Thea had a wonderful night with Luana, though the two of them ended up spending most of the night shopping and didn't end up actually going to the bar. Luana showed her around town and even came back to Thea's hostel with her after the fact to help her put things away and set up her brand new plants and lamps. It seemed almost unbelievable to Thea that the two girls were getting along so quickly, but Thea wasn't going to complain.

The next day, Thea was at the General's office quite early again and when she walked in, Mrs. Railer greeted her with a warm smile. "Please have a seat, love," she said. "Luana will be here to pick you up shortly."

Thea nodded, her eyes looking over at the and the closed door of the General's room. She could hear the very quiet, muffled sounds of the General speaking and she figured he was already in a meeting.

He really did work a lot, didn't he?

She wondered if he had a family, or at least a girlfriend, but as she pondered the question in her head, she realized that it seemed impossible that he would. How could you start work so early and leave so late if you did? But then again, what did Thea know? Maybe the General was having a busy week. Maybe it wasn't always like this.

Thea and Mrs. Railer engaged in a little bit of small talk until Luana arrived, looking rather prim and proper in her uniform. "Morning, Mrs. Railer," Luana grinned at the woman and she walked in.

"Good morning, Love," Mrs. Railer responded, showing the same warmth she showed to Thea. "Happy to see that you're on time... trying to leave a good impression on Miss. Rhaanan, it seems?"

Luanna chuckled. "I'm not going to pretend that's not what I'm trying to do," she said before looking at Thea. "Ready for your first official day?"

Thea stood up from her seat and took a deep breath. "Yes... as ready as I can be."

After signing out the key to a car from Mrs. Railer, Luana and Thea both headed out for Thea's first day... which ended up being exactly what she had expected it to be like.

Thea had a room to herself, a room that consisted of no windows, a plain desk in the middle with a chair on both sides of it, and a white light that lit the place up. It wasn't a pleasant place, but according to the General, this was the most comfort this prison had to offer.

It was Luana's job to escort each prisoner in to speak to her one at a time, and as expected, almost all the people she managed to talk to that day, twelve in total, were all suspicious of her intentions. Thea tried to spend most of the first day getting them to warm up to her and get to know her, but most of them didn't seem entirely receptive. Though she had expected this, she didn't stop feeling anxious.

If it kept up this way, then she wouldn't be able to do her job right.

Luana kept up her enthusiasm though, constantly reminding Thea that it made sense for them to not trust her in their first official meeting. "It'll take a few more sessions," Luana would say. "Trust me, they'll open up."

Though Thea didn't really know whether or not to believe that, there ended up being one Crow who piqued Thea's interest. Vetori Kayne.

The man was one of the last to be brought by Luana into the little room that Thea was in. He walked in with his head held high and exuded an odd air of superiority as looked down at her. Despite this, however, the man looked rather young with the hair around his chin and over his lip, looking like it was trying hard to grow, but really couldn't. He couldn't have been much older than her.

His shoulder length hair was the usual black of the Elorian's and his eyes too were the unsurprising black as well, looking a little darker as he eyed her and tried to make it clear that he had no fears. He was handsome, for sure, but somehow Thea was reminded of a couple of the cocky boys that her brother seemed to associate himself with these days.

It made her stomach turn a little.

Nevertheless, though he didn't seem quite pleasant, he was at least much less intimidating than Rue seemed to be.

"Ah, so you're actually going through with this," the man said to her after Luana shut the door and left the room before taking her usual spot next to the glass window. They had established that it would be better for her to stay outside since some of these men may not want to speak to Thea with a uniformed state officer nearby, but she stood near the window, keeping an eye on things to ensure that Thea was safe.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kayne," Thea said with a smile. "In case you don't remember, my name is Theavi... Theavi Rhaanan."

"I do remember you," he said, leaning back in his chair and looking at her with a smirk. "It's only been a day."

Thea simply continued to smile, not really knowing what to say. "Well," she continued. "I thought maybe we could spend our first conversation getting to know each other. We'll be spending quite a lot of time together for the foreseeable future, so getting the basics over with may prove helpful."

The man eyed her with the same suspicion the others did, though this one wore a smirk. "You go first."

"Um," she gulped back her nervousness, which surprised even herself. Why was she so nervous? "My name is Theavi–"

"You said that already," his smirk grew into a wider smile.

"And," she continued. "I'm from Abureth."

"Abureth," he repeated, nodding slowly. "Rhaanan, your family name is? Your... grandmother, I guess, is a principal?"

"Was. She's retired now," Thea corrected, already feeling a slight drop in her anxiety. Was he someone who knew her family? "Are you from Abureth?"

"No," he crossed his arms. "But I spent a few years there."

"How old are you again?"

"Twenty-seven."

Young. "And–"

"How old are you?" he interrupted her to ask.

Thea hesitated. "Twenty-one... turning twenty-two in a couple months."

"A kig," he said, rather humored. "I'm being interviewed by a kid."

Thea rolled her eyes immediately. "I'm not that much younger than you, Mr. Kayne."

The smirk returned to his face. "Please do not call me Mr. Kayne," he started. "I don't have a stick up my ass, like that General of yours."

Thea raising a brow.

"I'm not a big fan of fake courtesy," he clarified. "You don't know me, I don't know you, but I'd rather you not pretend that you respect me. It's embarrassing for the both of us." This too, he said with a smirk. She furrowed her brows at first, before realizing quite quickly how to befriend this one. So, looking at him with a smirk of her own, she let out a humored breath. "Fine, Vetori," she said, "Why don't you start off by telling me how you managed to get caught?"

He seemed to relax a little. "Veto," he said. "I let my black-eyed brothers call me Veto."

"I'm a girl... certainly not a brother."

He shrugged. "Means nothing when you're a Crow."

She didn't exactly know what he meant by that, but when she saw his smirk turn into a more genuine smile, she knew that she had succeeded in getting at least one of these Crows to like her.

Vetori was certainly a talker. Mostly he liked talking about himself but sometimes he said things of interest, like what division he served in and, as Thea had asked him to explain, how he got caught. Though a lot of what he said were things she already knew a bit of from the short intro that the General had given her, she knew that it was still some progress nonetheless.

As Thea sat in front of the General at his desk and explained this to him, not worried about giving away any valuable details, he nodded slowly. "Good," he said. "I'm pleased with your progress so far, particularly with Vetori. He's quite the pain in the ass but he's got connections to a strong Crow division that orchestrated the Danyo Fort Bombing two years ago."

Her brows rose, reminded quickly of a situation where Crows bombed a major fort and nearly started a second Civil War. Vetori was a part of that?

"Any information on him would be valuable, seeing that we still know barely anything about those who orchestrated it, so good work."

Thea smiled. Despite her desire to not trust him right away, she couldn't help herself from being happy that he was happy. She was also pleased to see Julian, who was sitting next to her, nodding to himself.

It seemed that she may have been doing a good job at proving her capabilities, and, at least at that moment, she felt like she wasn't betraying anyone either.

"What about Rue?"

Now her smile faded.

She remembered standing in front of his cell right after she finished with the others. She had to leave her own room to go there since it was against the rules for the men on the last floor to leave their rooms.

She was going to go in, really, but she felt a sudden nervousness and chose to step back. His coldness, the fact that he was missing fingers and even just the frightening nature of his gaze made her nervous. She wasn't ready to speak to him. Not yet. "I..." she started before she thought for a moment of what to say to him. Within seconds however, she knew the best thing to do would be to be honest. "Honestly, I was a little nervous."

The General kept looking at her, waiting for her to continue.

"I think... I think I'll be a little more confident in talking to him once I get the hang of things. Maybe tomorrow? Or the day after that... but definitely before the week comes to an end."

She felt a little bit worried as the General gazed at her with a look that was rather expressionless. It was only when he nodded that she relaxed. "Alright, I understand. That's fair enough... just don't push it back too far."

"Of course," she responded. "I promise I won't."

"Good... well, if that's all then you can head out back to Luana. She'll be taking you to meet Milo... maybe he'd help you feel a little more ready too."

She stood up, smiling and pleased. It had been a decent day so far, and despite her slight fear of this Milo individual, she was also a little excited. "Sounds good."

When Thea left the room, Julian turned to Niall and frowned. "You're not going to tell her that we can't be patient with Rue? That Rivier demands for progress now?"

Niall was pulling out a cigarette. "I want to, trust me," he said before putting it to his lips and lighting it. "But I'm worried that putting pressure on her won't benefit her... I still don't know how she works under pressure and the last thing I want is for her to give up. Besides, it's the first day... and somehow she's already made progress with Kayne... I can only expect that it will get better from here so long as we let her do her own thing."

Julian nodded, seeming to understand but not looking entirely pleased. "I suppose we can give her the week she requested."

Niall let out a breath of smoke. "Yes... and if Rivier asks, all he needs to know is that we're making progress... which is not entirely a lie."

Julian watched his General for a moment before continuing. "Rivier's ego will get the best of him soon... it's not like it's uncommon to have Crows simply rot in prison, yet he wants this one finished off more than anything."

Niall took another drag of his cigarette before nodding. "It became personal for him when Rue's Crow division outsmarted Rivier," he said. "Wasted millions in State Military funding and ruined Rivier's reputation... though a battered ego is certainly no justification for murder."

"Petty and childish," Julian responded. "It'll be difficult to impress old men who act like children... Theavi's got her work cut out for her."

"Yes, you're right. And she does," Niall sighed. She had a lot on her shoulders and she didn't even know it. He sighed, smoke escaping his lips.

They'd just have to be patient and wait.

Luana took Thea down the halls of Achlis rather quickly and as soon as she slowed down, they were in front of a door. "Milo's office," Luana said with a smile. "We call it a closet, and you'll see why." Without waiting for Thea to respond, or knocking for that matter, Luana then proceeded to open the door, "Milo!" She shouted.

As the door flung open, Thea almost instantly understood what Luana meant by 'closet.' The room that revealed itself as the door opened had no windows and was not only rather tiny, maybe only a few feet larger than her bedroom, but it was also a mess, stacks and stacks of newspapers and books all over the place. There were also a ton a black drawers against one wall to the left of them and hidden under a few stacks of papers and books was one desk, though a second one which was against the opposite wall looked rather nice and neat.

But what Thea cared most about was the fact that every free wall was covered with shelves of books, the sight of which made Thea's heart race in excitement.

Suddenly, a man who was hidden behind a stack of books at the messy desk stood up and startled Thea. "Oh, you're here!"

Luana rolled her eyes and walked over to him. "Did you not see the time? I told you I'd be bringing her at three."

The young man with curly brown hair and round specs stepped around the mess. "I lost track of time, I'm sorry," he said, looking both embarrassed and nervous. He then turned to face Thea, pushing his glasses up as he did. "Theavi, it's nice to meet you."

Thea blinked, looking at the boy's eyes with surprise.

Brown eyes.

An Aiverian boy with brown eyes.

Though it was not unusual to see people of both races with traits that didn't fall into the standard black hair, black eyes or brown hair, green eyes, seeing someone different always surprised Thea. Everyone always focused so much on the majority that they often forgot a variety of different people still existed.

Like this Milo character, with his brown eyes.

"Hi," she said, trying not to stare and holding her hand out for him to take. "Please, call me Thea."

He took it and smiled warmly at her. "I've been really looking forward to meeting you... and working with you for that matter."

She felt an air of comfort and kindness coming from this boy. He didn't look threatening, despite being relatively tall, and he certainly wasn't what Thea had imagined this Milo boy to be... frankly she expected another large, looming, frightening man who looked like one of the many soldiers strutting around Achlis.

Milo was certainly not that.

Even though he was tall, he seemed to have the body of a boy– lanky and actually somewhat awkward. He didn't have much muscle on him, nor did he have any facial hair, and even his handshake seemed gentle and polite. He wore dark trousers and a beige shirt that looked a little too big for him, though the suspenders he wore held it all in place and made it look a little more properly fitted. Plus the curly brown hair that fell messily around his head made him seem quite youthful as well.

Then there were the brown eyes.

Surely his brown eyes helped in stopping Thea from feeling threatened, even if he was Aiverian... his chocolate eyes seemed much more warm and kind than that of his green-eyed counterparts. The green eyes were, afterall, what Thea feared... it was those eyes that made her anxious.

"I thought you said you were going to clean this place before she came?" Luana asked, looking around with her hands on her hips. "It's still a dump."

"I did clean it," he said, sounding a little disappointed. He then gestured at the empty desk. "See? Her new desk is spotless"

Luana looked at him with a look of exasperation. "You're kidding right?"

"No... the desk was covered nearly to the ceiling with books and articles and papers–"

"Alright, aright," Luana sighed. "I have to head out... please don't kill her by accidently knocking over one of your book towers on her."

Milo frowned, though it faded when Thea laughed. Luana gave them both a wave and said, "have fun!" before leaving, shutting the door behind her.

When she was gone, Milo turned to Thea and gave her an apologetic smile. "She's right, this place is still a total mess, I'm very sorry."

"It's completely fine," Thea walked over to the empty desk that she now knew was hers. She put her bag down and looked at him. "I hope I'm not a bother."

"No, no, not at all," Milo walked over to her. "I'm quite interested in the situation of the imprisoned Crows myself... and whatever you learn and want to discuss with me would be extremely beneficial for my work as well."

"Really?" Thea asked, pleased with that. "What exactly is it you do?" Clearly it had something to do with books and newspapers.

"Oh," he laughed nervously. "I suppose I should have mentioned that in the get go. I'm the current affairs researcher and analyst for General Killian."

Her brows rose, surprised but impressed.

"Similar to you, I work under the General. My job entails keeping track of what's going on by using local and national newspapers and reporting on anything of significance to General Killian. I do generally keep my focus on Elore, which is why your work would help me a lot."

Thea nodded, getting the gist of it. "That seems like quite a lot of work."

He chuckled, reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "It keeps me busy... which you can imagine, is also why I don't clean often."

Thea laughed too. "But you enjoy your work?"

"I do. A lot. My strength," he continued, "really lies in the analysis portion of my work... you know, reading deeper between the lines and trying to figure out things that aren't too obvious when just simply reading what is reported. It helps the General stay one step ahead, which in turn will ultimately help in maintaining peace... to some extent at least."

"That's quite interesting," Thea responded, also taking note of the fact that it looked like Milo genuinely believed that the General's goal was maintaining peace. "Can you give me an example?"

"Of course!" He almost instantly looked like he was lighting up. He rushed over to his desk, stepping over books and papers to get there, and then returned to her with a newspaper. Placing it down on her desk, he opened it up to a random page and pointed at a small blurb. "Give this a read."

Thea did as he said. It was a small paragraph discussing the intent of the city council in a town in Southern Abureth to build a monument to commemorate a victorious State Soldier. "They're building a monument in Southern Abureth... of Captain Shaen?"

Milo nodded. "And what do you make of that?"

"It's a little odd that they're building a monument of a State Soldier in Southern Abureth," Thea said.

"Do you know much about Captain Shaen?"

Thea shook her head.

"Captain Shaen was a very, very minor figure in the Civil War. However, his name is remembered in Southern Abureth because of a battle in a tiny town called Enya that was held by the Crows. And in that battle, his force managed to kill a relatively high ranking Crow who happened to live there."

Thea was even more sure now that the erection of such a monument was odd. What Elorian would want a monument of the State Officer who killed their neighbor, Crow or not, to be created?

"It may not look it, but this is an incredibly significant piece of news."

Now that she was unsure of. "It is?"

Milo nodded. "So my job," he said, looking back at Thea, "is to try and take this apart and look into it more closely. For starters, why would the State want the monument of a minor soldier erected in a relatively minor town? Well, the assassination of a significant Crow may be reason enough because it proves that the Aiverian State was victorious. But still, that still doesn't seem to make much sense. Enya is a town of a couple hundred... why would the state put money into commemorating a soldier so that only a couple hundred people could see it?"

Thea shook her head, not knowing the answer and trying to keep up as he was talking quite fast.

"To figure that out, you look at a map–" he turned around and rushed off, returning with a giant map of Aiveria which he stretched out across her new desk. He then quickly pointed at Enya, the tiny town close to the southernmost tip of Abureth. She noted quickly something that she didn't know before, that Enya sat very close to the Old Border– the line that once separated the independent state of Eloria from Aiveria. "There's Enya," he said. "And interestingly, right next to it is..." he dragged his finger along the map a very short distance to the left, approaching the ocean. "Is an ancient Elorian burial ground."

Thea blinked a few times and shook her head, more confused now than before. "What?" What the hell did an ancient Elorian burial ground have to do with a monument of a minor soldier?

Milo chuckled, his unusual brown eyes bright and looking excited. "Exactly my reaction," he then walked off to one of the shelves and quickly grabbed a book, opening it up to a page that had a little note paper in it to mark it. "Until I looked into it further... I'm sure you know this already but in ancient times, Elorians would bury the ashes of their dead in five specific locations, all facing west, close to the ocean and all in Abureth, seeing as that was the ancient Capital."

She did know this. It wasn't a common practice anymore though, but a lot of these old burial grounds were now sites for spiritual journeys... Elorian families often felt a strong connection to one of the five burial grounds as it was where their ancient ancestors were buried. Her own family had ties to one, the Sunsa Burial Ground, and would visit it every few years when tradition called for it and if they had time. On the other hand, there were some more spiritual families who visited the burial grounds associated with their families quite often.

But still, what did this have to do with the monument of a minor soldier?

He stood next to Thea and showed her the page he was looking at. "The burial ground next to Enya is the Sunma Burial Ground... the second largest one. Clearly an important one then."

She looked at the picture, showing the flat land marked with a large obelisk, the ocean in the background, just like all the other burial grounds.

Then he shut the book and looked back down at the map. "Keeping all of that in mind, we refer back to the map. There are roads within Abureth that lead directly to these grounds, and usually any Aburethian who wants to visit the Site would come from the north," he ran his finger along the many roads that did exactly as he said to prove his point. "However... I noticed that for any other Elorian, whether they are coming from Gaila, Kal, Danyo or Kiryu..." he continued, listing all the other major Elorian Regions, "or even anyone coming from anywhere in the Aiveria Province... they would most likely have to take a train that stops here–" he pointed at the nearest train station, which was a short distance east of Enya. "Which means..."

Thea's eyes widened, almost instantly beginning to get it now. "In order to get to the Sunma Burial Ground, they are likely to cross through Enya."

"Exactly!" Milo smiled widely at her. "See, you get it."

"So more people... more Elorians... will see this monument than we think."

Milo nodded. "And guess what the best part is?"

"What?" She looked at him, mesmerized by all that he was able to figure out from a few short sentences of a random blurb from a random local newspaper.

"All you have to do is look into a few documents from the Civil War to find out that actually... General Shaen, despite killing a prominent Crow of ERAF, actually lost the battle."

"What?" It came out as a gasp.

Milo nodded. "They were defeated by the Crows and pushed out of Enya."

"So the monument is to commemorate what? A State Soldier who lost?"

"It's not there to commemorate anything," Milo finally said. "My educated guess is that it's there to rewrite history... not so much for the people who actually lived through the battle a decade ago, but for all the people who pass through." He said. "I mean look at you and I... we read one small headline and we assume from the fact that there is a monument of a State Soldier being erected in an Elorian town that this would automatically mean the State won."

"When they didn't."

He nodded. "But putting up a monument like this will make hundreds and hundred of people, Elorians mostly, think that too... essentially rewriting history to make the State look better and stronger."

Thea let out a breath, shocked.

"With this information, the last step for me is to evaluate all the pros and the cons of whatever it is I learn. Then I take it to the General and let him know," he said. "For example, a positive of this is that it is a peaceful and relatively silent way for the State to exert its power... surely it's better than sending in soldiers who use scare tactics, as I'm sure you see plenty of in Abureth."

Thea nodded, holding back an eye roll.

"However, a potential con is that the residents of Enya may revolt against the erection of such a monument. They may fight against it, seeing as they know the truth, and fighting against it could cause the State to send in men to quiet them down. This would be bad for the obvious reason, but also because turmoil in Enya could also affect the ability of Elorians all over the province to visit the Sunma Burial Grounds, which could cause further unrest."

Thea nodded slowly, still mesmerized as a silence suddenly fell between them.

"And that's that..." he said, shrugging and suddenly seeming a little awkward. "That's my job... that's the bulk of what I do."

"Remarkable," Thea said. "You're amazing. A genius."

His cheeks turned red almost instantly. "Oh, no," he said. "No I'm not... I just take this to General Killian... he's the one who really does anything about it."

"Does anything about it? What would he do... in a case like this?"

"He's the Deputy Secretary of Defense... if it means defending the State, he will do what he needs to do, though he will try his best to satisfy everyone. We have yet to discuss this case in particular yet, but I'm sure he'll figure out the best thing to do. He always does."

"He always does the best thing, huh?"

Milo nodded. "He's good at fixing things," he added. "And frankly, the fact that he's able to do that makes my job feel worthwhile. It makes me love this job."

Thea kept her eyes on Milo before smiling. She couldn't help but like the thought of that... loving her job because it felt worthwhile. "I'm incredibly happy that I'm getting the opportunity to work with someone so smart."

He was blushing more now. "Well, I've heard a bit about you too... I think we'll work quite well together."

"Wonderful," Thea said. "Now please, before it's time to wrap things up, I'd love to hear more."

His face lip up yet again.

Yes.

They were going to be great friends.