No Need For A Core?

The trip along the edge of the Raincatcher mountains was a lot faster than going on foot or horseback would have been. While they were not going a lot faster than a really brisk walk, at least, a brisk walk for Fuyuko, they were going in a straight line and didn't have to deal with most of the issues with crossing a border.

Which didn't mean there were no issues. It was late into the next morning when Mordecai had Fuyuko come up with him, Kazue, and Moriko again. "You're going to want to see this," he'd said. He wasn't wrong.

Fuyuko gaped at the small formation of elves that had formed around the flying wagon and kept pace with them. Some were just flying through direct magic, one had grown a pair of feathered wings, another one had a magic cape that was flapping like it was a pair of wings, and the final elf was a man standing on a flying sword of all things.

The man on the sword appeared to be the leader, and he landed on the roof of the wagon smoothly as he drew out a scroll.

"Good morning," he said. "I believe I have the paperwork for you, but could you please verify your identities?" The man had already appeared to not be bothered by the little bit of wind, but as soon as he had landed on the roof of the wagon, the wards had stopped almost all of it, reducing it to a very mild breeze.

"Of course," Mordecai said as he drew out his seal in a deliberately unhurried motion. "I am Lord Mordecai of the Azeria Mountain Dungeon, these are my wives Moriko and Kazue, and this is our daughter Fuyuko" he declared as he stamped the bottom of the presented, and seemingly blank, piece of paper. "We are traveling with family, friends, and allies to the southern nexus, with a stop for rest, trade, and training at the city of Artgoi." When he stamped the paper, it shimmered and a flow of words in elvish script flowed across it.

The elf bowed in response, then looked over the paperwork and nodded. "Everything is in order. Will you be needing to land before you reach the pass?"

"No," Mordecai said with a smile, "our friends here are good for that long and have already agreed to the distance."

The elf dubiously eyed the flying kelpie with spectral wings but chose to say nothing about it. "Very well sir, I will ensure that this is noted. Naturally, if something happens before that and you do need to land, we will come to investigate."

"Thank you," Mordecai replied and the elven man stepped back onto his sword and took off.

Once they were gone, Mordecai chuckled. "He says investigate, but what he didn't say was that they would also be doing an inspection to make sure that we are not smuggling anything in. Which I am sure your grandpa over there would never do." Papa's tone made Fuyuko suspicious that wasn't the literal truth; sarcasm was a fine line for truth-bound fey to walk. "Speaking of, let's go relieve him and Akahana. Zara and Tiros don't really need supervision, but it's usually a good idea to have people on watch whose job it is to simply look around. The two of them need to stay a little more focused on traveling straight."

Kazue and Moriko chose to head down below to give some of the others a chance to enjoy the view again.

Once Fuyuko and Mordecai had settled into the front seat, Fuyuko asked, "So what was that all about? I thought no one knew what we were doing."

"I didn't say we were going to tell no one, just that we were going to obfuscate our departure time and method," Mordecai replied. "Every strong and established nation needs some way to keep track of people coming and going through the air, just like they have guards at border stations. The difference is that flying visitors are rarer and generally have established a certain amount of magical prowess or strength. So having squads capable of intercepting strangers flying over your country is important."

"Um," Fuyuko said, "alright, that makes sense I guess. But why did they know we were coming?"

"Because," Mordecai said, "I asked Ricardo to pass on the appropriate paperwork for me. That is why the interaction was so brief and smooth, they were expecting us. If we were not already known, then they'd have insisted we land and would have tried to do an inspection. This is faster, easier, and maintains good relations with our neighbors."

"Could ya have just hidden us from them all together?"

Mordecai shrugged. "Maybe. Not right now, but when I've gotten stronger, I do know magic that might work, depending on what forms of detecting flying magic and separating us from flying animals and such that they use. But why take the risk of antagonizing them? They are neighbors and at least indirect allies through Kuiccihan. We are flying through their home, they have good reason to want to keep track of who does that."

Putting it that way certainly made sense, but part of Fuyuko would still rather not have unknown people know where she's going. Maybe that was something she needed to work on; it wouldn't be a good idea to possibly make enemies just because you wanted to be sneaky when you didn't need to be sneaky.

They sat together for a couple of hours just talking before Fuyuko headed inside and Kazue took her place. The rest of the day she spend eating, playing card games and stuff with her friends, and occasionally napping. She was, however, feeling a little restless by the end of the evening.

While this was a large area in many ways, Fuyuko had gotten used to having a very large territory in which to roam as she pleased and having a very active schedule of things to do. But this was definitely not the sort of place to be sparring or practicing with her shadow powers.

The sun had not quite come up the next morning when Fuyuko's earring chimed softly, rousing her from her sleep. "Get dressed and head outside, my other self has something new to show you." Mordecai's voice said in her ear. Oh, right, that would be her papa's core-self, instead of his avatar-self, talking to her. Fuyuko hadn't really needed to keep track of the difference for either him or Mama K that way before.

She quietly hummed a subvocal acknowledgment and then did her best to silently get dressed and head out. It helped that she usually wore her armor in its collar form when she wasn't just wearing it, but she still needed her boots and stuff.

When Fuyuko softly shut the door to the room she shared with Shizoku, she found Papa waiting for her. "I have a different sort of sight for you today. Your mothers have chosen to sleep in. But Moriko has the advantage of getting to fly high any time she wants, and Kazue really likes to sleep in sometimes. So come on."

At first the view didn't seem to be anything unusual, relative to the fact that they were flying alongside the mountain range while the rising sun cast light and shadow across the length of the range. Then Fuyuko noticed that they were beginning to turn and she started scanning the range, looking for the pass they were headed to and the city within.

At the low point between two peaks, there was what looked like a vertical line of black, but as they drew closer, that line grew wider. This crack in the mountains proved to be a crevice wide enough that three of their wagons could have flown side by side while giving the winged steeds plenty of room between their wings and still have had lots of space between them and the walls.

The pass widened as they flew through it and Fuyuko could just barely make out a slight change in color ahead. But before they got much further, Mordecai got her attention. "Fuyuko, I have a little lesson for you when we arrive, though you are the only one who needs know the results."

He handed her three small purses, each a different weight. "There are no tricks or tests involved, each bag has the same type of coins in it and you can tell which has more coins by weight. One is to give away, one is to spend on yourself, and the last one is to spend on others. Which is which is up to you to decide, and I will not know which bags you select. This lesson is for you to learn about yourself and understand yourself better. Do you understand and accept these rules?"

Mordecai was leaning on his authority with those last words. Fuyuko didn't have to obey unless she agreed to them, but she trusted him and wasn't going to make a fuss about this when she was receiving a gift of sorts. "I understand and accept, Papa," she said with a smile and then leaned down to kiss him on the cheek. "And thank you for the gift."

The ideal answer seemed obvious enough to her. The heaviest bag to charity, the lightest bag for herself, and then use the middle bag to spend on friends and family. But just saying that wasn't going to be the real lesson, and she was waiting for the second part. After all, she had to have a chance to spend money for this to matter.

But that opportunity was coming up. The high, sharp, gray edges of the pass were beginning to drop and fall away and soon Fuyuko was able to see the colors of the rock begin to change with wide, variegated bands of grays, whites, beige, and the occasional streak of pink; the city had been carved into this side of the mountain and into the pass itself, along with the buildings built up from carving out the sides of the pass and widening it. From here, she could see where the stone buildings spread out from the mouth of the pass and changing colors to muted oranges and red, and then onto the plains beyond.

Between the many buildings were various bright cloths. Those lower down tended to be wide and usable for shade, while those higher up were often fluttering decorations tied to strings that crossed the gap between, often with wind chimes as well. It gave the potentially somber, stony city a bright and cheerful air to have so many bright colors moving with the wind.

Fuyuko noticed that several of those 'strings' were closer to ropes. Someone nimble enough might even be able to cross rooftops that way. The ropes with wind chimes would be trickier. That was when she noticed Mordecai was giving her a knowing smile and she blushed. Well, old habits were hard to break, right?

Then again, he hadn't said anything about not exploring, and had just given her money...

Mordecai laughed and reached up to mess with her hair before he said, “Use the stone types as well as the ribbons to tell where you are in the city. That’s sandstone down towards the valley. It’s soft and easy to carve. The stones further into the pass, you see how shiny they are? That’s quartzite. There were quarries here once, but later buildings were carved directly into the cliff face using magic. The rest of the pass behind us is granite, like the mountains near home.”

The wagon angled toward a wide, flat space that had been cleared at the top of one of the cliffs, and there were some people there who noticed them and seemed to be preparing for their landing. This time, Mordecai didn't seem to feel a need to get everyone below, now that he had examined the wards while they were activate.

As soon as they landed, Ricardo and Akahana went to take care of Zara and Tiros, who both looked tired but proudly pleased with themselves. Bellona went to talk with some people who looked like they probably wanted paperwork stuff, and the rest of them gathered outside the wagon with Mordecai.

"Here's the plan," Mordecai said to the younger portion of the group. "We are going to be here three days, to give Zara and Tiros plenty of time to rest. The next part of our journey we will be taking in shorter legs, so they will not be pushed so hard. In the meantime, your training is to head out and explore a foreign city with effectively no supervision."

Yugo and Ruby started a bit at this announcement. Fuyuko guessed that the royal siblings normally had someone at least shadowing them if not outright escorting them, even incognito.

"However," Mordecai said, "we have some tokens for anyone who doesn't have a recognizable sigil or seal that they are willing to use. Presenting them to officials should get them to contact us, and we will be keeping a couple of people with the wagon at all times, barring an emergency. All of us will be given a couple of tokens to be on the safe side, because they have another use. If you break one of them, everyone who is attuned to the wagon and within range will be alerted to your location and that there is an emergency."

That seemed like it could be useful to her.

"Also, there's a game I'd like you to play. It's called Find the Fuyuko. She gets a one hour head start."

"Huh?!" Fuyuko said in surprise, before she took in his grin. "Oh!"

Mordecai tossed two tokens her way, saying "Catch!"

Fuyuko snatched them out of the air and ran directly toward the edge of the cliff. There was a stairway, but that wasn't her true goal. Instead, she ran toward the building off to the side of the stairs, and into its shadow. She came out of a shadow over a balcony on a building over thirty feet away from the cliff, then she leapt out to grab a rope that was slanting down toward another balcony.

It was time to explore.