The endless blue of sky, unmarred by even the faintest wisp of cloud,
reflected pristinely upon the glass-calm seas. It was a fine spring day
in the year 508 A.F., and Eurybia, of the Silver Wing Battalion,
luxuriated in the warm, unfiltered sunlight as she soared over the Bay
of Dardanos, stretching her snowy wings to catch the wind. In her wake
travelled two companions, the insignias upon their leather breastplates
marking them also as of the honoured Silver Wing. Eurybia mouthed a
prayer to the Sky Lord as she flew, He who had blessed them with this
clear day, the better to accomplish their scouting mission.

A glance downwards caused Eurybia's mouth to twist slightly. The
accursed sea: ice-cold and slime-green, its murky depths squirming with
the most despicable and wretched of creatures, from venomous eels to
tentacled monstrosities to those mockeries of sentient life known as
tritons. That they and their foolish, megalomaniacal deity dared to
challenge the might of Vastar, the Sky-Father, He who ruled the Dome of
the World, was an outrage. Tritons, foul barbarians unable even to unite
amongst themselves as did the Arcadians.

Indeed, the strife between the triton kingdoms was the reason for the
Silver Wing's presence in these skies today. Skirmishes between triton
factions had been frequent of late in these parts, the Bay of Dardanos
within which the triton kingdom of Lothos was rumoured to lie. The
orders given to the Silver Wing Battalion were to scout the area for
clues as to the kingdom's location. Since the recent tritonic assault on
the chosen city of Arcadia itself, the Queen was grimly determined to
discover the location of one of the triton cities and repay the
bottom-dwellers' insult in kind.

Thus far, their efforts had been fruitless. The sea swallowed all
evidence of former battles into its merciless depths, and they had yet
to find even a broken spear. Sweat dripped into Eurybia's eyes. She
raised a weary hand to brush away the moisture, then blinked. What --
what could that be, glinting upon the waters?

Signalling her companions, Eurybia swooped low. The ruby-red head of a
slender sea serpent peered up at her, its scales shimmering in the
sunlight to catch Eurybia's eye. Around its neck clung a humanoid shape,
appearing perhaps unconscious. Eurybia signalled once more, and the
three atavian warriors dove down to skim along the ocean's surface, each
grabbing hold of one limb of the lone triton before soaring upwards once
more with their captive, up into the clear, sweet embrace of the Sky.

Penned by My hand on the 14th of Glacian, in the year 508 AF.