The Birth of a Ranger

Chapter Eleven

Dante couldn't hold herself back from feeling excited on the trip back home, though through her wounds she could wait. A week passed and the healers on the ship back home to the main island treated the final blow Azura had given her before tossing her onto the ship bleeding and broken. Her wounds from the dungeon had long since healed leaving nine long white scars down her back and many other scars on her body that were more visible.

She had sent her remaining six assassins back to the mainland a week prior with a note detailing her return. By the time the Rangers got it, she would be halfway home and they would be preparing for her return, assuming they got the letter in time and nothing stopped her men from delivering the letter as she instructed. Get to the mainland, find a carrier bird and send it on its way.

In a way she knew it was an order they disagreed with but she needed her family to be as unaware of the guild for as long as possible while she figured out a way to explain things to them.

Dante had laid in a daze for days now in her cabin in the ships below deck, being treated by the crew's healers to make sure she didn't die over night and made her trip back to Annuminas in one piece. Over time of course, she did recover and was on her feet, even if still in pain, by the time they reached the shore and she was dropped off to trek back to the fort on her own. Not that she minded, it gave any nearby Rangers a chance to see it was actually her.

She actually wasn't surprised by the lack of Rangers there to greet her when she got off the ship but her instincts kicked in and she knew they were there. In the trees. Waiting. Watching. Observing. They wanted to know the letter sent was no forgery or trap and so they would treat it with caution even as she walked freely in the forest, injured and occasionally leaning on trees to check her injury.

She had at some point, pulled her hood up to cover her features knowing that the Rangers, wherever they lingered, had gotten a good enough look at her; she didn't bother to show herself anymore.

As she neared the clearing at which the fort sat in, a group of Rangers came out from the trees in front of her, stopping her dead in her tracks. She drew daggers without thinking and paused when she realized she was face to face with her own kin. Her father. She sighed and sheathed her daggers where they had come from and stared right back at her father, not sure what to think.

Why hadn't he returned her letters? She saw many emotions cross his eyes, all of them combining and scattered. Relief. Confusion. Hurt. Even joy. She was the first to pull away from his gaze and turned to walk away to a nearby tree and lean against it. It was a movement she knew that the others had definitely noticed, even as her father motioned them to back up and went to a tree nearby to lean against himself.

Despite it not having been said she knew they were all wary of her and in truth, she was of them. The thirteen months she was gone she had honed her skills into a deadly weapon. When she left she was merely fourteen and still a child but now she was fifteen and her age seemed to be showing. She didn't look much more different to their eyes, that much was certain. Older. More Mature. Definitely not different.

"We tried sending letters, they were intercepted. We tried sending messengers, they were attacked on the road. We never received letters, we thought the worst, but we didn't give you up for dead." There was a long pause that Dante found herself unable to stand. She was being kept from her family all those months and she had known it. "We sent scouts for months but even that became dangerous. The new Morrigan pulled nearly all of her support, we're stretched thin here. Then we get a letter after a year of nothing. I'm sorry if we're a bit wary right now." There was that unspoken part lingering that her ears strained to hear. Needed to hear. "I'm sorry I couldn't have done anything."