.
While I waited for the east-bound to arrive, my escort milled outside the gate, debating what to do. Finally they agreed that Mára would ride with me while the ‘Watch’, which was apparently the name of the patrol, would follow the tram in the air.
I had a lot of fun watching Mára stumble her way through purchasing fare for the first time. Finally, one of the lesser fairies, the one who had watched over my shoulder when I received the route from the ‘Navigation Assistant’, had to coach her through it. It seems that, unlike Mára, she wasn’t too proud to ride mortal transportation when she was tired.
Mára also had to be shown how to get through the entry gate that I had easily navigated. I earned a dark glare from her when she caught me smirking.
When the tram showed up, I was impressed. Tëan Tír’s aerial tramway wasn’t a little scenic skyride like one finds at some tourist spot. The car resembled regular public transit vehicles back on Earth, both in appearance and size, except that the makers fashioned it out of wood and polished brass instead of aluminum.
The door slid open and I boarded the car with the other waiting passengers. The glass windows had an older fashioned feel, thanks to the wooden framing, and the bench seats were polished wood instead of plastic, but it was the same concept in essence.
It was a single car, with no driver compartment, so the front and back had windows as well. In the nose, a mother sat on the bench facing her fellow passengers, but her child was kneeling on the bench, staring out the window. The kid was clearly in love with having what, for any child on any world, was the best seat in the vehicle.
One Earthlike touch was missing, though. There were no advertisements on the walls above the windows.
It was about this time that I realized Kiki had disappeared again. Well, she had long since proven she could find me whenever she wanted, so I wasn’t concerned.
The ride was almost noiseless. The carriage operated by magic, of course, with the wheels simply enchanted to turn using Earth magic. My fairy sense told me that mana stones in a box under the wheels were the source of the magic, which was pretty shocking.
Mana stones are basically chunks of mithril ore. They might not have the extreme value of refined mithril– it takes a pound of ore and a lot of work to produce an ounce of mithril– but they are still expensive. I didn’t want to think about how much the heavy-duty stones powering this carriage cost.
I guess the public order in a place where law and order was enforced by fairy magic was pretty good, so they wouldn’t have to fear theft. But I still had to wonder how the people running the tramway were staying in business. Not only did they have to buy such things, they had to also pay people to keep them recharged, as well.
On Earth, they would have cleared the trees out of the way to build this system. Fairies wouldn’t be very keen on that, so they had run the line between the trees, with taller trees often casting their limbs out over the path. The view out the front was spectacular, often becoming a green tunnel with sunlight filtering through.
“Is this your first time in Tëan Tír, dear?” an elderly woman on the bench across from me asked.
Without my wings, nobody thinks, oh, a succubus. It’s much better.
Stifling a little laugh of embarrassment at myself, I asked in return, “Is it obvious?”
She nodded with the smile of a local’s pride in their hometown when talking about it to a visitor. “Locals don’t watch the scenery with so much fascination. It’s quite lovely, though, isn’t it? I see it all the time, but I try to remember to appreciate it once in a while, the way you’re doing. You should see how it looks in the winter.”
I pictured it and nodded. “I’m sure it’s lovely.”
“It’s a pity you missed the blossoms a few weeks ago. There are bitter cherry groves all along the route. The ride while they are in bloom is very popular.”
Since I seldom saw them in real life on Earth, I’m not sure if ‘bitter cherries’ are that, the trees they call ‘sakura’ or ‘ornamental cherries’. The flowers look just like what you see in anime though. They are ‘Bitter’ because you can’t really eat the fruit raw, but you can make a jam with it that Dorians love. Mother’s house in Atius imports crates of the stuff every year for the staff.
I imagined what the scenery must look like when all the trees surrounding this line were in bloom, and felt I understood what an awesome sight it would be, as the train traveled through tunnels made of bitter cherry branches filled with pink blossoms.
After everything I had gone through recently, it was a wonderfully normal conversation to have. I was surprised at how comforting it was to have it, after everything I had been through lately.
The instructions from the kiosk had been clear and simple. Run down the aerial tramway line for five stations. Get off at the station for the Tower of the Green Falcons. Transfer to the northbound x line, ride to its far end, exit to the gardens on the west side of the station and then walk to the House of Gold Leaves.
The transfer between lines went so smoothly, I suspected that transmigrator had been a civil engineer with mass transit experience. I mean, the usual reincarnator’s ability that you see in the stories, being able to recreate everything from Earth, just isn’t realistic. At least, I know that I couldn’t recreate mass transit, any more than I could recreate sake or even mayonnaise.
Of course, I don’t need to do that. They already have sake and mayonnaise here.
That ‘gardens’ at the last station turned out to be a gorgeously landscaped circular Eden of flower beds and sculpted shrubs, surrounded by a ring of ornate buildings of various sorts. None were tall buildings; they were all structures of two stories or less which blended into the trees that surrounded and largely dwarfed them.
I navigated the path around the outside of it, not just because going straight across would basically be navigating a maze. I had been told it would be on the ‘far side’, but I saw no obvious way to distinguish the locations, so I couldn’t assume anything. It was a long enough walk that if I did know, I would have grown my wings and flew, but I had to walk so I could look for clues.
Before I had navigated the first quarter of the circle, I noticed that every building had words written vertically on poles or columns positioned at the foot of the path leading into the property. ‘Straight Tree Clan’s Pavilion’ or ‘Hall of the Phytomantic Research Society’ or other cryptic names. No building numbers or other addressing system could be seen. At last, as I was walking along a long continuous hedge fencing a heavily wooded lot, with a large complex of buildings barely visible behind the trees, I encountered a metal gate bearing ornate lettering on the vertical posts of the archway that proclaimed, ‘House of Gold Leaves’.
At the end of the path into this property sat a similarly single-storied building, very wide, with a high-peaked roof, dwarfed by the ancient maples surrounding it. Contrary to expectation, they looked like sugar maples rather than Japanese maples. I wondered if they were the kind that had gold leaves in the fall. Adjacent to the building were others, crouching mostly hidden behind those trees. There appeared to be several.
The ‘Watch’ had landed and rejoined us when I left the station. Once they saw me headed toward a building, Mára detailed a couple of them to keep an eye on it from outside, then departed with the rest. I guess they were only planning to keep track of me, not go in with me.
I walked up the path, and by the time I reached the entry, a mortal woman with a gentle smile had opened the door for me. She wore deep blue silk robes that looked vaguely Chinese in design. I don’t mean a qipao. I mean the historic attire from farther back, that looks like a traditional Chinese bridal gown. It was actually very old-fashioned Dorian attire, because Mother wears similar outfits for ceremonial events as Duchess.
The woman glanced with curiosity around me toward the fairy warriors scowling several paces behind me, but retained her smile and asked me, “Honored Guest, have you come to us for a short visit or to take residence?”
I thought it was an odd way to greet a guest, but my only experience with inns in Relador was a place in Royses that was probably an imitation of Earth and therefore not a good example. I didn’t know how things normally rolled here.
With a smile of apology, I said, “Frankly, I’m not certain yet.
I had no idea what Serera intended to do next, frankly.
She looked a bit surprised, but didn’t let it throw her. She glanced beyond me at the pair of lesser fairy warriors glowering from the main circle.
“Are those ladies with you?”
They frowned deeper and vigorously shook their heads. One of them called out, “We shall not enter.”
She raised her brows, again looking a little perplexed, then shrugged and turned back to me. “Well, then, Honored Guest, please come in.”
