Redux: Lineage

"You seem rather bouncy," Twilight commented as I fastened my bracers to my wrists. "What's gotten your fire blazing?"

"Finally decided to stop crying about my lot in life and do something about it," I shrugged, rolling my wrists and flexing my fingers to test the fit of the reinforced leather armour. "I can't become a better warrior and a better prince if I spend all my days sat on my arse crying about it, can I?"

Twilight crossed her arms over her chest, cocking an eyebrow and smirking playfully, taking a deep breath before airing her happiness at my newfound determination.

"I've gotta say, you'd have to be blind not to see your father in you," she chuckled.

"Really?"

"Of course. I've spent years watching Shining tighten his belt, crack his neck, and do whatever anyone told him was the impossible," she nodded. "He'd get this fiery look in his eye, a glare hot enough to melt through a shield, and we knew there was no stopping him after that. You may not have your dad's iron will just yet, but you've got the same spark in you that he used to forge it. That's more than most boys your age can say."

I smiled, genuinely from ear to ear, at her kind words. I'd always striven to be half the man my father was, and just hearing Twilight say that I resembled him in more than just looks was enough to make my day. I came from a long line of warriors, heroes, and rulers. It was about time I started living up to that and earn my place in history.

I grabbed my sword off the bed, fastening it onto my back and rolling my shoulders. Twilight had leaned herself against the door frame while I'd sorted my weapon out, absent-mindedly checking her nails and adjusting the length of her cuffs before her purple eyes looked back up to me.

"Are you ready to get learned some?" she asked.

"Of course," I nodded, gesturing for her to lead the way. "After you."

"Such a gentlemen," she giggled, heading out of the door and through the corridor.

The two of us made our way to where everyone had set up shop; a small chamber dedicated to planning and preparing strategies. The room was mostly silent, Cindria and Shining shuffling through old parchment, papers, and maps to keep their knowledge up and complete silence at bay, while the rest of the team sat in a bunch and waited for their opinion to be asked.

"Richter!" my father called out to me, his eyes not leaving the page as he spoke. "We have an ally with a connection to an enormous network of expert trackers that should be able to help us find any Vampire hideouts. Who is it?"

I was caught almost entirely off guard by the sudden drilling, my mind lighting up with random names to blurt out just to not look stupid. I decided that a slow answer was better than a wrong one, so I broke the sentence down and took it piece by piece, focusing on keywords that might help me narrow down a 'suspect'.

The first one I focused on was 'ally'. That meant somebody we knew and somebody we called a friend, but did he mean a singular person or an entire country? A few people on our staff or an entire legion? I then moved onto another keyword; 'trackers'. Who did we know that was an ally and knew people who could track? A tracker was often someone trained to know their way around entire areas, know the local wildlife and their patterns, and often used that skill to... hunt.

An ally who had a connection to a network of hunters?

"Angela," I said after it clicked into place in my head. "She's a guildmaster that has her own herd of hunters and almost definitely knows the other guildmasters across the world."

"Correct," Shining said with a proud smile on his lips. "Care to guess what the plan was came up with was?"

"Uh... asking Angela very nicely to put out the word of the Vampire problem and having them report back to us at regular intervals?" I asked, giving as much of a textbook answer as I could think of.

"Another great answer," he nodded. "I think you should 'introduce yourself' to Jenevive more often if it helps you get this much on the ball."

"Yeah... speaking of which, where is she?" I asked, finally noticing the absence of the mother figure of The Blades.

"She disappeared pretty quickly after she asked for Twilight to help," Shining said.

"She's most likely gone for the Nightly Prayer," Cindria chimed in, turning around with a tome in her hands and walking over to the table. "The children are going to bed rather soon, and those who wish to pray to the Goddesses for goodwill and protection do so in the chapel, with Jenevive overseeing the proceeding."

"Not everyone does it?" I asked.

"We do not force those who do not wish to partake in prayer to do so," Cindria asked. "Only that they respect those who do. After all, we could hardly call ourselves a religion of love and compassion if we immediately drew steel the second we met one who did not share our beliefs."

"If only more groups thought like you," Shining sighed, turning over a piece of browned parchment and sighing. "Then I'd have to spend less time resharpening my sword."

"So, have we arranged the first part of our plan?" Twilight asked, cocking a well-manicured eyebrow.

"Indeed we have," Shining nodded, looking to the map board and pointing to several of the continents, each marked with their respective flag and colour. "We're to send word to Angela and ask her to be our eyes and ears throughout the hunter guilds. Then, any intelligence we deem as legitimate or worth looking into shall be handled by the blades, with either myself or Cindria at the helm."

"I'd like to take the majority of missions, if that's okay with you, General," Cindria said, closing her book and looking at the map with hardened eyes.

"Oh?"

"I've somewhat of a score to settle with the bloodsuckers... and, as much as you refuse to hear it, you're not getting any younger," she said, walking over to the middle-aged general and crossing her arms. "If your hair is showing half as much age as your bones and muscle are, then I'd say it's time for you to take a cosy seat in the command tent and enjoy more days with your wife."

"I'm not decrepit yet, Cindria," Shining stated.

"But you are slower and weaker than you were twenty years ago," she countered. "Against normal humans, that'd be enough of a weakness. But against dark beings such as these? Where their fingers alone can snap the spine of a mortal man with nary an effort? It is too much of a weakness for you to surpass. So I'll ask you now, presumably adding to the number of times your wife already has: do not throw yourself into the front lines this time. You're a man with nothing to prove and the world to lose. Don't throw it away because you refuse to accept your mortality."

My father opened his mouth for a long moment, eyes soon dropping from Cindria's face down to the ground, then back up to the ceiling, and finally back on the Knight-Commander's eyes.

"You're right," he said, nodding his head slowly. "You're right."

"But does that mean you'll do what is asked of you, or what you want to do?" she questioned, narrowing her eyes slightly as she questioned the larger man.

He didn't answer immediately. In fact, he didn't answer at all. And for the first time in my life; it made me worry about him. I'd gotten so used to the stories and the duels I'd heard and seen of my father to ever question his battle prowess. After all, seeing him clean the floor with Zane not too long ago still solidified the idea that he was the same indomitable titan he always was... but Cindria couldn't be wrong.

My father wasn't the young man he once was, rapidly approaching his fifth decade of life and the sands of time beginning to wear him down harsher than ever before. I had not seen his decline, being too young and lacking in combat experience to see him before and after age left its mark... but if my father was admitting it, however apprehensively, it had to be enough of a loss in ability that made a large difference.

I felt a shiver of nervousness run through my body, fearing for his life for the first time in my own, and hoping that he'd take Cindria's advice and keep himself safe and alive for at least another forty years. If anything, it was another, even bigger, incentive for me to double my efforts and become more than the weakling I was now. I had my father's name to carry, even while he was still among the living, and I'd hate to bring shame to it.

"Should I try to reassemble the little crew I had in Winter's Maw?" I asked the room.

"Which was?" Cindria asked.

"Court Mage Celana, Mercenary Leader Karra, and Guildmaster Angela," I answered. "All three of them more than held their own dealing with a dragon matriarch, so I assume they'll be more than capable of handling a few bloodsuckers."

"I don't think Karra's going to throw her hat into the ring again," Shining said. "Last I heard, she'd spent almost every penny she earned in the business to rebuild her mercenary guild in Canterlot and is cursing the royal family, especially you, to anyone that'll listen."

"And what about Celana?" I asked.

"I spoke to her a few days ago regarding our joint investigation. She's going to be away on business in the Far East for several weeks, if not months, trying to use treatise to get the Empress of those lands to come through on her promise to assist Winter's Maw in times of trouble," Twilight said. "Pretty much deadlocked into negotiations with no end in sight, I'm afraid."

"So it looks like Angela's all we've got?" I asked, sighing in a disappointed fashion.

"That's even if she's capable of helping us," Cindria said. "For all we know, she and her guild could be blacklisted from every other guild in the world and she has no connections with any of them."

"We're banking quite a lot on blind luck here, aren't we?" I asked in an apprehensive manner.

"You always do in the planning phase," Shining nodded. "Now, Cindria, myself and the others are going to head back to Canterlot to discuss matters with Angela, and then I'll report back to you once we've found out whether or not she's capable of helping."

"Then you and I can further discuss the handling of engagement with the enemy once the intelligence gathered comes back," she nodded, joining her hands behind her back.

"So what are we going to do?" Annerose asked, speaking up after what seemed like hours of quiet.

"Train," I said, cutting in before anyone else could answer. "Train for as hard and as long as we can."

"Sounds as good a plan as any I've heard before," Shining smirked, nodding in approval. "Good to see you're using your time wisely."

"I've wasted the last eighteen years of it," I shrugged. "Now's the time I change that."