If she would walk this fast, it would take a few minutes less, she would be home soon. The guilt had been pressing upon her but there were a few things that Alice wanted answers on and that had made the red head leave Crocus to find answers within the town where it all started, where she had lost her magic and where she been lost from the world for a good 4 weeks. She had been travelling here from the early morning on to find an answer about the issue at hand. She narrowed her eyes and stared at Hargeon in the near distance. She would first go to the hospital, to the Rune Knight barracks to find the page that had saved her, the shame that she couldn’t remember his name. She had too many underlings that she was taking care of and that had her full attention as well as her utmost hard work of keeping up with them, finding a gun trainer for Akira, a sword master for T.K. and so on but most of all finding Evangeline and Selena. There were still no reports and she had send many Rune Knights, even when she no longer had the authority. Which was one of her questions, it seemed the Rune Knights had wanted to get rid of her at the point of her pregnancy, had blamed the loss of her magic and had used it as an excuse. But now, they asked her to still pretend to be the lieutenant and guide some of the newer knights and with that pages and apprentices. She brushed her long orange hair out of her face and looked over her shoulder at her companion that would understand her feelings so well and Hecate took the few steps towards her and took her right hand and gave it a little squeeze, ”The sooner we are having the answers, the sooner we can get back.” She nodded and looked over her left shoulder at her blonde companion who looked at Hargeon with some sort of angry look in his eyes. Now Jupiter had that more often and apparently being stuck in a hospital and the way the so called knights had treated her, had given him a bad impression of the town in general. She knew he was easily judgemental about things like that, how he first had thought about Kon, thank god before the period that he could talk and be shaped like a human being and well Lacie but that was a fair and square answer. Lacie was a reason to be angry about and that she had left her children basically alone, yet in the capable hands of her fiancé, still made her unsure about leaving. Wherever Lacie was, her sister might be more afraid of her than Alice of Lacie. But she didn’t want to know what her crazy sister might have had in her mind with her first assault in Baska. Thank god she had been on time.

With one last look at both her companions the ginger woman walked on towards the town, entering it and looking left and right, the damage that she had never really witnessed was gone in general and it seemed to be quite busy now with spring around. She held a good grip on her bag and brushed the few lose orange strains of hair out of her face, thanks to the light breeze around the town that came from the sea. Everyone seemed to be doing okay, some graffiti about the new emperor but also the caught criminals that were cleaning it off, teenagers, she wasn’t sure what to think about it. But as she was no Rune Knight but had a higher priority as a Holy Knight, she would simply shrug it off and walk to the western part of the town and go to the hospital. It wasn’t that far anymore, to believe that she couldn’t walk at the point when she had gotten here and how healers had to work hard to fix her bones, muscles and everything, it was a miracle the twin survived and she didn’t feel like discussing that with a doctor, afraid she might turn on her heel and run back to Crocus to make sure they were okay or even run to Orchidia as they discussed to go back home. But Alice didn’t she walked to the desk and asked if Jerry was here, the male nurse that helped her with the revalidation of her issues, broken bones, anything, it had been a horrible process with a lot of pain and she was glad it had all been fixed. He seemed to be busy but Alice didn’t mind the wait and she walked around a little in the hallway before meeting Jerry again. They talked shortly about what happened and how she had figured out her Solar magic or that she was walking without much pain and that the last pain came from the labour that she had gone through in Orchidia, shortly discussing her little ones before getting to the point. The guys that had threatened her with the magic and firing her from the Rune Knights had never been again, no matter how many Rune Knights ended up in the hospital, which was definitely something strange and it made Jupiter grunt softly about his displeasure and the weird situation that they were in. She took a deep breath when she stood outside again, not getting much information nor about her miraculously protective moment or about the people that had been here for her almost every day in September when she was here, locked up because of issues with her own health. After that, she had not fought again and it made her bored but she would when time was ready, when her body could handle it again and even though she felt the need to train and the like, she understand she couldn’t, she wanted to be home soon, very soon.

The determination quickly showed up in her eyes again and the trio walked over towards the barracks of the Rune Knights here in Hargeon, she took a quick stride inside and looked around who might have been in charge here, most higher ranks were of course up in Crocus, they wouldn’t say it out loud but they expected something from the new emperor. She was sure of that, that’s why they kept Asura there too but she wouldn’t say anything about it yet. She would take the girl or well they were about the same age, with her and get her to know the outside jobs of the Rune Knights, but it might be strange to do that as a Holy Knight and the last job she had taken to guide someone, had not gone very well. She felt a tense feeling in her shoulders and tried to let it go, she simply looked around, stare at the people that were around, not all in uniform but never the faces she had seen in the hospital. She looked shortly at Jupiter who had this neutral yet angry expression on his face, only she and Hecate knew that this was his normal expression when he thought a lot. ”What do you think?” she whispered to him softly, ”It seems to be a set up, but I can’t figure out for what and why you.” Which made her turn around as someone came towards them asking questions. She simply said she was looking for the first lieutenant that came up in her mind and as the person told her that this one wasn’t around, as she had expected, she said she would step by later the year and leave.

Again outside with less answers than they had hoped, ”What if they left, got another job. You left too.” Hecate mentioned but one look on Jupiter and Alice knew that the two of them agreed, how farfetched it was she didn’t know but at the moment it didn’t feel right and she couldn’t let it go, not for now, at least for now she could let go of finding answers, there was another reason for that as she stared at the docks, the path of where the barracks were a bit higher, making it easily visible that there were a lot of people over there as well as a huge ship in the sea. She wondered what it was about and turned to look at the other two who looked at it as well. Dropping back on four and changing into her fateful companions as beasts, the three of them decided to walk towards the docks and figure out what it was all about. She caught a few words as she walked down to there and watched, her golden hues following children, teenagers and older people running down to get to the docks as soon as possible and she stood on the side when she entered the docks. She spotted a blonde man on a central stage.

The man seemed to direct, talk and do a lot more things around here and she looked at the setting before stepping up, her two companions walking through the crowd to find the right faces here. She crossed her arms and turned to look away and go away, waiting for Hecate and Jupiter out of the crowd, when she spotted a paper there and it was about a job. Just as she took her hand out towards the paper, a human version of Jupiter showed up next to her again, ”We didn’t came here to work.”, ”But every coin is nice.” Hecate answered, who seemed to be eager to do something else and being on the trips that they had used to be going on before little Anton and Tanya were born. Alice gave a smile towards Hecate and took the paper from the board, turning towards the man on the stage, who immediately looked towards her and walked towards the stage where he was still talking, but seemed to be ending his conversations as she came over and was close enough to form a conversation with. She smiled at him to be polite and held up the paper, he had already seen she had it, ”Care to fill in the details to us three?” She said bringing Hecate and Jupiter into it as well, even though the man behind her didn’t seem to agree, he seemed to show his polite side for now while Reign, as the man introduced himself and the three of them listened to him to understand what they expected to do. As soon as they got the whole deal, and she accepted with the right price, she walked away from Reign with her faithful followers behind her, as soon as they were out of earshot for the crowd, Jupiter grabbed her wrist, ”Are you crazy? three weeks ago you gave birth, you are going too fast, Alice. You can’t do this, you can’t work out a warship.” But she pulled her wrist away, ”I know but I already said yes, so I’m not going to sit down or walk back to say no, I want to do this.” To which the blonde shook his head not understanding why she was pushing herself so badly to fix things that would take 3 months to at least do, ”Sure, fine do whatever you want and let me at least carry the heavy stuff.” To which she was glad that he admitted that and she nodded. They could reach and fix a lot with the three of them. So they made their way towards Mywand Olden’s warehouse a little further away from the festive in the docks. ”I do have to admit that I have no idea how to fix this.” she heard Hecate but they would see, especially no idea how they would carry all of this and as they arrived at the warehouse, Mywand Olden was apparently waiting on someone. He stood in front of the huge doors.

The man waved them in and the three of them walked towards him, checking the number of the warehouse to make sure they were right, Alice asked if this man was indeed Mywand Olden, and when he gave them a positive answer, she quickly spoke to him about the task at hand while the two others went to look at the things that they would needed, she wasn’t sure how they would all take it until Mywand told them that they got some oxen with wagons and she stared at the horrible thing she had just accepted to do. She looked at Hecate for a second when Jupiter wasn’t looking to make sure that the two of them would just share that moment of panic before putting it off and going towards Jupiter to convince him to help them carry, now Alice could handle a lot but even if she picked up something light, Jupiter would sprint over to take it away from her and just do it himself and she looked at Hecate who simply grinned and shrugged before walking over with the other stuff to the oxen cart that would soon enough, once everything was packed and ready, leave towards the dry docks where they would be able to begin working on this ship. The three of them gave each other one last look, ” You should be happy we got those herbs.” To which Alice gave Jupiter a teasing kiss on the cheek, ”Yes darling, as always.” As she looked at Hecate to make sure that her friend was okay with it and she shook her head with a smile, ”Let’s see what we can do, we better work fast or we will never leave.” Which made Alice nod and stare at Jupiter as she felt magic coming from him, she should work on something like that either but her magic wasn’t capable and there was no Kon to buff her own strength or endurance and besides that, would that be allowed in Reign his way of working. The instructions were very clear so that was a good thing, she made sure that they read the instructions very well and there were some others that would help them out. So they made progress even if Jupiter pushed her on a chair from time to time, she didn’t sit still and would work on something else and was almost disappointed that magic was no option, it would seal things pretty well close but craftsmanship was a good thing and besides that magic might screw up and she was sure a straight hammered nail would do better. She shouldn’t complain too much about it but it sure was a lot of work, even with a lot of people that she doubt they would leave any time soon. She watched Hecate and Jupiter carefully to make sure her companions were okay with this in general. They were her companions but she didn’t want to force them in extra jobs that they didn’t want to take but they seemed to have fun.

They worked almost even the whole night, having artificial light keeping them able to work and to be honest with this hard work she didn’t even feel sleepy, yet that would come later when they were done, she just wanted to be home as soon as possible. She did work hard enough, trying to avoid Jupiter when she carried something as she didn’t want him to take all the work from her as he had been doing so much already but finally after h ours, they finished the ship. She didn’t even understand how, she looked at it, magnificent height and all the other details that some of the other constructors had made and she was glad that they were there, with the three of them it must have at least taken 3 more days before they were done if they were capable of working another whole night or two. Once done they made their way over to where they had found Reign yesterday but of course he wasn’t on the center stage, though it did seem that they plan to celebrate again for today, who was it for again, his father? She actually forgot and only told him it was ready to which he immediately packed stuff, called crew before he would take her back to the dry docks to put the ship to water, put the crew on it and see if it worked, which made Alice (and perhaps her companions) very nervous. What a lot of pressure for her first ship, and definitely her last. She didn’t plan to say much but as soon as it worked, kept afloat, she felt her hand shaken by Reign, so quick and harsh that she thought her shoulder socket might pop out but nothing happened obviously and he paid her well. To which the three of them decided to stay here to sleep before moving indeed back to Crocus, which sounded like a good idea as the three of them were exhausted, as soon as she rented a room for one person, which got her strange looks, the companions turned back into their animal version and used each other as a pillow while she crashed on the bed, almost forgetting all the issues to why she came to Hargeon. Still no answers but a ship further, Alice fell asleep, only dreaming about being reunited with her children as she had never thought to be such a family person or well a mother. The nightmares had gone for now, she could only dream about happy thoughts and that was a good thing because she would have a couple of more jobs to do here in Hargeon before she could go away, unknown to Alice at this point of her sleep though, but a letter would arrive now that the knights knew miss Baskerville was in town. But the dreams would give her rest, for her muscles to relax, the splinters to magically disappear and so on. Her body would be sore the next day too but then who again would build a ship in a day.