"Have you found anything yet, Thomas?"

The Trikitsune shook his head, leafing through yet another archived tome. "No, not yet."

"We've been up and down this blasted archive every which way but loose," the Kowari muttered darkly, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Are you SURE Vee-Jay said THIS was the archive where she found that documentation on the Wildbeast Hunt of 4016?"

Thomas sighed in a way he hoped wasn't audible to his older colleague's ears. "Yes, Dylan," he repeated for the umpteenth time, replacing the tome back where he'd found it and taking up another one.

"Where the hell is it then?!"

"Vee-Jay wasn't specific on which tome," the Trikitsune stressed in a thin whisper. "Look, Dylan, the least you can do is keep your voice down...if House Raptoryl finds us down here, we're screwed!"

"We're already going to be screwed to the walls for breaking IN here in the first place!"

Thomas's claws ran a thin line through the layered dust of the archival shelf, skimming along the barely understandable runic inscriptions. Though he had a slim grasp of the dialect, it was still difficult to read. Finally, a tome with a date matching the one Vee-Jay had mentioned shortly before her capture by House Raptoryl struck out at him. He gasped and broke out into a grin.

"I think I've found it!"

His companion's shadow against the bookcase had suddenly stiffened straight. The Trikitsune heard the slightest creak of the floorboards behind him, and a larger shadow befell his own.

"Dylan?" he asked, a cold chill running through him to the tips of his three tails.

"No. sudden. moves. Thomas..." Dylan's words were heavily stressed.

The Trikitsune turned very slowly, eyes trailing up to the presence standing behind him. At least six to seven feet tall, brandishing a single, extremely sharp pointed spear directly at him and Dylan. Thomas recognised the feathers and the jewellery the female wore. A Guardian of House Ibisyn.

They were in REAL trouble now...

~**~

After Benjii swears to get VJ off of Premaria Island as fast as possible, Dylan and Thomas sneak into the archival records of the Gryphon Kingdom, situated on the cusp of Raptoryl and Ibisyn lands and follow up on something VJ asks them to find. Four hundred years ago, something akin to the political faux pas she's committed also happened, involving a human of undetermined rank and file. She only had enough time to skim the entry, and note the date of the incident on the tome's outer cover before she was discovered and arrested.

Dylan unfortunately possesses a temper when he's under stress, and pissed off Kowaris tend to talk LOUD. Despite all the measures Thomas employs to keep his colleague quiet, someone overhears them rifling about the archives. And she's not pleased to see them there.

What happens next will be anyone's guess...

~**~

Thomas's right arm is foreshortened WAY too much. Really should have centered him a bit better behind Dylan, but then, his tails would not be as visible. In a sense, it does work, I just have to extend the shelf out a little bit more to make it less off-kilter than it looks now.

Before anyone asks, the DSF -are- in their old full dress uniform (the patches however are the oldskool McAlpine leadership ones - single circle with a Stellar's Sea Eagle clutching a laurel wreath on the right, numerical band on the left). At this point, the boys are in yellow uniforms, Thomas recently given a uniform properly after he was cleared for active duty by VJ, and she herself is in blue.

It's after this particular event that the uniforms change into what they are now (patches and pants become properly distinguishable by rank and file; VJ in red, Thomas & Antony in blue, Dylan & Benjii in white, Terrence & Josef in yellow) after their full ranks are bestowed upon them at the start of Story #6, "Saltwater Shiraz...and other Shenanigans".

The uniform did indeed come from somewhere; it started officially in Oliver's days, but was considered 'dress uniform' rather than an every day one. Come the events of Story #6 and VJ would make a few changes to it and the proper title of the Elite, but that's a little too far ahead in the game for the time being ;D

DSF: ORIGINS Literature and Character Design: Acting-Commander Thomas Colloute, Lieutenant Dylan Macallister & Unnamed Guardian of House Ibisyn belong to Victoria S. Rodda, 1991 - 2015