Sword and Snow

Avuri

"Scouts?"

"Yes." Eiry said again. Even though everyone knew such a thing was going to happen eventually - and probably soon, at that - stomachs still dropped and moods soured. The seemingly uneventful days after the initial declaration had dulled the frenetic nature of the situation over time, and now suddenly everything was an active problem again.

"What do we do?" Stena asked, sounding suddenly more like a child than she had in years.

"For the moment? Nothing." Vyne answered. "We've had scouts and spies running in and out of Bouquet's land the entire time. And just…removing a few of the enemy scouts from the field would be no different than declaring war ourselves."

"I have no doubt they would just say that their people were just inspecting new trade routes or trying to - oh, it doesn't matter." Ray said, throwing his hands up in obvious frustration. "Point is, they'll just make up some normal-sounding reason for why they were there, and say that we attacked them unprovoked."

"That's absolutely something my…Dain would do." Avuri said, refusing to call that man her father again. "He loves those sorts of traps and tricks. He thinks he's brilliant for using such obvious ploys, too." Avuri said sardonically, only to mutter "I suppose the real issue is that people seem to keep falling for it."

"Merchants are usually pretty crafty." Cyril offered while everyone else was still lost in thought. "It wouldn't surprise me if at least a solid portion of those merchants fell for those tricks on purpose to keep up a relationship with him."

"Ugh. I don't know if that's better or worse…" Avuri muttered.

"Anyway," Eiry said, getting everyone back on track, "the real information in this is that Bouquet hasn't sent out any noticeable infiltrators until now. I'm not dumb enough to think they don't have some scouts or spies among the people in our city, but assuming they have some, we haven't noticed them. And yet, we caught five people skulking about the borders last night, and two inspecting the city's walls."

"Ah." Emery said, as if something clicked for her. Her realization was in Avuri's head as soon as it had come to Emery, which was still something Avuri was getting used to.

"Yes." Eiry said, seeing Emery come to the same conclusion.

Cierra looked between them, still confused. "Someone want to clue the rest of us in?"

"It's unfortunately quite simple." Emery said. "Assuming they've been gathering information while successfully hiding this whole time, why did we suddenly catch seven of their people in one night."

"Oh."

"They must be close to making a move." Avuri said.

"Or they're declaring some sort of intention, at least." Lyn agreed. "It's hard to say exactly how serious the situation is, but what we do know is that something has changed."

"Does suddenly noticing scouts that are seemingly bad at their jobs mean an attack is coming?" Kord asked. "If anything, I would feel like the opposite is true, no?"

Stena shot him a confused look, while Ray motioned to him to continue and explain, despite most of the adults already understanding his point. He nodded and elaborated, "It would be the equivalent of dramatically showcasing a huge wind-up on a punch. If they've been gathering information hidden until now, suddenly showing their intentions so blatantly makes no sense."

"Right." Ray agreed. "It follows, then, that this could be a feint, like we said before. A trap to make us play our hand early to our own detriment. But there are other possibilities, too."

"It could be an intimidation tactic." Cierra said, offering her own opinion. "Maybe they aren't getting as much support as they were hoping for, and were using the obviousness of the scouts to say 'Here we are, what are you going to do about it?' as a sort of bluff?"

Lyn nodded. "We considered that. While the strategy being a bluff remains an option, your reasoning is incorrect. As far as our own intelligence is able to tell, Bouquet is doing an admirable job gathering allies."

"But like you said," Vyne added, "that doesn't mean that they aren't using this as a pressure tactic. They could be trying to scare us into backing down as an admittedly poor showing of power."

"What are the chances these scouts are a third party?" Glenn asked thoughtfully. "It's a strategy we've seen enough in wars throughout history. It could be a different group that wants the fight to start early."

"Unlikely." Cyril answered. "The group was so blatant that our spies in Bouquet had basically followed the group's departure from the Council's building. I suppose it could potentially be a third party's idea, but they are clearly in direct contact with Bouquet's officials."

Glenn nodded and seemed satisfied with that. "So we're still left either a trap or an intimidation tactic?"

"Or plain stupidity." Stena shrugged, and all eyes turned to her.

"How do you figure that?" Emery asked.

The sudden questioning and the extra attention made her cheeks turn red as she folded in on herself a bit before explaining. "We keep talking about how the Council - or at least the Mephras - are these mastermind merchants vying to take control, or how the doublespeak in that first letter was so well done. But the whole fiasco last year ended up being anything but masterful."

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That caused a few tilted heads, so Stena continued. "I don't necessarily think it's wise to plan anything going forward with this as the prevailing theory, but have we even considered that they're just…not as shrewd as we think they are? Maybe they genuinely waited until now to send any scouts at all because they're arrogant. And the scouts they picked are actually just bad at their jobs."

"I…suppose that situation is worth considering, at least." Eiry said. "It doesn't make the most sense, but it's not impossible."

"A merchant's ability to gather information and disseminate it is a core skill to doing their job." Avuri said, "I can't imagine that they would have such terrible spies on the payroll for any real reason."

"But how do merchants usually gather information?" Stena prodded. "They don't usually need spies, do they? They would just go through their merchant network."

Avuri smiled to herself while considering that. Stena was right, and must have actually been paying attention when Avuri had given them lessons on merchantry. "She's not exactly wrong. What is the trade situation like between the traders and merchants that frequent Flowing Dragon City and the ones that frequent Bouquet?"

"Not good. And getting worse." Lyn said. "Despite our cities being physically close, Bouquet's merchants have always tended to avoid us because of our high density of Cultivators, while coming from a weaker province themselves. While they dealt with us strictly for access to things from the Peaks, they didn't like it."

"And the merchants that use our city as a working base of operations have been avoiding Bouquet's merchants and the nearby cities since the pseudo-proclamation of war…" Cyril added, rubbing his chin.

"Could it really be that simple?" Ray asked.

"I wouldn't put any money down on it." Vale said, despite looking like he was heavily considering the idea. "But that doesn't mean it's not possible. Or likely, even."

"It's certainly an easy explanation for the state of things." Eiry allowed. "In the last several weeks, Bouquet's information sources have dried up because the lines of communication between all the merchants have been strained as they take sides in the presumed coming conflict. So, without any well trained spies they outsource the problem to some hired hands that aren't good at their job."

"If that is the case," Avuri said, finding herself more or less on board with the idea, "we should assume that they did also hire some genuinely talented spies as well. While I think the idea that their normal source of information drying up can definitely hold water, as it were, I think Stena's initial idea of it being raw stupidity is probably incorrect."

"Sorry…"

"Don't be sorry." Avuri said, offering her daughter a smile. "I think it's still wise to assume the Mephras are cunning, awful people. But even cunning people can make mistakes or simply be new to something. The idea that they had been relying on known connections as merchants for information until recently is a good one. And now that they aren't working out, they're trying something new. The only thing is, while you caught the bad scouts, Bouquet is wealthy. They almost certainly also went out of their way to hire very talented spies, too."

"In a roundabout way, if they've been using merchant connections until recently, hiring a bunch of dumb spies with the intention of getting them caught would also be a decent enough smokescreen to smuggle in some actually talented spies as well." Glenn said.

"That's not a bad point either." Vale agreed, turning toward Eiry. "I'm inclined to go with this idea. It makes more sense than the obvious trap or an attempt at intimidation."

Vyne seemed to agree as well, as he nodded. "Then we should put some manpower into examining any recent city arrivals. If the ones we caught were a function diversion - on purpose or not - we should double check to see if we can find any others that were better hidden."

"Agreed." Lyn said. Ray and Cyril put in their agreement as well. Eiry nodded to them, then turned to Avuri and Emery.

"What do you two think?"

Avuri was caught off guard, not expecting to be included so obviously. They had been there for so many years at this point, that she was used to the Elders essentially functioning like a governing body of their own. Even after the discussion weeks ago about their groups merging and perhaps even adding the Elders to their family in a sense, she hadn't expected the change to be so blatant.

"I think it's the most feasible scenario out of what we came up with." Avuri said. "I do think that stopping at the assumption that Bouquet messed up by only hiring bad spies is a bad move, though. Any new arrivals should be scrutinized. As should any merchants with any ties to Bouquet at all."

"Well, we're already watching those." Eiry agreed.

"I would look into any unknown Cultivators." Emery said, trying to offer something more substantial to the conversation. "If I were Bouquet in this situation, I would be trying to hire Cultivators as spies to infiltrate the city that they so commonly see as a big gathering hub for higher realm Cultivators."

"We can do that." Ray said. "It's easy enough for my people to look into any Cultivators they don't know. It's not exactly common for Sky Realm Cultivators to just appear without connections."

"Right." Emery agreed.

"Is that it?" Mica asked, prompting everyone to trade looks around the room, eventually most eyes landing on Eiry as the pseudo-leader of their group at that moment.

She sighed. "I think we talked ourselves out of viewing this as a sign of movement on their part, instead of landing on it being an attempt to regain footing they lost. I think that's a mistake," she said plainly. "We should still consider this as a precursor to movement from the enemy and prepare accordingly."

"I'm in agreement there." Vale said. "It feels like, despite their apparent lack of insider information, Bouquet is nearing the point where they have all the allies they need to make a move. I wouldn't be surprised to see the follow-up proclamation in the next several days. Perhaps two weeks."

Nods circled around the room at that.

"I guess it's time to pull back on training just a bit. We all need to be in fighting shape in case anything suddenly appears." Eiry said.

"Or at least avoid training to exhaustion." Vale agreed, eyeing Avuri and Emery. "That means you two."

Avuri shared a look with Emery, their shared thoughts bouncing between them quickly before Emery turned to face her father. "We'll see what we can do. For better or worse, we've been making a lot more progress in the last several weeks than we have in years. It's hard to just stop."

"You don't have to stop." Eiry said. "Just reign it in. Getting stronger, especially right now, is good. But just in case we get attacked, we can't have you both exhausted from a daily training session."

"We'll control ourselves. Maybe it's a good time to pull back on the physical training for a bit and focus more on the spiritual in the meantime." Avuri said.

Emery nodded in agreement. "I suppose that works."

"And the rest of us?" Kord asked. "Are we going to stop training, or just reduce the amount?"

The Elders collectively traded glances before settling on Eiry, who was looking right at Emery and Avuri. "I believe our plan is to just reduce the amount, but we also wanted to talk to your mothers about something related."

"Yes?"

"Following on from our conversation a few weeks ago in a sense…would you allow the five of us to live here in the Basin with you? At least temporarily while we deal with this…incursion."

Avuri turned to raise a questioning eyebrow at Emery. She didn't particularly have a problem with it, and apparently neither did Emery. Other than a potential lack of space.

"We're not against it." Emery said.

"But I think we'll need to work a few things out." Avuri added.

Eiry, for her part, nodded. "That was to be expected. Let's work things out before we call an end to this impromptu meeting, then."

"We can do that."