Finally, with Captain beneath her, Kysis at her side and nothing but open country around them, Lam could relax and breathe. It seemed like she hadn\'t had time to do so lately, as the previous week had simply flown by and every minute had been filled with one drama or another.
The week had begun with her seeing Dagger and getting all wound up but settled the next day... until she\'d told Lieutenant Frederickson that he was henceforth officially acting in the position of the Captain of the Guard and the safety of the entire city was in his care. He hadn\'t taken it at all well. She\'d expected him to react badly to being told that she was leaving for two months with Kysis to see how things went (and explore his homeland, of course), seeing as how that part would effect him personally but... it was the job he\'d balked at, of all things.
Freddy didn\'t like the idea of that much responsibility, didn\'t feel confident without her there to back him up, didn\'t like at all the notion that she might retire permanently when she returned (depending on how things went with Kysis) and was expecting to appoint him as her successor. Perhaps it was the looming possibility that he\'d lose her on all levels at once that had broken him so badly but... he\'d actually wept, making her glad she\'d shut them in her office to tell him the news.
It hadn\'t filled her with the confidence she\'d expected she\'d have, knowing the guard was in his capable (?) hands; she\'d talked him into calmness, cried a little herself (for vastly different reasons) and eventually got him to agree that he could at least trial it for the two months that she was gone. He had a strong team of lieutenants beneath him, he couldn\'t ruin everything in that amount of time, so it would be a good test for him, too (she\'d left the guardhouse the day before feeling a bit better; his hug and kiss were vastly more firm and he was no longer talking about deciding in her stead who the best Captain would be when he failed... it was something).
She\'d managed to resist going to see Dagger again, knowing that it would cause her too much conflict and likely result in her calling the whole trip with Kysis off. She\'d already decided she owed him that much and frankly, she didn\'t want to miss out on the first opportunity she\'d ever had to leave the place of her birth!
Being around Kysis had only reinforced what a good idea it was. Though their preparation was hectic - and she thought of things he could do to help her out daily, while she tidied up every loose end at her work - it was all very fun, too. She\'d laughed a lot, especially when they\'d dined with her aunt and uncle. Matthew had attended, as had her cousin Lucas and his wife Gwendolyn and their three children. Kysis had been formal and nervous at the beginning, but as soon as he\'d realised that her other relatives were nothing like Hannah, he\'d relaxed a great deal and spent much of the night in conversation with Lucas, who was a blacksmith and had a lot of forge-related discussion to offer.
Her Aunt Mairin and Uncle Donald had given Kysis their seal of approval when she\'d gone round there the next day to pick up the dresses she planned to take to Kreos. Her aunt had taken her into the house, sat her on her old bed and had a very in-depth discussion with Lam that ranged from things that made her shy away in consternation - intimate details about Kysis - to what had happened in the end, with Dagger.
Mairin was the only one who\'d ever known all the details about she and Dagger, since their relationship had begun when she was young enough to need a mother\'s advice and excitement to buoy her along. Her aunt had plenty of confronting questions about her feelings regarding her current lover and what she hoped to accomplish by travelling with him (they\'d made her blush, she imagined Kysis might well have imploded, had he been present), which had embarrassed her but had, thankfully, reinforced the notion that the course she\'d chosen was the right one. Mairin (and Donald, by proxy) agreed, which was also something that soothed her soul.
They\'d spent one night apart, by accident, because Lam had been supposed to go to Kysis\' place after work but she\'d tried to squeeze in an extra long farewell training session with Hew (with Freddy present, so the two of them could get to know each other slightly better), after having spent a lot of time that day running back and forth to the stables and arranging pack horses (they had one each, plus a third to carry human and horse food that was currently tethered to Captain, in the end). Lam had been so exhausted that, when she\'d called in to drop some things off at home and pick up her bag, she\'d fallen asleep talking to Matthew. He\'d put her to bed and visited Kysis to let him know she wouldn\'t be showing up that night.
Of course, they\'d got back on track the next night and each of the two after, which led them to... well, last night. Rico and Alia had returned safely the day before and seemed happy enough about their holiday - well, Rico was and since he was the only one that would talk to Lam, she assumed Alia was fine (just not with her being in the same house). Because they were setting off as early as possible and Kysis\' grounds were the ones large enough to hold all five horses for saddling and packing pre-dawn, they\'d shared his bed the night before. Lam had taken great pleasure in coaxing Kysis into being affectionate, even though they were alone; just knowing how his sister was down the hall and thoroughly disapproved made it all the more sweeter.
So now, here they were and she sighed with relief to be finally underway, noticing from the corner of her eye that he was looking at her because of her heavy exhalation and turning to smile at him. Her straw hat was already on, though the sun was still climbing its way to the apex of the sky, and her riding clothing was warm - though she planned to lose a fair bit of it as they progressed.
"How are you doing?" she grinned, wondering if he could possibly understand how excited she was (he was likely to pick it up from the way her smile wouldn\'t quit and her eyes were sparkling like emeralds, of course) and if he felt anything similar. This wasn\'t just a small ride or even a week-long camping trek (the longest she\'d been away from Oberon before); they were going to a new country... his home. Although she was ecstatic about the journey, in some ways she wished it were already over, just so they could be there... ugh, she was too electrified by everything for her own good.
