The Knights of Catrina

## A Gathering of Heroes and Squires

Axle, Nico, and the rest of the company of infantrymen were marching due East through the rough snowy terrain for the past six hours, well late into the night. With nothing to wear, Axle was brandishing Nico’s red cape, doubling as a cowl and cloak to stave off the frigid air. What little remained of the carriage was being hauled over with ropes tied along the seat, one of the wheels just barely holding on as it occasionally swerved at odd angles.

What started as a skirmish between the two quickly de-escalated since the prize that both men sought had become unobtainable, quite literally slipping through their fingers as what remained of a mysterious map found among their cargo was reduced to nothing but shards of broken crystals mixed into an even bigger mound of shattered debris spread across the snowy planes.

With little else to fight over, Axle surrendered, now relegated to dragging what remained of their cargo behind with numerous ropes, clutching them over his shoulder.

“You're quiet. I'm actually surprised you gave up so easily, I’d have thought that someone of your ability would have put up more of a fight, or at the very least made a run for it. But here you are, our prisoner. Hell, you're even peddling our stuff like it doesn’t even bother you.” Nico recounted.

Axle remained silent.

But in his silent demeanor, Axle could almost make out a despondent tone in Nico’s voice, as if he was disappointed in the sudden turn of events, with a small hint of annoyance near the end that really drove home the point.The way he spoke didn’t sound like the knight he had just exchanged blows in a desperate struggle for supremacy, but was more akin to a parent reprimanding a child for doing something wrong.

The last thing he wanted was to encourage this conversation any further, so held his tongue for the moment, hoping that if Axle just ignored the knight for long enough, the topic would just die down.

“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think someone like you is really cut out to be a thief. I’m having a hard time believing you’d just put yourself down like this. You could be doing anything else with strength like yours. Show a little pride.” Nico blurted out, shrugging his shoulders.

“Why do you CARE so much?” Axle shot back sharply.

“You talk like this matters to you or something, but we just met. So what does it matter why I did it? You won didn’t you? So stop being so upset about it.”

Axle continued.

“But don’t think for a minute I’m doing what I’m doing just because you think you're better than me. All I’m doing is paying back what you lent me.” Axle exclaimed, tugging at the red cape hanging around him that had previously adorned Nico’s armor.

“I see, but why go through so much if you were just going to give up to help us?” Nico asked curiously.

“It just makes me feel better for all the trouble I caused, that’s all.” Axle summarized.

When they first met, Nico had the sense that this strange man was nothing less than a criminal, pilfering the hard work that he and his men had struggled with for the past month to collect on behalf of his majesty back home. Since they began their trek out their kingdom, raids and ambushes had been routine for weeks now, they couldn’t so much as sleep without leaving one eye open without something going wrong. With problem after problem piling up, on top of broken equipment, on-site injuries, and the stray creature tearing their camp, Nico was carrying the burden of it all, as well as the king’s high expectations of a successful expedition, didn’t help lessen the stress. Failure, to Nico, was not only unacceptable, but a luxury he wasn’t afforded to consider.

To say that the weight of the world, at least relative to his narrow view, rested on his shoulders brought him no comfort, no matter what time of day it was, going so far as leaving him restless at night. And now, the very same stranger, who only moments ago was threatening to ruin everything, was shouldering that very same burden, if only in some small way, because he felt bad about it. Even if it was to clear his own conscience, Nico couldn’t help but feel lighter, if ever so slightly.

He was grateful. Axle had done something that, not even with the help of his own men, he could do.

Axle thought after their initial discussion, things would quiet down for a while. But if anything, it only made Nico more talkative. Much to his annoyance, Axle humored the Dragon Slayer’s questions. What started as a brief exchange of superfluous information, slowly grew to conversations about a broad number of topics, none of which were terribly detailed. They were small things. Where they’d learn to fight. Places they’ve seen. People they’ve met. The more Nico spoke, the more it trailed off from Axle as the topic of their conversation, and unintentionally veered off to himself.

“This whole ‘knight in shining armor’ thing, when did that start? You don’t punch like any knight I know, and you're more of a brawler than swordsman.” Axle chimed in.

“Where else? My mom taught me everything I know since I was a kid. She even made that cape you're wearing too,” Nico answered, puffing his chest out in pride at the mention of his mother. “And besides, what’s a knight without a sword,” he chuckled.

Before becoming a knight, before he was a well-respected champion of chivalry among his peers and subordinates, Nico recalled a time when he was much less “reputable”, before he met his mother. Contrary to popular belief among its citizens, the Dragon Slayer was not native to the kingdom, he was as much a stranger back then as Axle was today. The more he thought about it, the more melancholic and somber he felt. As a boy, Nico used to work as a miner in one of the outlying quarries outside Fiore during the majority of his upbringing, working alongside the others once he was old enough to hold a pickaxe.

It wasn’t something he thought often, dredging up the past, Nico thought, was as much an exercise in inefficiency of time as it was worrying about things that were outside his own control. What he could control, in the here and now, stood just before the hill, the familiar smell of bread and wood burning through chimney stacks caused Axle’s ears to perk up, while Nico’s nose picked up the scent past the same repeating trees that were synonymous with this forest.

A heavy sigh of relief echoed from the rest of infantrymen, exuberance building up after a long journey finally nearing its end. What stuck out the most to Axle was the large tower out in the distance and the massive stone-like edifice surrounding it.

“Where are we?” Axle asked.

“This is home. Welcome to the Kingdom of Estremores.” Nico answered.