Faine ran ahead of her brothers with skirts hiked up around her waist, using the momentum to leap from side to side of the trail clear of the mud. Rounding the final bend she spotted the small crowd waiting to see her off just beyond the edge of the brush and behind them the ornate carriage. Even with all the considerable speed she'd build up she wasn't likely to clear the last stretch of mud flat to the step of the carriage in a single bound, she'd need a stepping stone.
"Incoming" the priest traitorously warned.
Instead of landing a top his back her father spun and caught her under the arms, holding her up to dangle. She could see that glint in his eye that want to drop her right there in the mud, but the sternest glare she had settled his impish streak. It would be serious trouble if she had to arrive at the academy muddy, she might not be anything like one of the noble fops but she'd at least try to pass herself off as one of them. With a relenting chuckle she was set atop the carriage step where she could meet each of those arrayed before her eye to eye.
Her parents who must have spent all the farms savings on her new boots and coat and supported her journey every step. Lili, the herbalist to whom she'd been apprenticed for as long as her memory, who was only happy for her success and to whom she owed the new satchel. Finally, Priest Bert who'd doubtless done the most of anyone, pulling together donations from around town and turning her past month into perpetual lessons and study.
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In a moment the spell broken by her brothers bumbling down the trail with a racket, her trunk overhead. The farewells began then, each person trying to impart their own profound piece of wisdom. Lili's "and don't hunt birds on the street, they're all festered with disease" especially practical.
"And if you beat up the first guy good enough they won't bothe *eouw*" her brothers final remark cut short by mothers timely intervention as too soon the door clicked shut.
With a sigh she turned away from the door and sat finding herself across from her a boy muddy up to the knees and his eyes fixed toward her thighs. Looking down herself she found her skirt still hiked up around her waist and quickly gave the boy another pair of legs to fuss over.
By the time the boy had ceased the groaning and moaning over the poor state of his shins she was the image of a proper young lady.