to fight their inner beast, but through them, the enticing of the other side.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out what happened to the shifters, and that the Knights ended up fighting their fellow brothers and sisters in arms.

“So don’t hold it against her, but...”

“I understand, sir.”

He nodded in appreciation. “Now, about where you’re going to spend the night - are you sure you want to do that tonight? There’s no rush. What you pulled off in that fight with the High Commander wasn’t as bad as she made it sound, but - you still have some growing up to do.”

“About that, sir,” Stella said, as grateful as I was for the words of praise. “Are we expected to train with someone?”

“You can make my job easier and say you don’t want to,” he said, his tone clearly implying that he didn’t want us to do that. “But the next time you face the High Commander, you’ll only have yourself to blame if you fail, because you will fail. If you want to grow, to hone your skills, you need someone to guide you, a master.” The realization of how much more important it was to have a master in this era than in ours struck me. Sure, in our time I still needed guidance, in my case from Deckard and others, but the system had taken over much of the role the masters held here. And stuck here the way we were, we lacked that guidance, as did everyone else around us.

“We’d really appreciate it if you could find someone willing to give us some pointers, sir,” Stella said, coming to the same realization as me. 

“I thought so,” Stouch smiled, tidied his mustache, and then got serious. “But it won’t be today. I’ve got more things to deal with than the two of you. I’ll let you know as soon as I know more. As for tonight, a place in the tent for you, Pallemoon, and if you haven’t changed your mind, Grey, a cage for you.”

“I want to get it over with,” I affirmed, though a shiver ran down my spine at the thought.

“Could I spend the night with her, sir?” asked Stella.

The tip of his mustache curled in wonder. “Are you two lovers or something? Whatever. Why not? A little less work for me, at least for today.” What he meant was that he could put the trouble of finding us a place to stay for tonight into the hands of whoever was in charge of the Cages. Probably the unpleasant-looking and obnoxious man we already had the pleasure of meeting.

“All right, I guess that’s all from me. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know more. In the meantime, familiarize yourself with this place. Good to know you, not - Eichenralkes. I hope it will be for more than a few days.”

With those eerie words, he left us there to our own devices. Strange as it was, we went from being locked in cages with shackles on our hands to being free in the middle of an army encampment in what must have been a record time. Nevertheless, it was one step closer to our goal, the next one scheduled for tonight. 

I actually had mixed feelings about it. The prospect of what lay in store for me from the ‘darkness’ terrified me, but at the same time I was looking forward to talking to - and maybe even meeting - Rairok. If things were to go well, he might even shed some light on what the ‘darkness’ actually was.