The convoy came to a place where there were no longer any houses. The town ended, but you knew you weren't leaving the town. It didn't look like it. There was grass and trees to the sides of the road. It wasn't a forest. It was too tidy for that. Everything was well-kept and all the plants looked as if they had been planted. Light played on the pavement through the leaves in the gentle wind. The branches of the trees reached just as far over the road as they should for it to be like that.

After just a few hundred metres, the trees were already gone again. At the same time, the short grass became a uniform lawn. At this point, the gleam of a black fence caught Meia's eye. It was a magnificent fence, as if made of metal lances. Across the lawn, Meia could see that it followed the tree line throughout. Therefore, the property behind the fence was surrounded by both. It looked as if a forest had not been cut down for the property, but rather this artificial forest had been created for it. The wide strip of trees and plants was nothing more than a decorative screen. The artificial forest was certainly not for security. Thanks to the trees, you could sneak almost right up to the fence without being spotted. There was no need to go to the trouble of scaling the fence afterwards. Both sides of the gate were wide open. There was also nobody in the immediate vicinity. The convoy was able to drive through.

The gate was adorned with a coat of arms that everyone was familiar with. It was the coat of arms of Jena in all its glory.

At this point it was necessary to explain some basic things about symbolism in Jena.

In Jena, each noble family had its own symbol. They were rather uncomplicated symbols, but they always had a deeper meaning in connection with the history of the family. The symbol of the Arvis family looked like a squiggly H, but it was actually a combination of an A and a V. The Arvis family was once merged from two noble families. The names of the two families were Aria and Vis. The combination of the two initial letters was a reminder of the exchange of blood between the families. In Jena, the symbol of a noble family was referred to as a family emblem or, more rarely, just as a family symbol. After all, every emblem was a symbol.

Family emblems were used to mark possessions. The family emblem of the Monet family was a specific cross. If something belonged to the Monet family, it was often labelled with this cross. For example, the family's ships had it on the main sail and the flag. If it was coloured, it was blue. The Monet Cross was often accompanied by the name, as crosses had other meanings in Jena and even the true Monet Cross was used to mark traditional earth graves. Family emblems were also used for important contracts and general correspondence. In this case, the name was always included, as the family emblem was signed by the person in question.

People from the aristocracy sometimes also had a personalised variation of the family emblem. The emblem of Jean Monet as a person was the Monet Cross with vines. Jean Monet was not the only important person in his family, so it was worth having his own symbol. Meia, on the other hand, did not have her own symbol, since there was no reason to have one for her.

The country of Jena was divided into five regions, which were divided into prefectures, which were divided into localities.

The five regions were called: Centre/Crown, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest.

The Crown region was a strip running through the centre of the country from the west coast to the east coast. The other regions were self-explanatory.

Kiras was in Jena Centre/Crown. Blenas was in Jena Northeast. Reinas was in Jena Northwest. Aoka was in Jena Southeast. Wiestahl was in Jena Southwest. - These were all cities, but they were also prefectures. Both had the same name. But that didn't mean that every locality was always its own prefecture. The city of Aoka was just the city of Aoka, but the prefecture of Aoka also included many smaller villages with other names. One of these villages was, for example, the small town of Minden to the south of the city of Aoka, which the recruit had mentioned.

In Jena, each prefecture had its own symbol, which were sometimes referred to as coats of arms. Coats of arms consisted of symbols on and around a shield. Above the shield was the family emblem of the ruling family or a significant part of it. On the shield were other significant symbols related to the area and sometimes those of less important families from the area. In the full depiction, the shield was held by two or more animals and decorated with an element. For example, there were two lions surrounded by plants. The plants represented the lesser element of nature from the greater element of earth. Possibly underneath or above everything was a motto on a scroll.

The individual prefectures of Jena had symbols that were sometimes referred to as coats of arms, but were not. The symbol of a prefecture consisted of one or more symbols in a circle. They were seals. In earlier times, letters were sealed with wax. Hot wax was carefully tipped onto a letter. Sometimes it was just rolled up paper. A stamp was pressed into the hot wax and once the wax had cooled, the letter was effectively sealed. You had to break the seal to be able to read the contents. If it was an important administration or an important family, then it had good stamps with finely crafted symbols, which were also called seals in other contexts due to their origin.

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In the history of Jena, there were countless internal conflicts involving armed clashes and the country was incredibly fragmented in its power structures, but overall there were still comparatively few such conflicts and the crown has always been stable above all others. There were few large camps that held together against other large camps, so there were few large conflicts. In other words, there weren't many fires, but if there was a fire, it was an inferno. The prefectures did not make it clear in their symbols who protected them or who ruled them, because so many individual parts often did not fit into one symbol. The prefectures therefore often had symbols that were independent of noble families.

The seal of Aoka was three fine rings and in the centre was a windmill with a waterwheel on a river. The river was bent upwards on both sides so that it followed the rings. But it wasn't a fourth ring. The river ended before that. This seal hung with banners on all the city gates and was worked into the first gate. Presumably it was incorporated into all the lattice gates, but Meia had not seen any of the others because they were raised. When people saw the windmill with the waterwheel, they thought of Aoka.

However, the seal was not the seal of the city of Aoka, but the seal of the prefecture of Aoka. Small localities only had limited administrative functions and usually did not have their own seals. Minden had its own town administration and they used the seal of Aoka with the letter suffix AO-MI for Aoka-Minden. In the city of Aoka, there was a separate city administration in addition to the prefectural administration, which used the suffix AO-AO for Aoka-Aoka. The Aoka prefecture used just AO. Such letter suffixes existed for all towns in Jena.

There was a big difference in administration between localities that were the centre of a prefecture and those that were not. Minden, for example, had a mayor. The mayor was either elected by the citizens or appointed by a higher authority. The higher authority was nobility, the prefecture, the provincial government or in special cases the crown or various authorities combined. Aoka had no mayor by title. In localities that were the centre of a prefecture, the administrator of this prefecture automatically fulfilled this role. The administrator of a prefecture was therefore also referred to as the local administrator, local holder, city administrator or usually as the city holder.

The regional areas did not have their own symobles, but they also had their own administration and an administrator.

The administration of Jena North-East was located in Blenas. There were therefore three administrations in Blenas - that of the city of Blenas, that of the prefecture of Blenas and that of the region of Jena Northeast. The city holder of Blenas was automatically the mayor of Blenas and the administrator of the prefecture of Blenas and in this case additionally the regional administrator of Jena Northeast. Blenas was a huge city and, as you could imagine, its city holder correspondingly powerful. Meia had already met the city holder of Blenas. It was Jean Monet.

Jean Monet was a member and the decision-maker of all three administrations. When he signed something, he used the seal of Blenas with the respective addition, his emblem and his signature. If another member of one of the administrations signed something without him or his representative, then without his emblem and of course with a different signature.

In Jena, only the state as a whole had a proper coat of arms. That was what you saw on the gate. The shield was a dragon shield. It was held by two dragons. The element was fire. Which meant that the shield was decorated with flames. Above the shield was a crown. There was a burning heart on the shield. The flames fanned out and looked like wings. The heart was not really a heart. That was only the case in very old depictions. In today's coats of arms it was a crystal. If you didn't know that it was supposed to be a heart, you wouldn't think so.

The full national coat of arms was also embroidered into the walls of the carriage with gold thread, but more often it was seen in a simplified version. If you looked at the breastplate of a city guard, there was only the burning heart with wings of fire. The symbol was highlighted as a structure, but not set off in colour. Even though most of it was missing, it was still the national coat of arms. The heart of a city guard burned for the country and would incinerate if it had to. It was a crystal heart because it did not incinerate quickly or needlessly. The country was aware of the value of life - at least that's what was said. At the same time, the salute in Jena was a hand on the heart or, more precisely, a fist on the chest.

The individual parts of the national coat of arms all had a highly symbolic meaning. The wings stood for freedom, the dragons for power, the crown for the reign of the king. The royal family was called Brandt, but that was not where the fire came from. There were dozens of noble families whose names could be associated with fire. Fire was simply something that was connected with Jena. Jena had an excessive number of volcanoes, geysers and hot springs. The trench between Gravia and Jena was particularly rich in volcanoes. Fire was part of the history and part of traditions. Nowadays there were ambitions to distance themselves from fire and its significance, but Jena would never be able to completely separate itself from it.

.../ End Part