After the little talk of theirs last night, when Jiro came out in the morning, the air still held the chill of night when he found the whole village gathered at the western edge of Doldia, from where the road to the station was.
Word had spread that Jiro, the new sage, was leaving for capital before the first rooster crowed. By the time the sun cleared the treeline, nearly every household had sent someone. Many people from out of the village, and people from neighboring villages, all came too, to see what really happened yesterday, to see if what they heard was true or not. Faces Jiro had known his entire life stood in loose clusters along the packed-earth path, farmers with dirty tools with them, local hunters, children held up so they could see.
Among the crowd Grisha was also there. Standing near the front, eyes red and swollen, a cloth clutched in one fist. Garin lingered a few steps behind her, arms crossed, looking like he wanted to say something to his friend and could not find the words.
Jiro’s mother held onto his sleeve until the last possible moment. Tears ran freely down her cheeks, catching in the faint lines at the corners of her eyes. She did not wail or make a scene as Jiro had feared she would.
As he was leaving his home for the first time, she simply tried her best to give him a proper goodbye. Still, from time to time she wiped her eyes without anyone noticing.
His father stood beside her, one heavy hand resting on her shoulder. The man’s white hair was neatly combed for once. His expression stayed composed, almost stern, but the thumb that brushed once across his wife’s shoulder betrayed more than his face did. He was as crudely straightforward and honest to his desire as he was in Jiro’s eyes, right till the end.
After all goodbyes, Jiro finally swung up onto the horse Tsunade had waiting. The animal shifted under him as he climbed up. He settled into the saddle without fumbling. Though he wasn't an expert at it, he still knew how to ride horses and stuff.
His face remained still, no smile for the crowd, no tears to match his mother’s. Whatever had been said inside the single-room house the previous night had settled somewhere deep behind his eyes and changed something in the way he saw everything. His eyes had more clarity, and his mind was more refreshed with determination for some reason.
Seeing Jiro’s unreadable face, Tsunade also mounted her own horse with practiced ease. The rest of the escort formed up around them, armor dull in the early light, banners of the Temple folded for travel. She gave the village one measuring look, then turned her gaze forward.
Jiro’s mother took a half-step after the horse. His father caught her gently by the waist and held her there. She pressed both hands over her mouth and watched her son for the first time leave the nest.
No one called out a final joke. No one made the usual village promises about writing every week or something else. It was as if the silence itself carried the weight of goodbye.
Dust rose behind the horses. The thatched roofs and drying racks of Doldia village grew smaller with every stride. Jiro did not look back. The more they advanced, the more the crest under his sleeve felt cool against his skin. Somewhere behind him, his mother’s quiet sobs faded into the morning air, and the only home he had ever known slipped out of reach.
They rode in silence for a long while after that. The forest closed in on either side of the narrow road, green and familiar, then gradually began to thin. Birds called from the canopy. The rhythm of hooves filled the spaces where conversation might have gone.
Tsunade glanced over once.
“You will see them again,” she said. Her voice was quieter than it had been in the square. “The capital is not so far that visits become impossible, you know.”
Jiro kept his eyes on the road ahead. He gave no answer. After a moment, Tsunade looked forward again and left the quiet unbroken. She seemed to take his silence for ordinary grief and did not press.
The sun climbed. The air warmed. By late morning the trees finally gave way to open fields, then to the first scattered outbuildings of the nearest market town. The road widened. Other travelers appeared, carts, a few riders, then a pair of merchants arguing over the price of salt. Jiro watched it all with the same closed expression he had worn since leaving the village.
It was almost noon when the station finally came into his view.
The building itself was larger than any structure he had ever seen in Doldia. With timber and dark stone, the long platform ran beside a set of iron rails that stretched out of sight in both directions. Smoke hung in the air from the engines that had passed earlier. People moved along the platform with purposeful haste, porters hauling crates, a family arguing over seats, a pair of letter carriers in lighter armor exchanging sealed letters.
Witnessing everything around him, Jiro finally dismounted when the column halted. His legs felt stiff from the unfamiliar hours in the saddle. He followed Tsunade onto the platform and stopped dead.
The train he would climb on waited on the near track.
It was longer than the entire main path of his village, carriages linked one after another in a dark, gleaming line. Brass fittings caught the sunlight. The engine at the front exhaled a soft, continuous breath of steam that smelled of hot metal and coal. Windows ran the length of the passenger cars, some of them already occupied by travelers who glanced out with mild curiosity at the arrival of this rural station.
He had heard the word “train” his entire life. His friends and coworkers had spoken of them once in a while. His mother had also mentioned more or less about this. But none of the stories seemed to have done any justice to what he was witnessing right now. None had prepared him for the sheer size of the thing, the quiet power coiled inside the metal, the way it seemed to own the platform simply by existing.
Tsunade stopped beside him. For the first time since leaving Doldia, something close to amusement touched her expression.
“Amazed with only this? Wait until you see the train we transfer to at the next major stop,” she said. “That one runs the direct capital route. It is larger, and more comfortable, too. Reserved for nobles and high clergy most days.”
Jiro’s eyes widened a fraction hearing that. He looked from the massive engine in front of him to Tsunade’s face, as though trying to decide whether she was joking.
“There’s… a bigger one than this?”
The corner of her mouth curved, just slightly. The closed, distant look he had worn all morning had cracked enough for something like wonder to show through. She seemed to find the change of his expression a little bit reassuring.
“Yes, there is,” she answered. “And that is the one that will take us the rest of the way home.”
Around them, the escort began transferring packs and checking tickets. Steam hissed from the engine once again, as the conductor’s voice called boarding for the eastern line. Jiro stood on the platform a moment longer, the scent of coal and hot iron filling his lungs, and tried to imagine anything larger than the iron beast already waiting in front of him.
The village was already a full morning’s ride behind them. And the capital still lay ahead.
He drew a slow breath and followed Tsunade toward the nearest carriage door.