The m passed much more pleasantly - and lightheartedly - than the deep seriousness of the previous day. Both partners sehat her one particurly had a desire to revisit matters so soon, and so they passed the time in much more casual versation as the day wore oween occasional breaks for snacks to keep their energy up.

  Ohe farmnd thinned out further away from Jun, there was little to look at beyond the road, the sparkling river, the broad and rolling pins, and the not-too-distant mountains to the west a alike; and it ged only by degrees as they tinued. So Ravenna found all sorts of questions to ask her parto keep her engaged during the otherwise unremarkable stretch of the journey.

  "What do you like doing in your spare time, besides reading?" was one of them.

  "Well - I do like reading, a lot," Ferurned with a little ugh. "Not that it was iion, I'm sure, but - just learnihings and thinking about them. But apart from that... holy, I've always loved stargazing. I'd go on little survival camping trips just outside the city walls, just to get away from the lights so I could see them better." A wry smile passed over her lips as she remembered. "It wasn't always the best idea, and got me into more than a little trouble sometimes. But it all worked out in the end. There's just something magical about the night sky, I think - not that I could tell you what, exactly."

  The dark mage thoughtfully tucked that away for ter use, as she did so many of the little things she was learning about her partner. "Have you ever thought about traveling? I know you said you lived in Pinsgate all your life, but did the idea ever occur to you? Appeal, even?"

  She pohis for a while. "Well - not at the time, I suppose. Traveling safely is an expehing, and traveling cheaply... I wasn't adventurous or naive enough to think I could handle something like that." The fallen hero half-smiled. "Despite my little camping trips, I never really acquired much of a taste for life on the road. It's been much more of a y than a pastime. Now, though? Hmm." She closed her eyes briefly, then opehem again. "So long as I have a lovely panion traveling with me, I suppose I'd be open to it. A ge of sery might be iing - but I do still like the fortable living iower, that's still very o me."

  "Hmmm, I see, I see."

  "What about you?" Fern wondered. "Is travel something that's on your mind?"

  Ravenna brighte the question. "Oh yes, most certainly! There's just so many different things to experien life, and no way to get to even a fra of them unless you're willing to step into the unknown! And when you do, why, even the jourself is often full of discovery, to say nothing of your intended destination." A smug little grin curled her lips. "Though of course - making a round trip aurning triumphant with the prize you had eyed sihe outset be such a gratifying clusion to your affairs abroad."

  The fallen hero arched an eyebrow. "Oh really? Any particur favorites among your prize colle?"

  She grinned even wider. "Oh, the stories I could tell! Why, every little gem and bauble has its own delightful tale to be spun - in fact, let me tell you one of my personal favorites. This was some years ago, you see, back when I was vacationing off in the east where my dear sister lives - she used to be something of a rogue, to tell you the truth. But one day..."

  And the road gently fell away before them as the day moved on, the hours passing peacefully, untroubled by strife.

  "So anyway," Ravenna finished, dling out a bowl of stew, "that's how I got my hands on the Eye of Mohs, and also, why I'm not allowed within firing distance of the imperial capital's sentry towers."

  Fern took the bowl, shaking her head in amazement. "How are you even still alive at this point?"

  She fshed that irrepressible grin of hers once again. "I'm very good at what I do, darling."

  "Espioheft, and - arguably - attempted murder?"

  "Oh, hardly," she purred. "If I was trying to kill him, I assure you, he'd be very dead."

  Fern swallowed the mouthful of stew she was w on a out a tented sigh; for a travel meal, it was remarkably good. "Holy. You really do live the sort of life people write songs about, don't you? Well - some people, at any rate."

  The dark mage smiled brightly. "A song, about me? How enting that could be." She sampled her own stew briefly before tinuing. "I don't do anything so heroic as all that, though. Most of my little escapades are rgely borne from self-i - or they were, I suppose. Somewhere along the li simply occurred to me who was always doing the chasing, and I followed that little river back to its source to think of who caused all the problems in the first pce."

  Her forehead wrinkled ever so slightly. "The aristocrats?"

  "The aristocrats."

  Fern sat silently for a while, then shrugged. "I... suppose it's not my pce to judge, but it does seem from the outside that you mostly just hate them because they... keep you from having your merry way all the time."

  "Well, you're certainly n there, darling. I am a Direfrost, after all; I have an actual title, and nds - for all the good they do me - so that's really all the nobles do to frustrate me." Ravenna sighed quietly, leaning ba the little makeshift seat of her pabsp; "But there's more than just me in the world. And there are so many people I've met - some very dear friends, even - who don't have the privileges I do, who weren't born into a pce that shields them from sequenbsp; And spite, especially; nobles are very petty creatures." Her mouth turned down at one end. "And I 't protect everyone I care about. Holy..."

  "Yes?" she prodded gently, after the dark mage trailed off and didn't tinue.

  "Oh! Ah - just p a little too deeply, darling, never you mind. e, we should sleep before it gets too te; two more days should get us within sight of the coast, at least if we press ourselves a little."

  Fern houghtfully, eyeing her partner and doing a little p herself. "Yes... that does sound nice."

  As much as she wao tinue keeping the versation pleasantly light the day - and did, initially - ohing still needled at her, refusing to go away no matter how she tried to file and fet it. So Fern finally stopped trying to avoid the subject, and brought it up instead while they tinued making their way north.

  "So... what exactly makes you not a noble, if you have nds and a title? Because you told me you weren't, once."

  "Ah yes, I... did say something like that, didn't I?" Ravenna looked off into the distanbsp; "How to put this? The aristocracy is a plicated little tapestry all woven together nid tightly. Very tightly, in all but a few rare cases. Owning nd, being born with a title; these are prerequisites, yes, and if you should be stripped of them that's certainly one way to be... unwoven from affairs. But merely having them is not enough."

  She houghtfully. "I'm ly familiar with the internal politics of nobles."

  "By design, no one oside of the aristocracy is." The dark mage sighed quietly. "To be 'on the inside', sidered a 'real' noble and not merely one in name, you are forced to live like them and py by their odious little rules; otherwise, you reap none of the bes, the es, the power and authority, the relevahat so many of them crave to the exclusion of all else. 'Tis aire society on its own, ohat self-sustains with parties and balls and treaties and arranged marriages - and that is merely the surfabsp; So many other things are done i - things that serve the nobles first, and their tries sed, if at all - that if they were ever disclosed in full, it would spell the end for the aristocracy itself, I think."

  Fern arched an eyebrow. "That's quite a spiracy you've found."

  "It is, isn't it? Yet this structure is imperable to a single voice g out, even if the words are truth. Too many prefer to believe a fortable lie; and for those who waver in their vis, the nobles need only push with a little or a little steel, whichever suits their purpose." Ravenna's brow clouded. "I may be 'Lady Direfrost', but it it means nothing, it gaihing. High society cares not for me, nor I for them; we are ever at odds."

  The fallen hero smiled pcidly. "It's a rather niame, though. At least I'm fond of it."

  She looked over, and her expression lightened, shifting to something more like acceptanbsp; "Well, so long as you omit the 'Lady' portion. I'm afraid it's never sat well with me."

  Fern pondered for a while as the road tio stretch out before her, the sery rgely unging but for various trees and rocks, and the occasional ge in dire as the road turo follow the river's bend. "What about that sister, or half-sister, of yours that you keep mentioning? What does she think of all this? Have you ever told her?"

  "Lilian is aware of my thoughts oter, yes." Ravenna smiled a little, though it wasn't pletely carefree. "Our paths in life are... a little different, simply by nature. But as far as I'm aware, at least, there isn't any bad blood between us." She paused for a moment, then sighed softly. "I keep wanting to go out east and visit her, to be ho about it, but the circumstances involved make it difficult. I 't exactly just walk onto her estate - at least, not without sequences for her. And I'm not going to worsen her affairs out of my own selfishness."

  The fallen hero pondered on this for a moment. "So... Lady Lilian Direfrost, I presume, is a noble. Like, actively."

  "You're a little too perceptive sometimes," she grumbled, without rancor. "But yes; despite my reservations, my sister is... involved in the affairs of the aristocrabsp; And she is under more than enough pressure already from being the 'honorable' representative of the family name, pared to me. It's bad enough - to the other nobles, I mean - that she treats the servants like people instead of tools. If she wasn't practically fwless, they'd never accept her tinued existenbsp; And Lilia have the bes I do, of a home where no oerferes and a pair of servants who early outmatch me on a good day! She has to survive by her wit and charm alone - and fortunately she's got plenty of both."

  Fern nodded. "I suppose it runs in the family, then," she returned, pletely i yet again.

  Ravenna pursed her lips in thought. "... Yes, yes, very good, darling. I daresay you two would get along quite well; in fact I'm sure of it."

  She arched an eyebrow. "Oh? Even though she's a noble dy and I'm... very muot?"

  The dark mage smiled, though there was somethihan joyful in it. "I've met enough of the aristocracy to know that underh all the finery and pretense, a noble is a person just like any other. The differenes whele begiing away at the person underh; when the pursuit of power and authority erodes their decy, their dignity, their very self. Some nobles would be perfectly fine and funal if you took their titles - but there are others who would barely exist at all, for it's all they have left that holds them together." She grimaced. "Like cracked pottery they are, ready to fall to pieces at the slightest toubsp; It would be pitiable, if not for the crimes itted to sustain them."

  There's still more to this story than I'm getting, Fern mused. And the thought stayed with her the rest of the day.