Zevran’s elaboration simultaneously clarified and confused matters. The concept of drivers leading the individual caravans made sense; they were like the captains overseeing their respective branches of the military… except they were elected by their subordinates? In that analogy, the drivers ought to then report to The One, the keeper of some mysterious medallion, which he thought may have been the Dresmondi version of a crown. Except Zevran said they didn’t have kings. But they had The One. Who was not a king. But clearly had some sort of influence, if they held a medallion.

“The One… told the drivers where to go?” He ventured tentatively, because that was the only explanation that made sense to the soldier. Zevran’s description of how the four caravans worked sounded orderly, as if someone with greater oversight - The One, surely - kept them organized and in line. Ber wasn’t quite sure how that made them any different than a king, but he was quickly finding out that he wasn’t sure about a lot of matters relating to Dresmond.

Just as foreign as their concept of leadership, or possibly lack thereof, was the apparent generosity of all the Dresmondi. “No one wanted for anything?” Ber clarified slowly, trying and failing to imagine a society that lacked Skia’s stratification, one where the wealthy noble did not hoard resources and force the impoverished commoner to struggle for a comfortable life. “Not even food? Shelter?” An incredulous pause. ”Gold?”

The weight that had started to fall across Zevran’s shoulders as he spoke of his caravan, the Rashai, seemed to settle fully as he mentioned the Eldouir. All traces of the lopsided grin he’d thrown at Ber moments earlier faded, and the soldier regretted bringing the subject up; he suspected that Zevran had very few reasons to smile these days. Life on the streets had shown him the violence that existed in Skia’s darkened alleyways, but he couldn’t comprehend slaughter on the scale of which the Dresmondi spoke. If the caravans were their cities, then the Eldouir and their army had attacked, killed, and imprisoned the equivalent of Skia four times over. “I— I’m sorry that’s happened to you.” What else could he say? Nothing could bring back the lives that had been stolen or free the people stuck in Elderkeep. Ber sat up as a thought struck him. “That’s why you’re here, right?” Obviously. Why else would a Dresmondi traverse the continent to speak with Nevermere’s king, who controlled the largest and most powerful army in the world, if not to request help with fighting the Eldouir army? “Your people in Elderkeep sent you’re here, to ask for help fighting back against the Eldouir?”

Zevran's amused smile only grew at Ber's attempts to grasp the concept of Dresmond. "No, The One just held our medallion and kept our talks at Conclave organized. The caravans each decided as a unit where they would go, based on information given out at the Conclave."

He shook his head again at Ber, chuckling before he continued. "Food was plentiful. The dyrs in Kushti who manipulate plant life saw to that. If a specific part of Dresmond was becoming barren, it was made known at Conclave and they traveled there to replenish it. If shelter was lacking, we just built more wagons to add to the caravan. And gold... what use is gold? The jewelers in Rashai would use it to make gifts that they traded away for other supplies. Like I said, everyone had access to whatever they needed."

He poked some more at his food before sighing, "But that way of life ended even before the Eldouirs came. We suffered attacks at the hands of Coheed. That was when our medallion went missing and our people suffered greatly then too. The caravans merged together into two for protection, because we lost so many people in those battles."

He looked up at Ber with a sad smile, "My people have suffered for a long time, they are battered and broken and just trying to survive. Many of them are too terrified of the Eldouirs, they do not think we could ever be free of them." He sat book, pushing his food slightly away, all appetite officially gone. "I have a small group that was trying to find a way to defeat them... then we met Alys and Grant, and now I'm here. No one but those few in my group know I'm even here."

Maybe he was thinking about this wrong, Ber realized as Zevran spoke of each caravan guiding themselves. He’d been imagining regimented groups, like battalions in an army, but perhaps he should have considered the organized chaos of his childhood: Skia’s street rats running where they wanted to, with only a little oversight from the eldest among them. With no real home to return to and certainly no responsible adults looking out for them, his group of orphans had sought out the easily accessible food, wherever it took them. Perhaps the caravans in Dresmond had been much the same way, though the thought of that very loose system of governing functioning on the kingdom level still seemed nigh incomprehensible. Kingdoms were so much more complex than the streets, surely…

And he kept mentioning that medallion, which he was fairly certain was as much of a crown as Dresmond had to offer. Even if The One didn’t tell the drivers where to go, directing conversations and carrying a symbol of authority still seemed like a leader-type thing to do, at least if the military was anything to go off of. A place where food was plentiful and freely offered to everyone sounded like paradise, but it was the mention of the dyrs that had Ber looking at Zevran quizzically. “Dyrs - that’s what you call your— that’s what Rune is to you? - do magic too?” He didn’t know animals could do magic. “Animals here can’t do any magic, though some of them are very good at begging for food.” The statement reminded him of his resolve to befriend the fox sheltering under the table, and he cast a quick glance at her. He was rather impressed by the fact that she wasn’t sending puppy eyes his way like Artos did every time he sat at the table. “I forgot - does she need anything to eat? We could probably get some meat scraps from the kitchen.”

The more he heard about this strange society, the more he wondered how such a place existed. Ber could only smile and shake his head when Zevran questioned the worth of gold, as if the majority of Nevermereans didn’t slave away all day trying to earn it. “If you find any extra gold when you go back, I’ll take it,” He said, bemused at how they so thoroughly disregarded it. But then he remembered: they didn’t live like that anymore, and apparently hadn’t lived like that since before the Eldouir arrived.

“The medallion is lost?” He imagined that the loss of their crown would demoralize a kingdom, but he didn’t think its absence would cause Nevermere to suffer. Crown or no crown, they still all knew who was in charge. And beyond that… “Could you not make another medallion? That’s what we would do if we lost our crown, I think.” Zevran gave him a sad smile as he explained the state of his people, and Ber could only listen as he spooned some of his own stew into his mouth. He couldn’t imagine simply laying down and taking the abuse without putting up some sort of resistance, but then he was a soldier; it was his job to fight back. That didn’t seem like a good thing to say, though, which was why it was just as well that Zevran had mentioned two names that distracted him. “Alys and Grant? Alys Delaney? Like the King’s Witch?” Who knew who the Grant guy was, but that particular witch was the first to come to mind at the mention of the name. “They were in Dresmond?”

At the mention of herself and dyrs, Rune's ears perked forward, though she didn't bother to raise her head from her paws. Zevran glanced down at her between his feet before explaining to Ber, "It's not that they can also do magic, they are the magic. I'm not able to use any of the magic, only Rune. She can use it by herself if she needs to but more often than not she waits for me to direct her."

He waved a hand at the offer of meat scraps from the tavern, "She is being well taken care of by the workers in the palace, trust me. She might have a bit of weight to lose after our stay here." He flashed another grin, chuckling as a growl could be heard from between his feet. "Dyrs aren't just animals we find in the woods and decide to keep. They're more like part of us come to life as animals. To earn their dyr, children used to go through what we called a Naming Ceremony during our Conclaves. They would be buried within our Cave of Names and fall into a special sleep. They would either find their dyrs in their sleep and crawl from the ground with them, or they would not wake up and the earth would claim their bodies. Then your dyr would name you, hence why it's called the Naming Ceremony."

He motioned down at Rune, "They have the minds of people in animal bodies. Through our connection, I can carry a conversation with her just as you carry a conversation with a friend. She can understand you, though she cannot speak with you. Only me and other dyrs."

He gave Ber an amused look, assuming he was making a joke about the gold but still not understanding why it was so important to him. He eyed the man for a moment, appreciating this kinship he had found with him. He was glad he had agreed to come out for drinks with him. "The medallion cannot just be remade. It was what allowed our children to fall into the sleep to find their dyrs. Because it's lost, there has not been any new dyrs in Dresmond for some time now. Without it, the magic in our kingdom will slowly die out until it does not exist anymore. But that is a problem to solve if we survive the Eldouirs."

At Ber's confusion and questions on Alys and Grant, Zevran lifted a hand and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "Hm. Perhaps I have said too much on that subject if it wasn't known they were going to Dresmond. Maybe I should keep the rest of those details to myself." He cleared his throat, hoping he hadn't just accidentally doomed himself here.

Though he had shared the smile with Zevran when Rune growled in response to his words, Ber found the whole explanation of what she was far more complicated and mystical than he had expected. The soldier blinked as he processed everything. “So Rune is… you,” He started slowly, not quite sure if Zevran had decided to try to pull a fast one on the clueless Nevermerean. “Or, a part of you, the part that can do magic. You found her in the ground, while you were asleep, and you both can talk to each other in your minds. And she can… understand what I’m saying?” He could partially conceptualize a society without a king if he thought of Dresmond as less of a kingdom and more the organized chaos of the streets of Skia, and in a world where people either controlled or were controlled, understanding what the Eldouir had done was hardly a difficult feat. But finding sentient magical animals while asleep and buried in a cave seemed a little unbelievable. Also, they were named by their dyr?

As if the sight of her would confirm or deny of his doubts, Ber glanced down again at the fox under the table. He didn’t know foxes, but if they were anything like dogs - granted, he only knew Artos - she did seem rather calm despite all the activity and food around her. And, he supposed, she had growled at Zevran’s suggestion that she might have to lose weight. Feeling rather foolish, he hesitated a moment then awkwardly gave a small wave, greeting her properly for the first time this evening with a tentative “Hi, Rune…?”

Ber’s gaze returned to Zevran while he considered the Naming Ceremony that had been described to him. The Dresmondi spoke of children dying as if they frequently never woke up from what would be their final slumber, and the prospect of so many children dying sobered him up. How old were the kids when they tried to find their dyr? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, so instead he asked the second question that had come to mind: “You didn’t get a name until you found a dyr? How— What did people call you?”

As it turned out, the medallion was magic, too, and without it, the magic of Dresmond was dying. Ber couldn’t quite empathize with the feeling of having to sit and watch as his entire way of life was eradicated bit by bit, but he knew how it felt to take blow after blow, even after falling to the ground and admitting defeat. That was what he imagined for Dresmond: a kingdom thoroughly beaten yet still being kicked while they were down. He spooned more stew into his mouth as he considered the two massive tasks that Zevran had set before him. “I hope you do survive them,” Ber said finally. “And that you can find your medallion after.”

At the Dresmondi’s discomfort, he shrugged, offering a noncommittal, “Up to you.” He had no problem letting the matter of Alys and Grant drop, but that hardly stopped him from quietly tucking that curious bit of information away. Content with his own quiet life and too insignificant enough to be included in any important decisions anyway, Ber paid little mind to the state of affairs in the upper echelons of Nevermerean politics, let alone the happenings of other kingdoms. But if two Nevermereans, possibly including the King’s Witch, had gone to Dresmond and sought out Zevran and his compatriot… The soldier had the sense that he had stumbled upon a chess board partway through the match yet lacked the understanding to fully comprehend the intricacies of what lay before him.

Zevran contemplated Ber's simplification of dyrs before nodding slowly. He wasn't sure he could explain it any better to the soldier. He hadn't known how intricate and complicated getting a dyr was until he tried to explain it to outsiders. It made him appreciate what made Dresmond special all the more. "I suppose that about covers it. It's difficult to explain to outsiders."

He smiled fondly down at Rune when Ber turned his attention to her. Rune looked up at Ber, giving him a small yip in response to his greeting before laying her head back down on her paws, content with the recognition. "Even though she's part of me, she still has her own personality. And attitude."

Settling back into his chair again, Zevran shrugged, "Nothing, just 'hey kid' sufficed. Sometimes close friends would give each other nicknames, but you had no official name without your dyr. Now, without the medallion to find their dyrs, they name themselves." He turned his head to the side, studying Ber quietly again before offering a small smile, "I appreciate your interest in learning about Dresmond. It's nice to be able to talk about home and the way things were."

He glanced between the other occupants of the table, considering whether they were paying attention before he spoke again, "Honestly, I don't know why they were really in Dresmond. My group had snuck out of the city to do a bit of... practicing, and we ran into them. Or they ran into us, really."

The corners of Ber’s lips quirked upward in a small smile as he sipped at his drink. “It’s difficult for outsiders to understand,” He responded dryly, though without any heat or accusation to the words. The soldier doubted he would do any better trying to explain Nevermerean magic to a random person in Dresmond who had never experienced anything like it. Even if he actually understood how spell casting actually worked - from what he could tell, there was a fair bit of chanting and hand waving, but the details had never seemed that important given that they were ultimately irrelevant to him - he thought he would be hard pressed to try to make it make sense to an outsider. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ve done a good job of it.” After all, Zevran had agreed with what he said, even if some of the details still seemed rather far-fetched to Ber. “I appreciate the effort, at any rate.”

When Rune lifted her head and yipped at him, chasing away any lingering doubts as to her ability to understand him, the soldier couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. “That’s really neat.” Looking back up at Zevran, he listened to what he said about Rune and nodded his understanding. Artos may not have been part of Ber, but the puppy certainly had a personality and accompanying attitude. Though now that he knew Rune had a human-like sentience, perhaps he ought to stop comparing her with a dog; it was likely rather insulting. In any event, he had another question begging for an answer: “What kind of magic can she do?”

He accepted Zevran’s explanation regarding names easily enough, though he privately thought that the ambiguity of a ‘hey kid’ in a city full of people was asking for massive amounts of confusion. As one of many children, orphans or otherwise, who frequented the streets of Skia, he had taken advantage of that lack of specificity many times while running away from soldiers on patrol: “sorry, ma’am, didn’t realize you were talking to me.” Still, it was sad that generations of children had been sentenced to namelessness, at least insofar as tradition was concerned. When the other man expressed his appreciation, Ber returned the smile. “Thank you for telling me everything,” He responded in kind, earnest. “I know I’ve been asking a lot of questions.” Zevran really had been quite patient with him, he thought. Shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’ve never been outside of Nevermere, so it’s interesting hearing about what other places are like. I’ll listen to whatever you want to talk about.”

To Ber, the surreptitious glance around the table changed the atmosphere ever so slightly to one of secrecy. In actuality, Zevran was probably correct in that he truly ought not divulge any further information regarding what was clearly a secret mission into Dresmond, presumably at someone powerful’s behest, but if he wanted to discuss the matter, the soldier wasn’t about to stop him. “I didn’t know we sent anyone into Dresmond,” Ber confirmed his own ignorance. Soldiers had been stationed in Cambria and Coheed, certainly, but he hadn’t heard of anyone being deployed to any of the other kingdoms. “I wonder what they were doing there…” He sipped at his drink thoughtfully. Then, because he was curious and Zevran didn’t seem opposed to answering his questions: “What was your group practicing?”

As he had done before when asked about Rune's magic, Zevran held out a hand. Darkness pooled in the palm and spread, covering his hand like a glove before it moved from his hand to the table. More darkness gathered until it formed the shape of a fox sitting on the table, looking at Ber. Zev rolled his yes, knowing Rune was showing off a bit. "She controls darkness."

He picked up his mug to drain the remnants of the ale, watching the dark figure on the table as it stood and jumped off the table, disappearing before it hit the floor. "I think I've told you all I can of Dresmond. Almost none of what we were remains. Our wagons all sit broken in Elderkeep, the worst of them stacked in this awful wall around the city, others used as stationary homes now. And where we once cared for each other and saw that all had what they needed, now we fight over the meagerest of scraps. People kill each other just to have enough food to live."

They had truly fallen far. Whereas before they could have almost been described as a perfect society, now they were no better than the lowest level of Nevermere's society. He knew he needed to free his people, but he also knew they had much work to do after that. His eyes jumped to Ber's and he held his gaze for a moment before deciding to answer him. "There is something the Eldouirs hold each year called Tribute. We are expected to sacrifice something to them, something they deem useful or something nice enough that they like it, in order to earn brands from them. The more brands you have, the more favor you supposedly carry with them. In reality, it just means you'll get enough rations to live another year."

He sat back, folding his arms across his chest. "I refused to let them touch me with that brand, so I had to rely pretty heavily on the others in my group for survival. Anyway... We were planning to sabotage their Tribute this year and play it off as a really bad storm. Show them they weren't so untouchable. Maybe try to encourage other Dresmondi to fight back. But it had been a long time since we could freely use our magic, so... we had to practice." He shrugged, as if their plans hadn't been that big of a deal.

Dark eyes widened as shadows collected in the palm of Zevran’s hand, wrapped around it like a second skin, and then shifted to the table’s surface where they grew in number until they morphed into a facsimile of the fox laying beneath the table. Ber grinned. Reaching out his own hand, he made to touch the darkness himself and gave the intangible head a little pat, amazed at how his fingers just seemed to disappear.

Suddenly, he became aware of the silence at the table, and smile fading slightly, he looked up to see Duncan, Tarre, and Moss staring at them.

“Are you doing that?” Duncan asked Zevran, even as Ber pulled his hand back and the fox jumped off the table, disappearing into empty space. “Can you summon things too?”

“Don’t be stupid, Bayle,” Moss said. “That wasn’t a summoning.” But it was clear that even though she knew what it wasn’t, she was just as clueless as to what it was.

Duncan turned to Moss. “Well, how am I supposed to know?” He demanded, affronted. “It’s not like I can do any magic myself.”

“No,” She shot back. “You only spend all day ogling those who can.”

Then they were back at it. Rolling his eyes, Ber turned back to Zevran, listening as the Dresmondi spoke of how much their way of life had deteriorated in Elderkeep. He sipped at his drink, unable to think of a response to the other man’s quiet despair over the state of affairs in his home kingdom. A lifetime of pushing past hardship by doing rather than thinking had primed him for solving problems, not providing any sort of emotional comfort, and he was painfully aware that nothing he could say or do would fix anything. “That’s… rough,” He finally offered lamely, when the silence dragged on to the point of awkwardness.

However, the discomfort dissipated somewhat, replaced by horrified disgust, when Zevran explained Tribute and the branding system to him. An outraged shudder traveled through him at the thought of not only being branded like livestock but being forced to beg for one in order to survive. He shook his head. Utterly inhumane, all of it. “Did it work? Making the storm at their Tribute.” He hoped it did. Before tonight, never had the Eldouir name mattered that much to him, but as Zevran spoke of their treatment of the Dresmondi people for no reason, as far as he could tell, other than that they had simply been there, he had grown increasingly hostile toward them. “I can’t decide whether or not we help you,” Ber said slowly, the idea coming to him as he spoke. “But you’ll need to know how to fight when you go back. I— I’m not a witch - I can’t do magic - but I can spar with you if you want to practice while you’re here.” What a sword and shield could do against magic like Rune’s, or even how they could hold a candle to such abilities, he didn’t know, but if Zevran was interested, he was willing to find out.

Zevran's face lit up with amusement as Ber's friends tried to make sense of his magic, though as before he couldn't get a word in edgewise so he turned his attention back to Ber. "Well, we met Alys and Grant while we were practicing, and my friend and I left with them the next day, so I doubt they went through with the plan."

He lapsed into a bit of silence as he thought of everyone back home, but especially Luka. Had she given herself over to the Eldouirs still? Was she living within the Eldouir estate now, in constant danger? They were well into Autumna now, she he knew Tribute had come and gone. He hoped it had been uneventful for everyone.

His gaze sharpened at Ber's next words, jumping to the man's eyes as he considered his offer. He had only had a bit of training when the Dijila had joined the Rashai, and even then he would certainly be unable to hold his own against the soldiers the Eldouir had made out of their people. If he was stuck here in this kingdom, he might as well learn from their own trained soldiers.

He nodded at Ber, "I would like that. I have a pair of daggers that I've trained with a small amount, but I was no warrior before. I can use all the help I can get."

There was a lot Ber couldn't do in regards to helping Dresmond, but he was glad that he could at least offer this. And even better, Zevran was interested. "Okay, yeah," He agreed, with a smile and a nod. "Let's do it." He took a sip of his drink, briefly considering the logistics of how this would work. "I'm back on duty tomorrow and for the next four days, but I'll be around the castle after work." Such was the life of a soldier who called the barracks home. "Or I'll have a couple days off after that." He usually took one of those days to go visit Temperance and Thom on the outskirts of Skia, but he hardly minded using the other to help out someone who he was tentatively willing to believe would become a friend.

"I'm not very familiar with daggers though," Ber admitted, beginning to think that perhaps he should put some effort toward changing that. He'd certainly met a number of people who used them, including, apparently, the Dresmondi sitting beside him. Long before he joined the military and had a chance to put his hands on any real weapons, he had always defaulted to throwing punches, and even after he'd been formally trained to use a sword and shield, he hadn't felt any need to add what presumably amounted to a smaller, more stabby sword to his repertoire of weapons. "Do you use anything else?" He asked after a moment, suddenly not sure he could help Zevran if the man was interested in learning how to fight with weapons that Ber himself didn't know much about. "Sword? Bow and arrow?" A pause. "Hand-to-hand combat?"

Belatedly, a thought struck him. Was Ber technically allowed to train someone who wasn't from Nevermere how to fight like a Nevermerean soldier? He wasn't sure; the problem had never arisen before now. But then, it wasn't like he was training Zevran how to fight like a Nevermerean - he was just going to practice fighting with him, maybe show him how to throw some punches and stab things, which he assumed were rather universal skills, all things considered. Maybe other kingdoms wielded swords in a different way, but there were only so many different ways to use one. And if Zevran wanted to practice with his daggers, it wasn't even like he'd be using military equipment. Yeah, Ber decided. It'll be fine.

Zevran waited quietly while Ber attempted to talk his way through the logistics of this training. His eyebrows lifted slightly in amusement as Ber continued on. He hadn't realized it would be such a complicated matter to get a bit of training in. Then again, everything here was all about structure and rules. Surely it was exhausting to have to worry about getting everything just right all of the time?

He nodded finally, answering some of Ber's questions. "I know how to use a sword. It's what I first learned to use, though it has been a long time since I've held one. I'm sure it'll come back quickly. I will happily take whatever help you can offer."

Downing what remained of his ale, he glanced at the wasted food in front of him and immediately felt guilty. Ermir would've hung him for wasting such food like this in Dresmond. Still looking at the bowl, he nodded his head once, the corner's of his mouth pulling down into a determined frown before he looked back to Ber. "Just tell me what day to meet you. I'll be there."

“Alright,” Ber agreed with a nod. “That’s what we learn and primarily train with, too.” The words were spoken as if the sword wasn’t a fundamental weapon across every kingdom, followed by a shrug when Zevran admitted to not having used one in a while. “You’ll probably remember more than you think you will.” He assumed it was one of those skills that, once learned, someone never forgot, but given that he’d picked one up at twelve and had yet to put it back down, the soldier had no idea. As for timing, however… “Hmm, how about my first day off, then,” He suggested after a moment. “Five days from now.”

With the matter settled, he swallowed the last part of his drink and set the cup aside, just as Zevran did the same. “You want another one?” Ber asked, gesturing at the empty glass and politely ignoring the nearly untouched food beside it. Hunger had been a near constant companion in his younger days, but he’d since learned that not everyone ate as voraciously as he did - even, apparently, if they came from a kingdom where people starved on the street.