As the fire begins to smolder and die out, the majority of the other sisters had trickled away, either going to finish their duties that were incomplete yet, or to retire to their beds for the evening and toss in a restless slumber. Only Armen and Mariette lingered around the coals and ashes. The warm powder still glowing a deep orange underneath the gray and white, flaky dusting. Mariette clears her throat. "Sir Armen... W-what do you intend now?" her voice anxious.
Armen whispers the finalities of his prayer and wears his gloves once again, before rising and stowing his ritualistic items away in their destined placements. The spiked chain of his rosary, now dripping with blood, leaves a small path of ichor against his leather satchel at his waist where it drug against the side while he put it away. His sword making the now familiar whine as he slips it back into the sheath. "I'm afraid, sister, that mine charge is likely yet unfinished. I must send word to Cathedral in hopes that they might direct my actions more clearly. Where might I find the nearest post master?"
Mariette swallows the lump climbing up her throat as she processes that this awful event is still somehow unfinished. "The... the nearest village is a couple days away if you ride a pony."
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"Do you have one?" Armen inquires.
She nods and points at the shanty wooden structure adjacent to the convent. It was only built out of hasty necessity, and it was apparent that whomever had constructed it, either didn't know how, or didn't care enough to properly make the roof. Still, it were a functional stable: two stalls, simple gates, a shed-slope roof. Nothing more.
"We only have two horses, I'm afraid." Mariette continues, "And we always must retain one here in the event that one of the sisters befalls emergency... but, thou art welcome to use either."
"Only one horse at mine disposal?" Armen echoes, then thinks for a moment before speaking again, "Sister... I'm afraid I do not know this land as you do. I hath intent to ask for a guide of thee. Yet, with only one horse, I fear that option may be lost." he punctuates his sentence with a light sniffle of thought.
Mariette glances to the stable and back again, a solution in mind: "We have a steed that is strong. It was a plow horse afore the farmer had retired him to us. He would be able to carry two persons with no trouble at all."
Armen, still looking to the stables, "And you know the way to the post?"
"Indeed, I do"
"Then we leave in the morn."
