Marie was standing at the Fort’s courtyard, her two servants at her side, with Joy carrying an umbrella to cover her lady from the sun while Lyra stood a couple of steps away. Marie took a half step forward, and looked up at the mostly clear sky, allowing only a few rays of sun to touch her skin.

“I wonder if we’ll leave at all today…” she said in a low voice, only audible to Joy and Lyra.

“I’m sure Lady Natalia isn’t going to take longer. She seemed to be more interested in leaving for the capital than wasting time in Lord Marcus’ adventures,” Joy replied from the side as she covered Marie with the umbrella again.

Lyra didn’t say anything, she simply tightened her lips slightly while holding on to a few snacks in her hands. Marie didn’t notice—or pay attention—to Lyra’s facial expression as she half-turned to eat one of the snacks.

“Ah, they seem to be back,” Joy pointed out when she saw the shiny armor on Natalia reflecting the sun in the distance.

Marie smiled and left the company of the two servant girls as she skipped ahead to the group, catching up with them soon after.

“Did everything go without issue?” she asked once she was closer to Natalia.

Natalia shook her head slightly. “No, there were some issues, but thankfully nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about?!” Marcus scoffed from her side, half-turning his body to look back at Jenna. “We somehow ended up picking up another stupid girl.”

There was a twitch on Jenna’s mouth when Marcus said that, with Marie also tilting her head to look back at this new person. Marie’s eyes widened when she noticed the hooded person and the robes she was wearing. “An Inquisitor!?”

Jenna took a couple of steps forward and bowed slightly. “That is right. I’m Sister Jenna. Her Eminence wished for me to accompany to the capital, and so I hope that we can get along on the way there.”

“Um…” Marie’s voice wavered while she looked at the few details on the red robes. “Sure…”

“Come on,” Natalia continued, ignoring Marie’s expression, “We’ve already wasted enough time. Get the carriages moving.”

The group continued to the carriages that were parked in the Fort’s courtyard. There were three, each one being pulled by a couple of horses. The carriages were similar to the one that Kent had prepared a few days before to explore the city, only that these ones carried the markings of Count Howler, which was a simple silhouette of a wolf. Everything else on the carriages was wood.

Marie took the lead and hopped on the first carriage, waving back at Natalia as she did. “Come on Lady Natalia! This is the one we’ll be using!”

Natalia walked closer but didn’t get inside. “I will be going on foot. It’s better that way.”

“But…” Marie trailed off as she wanted to argue against it, but she knew that she couldn’t do anything to change Natalia's mind.

“Then I’ll be getting on it!” Eden said from behind Natalia as she was approaching.

“No! I’m not sharing my carriage with an animal like you!” Marie quickly replied, shutting the door right after to leave Eden outside.

“Hey!” Eden exclaimed.

Natalia shook her head and turned to look at the carriage behind this one. “You can use that one. I think the Count prepared the second one for me and Marcus but we won’t be using it.”

Eden turned to look as well. It was an identical carriage.

“Well, alright then,” she said as she moved over to that one, only to be pulled back once she was placing a foot on the door by one of the Count’s guards. “Hey!” she exclaimed.

“Excuse me… ma’am… but the carriages are only for important people, and you are not,” the guard said, trying to pull her out to the side.

“Let her in,” Natalia ordered, approaching the carriage. “We won’t be using it, so there’s no point in leaving it empty.”

The guard turned to look at Natalia, his hand still gripping on to Eden’s arm. “But, to allow a Chaerian to use one of the Count’s—”

“I will be going along with it,” Jenna interrupted as she approached the carriage. “Or could it be that you don’t trust the power of the Gods?”

The guard paled when he noticed the robes on Jenna, quickly releasing Eden once he did. “No! The power of the Gods will keep the carriage safe!”

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Jenna chuckled, then ignored the guard and got into the carriage. “Come on, there’s plenty of room here,” she said to Eden.

“Alright…” Eden responded with some suspicions, but still got on the carriage. “Is someone else going to go in this one?”

“I’ll join you,” Kent said from behind the guard.

“Wait, we can’t have a man go with—”

“You are more than welcome,” Jenna replied from her seat, interrupting the guard who also wanted to pull Kent aside.

Kent easily moved past the guard and quickly settled himself into the carriage, ignoring both the ladies looking at him and the guard who had now given up on the carriage with a sigh, closing the door and moving away from it without saying anything else.

Eden looked at Kent for a moment, she didn’t have any particular expression, since after a couple of seconds she turned to her backpack and started rummaging inside to pull a notebook and a few papers from it. Jenna, however, didn’t look away. It seemed as if she either wanted to say something to him or was simply inspecting him as a small smile was all that could be seen in her face.

“What is it?” Kent eventually asked.

“You seem familiar…” she responded, tilting her head from one side to the other, looking at a few of Kent’s facial features.

“You probably have heard of me from Her Eminence. Why would you have though? I don’t really know,” he said, turning his face to look out the window.

“Ah!” Jenna exclaimed, slamming a fist on her hand, “You must be that Kenty boy!”

There was a quiet choking sound from Kent as he cringed slightly. “Please, Sister, don’t call me that.”

“Kenty boy?” Eden asked, her ears perking up, and her face looking up right after. “Isn’t that how Marcus calls you too?”

“Well, yes,” Kent responded, his eyes shut as he cleared his throat, “But this and that are completely unrelated.”

Jenna and Eden chuckled at the same time, with Eden turning back to her papers after a short moment and Jenna keeping her eyes on Kent.

“Then it would be a pleasure to travel with you,” Jenna said, the same smile on her face as before.

“Likewise,” he responded with a slight nod.

There was a moment of silence, in which Jenna turned to look out her own window. “Kenty boy…” she said in a low voice with a smile.

“Please… just Kent is enough,” he followed up with a just as low voice and a wry smile.

Jenna didn’t respond as she simply chuckled.

Natalia had missed that short bit of interaction as she had moved away from the carriage once the guard closed the door. She looked at the third carriage parked a short distance behind the other two. It wasn’t a showy one, as this one was just a provisions wagon and it only carried the few things that the Count prepared for a trip. She didn’t know if they were prepared for their sake or just their son, but either way, they were still coming with them.

Thomas and a guard approached her from behind, the guard was pulling a couple of horses, which made Natalia turn to look at what this was about. Both horses looked strong and healthy, one of them being white and the other being black.

“We’ve prepared these horses for you to travel,” Thomas said as he presented the horses to Natalia. “You can pick the one that suits you more.”

She looked up at both the horses. “I don’t need to ride on a horse.”

“While it might not be a hard road to the capital, I think it would be best for you to travel on one of them,” Thomas insisted, taking the reins of the white horse from the guard and pulling it closer to Natalia.

She looked at the horse, nodded, and—instead of taking the reins from Thomas—she moved over to the black horse, took the reins from it and swiftly hopped on top of it. “You can pass that one over to Marcus.”

Thomas looked back at her with his eyebrows raised, but still nodded and moved to where Marcus was standing. Behind him he could also hear the steady galloping of the white horse as Natalia led it along to where Marcus was standing.

The sounds of the moving horses alerted Marcus of their presence as he turned to look at them. “What? Are we real Knights now?”

“It’s an offer from my father to make this trip as comfortable as possible,” Thomas continued, offering the reins of the white horse to Marcus.

“I don’t wanna ride no stinky horse,” he responded as he pushed away the reins from Thomas.

Thomas was taken aback, and remained silent for a moment, but Natalia looked down on Marcus as she hummed. “Could it be that you don’t know how to ride a horse?” she asked.

“What!?” Marcus exclaimed, “Natty, you and I both know that there’s no weapon or tool we don’t know how to use. So of course I know how to ride a horse, I even know how to ride an ostrich!”

“Then why would you refuse to ride the horse?” Natalia calmly asked with a slight tilt of her head.

“‘Cause…” Marcus said but trailed off, “Alright, fine, I’ll ride the stinky shit.”

Saying that, he harshly took the reins off from Thomas, and just as easily and swiftly as Natalia had hopped on hers, he hopped on the white horse.

Natalia hummed as she looked at how easily he got on it. “I was starting to doubt if you were truly an Imperator.”

Marcus scoffed and looked at Natalia. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

Natalia didn’t answer as she shrugged and galloped away from him to be in front of the carriages. Marcus scoffed again but just laughed as he did the same, standing some short distance away from her and looking back at the group of people still getting a few things ready.

“Come on already! Let's go!” he shouted.

The people quickly arranged the few things they had prepared for the trip on the carriages, and the drivers for the three of them jumped on their seats. They didn’t quite move yet as Thomas was neither on a carriage or a horse.

He was standing next to a brown horse, looking at the reins for a moment. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and clumsily jumped on top of it—almost falling as he did—but eventually getting a grip on the horse.

One of the guards from the Fort that was sent as an escort quickly approached Thomas once he saw that, looking at him with some concern. “Is everything alright, my Lord? Would you rather travel in one of the carriages?”

Thomas quickly shook his head. “No need, the carriages are full already, and I think it would look better for the house if I rode out of the city on a horse.”

“Very well,” the guard responded, but stayed close to Thomas.

From the front, Natalia and Marcus were looking back at Thomas. Natalia was expressionless, while Marcus was looking with a mocking smile. They didn’t look back for too long, however, as they both turned to face forward and urged their horses to go. Behind them, the carriages, and the few guards escorting them, started following. The gates of the Fort opened and they made their way down the streets and out of the city.