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One small figure still sat in the carriage that had carried the guard unit to Magdred. With a bow strung over his shoulder and his sword balanced on his knees, Kellen Fraldarius was having difficulty getting his legs to move. Or, frankly, any part of his body to move.

The morning’s announcement that they would be undertaking another mission had not found fertile ground in the young Fraldarius’s mind. He had been entirely silent during the briefing, the preparation, and the journey. Anyone who had tried to say hello would have been met with a haunted gaze and little else. It was only as he realized the carriage had been stopped for a few minutes that he now realized that despite his best efforts, his legs were not interested in operating. He couldn’t bear to look down to see what the possible cause of the newly-induced paralysis was. So his eyes remained fixed on the wall across from him.

These were the same carriages that had taken them to Luin. The proof was in the small grove in a wood beam that made up the wall of the carriage, one that Kellen found himself transfixed with for the second time in as many months. He couldn’t shake the thought of their last “outing”, despite his best efforts to distract himself from the images that sought to play themselves before him every time he let his focus drift from the grove. More than any of those images though, it was the all too precise memory of the smell that kept Kellen paralyzed. Blood. Sweat. Metal. 

The new students were lucky. They hadn’t done this before - he hoped. They didn’t know what was about to come. Kellen did. How Auberon, Jorah, Kayden, or any number among them could find themselves excited to find themselves back on another “mission” after the last was a query far beyond Kellen’s mental abilities. 

It was at this moment that Kellen’s sword slid off of his locked legs. It landed on the wooden floor of the carriage with a soft thud, just out of arm’s reach from Kellen’s sitting position. Instinctually, he crouched down to pick it up, and discovered with alarm that indeed, his legs were still perfectly functional. The soft utterance of a curse also confirmed that his vocal chords were working just fine as well. 

His head turned to look to the fog outside of the carriage. He could see Lienna, Kayden, and Clarissa, amongst other students, preparing for whatever was to come. Kellen's back straightened as best as it could in the cramped space of the carriage and he slid the sword and its scabbard back across his left hip. While he had no intention of using it, he had found in his sporadic practice with his bow that his already shaky stance tended to worsen when the familiar weight of his blade was not sitting just above his hip. Gingerly - he was still not quite comfortable wearing the thing - he slid the oak shortbow off of his back. A quiver of arrows sat just below his left shoulder blade, held up by a sturdy piece of leather that ran across his chest. 

As Kellen emerged from the carriage, he realized that his already limited skill with the bow would be further tested by the limited visibility. The sense of comfort that he had hoped would accompany his newly-chosen weapon was decaying rapidly.  Before his legs could lock up again, he quickly wandered over to his fellow students, just to catch the tail end of Kayden’s speech. Some piece of the future Emperor's confidence bolstered Kellen enough that he could get out a few words to the other students.

[color=63a2e4]“I’m sorry. I’m here now.”[/color]