Tonbei stepped down briskly from the white wooden porch and gently paused at the bottom of the front steps. The summer evening was warm and muggy, and cicada’s chirruped playfully all around the dark expanse of the garden. He squints for one moment and tilts his head to one side, thoughtfully.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asks
De Havilland appears just by his side, looking in the same direction away into the far distance. Suddenly, both are illuminated by a bright flash followed by a crackle and a thunderous boom. Tonbei is certain he can feel a rumbling sensation through the soles of his feet. From that moment the noise and flashing come in an irregular period of bangs, cracks, thuds and high pitched screeches.
The pair are over 20 miles away from the source of the action but even from here, and especially at night, the effect is quite staggering.
“Where is that?” asks Tonbei, half in a daze with wonder.
De Havilland frowns, looks across the breadth of the horizon for a few moments. He raises a glass tumbler filled with ice to his lips and takes a measured sip of it before continuing.
“I used to holiday there as a child. I remember a pretty little private cove where we would go with my father’s friends in the summer when the heat became too much in the city. We’d play in the sea most of the time. I truly loved it there. Good times.” De Havilland drifts off for a moment, reminiscing for a time that was long gone and would never return again.
“I managed to obtain the tactical reports of the area 6 months ago on another visit home. The cove and land mass 200 metres around it were pretty much all gone…”
Tonbei turns his head round and looks into the profile of De Haviland to check that he wasn’t lying. Satisfied that his lord was not misleading him he turns back to face the war signs far off in to the distance.
“You humans have an endless capacity for your own destruction.” Tonbei whispers.
The pair stand in total silence, watching the full onslaught, thinking of the poor souls who were trapped right in the thick of it all.
Tonbei breaks the chilling moment. “Right, well, I’ll make sure our baggage is collected properly. Your brother has arranged for us to move further inland to Havilland for a few weeks stay, for our own safety... “ The pair laugh to each other at the thought of it. Otto had been extremely uncomfortable with his brother residing so close to the frontline of the war. The residence had been one that De Havilland had used for holidaying in his youth and he had felt a keen desire to see it just one more time in case it too suddenly disappeared from all existence over the oncoming months or years. Had Otto been present to the off-world antics of the Phoenix Knight and his Imperial Cohort only days before, then the threat of the war would not have been so pressing on his mind.
Tonbei walks off, back up the wooden steps onto the veranda and stops suddenly. He turns back round to face the silhouette of De Havilland on the evenings black lawn.
“Oh, my lord, just one more thing. Apparently we have been invited to a tournament by a warrior-woman called Arcadia. Do you want me to accept for us..?”
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