Mental preparations

Unknown faces just yet

Maybe future foe or friend

Mask not yet seen hap

Clack

Our heroine had just closed the door of her little hut made of special wood. She looked around, this time without all this exhaustion, mentally, physically and emotionally, she could clearly see where she was located and what the surrounding area was.

It was the local fauna and flora of Badn as she had learned in the palace, still, it was quite enjoyable to see it with her own eyes for the first time. It was mostly wood, lots of forest with a whole lot of little bushes on the ground. It was so green, you could forget that there were other colors. Yet they were in a clearing, exactly like she teleported into but way bigger. Big enough to have a few huts placed far away from each other, a campfire, some laundry lines etc.

“Thank the divinities above that I had learned that very specific application of my ability, thank you dad,” she said this out loud. She was not used to speak out loud, yet, she felt like her dad should hear this thought of hers.

Wooze

There was an amicable breeze moving the grass she stepped on with her now clean red shoes, there were not many flowers though. A few, also of the color green as if they wanted to hide in between the grass and were too shy to show themselves.

“HEY! YOU ARE FINALLY AWAKE!” It was Thue, he was right out of his hut around 13 arm lengths removed from her. She had not noticed him at first, too busy appreciating this calm green foresty area.

Thue slowly slithered towards her, he took his time and looked around too as a reaction to seeing her discovering the face of the environment.

“Yes it is quite beautiful over here, in a simple way, we were lucky it was not raining the past few sols either.” he said amicably to her, in an even more amicable way than he had previously talked to her, which was already pretty amicable.

“So it rains a lot over here?” she asked, Keraja thought to herself that she must have forgot a little bit about the climate in Badn she should have deducted it too from seeing the vegetation.

“I mean, if you really are the princess you should be educated about this kind of stuff. Can’t you see the trees? These are not trees you find in the desert or hot climates, it’s a temperate climate over here so everything grows well but not too well either. It isn't as lusciously green as our home country.”

He was right, Saanpi, their hometown, was extremely lusciously green, they would call it “the divinities own country” all over the continent. You could pass by without working even, the trees would feed you fruits and there would be plenty to go around they said, that is what she learned and heard at least, she had never been there.

“So, my job?” There was a moment of discussing nature and a moment of action so she can get rid of her family and get her throne back.

“Come to the fireplace we will explain, my boss at least will.”

“Has he even presented himself or have I forgotten it?”

“I can’t recall exactly, but his name is Embac if you didn’t know yet also…” Thue seemed to not exactly know how to put his next thoughts into words, not because he didn’t know exactly but because he didn’t know how to express them while keeping his own safety as first priority.

“What is it?”

“Be careful with him, I don’t really understand what happened yesterday between you two but we all felt his mang and we don’t like it when that happens, it has happened multiple times where one of our comrades passed away”

“So you do know about mang” she asked

“Yes, of course we do, we work with him. It also is kind of required knowledge to be in this squad as you remember what his ability was… We can’t really use it ourselves though, we have never been trained in it.”

“Makes sense, you do need some knowledge or else you don—” she got cut off by the man she should be worried about, it wasn’t something she liked to happen.

“Come you guys! Come on! I thought you wanted to go back to your country princess HAHA!” he laughed and even if his comrades that were also gathered at the unlit fireplace didn’t find it funny, they laughed anyway. Nobody wanted issues with their boss of course, when he laughs, you laugh.

They walked, at least Keraja, to the campfire.

It was bright outside, she wasn’t so focused at her surroundings anymore while she walked but the sky specifically to make out how late it was.

“You don’t have anything to tell the time on you maybe?” she asked, knowing the answer but still hoping for another one.

“No, I have not. Yet I think it’s around noon now so it’s already late, we kind of wanted you to already go in the morning but everybody overslept due to all that hassle of yesterday.”

They kept walking towards the lightless campfire, it was quite far away from where they were so they had this short conversation, having those conversation made Keraja feel as if she wasn’t royalty, she liked that sometimes.

The Lamian and the Ninge finally arrived at where they should arrive, the campfire.

“You,“ he pointed his short blade at her.

“You will immediately leave with the carriage of supplies headed towards Treis, it is up north of Treis not immediately at the border of it with Badn so it might turn out to be a longer journey.”

Embac had said this with a kind of attitude that was hard to describe, not really that one of a king, neither is it the one of a teacher giving you a lesson and neither was it your father telling you to fetch something for him. It was more a captain that had never had a mutiny. Not because he was a good captain but because everytime but slightly disagreed with him, was thrown overboard. Yes, it was that kind of attitude.

“Ok,” she answered flatly, in normal circumstances she would immediately kill him but a deal is a deal. The princess could get out of the woods simply because she accepted this job, so she will do it.

“Good, the carriage will be held by a few rahsa and—”

“Wait, what is a rahsa?” she asked, they looked at her confused.

“HAHAHAHAHA” of course he laughed, that is what the kind of people like him did when somebody admitted with honesty and curiosity a gap in their knowledge, she had met people like this before.

Phhuuwwweeeeet-Phheeew!

He whistled very loudly, she looked around, there were suddenly a good amount of sort of animals coming to them. One immediately came close to Embac and went under his arms and hand as if he or she wanted to be pet.

“Hahaha, once my baby always my baby,” he caressed the rahsa that had appeared right next to him trying to get attention from him.

“That is a rahsa” he kept caressing her, it was a bipedal animal with feathers. It had wings on its side, it didn’t look as if they were usable really. It had a long neck, the color of the feathers changed depending on the rahsa, they were all different colors. They all had a long strong beaks as if they were ready to kill something. Depending on the rahsa, the eyes looked very sharp with a few of them, incredibly sharp as if they could notice any change in the environment.

“So I’m going to give you two, I will hang them at the wagon full of our precious things that we want to sell, you don’t have to do ANYTHING except be on the wagon and kill anything that comes close. The rahsa know exactly where they have to go,” there is no border between Treis and Badn so he was right, they really could just walk until they reached their destination.

“I’m going to go prepare them, you can do what you want for a little,” he pointed at the food that another Lamian was preparing while they were talking.

So Embac was busy preparing and choosing which one was going to go. The wagon, which was absolutely massive, beyond belief, was already loaded. They had probably done that in the morning already, that is what Keraja thought at least.

She ate her fill, other Lamians tried to ask her a few questions, talk with her but she wasn’t very interested.

During this brief period of time, she thought of other things until she realized she had to prepare mentally for this. She was with absolute certainty sure that Airan had still a few tricks up his sleeves for her. The journey was just about to start.