Haylen’s daily schedule was a simple one, and her upcoming pilgrimage hadn’t changed that much. Normally she would wake up at dawn, eat a light breakfast, spend the morning training, have lunch, study in the afternoon, eat dinner, and use her evenings as she saw fit. Her routine was still fairly similar, but now her afternoons were spent poring over maps, and thinking about the days to come.

While technically belonging to a religious order, imperial paladins tended to live fairly secular lifestyles. When not on campaign, prayer was typically offered during mealtime, but that was as far as it went. They were people of action, and preferred to live according to their calling rather than simply speak it in hushed whispers. Singing Arlon’s praises was something to be done when there was no more pressing duty to attend to. Aside from heeding the call of an expedition, most paladins spent their time wandering the lands and meting out justice as they passed.

Some paladins, like Corlo, were married, had families, lived outside of the monastery, and rarely traveled. Haylen however had been there since the day she had left the orphanage, and considered it home. Here she lived. Here she trained. Here she learned how to be the person she wanted to become.

Soon she would be leaving this place, and her home would be a tent, a roadside sanctuary, or an inn in whichever town her feet led her to. Haylen had been prepared to make the journey alone, finding companionship with the other travelers or pilgrim caravans she met along the way, but she was glad to know that Indigo would be coming with her to share the entire experience.

She hoped Kearse would come as well. At first, she objected to his joining. Haylen had originally planned on making the pilgrimage by herself, and no one had said she needed protection then. She understood the reasoning quickly though, and had withdrawn her objection immediately.

If Haylen had gone by herself, she would have spent most of her time on the road with the groups of pilgrims that constantly made their way between cities. She would have often switched between one caravan or another, but she would never have truly been alone. However, now that Indigo was coming along, the two of them would be just as likely to travel as a pair as they would be to travel with another group.

Neither the paladins nor Father Gregor believed that Haylen actually needed protection. Still, having Kearse come along would help to decrease the chances that Haylen needed to protect herself at all. Father Greger had also subtly hinted that Kearse’s inclusion was more for Indigo’s sake than her own.

She had only known Kearse for a few months, and for most of that, he had only been another one of her troops. At the Peninsula Necropolis however, he had quickly proven himself to be dependable, honorable, and trustworthy. If there was a better person to make the two into three, she had yet to meet them.

Haylen had only just finished her morning practice, and was making her way back to the women’s dormitory to bathe and change into clothes that weren’t soaked in sweat. She stopped though, when she saw a certain homunculus sitting under a tree in the courtyard, a basket of fruit on one side, a stack of books on the other, and scribbling furiously at a writing board.

The day before had been quite eventful for Indigo. Haylen herself had practically murdered that innkeeper with her words when she found out what he had done, and a very strongly worded letter, signed by both Father Gregor and Knight-Paladin Damfeld, had been sent to the adventurers and mages guilds. If anyone knew about Indigo, they now also knew that she was beyond off limits.

Somehow the girl had come out of the ordeal entirely unfazed. For anyone else, getting captured in such a way, let alone taken twice, would be a traumatizing event. For Indigo, it was simply a mid-point in the tale of her sexual escapades.

“I’m beginning to see why Kearse is so protective of her. Spending so much time in the necropolis has definitely skewed her sense of danger. And her priorities are definitely in the wrong order. One of these days, someone could take advantage of her, and she wouldn’t even realize it.”

Haylen altered her course and sat down in the shade next to Indigo. A bath could wait, and there was still time before the midday meal.

“What are you doing back so soon?” she asked. “I thought you were going to be busy until the afternoon.”

Despite offers of a guard, Indigo had insisted on her independence and gone out that morning to complete some tasks.

“Ended early,” Indigo replied. “Weland is still alive, luckily. Gherti is still pissed, unfortunately. I gave her good tea leaves. It helped. Maybe. We talked about my sword. It will be good. It went well, I think.”

Some time yesterday, Indigo had apparently decided that it was time to start drinking less alcohol. Haylen supported that decision, both out of fear for the girls liver, and because it would force her to actually focus on improving her speaking. Indigo was adapting incredibly fast, and was now managing full, if somewhat small, sentences rather than her previous broken grammar. Her accent still needed some work though.

Indigo still seemed a little surprised by Welands actions, but to Haylen it made perfect sense. She was the daughter of an elf, and could remember seeing her mother worked up into similar states before. And given her mother’s job as a prostitute, such states were frequently unsafe for a child to be around. It had been one of those outbursts of obsession that had finally caused the brothel matron to send Haylen to the orphanage in the first place.

“I should stop by and say goodbye to Madam Alling before I leave. Mother… well I suppose I’ll have to. Although I doubt she’d even notice that I’ve left if I don’t tell her first.”

“After that,” Indigo continued, not noticing Haylen’s contemplation, “I went to an apothecary too. That didn’t go well.”

Haylen snapped back to the present. If Indigo said something didn’t go well, it must have been bad.

“Is that why you’re back early?”

“Yes,” Indigo replied with a nod, still focused on her drawing. “He kicked me out.”

“He kicked you out?”

“Yes. With his boot. No joke. Boot to butt. Out the door. He was very angry.”

Haylen paused, trying to imagine what could make someone literally kick a person out of their shop. Since Indigo was involved, it could have been a large number of things.

“And he was angry… why?”

“My words,” the homunculus said with a nonchalant shrug. “He didn’t like what I said. It started fine. We talked about this. We talked about that. Then we talked about alchemy. We disagreed, and he kicked me out.”

That wasn’t enough of an answer. That wasn’t nearly enough of an answer.

“And?” Haylen pressed. She didn’t care how hard it was for Indigo to talk. She was curious and wanted to know the details.

Indigo scratched at her chin and looked up, hoping to find a good sentence hiding in her eyebrows.

“Do you know the philosopher’s stone?” she finally asked.

Did she know the philosopher’s stone? Of course she did! As a paladin candidate, Haylen’s education had focused more on the history, culture, and the warfare strategies of the empire, but the philosopher’s stone was a legend that even the poorest of farmers could talk about at length. It was the pinnacle of all alchemical pursuits. An object capable of turning lead into gold, copper into steel, and charcoal into mythril. Who hadn’t heard of it?

“Wait…” Haylen said, suddenly remembering the vast quantity of ancient books Indigo carried around. “Do you know how to make the philosopher’s stone?” she whispered, suddenly afraid to speak out loud despite being alone in the yard.

Indigo checked her eyebrows again before answering.

“Yes and no.” she said. “I know it can be done, but don’t know how to make it. I also know it doesn’t work. Not like people think. Lead to gold is possible, but it’s mostly useless. Better as… scientific idea. No practical value.”

“But… What? How could that be useless? How does changing lead to gold have no value? It’s gold!”

Indigo nodded as if the question was expected. The alchemist had likely had a similar objection, and Haylen was beginning to see where the problem had come from. The philosopher’s stone was an alchemist’s dream, and Indigo had insinuated that that dream was worthless.

“Lead to gold is possible,” Indigo said again, “but… it’s not cost effective. The… materials needed are worth more than the gold it can make. If you can make a loaf of bread that is worth one gold coin, that is good. If the oven you bake the bread in needs to burn a forest, that is not good. The forest is worth more than one gold coin. The stone is like the oven. That is why it is useless. Costs much, but makes little.”

Indigo scowled at the air in front of her.

“Stupid alchemist. He thinks lots of gold is good. If all lead became gold, then gold is worthless. Bah! Too greedy. One person with the stone wouldn’t become rich. Would only make the world poor.”

Indigo nodded, her story complete.

“So yes. He kick me out. With his boot.”

Haylen could only stare, unsure of who had been the bigger idiot. The alchemist for being unwilling to listen, or Indigo diving so deeply into such a sensitive topic which could only have such obvious results.

“She has definitely spent too much time in the necropolis. This girl’s social awareness is zero.”

Haylen made a mental note to keep Indigo away from any formal gatherings until she could be sure that the homunculus wouldn’t stick her foot in her mouth.

“If you knew how to make the stone, and if he had agreed with you, would you have taught him how to make it?” she asked. Haylen knew that Indigo wanted to keep a lot of things secret, but it was impossible for her to know how much information Indigo considered to be too much information.

“Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. The stone is not a stone. It is not a simple thing. It is like… a complex oven. Very complex. If I knew how to make it, I still couldn’t. The empire lacks the tools needed to make the tools needed to make the tools needed to make the tools needed to build it.”

After that, they sat in silence for a while, Haylen enjoying the shade and slight breeze, and Indigo focusing on her writing.

“What are you working on now?”

Indigo pulled pair of apples from her basket, handed one to Haylen, and took a bite of her own before replying.

“A spell scroll. Verdis hasn’t tried to scry me again. But if he does, I want him to regret it. If he looks at me, I use this. Boom! Goodbye crystal ball. Hello shrapnel. Hello bleeding Verdis. Not big boom though. It won’t kill anyone. Probably. But it will hurt.”

“You do remember that he’s an archmage right?”

“Yes,” Indigo said as if it didn’t matter. “But he’s also an asshole.”

“He’s one of the most powerful mages in the guild.”

“Yes,” Indigo replied again. “And he’s an asshole.”

“He’s one of the most influential mages in the guild.”

“And an asshole,” Indigo singsonged.

“Do you even understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“Yes. Now ask me if I care,” Indigo said in a deadpan voice. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll give him a warning. Fifteen seconds should be enough. If he doesn’t want his stuff to blow up, he shouldn’t be spying on people. It’ll be his own fault if he doesn’t listen. I just need to avoid him for a few days. Once we leave Orlis, there won’t be a problem.”

“He could send a message to the guilds in other cities, you know.”

Indigo sighed as if the problem were beneath her. She reached up to her horns, and detached them cleanly from her forehead.

“There,” she said, sounding annoyed. “Problem solved.”

She reattached her horns almost immediately, though.

“Plenty of ways to avoid trouble. I just don’t like them. I like my horns. I don’t want to hide. I am Indigo. Indigo has horns. Yes, I’m being stubborn. Would you change your ears to avoid being seen?”

Haylen frowned.

“I wouldn’t mind having round ears. My hair gets me enough looks as it is.”

“Don’t be pedantic,” Indigo scowled, banging her hand on the ground to emphasize each word. “You know what I mean. And if people look at you, it’s because you are pretty. I am Indigo. Indigo has horns.”

Haylen was puzzled. That was twice now that Indigo had used those words, and it didn’t sound like it was from a lack of vocabulary. The homunculus had said it as if there was a deeper meaning.

“What do you mean by “Indigo has horns?” I don’t get it.”

“It’s… shapeshifter philosophy. Or, my philosophy. My body defines me. I created this body. It is mine. It is me. I have always had horns. They are the most me part of me. If I change my body, I am not me. I am someone else. I would be not Indigo.”

Now Haylen was surprised, and a little bit ashamed. Indigo was knowledgeable, yes, but all of that had come from reading the Ancestor’s books. The homunculus was only two, and so far Haylen had assumed that Indigo was a “what you see is what you get” type of person. That there wasn’t a whole lot going on beneath the surface. That she was able to have a strong ideology about anything was surprising.

“Sorry. I just… never expected someone who could change their shape to be so attached to a single body. None of the common races can do that, and even with monsters it’s not something that you hear about often. I’m mostly going by stories.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Indigo waved the apology aside as unnecessary.

“Meh. I didn’t expect to think this either. But I am Indigo. I like being Indigo. Changing shape is what I can do. It is not who I am. I… started on a new form. But it is not ready. It has no name. No individual spark. No… no persona. He is not ready to be a person yet.”

“He? You want to be a man?”

Indigo laughed.

“No. No, I’m happy being female. He will only be there for “someday.” Maybe. I don’t even have clothes for a man. No. He is only a project. I don’t want to change. I just want to be able to change.”

A sudden realization came to Haylen at that moment.

“Is… is that why you’re so short?”

Normally a person’s height could be a delicate subject, but since Indigo could probably change hers at will, it probably wasn’t a problem.

“Actually, how much of her body is by choice? She’s beautiful, in a strange way, but it’s still odd that she would consciously decide to look so different.”

Indigo grinned, as if Haylen was now part of some inside joke.

“Nothing wrong with being short. Smaller target. Harder for zombies to grab me. Less weight. I can run for a long time. It also puts me in a good head pat range.”

Indigo’s mischievous smile didn’t twitch in the slightest, and so Haylen was sure.

“You just didn’t want to get new clothes.”

The grin widened and she laughed.

“Yah. It’s the clothes. I am not looking forward to shopping once I finish my third body.”

“Third?”

Indigo froze, and the smile fell from her face.

“I don’t… I don’t want to talk about that one. It doesn’t think right. It isn’t normal.”

Haylen’s brows furrowed with concern.

“You make it sound like it’s a different person. It’s still you, isn’t it?”

Indigo’s breath became labored, and she looked like a rabbit that was ready to make a break for it.

“Indigo is me. Indigo becomes me. This body becomes me. In that body… I become it. My mind becomes its mind. I do not like that body. I do not use that body. It isn’t bad. It’s just… too different. It does not see the world like we do.”

“I see,” Was all Haylen could say. Whatever that body was, it clearly caused Indigo some amount of distress.

“You don’t,” Indigo said, staring off into the middle distance. “Be glad you don’t.”

“Does it have a name?”

“No. No name. I will not give it one. I don’t think it would even care.”

“Is it going to be a problem for us? For you?”

“No problem. Like I said, it is not bad. I just don’t like it. It is just too different. So I don’t use it.”

“Do you want to talk about something else?”

“Please.”

But Haylen couldn’t think of anything else.

“Let’s take a bath,” she decided. “Then we can have lunch. And then we can go over our plans for the pilgrimage. How about that.”

Indigo nodded, and Haylen could see her face going from eerily pale, back to its usual unusually pale shade. Still, the girl’s usual energy had dissipated, and the spring in her step was gone.

Together, they went to the women’s dormitory, and washed up in the communal bath. Indigo was mostly quiet throughout, and didn’t even try to subtly ogle Haylen’s chest. When they had changed into a fresh set of clothes, both wearing simple dresses of wildly different fashion, the homunculus seemed to be doing a bit better. During lunch, she stuffed her face full of enough breaded fish and salsa to forget what was troubling her, and returned to normal.

Indigo had been surprised by the priest reading aloud from one of the holy books for the duration of the meal. Haylen had been prepared for that. Indigo had grown up, more or less, away from civilization, and wasn’t used to how things worked here. What Haylen hadn’t been prepared for was Indigo asking why the priest was reading an adventure story.

Several people around them nearly choked on their food when they heard Indigo’s question. It wasn’t an adventure story! It was history! It was the record of Arlon as the first emperor before his apotheosis. Luckily, Indigo was a known foreigner, and no one took offence at her naïve question. She had only just arrived in the empire, so it was understandable that she wouldn’t know of Arlon’s legacy.

Indigo was confused by the sympathetic smiles that came her way, but Haylen cringed. This was her own failing. They had been together for the past week, and Haylen had completely neglected to teach the homunculus more than the most basic matters of faith. Corlo, being a devout follower of two gods, likely would have found the situation hilarious.

Unfortunately, the orc was not here. He lived nearby, and always took the time to go home and eat with his family. Haylen was always welcome to join him, and that invitation likely now extended to Indigo as well, but she had thought it best to eat at the monastery today.

While Indigo said that the festival had been “fucking awesome” she had still given Haylen a long sermon on the nature of friendship and not abandoning the people you invite to a party. Under any other circumstances Haylen would have felt incredibly guilty, but since she knew just what the girl had gotten up to, she refused to feel more than the tiniest bit of remorse.

If it had come from anyone else, Haylen would have accused them of making it all up, but Indigo seemed to either be a horrible liar, or thoroughly incapable of it. Haylen could only take the words verbatim and assume that they were, at most, slightly exaggerated. How could one person inspire an entire orgy in the first place? A gangbang was one thing, but an orgy?

“Most likely those damn mercenaries took advantage of her, and she was too drunk to care.”

Still, the level of Indigo’s truthiness got stuck in her mind, and couldn’t be shaken loose. For someone who had so many secrets to keep, Indigo had a strange habit of either saying everything, or saying nothing.

When their luncheon had finished, and they were on their way to Haylen’s room to make further plans for the day, she could take no more. She had to ask.

“Indigo, why are you so honest?”

Indigo tilted her head, not understanding where the question had come from.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t lie. I’ve only known you for a little while, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that you haven’t lied. You haven’t even stretched the truth. You’re either very bad at lying, or you’re so good at it that nobody has noticed.”

Indigo frowned, thinking over the past week they had known each other.

“I don’t think I’ve lied. Why? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Indigo, even Corlo exaggerates. He loves to tell tall tales. He loves to make things seem bigger than they are. But you don’t. Why?”

“Again, I fail to see the problem.”

“When we talked about your other body, it obviously made you uncomfortable. I’m sorry for bringing it up again, but it’s a perfect example. You went into detail, and then you stopped exactly at the point in which you think you would have gone too far. Am I wrong?”

Indigo’s face scrunched. She probably didn’t like where this conversation was going, but just as Haylen had predicted, Indigo spoke anyway.

“I don’t like to lie. Truth is… necessary. When I woke up in this world, I didn’t know what was real. I didn’t know what was unreal. Finding truth helped to keep me alive. Truth helped me know that I wasn’t broken. Truth kept me sane. How could I deny that to someone else?”

Haylen looked down at the homunculus skeptically.

“Is that how it is, or is that what you think? Are you able to tell a lie, or is there something about being a homunculus that prevents it?”

“What? Just because I don’t like to lie doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“What color is my hair?” Haylen demanded. “Lie to me.”

Every muscle in Indigo’s face seemed to flex while she thought very hard about what to say.

“Chartreuse!” she finally blurted out.

“That’s not a color,” Haylen said.

Haylen was pretty sure it wasn’t a color.

“It is too a color!”

“Is it the color of my hair?”

“Yes!”

“Is that a lie?”

Indigo’s face went from white, to pink, to bright red, and started shifting into purple before Haylen realized what was happening. She knelt down, and gently began to stroke her back, trying to calm her down.

“Breathe, Indigo. Breathe. It’s okay. You don’t have to answer. Just breathe.”

“Teal!” Indigo shouted before gasping, falling to her knees, and sucking in as much air as possible.

“Alright. It’s alright. You can lie just fine,” Haylen lied.

“Please don’t patronize me,” Indigo said sounding dejected.

“Let’s just go to my room and we can start planning our pilgrimage. How does that sound?”

“It still sounds patronizing. I get it. I can’t lie for shit.”

Haylen knew that her attempt at diverting the discussion to a different subject had been obvious, but she had hoped that Indigo would go along with it.

“Why do I keep going too far when I talk to her? Maybe she’s not the only one that lacks social awareness.”

“Let’s just work on the pilgrimage,” Indigo sighed. “Should we get Kearse? We should at least see if he has decided. If he’s coming, he should join in. If he hasn’t made up his mind, we should let him know that we’re starting.”

“Yes,” Haylen agreed, happy for the opportunity to stop her verbal blunders. “Let’s go find Kearse. You know where he lives right? I know I told you where, but I haven’t been there myself.”

* * *

An hour later, after asking directions, taking wrong turns, asking more directions, taking more wrong turns, and asking for even more directions, the pair finally found themselves at a house that Indigo recognized.

When they knocked on the door, Kearse greeted them wearing only a pair of baggy pants.

“Hey handsome,” Indigo said, wicked grin going in full force. “Got room for a couple of fine ladies in your life?”

Kearse blinked, leaned over to grab something out of view, and stood back up to bonk the girl on the head with a boot. He then closed the door to muffle the sound of Indigo’s cackling, and returned a minute later to open it, fully clothed.

“Good afternoon, Commander,” he said to Haylen. “Hello, you,” he said to Indigo. “Please, do come in. Have you eaten yet?”

Haylen closed her eyes and pretended that none of that had just happened. Indigo however gave a full curtsey, and was more than happy to play along.

“Why thank you, Master Elastro,” she said, her strange accent now even stranger. “We have, in fact eaten. But surely a man such as yourself knows not to question a woman’s weight. You’re hospitality is most appreciated though. Pease pardon our untimely intrusion.”

“This girl… Did she even need to drink in the first place? Her language skills are as transient as her mood sometimes.”

They sat down at the table where Kearse’s mother and sister were still cleaning up after their lunch. The tableware, she noticed, had come from the necropolis. The fine dishes would likely end up only being used during special occasions, but for now, the family wanted to enjoy them.

“I can guess why you’re here,” Kearse began, “and I’ll go. I’ll go on the pilgrimage.

“You will?” Indigo nearly shouted. “I thought we would have to tie you up and drag you along.”

Haylen hadn’t quite expected Kearse to decide after only two days, but she hid her surprise. Unlike Indigo and herself, Kearse had a family to leave behind, and he would be away from home for more than a year. Maybe even two. She knew his income wasn’t much, but it still helped to support his household. That said, he had just made a modest fortune during the expedition, and could now easily afford the expenses of the journey.

“I will,” he confirmed, placing his hands on the table and giving them a deep nod. “And I would like to thank you for asking me to accompany you.”

That last part was directed at Haylen more than Indigo.

“I thought about it,” he continued, “and this isn’t a chance that I’ll get again. It isn’t something that I can pass up. It’s the grand pilgrimage, and I want to see the empire, the whole empire, before I lose the opportunity.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Haylen could see Kearse’s family smiling with pride. Most people in Orlis had no idea who Haylen was. If they did, she was just “that half-elf.” But to the sixty people in her platoon and their families, she was Commander Haylen, and she liked to believe that she had earned their respect.

Haylens’s own pride swelled, both for herself, and for Kearse. She had led him into battle, and now he would be her guardian. He would make the journey with the same sincerity that she did. They would gain honor together, and they would both be better off for the other’s company. Indigo wouldn’t understand it, but Kearse did, and Haylen knew that he had been the right choice.

Indigo began to lay maps out on the table. Most of them were her own ancient charts of the world and the continents. Only one belonged to Haylen, and was a modern map of the empire. Compared to the others it was crude, but it showed the modern borders of all the kingdoms and territories, and the larger areas blocked by the miasma. With all of them together, they could plan their journey almost perfectly.

The largest decision was just choosing which direction to go. For the most part, the Arlonian Empire was coastal, surrounding the Imperial Gulf, and portion of the Open Sea. Orlis was located at the northeast edge of the Imperial Gulf. With the imperial capital being one of the closer regions to the south, they unanimously agreed to save it for last, and begin their journey headed east.

After that, it was simply a matter of working out some of the shorter distances. The empire was made up of more than a dozen different kingdoms, city-states, and territories. They were sure to change course more than a few times, but at least they would know in advance the general order of places that they would be visiting. Individual towns or cities could be handled on an “as needed” basis.

Once Indigo had taken a few measurements and done a bit of quick math in her own private language, she came up with a rough estimate of ten months for the travel time alone. If they stopped to rest for even a week in each region, it would take more than a year before they returned to Orlis.

Haylen knew that traveling that consistently and resting that little was completely impossible, and so they settled on “about two years” as being the likely duration of their journey.

They would be spending days in the towns they passed through, and a week or more in each city. In the capitals, they may even stay for a month. Rushing was not only not an option, but it defied the entire point of making the pilgrimage in the first place. It wasn’t a race, and getting home as soon as possible wasn’t something to be strived for.

The pilgrimage was meant to be an experience. It was meant to help people understand their place in the empire, and the roles of everyone else that made it work.

They all had different small goals for the trip. Indigo wanted to see Niseguo, the beastkin’s island kingdom. Kearse was looking forward to visiting Basker, the land his father and grandfather had come from. Haylen was hoping that she would be able to join an expedition or two.

All three of them gave their opinions, but Haylen ended up with the final say more often than not. As much as Kearse and Indigo would be traveling with her, the two of them still considered it to be her pilgrimage first and foremost. Haylen tried to listen to them as much as she could and not let herself slip into commander mode. If she did, she was likely to start demanding that the order of every city, town, and village be scripted out to the letter, and that just wouldn’t do.

They discussed things like food. It could be bought in bulk and kept in Indigo’s storage. She already had enough stockpiled to last for months.

They talked about water. Indigo could summon as much as they needed.

Money issues were brought up. As a paladin candidate sponsored by the church, Haylen would continue to receive a stipend at the cities they stopped at, but Indigo and Kearse would have to pay their own way. They’d be fine. Indigo just shrugged and joked that she could stop off at a necropolis if either of them started to run low on funds.

For transportation, Indigo insisted on a wagon.

“I don’t mind walking for a few hours at a time, but I refuse to spend an entire week on my feet. I don’t know how you guys in the militia managed to do it.”

She slapped a handful of large gold coins down on the table.

“I don’t care if it’s pulled by horses, mules, or a pair of damn goats. We’re getting a wagon.”

Haylen and Kearse weren’t about to complain. Aside from nobles, pilgrimages were typically made on foot, but that was only because most people couldn’t buy their own wagon at the drop of a hat. If Indigo wanted to pay for one, she was more than welcome to do so.

They worked into the evening, making plans, changing plans, taking breaks to rest their minds, and finally eating dinner with Kearse and his family.

At first, Haylen was slightly uncomfortable being a guest for dinner. She had eaten at Corlo’s home numerous times, but he was someone that she was familiar with, and used to being around. Being a guest in someone else’s home felt strange to her.

Kearse’s reaction to the potato stuffed bell peppers helped her feel a little less out of place. In Orlis, they were somewhere between a delicacy and a staple food. The dish was one of the most normal, middle-class foods that Orlis had. After growing up in a brothel, being sent to an orphanage, and then living in a monastery, Haylen had never eaten it before. Kearse had, but his family had been poor, and his purehearted excitement at the meal made her own feel a little less strange.

Indigo seemed to be happy to eat anything that hadn’t been encased in metal, and was practically licking her plate before she realized that she could ask for seconds. Really, there was nothing like eating with a necropolis survivor to make a person feel normal.

Eventually, Haylen managed to break her own ice, and mentioned that she had originally intended to promote Kearse to the rank of sergeant in the militia solely based on his ability to keep his cousin Chadvid out of trouble. Haylen had been completely serious about that, but the Elastro family found it uproariously funny. Chadvid, it seemed, just had that kind of reputation.

Kearse’s father, despite technically being a foreigner to the kingdom, was the picture of an Orlisian gentleman. Manly, yet comfortable enough that he felt no need to defend his masculinity. His mother was likewise a perfect homemaker. Womanly, and ruling the household in her husband’s shadow. His sister was… a teenager. Iyesa was curious about the world, and had no end of questions that she wanted to ask Haylen about her life. That Haylen’s ears chafed inside of most helmets was something that the younger girl took with ultimate seriousness. Given the Elastro household’s newfound wealth, it wouldn’t have surprised Haylen if Keare’s sister took the grand pilgrimage herself one day.

“Do you think we should invite Mayra?” Indigo asked during a lull in the conversation.

“I already did, actually. Yesterday,” Haylen responded. “She said she would think about it. She’s a noble, and they usually go on pilgrimage with their spouse once they get married. But she’s also a mage. That means she’s unlikely to marry any time soon, but it also means that she might not want to leave her work.”

Indigo nodded, thinking about what she had been told.

“Can you take me to see her tomorrow? I tried to find her yesterday, but I couldn’t. I want to ask her things. Pilgrimage things and mage things.”

“Archmage Verdis?”

“Verdis. Also other stuff. But yes. Verdis.”

Haylen, like Indigo, doubted that they would be able to leave the city without the archmage causing at least one more problem. Mayra’s help would be necessary for keeping that problem as small as possible.

They would be starting their pilgrimage in two weeks. If there weren’t so many things that Haylen still needed to prepare, she would have made their date of departure earlier. Indigo was unconcerned however, and seemed to be looking forward to finding out what stunt the archmage might pull. That concerned Haylen quite a bit.

Whatever happened would happen, and Haylen could only hope that the damages would be as small as possible.