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He's been at the last fort on the Mendevian side of the border for a day and a half when one of the local soldiers finds him. "Ser, um, Aemine?" He salutes a bit tentatively. "That, uh, Chelish patrol with the cleric is on its way in, did you want to-" His expression makes it clear he's not sure why he'd want to do anything with the Chelish troops if he wasn't ordered to.
Paladin Marc and Osirian Connie on a road trip
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Everyone: feels at least a bit better!
And then it's time to go on. Marcus says quick cheerful goodbyes to the people he knows here. Argil waves to the group as they assemble to go out: "Stay warm! Don't stop to count the vescavors!"
Marcus winds up riding alongside Ferrer for the second leg of the day; he's the shorter and stockier of the two Chelish soldiers, maybe pushing forty while Cambra is around Marcus's own age, and has a large ugly brand on one cheek that Marcus might or might not recognize. When the wind is in the right direction to catch scraps of conversation from the next pair ahead of them, it sounds like Cambra is working on learning Osiriani, practicing stilted-sounding phrases with Khalida correcting his vowels occasionally.
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Marcus will be quiet for a while. The Chelish men are generally quieter than he is, and sometimes you need to leave people space so they feel like they can have their own thoughts without you pushing them at every turn.
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It's not that Marcus is incapable of three hours of companionable silence. But he will not have all that much time with these people, and he does want to get to know them, so he only lasts less than half an hour.
"How long've you been at the Worldwound?"
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"Could be worse," slight nod. At least he got to have a life before the front, though it may not have been a good one and he probably shouldn't ask.
"Did it change much? Before last year, I mean. Or was it just years of always the same thing?"
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"Well. Feels different now that the demons are gonna run out eventually. I wasn't here for long enough before that to get used to how they just... weren't going to." He wishes he had been, for all that it sounds like an awful thing to get used to.
"The... feeling different?" A mildly puzzled glance back at him. "Maybe it's different on this front."
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"Ohh." His best guess was that Ferrer just didn't really believe the Worldwound was closed – a shocking concept which Marcus quickly realized wouldn't even be very unreasonable of him, given the situation, but would be so fraught to talk about – but it sounds like he simply doesn't feel it makes much difference. It takes a moment's thought to see why he might feel that way.
"Or maybe I'm being a paladin again." A rueful smile. "It's not that my life's any different now, really, it's that... I came here to do this, and so I feel better knowing that it'll get done. And you did not," a glance at the brand, with no judgment in his expression, "particularly come here to do this."
"An' odds are I die here, whether it's done after or not." (Yeah, he caught that glance.) He doesn't seem at all bothered about this fact; his tone might be a tiny bit challenging, if anything. "...less'n the new Queen gets real thorough with pardons, I suppose."
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"I would think she will." He sounds unselfconsciously confident about that one – it's the Good thing to do and the politically sensible one.
"She has enough work cut out for her that I figure it'll take her a while to get to that, but if you've been here seven years, you may well hold on long enough."
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"He would've had to be! I can't imagine it's easy to hit Neutral as an Asmodean cleric. I'm surprised it was allowed."
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"I am so tempted to see if I can wrangle a reason to go up to your fort and meet him."
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"Not yet, sadly – and not soon, from what I hear of the Goddess's budget. If I was, I'd hardly need more reason than that."