Never in her wildest dreams had Del imagined her first patrol would play out the way it had. In fact, when Bartholomew had told her that he bumped her patrol schedule up to that night, Del had expected to be the awkward greenhorn. Frankly, she would've preferred that to what she got.
"Why can't we take the carriage?" Norman Clyde, one of the senior runers, whined.
Jericho rolled his eyes. Clearly, this was the norm, though she couldn't fathom why. Licentious womanizer or not, Jericho seemed like a relatively responsive individual.
"Do you like pulling it or something?" Del questioned. She regretted the question almost immediately. Everybody except Norman and Beatrice, the only other female in the team, burst into laughter.
She couldn't understand why. Her curiosity was sincere. Norman was some kind of unicorn centaur mix, so the idea of him sitting in a wagon seemed too ridiculous to entertain. That said, centaurs were notoriously proud creatures, so the thought of him demeaning himself by taking the role of a beast of labor was equally ridiculous. One way or another, the laughter continued and Del could only stand awkwardly as Beatrice started the most pretentious attempt at a lecture Del had yet to endure.
"Pull a carriage?!" Beatrice snapped in a pitch so shrill she likely had every hound in a ten mile radius howling. "Norman Clyde? Just who do you think you are?!"
"I'm Delivera Stone," Del replied shortly. "That's a fact, by the way, not a thought."
"Oh, ha ha, cupcake girl thinks she's so clever!" Beatrice sneered. "Yeah don't think I didn't see that!"
"You're a mind reader?" Del asked with a raise of her brow, unable to help herself. she could feel herself smiling, even as her fists clenched tightly and shook with anger. Del didn't like being singled out, and she was not about to let herself get bullied by an incompetent senior.
"No," Beatrice scoffed as though it was the stupidest question she'd ever been asked.
"Then don't tell me what I think," Del hissed through her teeth. It was about this time Jericho recovered from his laughing fit. She suspected he sensed the trouble building quickly between her and Beatrice.
"Ladies, ladies, there's no need for hostility," Jericho said smoothly, sliding between them.
"Whatever you say Jericho," Beatrice gasped in a dreamy tone.
If Del's eyes could roll any harder, they would've popped out of her head. Disgusted with Beatrice's antics as she started flirting shamelessly with Jericho, Del turned her attention to to the rest of group. Norman had turned to the other member of the protective detail. Gairovald, she believed was his name.
"But seriously," Norman was saying, "can't we take the carriage?"
"The stable is farther from us than the section of wall we're supposed to inspect," Del frowned. "Are you lame or something?"
"I am a perfectly extraordinary Individual!" Norman snapped indignantly. "Are all gargoyles so barbarically rude?"
"I'm pretty sure I get it from my unicorn side," Del replied tartly, earning another indignant gasp. "And do I seriously have to explain to you that I meant 'lame' as in injured and unable to walk? Illiterate asshole!"
"I'm not illiterate!" Norman colored. "I am from a prestigious line! My parents were decidedly married when I was convinced!"
Del could only shake her head.
"I will tell you the same thing I told you last time," Gairovald intervened with an unreadable expression. She sensed he was amused, but it was hard to gauge. He had a pretty good poker face. "Give me 5,000 gold and I'll consider it."
Norman's expression brightened, and an incredulous Del watched as he actually reached for his coin pouch. He was about to hand the whole thing over when a thought occured to him. He scowled and brought the pouch back to his chest.
"You said that last time... but when I paid you, you didn't get the carriage." Norman pouted.
"I told you I would consider it and I did," Gairovald shrugged. Norman grumbled a bit and put the bag away. Then Gairovald turned his intense stare on her, and Del thought her heart might stop.
At first glance, Gairovald hadn't seem particularly special, but that was largely because Del really hadn't been looking at him. Seeing him now, she suspected that was his intent. Actually acknowledging him, Del realized that he was likely one of the most unique of the many chimera dwelling within the Arcanum, even more so than her. The reptilian appearance of his violet eyes were a dead giveaway of his draconic blood. A pair of spiraling horns grew from either side of his head, and his nails had an almost claw-like quality.
Based on the dark shade of his skin and the length and pointy-ness of his ears, she realized that there was some Drow in the mix as well. She took in his platinum hair, streaked with lilac a periwinkle and realized with some wonder his outfit matched the colors in his eyes and hair.
Feeling more and more embarrassed as time continued to pass, Del tried to pry her gaze away, but she couldn't. For all his fetching qualities, an aura of ominous darkness emanated from him which she found both fascinating and terrifying.
"You trying to burn a hole through my forehead or something, Ms. Stone?" Gairovald questioned. He retained his overall stoicism, but his tone was laced with an insufferable amusement.
Embarrassed, Del jerked her gaze away and clenched her jaw. There was nothing she could say that wouldn't sound completely foolish, so she chose to say nothing at all. She couldn't hear it, but she sensed Gairovald laughing at her from behind.
"Alright, that's enough of you dragging your feet," Jericho stated as he worked to shake Beatrice off his arm. "Let's get this over with so we can get to bed."
It was a short walk to the barrier boundaries, but it seemed to take an eternity. At first, Del had hoped against hope the other three members of her team, Chester Winfeild, Robert Raulden, and Edward Aldrich, would be somewhat helpful teammates. They weren't. As it turned out, they were just as skilled at the art of whining as Norman. In fact, she heard more whining during the seven minute walk to the rune wall than she'd heard in all the rest of her life.
"This is completely pointless!" Edward was saying. "I am an heir to a the Aldrich line! To demean myself by stopping so low as play the part of a lowly enlisted dog... it's outrageous!"
"Don't you ever get sick of singing the same old tune?" Jericho exhaled. The others hadn't heard the comment over their own complaints.
"Forgive me..." Bartholomew finally spoke up for the first time since Del had scolded him from trying to take a swing at Jericho. "I had expected that your team would be more... professional. Most of the others were, and this one is lead by two of the top students!"
They both glanced to Gairovald, who seemed quite bored, and Jericho. Del could only come up with one reason they would assign such a capable protective detail to such an unruly and incompetent batch of runers... though it worried her that administration had felt the need to assign her to this troop.
"My bet is this particular group needs the best of the best to save them from their own stupidity," Del replied in a low voice. "Am I really that much of a problem student?"
Before Bartholomew had a chance to respond, they reached the wall. Del gasped in awe as she took in the shimmering runes, charged with an energy that rippled down the stone cliff scape like a ethereal river. If she focused hard, she could see the elaborate weaving of magical tendrils rising from the wall to the sky. She had heard stories from her father of the majestic scene, but this was her first time seeing it in person. She felt spellbound.
"They say that the foundations of most runes stem from the constellations..." Del breathed as she watched the energy rise high into the clear night sky above.
"Nerd," Beatrice scoffed. Del ignored her. She refused to let the antagonistic words of an overgrown child ruin the moment.
Feeling dizzy, she closed her eyes and released her magical sight. She had only recently learned how to activate the ability, and could only sustain it for extremely brief periods of time. Already she felt a headache coming on, but it was worth it.
She thought she felt someone staring, but when she turned all eyes were on Norman who was neck deep in yet another pretentious explanation of how he was too good for patrols. Unsettled, her gaze swept to Gairovald who was staring out across the fields past the safety of the barrier. Curious she followed his line of sight and let out an involuntary gasp.
"What is it now?!" Norman snapped, put out by the interruption. "Have you not already insulted me enough this night?"
Del wasn't sure how to respond, flustered by his tone and by what she had seen. A zombie, for the first time in her life she'd actually seen an honest-to-goodness zombie! She had heard they were an unsettling sight, but she felt the description was a huge understatement.
The grotesque bloating of what remained of the rotting flesh and tissue clung to exposed bone, stained brown from contact with rancid remains of oozing fluids. Even at a distance, she could see the otherworldly light blazing in empty eye sockets, seeming to watch them with intense determination. Was that normal?
"Hello?!" Beatrice called tartly. "Aren't you listening Cupcake? Norman's talking to you!"
"What?" Del took a breath to steady herself and turned her gaze back to the party. She realized with extreme discomfort that all eyes were now on her.
"Gods above, are you stupid or something?!" Beatrice exclaimed.
"Not compared to you," Gairovald snapped, to everyone's surprise. "Would you kindly shut up already? I swear every time you open your mouth I can feel more braincells die."
An awkward silence fell. Apparently he'd reached the limits of his patience. Del expected the girl to bristle and fight back, but to her surprise Beatrice ducked her head and looked away instead.
Quietly, for the first time since they'd departed the tower, everyone went to work. Left more or less to herself, Del happily investigated the runes. Never had she seen such masterful writing! Runes were written within runes in diversely dizzying displays that held an almost mosaic like quality. It was if she was looking at a story she couldn't quite understand, though she was eager to.
"Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" Del asked Bartholomew.
"That's hard to say," Bartholomew shrugged. "Beauty is highly subjective, after all."
"That's a fair point," said Del.
It didn't take long for them to scour the designated area and determine all rune wards were in good order. Compared to the time the other five had wasted in coming, it seemed to blow by in the blink of an eye. It was a mystery they couldn't just suck up their pride and get the work over and done with. it would make the process much less painful.
Not withstanding her grievances with her teammates, Del was grateful for the experience. She had taken a few rubbings of some especially unique rune sets that had been within her reach and intended to start studying them and their properties as soon as she got back to her room.
No, there was no denying she had enjoyed her work, yet Del was still left unsettled. The zombie had not moved in all the time they'd worked, and she doubted that was normal. This left a question burning in her mind as they trekked back to the tower.