Mizuko reclined in her chair, letting the gentle breeze wash over her and temper the heat of the sun shining down upon her.  Reaching to her side, she gently grasped the teacup and lifted it to her lips, letting the warm brew trickle between her lips as she took in the picturesque view of the rolling grasslands before her.  Though the tea was the same high-quality leaves as she’d tasted hundreds of times before, by now it tasted sour on her tongue.  Though the waving grasses and spotless blue sky provided the same majestic sight she’d enjoyed for months, now it only brought her dissatisfaction.

Mizuko was bored.  She was tired of spending every day in the manor that was now her home.  It was a very pleasant and luxurious life, to be sure—eating delicious meals cooked using expensive, high-class ingredients; sleeping upon a mattress filled with a rare moss that smelled like pine leaves and was the softest thing she’d ever lied upon; relaxing in the expansive flower garden that Pyria had ordered built to the side of the manor; even, to some degree, being waited on hand and foot—but even the grandest of lives grew tiresome and monotonous without variety.

Having been given a second chance at life, a second youth to savor—feeling like you were seventy counted as youth for somebody as old as she was—she’d spent almost the entirety of it in one of two places: this manor and the Clan Palace in Esmaeyae.  Having regained her vigor through the unknown miracle that had brought her here, she’d then proceeded to squander it.

The realization left her feeling bitter inside.  She yearned to leave this place, to go and see the wonders that this new world provided, but things were never so simple.  Sure, she could just walk away, but then what?

Hers was a complicated existence.  Her power made her the object of desire for all four ruling clans within Drayhadal.  Ever since the day she’d stopped the Stragman invaders, her presence had been impossible to conceal from the other clans.  As hard as Pyria tried to keep the other clans away, she didn’t have the power to fully block their demands.

Unfortunately, those demands manifested in the form of not-so-welcome visitors every few days, one from each of the other clans.  They came as a group—none of the clans would allow the others a chance to talk to her alone—and spent their time trying to ingratiate themselves and their clan with her.  Mizuko didn’t find any of the representatives too odious, but they did carry the same air of smug superiority that she found with every high-ranking elf she’d ever met, even—no, especially—Pyria.

Only the protection of Pyria and the Esmae clan kept Mizuko from becoming a prize to fight over.  As fascinating as the volcanic city Astryae or Casmyae—the “City On The Lake”— sounded, just the act of her visiting one of them risked igniting a near-civil war between the clans.  They might even go as far as to try to attack her.  Provided she saw it coming, she knew she could handle just about anything with her strange mental abilities.  The question was if she wanted to.  Those on the receiving end of her power often did not emerge from the experience undamaged.

That brought up a whole other obstacle to her exploratory desires: where and how would she sleep?  To her constant dismay, Mizuko had yet to find a way to keep her dreams from hurting everybody around her, meaning she would be a danger wherever she might be when it was time for slumber.  If she were to travel, she would have to sleep out in the wilderness or she’d end up mentally traumatizing a bunch of unprepared people every night—and even that didn’t guarantee anything.  Even the servants went back to their homes in the nearby town when she retired for the evening, while the guards had to massively expand their perimeter to avoid being caught up in her dream.

Those guards and servants, along with their ruler, were perhaps the final obstacle to her desire.  She had no illusions as to her relationship with Pyria Esmae.  The elven princess liked her and took the time to visit often—though, recently, noticeably less frequent than before—but Mizuko knew that their friendship was secondary to her utility.  She had no doubts that the servants reported her activities to the princess and that the guards had orders to keep her in as much as they had to keep others out.

There was only one exception to these beliefs, one elf who Mizuko felt comfortable saying she could trust wholeheartedly.  Coincidentally, that elf just happened to be stepping out of the manor now with a small tray in her hands.

“Madam Mizuko, your afternoon snack is ready,” the elf said with a shy smile.  She placed the tray on a side table to Mizuko’s left and stepped back, a hopeful expression on her pretty face.

“Thank you, Vura.  More of your experiments, I presume?” Mizuko replied.

“Yes,” the maid confirmed with a downcast glance.  “I apologize if they grow tiresome.”

“Oh, not at all, not at all,” she reassured the girl.  “Watching you improve day by day has been one of the most interesting things to happen here in a long time.”

One day, Mizuko had developed a craving for tarts, specifically the miniature variety you could hold in your hand.  This presented a problem, for a variety of reasons.  First of all, she knew how a tart looked and the general construction from having eaten them from time to time, but she’d never made one herself.  She didn’t know any of the techniques needed to make them properly, nor anything about ingredients other than that fruits of various sorts were involved depending on the recipe.  To make matters more complicated, one could not just substitute Scyrian ingredients for Earth ones and call it a day.  Everything was different—different fruits, different grains, even the butter used here came from a different animal and had a different flavor and consistency.

None of these problems had stopped Vura from trying to make some anyway.  Things had not gone well at the start, but the elven girl had thrown herself at the task with a near-obsessive determination that she only seemed to display in matters concerning Mizuko.  After learning all she could about baking from the other servants, she’d embarked on an ambitious regimen of experiments, trying all sorts of ingredients, ratios, and preparation methods to find what worked and what didn’t.  Now, only a month or so later, her efforts produced something remarkable.

Mizuko took one of the small, circular treats and took a large bite.  Delectable buttery flavor mixed with the sweetness of lantberry jam in her mouth, drawing forth a hum of pleasure that broke through even her sour mood.  “You’ve gotten so good at this so fast, it’s incredible.  This is your best batch yet.  I’d say lower the sweetness just a little, however.  It overshadows the rest of the lantberry flavor a bit too much.  Then, you’ll have something truly special.”

“Y-you are too kind, Madam...” Vura squeaked, blushing and avoiding eye contact.  Her face blushed even redder at the praise, but Mizuko could see the delight in her eyes.  Vura valued Mizuko’s words highly, perhaps too highly.

Mizuko’s relationship with Vura had started by chance; the elf had been the first person she’d stumbled upon after arriving on this world.  Even distraught as Vura had been at the time, not even that had been able to hide the girl’s beauty.  Mizuko could still remember how her long, flowing lavender hair had glimmered in the sunlight that day.

That hair was no longer long and flowing; Vura had cut it short not too long ago.  Mizuko believed it was part of the elf’s attempts to remake herself and she approved wholeheartedly.  The Vura of their first meeting had been a broken girl shattered by tragedy.  Cruelly attacked and robbed of her ability to have a child in a society that judged a woman’s worth by their ability to bear children, she’d spiraled into a pit of self-loathing and despair.  The Vura of today was... still a work in progress, but very much improved.  Mizuko knew her to be far more confident, more assertive, and less held down by ghosts of her past.  It made the old woman smile to see how much Vura had blossomed and how much further still she could go.

“Well, aren’t you going to take some for yourself?” Mizuko prodded her companion.

“Madam Mizuko, I would never dream-”

“Come now, everyone should be entitled to the taste of their own cooking.  Besides, if you don’t eat a few, how will you know what needs improving in the next batch?”

Perhaps Mizuko’s biggest complaint was that their friendship—if you could call it that—was still far too one-sided for her taste.  This was, at least partly, Mizuko’s own fault.  After all, she was the one who had pushed Pyria to hire the girl here in the first place.  Now, when Vura looked at Mizuko, she didn’t see an old woman; she saw an obscenely powerful otherworlder, one who had pulled her from her miserable existence and given her everything she could ever hope for and more.  Mizuko would have preferred if she just saw an old woman.

“If Madam insists,” the girl conceded, her hand darting out to snatch three of the delightful treats.

Despite Mizuko’s best efforts, she had so far been unable to convince the elf to drop the “Madam” part of her name.   Vura insisted that she could never dishonor the great savior of Esmae—and an esteemed elder, to boot—like that.  As a native of Japan, Mizuko understood the importance of titles, honorifics, and the like better than most.  But even in her homeland, one tended to drop them when talking to one’s closest friends and confidants.  Vura was, by far, Mizuko’s closest friend and confidant.  After spending so much time together, they shared a relationship far closer and more intimate than Mizuko’s relationships with the other servants and even Pyria, and she felt that their speech should reflect that.  Vura disagreed.  At least she’d managed to convince the girl to move past calling her “Madam Yamanaka” like the others did.  Baby steps.

It constantly struck Mizuko as rather bizarre that Vura, who looked under twenty years old, was actually well over seventy.  Mizuko even still thought of her as a “girl” instead of a woman, despite the fact that, were she human, she would be a shriveled old crone in the twilight of her life.  It surely had to do with how much like a young person Vura acted, her manner and thinking far more in line with somebody who shared her visual age than her numeric age.  This was the case with all the elves, Mizuko realized, from the guards and servants to that belligerent prince and even to Pyria.

“Mmmmm,” Vura pondered as she chewed on the results of her hard work, her head tilted towards the sky to take in the sun’s midday rays, “perhaps a dusting of salt on the top would...”

The girl’s eyes went wide and the two-and-a-half pastries tumbled onto the stone patio upon which she stood.  She pointed up into the sky, her body frozen in place.  “Wh-wha-wha?”

Mizuko turned her head and stared up at the sky, following the girl’s point.  As it was a cloudless day, it didn’t take more than a second to spot the source of Vura’s confusion, wonder, and fear.  Hanging in the air, several kilometers away, flew a grey lump quickly heading east.  Unlike for Vura, the sight did not fill her with confusion, wonder, or fear because Mizuko knew what a dirigible looked like and this was very clearly one of them.

Mizuko had never quite forgotten what Tehlmar, that rude and tactless prince, had told her, but it had fallen to the back of her mind.  There were other people like her, people from her home, out in this world.  She wondered what their lives were like, and if they had been as lucky as she to fall into a comfortable existence.  This person, the one who had created this blimp, had clearly been having a grand time since their arrival.  She wanted to meet them all, to get to know those that shared in the miracle that brought her to this place.

Not everybody shared those desires.  A shout brought her gaze momentarily back down to her level.  A squad of soldiers tasked with protecting a nearby section of the estate stood in shock as they watched the metallic grey blimp.  They all showed the same mix of fear and wonder as Vura, except for one man.  He seemed shaken to his core, a stark terror radiating from him.  A cry tore from his throat and he fell, clutching his head, to the grass.

Mizuko sighed, trying not to let the sadness she felt from the sight of the man overwhelm the other emotions brought on by the sight of the dirigible.  She’d seen this kind of reaction before from others damaged by her power; at this point she was far too familiar with the signs.

“Madam, we must get you inside, quickly!” Vura exclaimed, rushing over to shepherd her into the manor.

“No.  There is no need, child,” she soothed the panicking maid.  “Nothing will happen, I assure you.  It is merely a blimp.  A... a palanquin that flies in the sky.”

“A... palanquin?” the girl repeated with puzzled awe.

“That’s right.  And see, it isn’t anywhere near us and it’s heading away.  There’s no need for alarm.  Instead of focusing on me, go get a drink for that poor fellow over there.  Something soothing.”

She checked the poor man again to find him moaning and trembling on the ground.  Given the context, it looked like this soldier had been present during Stragma’s invasion and had been one of the unlucky elves to get caught up in her memory.

Pyria tried to keep the damage Mizuko had inflicted on others out of Mizuko’s sight, but her efforts were only semi-successful.  Mizuko felt rather glad this was so; she preferred to face the consequences of her actions, rather than run from them forever.  Said consequences largely fell into two groups.  The first were those affected by her original accident on the first night, some soldiers but mostly civilians living in or near the Clan Palace.

This man seemed to fall into the second group, the soldiers who hadn’t been able to get far enough away during the Stragman invasion, when she’d used her powers in earnest for the first time.  These were easier to spot, as they did things like involuntarily cringe at the sudden appearance of birds flying overhead, or, just perhaps, have a mental breakdown at the sight of something large and metal hanging in the sky above.

Mizuko regretted causing the man pain, as she regretted hurting all the others that day, but she’d come to accept that her actions had been necessary.  Without her, the land would have been overrun.  That wasn’t just her or Pyria’s opinion, either—every single soldier whom she’d hurt had told her the same.  They viewed their trauma as a noble sacrifice for the sake of the land that they loved, a glorious battle scar of sorts, and generally seemed to chafe at her when she tried to apologize.  The generally believed that by bemoaning the incident, she was dishonoring their sacrifice, so eventually, she’d just stopped.

Vura ran off into the manor to find something for the soldier while Mizuko watched the blimp continue on its merry way, shrinking smaller and smaller as it went until it could no longer be seen.  She couldn’t help but envy the easy freedom on display.  That blimp could go anywhere; nobody could stop something that high up.  She wondered what sort of adventures the people inside were up to.  The sight stoked the fires of her wanderlust—already growing with each passing day—to the point of insufferability.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Mizuko declared, pushing herself out of her seat.

“Madam?” Vura said from behind her, making Mizuko startle.  She hadn’t noticed the maid rejoining her.

Mizuko took a moment to steady her composure before issuing her declaration.  “I have decided to go on a journey.”

“You want to walk to town?  I shall fetch your walking shoes!”

“No, Vura, not a walk to town.  A true journey.”

“A journey... to Esmaeyae?” Vura asked hesitantly, as if worried about what the answer might be.

“A journey out.  Away.  To elsewhere, wherever that may be.  I want to see the world, Vura.  Have you never wished to see what lies beyond these rolling hills?”

“B-but it’s dangerous out there, Madam!  Beasts and barbarians and any other number of terrible things!”

“Come now, it cannot be that bad.  I cannot live in this gilded cage forever.  It is well past time that I stepped outside, and I mean truly stepped outside.”

Perhaps that was the answer Vura feared, as it left her near tears and trembling like a leaf in the wind.  “B-b-b-b-b-but Madam!  What if something were to happen to you?!  I cannot even bear the thought of-”

“Hush, I will be perfectly fine,” she assured the maid.  “After all, you will be coming with me, won’t you?”

“Wha?” the elf gasped.  The words seemed to transform the girl.  She stood taller, her shoulders set with purpose.  “O-of course!  I will be by your side as long as you will have me, Madam!”

“Then that settles that, doesn’t it?” Mizuko chuckled, grabbing the maid’s arm and leading her back into the manor.  “Come, we have much to prepare.”

*     *     *

“Madam Yamanaka, I beg you to reconsider!” the head maid pleaded early the next morning as she blocked the doorway out of the manor with her body.  The other servants looked on from all around the pair, their gazes filled with anxious unease.

Mizuko shifted her pack, getting it into a more comfortable and balanced position.  “I have had more than enough time sitting in this house for months on end to consider and reconsider and reconsider again.  It is well past time,” she declared, glancing around to all the servants looking on.  “Do not worry.  I have little doubt that we will see each other again in the future.  Until then, I thank you all for your hospitality these past seasons.  Now, step aside, Yrenil.”

The head maid let out a defeated sigh and moved out of the doorway.  Mizuko nodded to her as she stepped out into the morning sunshine, Vura right behind her.

The two had spent the previous evening preparing for their journey as best they could without the others finding out, a task easier said than done.  Doing anything in a place like this without the servants knowing was a daunting task, and to make matters worse, much of what she wanted—like bedrolls or sleeping bags—could not be found at the manor.  Still, they’d managed to fill two packs with some food, clothes, some small pots for cooking, cushions, and some other items.  Good enough, she thought, for a start.  They could purchase more of what they needed at a town later on using the money Mizuko had saved from the stipend Pyria gave her.

It didn’t take more than a minute of walking for their exit to be noticed by the soldiers outside guarding that part of the estate.  They looked at her and Vura with confusion for a moment before the color drained from their faces.  One man, the leader of the seven-elf squad, turned as white as a sheet.

“Madam!  Please wait!” the leader called out as he ran over to her, the others a few steps behind.  Though Mizuko knew all of the servants well, the same could not be said of any of the soldiers there.  Unlike the servants, their duties kept them away from the manor itself unless something bad were to happen, so she’d rarely even spoken with any of the many guards.

Mizuko ignored his plea and kept walking.  The soldier fell into stride next to her.  “Madam, what are you doing?”

“I’m going for a walk, that’s all,” she replied.  Though she would never admit it, Mizuko felt a perverse pleasure at the sight of the panic in the man’s eyes.  All the soldiers realized what was going down, but none of them knew what to do about it.  Their princess would make them all pay dearly if one of them were to harm her, and none of them could stop Mizuko anyway if she were to actually try.

“Madam, there are all manners of danger out there!  Please, stay inside, where we can keep you safe!”

“The greatest danger I can see is dying of dreariness from staring at the same waving grass for another season.  As you can see, we are taking immediate action to avoid that danger.  But do not worry, we will be careful.”

The man kept pace in silence for a few moments, his eyes darting about as he furiously thought.  “At the very least, I ask that you let us accompany you.  If you would just wait for a little while so that we can return to our homes and grab what we would need, we can at least make sure no harm comes to you.”

“No, we will continue on,” she insisted, not stopping for even a moment.  She knew what the man was playing at.  He wanted to delay them as much as possible while he reported their actions to the princess.  She wasn’t going to stop him from doing that, but she didn’t feel like making his life easy.  “I’m sure robust youngsters like yourselves will be able to catch up in no time."

The soldier bit his lip, his mind pouring over various possible scenarios to determine his best course of action.  Finally, he seemed to make up his mind.  “Mortiu, Wenstan, you stay with them.  The rest of us will meet up with you later.”

With that, all but two of the soldiers took off, running southeast towards the nearby town as fast as their legs could take them.  Mizuko let out a snort of amusement and kept walking, even increasing her pace a bit.

As she crossed hill after hill, Mizuko felt truly wonderful for the first time in a long time.  The air buzzed with an infectious energy, one that drove her forward.  She delighted in the sounds of the wildlife and the swish of the grass in the breeze.  She luxuriated in the warmth of the morning rays on her cheeks.  She even found herself amused by the way the wind tugged on her straw hat—it had been a smart move to tie a string to it and fasten it around her head.  But mostly, she just reveled in the feeling of exploration, of finding something new and different, even if that thing was just another grassy hill.

It was a shame the others couldn’t seem to enjoy it as she was.

“Madam Mizuko, please let me carry your pack for you,” Vura implored for the third time.

“Vura, enough.  Let this old woman carry her pack in peace.”

Vura took on the dejected demeanor of a scolded puppy.  “I-I-I merely wish to lighten your burden.”

“Bah!  What for?  I know I look like I’m nothing but wrinkles, but there’s life in these old bones yet!  None of you seem to understand that sometimes a burden is a special joy of its own.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.  You haven’t been through what I’ve been through.  Listen, child.  Back before I came here, I was so weak I could barely move.  I had not walked on my own two feet, not even with assistance, for fifteen years.  By the final few years, I could barely even move my arms or speak.

“You see, my dear, there is a joy found in movement, one that you don’t realize is there until you are no longer capable of it.  Now that I can finally move again, I don’t want to spend the rest of this life just sitting and lying about like a lump.  Why do you think I kept asking to help with the chores around the manor, even when you all kept saying no?”

“Ah... I-I never realized-”

 “None of you did.  It’s my fault, not yours.  I should have been more insistent, should have explained things properly.  But it was a confusing time and I did not want to impose.  Perhaps you should take heart that it took me this long to get to this point.  You all took such good care of me that I didn’t want to leave.”

Vura went from morose to flustered in the blink of an eye.  Mizuko couldn’t help but find the way the girl blushed to be incredibly cute.  Vura really was a puppy in elf form, wasn’t she?

“Let me partake in this joy a little longer,” Mizuko continued.  “I’ll let you know if this becomes a burden too great, I assure you.”

“Of course!” Vura chirped quick-stepping up to walk right beside her.  For the first time since they’d left that morning, Mizuko saw her truly smile.

*     *     *

The other soldiers caught up to them before lunch.  Together, they settled down in a small grove of trees and started a small fire for cooking.  After a quick meal, they continued onward.

Mizuko made it a point to learn the names of the other soldiers.  Now that they were here, she didn’t want to be rude.  Other than Mortiu and Wenstan, the two who had accompanied them this whole time, the others were Tesrin, Ren, Etorio, Looletta, and the leader Krishpar.  Mizuko found the squad to be, collectively, annoyingly on edge.  They constantly scanned their surroundings for danger, as if a gang of bandits was going to pop out of the grass in the middle of the Esmae clan’s controlled and secure lands.  Even Vura constantly glanced about.

“What are you all so uptight for?  Lighten up a bit,” Mizuko finally said, having had enough of it all.  “We have seven highly trained fighters, not to mention myself.  If anybody attacks, they won’t stand a chance.”

“We aren’t worried about people here,” Vura told her.  “It’s the animals that I’m afraid of.”

“The animals?”

“Marnit gnat swarms and yellow-crested hunting lizards, mostly,” Krishpar chimed in.  “Especially the lizards.  The locals call them ‘widow-makers’ for a reason.  They’re rare, but all it would take is one bite for their poison to take down most anybody.”

“Madam Mizuko, do your powers work on insects?” Vura inquired.  “What about lizards?”

“I... I have no idea.  I’ve never given it any thought.”

“Well, just stay behind me then if one shows itself,” Vura said with conviction.  “That way I would take the bite instead of you.”

“Nonsense!” Mizuko snapped, coming to a halt.  “Vura, I’m tired of this.  The same goes for all of you.  I know your task is to protect me, but sacrificing yourself is far too much.  I can’t accept that!”

“But-”

Mizuko reached out and cupped the girl’s cheeks in her gnarled hands.  “Listen to me, child.  I have already lived a full life.  Everything from the moment I came here has been a gift I have been happy to receive, but make no mistake: when my time comes, I will not mourn a life incomplete.  You, however, have so much of your life left to live and grow.  I have no desire to die just yet, but I cannot have you throw your life away for my sake.  Do you understand?”

“...yes, Madam,” came the weak reply.

“Promise me.  Promise me you’ll put worth in your own existence over mine.”

“...I promise.”

The words were so quiet that Mizuko, who was right in front of her, could barely hear them.  Still, it was good enough for now.

“Wonderful.  Then, let us continue—carefully.”

And so they did, traversing the land.  Mizuko continued to enjoy the experience and the small taste of freedom it provided.  There was just one question hanging over the whole thing.  When would Pyria show herself?

*     *     *

The answer came in the form of two hundred soldiers and two large, ornate palanquins bearing the crest of the Esmae clan waiting for them as the setting sun turned the sky turned orange.  Upon the arrival of Mizuko’s comparatively small group, the lithe, elegant figure of Pyria emerged from the first palanquin, a sour look upon her face.

“Mizuko.”

“Pyria.”

“Please come inside, so that we may talk privately,” the clan leader requested, indicating the open palanquin beside her.

“The palanquin stays on the ground.”

“Of course.  I am no thug here to kidnap.”

Pyria stepped into the vehicle first.  Mizuko grabbed Vura’s arm and followed, pulling the very reluctant girl behind her as she climbed aboard the palanquin and took a seat.  The princess frowned at the sight of the other elf seated beside Mizuko.

“I said privately.  That means just you and me, not this...”  She gave Vura a once-over as if she didn’t recognize the maid.  “...servant.”

Mizuko became momentarily confused.  Pyria had interacted with Vura on multiple occasions.  She knew the maid’s name and her tragic story.  Why didn’t she recognize her now?  Perhaps Vura’s radical change in hairstyle, combined with the low light, simply made her look like an entirely new person.  It really was a significant difference, and if somebody hadn’t seen her in a while it would surely be confusing.

Still, none of that addressed the actual issue.

“Vura stays or we both go.”

“Vura...”  Pyria stared at the other elf for a moment before her eyes went wide and she rubbed her face, exhausted.  “Yes, my apologies.  I have not had the opportunity to sleep much lately.”

“I-it’s alright, P-P-Princess,” Vura meekly squeaked.

Without even acknowledging Vura, Pyria returned to glowering at Mizuko, the maid’s very existence seeming to have disappeared from her mind.

“You could have come to me instead of acting this way.”

“You are making far too much out of a simple bit of traveling.  I merely wanted to enjoy the sights and sounds of this beautiful countryside.”

“So it’s just a coincidence, then, that you were heading northeast, straight towards the Eterian border?  Please, Mizuko, show me a little respect.  I already have far too much on my plate right now without you making it all worse.  If you had just reached out, we wouldn’t have to go through all this.”

“And our conversation would have gone exactly as this one is about to—and just how the last one went, and the one before that.  ‘Too dangerous’, ‘too chaotic’, ‘too unpredictable’, ‘too likely to start a civil war’.”

“All good and true arguments.”

“And all things too large for even somebody with your influence to fix, meaning they stay true forever.”

“I’m hurt that you would think that.  You know that we all treasure you, the elder who saved our entire clan and perhaps the entire nation.  You’re a hero to the entire clan and we just want to protect you.”

“I am honored that you all think of me that way, Pyria, but the time has come to decide.  Am I your friend, or am I a prisoner locked away in a cage without bars?”

The princess frowned in thought for a while, and Mizuko and Vura gave her the silence that she needed.  Finally, after a tense wait, her face set as she came to a decision.

“Give me some time.  My best troops are currently engaged in joint training exercises in Kechou territory.  It will be a little while—days at least—before they can return, whereupon they can join you for your protection.  Besides, it will take me time to convince the other clans to agree to anything.  If they don’t, they absolutely will interpret your arrival as an invasion.  Just give me time, and you’ll be able to see all the wonders of Drayhadal.”

Now it was Mizuko’s turn to frown.  “I don’t want to see just Drayhadal, I want to see the world.  As much of it as I can.”

“Feh, the rest of the world isn’t worth seeing,” came the dismissive reply.  “The best lands in all of Scyria are here; that’s why we claimed them for ourselves.  What would you even go see, the Deadlands?  I hear they’re called that for good reason—nothing but a bunch of drab rocks stretching out into the horizon.  What fun is that?

“There’s nothing for you to find out there but chaos and misery, Mizuko.  The Ubrans left Eterium in shambles, Gustil can’t even be called a real country anymore, Stragma is filled with savages who would kill you on sight if the wildlife doesn’t eat you first, Otharia is run by a brutal dictator, and Kutrad is nothing but trees and slaves.  Drayhadal has more to see than all the rest of them combined!  You could tour Drayhadal for years and still not experience the entirety of its wonders.  You can consider your next step once you’ve seen everything we have to offer.  Perhaps the barbarians will have recovered enough to be presentable by then.”  

“How long before everything would be ready?”

Pyria leaned back and sighed.  “Depends on the other clans, honestly.  They’re a nightmare to work with, you know.  Once they realize what I’ll have to negotiate, they’re going to start demanding concessions from me for all of this and they’ll keep pushing until they get everything they can.  Sometimes, I wonder how I ever managed to deal with them.”

“How long?”

“...half a season, most likely.”

Half a season—about a month and a half.  Half a season was not exactly an eternity in the grand scheme of things, but to Mizuko, it felt like forever.  Still... if Pyria followed through with her promise, it was not that long a time to wait.  Mizuko hesitantly decided to acquiesce to the princess’s request for the time being.  Pyria had always followed through before.  Should that not be worth a little trust?

“Alright.  You’ve done enough for me that I will choose to trust in you.  I owe you that much.”

“That is good to hear.  I will have this palanquin return you to your home now if that is alright with you,” Pyria replied, opening the door and stepping out.

It wasn’t alright with Mizuko.  She wanted to savor the outdoors more, hear the chirps of the insects at night, and sleep beside a fire underneath the stars.  But she couldn’t, not with everybody else with her.  Not until she finally solved her dream issues.  For the moment, the palanquin remained the best way back, as regrettable as it was.

  “There is still much I must attend to today,” the princess and de facto ruler of Esmae lands continued with a curt nod.  “Farewell.”

The door shut and the palanquin trembled as it rose into the air on the shoulders of eight strong, specially trained Feelers.  Within a moment, they were on their way back to the manor, their journey ending as unceremoniously as it had begun.

Mizuko had much to ponder on the way back.  She couldn’t help but notice how much Pyria did not want her to leave Drayhadal.  Was it that she worried for Mizuko’s safety?  Or was it about maintaining control over Mizuko’s life?  How much of her concern was a legitimate issue of logistics, and how much was just stalling for time?  Mizuko didn’t have the answers to these questions, and it troubled her that she had to ask them in the first place.

Vura, on the other hand, just spent her time slumped forward, staring despondently at the floor.

“What’s wrong, dear?” she asked the maid.

“Our trip ended so quickly.  We didn’t even manage a day,” Vura bemoaned.  “I had hoped to see the wonders of the world alongside you, Madam, I really had.”

“Vura, you didn’t expect her to just let me go without a word, did you?”

“No, but... you did?  What was the point of this, if you knew she would stop us?”

“To send her a message.”

“Send her a message?  Madam, you know we have a messenger.  You’ve used him many times.”

Mizuko chuckled.  “That sort of message just wouldn’t do this time.  She has already been largely ignoring my missives these days, but more importantly, a letter just doesn’t carry the appropriate weight.  I had to take action to show her just how serious I am about this.  Now, she cannot say she doesn’t know the level of my commitment.  One way or another, something must give.”

“So this was your plan all along?”

“In a sense, yes.  The walk itself was well worth it on its own, though, wouldn’t you say?”

Mizuko leaned back in satisfaction.  Her plan had been a smashing success.  Now it was up to Pyria to make the next move.  Mizuko would give her a little time, but not too long.  She wouldn’t wait forever.