Next steps

Alexis had been quietly conversing with Boyce.
She had been a bit surprised about his offer to fund the finalisation of their homestead in exchange for moving in with them. As an esteemed scholar, surely he would have had no trouble to find, well, more luxurious housing.
But she assumed he had good reason to want to stay with them, and her friends seemed to welcome him as much as she did herself, so she had no qualms to adjust the construction blueprints to include Boyce’s needs.

While Islana and Gonyaul enjoyed some star gazing, Boyce and her discussed their further plans. The scholar had been tasked with several studies to undertake that would take him beyond the reaches of Ostiarium, while she had been starting to look for work in earnest.

That was how she heard of Nicolaus’ plans to travel up to Aquilo with an escort.
The mercenary was heavily considering asking the apothecary if he was still looking for guards and since Boyce had an assignment for the Fang as well, it honestly would work well. Ideally they could accompany Nicolaus up to the settlement, and after that Alexis was more than up to come along with Boyce for his studies.

For Alexis, there were many good reasons to take that route. For one both Boyce and Nicolaus were men she had come to hold in high regard and whom she would gladly help in their endeavours.

Then there was the Fang itself. While for what she had seen of its inhabitants so far she didn’t care much, the mountains itself spoke to her, here, far away from the summits of her home.
It might quell some of that lingering nostalgia to breathe mountain air again.

The coming war was a concern of course. But she was a mercenary. War did not really scare her. And she could not shake the feeling that, soldier or not, there would be no sidelines. They would be drawn into that conflict one way or another.