Clancy was not a morning person. Especially when he stayed up until three in the morning the pervious night packing because he made the rash decision to wait too long. He sat on the couple stairs leading up to the wooden door into the base, glaring at the trees of the wide, open doors meters away.
    Beside him, his loyal partner sat leaned against the stable wall. "It could be worse." He said, his voice thickly laced with an Italian accent. "At least we don't have to go on one of those midnight missions."
    "You're probably right." Clancy sighed. "I just wish we didn't have to wake up before dawn."
    "You can only blame yourself. You should start going to bed earlier."
    "Yeah, when hell freezes over."
    Suddenly, the door opened behind Clancy, knocking him off the stairs. "Oi!" He shouted.
    "Sorry, Clanker." Thalia grumbled, sounding not at all sorry.
    "Yeah, I hate mornings too..." Clancy sighed, standing up. "Didn't you wanna bring a friend or something?"
    "I'm here." Logan said, pushing through the door. He winced at the stalls of horses. "I wish we didn't have to do this... I'm really very much not a big fan of horses. At all."
    "Well, if you'd prefer walking, we could simply meet you at the train station." The boy beside Clancy said.
   Logan looked at him in surprise. "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met." He said.
   "No we haven't." The boy held out a hand. "Vern Lazorso, I'm a Cadet as well. Diplomacy Division."
   Thalia opened her mouth to ask a question, but Logan was already there. "There are two divisions in the Star Cadets. Science Division and Diplomacy Division. They're both pretty self explanatory." He shifted his gaze to Clancy. "But there's one thing I don't quite get. I heard you don't have a lab partner."
    "He doesn't." Vern said for him. "I'm his partner. Just his partner."
    "Like... A couple or...?" Thalia asked.
    "No no, like partners in crime." Clancy explained. "We're just partners in everything."
    "Oh, cute." Thalia said, nodding. "You're so a couple."
    "What, no we're not." Vern said.
    "Less said, less to deny." Clancy smirked, resting his arm on his partner's shoulder.
    Logan snorted at Vern's black expression. "Right, let's just get this over with."
    Thalia nodded and walked up and down the stalls until she found Jigsaw's. She smiled as she saw her horse and patted his nose fondly. "Hey boy..." She said excitedly. "Ready for a ride?"

Logan was clearly uncomfortable. Thalia found it quite a bit amusing as he clung to his horse's saddle for dear life, his eyes wide with fear. Of all the things to fear; heights, water, thunder, tight spaces... Logan was terrified of horses.
    He seemed absolutely frozen as his horse, a chestnut mare named Persnickety, walked along at a steady, slow pace. Even the completely unathletic cadets seemed fine with it. They were on a simple trail through the forest, with hardly any bumps or hills. Each rider walked in single file. Vern went first, followed by Clancy, with Thalia next and Logan taking up the rear. Thalia turned in her saddle and smirked at him mischievously.
    Logan glared at her knowingly. "Not one word, Kal." He growled.
    Thalia only laughed and turned back around, deciding not to pester her petrified friend for once. "Hey, Clanker!" She called
    "Yeah?"
    "What's our game plan, exactly?"
    "I wouldn't know, I'm not the mission leader."
    "Then who is?" Thalia looked at Vern instead. "Vern?"
    "You got it, miss Kal." Vern said. "Seeing as I'm the only one who knows where we're going and has an ounce of common sense in our little group, I'll be calling the shots."
    "So where are we going?" Thalia asked.
    Vern looked on ahead. "There's a train station just on the edge of these woods. It'll take us past the jungle that's beyond the woods and to the edge of the desert. That's why we'll need our horses - to get us through the desert to Sick Bay's sister city, Fort Savannah."
    "Fort?"
    "Used to be a military base." Clancy said. "Way back during the Magist War in the seventeen hundreds."
    "Magist War?" Thalia asked.
    "What, you've never heard of it?" Vern asked.
    Thalia shook her head. "I'm not really too big on world history..."
    "It was the huge war way back around 1720 where humanity killed tones of Sorcerers and other Magists, including the Ilex. Tons of lives on both sides were lost." Clancy said. "During the battle, humans captured or tried to capture every Ilex that roamed the surface and held them in camps against their will."
    "That's inhuman!" Thalia exclaimed.
    "Why didn't they just teleport out?"
    "The human-Magist hybrids enchanted the perimeter so they couldn't." Clancy explained. "And each caught one was branded with this weird purple semi-circle mark around their left eye. You'll see a lot of them that have it today since they live for a couple millennia."
    Thalia shot a glance back at Logan, both thinking of the same Ilex.
    Clancy went on without noticing the pair's exchange. "The reason I know so much is because one of my ancestors was traveling with an ender hybrid during that time. His name was Serendipity Barlow. Apparently, he and some other guy had to rescue him, but they both died in a mine later."
    "That's funny, we have an ender friend." Thalia said. "Well, I have two. They're both about over a hundred years old and kind of done with society."
    "I bet." Clancy said. "A lot of them are still pretty pissed about that old war."
    Vern sighed, changing the subject. "Alright, so, I got an idea. Let's travel for the rest of the day, then bunk down for the night."
    "Sounds good to me." Thalia said.
    Logan let out a whimper behind her. "Can we take a break?" He asked.
    "Ginger, we've only been walking for twenty minutes."