The next few days were normal. That was the honest summary of them.
He ran the fractions lesson he had been planning, which went about as well as fractions lessons tended to go, meaning Midge got it immediately and spent the rest of the session asking questions that were technically about fractions but were really about whether numbers were invented or discovered, which was a real philosophical debate that he was not qualified to settle on a Tuesday afternoon with chalk dust on his hands. Corin and Dex managed basic halves and quarters by the end. He counted that as a win.
He made progress on the bicycle frame. The rear axle mounting had been giving him trouble for two weeks, the issue being that without machined parts he was working with hand-forged metal that was close but not precise, and close was not good enough when you needed something to spin true under load. He spent an afternoon with the estate's blacksmith, a quiet man named Breck who had been doing his job for thirty years and had the kind of practical intelligence that came from solving real problems with real materials every day. Between the two of them they worked out a revised mounting bracket that would distribute the stress better. It was not elegant. It would probably work.
He played two more football sessions. Won one, lost one. Aldric had been practicing something resembling defensive positioning, which was both good and inconvenient.
He checked the group chat in the evenings, which had become a routine faster than he expected. It was easy to fall into. Hestia updated the group on Bell daily, sometimes twice daily. Gojo sent pictures of his students with the regularity and enthusiasm of someone who had discovered that other people would look at the photos if he sent them. Eriri occasionally posted sketches she was working on and asked for feedback, which Hestia gave enthusiastically and which Rias gave with the careful precision of someone who took creative work seriously. Kakashi read everything and commented occasionally, usually when something practical or relevant was being discussed.
Noctis mostly read too. He answered when addressed, asked questions when something was unclear, and otherwise did not go out of his way to insert himself. It was a group chat. There was no reason to perform anything.
On the fourth day a second official notice arrived from the empire's northeastern regional command. It said very little that the first one had not already said, except that it said it with more formal language and a longer list of signatories, which Noctis had learned to read as a sign that people were starting to cover themselves administratively. When bureaucrats started adding names to documents, it usually meant the situation was becoming something they did not want sole responsibility for.
His mother read it, set it on the table, and said nothing. He read it, set it back down, and thought about it for the rest of the morning.
That evening, he opened the group chat and typed.
* * *
Hestia: Bell learned a new skill today and I am so proud I could cry
Gojo Satoru: what skill
Hestia: I'm not going to jinx it by talking about it
Gojo Satoru: you brought it up
Hestia: I brought it up to express pride not to discuss it
Gojo Satoru: fair enough
Noctis Valerius Azor: I have a question for anyone who has military or strategic experience. Kakashi, mainly you.
Kakashi Hatake: Go ahead.
Gojo Satoru: I also have strategic experience
Noctis Valerius Azor: You're welcome to weigh in.
Gojo Satoru: okay but you went to Kakashi first
Kakashi Hatake: Noctis, what's the situation.
Noctis Valerius Azor: I'll give you the relevant background first so the question makes sense. It's going to be long.
Kakashi Hatake: That's fine.
Noctis Valerius Azor: The Dravek Confederacy is a coalition of seven clans that occupy the territory northeast of the Valerius Empire, across the Arnoth River. They've been there for roughly three hundred years, since before the empire existed in its current form. Originally they were loosely connected nomadic groups who shared common ancestry and a common language. About a hundred and fifty years ago they formalized into a confederacy with a rotating council leadership. Each clan sends representatives, the council votes on major decisions, and military authority specifically is held by whoever holds the title of Warchief, which is an elected position that serves for life or until removed by council vote.
Noctis Valerius Azor: The Dravek and the empire have a complicated history. They fought seriously twice. The first time was about eighty years ago, before my grandfather's reign, when the empire was trying to push its northeastern border further up the Arnoth. The Dravek pushed back hard enough that the empire gave up on it. A treaty was signed that established the Arnoth as the formal boundary and granted the Dravek trading rights at two designated crossing points.
Noctis Valerius Azor: The second conflict was about forty years ago, during my grandfather's reign. One of the Dravek clans, the Varnek, raided a border settlement on the imperial side of the Arnoth. The empire responded, it escalated, and it became a two year border war. It ended badly for the Dravek. They lost significant territory on the eastern bank of the river and the treaty was renegotiated on terms that heavily favoured the empire. Fort Caldren was built as part of that settlement, a permanent imperial garrison on the eastern bank to watch the primary crossing point.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Since then there have been incidents. Skirmishes, raids from smaller clans, occasional posturing from the council. But the Confederacy as a unified body has never formally moved against the empire again. The general understanding on the imperial side is that the second war cost them enough that the council is not interested in repeating it. That understanding has held for forty years.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Four days ago, Fort Caldren fell. Not a raid, not a skirmish. Taken. The official notice buried it in a postscript but that's what it said. And a second notice arrived today that said essentially the same thing with more signatures on it.
Noctis Valerius Azor: My question is this. Given everything I just described, what does it mean that the Dravek Confederacy has taken Fort Caldren now, after forty years of restraint. What changed.
There was a pause. Not a long one, but enough that Noctis noticed it.
Hestia: oh this sounds serious
Eriri Spencer Sawamura: I don't know anything about military strategy but even I can tell that's not a normal thing to happen
Gojo Satoru: yeah okay I see why you went to Kakashi
Kakashi Hatake: A few clarifying questions first.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Go ahead.
Kakashi Hatake: The rotating council with a Warchief elected for life. When was the current Warchief elected, do you know.
Noctis Valerius Azor: I don't know exactly. The position has changed hands twice in the last twenty years as far as imperial records are aware. Current Warchief is a man named Draven Kael. He's been in the position for somewhere between five and eight years, the intelligence on that isn't precise.
Kakashi Hatake: The clan that started the second conflict forty years ago. The Varnek. Are they still significant within the Confederacy.
Noctis Valerius Azor: They were weakened significantly after the war. Lost land and lost standing in the council. From what I know they've spent the last few decades rebuilding internally. They're not the largest clan but they're not marginal either.
Kakashi Hatake: The treaty that was renegotiated after the second war. What were the specific terms beyond Fort Caldren being built. Did the Dravek lose the eastern bank entirely or just portions of it.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Portions. The empire took a strip of territory roughly five miles deep along the eastern bank for about thirty miles of river frontage, centered on the primary crossing point. That's where Fort Caldren sits. The rest of the eastern bank outside that strip remained Dravek territory but with restrictions on military presence within a certain distance of the crossing.
Kakashi Hatake: And the trading rights that were originally granted after the first conflict. Were those preserved in the second treaty or revoked.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Heavily restricted. The two crossing points were reduced to one and tariffs were applied that hadn't existed before. The Dravek trade access to imperial markets has been limited for forty years.
Kakashi Hatake: Alright. Thank you, that's enough to work with.
Gojo Satoru: okay sensei mode activated
Kakashi Hatake: The first thing I'd say is that forty years of restraint is not necessarily evidence of contentment. It can just as easily be evidence of patience, or of a long recovery from a loss.
Kakashi Hatake: What you've described is a confederacy that lost a war, lost land, lost trading access, and has spent four decades operating under terms that weren't theirs. That's not a situation that produces goodwill. It produces the appearance of acceptance while the underlying resentment stays intact. The question was never whether they wanted Fort Caldren back. The question was always whether the conditions were right to try.
Noctis Valerius Azor: So the motivation isn't new. What changed was the calculation.
Kakashi Hatake: That's my read. Something shifted the calculation. There are two general categories of thing that can do that. Something changed inside the Confederacy, or something changed outside it that made the window look better.
Kakashi Hatake: On the internal side. You mentioned the Warchief position has changed hands twice in twenty years. That's significant. A rotating elected leadership with a position held for life means that when the Warchief changes, the entire strategic direction of the Confederacy can change with it. Five to eight years is recent enough that Draven Kael might still be consolidating power and looking for something that demonstrates strength to the council. Taking Fort Caldren would do that. It would also specifically benefit the Varnek, who lost the most in the second war and who have presumably been pushing for decades to recover what they lost.
Kakashi Hatake: On the external side. Is there anything happening in your empire or in the region more broadly that could have made the Dravek think the empire is distracted or weakened right now.
Noctis sat with that question.
Noctis Valerius Azor: My brother became king two years ago. My father had a long reign, relatively stable. The transition was smooth but it's still a transition. New king, new court, people still figuring out where they stand with each other.
Noctis Valerius Azor: There have also been three poor harvests in the southern provinces over the last four years. Not catastrophic but enough to create internal resource pressure. The empire has been dealing with that quietly.
Kakashi Hatake: That's probably part of it then. New leadership that hasn't been tested in a conflict yet. Internal economic strain. From the outside those look like vulnerabilities. If the Dravek have any kind of intelligence network operating near the border, and a confederacy that old almost certainly does, they would know both of those things.
Gojo Satoru: so basically they saw a window and took it
Kakashi Hatake: That's the most likely explanation, yes.
Noctis Valerius Azor: You said two categories. Internal change or external window. Which one do you think it is.
Kakashi Hatake: Both, most likely. In my experience these decisions are rarely made for a single reason. But if I had to identify the primary driver, I'd look at leadership first.
Kakashi Hatake: A confederacy that held together through forty years of unfavorable terms without breaking apart or launching a serious offensive, that level of restraint takes either very strong central control or a genuine shared belief that waiting was the right strategy. Either way, it means the previous leadership understood the cost of acting too early and chose not to. A Warchief who has been in position for five to eight years and decides now is the time is either someone who has been building toward this since they took power, or someone who is responding to pressure from within the council to act.
Kakashi Hatake: The Varnek specifically. If they've been rebuilding for forty years and they have enough influence now to push the council toward action, that would explain the timing. They have the longest memory of what was lost and the most to regain.
Noctis Valerius Azor: So either Draven Kael is someone who came in with this as a goal and has been working toward it, or he's being pushed by the Varnek and others on the council who think the time is right.
Kakashi Hatake: Those aren't mutually exclusive. He could be both. Someone who wanted this and found the council pressure aligned with his own intentions.
Noctis Valerius Azor: And if it's neither. If this is something else entirely.
Kakashi Hatake: Then the Confederacy has either lost internal coherence and someone acted without full council backing, which would be dangerous in a different way, or there's an outside factor I don't have enough information to account for. A third party with an interest in destabilising your border, for instance.
Hestia: a third party? Like someone is pulling strings behind the scenes?
Kakashi Hatake: It's possible. It's also the least supported by what Noctis has described, so I wouldn't lead with it. But it's worth keeping in mind if the situation develops in ways that don't fit the simpler explanations.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura: this is genuinely terrifying to read about
Gojo Satoru: I mean it's also kind of fascinating from a strategic standpoint
Eriri Spencer Sawamura: Gojo it's happening to Noctis
Gojo Satoru: I know that's why it's fascinating and also concerning
Gojo Satoru: Noctis do you have any actual say in how your empire responds to this
Noctis Valerius Azor: No. That's my brother's decision, and my father has advisors for exactly this. I'm not in the capital and I'm not in any position of command.
Gojo Satoru: but you might end up on a battlefield
Noctis Valerius Azor: Possibly. If it gets to that point. We're not there yet.
Rias Gremory: Is there anything you can do from where you are.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Wait for more information. That's the honest answer.
Kakashi Hatake: That's usually the right answer when you're not the one making the decisions.
Noctis Valerius Azor: Thank you. This helped. Having a framework for what might have driven the decision is more useful than just staring at the question.
Kakashi Hatake: The most important thing to watch for is what they do next. Taking the fort was a statement. What follows it will tell you whether this is limited in scope or whether they intend to push further.
Kakashi Hatake: If they hold and wait for a response, they want negotiation. Fort Caldren as a bargaining chip to revise the treaty terms.
Kakashi Hatake: If they advance, they're not interested in talking.
Noctis Valerius Azor: And you think it's more likely to be one or the other.
Kakashi Hatake: Honestly, I don't know enough about Draven Kael to say. But forty years of waiting suggests a certain kind of strategic patience. Someone who waited that long probably has a specific goal in mind rather than just wanting to fight. That leans toward the fort being leverage.
Kakashi Hatake: But I've also been wrong about what patient people were willing to do. So watch what happens next.
Gojo Satoru: Kakashi admitting he's been wrong. mark this day
Kakashi Hatake: I'm wrong occasionally. I just don't announce it.
Hestia: Noctis I hope everything works out. I'm going to light an offering tonight.
Noctis Valerius Azor: I appreciate that.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura: I don't have anything useful to offer but I'm listening if you need to vent
Noctis Valerius Azor: Noted.
Rias Gremory: Keep us updated on what the next notice says.
Noctis Valerius Azor: I will.
* * *
He closed the interface and sat in the quiet of his room for a while.
The conversation had done what he hoped it would. He had not expected answers, exactly. He had expected a framework, a way of organizing the question so it stopped being a single large unresolvable thing and became a set of smaller more specific things. That was what Kakashi had given him. Leadership change as a primary driver. The Varnek's long grievance as a secondary pressure. The empire's transitional moment as an external opportunity. Three threads, each of which he could actually think about separately.
He still could not do anything with it. That part had not changed. He was not in the capital, not in command of anything, not in a position to influence the response. But understanding a problem and being able to act on it were two different things, and understanding it was still better than not.
Draven Kael. He turned the name over in his head. Five to eight years in power. New enough to still be proving something, experienced enough to have built toward this. Either a man with a plan or a man being pushed by people with a plan. Possibly both. Kakashi's point about those not being mutually exclusive had landed.
He thought about the Varnek. A clan that had started a war forty years ago, lost it badly, lost land and standing and trading rights, and had been rebuilding ever since. That was a long time to carry a grievance. Long enough that the people who had originally lost the war were probably mostly dead, and their children and grandchildren were carrying something inherited rather than personally experienced. Inherited grievances were, in his observation of this world and his memories of the last one, frequently worse than personal ones. They calcified. They became identity rather than anger.
He did not know if any of that was useful. It might not be. But it was something to think about while he waited for the next notice, which would come when it came and say what it said, and which he would read and then probably come back to the group chat and tell Kakashi about.
He looked out the window. The estate was quiet. Somewhere below, Breck would be locking up the smithy. Maren would have finished whatever she was doing with the linen stores. Aldric was probably in the stable talking too loudly about something. Normal evening. Same as the one before it.
He had a fractions lesson to plan for the day after tomorrow. He had a revised bracket to test on the bicycle frame. He had a letter from Lord Vane that had arrived that afternoon, measured and courteous, indicating that the Vane household understood and respected his position regarding Lyra and would hold preparations accordingly. That one had been a relief.
Life was continuing. That was what life did. You made space for the things that needed thinking about and then you went back to the rest of it, because the rest of it did not pause to wait for you.
He picked up the letter from Lord Vane and read it again, more carefully this time. Then he set it aside, pulled out a fresh sheet, and began drafting his reply.