Kenzie M: I’m an A+ student I can miss a day

Sveta K: No you can’t.

Me: It’s best to stick to the rules of the old days. Try to keep grades where they were before you joined a team. If you can miss your study group for this that’s okay. We meet at 2

Kenzie M: coo

Rain F: Can’t make it

Tristan V: count me in

Me: Sveta, Tristan, Kenzie, & me then. Chris is welcome if he wants. 2pm at the front doors. Take extra time to travel, P.transportation strike may futz things up

⊙

I’d had to take the train to get to the Wardens’ HQ. It was a fortress of a building, indomitable, and it was situated near the largest cluster of portals in Gimel, very possibly the largest cluster of portals in all the known worlds.

I looked up at a knight in plate armor with his bowed head, both hands on the pommel of a sword, with the tip resting on the ground. A cloth wrap partially covered the legs, like a flag worn around the waist, long enough to reach the knees in front, and to drape near the ankles at the back. Two shields stood behind the figure, hanging in the air at a height and position reminiscent of folded wings.

It was typically simplified when shrunk down for website images and badges, the position of arms, hands and shields suggesting the lines of a ‘W’ for the first letter of ‘Wardens’. Here, it was four stories of statue, built into the front face of the building.

It put me in mind of Gilpatrick’s speech. Five pounds of gun, fifteen pounds of armor? No. Here, at this scale, it was fifty tons of sword, a hundred and fifty tons of armor and shield. Every inch and pound of its composition was symbolism.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” Tristan asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s something.”

I turned to look at him. He’d just walked up to stand beside me. He’d tidied his hair some. I had the impression he’d started to dress up for the occasion and his other impulses stylewise had taken over. His shirt was a button-up, red silk, with buttons in twos at the regular intervals. He wore it very casually, with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone at the collarbone. He’d paired it with a nice pair of black jeans, and he’d painted his hair a red that more closely matched his shirt.

“Reminds me of that video that circulated online for a bit. Chevalier and the last fight against Behemoth,” Tristan said.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Probably intentional. It’s a good mental image to have, the hard fight and the great improvements that follow.”

“And the disaster that followed that?” Tristan asked.

I frowned at him.

“It’s reality,” he said.