<span style="font-family:Calligraffitti"><span style="font-size: 26px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ffffff">Chapter Seventeen - New Friends and Old Enemies</span></span></span><br/><i>Five Days Later</i><br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ccff99">Ayla walked back into their suite, stretching her arms with a wide grin on her face. Ever since she’d started training in hand to hand with Lucian, their instructor had been doing something different when she joined them for combat training, something that she only did once a week now. A two on one match certainly made things more difficult, but she was quite pleased with the outcome today, her brother less so. </span><i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#a6ff4d">&lt;Oh come now Xi, you shouldn’t be that surprised. I mean look at who we’ve been sparring with--- ooh?&gt;</span></i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ccff99"> she stopped mid sentence, looking down at the clothes on her bed. The deep Indigo and sea green outfit she’d gone to the tailors to try on was laid out for her, with a neatly written note in Lucian’s handwriting.</span><br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ffcc">Alexi took the note, turning his back while his sister ducked into the bathroom to shower excitedly, suspecting they both knew what the contents were. He skimmed through it, smiling, as it was nearly an Identical note to before.</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4dffa6"><i> &lt;yes, we’re to both dress in our matching outfits and meet him in his study. And yes. Tomorrow is our day off. So yes, you probably get to finally meet Ordenel.&gt;</i></span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ffcc"> he stopped for a moment, a few stray thoughts wandering into his mind. At some point during the night, he wanted to get the flamboyant man to sit down for a moment, and talk to him about his mother.</span><i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4dffa6"> &lt;and La, don’t… don’t punch him if he hits on you?&gt;</span></i><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ccff99"><br/>
It didn’t take her long to  finish in the shower, and soon the two were knocking on Lucian’s study door, Ayla’s hair twisted up into a crown style braid, and Alexi’s in a short braid down his back.</span>