"Sesus Rineera," you say, dropping your eyes to his hand.
Eresa grins sheepishly and runs his hand through his hair. "Thank you, Sesus Rineera," he says, meeting your gaze as best he can.
"Where are you headed, Nellens Eresa?"
Through his lenses you see the corners of his eyes wrinkle. "To the House of Bells." Then, after a moment: "I've been accepted, and I'll be starting my first year there."
"Fascinating." You're only partly lying. This man doesn't look your age - he's much taller than you, and the stubble and angular lines of his face suggest a distant puberty. Perhaps six years ago? Why would someone on the cusp of their third decade lie about being a first year? "Nellens Eresa, would you like to continue this conversation once we're underway?"
His confusion is easy to read. "What do you mean?"
"It's simple," you say, gesturing for Forest of Robins and the rest of Eresa's servants to gather around. "Your horses are dead. I won't have a fellow Dynast walking to the House of Bells on my watch. Your servants will load your things into my carriage and we'll travel to the academy together."
When you mention his horses Eresa grows pale. Up until now he's avoided so much as looking at where their bodies lay, but since you've brought it up he has no choice but to acknowledge it.
You note this and begin coordinating his servants. Eresa stands beside you looking important and cleaning his lenses with the focused intensity of someone trying desperately to distract themselves. At some point you realize that you're still wearing Forest of Robin's hat and call her over. Dragons, what an impression you've made. Rain-soaked and mud-caked, robe in tatters, crowned by a damn paddy hat. No one must ever know.
"I believe this is yours," you say, businesslike, handing the hat back to her. "I… appreciate you lending it to me."
"You're sure you don't want to keep it?" She replies, brow raised. "It was doing an excellent job keeping the rain off of your nice robes."
You wince. "The rain is… thinning. We'll be underway soon."
Eresa's trio work quickly to transport everything that can fit to the rear compartment of your carriage. What a motley he has! Blue clay ceramics from the Northern Threshold, about a dozen different plumed hats on simple paper-mache stands, a set of iron nunchaku, long metal tongs and files, a leather satchel filled with paper-bound chap books, and more. A cursory glance reveals a few titles: Equestrian Breeds of the Marukani, Tepet Won-Fei's Treatise on the Knights of Medo, Pasiap and the Dragon-Horse. Many of his possessions cannot fit, and as such are left behind.
Once you're underway you and Eresa sit opposite one another, each flanked by two servants. Eresa's third servant, his driver, sits up on the bench with Forest of Robins. You can hear them murmur occasionally to one another over the soft sounds of the horses and the road. Through the windows the forest falls away with the thinning rain, and you can begin to see the smooth rolling hills so common to Arjuf Prefecture.
You have a chance to collect yourself and you take it, letting all of the tension built up by the past hour or so dissipate in a long shuddering sigh.
You open your eyes slowly, observing Nellens Eresa thoroughly. Out of the rain his red hair seems a bit brighter.
"How long have you been on the road, Nellens Eresa?" You incline your head to the side slightly, projecting innocence. Courtly arts don't come as easily to you as they do some Dynasts, but you doubt your fellow student will be very hard to crack.
Eresa leans forward, letting out his own great whooping sigh. "About three weeks, I'd say."
"Did you come south from Juche?" You ask, certain of the answer. Juche Prefecture is the seat of House Nellens, and any Dynastic scion important enough to attend the House of Bells would have to come from there.
"No, Kissed-With-Jade. Had an apprenticeship there." Eresa sighs again and glances out the window at the countryside.
Internally you are a swirl of questions. Apprenticeship? You know House Nellens are glorified Patricians, but he's speaking like a peasant boy ready for a life spent shoeing horses or grinding rice!
Outwardly you tilt your head the other way, looking curious. "You were an apprentice?"
"Yup," Eresa says, slapping his hands on his knees and leaning forward. "Patrician family - horse breeders. They brought me on as a groom. I was studying to join their profession. It was a whole thing." He waves his hand side to side. "All ancient history now, though. My House wants something else from me, and so here I am."
"What changed?" You ask, bracing yourself. It's not impossible, but to think...
"The Second Breath," he says with the tone one uses to describe a small disaster. "Tore up the stables, spooked the horses. Damn near killed my boss, too!" He laughs, perhaps to hide the unpleasantness of the memory.
"When? How long ago did it happen, I mean." You're already dreading the answer.
Eresa studies the ceiling, trying to remember the date like it's somehow not the singular most important moment of his entire life. "Three… maybe three months ago? About a season."
You've been Exalted for four years. Eleven was an auspicious age. It is the typical time for Dynasts. The Dragons prefer to make their will known early - that's what you've heard. To think you're sitting across from someone to whom the Second Breath is a recent experience, someone older than you, is unthinkable. It's impossible.
You smile sweetly at Eresa. "Forgive me for asking, but how old are you?"
Eresa shrugs. "Eighteen. I'll be nineteen at the end of Earth Season."
Dragons Above. You nod to Eresa and then lean back against the cushions of your seat. You don't ask him any more questions.
---
Mercifully, the noonday sun breaks free from the clouds and soon enough a call comes up from your two drivers. They've spotted the House of Bells' Wood Gate and the wall itself.
Suddenly you are overcome with apprehension. The leopard served only to waylay you. It could not keep you from this terrible, glorious place. Ahead of you lies a great crucible. The stories leap back into the forefront of your mind - the post in the center of the parade grounds where unruly cadets are whipped until their backs are bloody tatters, students reenacting bloody battles with catapults and ballistae, the million horrors that spill forth in tides of rumor and hearsay.
It's almost reassuring when you look up and Eresa and see the nervous sweat beading on his forehead. He takes off his lenses and cleans them, eager to distract himself, and the wall of the House of Bells comes into view through the narrow carriage windows.
The House of Bells rings its territory with a short stone wall, waist high and marked at regular intervals by small covered stands where hand-sized brass bells hang. The gate is simply a gap in the wall wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side, but you've heard the stories. In the early days of the Empress' conquest it was well known that any army who entered the grounds of the House of Bells would be destroyed. As humble as it seems, this wall marks the borders of the most well-defended school in Creation.
The carriage stops for a moment and then proceeds past the wall on a road of rapidly drying mud. The Wood Gate, and the road that passes through it, are the humblest of the Five Gates that ring the outermost wall of the House of Bells. First Year cadets are expected to enter the House of Bells through the Wood Gate, which might have created something of a bottleneck if you hadn't been waylaid by a giant eight-legged cat. Now the road ahead is empty and your carriage passes through the grounds quietly.
At some point you begin to hear the dim murmur of people and horses and cast your gaze back out the carriage windows. Ahead, crowning a small round hill, is a many-layered lodge of white stone with dozens of green roofs. The hill is surrounded by small fields and rice paddies. Where the paddies meet the edges of the hill a proud village sits, white walls glinting in the sun.
There are villages in the House of Bells? You shake your confusion from your mind and trace up the switch-backing road that leads to the lodge's entrance. Dozens and dozens of carriages sit along that road, horses grazing idly at the grasses that grow up from the hillside. You can see people moving in a long train up the road, small and bedecked in finery. The other students. Your peers.
You look down at yourself. You're wearing the seven remaining layers of your kimono. The new outermost layer is white, thin and still damp enough that the red of the layer below glows through. The stitching depicts the events of your seventh year of life. A sanxian recital. A reading of your first original poem. Your first successful hunting excursion. You shot a sika deer through the heart, much to the acclaim of your father and servants. These events, which you can scarcely remember, will be the first impression the House of Bells and all of your peers get. A sanxian, a dead deer, and the lovingly stitched text of a poem you wrote when you were seven.
You lost your slippers in the mud. You're going to have to borrow Plum's sandals.
---
Word passes down the line of parked carriages that the cadets (the House's word for students) are to make their way to the lodge's main chamber.
You've no real need to say your goodbyes. Plum and Bright Chime and Forest of Robins can't stay with you in the House of Bells, but they'll certainly be staying the night as they help you unpack your things. Eresa's servants are nervous but he reassures them that they've got nothing to worry about.
You and Eresa make your way up the road, joining the tide of cadets. You attract a few looks, of confusion or scorn, and steel yourself. You will one day achieve greatness of which your peers can scarcely dream - a bad first impression is nothing. In fact, your unassuming, haphazard motley might be a boon. The House of Bells will be cutthroat, and an advantage like being underestimated can be potent if wielded properly.
Savoring this understanding you file in and join the gathering crowd inside the lodge's main hall. The decor seems appropriate for a hunting lodge. The monuments of past hunts glare down at you from the walls. Tigers and bears and siaka and great birds and, opposite the main entrance, the hulking upper body of a Tyrant Lizard - an upright beast with a maw that could swallow a horse whole - hangs like a monument to the power of the Dragon-Blooded Host. You see other cadets craning their necks, enamored by the trophies of hunts past, and you can't help but be a little underwhelmed. Why wouldn't you be? Your mother has a Tyrant Lizard skull mounted over her meeting chambers, and your father's hunting lodge holds two complete skeletons, posed in such a way that they look locked in combat.
Glancing to your left you notice Eresa, less awed or underwhelmed and more… confused. He's not looking up at the trophies, but rather at the great staircase that leads up to a mezzanine beneath the Tyrant Lizard.
"Is something the matter?" You ask him quietly.
"This isn't the House of Bells," he says, tense. "This can't be. There's no barracks, no mess hall, no dormitories or training ground. No bells. Doesn't it seem strange to you?"
He's right, you realize. This is an impressive building, but it's a far cry from what you've heard about the House of Bells. Where's the pillory? The post where unruly cadets are disciplined? You add your gaze to his, looking around the room for some sort of answer.
You find it in the form of a woman who steps into view from beneath the shadow of the Tyrant Lizard, looking out over the sea of young Dynasts from the high mezzanine. She is tall and willowy, wearing a breastplate with the image of a swirling triskelion - the aniconic representation of Mela the Immaculate Dragon of Air. From this woman's curling sky-blue-and-ivory hair which tosses about her like a pennant in the wind you know her Aspect - air, same as you. Her jet-dark eyes scan the cadets coldly before dimming. There is suddenly a smell of ozone and the swirls of her hair begin to rise like a thunderhead. When she speaks all lesser sounds drain away, leaving only her voice.
"Welcome, First Year cadets, to the House of Bells. My name is Peleps Mistral, Chozei of the First Year class of cadets. I applaud you all - you have been accepted into the finest military institution in Creation. By the time you have passed through the final gate of this academy you will be among the finest warriors, officers, and soldiers the world over. May each of the Immaculate Dragons in turn smile upon you." She coughs into her hand, in part to clear her throat and in part for dramatic effect. "I'm not one for prayers, though, so I'll leave that task to our chaplain. You'll meet her later today, hopefully."
"As I'm sure some of you have guessed," she says, her eyes centering on you and Eresa, "you have yet to arrive at your final destination. This is the Vernal Sanctum of Heron the Tenth, a fortress-lodge erected in the Shogunate and incorporated into the House of Bells' grounds about ten centuries ago. This will be the staging ground for today's examination."
Chozei Peleps Mistral's words set off a wave of murmurs within the assembled students. She grins and continues her explanation with glee in her voice. "The House of Bells main campus is located about ten miles from here, straight west as the raiton flies. There are no proper roads connecting the campus to the Sanctum, only concealed footpaths and game trails. No matter, though - follow the sun and you're sure to find your way there. At sundown I and my instructors will begin sorting you into your five-person Fangs, with whom you'll be spending your seven years at our institution. Don't delay - a late arrival on your first day at the House of Bells makes for a very poor first impression."
You look over your shoulder, back at the front doors to the lodge. A few cadets are already trying to get a head start, but the doors are closed and several red-garbed soldiers stand at attention in front of them.
The Chozei grins from ear to ear. "And one final note: this is as far into the grounds as visitors are allowed. Your servants will not be accompanying you to the campus, and no staff from the House of Bells will transport your belongings for you. In fact, they're under strict instructions to depart from the House of Bells' grounds before nightfall, else they will be considered intruders. There are no belongings prohibited by the House of Bells. You're welcome to bring along as many of your possessions as you wish. Provided you can carry them, of course."
Her essence washes out from her hair and across the room, quieting the voices of the shocked and panicked cadets around you. "You are dismissed."
The doors open and the sea of cadets is suddenly washing outwards, across the Sanctum's main yard and towards the road. Everyone is making a beeline for their carriages, their wagons, their possessions. You are, too. By the look of the sky you have about five hours until nightfall.
Think. You can't bring everything with you. Too much and you won't make it in time. You can't afford to take anything extraneous. That said, you have possessions that are important to you, and tools without which you'll be as good as naked. You've got to think carefully and make the best use you can with what you have.
Picking out Rineera's Equipment:
Rineera has got to make it to the campus before time runs out! Here we'll vote on the things she ought to grab before leaving the Sanctum and striking out for the House of Bells. You are not limited to voting for just one item - you can cast votes for as many items as you want. Be careful, though, too many things and Rineera runs the risk of being late on her first day! It's also possible to vote for nothing. An unencumbered Rineera with her speed-based Manifestation and her Clever Hunter-Prince Style will make it to the House of Bells pretty damn quick, which might impress her instructors enough to cancel out her lack of other equipment.
Rin makes sure to get...
[ ] ...her yumi bow and quiver. They've served her well all her life and they'll be invaluable tools in the House of Bells. Also, they're something of a calling card for Rineera. People might recognize her for her bow.
[ ] ...her katana. She's effective with it, and having a real weapon all her own will set her apart from other cadets. Also, it's a beautiful sword, and might have some serious trading potential.
[ ] …her other clothes, stuffed haphazardly into a bag and tossed over her shoulder. This way Rin might have something more than her ruined kimonos and borrowed sandals when she makes it to the House of Bells.
[ ] ...her vellum-bound copy of The Thousand Actions of the Upright Soldier, the pinnacle military textbook in the Realm. This book will be an invaluable tool for composing strategies, not to mention impress her instructors to boot. Plus, it's a gift from her grandmother.
[ ] ...her calligraphy set, gathered in a small cherry wood case. Rin is a skilled calligrapher and having her own set of ink, pens, and brushes will be invaluable during written classes.
[ ] ...her set of hunting knives. Gifted to her by her father, this set of knives is beautiful and has everything Rin needs to clean and prepare kills. In field exercises or other situations where cadets are expected to feed themselves, these tools will prove useful.
[ ] Write-in. For any ideas anyone has about other items Rineera might have received from her Family, or personal mementos.
