The peace that formerly reigned in Terra Nova has eroded, now little more than a memory. War ravages the continent. Disputes divide kingdoms; ideals divide families. The quest for power consumes absolutely and indiscriminately. None are immune to its allure.
Who will rise and who will fall? Only time—and ambition—will tell.
UPDATES
05.26.2023
2 month character creation hold for all existing members begins 6/5/2023. Ended 8/5/2023.
10.29.2023
Change in how times flows. Was 4 IC seasons, now only 2 IC seasons per 1 OOC year.
5 whole years of Heir Apparent goodness! When I started the site, I knew I was hunkering down for the long haul, but I never could have predicted the numerous twists and turns this roleplay site has seen. Hundreds of plots, characters, and members have come and gone, all leaving marks on the site. I am so very thankful for those who have invested. Because you keep coming back, keep getting on, and keep writing, Heir Apparent has the legacy it does today. Three cheers to us!
The talk with Bowen had made him realise that he was indeed restless and needed some change. He had been inside of Arynn Frey for too long, and even though he was raised with the ideals and the mentality of a true citizen of Arynn Frey, he just needed more. That's why Clovis was on his way to the palace, and he would try to speak to the prince if he had a moment. Little did he know that the prince was quite busy. The night before, Regan would have been transported to the palace so the prince could cure her. Of course, Clovis didn't know any of this, but it was a good thing that a distraction caused him to forget about his plan all together.
An otter almost caused him to trip. The soldier's heart skipped a beat as he broadened his step in order not to crush the animal. He turned around to look at it. The sea was much lower than the city, and it was unusual for an otter to live in the sea anyway. They wouldn't be able to build their dams there. It also couldn't have come from the lake. If it did, it would greatly surprise Clovis. The biggest lake in Arynn Frey was located in the west of the kingdom and it would take at least a five day hike to get to the city. The man looked around and then noticed a southern looking woman standing nearby. Then it clicked in his mind. This was one of these so-called dyrs, and the woman must be a Dresmondi. Not knowing it wasn't exactly socially acceptable to touch someone's dyr, he crouched to reach for the animal because he wanted to return it to the woman.
Last Edit: Mar 13, 2023 10:08:04 GMT -5 by Deleted
“No, no, there’s something over there by the building! I’ll show you!”
Walnut—
But the river otter was already off, lowering back down onto four legs from where he’d risen up on two, and running over to the building in question in his characteristic hop-skip. Right across a street that, while not overly crowded, certainly had a non-zero amount of foot traffic.
Walnut, look out! You’re going to get ste—
“Woah! Hey! Watch it, bud!” Though the Arynnite whose path he’d cut off couldn’t have understood him, Walnut voiced his complaints to Kester all the same. He skittered to the side and paused, lifting up slightly on his back feet and tilting his head as he looked up at the man who looked down at him. “Hey, Kes, this guy kinda looks like the other guy.”
Plenty of Arynnites have beards, Walnut. That doesn’t mean they all look the same.
“No, I’m serious!” Walnut protested, watching as the stranger crouched down next to him. Then the bearded man reached toward him, and he let out an alarmed squeak and attempted to dodge the hands that grabbed for him. “Hey, you can look but don’t touch!”
Kester was already in motion. When the Arynnite had started reaching toward Walnut, she had raised two fingers to her mouth to let loose a sharp whistle while long, purposeful strides carried her quickly toward the pair. Hopefully the loud noise would cause the man to pause long enough for the otter to skitter out of reach.
If the stranger turned his attention to her before she reached him, he would see Kester shaking her head and waving her hands in a negative manner as she tried to relay that he wasn’t supposed to touch. Meanwhile, Walnut would head back toward her side while she approached.
If it was too late and he had already picked up the otter, well, it was hardly the first time the dyr had been manhandled by a well-meaning citizen of Arynn Frey. As they both would try to shake off the sense of wrongness, Walnut would eye the stranger for a moment before looking over at Kester, who would smile one of her polite but fake smiles and gesture for the Arynnite to put him down when she arrived.
Either way, the Dresmondi would find herself looking up at the Arynnite with a nod and a smile. ‘Thank you,’ She mouthed at him, bringing a hand up to her chin and moving it briefly in his direction as she did so. There was no established sign language in Terra Nova as far as she knew, though she had developed some rudimentary signs shared among those closest to her when she was a child; among her people, their ability to communicate through their dyrs rendered one mostly unnecessary. Once Walnut had entered her life, the frustration that had characterized the first twelve years of her life had faded, but in the past five years, as she increasingly interacted with people without dyrs and was forced to fall back on other ways to communicate, she could feel the quiet resentment slowly starting to return. It was fortuitous, then, that she had always been good at hiding behind a smile.
The little guy looked up at him as he was bending down to pick him up. Something about this animal was different than other animals. Dyrs seemed to be much more human-like, like they actually had something going on inside their head. Lights on and someone was at home. It was refreshing to see. Together with squeaking and dodging, that very human-like element made it obvious to Clovis that he needed to back off and not touch the otter. At the same time as the whistling reached his ears, the man drew back his hands, letting them rest on his bend knees for a moment before he ascended again. He held up his hands in an apologetic manner when he saw the woman shaking her head, and he even took a little step back to make it clear that he wasn't going to touch the dyr.
He slightly raised an eyebrow when no sound came out of her mouth as she thanked him, but the gesture she made allowed him to connect the dots. This person seemed to be incapable of talking, or even hearing. He had little to no experience with mute and/or deaf people, but knew some of them used their hands to communicate. The man thought for a moment, trying to figure out what the best response would be, and then mouthed back "you're welcome" while making the same movement as she had moments before. Mouthing words came very unnatural to him, so for his next sentence he decided to simply speak aloud, even though he didn't know if she was only mute or also deaf. "You're a Dresmondi, right?" he asked, trying to do some hand gestures but not really knowing what could explain the question he had asked, which made him drop his hands and sheepishly look at the woman. "Is that your dyr?" He embraced himself when he said dyr, hoping that it was somehow related to dyrs, but what did he know? Exactly, nothing. This encounter had immediately piqued his interest.
The way the man mouthed his response back had her pausing for a moment, reconsidering him, but his follow up question confirmed that he could, in fact, speak. Bemused, she watched as he made some random gestures as he did so, wondering if they had any meaning or if Arynnites in Elyusian just used their hands a lot while talking, before deciding to focus on the question he asked. Kester nodded her confirmation that she was Dresmondi, then nodded again at his second question.
“He’s kinda silly, Kes,” Walnut said, looking up at her as she glanced down at him. He had been watching the exchange curiously. “I like him.”
You like everyone.
“Ok, well, yeah, but there’s so many cool people to like.”
Lots of bad ones around, too.
“Do you really think he’s one of them?”
No, she didn’t - she had seen how he’d backed off from Walnut, and there were plenty of people who wouldn’t have - but she didn’t feel like telling her dyr that. Not that he didn’t know anyway, and the faint smugness was unbecoming.
“Come on, Kes, introduce me.” Walnut stood on his hind legs and reached up toward her. “I wanna know what his name is.”
Crouching down, she hefted his long body up into her arms with practiced ease, shifting to cradle him like a baby on one hip, his long tail hanging down toward the ground. He grumbled about there being more dignified ways to hold him as she reached into a pocket with her free hand and pulled out a not quite fresh but not quite spoiled walnut, kept around for this exact purpose. Holding it up to catch the stranger’s attention, Kester wiggled it between her fingers for a moment before palming it as best she could and pointing to the river otter in her arms. Walnut waved one little paw and grinned. She waited for comprehension to strike and returned the walnut to her pocket.
With both hands free, she adjusted Walnut again so that he could scramble up to lay across her shoulders. As he settled there, looking back at the Arynnite, Kester pointed to her chest and, after taking a deep breath, introduced herself in a weak, breathy voice. “Kester.” She was hard to hear, but apart from painfully writing out her name, she had yet to figure out a better way to introduce herself to people without dyrs. Then she pointed at him, head tilted slightly to the side in a manner mimicked by the otter on her shoulder.
So far so good. Communication seemed possible, but the questions hadn't been that difficult either. It also seemed like she didn't need his gestures to understand what he was saying. He nodded understandingly in response to her nods. A silence followed, but it seemed like the silence was only on his end. The woman and the otter just didn't have that 'I'm not talking to anyone and I don't know what to do' look to them. He wondered if they were talking amongst themselves. Dresmondi and their dyr could do that, right? If they were, he wondered if they were talking about him, and if yes, what they were saying. Clovis just stood there patiently until the woman started to move to pick the animal up. It was quite an adorable sight to see the otter standing on its hind legs, waiting to be picked up. Like a toddler saying "uppies", waiting for their mom to reach down and hold them. She even held him like a little kid.
Then she reached into her pocket and showed him something. Clovis leaned forward a bit so he could see better and noticed that it was some kind of nut. He scratched his beard and looked from the woman to the animal when she pointed at him. He was greeted by a little waving paw, which made him raise his eyebrows in amazement. He didn't get it right away, but by the time she had put the nut back, he had figured it out. "A... walnut. So, you're Walnut." It was perplexed by the way this woman managed to communicate without using her voice or a generalised sign language. Clovis smiled ever so slightly, just because he wasn't the most expressive guy, and bowed his head a bit in a way to greet the otter. "Nice to meet you, Walnut."
Just as he was about to state his own name, the otter moved positions to the woman's shoulders, turning himself into a little scarf. Then he heard a voice, a weak one, but still definitely a voice. "K- Kester?" he repeated, not wanting to put too much attention on the fact that she had just spoken even though he thought she wasn't able to. Judging by the volume, she wasn't completely mute, but also not able to really form long sentences. It sounded like talking didn't come easy to her, and as if it kind of hurt, too. The Dresmondi and the dyr were looking at him, and he realised he had missed the fact that she had pointed at him. The Arynnite put a hand on his chest and looked from one to the other. "I'm Clovis. Clovis Belcourt." He offered them a smile before turning a little more serious again.
"What are you doing in the city?" he asked with a furrowed brow. It wasn't meant as an invasive question, nor one that asked them to justify why they were here, but because he knew the Dresmondi that lived in Arynn Frey didn't live in Elyusian. He hoped there was a way for her to respond to his question. He didn't want to make things hard for her.
With a small smile turning the corners of her own lips upward as the Arynnite greeted Walnut, Kester nodded to confirm his conclusion about her dyr’s name. The river otter himself radiated his usual general excitement at having met someone new as he settled around her shoulders. When he repeated her nam, she nodded again and offered a smile in return when he introduced himself as Clovis Belcourt.
“Belcourt?” Walnut asked, just as Kester was trying to recall why the name sounded familiar. “Like that other guy we met! I told you he looked like him!”
Kester considered Clovis for a moment. I guess, she allowed, still somewhat skeptical.
“They’re both Belcourts!” Walnut had been fascinated by the strange naming conventions of Arynn Frey, while Kester had thought it rather strange that they bothered to track blood relations at all. It wasn’t as if knowing who someone was related to was necessary. “I bet they know each other!”
I still think you think everyone with a beard looks the same.
In the end, Kester obliged her dyr’s curiosity. “Bowen Belcourt?” She asked, barely audible, head tilted slightly and pointing at him. If he seemed confused, she would attempt to describe the man in question. She brought a hand up and did her best to indicate a height about a foot over her head. A gesture that referred to the other Belcourt’s beard came next, accompanied by a pointed smile that was her best imitation of one of the many that the other man had worn, before her expression returned to that of curious inquiry.
Clovis had his own question, a fair one that was not the first nor the last time she heard it. While Kester had initially come to find Kaveri, she now simply found herself exploring the city while she waited for him to finish up the work that brought him to the capital, but she was neither inclined to explain that or even attempt to explain that to the Arynnite. Instead, she fell back on the easy explanation. Shrugging slightly, she spread her hands before her to indicate the city around them and made a show of looking around. Exploration by Dresmondi might have been uncommon, but as far as Kester knew, it was hardly illegal.
Then she pointed back at him, clearly returning the question.
The otter seemed to be happy to have met someone new, and it was difficult for Clovis to take his eyes off the animal. Walnut was simply too adorable. He melted Clovis' little heart. Because underneath that rugged exterior was a man that suppressed his emotions and often forgot that feelings were only human. After he had introduced himself, again a silence fell and the soldier waited patiently what would come next. It was exciting, actually. This was one of the most unpredictable conversations he had had in a long time.
Then a familiar name reached his ears. He nodded while she was trying to describe Bowen using gestures and clues. "Yes, Bowen Belcourt", he repeated with a smile. "He's my cousin. He practically raised me." Unbeknown to him, they were practically thinking of the same thing about blood relations. Even though family names were a thing in Arynn Frey, they barely mattered except for status and wealth. People didn't care about family as much as in other kingdoms, but they also didn't see each other as one big family like some Dresmondis maybe did. They were just loners in Arynn Frey. "You've met him?" he then asked, a smile forming on his face. He loved his cousin dearly.
He nodded when she shrugged. She didn't even need to have a reason to be in the city to begin with, but he had been curious what brought her here. She was just looking around. Then she returned the question. "I'm the head of the cavalry", he explained. "And I live in the city. So I'm always just here, trying to keep myself busy." He chuckled. "The library is a good place for that." He then wondered if Dresmondi even knew how to read, but decided against asking. "Do you want a tour around the city?"
“They do know each other!” Walnut grinned, clapping his hands together in his excitement.
Kester, meanwhile, was left wondering idly, What’s a cousin again?
“I think it’s one of those… one of those… You know those people you have to spend time with even if you don’t like them? One of them.”
It seems like Clovis likes Bowen though. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Walnut tilt his head slightly. Look, see? He’s smiling. Indeed, his smile had a way of lighting up his face, and the Dresmondi returned it with one of her own.
Even as Kester nodded as an answer as to whether they had met the Minister of Internal Affairs and gave Clovis a thumbs up to indicate of her opinion of him, she still didn’t quite know how to feel about Bowen Belcourt. Though he was friendly and had retained a childlike sense of wonder about the world, the large man was unnerving in a way she couldn’t quite describe. When they had talked, he had sometimes jumped to the right answers too quickly, in a way that suggested he knew more than he was supposed to, and she had found it disarming how he could go from oddly perceptive one moment to simply amazed by something the next. Walnut, of course, had been utterly taken by the man who had offered him a better fountain and food, but Kester? She cast a casual glance around them and wondered if Bowen Belcourt had eyes on her even now - or perhaps, more accurately, where those eyes were hidden.
When Clovis explained his job, which sounded as important but only marginally less enigmatic as his cousin’s, Kester tilted her head slightly to the side. ‘Cavalry?’ Repeating the word silently to herself, she grinned and raised both fists in front of her before miming a punch. It was a term she had heard before in relation to fighting, but she wasn’t quite sure what it entailed. If Clovis was a warrior, she thought he would be easier to beat in a fight than Bowen, though he might have preferred the company of books to that of sparring opponents. Illianar had libraries too, and Kester had ventured into one once. Then ventured right back out when everything she looked at appeared utterly meaningless to her. Listening to stories around a fire was more entertaining than merely reading them in a quiet room anyway.
A tour around the city sounded nice enough. Kester had spent enough time utterly lost that she welcomed the opportunity to have a local show her around. Walnut, of course, was excited at the prospect of making a new friend, so he was already fervently nodding his approval of the suggestion when Kester gave her own agreement.
Okay, she knew Bowen, and she seemed to like him, for as far as he was able to understand from her thumbs up and general body language. The only drawback of Kester nog talking much was that there were a lot of silences in which Clovis didn't really didn't know what to do. He imaged that she was probably thinking, but just didn't voice her thoughts. Luckily this silence wasn't too long, and Clovis went on to explain about his job. Kester repeated the word softly and threw a little punch. The Arynnite laughed kist as softly as the woman has spoken, and made a "so-and-so" gesture with his hand. "Yes, but on horses. And probably with a swords or some other kind of weapon instead of our fists. You don't have a cavalry in Dresmond?" He looked at her, tilting his head to the side a bit.
The duo agreed to a little tour around the city. "Well, right this way then", Clovis said, gesturing that they'd be walking down the street. He held out his arm for her, in case she wanted to hold it, before starting to walk. If she followed, they'd be walking to the centre of the city. "There's lots of shops and taverns around here, but personally I don't really like how busy it gets. Would you rather see more of the city, or can I interest you in showing you the sea?"
Born and raised Dijila, Kester was familiar with a variety of weapons. However, they fought on foot alongside their dyrs, not on horseback, so when Clovis asked about a cavalry, Kester shook her head. The concept of one was interesting. Certainly, riders on horseback could cover a significant amount ground a lot faster, though from what she recalled of the wild equines she’d seen, horses themselves were flighty creatures. They ran instead of fought - granted, most animals were when compared to their dyr counterparts - and panicked easily, so she couldn’t imagine them charging into battle, let alone riding one herself. All the noise and activity on the battlefield would spook them, wouldn’t it? “How does that work?” She was curious, not skeptical. “Do you have a horse?”
When Clovis held out his arm, Kester glanced sideways at it in momentary confusion before realizing what he offered. With a smile, she declined the offer - she preferred keeping her hands free - but fell easily into step beside him. From his perch across her shoulders, Walnut alternated between looking around at their surroundings and watching Clovis as he spoke.
The city center was indeed crowded and loud, and Kester was glad that the river otter was already out of the way of any careless feet. Dark eyes gazed around at the shops and taverns with signs that she couldn’t really read and wares that she couldn’t really buy. From beside her, Clovis mentioned a preference for the quieter parts of Elyusian, and she nodded her agreement. Not only would the noise here make verbal communication on her part impossible, but it was a bit overwhelming. The caravans of old had housed their fair share of people, of course, but they had lived freely under a massive sky, running across plains stretched from horizon to horizon. In the Arynnite cities, the stone walls that stretched upward made everything feel so much more contained. Suffocating.
Even without Walnut’s hands pattering excitedly on her shoulder, there was only one answer to his question, one that she hadn’t even known was an option until now. Looking back at Clovis, Kester smiled and held up two fingers. Both she and Walnut wanted to see the sea.
It wasn't like he was giving away a whole military strategy by explaining how the cavalry worked, so Clovis started to explain. "So just like you have a legion on foot, there's a legion on horseback. Some of them use lances, so they can hit the opponent's riders and push them off their horses, others use weapons like swords, axes and maces to swing at opponents. The cavalry is mostly useful to break the enemy's formations, and to have an overlook of the battlefield." He hoped it made sense to her. He didn't know what the Dresmondi's army used to look like.
She declined his offer, but he took no offence, so he smiled and started to walk with her next to him. He explained that the city was rather busy and crowded, and that he preferred the calmer parts of town. He only braved the crowd when he really needed to do something in Elyusian, like pick up weapons or visit someone. He proposed showing them the sea, without realising how much the otter would like that idea, so when he saw the excited pattering of Walnut's hands, he laughed softly. "Alright, that seemed like an easy decision."
He guided Kester through the city and the longer they walked, the less dense the crowd got, until they'd only occasionally pass by someone. The last row of buildings came to an end, and the three of them would find themselves near the rocks. A small staircase was formed out of rocks and led down to the beach. He'd look back at Kester and Walnut for a moment to see if they were still down to see the sea before he would descend the stairs.
Once on the beach, he let out a small sigh. The wind was more noticeable here, but he for one did not mind. He liked the feeling of it in his hair and beard. Again he turned around and held out his arms. "Here we are, then. I come here from time to time to clear my head. Watching the waves works wonders if you're worried."
Clovis had a nice laugh, Kester decided, though it was hard to hear with the noise of the street around them. The Head of the Cavalry seemed to be a quieter, more subdued man than his cousin - not that she suspected it took much to be more subdued than Bowen - and even over the course of their relatively short interaction, she could see that he didn’t didn’t smile nearly as often either. It was a shame, because his smile was nice too. Most people had nice smiles, at least when Walnut was around. The river otter was endearing in a way that Kester could never hope to match.
Both the Dresmondi and her dyr preferred the quieter city streets to the bustle of the city center, though the understanding that she was following a stranger to a remote location in a place that she did not know caused some wariness to interrupt an otherwise pleasant walk. Buoyed by his tendency to see the best in people and by his excitement at seeing the ocean, Walnut shot her the mental equivalent of a sigh and eye roll, but a glance to the side soothed Kester’s nerves. Clovis was physically bigger than her, but she was accustomed to fighting people bigger than her. If he fought on horseback, then perhaps he was less practiced or skilled in hand to hand combat than she was, and in any case, she had Walnut’s ice.
“You’re really paranoid sometimes, you know that, right?”
I’m prepared. There’s a difference.
“He’s friendly, Kes. He’s bringing us to see the sea— Oh! We’re getting close!”
Indeed, the smell of salt on the wind has grown stronger again, and Clovis had paused at the top of a little staircase. With a smile and a nod for him to continue, Kester followed him to the beach as the otter across her shoulders practically vibrated with excitement.
“Put me down! Put me down! Put me down!”
Okay, okay, Walnut. Immediately upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Kester knelt down so the otter could slip from her shoulders, and she watched as he raced toward the waves. The ocean’s not going anywhere, you know.
Shaking her head in exasperation, she looked back at Clovis as he presented the beach to her, offering him a smile. “I like it,” Kester agreed, glancing around before tipping her head in the direction of her wayward otter. Though the area felt safe, she didn’t like the thought of letting him stray too far. Walnut had reached the waves and was entertaining himself by playing some sort of game with them, running forward and then retreating as they ebbed and flowed. She was surprised he hadn’t disappeared into the water yet, but then he was always easily distracted.
Kester glanced at Clovis again. “Do you have a lot to worry about here? Everyone seems so…” She gestured vaguely in lieu of finding the proper word. No one wanted for anything. They had an entire population of slaves to take care of their every need, and they had an entire population of Dresmondi refugees building their primary defense against external threats - and, incidentally, acting as the first line of defense behind the wall, too. The deaths of her people would buy the Arynnites time to react and mobilize to prevent the deaths of theirs. What was there for him to worry about?
Walnut's excitement brought a smile to Clovis' face. As soon as Kester kneeled down to let the animal down, he ran towards the sea to play in the waves. The man looked at the otter, his hands on his hips, smiling widely, which had been a while since he had last smiled like this. Perhaps animals brought him peace, and he hadn't noticed this before. But these little dyrs were special, they were far more than just an animal or a pet.
The soldier looked back at Kester when he heard her soft voice. He nodded at her, happy to hear that she liked the beach and the sea. He shrugged slightly at her question. "Not really, but that's why I worry. Arynn Frey is very peaceful, and I'm not sure our people are ready for that peace to be disturbed. Even though he was brought up with slaves and knew they were a part of his culture, he had a weird feeling about it. "And I worry about your people. You're safe here, but your kingdom isn't, and your kingdom is our ally."
While Clovis watched Walnut race toward the waves, Kester happened to glance to the side and catch sight of his genuine happiness. His smile brought a pleased one of her own to her lips, and from where he played with the waves, Walnut radiated a happy satisfaction down his side of the bond as well. Brightening peoples’ days had always been the river otter’s favorite pastime, which was one of the many reasons why he and Kaveri got along so well.
She could tell from his tone that Clovis meant every word he said, but the thought of worrying because he didn’t have much to worry about was simultaneously so convoluted but understandable that she let out an amused exhale as she nodded along. The rest of his words sobered her up though. “No one is ever ready for peace to be disturbed,” Kester said in lieu of passing judgement of Arynn Frey’s military readiness. Even if the man beside her didn’t know more about that than she did, her thoughts were hardly flattering. A kingdom that had refugees building a wall and slaves performing all their dirty work for them would never be ready to face the Eldouir or Coheed. They would do well to pray that the redheads remained content with conquering one kingdom.
Kester also knew better than to believe that the Dresmondi were safe in Arynn Frey, though she could tell that Clovis believed it. Genuine and well-intentioned, he seemed like one of the good ones, but he was still as insulated as the rest of them. Nothing she could say would change that; words were not sufficient teachers for that which could only be learned through experience, and when speaking to an Arynnite, she always had to watch hers carefully. So with a smile, she nodded and accepted his concern. “Very kind of you to worry about us,” Kester said. “We’re all doing well. All things considered.”
His words seemed to amuse him. He wasn't sure why that was. People seemed to think he was dumb for worrying about how little there was going on in Arynn Frey, but he was a restless man. He wasn't made to sit around and wait. That mindset would be the kingdom's downfall when enemies crossed the border. He tried to get his men to see this time and time again. Not even the soldiers understood that they had to be ready. The man nodded when Kester said nobody was ready for the leave to be disturbed. "But they should be. The future is unpredictable." He often wondered if he had been born in the wrong kingdom. He shared the same opinions as she did. He wasn't a fan of having the refugees build a wall, and the slaves had made them a lazy people. Unprepared and lazy.
He was a book-smart fellow, definitely not a street-smart one. Having the peace disturbed by outsiders would be a great challenge, even for him, although he considered himself more prepared than others. He wondered how long he would be able to survive in Dresmond. "I'm glad you're doing well. I just hope we can help you to be doing good instead of just okay." He scratched his beard and returned his gaze to Walnut. "He chose you, right? I don't know much about dyrs, but they're fascinating creatures."