Roan paces back and forth in front of the Micah's kitchen sink. From this angle he can see the forest path that the Draven will be taking to get here. "Would you stop pacing like you are nervous." Nery rolls her eyes before scooping a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.
Roan stops pacing and whips his head towards her. "I am nervous."
"Exactly. When they get here you cannot show them that you are nervous. You need to take control of the situation. You need to be their bravery because I can guarantee they are afraid."
Roan sighs, his shoulders dropping a few inches. "How are you so good at this?"
Nery shrugs her shoulders. "It's a gift."
"I raise each of my children to be exceptional." Atari Dean walks through the kitchen carrying a large stack of water bottles in his arms. "I raise them so that any one of them could be the next Atari of the Micah pack."
Aiden chuckles bitterly, glaring at the back of Mason's curly head of hair. "Except we all know the golden boy is the actual chosen one." Dean does not say anything back to his son, only taking a moment to look at him as he takes the water outside.
"Do you always have to be so bitter?" Zayn stands on the opposite side of the table from his brother but that would not stop Aiden from swiping at him if he wanted to.
Before Aiden can reply, Amelia drops three heavy bags on the table. Almost everyone is here; Aiden, Nery, Mason, Zane, Josh, Noa, Roan and even Botari Earl, Atari Dean's younger brother, came back from his trip to the Ren pack. "No arguing, we have people coming here who are going to need help, so I need all hands-on deck."
Amelia waits for Dean to close the sliding glass door when he comes back inside before speaking again. "Today, I am in charge, you do as I say, when I say, and how I say it, are we all clear? I do not want any arguing, today is about helping and we cannot do that if we are trying to tear each other down." Amelia smiles when she is satisfied that everyone understood her clearly. "Excellent, now let's get the rest of the aid outside."
"I see your human still wears the boots in your relationship brother." Botari Earl whispers to his brother whilst passing him with a crate in his arms.
The growl stuck in Dean's throat vibrates quietly through his rib cage. "Brother, it is good to have you back."
After twenty minutes of setting up tables and tents alike, Roan stops suddenly. "What is it? Is everything okay?" Nery asks him.
Roan turns his head, his eyes losing focus, his ears pick up a low vibration in the air that makes his skin tremble. "They are here." Roan turns his entire body around, away from the table, spotting four small dots in the sky.
"They are here." he repeats, slowly walking past the others towards the approaching Dragon's in the sky. "It is them."
His slow walk turns into a slow jog as fireworks go off in his chest. "They are here!"
Before the Dragons land, they spin in the air their wings curling around their bodies. Their forms morph mid-air and the four Draven land on the lush green field of grass. "Your highness." Isis, Firroth, Ivan and Zaria respectfully bow their heads.
The smile that was growing on Roan's face slowly fades the closer he gets. When he reaches Isis, he notices the stained white bandage covering her left eye. When Roan reaches for her face, Isis does not flinch away, letting him slowly peels the bandage off her eye, revealing the gash starting from her brow and carving horizontally across the eye that has sealed itself shut because of how swollen it has become.
"It was a long and bloody battle." Firroth informs Roan. "Casualties on all sides." Firroth's clothes have been slashed to pieces. Ivan and Zaria are covered in bruises all over their bodies and their knuckles are raw.
Isis cups Roan's face in her hands. "But we are free now." A tear slides down her face from her healthy eye, gliding on top of a thin coat of blood and sweat. "We are free."
Roan nods his head. "We are free."
"We have incoming." someone shouts from behind them.
They turn around just in time to see the hoard of Draven slowly stumbling towards them. They carry everything in their arms, their children, items of belonging and even the dead in some circumstances; their faces and clothes stained with black smoke from the aerial attacks they endured.
When they settle down in the field, the Micah pack rush around, guiding people to tents, placing mats and blankets for people to sit down on and handing out bottles of water and food.
Amelia gathers a team of Draven with medical skills and sets up a tent for them to work in but Roan notices the stacks of bodies growing in the tent hidden away in the back where bodies are being covered in white sheets.
Roan helps as best as he can, carrying items for people so that they can pick up their children and offering the aid that his people need.
Amelia grabs her husband as he passes by and takes him to the corner of the tent. "This is more people than we anticipated, we are going to run out sooner rather than later."
"Do not worry. I made a few calls, the Voltiac and Conaru packs will be here soon."
"What about the Serah pack and the Ivory pack? We have better relationships with the Serah's and the Ivory's than we do the Conaru or the Voltiac."
Dean rest his hands on his wife's shoulders. "They are further out than the other two. They say they will be here in a day or two."
Amelia releases the caged breath in her lungs. "Okay, good, good, that is good." Amelia sighs as more people filter into the medical tent. "I have to get back." Dean pulls her back and kisses her before letting her run off again.
As Dean leaves the tent, a swirling black portal appears across the field. Initial soldiers wearing shiny silver metal and carrying impressive looking silver bladed staffs, filter in, carrying large silver chests that are so heavy that it takes three soldiers to carry each of them.
After the soldiers' finish going through the portal, the Professor and Augustine, the King of the Nature Faction, and Meliora, the Queen of the Metal Faction, walk out of the smoke followed by the rest of Augustine's Alchemist cabinet.
Nery runs up to Dean, carrying a stack of towels in her arms. "Dad, who are they?"
"Go get your mother." Dean meets Augustine and the Professor halfway. "Your highness."
"Is that how you speak to an old friend?" Augustine and Dean grab each other's arms and pull each other into a bear hug. "I heard you needed help."
Dean nods his head. "Yeah, we did not expect their numbers would be this large."
"Neither did we." The Professor plays with his gloves hands whilst scanning his eyes over the Draven. "I would not have dropped them on you like this if I had known...but we are here now."
Meliora, wearing thin silver armour, stomps her staff into the ground. "My men are at your disposable Atari Dean." The sun of Sherwood makes her smooth, dark skin glisten like her armour.
Amelia jogs over to her husband wearing blue latex gloves that are covered in someone else's blood. "What is going on?"
"This is my wife and the Lunari of our pack." Dean introduces her to the Initials. "She is the one running this operation."
"Do you have any doctors? We have a lot of people injured out there that will die if they do not get help soon." she asks them.
"My people can assist with that." Augustine follows Amelia to the medical tent with the rest of the Alchemist and they get started, handing out vials of Azanor to those with minor injuries.
Whilst Dean and Meliora discuss setting up a perimeter, the Professor hums a tune to himself whilst walking around the sick and injured.
It will take him a week to summon a Capital for the Draven so he has come here for some inspiration of which to tether to the rest of Earth Realm. However, after meeting these people, there is only one place from the old world that would be suitable for them.
Capital two hundred will be Eretraya and it will be the home of all Draven.