Mage And Wolf
Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Chapter 53

Now clean under my robes, I shut the shower off and hand Hui’Jin a towel. She just stares at it and shrugs her robes back on with a shimmer of black energy.

"It’s warm and soft, you use it to dry yourself off before getting dressed."

"Oh, we never had these at the orphanage, and the training centre focuses on toughening us up for our duties to come, so they just spray us with a hose and let us dry as we work."

Oh, feth no. This planet’s getting some updated standards for priestess training. I’m just not cruel enough to treat young girls that way. Speaking of which:

"How old are the usual trainees at the temple? You said they took you early, at age 8 if my math is right?"

"Most Priests and Priestesses enter a seminary training temple at age 14 when they finish their mandatory schooling. That’s also the age that the orphanage expects us to start working, though they let the kids who aren’t joining the army stay 2 more years to do their apprenticeship."

They recruit soldiers at 14?

"How long does military training take?" I ask for my own peace of mind.

"2 years, same as a trade apprenticeship. Nobody enters the battlefield before their 16th birthday. That’s also the marriage age on my world, in case you were wondering"

"Why would that concern me?"

"Well, if you don’t want to wait on this world, you could do the ceremony on mine, right? Or are you already 16? I’m not really good with wolf kin ages."

"I’m 22 this year. And I’m not a wolf kin, but a Lycan." She looks skeptical about my claimed age.

"What’s a Lycan? You look like a wolf, with those pretty ears and fluffy tail. I wish dragons got fluffy ears."

I laugh and shift back to human, bringing a startled gasp from Hui’Jin.

"You’re a shapeshifter? That’s so awesome!"

"Yeah, my entire race can shift between a half wolf form and a human shape. Jurgen, who was manning the gun in the truck, is a werewolf. His kind shifts into a full fledged wolf."

I can actually see the girl trying to process the new information. Her eyes are glazed over and her head is cocked to the side. I pull a photo up on my phone, from training with Alpha Petros and the Wolves.

"See, the big grey beast is what every other Lycan looks like transformed, they view my shape as defective as it’s not lupine enough. The 2 wolves are Jurgen and Jake, both werewolves."

"That’s um, what’s the word? Terrifying. Yeah, terrifying. Lycans usually look like that? That monster is more scary than the trolls were."

"Yeah, he’s a beast for sure. But he’s actually a nice guy." I flip pictures to a group photo and point everyone out "See here they are in human form. Not so scary right? The one in the leather jacket is Karl, I’m not sure you’ve seen him without his hood up."

"That’s his Highness Karl?!" she sounds taken aback "Sorry, I’m so used to being around Elves and Dragon kin that it totally slipped my mind that a High Priest might be from a different species here. Is he an actual human?"

"Yep, full blooded. He was an Archmage of the Arcane specialty before he was chosen by our Goddess."

Hui’Jin looks like she’s had about all the new information she can handle, so I vanish my robes, leaving me wet inside my combat outfit, but clean. She’s currently tightening a cloth around her flat chest under her rough woven robes.

"Let’s go join everyone for dinner. I don’t think they’ve met a dragon kin before, much less a Dragonewt, so you’re in no danger of having your secret exposed around them." She looks relieved and takes a bit of pressure out of her chest binding.

"You know, unless someone in the group you came here with knows you were an orphan, there’s no need to hide on this planet."

"I didn’t tell anyone but you. My penance included reciting my history to my new superiors and I put it off as long as I could."

"Perfect, I’ll get you set up with some new clothes for outside of work hours once we get back to base."

Now she’s looking at me like I’ve grown a second head.

"What?"

"Acolytes typically aren’t given anything but the Goddess’s robes to wear. To remind us that we’re still in training every minute of every day."

Well that’s no fun.

"I guess you’ll have to get yourself promoted to junior priestess in a hurry then." I decide to make it a personal goal.

The cookout is amazing. Tribe members constantly come over to thank me for the help, or say hello after seeing me at the rodeo. Hui’Jin is engulfed in a crowd of eager children who have never met someone from another planet. The questions are endless, but she doesn’t seem to be upset about answering them. She is skipping the details of her personal history though, while still intricately describing the training process she’s gone through and the world she grew up in. They train Acolytes pretty hard. Not just the Black Dragons, they’re all mixed together for training, only separating off to learn their individual duties for part of the day.

Everything is made here in town, even the meat is from locally raised animals. In fact there’s so much meat set out on platters or grilling nearby that Hui’Jin hasn’t quit drooling since we got here. Even with her mouth full she’s still casting longing glances at trays of hamburgers and shredded beef. That’s when it occurs to me, I had breakfast this morning, well, technically I fed half of mine to Lala, but still, I ate this morning. If they traveled here from Seattle, they likely didn’t.

"How often do dragonkin usually eat?" I ask her, trying to determine a schedule starting tomorrow.

"The temple has meals at the start and end of the day. The orphanage feeds everyone in the afternoon."

Okay, simple, she can eat when I eat. And going by today, her appetite in no way loses to that of Earth’s lycanthropes. This girl can really eat.

The chief has been taking time to show the boys around, showing off his community and his gratitude. They finally return, eager to get back home and sleep, telling me how the local communities have gotten cell phone service back up and running, no more need to do everything over satellite. The portals still mess with communications, but they found that by having their mage shield the transmitter they could get functionality back. The problem was in the electronics and not the signals. I’d never considered that, because the only electronics I’ve really been around in the last few months have been military grade.

That’s likely how the base got internal communications back online. The base is magically shielded, so the problem was mitigated, they just didn’t have anyone in range to communicate with. It’s a good start, but there’s simply not enough mages around to keep everyone up and running. At least not yet. I’ll have to talk to Narishma about that, see if we can’t get a few roaming mages to set up barriers and get the state mostly back online. I’m sure the State government will come to the same conclusion eventually, and at least want cell service back in the cities. Best we propose it first and make ourselves look generous.