Returning Home [travel Balbadd ->Magnostadt]

Ari rubbed her eyes tiredly, the magic carpet occasionally dipping as she began falling asleep. She supposed she should land for the night before she ended up crashing the flying magic tool into the ground and carefully brought the carpet down to a safe height before landing it. She had left Balbadd after completing the creation of a couple of magic tools for some familiar faces and had been flying nearly nonstop since then, rarely stopping to rest. While Azix was currently in Reim and thus she had no reason to rush back to Kou, she still needed to see her father and let him know she was really okay. It was hard, finding safe places to rest and she typically preferred to find a large caravan to camp with, as there was safety in numbers. But smearing her pretty face across the landscape would do her no good, either.

When she woke up the next day, she felt refreshed and took back to the air, observing the area around her. The deserts and rocks surrounding Balbadd gradually gave way for sparse grass and trees as she neared the Great Plains. Each day, the landscape became more lush and green and she found herself admiring the simple beauty of the Plains. Many parts of the Plains reminded her of some of her familiar travel paths in Reim, making her miss her home there. But that chapter in her life was closed, at least for a little while, and she intended to take advantage of her new wellspring of power while seeing more of the world.

Once she assured her father of her safety, she intended to join Azix in Reim and then coerce him into seeing the world. She had been promised a vacation in Heliohapt and she intended to cash in on that promise. She had not visited her grandmother’s homeland since she was a child and she ached to see the place at least part of her family had grown up in. She also wanted to see the icy winter of Imuchakk, but that was for another trip, she supposed. She wanted to meet the great chieftain who had managed to unite the secular and private villages of the frozen tundra, maybe find out how she had brought together her people when the people of the Plains had yet to show any desire at all to come together. With no overlying threat to destroy their way of life, the nomadic tribes were completely content to remain separate. Even the five largest tribes had shown no efforts to usurp smaller groups, leaving the villages in peace.

Soon enough, the lush green fields gave way to sharp cliffs and her heart raced, knowing she was nearly home. Finally, after too much time traveling, she spotted the city of magic, where she had been born and raised, where she had suffered the trials and tribulations of childhood and the Academy, where her gift with magic had finally been recognized in a way that could not tarnish the family name. She landed the carpet with flourish before approaching the gate, her head held high. While she could have simply flown into Magnostadt, the barrier would not have stopped her, she wanted to make a point, she wanted word to spread that she was alive and she was back. The guard stuttered at seeing her, holding open the gate with a shaking hand.

“M-miss Negri… wel-welcome home!”

[400+/400 travel]