"Um..." Jesse jogs several feet to keep up with the other five half-demons, having departed the rest area about two hours previously and already looking a little out of breath to keep up with the five much-taller people around them. "I don't mean to sound impatient or anythin', but how much longer do we have to walk before we get to Champion City?"

Petra glances down at Jesse, lips twisting in discomfort.

She's not a big fan of Stella.

"At this pace... maybe about a day?" she muses, the (somehow) seventeen-year-old managing to keep pace, along with the tiny pig at their feet. "

Lukas hums thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder at Jesse. "But, it's dangerous to walk during the night... so perhaps two days."

Jesse frowns; Petra can't help but find the way their expression scrunches up a little in confusion stupidly adorable. Are humans just made this way now?

"Didn't Romeo say getting to Sky City would be a two-day journey?"

"Well, normally, it would only take us around half a day without delays, which rarely ever happens," Maya replies, "so that takes about a day. But we've got to go a lot slower so that we don't leave you behind."

Jesse wilts slightly, apology already creeping into their expression.

Petra's noticed that's a habit with them. At one point earlier Gill slowed down to check a map and Jesse, without noticing, accidentally ran into him.

They promptly spent the next ten minutes apologizing about it, while Gill repeatedly assured them it wasn't their fault.

Thankfully, they don't start apologizing nonstop- they just twist their lips sideways slightly and then frown up at the others. "Is there a faster way...? I don't really want to waste everyone's time with so much walking..."

Everyone comes to a stop, Maya crossing her arms and tapping her cheek. "Mm... well, I don't want to spend this much time with just walking... but I'm definitely not sure how well I could carry someone while running..."

After a pause, she looks up and glances at Gill. "Maybe you could carry Jesse, Gill. You used to do it all the time for Romeo."

Gill immediately puts his hands up and shakes his head vigorously. "No way. Do you have any idea how much I hated that training? I had to be his personal taxi for an entire year. No way in hell am I carrying another person after that."

"Mm..." Maya considers this with a frown, before looking at Aiden somewhat hopefully. "You can fly in your shadow form, Aiden. Maybe you could carry Jesse?"

Aiden's shaking his head already. "Can't. My wings aren't strong enough to carry two people."

Maya frowns again, tapping her cheek again thoughtfully. "Mm... Lukas, Petra, you guys carried them a while back... do you think...?"

Lukas frowns, crossing his arms. "At the speed I go in my shadow form, I'd honestly be worried about dropping Jesse or Reuben sometime during it... I don't usually carry people while running."

There's a moment of confusion before Petra realizes he's probably talking about the pig.

"It might not be the best time to try for the first time, then..." Petra mumbles, pinching her bottom lip. "I could probably carry them on my back, but that depends on how strong they are..."

Jesse gives an apologetic shake of their head. "I dunno how fast you guys run; I don't think my usual amount of strength is a good measure to go off of for whatever you guys are thinkin' of..."

Maya purses her lips, looking at the ground. "Hm... then what can we do..."

A moment of silence passes over the group, all of them standing in silent thought.

Petra's about to suggest that maybe they should keep walking and just try speeding up the pace, when Lukas snaps his fingers. "Ah, I've got it. Stand back, guys."

Judging by the way he shifts into position, Petra gently takes Jesse by the shoulder and tugs them back several paces.

Lukas puts his hand up, staring (well, Petra can only assume) forward.

Slowly, several glowing, golden concentric circles form around him, swirling with random syllables and words that are moving too quick for any of them to read.

Petra glances down at Jesse, whose eyes are rather large at the sight. It's understandable. Magic in Cosmos is always an impressive sight.

"Lacus," he murmurs, and the uppermost concentric circle clicks into place, the word blazing gold, but he barely pauses before he's continuing to the next circle, "advoca, non, tutumn, celer."

The concentric circles whirl and raise themselves into the air, before he flares his hand out.

In a burst of light, a large, dark horse slams into the ground, hooves clumping sharply with the glowing blue symbols on its side seething with energy. Its mane glows with fire, soot and embers flitting off of it into the air.

Jesse blinks at it, getting a little closer, Reuben trailing just behind. "It's a horse...?"

Lukas hums, giving it a small smile. "Huh. That worked surprisingly well."

Jesse reaches up, the horse giving their hand a sniff before moving to their head, Jesse remaining very still and careful.

Petra is very tempted to jerk Jesse away, as horses in Cosmos are really just... not safe to touch or hug. Safe to ride, sure, but the only reason they're safe to ride is because of the magic keeping them from attacking any and everything in their path.

Generally, hugging a Cosmos horse or trying to feed it a sugar cube results in you getting your fingers bitten.

And then the horse snuffles and bumps its nose into Jesse's head, making them giggle.

"That was cool, Lukas!" They barely turn to look at him, careful to not upset the horse that's currently nuzzling the top of their head. "Was that magic, too?"

Lukas nods, shifting and resting a hand on his hip. Petra can feel the pride in his voice. "Yeah, it's not a very complicated spell, though... it does get annoying to set up sometimes. Magic requires quite a bit of setup to perform."

Jesse blinks, a tiny amount of confusion creeping into their expression at that. "But you don't do much setup with illusion magic..."

"That's because those are small illusions. Once you're skilled enough, simple or small illusion spells can be done nonverbally and with some kind of catalyst; especially because your magic skill has moved up enough that such small spells can be done without even having to do much of the movement."

Lukas gives a shrug after a moment of thought. "Ivor's magic skill is at the point where he could probably do that without much setup as well; he can do a lot of magic without setup."

"He could definitely do that without much setup. Some of the smaller spells he doesn't even need to make motions," Petra adds helpfully.

Jesse seems to be in thought, but before they can ask anything else about the very intricate details of magic Aiden speaks up. "Let's get going. We can talk more about magic after we get to Champion City; I don't want to be caught outside at night."

"Ah, okay." And Jesse gently disentangles themselves from the horse, popping over to climb onto the horse.

They pause for a second. "Won't I get burned by the flames on its back?"

"Nah, Cosmos horses won't burn the rider," Maya shrugs, "you can get on."

Petra glances at Jesse to see how wary they are about climbing onto a horse with a mane of fire, but they're already clambering onto the horse, which kneels down slightly to let Jesse clamber onto it without giving them the hell they usually give other riders- i.e., bucking around and being a general nuisance.

Huh.

Reuben gives a squeal and, in one leaping motion, springs off of the ground much higher than a normal pig can and landing in Jesse's open arms.

Seeing that Jesse is situated enough, Aiden turns around, tensing his knees-

He shoots off, dissolving into a blur of shadow as two appendages rip themselves from his back.

Before Jesse, with wide eyes, can say anything, he's already a shadow blurring through the sky.

Hardly a second passes before Gill bolts forward as well, dissolving into what looks like a shadowy blur and lunging into the trees. Lukas and Maya are gone seconds later as well, two shadowy blurs practically flying along the road.

Petra glances at Jesse, who's gaping after the October Children while perched on the horse.

"You wanna race?"

The human blinks down at her. "Hm?"

She jerks her head at the path, giving them a reassuring smile. "You wanna see who's faster? Me or the horse?"

She rocks up onto her tiptoes, giving Jesse a grin. "Lukas and Maya aren't really fun about races, Aiden can fly so it's totally unfair, Gill prefers jumping around in the trees... haven't really raced anyone in a while."

Jesse blinks again, squeezing Reuben a little tighter, before a tiny smile comes over their face.

"Okay."


"Alright," and Maya skids to a halt, finally not just looking like a shadowy blur, Lukas following with Aiden already having landed a few minutes before. Gill leaps out of a tree and lands neatly, going from his more shadowy form to a downright normal one. "We're here!"

Petra skids in a second later, Jesse's horse flying to a halt next to her after half a second. "Ha! I win!"

She falters when she sees Jesse clinging to Reuben and practically facedown on the horse, who is nickering and doing its best to look at Jesse, who is slowly heaving as if they're having trouble breathing. "... you alright?"

Jesse lifts their head a little to give her a tiny, weak grin, even though they're currently reminding Petra of when she first saw Ivor gut a person and their eyes are slightly glazed. "Mmhm... I think..."

The horse nickers as Petra slowly lifts the tiny human off of the horse, apparently not pleased but letting it happen since Jesse does look like they're about to throw up on the spot.

With a gentle nuzzle to their wrist (that Jesse's eyes flicker open at) the horse vanishes in a whipcrack and a flash of light.

Petra checks their wrist and raises her eyebrow upon spotting the tiny flame tattoo that is now inscribed inside their wrist. "Holy shit. That horse loved you."

Jesse blinks a few times, looking at the tattoo. "Really?"

"Yeah." Petra taps their wrist, being careful not to actually touch the tattoo, since it's brand new and probably still going to be a bit tender. "When Cosmos horses find a rider they really like, they brand the rider so that it can be summoned quickly and you don't have to do the whole spell thing and summon a different, probably random steed. But uh, that happens really rarely."

"Last time I saw it happen was with Isa," Lukas contributes helpfully, "and I didn't actually see what happened- I just saw her summon her steed."

Jesse blinks again, looking back at the tattoo almost owlishly. "Oh."

Petra can't help but grin at the response.

They look up at her a moment later with big green eyes. "That was... uh... nausea-inducing, but that was also a fun race."

A little bright smile comes over their face as they beam up at her. "Let's do it again sometime."

... shit, that's cute.

"Sure thing." She gives them a friendly punch on the shoulder, and she would probably say more except the guard at the entrance to Champion City speaks up, practically bellowing at the six of them.

"Halt! You may not enter without showing us your ID cards!"

Aiden's brow furrows. "ID cards...?"

"If you don't have one," the other guard speaks up, thankfully at a lower volume, "then you may not enter."

Maya frowns. "What? Are you saying that we're suspicious individuals or something? We're the October Children!"

The loud one bellows again, which makes Aiden's eye twitch.

He's not a fan of shouting.

"It doesn't matter who you are! Even if you claim to be a lord, I still cannot let you in if you don't have an ID!"

"Hizelk isn't the only one. The rest of the towns are the same," the quieter one speaks up, perhaps upon spotting the blank expressions of the October Children.

Petra glances at the others, her brow creasing in slight confusion. "Yeah, this went into effect a month or so ago. You guys don't have your ID cards?" She pulls out her own, which gleams red and has a place to press your fingers to see the details. She certainly finds them less dense then, say, human's drivers licenses.

(She's actually seen a couple. Ivor has several back in Enchantra from contracted humans that die during the job.)

Lukas hums, biting his lip thoughtfully. "Now that I think about it... Romeo did mention something about this around a month ago..."

Aiden mutters a swear under his breath as realization, and shortly afterward anger, flares in his eyes. "That useless lord- he forgot to give us our fucking ID cards!"

"Then what are we going to do?" Gill glances at where the sun, even though it has been hidden behind the clouds, is now definitely casting bloodred light over everything as it sets. "There's definitely not enough time to head back to the Underneath."

"It's going to be dark soon..." Petra thumbs the corner of her mouth, glancing at where the sun is setting. "We definitely can't just keep running around; especially since we're not really good with light magic yet and we've got Jesse with us."

Lukas crosses his arms, brow furrowing, before nodding and turning to walk back into the forest. "C'mon. We've got to head back into the forest. We'll head back to the Underneath first thing in the morning."

Jesse blinks at them, already beginning to jog after them. "Um... why are we going back into the forest?"

"You'll see. Let's go, there's no time," Lukas calls over his shoulder.


A/N: Why is this story so easy to update quickly? xD

Travelling is... great. xD

No new reviews! See ya, so long, and g'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x