But she strayed from the village and roamed the outskirts, her horse was jumpy from not knowing where they were for a moment, until both froze at the sound of movement. It wasn't live movement like a bush rustling or so on, it was a constant and gradual noise of what sounded like rocks moving against each other. Out of curiosity, she followed the sound cautiously. Her horse stopped as the noise grew too loud, that was when Venus spotted what it was. It was a grand glacier, the current looking slow but strong. Like a tank. Venus was curious to see more of it, maybe travel across, but she wasn't a fool. She knew her limits before anyone else, so turned around.
She galloped back not so dramatically, but hurriedly as the sun looked two increments past noon. She stopped at the docks where Philza stood talking to Calvin. They turned around as she stopped and clopped her way over on her horse. Calvin was the first to speak, "looking great! We're getting the boat ready for setting sail, is your horse coming along? We have an animal's floor if not having one was a mitigating factor," he smiled and pulled down a wooden bridge from a door in the ship.
"She's coming along. I need to ride there somehow. I intend on going up ahead from the rest, if you'd like to join." Venus offered while leading her horse up. Calvin nodded and left, going to get a horse from the stables.
She returned to the other man who was checking off boxes in a book, a maintenance check quickly before setting off. Watching with great interest as he scanned and counted, going as far as checking the bolts on doors to see if they were appropriately shut. Venus wasn't sure for how long he had been standing there looking at everything, but his hat began accumulating snow from the constant fall. The snow felt less and less like a special occasion Venus saw once every year or two, and started feeling more like where she wanted to live.
"Alright! Done! We're in good shape Venus!" Philza celebrated and closed the book. "Where's your crown?" He reached up to the top of her head.
"In this bag." She pulled the crown out and placed it on her head, posing jokingly to the applauding male. "Ah, Phil... May we talk?" Venus remembered and straightened up.
"What about?" Phil asked, going into the ship. Venus followed and both of them climbed up to the deck and stood by the railing.
"Phil! Kristen said we have to join you now!" Tubbo called. It wasn't sudden nor inconvenient, Venus had paused for a moment to collect her thoughts as to what she was doing. With a sigh from both of them, they went over and pulled up the kids, Tubbo, Tommy and Minerva. Minerva insisted on not having help but was offered regardless. Wilbur and Mercury climbed on soon after, along with Hertha and Ranboo, who were whispering to themselves. Calvin arrived with a brown horse, slightly larger than Dove. His horse was a stallion. Not a mare.
Everyone settled on the deck, Hertha and Ranboo happily sitting around a bench which lay at the foot of the mast. Calvin sat on the stairs leading up to the steering wheel on the upper deck and the others sat on a mat laid out on the planks of wood, close to the mast. At last, Technoblade arrived with Kristen, both jumping on and looking Venus up and down. She had gotten similar reactions from everyone but Tommy, Calvin and Phil, who all seemed unphased. Technoblade pointed at Venus, who was leaning on the railing with her arms crossed and one of her legs crossing over the other to try and keep warm. In the end, he decided to leave it and climb up the steps to the wheel.
They embarked on their journey, light chatter or Wilbur's guitar strumming the same as it usually did. Venus had forgotten for a moment what it was that she wanted to talk about, and suddenly remembered when she heard Technoblade's chortle to a joke his brother made. Phil was up with his wife on the other end of the ship, and for a second, she considered dropping the topic entirely, but decided to talk about it when he was finished. She continued to stare over the edge.
After some time, Philza had approached her himself, as did Calvin. Both were to her left as she snapped out of her daydream to look at the two. Philza motioned for her to go on, "about before... if I stay empress, do you think it would be appropriate to leave this kingdom? If so, would it be better to have the role revoked?" She asked. The old man scoffed a little.
"I'll say, you're so critical." Phil chuckled.
"Yeah! Look at yourself! The empress of 58% of the world! You don't follow rules anymore, you make them." Calvin winked at her cheekily. That thought hadn't come to her, everything felt the same for her, she didn't realise how much power she had. "C'mon, I'm supposed to help you out from here on. That didn't mean I was your teacher." He teased her.
"You don't have to stay with Techno! Life can go back to letter exchanges and regular visits if you want to rule the kingdom," Phil took a short breath in thought, "though I don't think Techno would be the most pleased." He chuckled.
"Okay... well I have another question." Venus thought to herself before telling the man. He nodded, "I don't know what I want to do... with my father... and family..." she finished.
"Oh." Phil realised there was a bit more going on behind this question than the other. He paused and thought. "Business and family shouldn't be able to mix... I know, of course, you'll either find it very hard or very easy, but I'd recommend an objective approach." Phil tried to explain, it got through to Venus, but Calvin looked confused. "I think the easiest thing to do... is keep your family alive and live with us. It sounds bad... I know, but look: your father was a bad father to you... does that mean he was a bad king?" He asked.
"Sure he was. He let himself get colonised within a day." Calvin reminded them both. Venus couldn't help the look of disgust which hit her face when she heard that statement.
"I'd argue that was the right thing to do. After all, it was us. He didn't stand a chance." Phil let out a small laugh. Venus wished she still cared about those sorts of jokes, but the place had really let itself go since she was exiled. Phil spoke up once more, "so, that's my suggestion. Keeping them alive has one less responsibility put onto you, you can afford it. If they're poorly behaved, then they're in danger, not us."
Without many other good sounding options given to her, she thought it was one of the better ideas. Keeping the family alive wasn't an issue, Venus had plenty of time to feel upset about it and seek revenge. She was past that point. It was better and more mature to keep them alive; plus, she didn't want to put her youngest sibling through all of that terrible punishment at such a young age. She had enough room to sneak in family to her business, after all, she was the one making the rules.
She continued to talk to Philza as the boat slowed to a halt by the docks she had grown all too familiar with and, as she guided Dove out of the boat with Calvin, wished him farewell and bolted off with the afro-sporting man in quick pursuit.
"Why are you going so fast!?" Calvin called, Venus didn't turn around.
"It's my revenge!" She responded, hitting the reins and tucking in to go faster. Rushing wind tangled her tied up hair and she felt her crown fall off from the sheer harshness of her momentum, it didn't matter, she could cross that bridge later. She refused to look behind her, as determination gleamed in both her own and Dove's movement. They would get that revenge, there wasn't a doubt about it.
As she silently rode, only hearing hooves impact the ground, she thought about what she should do. Phil's suggestion was a great idea, all things considered, but she couldn't help but feel she could do more. A grand trial for them, a punishment, she wasn't sure. To murder them and leave the kingdom wasn't above her - however she couldn't help but feel as though history repeated itself.
That was a story for another time.
Night fell and despite the power of Venus's horse, they both still needed rest, and both strayed from the main path to rest within a field. The stars were so beautiful - Venus could never see them usually, her kingdom was too bright against the sky and Techno's was always concealed with white clouds. During her exploring with Hertha and then by herself, she was able to see stars and constellations for the first time. She remembered seeing the Hunter Orion, and the Gemini Twins on the zodiac belt from far off. She would write about them excitedly to Hertha, bragging about them being clear as the day itself. She would also write about her dreams to Hertha, the constant animal symbolism. The recurring dog theme and birds. Also cows... bovine.
She dozed off, knowing full and well that she would dream of those damned animals again. It never used to happen before, but after parting ways with Technoblade for the first time, she found the dreams to be repeating.
She woke up the next dawn with Calvin snoring calmly in his sleep. His horse was awake, so Venus could only guess he was sleeping overtime. It would be rude to abandon him in the field, so she fed both of their horses and pulled Calvin onto his horse. It was too early for anyone to be bounding across the continent, and that was flat out dangerous with Calvin resting on his horse, so Venus decided to walk the path and keep an eye on Calvin. She had seen the scenery so many times in the past, yet after such a long time of not being in the vicinity, she began noticing the unnoticed. Like smaller flowers, streams to supply the fields with water absolutely infested with fish. It was the little things she forgot to appreciate beforehand.
Some time later, Calvin did eventually wake up, sitting up slowly and drowsily on his horse and watching Venus climb onto her own. Still out of pity, she didn't bolt ahead, only when he offered to race did she take the invitation as a reason to cover some more distance. He clearly regretted his decision as he could barely keep up with Dove, the horse was light-footed and springy, so could jump great heights. Added onto the frosted white of her coat, Venus named her Dove, like the bird. But he maintained a good distance from Venus and Dove, his horse wasn't as jumpy so couldn't vault over obstacles like Venus's, but his horse was strong and aggressive, so could usually stomp or break through bushes and decaying logs in the way.
As the evening came, both Calvin and Venus spoke and slowed to let their horses rest, both having meaningless conversation about whatever came to mind until nightfall arrived.
They both decided to rest for the night, knowing that as the scenery grew nostalgic for Venus; her kingdom was just over the horizon.