Chapter 319

The journey out of the town went smoothly, in no small part due to the fact that they now had horses.

Layali rode in front of Brain on the horse, nuzzling her back against his chest, and when he said, "You try." and put the reins of the horse into her hand, a squeal of childish excitement no different than what he would have expected out of a human girl, left her mouth.

"Now this is how you do it." Brain said while he, seemingly without thinking, put his hands over hers and began to talk her through how to control the horse.

As the noise of the horses' hooves kicking at the dirt resounded as a steady scratching thump carried on, kicking little clouds of dust behind the trio, Zesshi watched out of the corner of her eye. For all her now acute self awareness about her own foolishness and ignorance, this she could understand in a way that neither Brain, nor evidently Layali, could.

Zesshi understood it, because she had the same moment. 'Just like when my mother taught me to ride…' Though decades had come and gone since she'd been Layali's age, and the woman Zesshi called mother had herself passed away many, many years before the present, the memory was as fresh as when it was new. She could still smell the grass, the somewhat pungent odor of the horse, still feel the wind and her mother's guiding hand over her own.

'Some of my last really happy days… if only I'd known it…' Zesshi reflected, and watched the girl with a mix of envy and pity.

"So this is how you make them canter… keep your back straight…" Brain said and pressed a hand to Layali's lower back. "Head and eyes straight forward, shoulder's back, that's how you ride with pride."

Layali did her best, though her fingers tightened around the reins maybe more than they needed to, the soft leather scrunched in her little grip, she began to pretend, the empty road was lined with cheering crowds, and herself, she was not a slave, or the doll of some brute, she was 'Princess Layali, the warrior princess on the way home from another of many victories' and then, 'Gladiatrix Layali, who won her thousandth victory in the arena, riding past her many admirers…' She felt her smile grow as she played at her little game.

"Good, just like that." Brain said to her, "If you're not rushing on horseback, you should always ride this way. Never ride in the spirit of defeat, shoulders slumped or looking down. Always look ahead, always straight as a saluting sword. Keep that feeling, never let it go." Brain's voice dropped to a whisper, his breath barely had the power to brush over her ear. "That's what the worst will try to take from you if they can, never let them have it, and you'll always have something, no matter what else they do to you."

"Brain?" Layali asked and tilted her head back so that her eyes were looking straight up into his face.

"Nothing, just hold on, we're going to go at a gallop now, so lean forward." Brain said, and as he leaned forward, so did Layali, and when they spurred the horse forward, the wind smacked Layali in the face, it picked up her hair and blew it wildly about behind her, spreading out on either side of the adult acting as her teacher. Beneath her when she looked down, she watched the ground become a blur, and the horizon when she looked ahead seemed to both draw closer, and open up to become endless both at once.

As she looked in each direction, the distance shrinking, the way ahead growing, Layali cursed her own cowardice. 'I want to tell him I want to stay… I don't want to be left behind… I want to ride forever…'

And the thunder of the two horses went on.

Skana and Illyana sat opposite one another at the table in one of the private offices of Nazarick. "Our lady's cunning knows no bounds." Illyana said with a wiggle of her ears.

Skana twitched her own in turn, a little game between the lovers that they'd played since Skana's return to life, but the words of Illyana were as true as they were serious. "You're not kidding, sure there's nothing wrong with a little covert work… but you just don't get the same experience… and those morons are letting us basically wander free. We could map the place down to the last blade of grass and say it's because we wondered if Draudillon might have been turned into the roots beneath it." Skana snickered with a bit of malice as she got into her work, sorting out one piece of material after another.

Arrayed in front of them both, those 'materials' were lists. Lists of important people, lists of homes and residences of those people, maps of villages and towns the dispatched agents of the Kingdom of Nazarick were already compiling. The doppels put under the command of Albedo's agents had explored not even a tenth of the landscape, but they were like bits of sand blown out of the palm to scatter into the wind.

Each place they landed, they were just one among many, and in their search, however earnest it might have been in truth, they picked up more information besides, all of which was being compiled for later use. Skana's quill flew over the paper as she transcribed key details, boiling down masses of information into key points, while her lover took a more leisurely pace about it all.

When Illyana noticed the almost frantic pace of her lover, she reached a hand across the table and covered the ink stained fingers with her own. "Relax." She said, and when Skana looked up at her and away from the paper, Illyana smiled a little. "There's no reason to hurry, you're not a human with the lifespan of a mayfly, you're an elf, and according to our mistress, the time for bringing the Theocracy down is at least two years away before we even begin. Maybe four, depending on what they do about the demihumans. It won't fall even one day sooner if you work yourself to death."

Skana let go of the breath she didn't even realize she was holding, and a little silvery laugh followed, "It's funny, I never worked hard in my life until I met Lady Albedo, or you, and now that I've started, I can't stop… you're right, I should relax a little, we'll get it done… I just-"

She stopped when Illyana squeezed her fingers a little, "It's alright, I understand. Their time will come, we just can't hasten it, like water carves a channel, slow, steady, and constant, and we'll cut our way through to the end."

"Are you sure you're not just trying to get me to conserve my energy so I have more to spend on you tonight?" Skana winked a bright green eye at her mate, and Illyana looked straight at her when she replied…

"I'm doing exactly that."

And with thoughts of the night to come, they returned to work.