A/N- Not to make excuses, but I'm having a hard time coming up with this part. I'm getting all the later parts now. ;) ....I just realized we haven't got Luvo yet.... (btw, "hedax" means roughly "lieutenant")
The hedax sized the travelers up at the gate. A young man, wearing leather working gloves, not uncommon. A girl, long black hair and a sullen expression. An older woman, less common with a pale face and teary red eyes. She sneezed and wiped her nose, quite deliberately, across her sleeve.
"What's your business traveling to Gyongxe?"
The boy answered. "My aunt's sick. We're taking her to the Temple mages."
"Why?"
"They don't charge. Can't afford anything else."
The hedax nodded. Plenty of people did the same thing. "Names?"
The girl spoke up now. "Since when does a border guard need to know peoples' names?"
"Since the Emperor decreed it so." He turned to the boy. "Have you got dirt in your ears? The decree came out last week."
"We've been traveling up from Zhen-Yan."
Zhen-Yan. It was a small city, known for raising goats, of all things. "A fair distance. Almost as far as Chammur."
The boy stiffened slightly. "Nearly. May we pass now?"
"Names first."
The boy frowned slightly, then gestured to the girl. "Laina." The woman, "My aunt Esperanza Atteneh. I'm. . . Roach."
"Roach?"
The boy grimaced. "It's bad, but not as bad as some of my mates got. Slowfoot. Worm."
The hedax smiled faintly. "My brother got 'Bug-nose.'"
"All the best have the worst names," the boy replied.
The hedax smiled again and waved them through the gate. However, after they were a ways away, he beckoned one of his scouts over from their camp by the roadside. "A young man and woman. You know the drill; follow them and report back tomorrow evening." Another imperial decree. Everyone who was potentially the mages from across the Endless Sea was tailed by a scout. The hedax wasn't told the reason for the decree, but it was obvious. Someone valuable had slipped through the emperor's fingers.
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