Ery
Everyone was on edge. Word was out that Bouquet had their preparations for a march underway, and there was no escaping the general worry that seed to effuse the entirety of the Basin. It had even gotten to the point that the younger kids seed worried about it, concerned by the way their older siblings were unable to sleep well.
Flowing Dragon City itself couldn't even escape it. The Elders had been mustering their forces and using maintained areas of the Wilds just outside the city as a staging ground, which had only heightened the tension throughout the city. There wasn't a lot of doom and gloom, as most people in the city trusted the Elders and their defenders to defend the city, but that didn't defend anyone from the fear and worry about what was to co.
Ray and Eiry were regularly taking trips up and down the peaks, along with Mica, Cove, and Glenn, to take care of the myriad of logistical problems that mustering the city's forces ran into, while Vyne, Cyril, and Lyn remained stationed within the Basin to handle the complicated tangle of Arrays being used for communication and planning, which had been set up in a new building all their own.
Ery had insisted that they not turn any part of their ho or their kids' hos into a functional war room, and when Avuri backed her up the Elders relented. No one had objected to their intelligence center being in the Basin, though, so Vyne had enlisted Stena, Briar, and Karn to help him grow and shape so Qi-infused wood into a usable building to set everything up in. Together, they had created what ended up looking like a faux tree with a hollow interior and a ss of built-in shelves on every wall to house the communication Arrays, and a large wooden table in the center of the room to function as a map table.
Everyone seed satisfied with it, as the hollow tree kept a lot of the planning away from the daily life that did its best to continue in the Basin at large. With the conflict breathing down their necks, Ery and Avuri did their best to keep whatever normal rituals they could ongoing. The family still ate their dinner together as much as possible, and chores continued mostly unimpeded.
They did add an extra gathering each day to go over ergency plans as a family, teaching everyone what to do in different scenarios. Ery could not thank Talya enough, who had been hard at work on reinforcing and layering more defensive Arrays into every place in the Basin she could. She felt a little bad about having her sister hard at work when Mylo still wasn't quite a year old yet, but her skill with Arrays far outstripped anyone else in the Basin - and that alone could literally save lives if it ca to it.
The speed at which the situation was developing seed to be both fast and slow to Ery. Despite all of her experience with dangerous situations and battles between Sects, this sort of larger-scale conflict was new to her. She was used to seeing a Sect descend upon their enemy within a day or two after they had been slighted, with minimal planning beyond 'attack the enemy!'. Now, she watched as sweeping planning took place, with each move being deliberated on and debated.
But in a contradictory way, despite every individual move feeling like it lagged on forever, the amount of movent was massive. The Elders could spend a day debating a decision on and off, but once that decision was made, hundreds - sotis thousands - of people were moved. It was massive, and once a course was plotted, things moved quick.
With one notable exception. It seed like every day more intelligence ca in that Bouquet was still making preparations. Their allies seed to be always gathering, making their way to their own staging grounds, with no truly new developnts. And the wait to hear that they were finally on the move in so capacity was agonizing for everyone involved.
It beca a regular topic at dinner. Everyone could feel the anticipation for things to begin. It felt like everyday, more worries piled on top of all the old ones as they all made preparations for what was to co and the waiting made it all worse. No one truly wanted the battle to co, and yet the desire for the enemy to march on them was a constant whisper.
Everyone in the Basin just wanted things to start so that they could end.
There had finally co a point, nearly a month after Ery and Avuri had attacked the mountainside camp, where even the Elders were at a loss. They had discussed everything they could, to the point that while they were still holding daily etings that lasted most of the day, they ended up talking in circles.
They were simply as prepared as they were ever going to be.
And then, finally, word ca that Bouquet's forces had begun to prepare to march.
Ery had been worried that even once they had received that news that everything would still feel like it was taking ages to progress - she had been wrong.
It seed like confirmation that the enemy was simply marching west was all they were all waiting on. The Flowing Dragon defenders marched from the city's staging ground the sa day, heading into the Dying Lands to form the front and wait to defend their land.
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Vyne had all but locked himself into the 'Intelligence Tree' as they had taken to calling it, coordinating movents and keeping their map up to date with all sorts of wooden tokens and statuettes denoting positions and fighter counts. All of the other dragons and Dragon-Kin ca and went from the Tree, keeping an eye on the overall movent throughout the day.
Discussions marked the day. The news that the enemy was moving had disrupted normal life finally, and things were in a sort of ergency pattern. The younger kids still perford their chores and daily practice, but the older kids and adults mostly spent the day talking in hypotheticals and discussing the movent on the map.
Bouquet's movent all day had been surprisingly straightforward. None of the information they received had deviated from the enemy simply moving straight toward them.
Even after discussing it all day, there weren't many reasons anyone could co up with for such a straightforward approach. Either Bouquet had more fighting strength than the Elders were aware of, and were confident in their ability to perform in a straightforward fight, or there was so trap that remained well hidden.
Ery's concern was that it was the forr. A trap they couldn't see coming - so long as it matched with what they knew of Bouquet's fighting strength - could be dealt with. It might be costly, but they would manage.
If Bouquet's army had power that outstripped the Elders, then this was about to be an absolute disaster.
And neither option was clearly indicated by any of the intelligence that they had been able to gather.
Discussions of what to do in either situation, or a myriad of other, far less plausible ones, had basically eaten up the entire day. Eiry, at least, was entirely confident in her spies' and intelligence agents' ability to gather information so that they wouldn't be completely blind-sided by everything. At no point did that confidence feel like it crossed the line into arrogance, so Ery felt at least mostly comfortable in putting her trust into the dragon-woman.
Together, they all decided that the most likely outco was that Bouquet was fielding so particularly noteworthy Cultivators hidden among their normal forces. Perhaps even so dragons that had ties to Aysol.
If Avuri was correct and they could trust Bouquet's leaders to be smart, it was by far the most logical option. If they trusted their spies, and took so sort of dastardly plot off the table, that ant they were confident in a fight. But if Bouquet wanted to continue trying to put on a publicly acceptable face to their allies and the greater world, they couldn't simply put a bunch of Heavenly Realm Cultivators on the field.
In battles like these, there were always rules to minimize needless bloodshed. A single Heavenly Realm Cultivator could wipe out a literal army of Earth Realm Cultivators - and those were who made up the majority of either side. While they could win that way, other powers that be would co down on them for the mass slaughter of their opponent.
But they could hide more Sky Realm Cultivators among their forces than would be expected to give them an edge. Or scatter a few dragons among the battle to cover their side and nudge the battle secretly in their favor while trying to remain hidden.
So long as they didn't reveal themselves and didn't slaughter the masses, they could get away with that. Which also ant, if that was the route the enemy was taking, identifying those opponents and moving to oppose them specifically would be Ery and Avuri's primary objective.
In addition, because this was falling under a more traditional large-scale conflict rather than defending their city and townsfolk, the Flowing Dragon side had to abide by the sa rules. Showing up as Nyr with six dragons to turn the tide would be t with the sa widespread disapproval if they actually acted against those that were Realms below them.
The entire thing would end up being an exercise in balance, trying to apply the right amount of force in the right place. And Avuri kept assuring everyone throughout the day that if that was, indeed, her old family's plan, they were shrewd enough to pull it off.
Dinner that night was a subdued affair. The looming battle and danger weighed on everyone, even the kids that would hopefully not see any of the conflict. But even the inkling of an idea that their mothers might not return was enough to set everyone on edge. And Ery and Avuri didn't want to lie to everyone and promise they'd return perfectly fine, so the unease just sat with everyone, uncontested.
At least until the kids started finishing their als - then they were all over Ery and Avuri. Their children, regardless of age, ca over and hugged them or tried to take turns sitting in their laps. They responded in kind, returning the embraces or whatever else the kids wanted. It was a somber display, but at no point did either woman let things devolve into crying.
Ery did not like the idea of clinging onto sothing as epheral, and perhaps trite, as hope or luck. It felt cheap and fake to her, simply believing that they would make it through this because of so vague notion in the ether. There was equally no doubt that the people on the opposing side clung to their own opposing version of hope, too.
Hope would not win the day, nor keep anyone safe.
Instead, Ery believed in herself and her family. In their skills and abilities and strength. While she made no promises to her children that they would return, that didn't an she felt like they wouldn't. So that was what she told her kids. That she trusted in their skills. That she was confident in their ability to fight against whatever it was that was headed their way.
The family didn't scatter after dinner like normal. No one had anything they'd rather do than spend whatever ti they could together with the danger breathing down their necks. Eventually, Ery and Avuri both got overwheld by the amount of people climbing over them, and forced the group to leave the dining pavilion in favor of the ditation pavilion. There were still the normal cushions laid out, but the covered building was mostly empty space.
While the Elders had broken off to keep an eye on Vyne and his communications, and Mica, Glenn, and Cove had excused themselves to spend so ti on their own as well, the entirety of the Wiria family ended up huddled together in a great pile. Ery was buried under arms and legs, as more than thirty people clung to one another, reluctant to let go.
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