A week later, Alister was on the train yet again after a short stop in Rythwith, this time headed further south to Keene to move everything from the edge to the capital of the duchy. His home would be Rythwith from here on out. He was still weakened, disallowed from doing magic… and still unable to do much anyway.
His worry about Demerieth was what consumed his waking hours. There was little he could do but read whatever books he could find on the Opal System, but that wasn’t satisfying his frustrations at this point. He felt like he was useless, a failure, that he couldn’t even figure out what was wrong or why his dead friend seemed trapped in a nightmare. He still didn’t even trust that it was real!
Now, though, he had to focus on moving, and on Wisteria. The poor girl was so nervous. Excited to see her mom again, sure, but nervous about meeting this mysterious boyfriend.
“Wisteria, do you think your mom did research on the man?” Olana asked, head tilting slightly as she stared at her, straight purple hair hanging to the side.
“Uh… I don’t know. Maybe? It’s hard to research people most of the time. Not everyone is like you guys and has access to all that… spymastery… stuff,” she answered, scrunching her nose a little, “Olana stop being weird about it I’m nervous already I don’t need to be even more nervous.”
“Olana, Wisteria doesn’t have the network we do. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure your mom is a fine judge of character,” Marabell, the twin’s mother, said. She was boring into her child with her bright green eyes, before her eyes darted to her other daughter, Harriet, who was climbing the back of a chair, “Don’t break that.”
The three cowkin girls had decided to come along to help move things. Alliana and Reese stuck behind at Rythwith to work on setting up their information networks and whatnot, leaving Blas and Marabell as the adults of the group.
Harriet huffed out a breath as she fell back down into her chair, “Ok mom!” She turned to the window and stared outside it, watching the scenery of the marshes turn back into plains. Alister looked at the two of them and shook his head. His twin cousins were so bizarre. Ah… no, to be fair, his whole family was strange. He was not one to speak. He wasn’t really appreciative that they were coming with, but to be free from his mother for a week or two sounded amazing right about now. She had been so overbearing since the attack. When they separated, she made sure to give him a lecture about the safety of the region, about behaving sensibly, and about not using magic aside from very minor spells. He didn’t get to use magic until another month, by his estimations.
“Marabell, when we get there I want to take a few days detour and check on the border. Would you like to stay behind or accompany me?” Blas asked, his dark eyes tired as he looked at her.
She fiddled with a charm around one of her large horns, wrapped like a bracelet, “Mm. I’m not sure. Honestly I think I’d be more use at the house packing things. Unless there’s something to hit I kind of just planned to use my strength to help move stuff.”
“That’s alright,” he responded, opening his mouth to say more before getting interrupted by Harriet.
“I can go! I can help. And Alister can come too! I wanna learn about it,” she half-shouted, before awkwardly adjusting her volume.
“I… am not sure you’d find it interesting. But yes, Alister you should probably come along to learn. I’m not sure if…”
Marabell shook her head, “Don’t worry about it. Harriet can go with you. I’m not my husband. I’m not too worried about her holding her own if something goes messy. Plus like you said it’s probably going to be boring anyways.”
Blas sighed, “Alright. Olana do you-”
“No thank you Uncle Blas,” she responded politely.
He let his sigh turn into a groan, “You lot. Would you stop interrupting m-” The train’s whistle blew louder than his words as the others erupted into giggles at his struggles.
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The train ride itself was as boring but calm as before. The only difference was the slight tenseness Blas and Marabell had as they thought about the coming years. As they passed Fornafoss, they got off the train this time at Seafierce, the small town in between Fornafoss and Bernoth. This section of the rails had been completed to satisfaction and had opened for use within the last week. Unfortunately for Bernoth, the rails headed into the city were still yet to be completed, so they had to get off and change to carriageway.
Marabell had to do her little tilt and turn through the door to get through with her horns before she sat with a sigh. Harriet sat beside her, head under her mother’s horns, and Olana beside her, making notes in a small book she scribbled in. Blas, Alister, and Wisteria sat on the other side, with Wisteria against the window looking out at the forest and plains with a serious expression.
“Try to take a breath, Wisteria,” Blas offered again, happy to focus on her instead of his own existentialism, “Just a while longer, and then we’ll be too busy moving to stress about what we cannot control.”
“Ha,” Marabell laughed, “A nice idea. Though the distraction is nice, it’s not like it makes the issues just up and disappear. I know I can’t just un-think it.”
“I’m just saying,” he sighed, “It’s not bad to refocus on something you can control instead of what you can’t.”
“Yeah yeah, if you can, yeah,” she shrugged, “Moving is a pain in the ass when you have so much stuff to move. When you’re on the road as a part of your job, you don’t have as much to move, so it’s more like a normal facet of life. I suggest trying to just kinda turn off your thoughts for a bit instead. Go full no-brain for a bit. It’s nice sometimes as a merc.”
Wisteria awkwardly nodded at the two of them, not sure either of them were really helpful with her worries, but appreciative that they cared. How did any of that help though with the fact she was going to be moving again… or that she had to consider what to do with the surprise-en-noble-ing… or how to greet her mom’s boyfriend.
Alister was ignoring the lot of them, looking past Wisteria out the window as they rolled down the road. The weather had an ominous melancholic grey to the rolling clouds, coating the sky and removing any hint of blue. It looked like bad rain was coming. The streets here were still quite nice, but he hoped that none of the roads further along would get washed out by the storm.
As he gazed out the window, a blur of black zipped past like a bird that flew too low. He furrowed his brow, but heard no impact with the carriage, so it must have been hunting something nearby.
“Alister,” Blas said, his voice pulling the boy’s eyes from the trees, “Once we reach Ekrin, I need to send a missive. Are you able to manage that sort of spell yet? I do not want you to push yourself, however, so if you cannot, then do not force it.”
His stern expression made Alister roll his eyes, “I know, Father. I’d rather not be in pain for something as simple as that. I should be able to manage something like that as long as it is not an incredible distance. Is it a pressing issue?”
“Ah, not exactly emergent, but… Well, I have a method or two for sending simple letters, but the best option I have I learned from my brother Reese, and I prefer not to bother with it unless I need to. It’s a bit of a hassle. But no, the message isn’t something of incredible importance, or at least not one with much time sensitivity. I don’t want to go through a typical messenger service, however, as I want to send a contact to an Orcish tribe in the mountains. They would have a better feel for what’s going on in Dusau, and I can offer them some supplies in return for information. Despite not being considered people by most of the world - save for Kitharn and a few outliers - they will rarely refuse help unless you outright insult their pride.”
Wisteria nodded, listening more intently as Kitharn was mentioned. She needed to learn anything she could about that place before she had to visit there. Everything she heard made it sound scary. Even their King and Queen were intimidating. She didn’t mind considering monsterfolk as people, necessarily, but the strange differences between cultures must have made things difficult.
Marabell hmm’d, "Orcs huh... well, it's true they frequently offer their might as mercenaries, and it's not uncommon for them to be hired to deal with things you'd rather not risk the knights for. I remember a few times my father was escorting noblewomen, and they were attacked by an orc raider group. After all, some noblewomen disappearing because of an Orc attack? It wouldn't be questioned at all. People say the average is like 1 female for every 100 males. They’re a race that has to… uh… ‘outsource’. Still have it better than the harpies though, they’re like all female unless they’re a mutant harpy."
“A mutant harpy?” Wisteria mumbled, looking all the more concerned now.
Blas continued on about the message, “I don’t want to risk sending a normal messenger on the task for those reasons, and to also keep the task under some semblance of secrecy to avoid Dusau hearing of it. If you can manage that distance then it makes this simpler, but it won’t be too much of a pain to just hire someone in Ekrin. I still do-”
A scream of pain from outside cut the conversation into silence, followed shortly by the carriage coming to a sudden and jarring halt that tossed the kids out of their seats.