Most people have a place they call their home, a place where they can relax and be free of worry, and which they know would always welcome them with open arms no matter what. Much of my early life was spent in places close to a home to me, yet not quite right either. It was only later on, when I had built a place for myself, that I truly understood what had been missing." - Diary of Aideen deVreys, the Silver Maiden, circa 79 FP.

"That takes care of that, I guess," said Zoya wistfully as she rode beside Aideen. They had just backtracked a bit to the last village to drop off their prisoners - it was impractical for the group to have those prisoners along with them, especially since the prisoners still outnumbered themselves - and sent a message to the local lord to come fetch them.

As for the bandits themselves, a quick interrogation confirmed their suspicions. The core of those bandits were soldiers from the losing side of the civil war. Zoya even recognized the ogre-like man on sight, a former army centurion who vanished after the war when the side he was on lost badly.

That said, most of the bandits were just local ruffians, whose organization was taken over by the ex-soldiers when they ran into each other. That explained the difference in discipline Aideen saw, at least.

The bandits were tied up securely to each other, then made to march towards the village. Aideen even healed the few too injured to walk on their own, not to full health, but just enough so they could keep up with the march.

While the village they last passed had no detention facility or the likes that were capable of holding so many people, they had plenty of militiamen, enough to look after a bunch of tied up bandits for the few days it took before the local lord took them over. For their troubles, Zoya had told the villagers that if there were any bounties for those bandits, it was theirs to claim, and had even written it down on her letter.

So it was with gratitude and jubilation from the villagers that they departed from the village the second time, as they continued on with their journey. Zoya had bought a few horses from the village as well, for the few guards who had lost their mounts in the ambush they suffered.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, and it was only another four days before they entered the borders of the Veros Duchy, the land that Artair's father had inherited from the previous generations.

It was wide plains full of grass that met Aideen's sight. The duchy was located by the eastern border of the empire, separated from the western isles by the straits present. The land was more temperate, compared to the tropical nature of the capital's environment. It was closer to the weather she was used to in Ptolodecca.

The grasslands were quite fertile, and soon after they entered the region, small villages, often built in the middle of farms or ranching areas multiple times their own size appeared on a regular basis. The villagers looked happy enough, and the cheers they gave when Zoya and Artair waved at them seemed genuine.

Aideen also noted that the villages here showed no signs of the ravages that the civil war had brought on so many other villages in their trip so far. Curious, she asked Zoya as to why.

"The west is technically the base of our faction," said the therian woman with a slight shrug. "And we had support from the western isles as well, so we were in position to go on the offense instead of fighting on our home ground. Pretty much all the fighting we did during the war was elsewhere."

Aideen nodded to the reply. That would explain why the region was spared the devastation that struck elsewhere, and also why the people who lived there were quite enthusiastic to greet their lords when they returned.

Those same villagers were quite enthusiastic to welcome them - Aideen noticed an even mix of humans, goblins, and orcs amongst them, though more than half tended to be therians - and held feasts to entertain the group when they rested for the night at a village.

Aideen saw actual veneration from some of the village elders, and the way Zoya freely chatted with the villagers seemed to have made them proud as well. She quietly asked Artair why that was so, since to her experience even if the lords treated their villages well such veneration tends to be rare to see. The Bone Lord had not counted, as he was more a figure of worship to most Ptolodeccans.

The answer she got from Artair was that the land they had used was one far more heavily taxed, and managed rather poorly to boot. Illyvich had changed all those practices for more efficient ones when he came to power. That those more efficient practices he employed also made life better for the people under him was coincidental for the pragmatic man.

Either way the villagers, especially those of the older generation who lived through the changes themselves, basically venerated their duke. As the younger generation, Artair and his other siblings were often tasked to patrol the region and to see if the people had any grievances to bear, so they were also familiar faces to most villagers.

Artair said that their father had told them that as the next generation, they should see how their people live firsthand, so they could connect with them in some way. He especially emphasized this to their eldest brother, his heir, since he would be the next to rule over the land.

Even if the intentions behind it were pragmatic, Aideen was still glad to see that the changes made still benefited those who lived in the land.

They reached the family's mansion another four days later, deep into the region. Unlike what Aideen had expected, the ducal mansion was not located in a city. There were three medium-sized cities in the region, arranged in a rough triangle around the mansion.

The mansion itself stood in the middle of fertile lands, and there were plenty of farms and ranches around it. People worked those farms and ranches, lower ranked retainers to the family, and a large village was built in the area, where these retainers and their families were housed.

As for the mansion, it stood proud and alone a distance away from the village, a large building with a more rustic style, one that would not have been unusual as the dwelling of a rich farmer or rancher. For the house of an Archduke, however, it was positively frugal.

Artair told Aideen that the family used to reside in the easternmost city, but that his father had favored the old house, which was supposedly the first house the family's ancestor had lived in. Their family had lived there instead of their more luxurious city house for as long as Artair could remember.