They return a few hours after they started, still beneath the overcast sky.

Crin nods to the pallbearers and calls her wolf to her side. She scratches it between the ears, not seeming to notice what she's doing.

"I'll go sanctify the ground and then let the villagers tend to their headman's final rest." 

"And then back to Konigstein."

"Of course."

She feels somber. Quiet. The nature of the world she's dropped in on feels- slightly more mundane, after this morning. Slightly closer. It's a good thing and a bad one. She responds to Crin and Ishaza's quiet conversation with a nod of her head from beside them, assuming that if they're speaking her language it's probably so she can understand them and respond if she wants, but otherwise remains silent.

Crin looks over at Alethia. "I'm glad my part in this is over. Better that I not be needed. Still..." 

She shakes her head. "It burns, not being able to protect one of my own."

She swallows a little lump in her throat.

"It speaks well of you. I find myself feeling similarly, simply for- being in the area when it happened."

She is finding that all of her remaining doubts about Crin and to a lesser extent Ishaza are- thought things, not felt things. Her instincts, new and old, are very approving of the two of them. Her doubt, now, is entirely in her ability to evaluate their trustworthiness given this little time, and not due to any act of theirs that made her doubtful. She is, genuinely, quite doubtful of that; she wasn't the best at that kind of thing before her new instinct package, even if she wasn't terrible at it either, and the instinct package is new and untested.

"You mustn't get confused. My being possessive of my subjects like this is arguably a flaw of mine." Crin nestles her hands together. "I'm selfish. I don't like it when things of mine are taken away."

A bit of annoyance at what first seems like a patronizing tone tries to form, but she decides not to let it. Crin doesn't mean it that way, she thinks.

"Not so terrible, as flaws go. Would that all flaws were so."

"Indeed."

Crin sighs and watches as Ishaza steps away. "You can go with her to see to the body if you'd like, though I expect you'd mostly observe."

She grimaces slightly. She does not, particularly, want to see the body, actually. She does want to watch Ishaza use Hysh. She- isn't sure if she could reach out and manipulate it now, and she's not going to try because she's capable of basic pattern recognition. But she's pretty sure she could learn- something? Maybe?

No, that's foolish. She'll have time later, to learn, and not act so- ghoulishly.

"That, I don't think I- have a reason to do. Hysh is interesting, but I can watch Ishaza work it some other time."

"I don't mind either way. You didn't know him, so there's no respects to be paid." She sighs, as if something heavy rests on her shoulders. "Ishaza will do her duty, and then I will be able to return to my books."

"I look forward to it. For your sake and mine. While I imagine many if not most of those books would likely be off limits for me to read through before I've earned more trust, I am sufficiently uninformed to benefit quite a bit even from books stating relatively common knowledge, I think."

"Aside from books, in Konigstein there will be servants for you to converse with even when I am busy with other matters. So one way or another, you should be able to gain some orientation."

"You know, I'd somehow assumed that Konigstein would be empty of anything as mundane as servants. Not explicitly, but in my mental imagery. I'd been imagining it as an otherwise-empty tower full of indoor wolves. But I suppose wolves cannot clean the floors no matter how well one trains them, and such things need doing even in a tower inhabited by one such as yourself. And perhaps one would not in fact want them inside."

"Even I am forced to rely on others from time to time. It's just not possible to manage a whole fief alone."

"Of course. I suppose I simply failed to imagine Konigstein in enough detail to notice that what I was imagining was manifestly incoherent."

Crin simply nods.

And a few moments later, Ishaza returns. 

"I've sanctified the body and the ground," she says. "It's time we left these good people to what peace they can take."

She hopes he's found some peace of his own, wherever he is now. She doesn't actually recall quite what the afterlife is like, in this world. Or even whether it's net positive or negative that the world has one.

She nods.

Crin looks over at Alethia. "How fast do you want to get to Konigstein, and how comfortably?"

She tilts her head.

"How about however fast and comfortable you and Ishaza would travel without my comfort or desire for speed being a concern? I don't want to make either of you less comfortable out of a desire to rush."

"The question is really whether you want to ride on a massive carnivorous wolf that answers only to me."

As opposed to the world-famous herbivorous wolves of eastern Sylvania.

"I don't mind."

She is, however, somewhat surprised by the fact that that's faster. She supposes vampires here must have less endurance that she- oh, wait. No, it would just use energy, which would mean Crin would expect her to need blood.

Also.

Giant wolf.