Chapter 3: Lost and Found

After I had conveyed my plan to Byleth and Jeralt for them to mull over, I turned around a bit in my chair and looked at Sothis, who had taken a seat next to me. She looked both sad and thoughtful. She was probably still thinking about everything I had told our host.

I took a moment to collect myself. I had a promise to keep. "Sothis," I began, gaining her attention, "I'm sorry that I made you remember… that. I had no idea you were conscious when it happened."

She looked at me for a few seconds as if trying to read me and drew in a shuddering breath. Finally, she said, "It's alright. I forgive you. You couldn't have known that it would end up like it did."

I felt a massive sense of relief at that. It would have been a very awkward time being here otherwise.

"But it was incredibly unpleasant!" She continued. "You had better give me more of an advance warning in the future! I cannot become catatonic whenever I relearn things from my past."

"I've got no problem with that," I answered, which was true. If there were more big topics to drop on her, I'd give her more of an advance warning. She deserved that much at least.

She looked at me scrutinisingly for a bit and then nodded. She seemed to have accepted my answer.

"Alright," I began "What have you missed?"

"Not much, it seems. I woke up around the time you told Byleth to take out his notepad," she answered. "That said, I have a couple of questions of my own."

"Ask away, then."

She thought for a minute, presumably trying to figure out which question to ask first. Her face looked incredibly sad and, somehow, a bit broken. Finally, she opened her mouth "Do you know how many children I had? I want- no, I need to know!"

I hummed pensively. "I don't know how many Children of the Goddess there were in total. I am, however, almost completely certain that you directly created 21 of them. My assumption is based on the fact that there are 22 Crests, including yours. I don't know their names, but if you had a naming scheme, I'm pretty sure they were named after stars."

Sothis nodded and closed her eyes. Her face contorted into the likeness of intense concentration and before long, a small gasp left her lips. "I remember!" she exclaimed. "Arcturus, Bellatrix, Polaris and Seiros. My youngest four… I named them after stars. My sweet little lights…"

"The others?" I asked.

"Nothing," she sighed sadly. "Their names slip from my grasp when I try to remember them and my head is starting to hurt. It's frustrating me to no end!"

All I could offer was sympathy. "I'm sorry."

Even in my head, that sounded kind of pathetic, but I meant it.

There was an uncomfortable silence that lasted for a minute. It was quite awkward and I didn't quite know what to do or say.

Finally, she spoke up. "There is one more thing I want to ask you about. When I was asleep, I met someone who told me that I named many of my Children after gods. What do you know about that?"

I made a sharp noise of surprise. She met someone in her sleep? Was it those voices from that weird trial I had before I landed here? I needed to ask her about this, urgently, but I decided to answer her first. I had promised her answers, after all.

"How many of them were named such, I do not know. Though, I have to say, Fodlan and its surroundings are filled with names right out of Irish mythology. Cethleann, Cichol, Indech, Oghma, Dagda and Brigid are all names of the older order of Irish Gods. Macuil is probably also right there, if you named him after Mac Cuill. If so, his name comes from the Tuatha De Danann, the younger order of Irish gods. If not, the closest thing his name comes to is an Aztec God of Art and Music."

Sothis took a short while to process this and then asked me, "It has just occurred to me. How is it that you know about these gods when you are from another world?"

That was a legitimate question. I shied back from the possibilities this held, but for now, I would go with what I knew for sure. "Well, there are several reasons, first of which is- wait." I paused for a moment, thinking. "Sothis, brace yourself. This could possibly cause another memory to resurface."

She nodded and took a breath. Then she looked at me and made a gesture for me to continue.

"There were many myths and mythologies in my world. You yourself belong in two of those. To the Greeks, you were known as Sothis, the Goddess of the star Sirius, or Seirios as they called it. That word means 'glowing' or 'scorching', by the way. However, Sothis is merely the name the Greeks gave an Egyptian Goddess by the name of Sopdet. Is that familiar with you?"

Sothis' expression became a grimace and she flinched in pain once or twice, but she relaxed eventually and released a hard breath. "I see a river in my memory. It was called… Nile, I believe," she said.

I nodded despite the sinking feeling in my gut which her response provoked. "Yes, that is what you were associated with. Your star rose in the sky when the Nile flooded and brought both the promise of life and the risk of death with it."

I refrained from making a joke about Sopdet meaning "triangle" or "the pointy one". It was hilarious, considering the shape of her ears, but it might have offended her if I said as much.

"In that case, will you recognise the ones who spoke with me?" she asked.

At that, I sat up straighter. It seemed we were getting to the meat of the matter. "I might, unless they're from a mythology I'm not familiar with. There are far too many for me to know them all. I am quite curious about your encounter with them nevertheless."

"In that case," she began, "I shall tell you about my encounter with them and you shall tell me who they are." Seeing my nod, she continued "When I drifted through the darkness, I came upon a large group of people. The ones that caught my attention were called Mars and Minerva. They were arguing and the man called Mars mentioned that Minerva and another woman called Athena were supposedly almost the same."

"Interesting," I remarked.

"How so?" asked Sothis.

"Well, Minerva and Athena technically are supposed to be the same person, but the way you say Mars was talking about them implies that they are not. You see, Minerva is the name the Romans used for the Greek Goddess Athena. Then again, they were worshipped in slightly different ways. Maybe a split occurred because of this. Anyway, Mars and Minerva represent two different aspects of war. Mars, or Ares for the Greeks, stands for the ferocity of the warrior and the savagery of battle. Minerva is the Goddess who represents the strategic side of warfare and wisdom in general."

The unease I had been feeling grew stronger throughout my explanation. Something was very wrong and I had a sneaking suspicion what it was. If my assumption was correct, the Agarthans had done even worse than I had initially thought.

Oblivious to my thoughts, Sothis scrunched up her face in concentration. "I see. Yes, there are faint echoes of memories attached to those names now." There was a second's pause before she asked continued with her tale. "The argument was stopped by a glowing man called Sol. Mars and Minerva called him Lord. He talked about the Fates and deaths that went against their prophecies. In particular, he mentioned their deaths and that of someone called Aurelian."

I processed that for a bit before I gave my answer. "Sol, also known as Sol Invictus, was the Chief God of the Romans along with Jupiter. It's no big surprise that the Roman Gods would defer to him. And the glow likely comes from the fact that he was God of the Sun.

The Fates are an extremely complicated subject, but oversimplified, the name's the game. They were also a bunch of sanctimonious idiots, but that's par for the course when it comes to Greco-Roman deities.

And lastly, Aurelian was a champion of Sol Invictus. He is, to this day, considered the greatest Emperor of the Roman… Em-…pire… ahh, fuck!"

Sothis was startled by my exclamation. She intensified her gaze while I was having a minor breakdown. The implications of everything we'd discussed were finally hitting home.

It had always seemed strange to me that Sreng looked like Scandinavia, that Duscur looked strangely like Denmark, that Fodlan was full of European names, that its southern tip looked like the boot of Italy had been rammed into the continent, that the Oghma mountain range was roughly where the Alpes would be, that the Brigid Archipelago was where southern France and northern Spain should be and that Albinea was in the place where you'd put Britain, a land which had once been called Albion. Plus, there were now Roman Gods involved in a world where the city of Rome did not exist. That might be excusable, but Aurelian, a Roman Emperor, had lived in this world.

This left me with a rather worrying conclusion: Fodlan was Europe, or rather, what was left of it.

I couldn't blame tectonics for the massive shift in landmass either. Sirius, or the Blue Sea Star was it was called in Fodlan, was still, well, blue. That meant that less than 60'000 years had passed since the 21st century. How, then, could this shift in topography have happened?

The answer was actually quite simple: War. A war between humanity and the Goddess, as the Church of Seiros would have described it. A war so utterly cataclysmic that it shattered the very continents of the world. A war, whose aftermath would force the Goddess to enter a comatose sleep because she had expended all her energy to restore the planet's habitability.

I also knew who was likely to blame for that catastrophe. Fucking Agarthans! I needed answers and I needed them fast, but I had no clue where-

Slap!

"Hyperion! Pull yourself together!"

I gingerly rubbed my cheek while looking at Sothis. She was visibly upset, but her glare also harboured poorly concealed concern.

"I have been trying to get your attention for the past minute now! What is wrong with you?" she continued.

It appeared that my breakdown hadn't been minor at all, huh? Go figure.

"Sorry," I said. "What you've just told me and the conclusions I drew from it are extremely disturbing."

"It was still awfully rude!" she shot back.

I laughed a bit. "I'm grateful for your concern."

She huffed lightly. Ah, tsundere tendencies. Most often, they were annoying, but in this case, it was quite endearing. Her next question brought me back to the ground though.

"What exactly was disturbing about these conclusions?"

"That answer will probably bring up very bad memories. Please prepare yourself." I gave her a minute to get ready before I explained. "In short, the deaths of billions and the near-extinction of the human species." I took a deep beath and continued. "Sothis, something big happened before your sleep. It was a massive war that literally reshaped entire continents. And it gets even worse. Your enemies from that time are still around. They killed you and desecrated your body. We cannot under any circumstances allow their threat to persist."

The Goddess in front of me took on an unnatural pallor. Her eyes were wide and her breath stopped for a moment. "Those monsters…" she whispered.

In what I assumed was a great display of inner strength, she forced herself to calm down and adopted a serious expression. She looked me straight in the eyes and spoke.

"Hyperion, you need to get into that bed immediately."

"What? Why?"

"After Sol ended the argument between Mars and Minerva, another man stepped forward. He called himself Hyperion the Elder. To you, he referred as his successor. He also asked me to tell you that you should contact them by sleeping in this bed."

Things were starting to make sense, at least a bit.

"My recollection of this war is vague at best," she went on. "I remember nothing of its details, only that it was horrifying in every imaginable sense. If these deities have better knowledge of it, we need to acquire it."

I nodded grimly and stood up. There was no time to be lost. I did, however, take the time to tell Sothis that she was free to use the library/lounge section of my "territory" within the mindscape.

Upon reaching the bed, I laid down in it, closed the curtains and pulled up the covers. Before I could contemplate anything else, a bright blue glow encompassed my vision and then everything went dark.

When my eyelids could finally be lifted, they beheld a hub of activity I had not quite expected. I saw hundreds of beings I assumed were deities aligned in concentric circles, chanting feverishly and releasing great blue streams of power into the air. What few were not aligned in these circles were running around in a hectic but purposeful manner.

It was clear why, judging by the sickening cracks I was hearing and the shadowy tendrils in the "sky" of this void that seemed to be reaching for me. The blue streams originating from the circle were restraining these tendrils, though it seemed to be a losing fight.

"Ah, there you are!" I heard a voice shout. It was very familiar. I turned and saw a man with a great beard advance towards me.

"Quickly now, we have but a few moments left," he said as he gestured for me to follow him. "I know you want answers we could give you, but we don't have the time. We're already stretching what little we have available." He pointed towards the chanting masses.

"What the Hell is going on?" I shouted while hurrying after him.

"The Darkness of Zahras can imprison even gods, my successor. Your passing through it was as much of a shock to us as it must have been to you. It positively reeks of one of Yahweh's convoluted plans. Expected too. I feel the spiritual connection you have to him."

That surprised me. It seemed he could tell what God someone was following. Nifty for a deity, but that was beside the point right now.

As we approached two figures, who were now also coming towards us at a fast pace, the bearded man muttered "Should have known. That one always had fail saves for almost any eventuality." His voice grew louder as he addressed me. "Listen, Sothis can explain most of what you want to know once she regains her memories, but there are a few absolutely instrumental things you need to know to help her return to life to get to that point, and that involves the 'big man upstairs'."

There was a possibility for Sothis to be resurrected? That was good. Depending on how fast it was possible, a few discarded plans had just become viable.

The man pressed on. "Not long after Sothis physically arrived on Earth, he pulled back the Heavenly Host and left. Apparently, some dimwit a few realities over caused six separate apocalyptic events at the same time and he had to go in order to reinforce the local forces. For you see, unlike us, who merely have counterparts in different realities, he and his army can travel freely between many. However, when he left, he imparted the position of the holder of this world's Ein Sof Aur to Sothis. It is the only reason she survived the attack that put the rest of us here and subsequently killed us. I suspect he knew the end times were upon us, but trusted her to pull through without his aid. She did, mostly."

The way he said "physically arrived" made it look like it held some importance. What was more, I had heard the term Ein Sof Aur before, in a story I had read. It seemed there was more to it. Hopefully, the databanks would yield results.

The two figures, a man with a multitude of abdominal scars and a woman of unparalleled beauty, reached us the moment my contemplation finished.

"Hurry! We have barely a minute left! We can't allow the darkness to pull him in," said the woman before I could become too distracted by her appearance. I snuck a glance at the tendrils and they were visibly moving towards me in spite of the strain the blue streams were putting on them.

The man nodded and addressed me, forcing me to pay attention. "Just as many of us did for Sothis, we now impart our domains to you. I am Prometheus, Titan of Fire, Innovation and Invention. Use this gift wisely."

The woman followed as soon as he had finished speaking. "I am Psyche, Goddess of the Soul. Use my powers with forethought."

Prometheus chuckled at that pun, and I would have joined in, were it not for my confusion.

"Why w-"

"I am Hyperion, young man," the bearded man next to me interrupted. "I am the Titan of Light and Wisdom. My name is already yours, as are my powers now. Use them as you must."

Before I could muster any kind of response, the three pushed my chest, hard, and I fell away into a sea of blue light right before the tendrils of shadow could catch me.

All the while, one thought went through my head.

What the fuck?

Jeralt was deep in thought. It was only early afternoon, yet the day was already pretty much ruined, mood wise. The plan he, Byleth and Hyperion had cooked up hinged on more luck than he was comfortable with, but it would have to do. Right now, he was executing step one: head further north. They should end up in Ochs territory soon, ostensibly as the shortest route to the Brionac plateau to train there and then enter Nuvelle territory in search of villages with a need for mercenaries. After all, bandits had been a big problem there ever since the Dagdan forces had wrecked the place and ruined House Nuvelle.

Step two was also already in the works. While everyone was busy breaking down the camp, Jeralt took aside Jana. She had been with Jeralt from the beginning, being a former Knight of Seiros as well, and still maintained many contacts at Garreg Mach. He made a habit of sending her there every few months to see if there was any significant news on bandit activity or fighting. There was no way he'd blindly stumble into a conflict zone and lose any of his company.

When he was sure no-one would overhear them, Jeralt started talking. "Jana, I need you to get to Garreg Mach on the double." He took out an envelope from his satchel and held it up. "Take this letter with you. Make sure it lands in the hands of the Savage Mockingbird. No one else is allowed to open it under any circumstances."

The woman looked at him with narrowed eyes. "The Savage Mockingbird? Tall order. I didn't know you knew about the shifty places at the monastery. How much can you tell me?"

"Innocent lives are at stake. One, at least, but most likely several thousand," he answered seriously.

"I'll get it done, Jeralt." There was steel in her voice now. She didn't play around when it came to the protection of innocents.

"Thanks. Now get going. When you come back, you'll find us further north from here. We'll march five miles a day until we reach the southern edge of the plateau."

Jana took the envelope out of his hands and stuffed it down her shirt before taking off with a bag of provisions and Jeralt's spare warhorse, a testament of how much he trusted her. He looked at her retreating form for a few minutes before turning around and checking the company over.

It looked like Byleth had done an exemplary job getting everyone into gear, as usual. Sometimes, Jeralt wondered if the kid was too serious about order in the company, but with all the information he had now, he was glad that things had turned out this way. Whatever discipline the men and women of the company lacked, Jeralt and Byleth could instil into them over the next few weeks instead of months as would be the case with your average group of mercenaries in Fodlan. Hyperion had even talked about "Bootcamp from Hell", whatever that was supposed to be.

When everyone seemed to be in marching order, Jeralt took point together with his son and gave the order. "Alright, we're heading north now. Five miles and then we make camp. Make sure you're still fresh by then. We've got a lot of training to do as we're heading into bandit-heavy territory and I don't want to pull any of your sorry asses out of some mess too big for you to handle. You all got that?"

"Aye!" shouted the mercenaries as they began their movement. Soon, they began singing and telling each other the same old jokes everyone still found funny, though the appointed sentries still made sure to keep up vigil, lest the Ashen Demon have them perform what he called remedial training again.

Like his father before, said Demon was deep in thought as well. There was a lot to contemplate, after all. First, he was still not quite over the fact that there were two virtually unknown people living in his head. Then there was the issue of one of them apparently being the Goddess worshipped by the Church of Seiros. And lastly, there was this mad scheme they had put together.

The thought of this rescue mission they were planning was a strange one to him. Such missions had always been rejected by Father since he had deemed the risk too high. "Such jobs are best left to knights and men-at-arms," he'd always say.

However, Byleth couldn't deny that something about this spurred him on. There was a feeling in his chest he could not identify, but it told him that this venture mattered more than usual. It was not because of the dangers Hyperion had spoken of, no. There was something else to it. The prospect of saving a life was simply… right.

That's it! he thought. A sense of purpose and moral obligation was what he was feeling. Satisfied that he had identified his emotions, his thoughts drifted to the wider objective of the operation.

The task ahead of them was certainly difficult. Outmanoeuvring and outthinking a continent-spanning ancient organisation of omnicidal maniacs would not be easy in the slightest. What they had done to Sothis sickened him, as much as it surprised that he could identify his disgust so easily. What they had already done to Fodlan and what they would do to it if left unchecked was also concerning.

Despite his problems with his emotions, Byleth had never struggled to develop a deep respect for life. Yes, he took lives, and did so often, without hesitation and without remorse, but he made sure to never take a life without just cause.

Bandits hurt people, robbed them, killed them or did worse to them. That day five years ago during a raid on a bandit camp, when he had seen the cages with naked and mistreated people in them, was still fresh on his mind. It had been the day when he had learned what rage was, even though his face had never showed it. It had been the day when the Ashen Demon had been born, baptised in the blood and guts of those who had incurred his wrath.

Vile filth such as these slavers had been, did not belong in this world. The blatant disrespect for the lives of others they had shown was an insult he had taken personally. This was why he was committed to the destruction of the Agarthans. They had no respect for the living, even less respect for the dead and absolutely no respect for anyone but themselves from what Hyperion had told him. Of course, he would have to verify, but if it was true, then their days were numbered.

That did, however, mean that the company would have to be brought up to snuff. Drills and training would increase in frequency for sure. He was looking forward to being able to turn his comrades into a proper force he had always envisioned. Father had given him permission to do what was necessary to get everyone on the level of professional soldiers, while Jeralt himself would make sure to teach the men and women discipline and basic tactics. There would be grumbling from those who were a bit too fond of the revelry and drunken fun the company usually got up to, but they'd eventually shut up once the first proper battle of their bandit extermination campaign.

Leaving these dark thoughts aside, Byleth also wondered how things would develop with the Rhea. She was technically his grandmother, which meant she was family. However, she had set him up to be possessed and discarded. Not sure what to think of it, he decided to at least let her explain herself when the time came.

Deciding to focus on the march and his training plans for now, he shelved his thoughts on that topic until such time as they made for Garreg Mach.

10 days later, 2nd day of the Lone Moon 1179 (Saint Indech Day). Garreg Mach Monastery

When she arrived at the gates of Garreg Mach, Jana could only think that she had arrived at the best possible time. It had been a tiny bit strenuous on both her and the horse, but she had made it to the Monastery on a day that was very conducive to her business indeed. Most knights and monks would be attending Church service and the remaining guards would be a slight bit more lax than normal.

Of course, the guards wouldn't have been a problem at all if her mission were not top secret. It was troublesome, but her Captain had given her a task that would save innocents. She would not fail, not again.

Unbidden, memories came to the fore of her mind. Twenty-two years ago, barely a month into her knighthood, she had been sent to protect a village in the north of Faerghus from an incursion of raiders from Sreng who had already burned down several churches and killed a multitude of monks. She had been hesitant to order the small company of men-at-arms at her command into forced march despite scout reports of raider activity only two miles out from the village. Upon her arrival, she had found burning houses and slaughtered peasants, including children. From what survivors had said, a lot of women and girls had been missing. All she'd been able to do was break down and cry. So much had been lost because of her.

Upon his arrival not much later, Jeralt had taken charge of her unit and pursued the raiders, seeing as she had been unfit to command them in her broken state. The enemy had never returned to their homeland.

Jeralt had eventually pulled her out of her misery as well. That day a few weeks later, when he had sat her down and embraced her while she had sobbed, she'd sworn she would never again allow innocent lives to be lost on her watch. She had joined his personal unit then and her loyalty to him had gradually grown.

On the night of the great fire at Garreg Mach, she had hidden his child in the dead of night to make the illusion of its death all the more convincing. He'd been fearing for the little boy's wellbeing, had shared his fears with her and had begged her for help. And so, she had aided him and then left with him.

Shaking her head, she moved through the front gate of the Monastery complex and greeted the guard. She was a frequent enough visitor to not arouse suspicion on sight so nobody bothered her as she entered the market.

As was her wont during such visits, she chatted around and gathered information for the company. Her special mission was no reason to pass up on valuable intel, after all. It would also make her cover more believable. If everyone saw her doing what she always did on visits, nobody would get suspicious about whatever else she did.

Soon enough, she entered the monastery proper and made her way to the Knights Hall, where most of the juicy gossip of the knights was discussed. It was astounding how much one could figure out about bandit camps, monster attacks and political screw-ups from a bunch of Knights of Seiros. Then again, it was to be expected. They did run all across Fodlan all the time.

After that little stop, she made her way to her penultimate stop, the Training Grounds. As she had hoped, it was unguarded. This location was of paramount importance for her task for one reason: the crate of discarded weapons. While the weapons themselves were close to worthless in their state, the opportunity they presented was of great value.

Every week, several such crates would be transported down to Abyss, the dirty little secret of the Monastery, and that is exactly where she wanted to get to. It had taken quite a few favours and more than a year's time, but she had eventually managed to find out about the base of operations of the Savage Mockingbird. For an underground crime lord, he seemed to be relatively tame. Oh, he was utterly ruthless to his enemies, as several massacred gangs could attest to, but there was nothing in the way of human trafficking or even assassination. Instead, it seemed, he enforced order on large parts of Fodlan's criminal underworld. So, down to Abyss Jana went.

Entering that place without belonging to a very specific branch of the Church was nigh on impossible, but with this crate she had taken up, it would seem as though she belonged to that branch. The worn-down weapons that were usually transported to down there would be put onto a pile of similar items. The residents of Abyss could then make use of whatever they found in there. Jana guessed it was mostly melted down for scraps, but she was no expert on such things. Essentially, it was one big lost and found bureau.

It took her over half an hour to get down to the centre of Abyss in the end. After depositing the crate's contents in the designated area, she made her way through the rather unfriendly crowd of the place's residents. All the while, she made sure to look out for the right people and give them the correct hand signals. Another secret that had cost her many favours and a good amount of coin over the years.

Eventually, she was approached by a young man with light purple hair. He smiled at her and began to talk.

"It is rare that we get visitors down here in Abyss. You also don't seem to be one of the usual delivery boys we get when the scraps get thrown out. Is this perhaps a special occasion?"

That was a general queue. Now she had to verify that she got the right man. Only one person had the right to deliver secret packages to the Savage Mockingbird and if this was not him, she had to know.

"A stranger approaches the nest," she whispered.

The young man's eyebrows shot up. "Is that so? This stranger had better leave then," he whispered back.

There it was. That was the first half of the pass phrase. Jana looked at his face and gave him the second half. "One is a stranger only once."

He smiled again and laughed lightly. "In that case," he said, "let me escort you back up to the exit for now. I will await your return tomorrow. Don't be a stranger."

While they were walking away from the crowd, both the man and Jana kept their eyes on their surroundings. Soon, she noticed that he led her down a different way than the one she'd come down on. It took them the better part of an hour to reach a tunnel at whose end she could see daylight. Right there, the man stopped.

"Now then. What do you have for the Savage Mockingbird?" he asked.

"I don't know," answered Jana. She put a hand down her shirt and pulled out the letter she had not removed from her person for over a week now. "I only know that this is for him. His eyes only."

The young man laughed again. "My, how refreshing to see a messenger with discretion and wit. Very well, this will get where it's supposed to. His eyes only. Expect an answer by tomorrow."

With that, he turned around and left. Jana took that as her queue to head to the tunnel exit and figure out where she now was.

Surprisingly, she noticed, she was still within the walls of the Monastery. The secret entrance she had just exited put her into a small hidden alcove by the graveyard. A very short climb up and she was within the graveyard itself.

As she walked through it, one of the tombstones caught her interest. The inscription on it was incredibly worn and if she hadn't been looking for it, Jana would have been unable to read what it said.

Sitri Eisner
1139 – 1159

Jana took a few minutes to pay her respects to Jeralt's late wife. She hadn't known her much at all, but she must have been a remarkable woman to have captured his heart. She felt a small pang of pain as she read over the numbers again. She died far too young, she thought.

After a short amount of time, she stood up and made her way to the front gate again. It seemed she had an unplanned stay overnight to organise.

AN:

My apologies for the wait, dear readers. It's been three weeks since the last update. As usual, I hope it has been to your satisfaction.

As you might have noticed, I haven't written down the details of the planning session. That was deliberate. I have to maintain some surprise for you, after all.

In terms of Jana's travel time, I did some research and some guesswork. As noted in this chapter, Fodlan and Europe are the same continent. For the distance between Jeralt's company and Garreg Mach I did a very rough estimate and googled the distance between Paris and Baden. That's something above 630 kilometres. A cavalry unit pushing their horses somewhat can ride between 80-100 kilometres a day. Since Jana wasn't actively galloping the horse and she isn't a cavalry expert, I thought 10 days would be reasonable.

Now, the story recommendation for this time is Sage by Digitize27. It is one of my top 3 Naruto fanfictions. With over half a million words, you're in for a long and interesting read full of emotional investment. Word of warning, it was written before the manga finished.

Edit: Revision of the 20th of November 2020. Corrected some minor spelling errors and did some work on the wording in one spot.

As little bit of trivia, some of you might like to know that every mockingbird is savage. In defence of their nests, and sometimes for shits and giggles, they will engage in fights against animals much stronger than them.