After dishing out another round of educational petting and after treating Tabbris' paralyzed face, they went toward the inner parts of the city.
The whole thing was quite... unusual.
A Warg in eye-catching gear, a strong-looking rider, and a warrior in Mythril armor walking by the side. Their quirky group was truly a marvel to look at.
GTA was left waiting while Tabbris went to request an audience with The King... again.
Gerald didn't mind. The place where he left him was quite nice. Not quite up to modern standards, but it was close. A nice construction made of stone, a palace of some sort, with a courtyard and a small pond with colorful fishies swimming inside.
Thanks for the meal!
Toby immediately tried to have a taste. He last ate hours ago and was getting peckish.
"Don't even think about it!" Gerald pulled him back and sternly scolded him, "You glutton! I know you can go a full week without eating, don't even think about eating those fish! You even ate an entire Orc a few hours ago!"
Toby made an offended expression like he was just wronged. He was trying to say: "It's not true! There was an entire leg left behind! I'm innocent!"
But Gerald wasn't having any of it. "We are guests here, so act like it! Puff your chest out and lift your head like this. We need to convince the old dude to let us take a peek in his library, who knows what goodies are hiding in there?"
Hearing the word "Goodies," the Warg started salivating and quickly took a heroic pose. Toby sat on his butt and lifted his head towards the sky like a good boy.
The sun was shining on his fur which was now already a nice dark bronze color. With each passing day, it looked better and healthier than ever before and it was shining in the light... until it wasn't.
A giant shadow covered the pair and blocked the sun as a flock of giant eagles dove toward them.
"Hahaha, what a surprise! Looks like someone else is here already!"
A man being carried by two Shadow Eagles in a sling came laughing as he neared the ground. Behind him was another person, this one a woman, and was similarly being carried by a pair of birds.
"Miss Lynn! Young Master Ron! Please don't leave me behind! You know what the general will do to me if he finds out you were flying without your entourage," came shouting a man riding a horse. Right behind him were another ten or so riders that were clearly having trouble keeping up.
Ron Carre jumped off his ride just as the birds were landing and lifting up a cloud of dust. He smiled, "Relax Omar, nobody is getting into trouble, we were just having some fun."
Omar quickly rode closer and got off his mount, catching his breath and cursing quietly to himself, and then made a pained expression, "You always say that Young Master, but I'm the one that gets punished every time!"
'Miss Lynn?' Gerald tilted his head. He felt as if he heard this name once before. But alas, it was probably long ago and he couldn't quite remember where to put it.
"Who are you people?" He eventually asked.
Ron Carre stopped fooling around with his guardian and did a bow as he presented himself. "My name is Ron Carre, son of Crag Carre, the Guardian of the West…" Then he pointed to the girl beside him, "And this is my cousin, Lynn Carre. Nice pet, by the way."
As he was saying so, he also examined Gerald from top to bottom. In his mind, anyone staying here in the palace should be an important figure, however, he couldn't quite figure out who the guy was.
"I'm not quite familiar with…" he gestured at Gerald. "You must be the heir of the Guardian of the East, Ewart Holt, correct?" he said, figuring out he must be a part of the Holt family since he never met any of the general's offspring.
"Uh, no." Gerald frowned. Why would this guy think this way? He was just blindly guessing his origin!
"No?" Ron was surprised, "Then, who might you be?"
"I'm Gerald." As you might expect, the name didn't mean much to someone who just came to Auralba a day or two ago, and neither did Black Onyx.
"Um, sorry, I'm not familiar with your name… What family do you belong to?"
But once again, the question didn't bear fruit. "No family," Gerald shook his head. "I don't have-"
"Gerald?" A man interrupted the conversation, but nobody minded as it wasn't going anywhere anyway. It was not difficult to recognize the face, especially since it was accompanied by an extremely excited person.
"Oh my god, where've you been?! I can't believe we ran into you here!" Trevor was just as lively as always, running up to Gerald as if they were years-long best buddies.
"We?"
At that time a few more people came through the front door, two of which were his teammates, Rayner, and Renna. They simply glanced in their direction and gave a nod of acknowledgment.
Behind them came the entire group of Phoenix Knights, with Ravian, Tabbris' right hand, leading them.
The man scanned the crowd but seemingly couldn't find the one he was looking for. He did notice Gerald though. Standing beside an eye-catching Warg was not something people could just ignore after all.
"Hello," Ravian greeted and then went straight to the point, "Tabbris is not here? He said he had to talk to you and that we should wait for him here…"
"About that…" Gerald explained how the man in question went to request an audience with The King and would probably be late.
As they were chatting, servants entered the courtyard as well and started delivering food and handing out refreshing drinks.
All the newcomers were seemingly aware of what was going on and didn't make a fuss, instead, they took the wine and continued chatting among themselves.
"Oh yeah, Tabbris! Haven't seen him in a while," Ron inserted himself into the conversation while holding a wine cup like a refined gentleman. "Where is his cute sister, I miss her pretty little face."
The man said it casually and while smiling amicably. However, apparently, it didn't sit well with some.
"Aren't you married? Where is your wife?" Igrit from Phoenix Knights asked with an accusatory tone that would make any man cringe. It didn't bother Ron though, or at least that's what it seemed on the surface as his expression didn't change one bit.
"Yeah, so what?" he smiled. "I left my women at home, a war is not something to be taken lightly after all. Still, I wouldn't mind taking the cute little Aster as my third concubine."
"Oh, and you look pretty nice as well, you could be the fourth," Ron winked at her.