Sergia's knight is the coolest knight ever and she's going to help Sergia get that cool someday and that's awesome.

"More important question: given that my job is pulling people out of danger, should I be standing next to a healer? What's our battle order going to be in general?"

Raoulin is somewhat worried that he has raised his former squire to be a bad influence and also immensely, deeply proud of her. But also he is going to make sure he is also available, in case Sergia needs a role model in her life who does not stand in dragonfire if he can damn well avoid it.

"Atlantia isn't the most organised of armies. Anything Sir Nicole, the baronage, or the Crown tell you to do is something you have to do. Anything the rest of us tell you is likely to be merely a very wise suggestion."

"...you should also generally do things Raoulin tells you to do, please. But yes, there's a whole mixture of Baronial groups and household groups and individual heroes out there. We are pretty big on the heroes."

"I think we were going to stick Sergia with Ludmila, right, because she's a healer?" 

"If you're cool with that, Sergia. You can go with Cináed, as well, if you feel more comfortable with someone you presumably know a bit better."

"I recognize Ludmilla well enough to stay close to her, that's the important bit. In the unlikely event that two people I'm supposed to obey say conflicting things, is there a better rule to follow than 'do whichever one the people around me are doing?'"

"Nicole and your baronage and I are all in fealty to the crown and for the most part we will try very hard not to tell you to do things that contradict what the Crown wants. But if there's some confusion, you can always do what your knight told you to."

"...technically not the case when you aren't in fealty yet, but you will be, so. Fealty isn't transitive. You answer to me. I answer to the Crown. If anyone else has a problem with something you're doing, including the Crown, you can tell them to take it up with me. I'd very much rather you tried not to get me in trouble with my Crown, but it's my problem and not yours if you do... Which means almost always I want you to do what the Crown says, but I also want you to follow your conscience and you can use me as a shield when you have to. Your oath will be to me, and it's my job to not disobey my liege through telling my squire to do things they don't want me or you to do."

"What's important magically is keeping your oaths," Lluwellin adds, as much a side comment to Flavia as for Sergia's benefit. "But sometimes we get very wrapped up in what's magically important and forget, you know, it's twenty first century America and you're an adult with good judgement too and you're allowed to use it."

"Not everyone's going to agree with our view of it either. It's something we've talked about a lot as a household but there's going to be other people out there who are just, like, obey the Crown no matter what, and they're not wrong either. We mostly think you're going to make good choices and know when your knight really wants you to obey the Crown and when they've said something to you that is... more informed about your specific circumstances."

Solemn nod. "Understood. It's a place where there are multiple things reasonable people could do, and the important thing is to pick one that works with what the people around me are doing and be predictable about it."

What other questions are there . . . "Is this definitely going to be a fight to the death, or is the dragon likely to run away or surrender before that point?"

That is.... not actually what anyone said but if being cooperative and predictable are what's important to Sergia then Nicole isn't going to tell her off for it, at least not until she's seen what Sergia does with that in practice.

On dragons. "Eighty twenty?" 

Wiggly hand gesture. "Seventy thirty."

"Lluwellin, tiebreak?"

"Uh I would've said fifty fifty but I'm deferring to Nicole, she's the diplomat?" 

"Not a dragon diplomat!" 

"Okay, so somewhere in there. And, uh." It is terribly embarrassing to ask this question and she keeps putting it off but realistically she really ought to ask it. "Rough odds someone on our side dies?"

"The number people say is roughly five per cent. I think that's.... a very low estimate if the fight goes wrong somehow, but it's the standard number."

Telling Sergia this is her responsibility and nobody else is likely to chime in on this one. Nicole twists around in her seat to directly check on how Sergia's face looks after that information. 

She's nodding again, digesting it. "So, maybe five percent overall but a lot more if something goes wrong and less if nothing does."

She doesn't say 'okay', because it's not okay. It is worth doing anyway, but she doesn't say that either, it wouldn't be right when she hasn't lost any friends and Sir Nicole and Sir Raoulin probably have. She doesn't say 'I'll just have to be sure I don't cause anything to go wrong', because that's obvious. 

"That's good to know," she says.

Nicole gives Sergia a long, careful, assessing look and eventually twists back around to look out of the window.

Some people put themselves at more risk than others. Some people are in the back lines, where even if something goes wrong they will probably be okay. Nicole is going to stand directly in some dragonfire and hope she's still good enough that the magic keeps saving her.

"Don't do anything dumbass and you will be fine. I said I wasn't going to let you die."

"I'm--not scared enough that it's likely to make me less competent. I'm some amount worried I'm going to grab someone who's less injured than they look and get in their way, and some amount worried I'll hesitate too long grabbing someone I should. And some amount worried that everything will go pear-shaped for some reason that's not about me, but that's a less distracting worry because I don't need to act on it."

Nicole does not know how to be very reassuring about this because these are very sensible worries and she is frankly also hiding her own anxiety. "I believe in you."

She is working really very hard on not being cold and aloof and overly polished and distant, given that she's going to have a squire, and she thinks she is succeeding so far. Mostly. It's not the easiest thing. 

Raoulin pulls up to the side of the road next to a dark, foreboding looking wood. There's nobody around except some of the other Rosemary cars. "Alright, here's the bit where I really try my best to persuade you that we're not a cult and you're not about to get axe murdered. There's snacks in the centre console and in the pocket behind the seat if you want them. And weird serial killing cultists wouldn't give their victims Oreos, right?" 

That gets a cackle. "If you're in a cult I'm in a cult, but I won't turn down a couple Oreos."

It occurs to her that the Oreos might be the last thing she ever eats. That's a dumb thought, any given thing might be the last thing she ever eats. It also occurs to her that depending on how many humans side with the demons Nicole or Raoulin might technically be serial killers. This is also a dumb thought, they're not serial killers any more than army vets. 

There are Oreos in the back pocket of the car seat in front of Sergia.

Everyone piles out of the cars into the dark, cold woods. There's a slight wind in the air that sets trees to softly whispering and cloaks to gentle rippling and wispy clouds to wavering in front of the moon. Once the yellow car headlights switch off, the world seems muted and greyscale. Nobody is quite sure why they're keeping voices low, but it feels right to murmur and to glance backwards over their shoulders and to not venture just yet from the moonlit road into the woods.