The journey back to Evergold started off with great excitement.  Leon’s retainers, as well as those who remained among the Evergolden escort, were quite eager to leave the forest behind.  They’d been in it for a couple of weeks, but that was already far too much for everyone, it seemed.  The Evergolden palace-tree was dismantled in a matter of minutes the morning they left, ensuring that this camp wouldn’t become an open invitation for bandits or monsters, and the walls were destroyed.

In this, Exotikos proved itself to be quite useful.  The Evergolden mages were quite proficient with the required nature magic to reduce the palace-tree to little more than a seed that could be regrown anywhere, but Exotikos, once it realized what the Evergolden mages were doing, sped the process up immensely.  All Exotikos had to do was make contact with the tree, and the sprite’s own power quickly had it rotting and falling over, leaving only the initial palace-tree seed behind.

Hours before midday, Leon’s expedition had taken off into the air once more.  Their pace was much the same leaving as it was heading in, though there weren’t any massive flocks of mind-controlled eagles attacking them this time.  However, Anna’s snapper was still cumbersome, slowing their pace down quite a bit.

This was a good thing, though, as Exotikos needed some time to adjust to flight.  Leon had given the sprite a spare flight belt with the understanding that he would create new gear for the sprite once they got back to Occulara.

However, a related issue that weighed on Leon’s mind came to the fore when they landed at the edge of the Prota Forest in the same camp they’d used on the way in.  They weren’t heading into civilization quite yet, so Leon decided to tackle this issue head-on, and after getting the camp set back up—his portable villa not surrounding the palace-tree like a wall this time—was to seek out Cassandra.  The Princess would be key to solving the issue that now took his attention.

The Princess was in a pretty bad way since the end of the expedition.  Leon hadn’t known quite how bad it was, as the Princess had gone into her palace-tree the moment she returned to camp after losing her arm, and essentially hadn’t left since.  It had fallen to the remaining seventh-tier Evergolden mage to take charge of the remaining escort force and to coordinate their return with Leon.

That had concerned Leon a bit, but it wasn’t until Cassandra finally exited the tree to ‘lead’ her people back to the Sacred Golden Empire proper that he’d gotten a good look at just how badly she was taking the loss of her arm.

The Princess was exceptionally pale and haggard.  Her clothes were wrinkled, and her empty right sleeve hadn’t been secured, so it blew in the wind.  Her red eyes were bloodshot, her hair had been unbraided and simply pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she looked like she was barely able to stand.  She looked sick, and for that, Leon couldn’t blame her.  He remembered his own despair and extreme discomfort at losing his left arm, even though the medical magic that he'd had access to even back in the Bull Kingdom ensured that he was pain-free all the way until it came time to get his arm back.

Cassandra had to know that her current condition was only temporary, but she looked like she’d been told that her arm was gone for good.  She looked so bad, in fact, that Leon almost suggested they give her another couple of days of rest before they departed the Prota Forest, but the Princess, as if expecting him to make such a suggestion, angrily scowled and ordered her people into the air, leaving Leon little choice but to do likewise.

Besides, he figured that the sooner she got her arm back, the better her mood would be.

Fortunately, despite her poor mood, she didn’t seem all that perturbed at having to slow down for Exotikos and Anna’s snapper.  If anything, though she tried to hide it, she seemed relieved that she wasn’t the cause of the slowdown.

Leon didn’t try to speak with her much throughout that day’s flight, but once they’d landed and set up their camp for the night, he knew that had to change.  He made for Cassandra’s palace-tree after linking up with Exotikos and ensuring that the tree sprite had had a good flight—it had, fortunately—and making sure that his people were organized.

The Evergolden mages guarding the palace-tree didn’t resist him too much, but still held him at the door when he asked to see the Princess.  He wound up waiting for more than ten minutes before the Princess finally let him up to her quarters.

When he was shown into her surprisingly spacious living room, the Princess was sitting back in an armchair, her bloodshot eyes glaring at him as the door shut behind him.  She wasn’t alone, either, the seventh-tier Evergolden mage sitting close by at one end of a long sofa.

“Leon Raime,” the Evergolden mage said as he took a few tentative steps further into the room.

“Evgenia,” he said with a strained smile.  They’d not been formally introduced before they returned from the tree sprites’ warded zone—an oversight on his and Cassandra’s part, he recognized—but they’d still gotten to know each other a little better with Cassandra recovering from her injury.

“Why’re you here, Leon?” Cassandra growled.

Leon awkwardly stood behind a chair for a moment before deciding to just sit down, invitation notwithstanding.

“I was just wondering what kind of reception I would receive with bringing a non-human retainer back through your Empire.”

“It’s not the first non-human in your retinue, is it?” Cassandra asked, sounding annoyed that he would even ask.

“Exotikos looks more nonhuman than most of the rest of my retainers,” Leon responded a little coolly.  “Anna’s snapper and my griffin Anzu are both clearly not human, but it’s also clear that they’re war beasts.  Neither are particularly interested in walking about, too.  Exotikos is different; they’re leaving the Prota Forest for the express purpose of seeing and experiencing the outside world.  Compounding that is the fact that tree sprites are known creatures; they’re dangerous monsters, hostile to humans.  I can’t just let them walk around without escort given that—deserved, admittedly—reputation, but I also want to know if I’m going to have any trouble bringing them through your Empire even with my escort.”

Cassandra sighed, then glanced at Evgenia.

The dutiful seventh-tier mage said, “You shouldn’t have any problems, Leon Raime.  Heaven’s Eye gets its own privileges, and as a Hand of the Director, those privileges extend to you.  So long as you or one of your representatives is there to vouch for the tree sprite, then there’ll be no official problems.”

Leon cocked an eyebrow at that specific choice of words.  “What about unofficial problems?”

“They’ll be unofficial, so who can say?” Cassandra said with a hint of venom in her tone.

Leon glared at her, and at first, it seemed like she was more than willing to glare back.  But after a moment, she looked away and steadfastly refused to meet his gaze again.

“Torches and pitchforks?” Leon asked through clenched teeth.  “Are your people going to be coming after me and mine for having a tree sprite amongst us?”

Evgenia, perhaps sensing the rapidly increasing tension, said, “There shouldn’t be a problem on that front either, Leon Raime.”

“Then what kinds of ‘unofficial’ should I expect?” Leon asked with an upbeat, though no less frustrated tone.

‘Getting them to talk is like pulling teeth, Ancestors damn it,’ Leon thought in irritation.

“Tree sprites are valuable,” Evgenia explained.  “There may be attempts from those in less legal occupations who will try and kidnap your new pet—”

“They’re not a pet,” Leon corrected with iron in his tone.

Evgenia, to her credit, nodded her head in what seemed like genuine apology.  “Of course not.  But you’ll want to keep an eye on it all the same.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Leon replied, his tone dripping with frustration.

An awkward silence fell between the three, and Leon soon got the impression that they wanted him to leave, but weren’t quite ready to ask him to do so.  While Leon wouldn’t mind bailing on this meeting, there were a few more things that needed some discussion, and besides, this short exchange had laid bare a few more problems that he wanted to get to the bottom of.

“How are you doing, Your Highness?” Leon asked as the awkward tension grew thick enough to be cut with a knife.

Cassandra finally glanced back at him, and her gaze was sharp.  “Why are you asking?” she demanded.  “Are you looking to rub this in?  Show off what you’ve gained in that forest while throwing my own failure back in my face?”

“Your Highness,” Evgenia whispered in alarm, “please, we are—”

“Out,” Cassandra spat, her eyes locked on Leon, but he didn’t think she was talking to him.  Evgenia looked equally confused, but fell silent.  Cassandra then glanced at her and repeated, “Out.  I would have a private word with Leon.”

Evgenia grimaced, but did as commanded and left the room.  Every step she took toward the door felt like a thousand years to Leon, who grew tenser and tenser the closer he and Cassandra grew to being alone.  He could practically feel the pressure welling up within the Princess, readying to explode as soon as the seventh-tier mage had left.

As soon as Evgenia left and the door shut behind her, Cassandra sprang to her feet, her eyes wide with anger and her aura wild.  Leon was alarmed for a moment, but her aura didn’t have a single thread of killing intent, so as angry as Cassandra was, it didn’t look like she was going to get violent.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Leon?!” she shouted.  “You lied to me on the way here, and then you watch as I get injured, as my people get picked off one by one, and then come to parade your own survival in front of me?!”

“Would you rather I died back there?” Leon asked, his voice low, though no less threatening.

“Yes!” Cassandra shouted.  “No!  Of course not!”

“Both?” Leon asked.

Cassandra almost snarled at him, then rubbed her right shoulder.  A little more quietly she said, “No.  I don’t want you dead.  I’m just…”  She sighed and collapsed back in her chair, suddenly looking exhausted and like she’d suddenly put all the weight of her Empire on her shoulders.

“… Frustrated?” Leon asked.  “Angry?  Maybe a little scared?”

Cassandra glared at him and didn’t respond.  Instead, she turned away from him as if just looking at him was painful.

“I lost one of my arms, too, you know,” Leon explained, and Cassandra glanced at him with a skeptical look.  “It’s true,” Leon continued.  “About… fourteen years ago, maybe?  Thirteen?  No, it can’t have been that long…  Well, I was sent out on a werewolf hunt, and the hunt was crashed by a powerful seventh-tier vampire.  I was only fifth-tier at the time and was forced to call on my contracted demon’s power.  My demon was able to kill the vampire in question, but channeling his power through me incinerated my left arm.  What little charred bone and meat that was left had to be amputated as soon as I got to a healer.”

As Leon explained this part of his history, he waved his left arm at the Princess in demonstration.

“Obviously, it was a temporary thing; my wife was able to help me regrow my arm with the help of an herb whose name I can’t hope to remember.  Still, I spent a few days without an arm, barely containing my fear and anxiety at missing such a big and crucial part of my body.  It was… distressing, to say the least.”

By this point, Cassandra had turned fully back toward him, and as he paused, she said, “I… lost people on this expedition.  Valeria shouted at me about it right before our attempt to escape from those sprites’ grove.  She said I… that I was a bad leader.  Not in so many words, but that’s what she said.  I… can’t… I agree with her.  It might’ve been different if there were more gains made, but I’m going home with nothing.  Nothing but bodies.”  She went quiet a moment as she glanced at her right arm.  “What am I now?  No friends, no respect, no skills… no sword arm…  I’m a fai…”

Her voice caught before she could finish, and Leon saw unshed tears in her eyes.  However, she went quiet, slammed her eyes shut, and he sensed her expressing a bit of her power.  If he had to guess, she was using water magic to get rid of her tears without letting them fall.

Leon didn’t interrupt her at all as she did her best to maintain her dignity.  When she opened her eyes, however, he asked, “Want to be friends?”

With a shaky and not-at-all confident voice, she tried to deflect by quipping, “W-What’s wrong, Leon?  Trying to work y-your way into my pants?”

Leon just grimaced slightly, but understood that she was still trying to protect what was left of her ego.

“No,” he simply replied.

She blinked rapidly at the bluntness of his reply, her uncertain smile frozen on her face.  “I-I was going to say, you blew your chance when my grandmother offered my hand in… y-you know.  It’s better that you know that you’re… that you…”  She went quiet again, though this silence lasted only the span of a heartbeat.  With a deep sigh, she said so quietly that he almost didn’t hear, “I understand.  I’m not a good catch, so of course you’re not interested.”

Leon just waved his hands in the air as if her attitude was something he could dissipate like smoke.  “Who said I wasn’t interested?  Well, I suppose I did back then, didn’t I?”

Cassandra shrugged noncommittally.

“Look, you’re beautiful and driven.  Yeah, you did a lot wrong here, but the fact that you see that you did wrong, and the fact that you’re owning it does you a lot of credit.  It’s not equal to what you’ve lost, but you’ve at least gained experience.  Don’t let something like this happen again.”

Cassandra slowly nodded.

“And I do mean it,” Leon continued, “I’d like to be friends.  You and I are probably not going to see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, but I enjoyed those times when we sparred, and that competition with the wyverns was fun.  So what if I don’t want your hand in marriage?  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend more time with you.”

She stared at him, her expression rapidly morphing into something like disbelief.  Then, she smiled shallowly and chuckled.

“Look, I’m not good at this,” Leon said.  “This whole ‘making friends’ thing isn’t something I put much time into.  But at the very least, I can listen if you need to talk about anything.”

“Thank you,” Cassandra murmured.  “I… don’t think I’ll need it, though.”

Leon frowned slightly, then shrugged.  “I just hope you talk to someone about all this.”

“I will,” Cassandra said.

“Well, then.  Good.  Splendid.”  Leon trailed off a bit, unsure of where to go from there.  So, after several excruciatingly long seconds, he said, “Should we iron out our plans to get back to Evergold?  I’m in a bit of a hurry to get back to Occulara, so I’m hoping that the fastest we can… do that… the better…”

Cassandra nodded, looking at least marginally more cheered up, and together, they went over the best route to head south.  It was essentially the same route they took to get north, but they spoke in fairly fine detail about what they’d see on the route that, by the end of it, Cassandra was smiling again, though her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

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The journey south went smoothly.  Leon’s concerns about people’s reactions to Exotikos weren’t quite unfounded, but they weren’t as bad as he was expecting.  As they made their way further into civilized territory and back to the long forest-city along the Neilos River, Exotikos drew quite a few looks, but with him, Maia, Cassandra, and all the others there with them, no one’s gaze lingered unduly.

Their progress was fairly slow even by their standards with Anna’s snapper and Exotikos’ unfamiliarity with flight.  The cause was Cassandra leading them down to the ground while they were still crossing the farms just outside the city’s suburbs.  Once down there, Evgenia retrieved a carriage from her soul realm, which Cassandra immediately got in.

“Can’t have the people seeing their Princess disarmed,” she’d said to Leon in explanation, and he couldn’t help but smile in response.  If she was joking about her injury, then he felt like she’d be fine, eventually.

They reached the city quick enough, though, and Leon led his people straight to the local Heaven’s Eye enclave.  Once there, his people went to rest, and Exotikos planted itself in the guest house’s courtyard.  From there, it grew into a tree several dozen feet high in an hour, and its leaves began to glow blue.  When Leon asked what it was doing, it replied that it was exploring the city through the other local trees and its other senses.

Leon was relieved that he didn’t have to take Exotikos exploring in a more conventional way, but he was still just a little unnerved by the display.

They didn’t stay long in the city, fortunately, and after only one day of rest, their party was back on the Neilos River sailing southward.  Their journey back to Evergold would go much faster now that they were going with, rather than against, the current.  Unlike their journey north, Cassandra, while still escorting them south, didn’t join them on Leon’s yacht.  Instead, she stayed on her own ship, receiving medical attention that would prepare her for getting her arm back.

And, soon enough, the massive grove of trees that was the Palace of Evergold came into view.  Leon felt some kind of relief at seeing it, recognizing that they were soon going to be back in Occulara, and he could finally put his disagreement with the Director behind him, one way or another.  Very soon, no matter what would happen, he wouldn’t have to keep stressing about what might happen, he’d just have to deal with what was happening, something he was much more comfortable with.

However, his good mood quickly turned slightly sour when his yacht pulled into the local Heaven’s Eye docks.  About a mile further down the river, in a massive complex that was, judging by the banner and architectural style, the Ilian embassy, an enormous ship was moored, along with many escort ships, none of which had been there when Leon had first arrived in Evergold several weeks ago.

It was clear enough that someone important was in the city, and it became clear who a moment later when, as if cued up for when he’d noticed them, he felt someone’s weighty attention fall upon him.  It wasn’t that hard to track it given their seeming disinterest in hiding their power, and Leon saw sitting in a private courtyard within the sprawling Ilian embassy, Lord Protector Anastasios, grinning back at him and raising a glass of wine in greeting.

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