A/N: Extremely character focused chapters are hard to write. T_T

"Come in," the voice came through the door once they knocked.

Cato glanced at Landar, her face was still screwed up with tension. She nodded once, eyeing the door as if it would catch on fire. He reached out and pushed the wooden sliding door to the side.

"Father," Landar nodded curtly as they entered and sat down opposite the table from the stern faced man.

Yan gave a slight bow of acknowledgement but otherwise didn't show any further reaction. Cato bowed shallowly in greeting but let Landar talk.

"Since I won that duel, I will have you agree to not interfere with my life," Landar continued.

Cato instantly regretted leaving it up to Landar.

Her father closed his eyes and seemed to brace himself. "What do you mean by that?" Yan asked.

"I mean you don't push me and Cato into marriage or anything else," Landar said. Cato could feel her beginning to heat up and patted her shoulder to calm her down. She nodded and settled back down.

Yan glanced at Cato and looked back at Landar, "is that all?"

Now it was her turn to look hesitant. She scowled down at the table for a long while before speaking, "what were you thinking when you proposed to arrange a marriage for me? Why do you insist on testing my power all the time?"

"Your magical strength is an indicator of your dedication to Iris, without a strong spirit, no one in this family would accept you," Yan then sighed visibly, raising eyebrows on Cato's side of the table. He continued, "but I suppose that doesn't matter anymore. By now, the rumours of your relationship will have ruined any chance of you finding a husband among the Six. "

Yan looked at the table, if it wasn't for the man's stoicness, Cato might have thought he even looked a little sad!

"I would never want to marry someone from the Six, knowing what we Iris are like," Landar retorted, waving a hand in her father's direction, "and I'm not even required, since you still have my older brothers. "

Older brothers? Cato blinked, then realized just how little he knew of Landar's family life. How many brothers did she have? And why hadn't he met them yet?

"Indeed, their performance at Algami Plains has been very satisfactory, I hope to have Riki marry the second daughter of the second branch family," Yan nodded.

"So, give me your word, say that you will not interfere with me any further," Landar demanded.

Yan looked bitter but closed his eyes and nodded, "fine. You have it. "

Landar blinked for a long moment, as if she couldn't believe it. Cato sighed mentally, she probably thought she had won somehow.

"Landar, I don't think you understood what I meant," Cato said, he turned to her father, "we haven't heard his reasons, only an explanation. Tell me, sir, what do you want to gain?"

Yan looked at Cato levelly, "a stable and happy life for her. I do not trust you can provide the stability she needs. "

"Perhaps she does not want it?" Cato ventured, pushing down on Landar's shoulders, "no Landar, I know you're going to say you don't want it but are you sure you're not saying that just because you don't like your father?"

That gave her pause for thought. And seemed to stun Yan into silence as well.

"I will not pretend to understand your relationship," Cato said, "I cannot when I do not share any of your history. But I think, as an outsider, that both of you have not understood each other. Maybe your relationship is beyond salvaging, I wouldn't know, but I think it would be sad not to try. "

They were still silent, but at least Landar wasn't glaring at her father anymore and his face wasn't looking like a stern icy cliff.

"I can't do this," Landar said softly, "I don't even know if I want to understand. I could walk away from all of Iris and not look back, I have my own life now and I don't want to have to justify it to him. "

She got up and opened the door slowly, "I'm sorry, it's just... too hard to go back now. "

Cato looked at her father, who was now doing his best to look like a statue. "She may just need some time," Cato said, "I doubt feelings can change so quickly after so many years of bad blood. "

He got up to go.

"Cato, please stay," Yan said to him.

"What is it?" Cato sat back down.

"I know I said I wouldn't interfere but I have to know if you are planning to marry Landar," Yan said.

Cato looked at the man carefully. He sat behind the table, straight as a ramrod, still looking strong despite his recent loss in the duel. Or perhaps... Cato had a thought.

"Are you worried about her?" Cato asked.

His cheeks twitched.

"At present, we have no such plans," Cato sighed, "besides, isn't jumping to marriage a little too quick?"

"You would have to get engaged first, according to tradition," Yan said, "marriage is after one year. "

"Thank you for telling me that. Where I came from, we called it a dating period. "

"Then you will do that? Dating Landar?" Yan asked again.

"In our tradition, both of us agree to date, it is not something arranged," Cato explained.

"So is there some reason you have not agreed to date?" Yan asked, as if wondering aloud, "if you need money, the Iris clan can provide-"

Cato shook his head, "Money is not a problem for us, believe me. We earn more than enough to live luxuriously. In fact, if it wasn't for our experiments, I wouldn't know what to do with all that money. "

"So you just haven't asked her?!" Yan said incredulously, "you do know there are rumours that Landar has been sleeping with you? You are lucky that those rumours are not credible. "

Cato winced. He had not known that.

"I will not have Landar suspected of sleeping with you for advantage." Yan said coldly, "ask her and put the rumours to rest. "

He glared at Cato with no small amount of anger in his eyes. Cato did not think bringing up the promise not to interfere would do any good right now.

"Give me some time, I don't even know if Landar or I want such a relationship," Cato sighed.

What were they anyway? Friends for certain, but was there something more?

Cato didn't have an answer for that.

Yan snorted, "looks like it's not just me who has to think about our relationship. "

Cel Inci in Minmay descended from the Inath tradition, inherited from the First. The entire city had descended into a commercial frenzy of special offers, special goods and festive sweets and snacks. It reminded him of the Christmas rush back on Earth, but only one day long. Minmay simply wasn't big enough to support a month long run up to Christmas like modern Earth.

It was also without the decorations and mythological tradition, Cel Inci was just a way to mark time for the First, supposedly the first day after Cel Inci was the day humans first arrived on this world in their legend.

He had been too busy with the soap factory of Kalny's to really appreciate Cel Inci in Minmay, but now he had the time.

The Iris dominated town celebrated Cel Inci in Tsarian tradition, which was a wholly different affair.

The streets had been decorated with red coloured lanterns and streamers of every colour flew in the wind from rooftops. The two roads of the commercial district were seeking to outdo each other and over the three days leading up to the Cel Inci festival itself, the town and roads became more and more garishly decorated.

Cato walked down the road with Landar, wondering if he had somehow stepped into yet another world.

The hawkers lining the street shouting their wares at the top of their lungs, the paper and cloth strips each of a single vibrant colour hanging off every available wall or hawker stand, the large red paper lanterns that were hanging from lines thrown across the street. This evening, the town was virtually unrecognizable.

Cato didn't know how the hawker stalls seemed to form their own little corridors that didn't seem like they should fit into the original street. And probably the entire population of the town was out in force, percolating through the narrow twisted spaces between the choking crowd of hawkers.

The dim red light from the lanterns above shone down between the roofs of the hawker stalls, and their own laterns bathed the street in a mesmerizing shifting of a red tinted world.

Landar was wearing her formal gown again. The dark blue material was completely black under the red light, and the glossy waves played with the eyes under the flickering red light, concealing her body shape. Even her pure black hair seemed to fade into invisibility below her shoulders. It seemed as if she was dressed in mysteries, fae and unknown.

A mood that Landar broke the instant she opened her mouth. She tugged on Cato's much less formal sleeve and jacket and ran straight to a hawker stall like an excited child. Cato straightened his plain sleeve and followed her. No one was ever going to stuff him into those frilly things that Minmay and the delegation were wearing.

Landar grinned at Cato, her words missing the bath of sound around them. Cato stepped to the side as a man squeezed past then quickly returned to the middle of the corridor, away from the sharp smelling... things the woman in the stall next to him was selling.

"What did you say?" he half shouted over the din.

"I said! This! Is what! Cel Inci! Should be like!" Landar raised her voice even further.

Cato sighed and pulled her close. No sense ruining his throat shouting all night. "It is lively," Cato agreed.

Landar laughed and pulled Cato forwards, dragging him through the crowd by the upper arm to a stall selling yama cakes. True yama cakes, the flat slabs of dark yama jam mixed with only just enough wind eye flour to keep it solid, and a lot of alcohol.

After haggling for a bit, Landar bought one and broke it in half to share with Cato. The sheer sweetness and the clear sting of the alcohol was luxurious for this world, like a cream cake with the consistency of jelly.

Cato let her pull him along, everything here was unfamiliar but she strode through the crowd as if she owned the place. And from the bubble that formed around her, it seemed that she did. Cato noticed one or two others who were avoided by the crowd too, all of them sporting the pure black hair and face of a full blood Iris.

Landar proceeded to drag him to any stall that caught her attention. Showing off festive foods and stalls selling carved souvenirs or toys, Landar had him try the fried piyo strips and boiled yama balls in a thick sweet and salty soup. Somewhere along the way, he had picked up a strange feathered cap that made Landar giggle every time she looked at it.

As the night wore on, the festival got more drunken and noisier. The alcohol loosened purses and telins changed hands quickly, or not as Cato noted most of the low cost trades weren't settled with coins, instead promises of value and even the odd barter trade changed hands. The coins weren't very well used, despite low denominations being present. Low denominations weren't low enough for peasants after all.

Then, as the bells began to ring, Landar lead Cato out of the commercial area along with many of the other merrymakers. The crowd wound its way along the streets to the east side of the town, near the Iris clan's homes.

In the grassy open area stood a row of Iris men and women, each holding a glittering summoning stone that danced with an inner light.

"What's going on?" Cato asked.

Landar smiled, "every Cel Inci, the Iris clan conducts a ritual of summoning. It's not like the legend of First Landing, it's just an old tradition. We use the summoning stones to act out a story. "

"Ah, you mean like a play," Cato said.

"Instead of actors, we have summons though," Landar pointed, "it's starting. "

The music from the flute group started in a calm measured tune. The lights drifting up from the summoners were part of the dancing lights summon, little wispy balls that illuminated the field under the dark sky. Then ghostly reki-like animals and birds joined them, dancing across the ground in synchrony.

Then the summoners off to the left who had stayed quiet lit up with magic, a veritable wall of Swords bearing down on the animal figures. The sound swelled and crested, speaking of heroic legends and brave deeds. Swords and animals clashed with each other, until the last animal, a large floating image of a serpent, fell over and faded away. The Swords took up the dance in victory.

"The animals are the ancient spirits, Swords represent humans," Landar explained.

Then some of the Swords began to turn into animals, a bewildering variety of shapes and forms. Once again, the Swords and the animals faced off, only this time the animal side had Swords too. The battle dance started anew, with animals and Swords fading left and right, the collisions between the summons fierce and full of power. In fact Cato could see the ground being gouged by flashes of fire and force. This time, the music was halting and tragic.

"In the second and third act, the animals represent demi-humans," Landar said.

By the end of the second act, the number of summons on the field had dwindled to a sorrowful handful of Swords, and one each of the two animals surviving, a Reki-like creature with a long furry tail and a bird. The survivors danced slowly to a lament of loss and horror. The short third act danced across the field and disappeared off the edge.

"Not bad," Landar said, "better than five years ago, trying to incorporate a Ritual summon didn't work out well. "

"Isn't this just another retelling of the First and the Tsar?" Cato asked as the play wrapped up in a shower of light, receiving a nod from Landar sitting beside him. "Don't you tell any other stories?"

Landar shrugged, "there are many, but all the old traditions are about them. I mean, they are the First and Tsar. "

Cato looked back at the pockmarked field, wondering just how much history had been lost in that war. And how apocalyptic the war must have been, for it to so completely dominate their historical tradition.

Landar jerked him out of his thoughts. "Don't be so down, it was a long time ago. Let me see if Haru's stall is still open," she pulled Cato to his feet as the crowd began to disperse, "her drinks are one of the best and maybe she can sing you a song or two. She knows all the funny ones. "

Cato decided to play along with her attempt to cheer him up. Well, the night was still young and the festivities looked as if they were just about to heat up. And looking at Landar enjoying herself, Cato wondered just who she was to him.

"So what did you want to show us?"

Minmay stood on the Iris duel grounds, flanked by the entourage of curious merchants. Landar had called him to witness a demonstration, as well as her father and some Iris relatives. The two groups, Minmay and Iris, stood apart from each other, a subtle but significant gap between them.

Cato nodded to Landar as he screwed in the pair of spell plates into the carefully placed brackets of the makeshift spell cannon and connected them to the steel staff powering the whole thing.

On hindsight, Minmay forbidding them to bring spell cannons along wasn't ever going to stop them. With Landar's 'sewing box' full of threads, and a cart full of charged steel staffs, rigging up a deadly device was not that difficult.

The pair of steel staffs strapped to the wooden board in front of the two spell plates was in standard spell cannon formation. Pointed at a target, a singular powerful magical shield generated by a steel staff, the setup was exactly like the spell penetration tests Cato had done. Except this time, there were two spell plates.

"This was the spell I used against my father during the duel," Landar explained, more for the benefit of the watching Iris, "with additional refinements. Since a disruption bolt can punch through a disruption shield, with firebolts and forcebolts having more difficulty, by placing a disruption bolt leader, you can make a firebolt go through a much stronger shield. "

She gestured at the extremely powerful wall generated from the steel staff and nodded at Cato. He pressed the metal contact and the spell plates wove their spells into a two part bolt. A disruption penetration head, with a firebolt behind it, molded into a single spell, with a single spell boundary to keep them apart. The 'barrel' then formed the acceleration field between the two steel staffs doubling as guide rails and catapulted the composite spell forwards into the shield at ludicrous speeds.

The bolt punched right through the shield and flew just long enough to confirm that the firebolt was still stable before flashing into a gout of flame at the metal target plate.

"And the second part was this," Landar held up a metal baton. In fact the very same one that she had used in her duel. She and Cato had re-enchanted it after determining that fixing the thing was impossible. The circuits were just too tightly packed for even Landar's expertise to deal with.

She clicked the spell selection into the last position and aimed it at the shield before pouring her power into the rod. It would survive this time, she wasn't trying to cram all her power into it.

The same dual part spell and twin 'rails' formed in the air before throwing the bolt through the shield.

Despite the impacts, the shield was not appreciably diminished in strength. Only a small percentage of the shield's power intercepted each bolt, resulting in an easy penetration.

"Of course," Landar added to their complete silence, "like all enchantments we make recently, we have a magic circle diagram that can create both the high power spell cannon version and the personal rod version. In fact, with the complexity of the bolt and acceleration fields, I doubt any caster can cast this spell in any practical time. "

But the rod could be powered by portable power sources, truncated steel staffs had been a proposal for powering Morey's guns so the Guards could use them. And without the aerodynamic ammo requirements of Morey's gun. Not that his gun couldn't also double as a man sized spell cannon, a sort of rechargeable wand. Complex enchantments were made possible with magic circles.

Landar shared a look with Cato, a barely concealed grin on her face. This had the potential to obsolete the use of all basic shields! And possibly allow accelerated disruption bolts to punch through the zombie's black mist too. With disruption shields penetrated by accelerated bolts and deflection shields by Morey's bullets, the Guardds would be practically unstoppable.

Minmay frowned instead however. "Have you released any of the magic circle designs?" Minmay asked. They shook their heads. "Then keep it a secret for now. "

Cato didn't have to see to know the look of dismay on Landar's face. But there was probably a good reason for that.

"Think about it, one person with a bowgun or modified gun that shoots these shield penetrating bolts," Minmay explained, "they could walk up to anyone and simply fire a lethal firebolt and that person will almost certainly die. If a shield can't defend against these weapons no matter how well trained, any mage who buys one of these can assassinate just about anyone. "

Minmay sighed and pointed at Landar, "therefore you must not release this magic circle design until you have devised a method of defending against this weapon. The principle that a quickly moving disruption bolt can punch through shields is already known, let's not make it easy for any would be assassins, yes?"