Corde hez Iralev didn’t look much like a legend stepping off the ship. Her traveling clothes were salt-stained and sun-faded from months at sea. Dark hair pulled back with a spring barrette made of Metal - specifically of phosphor bronze - that a prodigious boy of eight had forged as a gift before her trip back. It wasn’t as light as the hair ornaments the nobles wore, but she actually appreciated that bit of heft and bite it had to clamp on her thick hair.

That gift and the sword at her hip were the only two things on her person that looked well maintained. Outside of her clothing, there was the giant trunk she pulled up to the gangplank... a container whose treated wood still looked good enough for such a journey where cargo tended to slide about in the hold during rough wave storms. Though it didn’t look like it was *treated* all that well when she got behind it and simply pushed it down the ramp.

A layer of Frost formed just ahead of it and kept it sliding until it hid the dock with a barely squealing thud as she pulled back on the leather strap bolted to it. Dockhands who had been approaching to offer their services before that display stopped when they saw the ice creeping around the box. They recognized that inserting themselves in the business of a cultivator fresh off a boat-journey was not the best way to spend their time. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Especially when none of the other crew on the boat approached within yards of her as they carried their own things past. Standing there, the Frozen Duskblade took the port in while taking a deep breath. There was similarity to them all, just as she remembered thinking when landing on the other continent... but differences still.

The continental cuisines and local specialties when it came to seafood were seasoned differently - and a spice on the air from a nearby shack boiling something up was a scent she’d taken in for the first time in years. Altogether different from going back to her homeland and different from being somewhere she could call home. But close enough to the latter that it brought an interesting feeling of ’contentment’ to the veteran of four Descents.

’I guess this is just what it means to grow accustomed to things.’

She had spent the last months of her visit, before the lengthy sea journey, sitting in on the Youth Guild sessions. The children were louder than she remembered and the instructors were by and large people that she didn’t recognize anymore. Most had died or retired in seven decades of time, after all.

They worked with an easy going way that she had once thought was laziness and Velyaun herself, like most of the nobles on her continent, had stressed that was true. But watching them closely in these times, freed from the urgency of needing every graduating student during that period to become a soldier for the next Descent... she had recognized on some level that these people were teaching cultivation right.

Showing children to enjoy what their bodies and minds could do. Preparing them to survive gradually, but by framing their abilities - especially their Element - as an extension of themselves... rather than only a sharp weapon mean to be used to stand at the apex. That distinction rested uncomfortably in her mind for the first week, because it made her realize that she had never fully shed the ideas of standing on top of others.

Not completely, no matter how she tried to frame her growth as for her own sake. Or how she excused her preference for working alone, where possible, as being efficient. She had spent her life fighting the corruption that many early events had caused and was starting to see that she was winning on some fronts but had far from won what was looking to be an everlasting battle.

By the third week of observation, she had asked permission to assist with training their fundamentals as a guest instructor. By the fifth, she had even stopped correcting everyone’s footwork until they cried to go home... and instead let them find their own way. With firm advice used as a branch to grasp if they wanted to be pulled out of the quicksand - and not be whipped with no matter what they wanted.

She thought of Elua er Goltbred often as she took on that kind of role, where she still felt like she knew best but was letting the youth find things out first. That young girl had been a source of deep suspicion and growing resentment because of doing similar with Qatrand. Yet distrust remained for reasons that Corde thought were still likely perfectly reasonable, even if the over ninety-year old could admit her own choices about it were overreactive.

Discovering that the person you thought you murdered was alive that whole time and had been playing in a game far longer than your lifetime tended to make you reflective about all sorts of things. But it certainly didn’t make you more trusting than before. Even if she had no plans to antagonize a person that reminded her instinctively of Velauyn.

’I’ll just bring this to my student, make the apologies I need to, and then get back to work. I’m sure the Void Defense Society is going to bury me in paperwork. Maybe I should find an adjutant...’

As she paused to think about the near future and study the rail station visible from the dock’s edge, she heard the whistle of one rail line’s departure and caught as the stationmaster manipulated the train schedule board. An overcomplicated system of painted slats with stop names and route numbers layered horizontally on top of a local map that she remembered... maintained for those unwilling to purchase a travel booklet.

"Lady Iralev?"

The feminine voice called out from her left, at the end of the dock. Corde turned away from too many memories of riding trains to destinations only to find a young woman in merchant’s traveling clothes stepping spritely her way. Reddish-blonde hair was caught back in a working braid and pale lilac eyes were already cataloguing the trunk with unprofessional interest.

"Valmenf. Stop running your Clairvoyance to test what is inside."

She had recognized the face and the ability the woman owned before the name surfaced. One of the people from her disciple’s territory and inner circle, as she recalled. Nysoi had only been in the same room as the famous warrior perhaps a dozen times... and only exchanged more than pleasantries out loud and in *reality* throughout that time.

"My apologies. It’s almost a habit by now, to figure out if I want to purchase something or not."

"Not for sale."

"I thought as much. Still, there aren’t many cultivators who use their Element to move furniture off of a ship. That was rather fun to see."

Her observation was delivered with easy, silver-tongued humor of a merchant. The kind practiced at making strangers comfortable before fleecing them for the thing nearest their mark’s opinion of a good deal, whether it really was or not in truth mattered less than perception and that both sides walked away happy.

Corde offered nothing in response, because she wasn’t exactly a stranger by her minimal standards of social interaction. And she wasn’t any more uncomfortable than talking to anyone else, no matter what that Astralism could theoretically do. She was just tired of being on boats and not in the mood to be chatty.

"You know, I have cargo space reserved on the evening inland line. Always pay for extra in case I find more on a trip than I planned. If that’s going toward Qat’s territory at all, I can have your trunk loaded along with my shipment for this leg of it. The freight handlers here charge absurdly for unscheduled heavy goods."

Casually revealing that she’d fished enough about the Frozen Duskblade’s plans to make the practical offer - and that she probably risked her ’life’ by pushing at the box - the words were still delivered without any Intent that Corde owed her something for it. No matter how things were left between the Warden Patrician and her Prodigal Master. At least none as far as the experienced warrior could tell... and that much the swordswoman appreciated to respond to.

"I’d accept that. And will pay a partial share."

"Good. I’ll go handle the paperwork to add you to my passenger car as well."

Some amusement crossed the Frozen Duskblade’s stoic expression at the young woman trying to build a connection with a famous person outside of claiming to be a fan or wanting training. An easing around the eyes that most people wouldn’t have noticed. Nysoi er Valmenf of course noticed it, but had the good sense not to comment on it. Not out loud.

Not outside of a Clairvoyance run... that often went terribly, *terribly* wrong.