The journey by boat from Ardere to Imum was a little over a week and a half. The discomfort, at least, was much less than the back of the sea beast. Moreover, Aureum found it easy to fill her day.
When she was not training her spear, she was layering. When she wasn't layering, she was being lectured. When neither of those three things were happening, she either ate, slept, or stared in a daze into her notebook.
The lectures and the notebook. The latter somehow became more terrifying than the former.
Spesavia would go on at length about the minor differences of movement in the elements of mana. Then, about how these intricate movements replicated into an inscription became some of the first artifacts since the Sorcerer King's era. And so on.
What Aureum had written from this lecture:
Mana can move differently?
And a few scattered dates with brief explanations next to them. With added doodles for extra flavor.
Hours of information, and this was what Aureum had.
It should have been easy. She just had to write down what she heard.
The previous page was worse. A dense text of run-on sentences that flowed into complete incoherency stared back into Aureum's soul.
It was difficult to listen, and to learn, and to summarize all these things into clean notes at the same time. If she listened too closely, her notes were forgotten. If she wrote her notes without listening, she was missing out on the entire point. To try to summarize, she needed a basic level of understanding she didn't have.
So this lecture's experiment had been to only write down what she understood. Spesavia's words flowed over her, and she had waited for a tail to show up for her to grab it. Instead, it was rain, and she had no bucket.
Spesavia wasn't surprised or discouraged by Aureum's notes when she gave in and showed her teacher in despair.
"I don't expect you to memorize what I'm saying," she said. "Not in one sitting. I'm just trying to give you the broader picture. You don't need a map of the river, but you need to know how the water bends around rocks to navigate it."
"Hmmm," Aureum said.
Not being harassed for her trash notes, as she expected, was great, but it didn't resolve her problems.
"Still, can I ask more questions?"
"When did you or I ever stand on ceremony?"
But then the lectures took longer. Aureum's pages became scattered with notes and doodles. Perhaps she learned something. Perhaps she was still learning how to learn.
Compared to the tutors Aureum had at home, that spoon-fed only the necessary information, Spesavia had a very different teaching style. But there were libraries in this old woman's head that existed nowhere else.
A little over a week was too short a time to solve this in any competent capacity.
The day they arrived in Imum's port, it was overcast. The many trees that greeted them had moss-like beards falling from their branches.
Aureum had barely heard of Imum. Unlike Bonumbas or Fluentem, where some traveling merchant might come to Nix and tell some stories, there was little, if any, direct contact between the two cities. She knew more about the Southern Land of Scholars, despite not being able to pronounce its proper name. Alongside the majority of that "knowledge" being more myth than even hearsay.
Imum was a city with a port, as most of the major city-states were. The buildings were some kind of wood, bleached by the sea and sun. Because it was wood, there were less carvings. Less carvings did not mean that there was less ornamentation. Instead of the stonework that Fluentem and Ardere had, the wooden fences and rails were ornamental in their form. Only the floors and the walls were completely simple. This was no mansion but a port.
It was a light wood that Imum had used, which shone with a bluish tint. She didn't know if that was some sort of wax or spell, but its use of protecting the wood from salt, sun, and water was pretty obvious. Unlike Fluentem, Imum was directly next to the sea.
The day was spent in Imum, so Aureum got to eat fish she had never tasted before, as well as see a brief moment inside the city.
The first thing she noticed were the roads being dirt. She wondered if Imum was a newer city or if the traditions were just different.
A little notebook was bought. It had freshly pressed paper bound in plain leather. Aureum felt it was for the best they didn't have time to look for anything of better quality, as Spesavia wished. She didn't know how much she would be using it.
Even if they slept in Imum, the next morning they were off. Another boat, a different crew. The Avis Parva set off with fair winds and sunny weather.
Aureum stood on the railing of the deck, feeling the wind in her hair and a sense of restlessness.
There was no core root to the feeling. Maybe the past week had been spent with too much focus and too few breaks. Maybe it was just the frustration of a new notebook. Maybe this much traveling was too much of a hassle, even as she enjoyed it. Maybe she was missing those she left behind.
Maybe all of those things.
Despite the sunny weather, once the excitement of casting off had worn off, she felt gray. She watched the shimmering waves and let them pull her into a daze.
Spesavia was talking to the captain, or rather, the captain was talking to her. Despite the old crone's continued disregard for manners, this didn't stop others from trying to please her with them.
It was hours before anything changed.
"Ma'am? Excuse me?"
Aureum jolted. The speaker had come to her side as her head was turned away.
When she saw the shortish man out of the corner of her eye, he seemed familiar. When she saw his face, that familiarity vanished.
It was a good-looking face. Strong jaw, short brown hair.
"Eh—hello. Hi, what do you want?" Aureum said.
"I need the ropes at your feet."
"Oh, sorry."
Aureum stepped back with haste and embarrassment. She didn't trip over her feet, at least.
After picking up the ropes, he gave a nod of farewell and went about his business.
It would be too much to say Aureum was smitten. She was, however, intrigued.
———————————————————
It should have been difficult for her to find time for anything else. She had many things to occupy her time. But not a single one would reward her in the moment, and so she kept drifting away from them.
Of course, she continued to try and improve daily. At this point, doing such things was habit. Spesavia's presence would be enough motivation if fear wasn't enough. Yet, she couldn't keep motivation in every moment of every day.
Aureum wasn't built for that. Even if she could change into it, she didn't want to.
What's the point of working hard every day if you don't take the time to enjoy it too?
This is what Aureum thought as she enjoyed the breeze. The first few days, they were still in the ocean. Sometimes it was calm, and it felt like they barely moved. Other times, it cut at the skin with its strength and salt.
Aureum liked the windier days. Calmer days were good too, in their way.
It would be crass to say she enjoyed the view. In fact, she became too shy to directly look at the man who intrigued her. Being so intrigued, it felt wrong to look at anyone else. Stupidly, she ended up watching the sea, and even more stupidly, she enjoyed even that.
It only lasted the week.
He was not the most handsome man. Nor the tallest. His voice was nice, alongside his nice smile with a dimple.
Aureum didn't like all that.
At first, she didn't understand it herself. But as the vessel left another port and turned to go up the Flumengems river, it began to dawn on her.
What was comforting about the figure seen halfway out of the corner of her eye, as the shadows of the leaves dappled his face, was rather a comforting memory. Not only a comforting view.
As the realization struck, she felt hideous. Then again, she didn't even know this sailor's name.
From that point forward, she avoided the crew and the deck. Studying became easier again, suddenly. Not that her notes improved much at all.
With everything, all she needed was time. Time to layer. Time to practice. Time to forget. Time. Time. Time.
For once, she seemed to get it.
There weren't many problems on the river or the sea. The eastern river of Aeternitus, Flumengems, flowed faster than the Vena, and thus a bit more difficult to traverse. With Lapis City just to the north, many other vessels were better targets for enthusiastic profiteers.
So, no problems even tried to arise there.
After a week on the river, they came to Oblitus, a tiny town that didn't even have a port big enough for the ship. As Spesavia requested, the boat stopped, and that's where the two women split from the ship.
Spesavia walked down a conjured waterfall in mystical fashion. Aureum jumped.
Oblitus was a surprisingly cheerful place. Strangers were so infrequent that they weren't mistrusted, at least not openly, but welcomed.
News was hard to come by. Spesavia, who usually did her best to act up her crotchety old woman tendencies, regaled the locals with tales and news.
There was no inn. Aureum sat in the corner of the local drinking hole, nothing more than a shack with a counter and some chairs set up, and listened to Spesavia with some surprise.
"How are the Grylls? I heard a baby was born to them last spring," Spesavia said.
"Aye, things are alright. Still hasn't been given a proper name till she's a bit older. Just in case things go, but she's a real hollerer for now."
"That's good."
The conversation turned from this snippet quickly, but Aureum wished it hadn't.
She knows the people who live here?
First time Aureum had heard of it.
It took hours for the villagers' excitement to calm down. Everybody had a question to ask about this city or that. Aureum tried to break into the conversation, but it was difficult to get close or interject.
Her curiosity wasn't such an immediate thing that she had to shout over top of everyone. Eventually, Spesavia and Aureum were invited to the elder's house to stay. Aureum got to follow behind Spesavia as they left.
Oblitus was muggy. Even stepping outside into the night, the heat felt like stepping into a blanket.
"Do you know the people who lived here?" Aureum asked.
"No? What gave you that impression?" Spesavia said.
"You asked about one of the families by name."
Spesavia smiled.
"Ah, no. I know a little of the people here, but it's not what you think," Spesavia said. "There's no hidden family of mine here. I know of them as I've come here frequently. I can see you're still curious. We can take a short detour. It will help me explain."
Aureum followed, her respectful silence a mask.
What Spesavia brought her to was a giant stone. At least twice the height of a tall man, it was carved with a single word.
OBLITUS was written upon it.
"I made this," Spesavia said.
"And…?"
"I come to check on it from time to time. Recently, I found a town had grown up around it. Makes sense."
"Why did you make it in the first place?" Aureum asked.
Spesavia sighed.
"It's not quite a gravestone," she said. "I suppose you could call it a monument."
"Of what?"
"Of the village where I was born."
This answered none of Aureum's questions, and Spesavia knew that. She took her time in answering them clearly.
"I was born close to four centuries ago here," she finally said. "But my home suffered devastation when I was a child. There was a war, I remember that, and there was famine. This was common. I was sent away by my mother to some relatives when I was very young. I don't know why she stayed, and why I did not. My life was no less filled with tribulations for leaving, as I saw it when I was younger."
"Did you hate her?"
"I remember thinking that I did, but now I can't even remember the feeling it. I could not tell you the truth. Much like the rest of this story, there are no answers and no clear end. Still curious?"
Aureum nodded.
"When I was older and life was finally stable, I sought out my home. My mother. But all that was here was ruins. They were maybe a few years old back then. Now, you can't even see that. Denial didn't work because one of the burned-out buildings was my childhood home. I wanted more answers, but they were difficult to find. I put this up to remember where it was."
"Why write 'forgotten' if you wanted to remember?"
"Because I can't remember the town's name," Spesavia said. "Not then, and not now. Nobody bothered to write down its location back then. There was nothing."
"But you still wanted to remember."
"Yes."