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As the first month of summer comes to a close, Alistair puts all of his belongings into his mage dimension, except a single knife he wears on his belt. He takes the key to his room where he has stayed these last several years down to the buildings owner, and heads out through the city. He leaves the harbor district, and follows the outer ring of the city until he gets to the main road out of the city, and walks until he finds another road out, not wanting to take the obvious path. As he leaves the city, walking past farmhouses and barns instead of through the tight packed streets he had become accustomed to, he slowly relaxes, and begins to look around at his surroundings with interest instead of caution.
Xena lands on shaper alistair
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beneath-the-skin
He finishes his food and cider, and hops up from his seat.
"Thanks for the food!"
He walks out and heads down to the river.
At the river there are a group of kids playing, laughing as the run through the water. There is an overgrown garden at the next turn in the river, barely visible.
The kids don't seem to be playing anything terribly organized at the moment, seeming instead to be running around freely, perhaps trying to shove each other under. There's a few of them sitting off to one side, seeming less interested in playing in the water than in trying to construct figures from the mud, with limited success.
to-your-heart
She approaches one of the children sitting off to the side, who seems more inclined to observing the world around them.
The kid looks up at her, a little wary.
"Hullo, Ma'am"
to-your-heart
"Hello," she says, sitting down a small distance away, posture relaxed and friendly. "I'm Xena, a warrior princess from very far away. I'd like to talk a little bit, if you have some free time."
The kid looks interested. "A warrior princess? What's that like? Where're you princess of?"
to-your-heart
"I'm princess of a land called Amphipolis. And being a warrior princess means I travel a lot, helping people."
"Not fighting monsters to defend your land?" The kid sounds a little disappointed.
"I've never heard of Amphibolis."
to-your-heart
"I spent a very long time fighting monsters to defend my land, but then they all became very scared of me and ran away, so now I'm looking for other places with monsters so I can help."
"And I hadn't heard of here, before I came here."
"You must be the bestest warrior princess if all the monsters got so scared of you they ran away! You're here to fight our monsters? There's a monster in the stream, it attacked Haraald this morning but he got out just in time, it was really scary and made of leaves and mud and it grabbed his foot and we all had to work together to pull him away from it!!"
"Yeah! It had teeth that looked like sticks but it bit with them! He's over there, he can show you where it bit him!" She points at a boy further down the river.
"Thank you!" She goes back to building a house out of mud, to limited success.
He looks up as she approaches.
"Whaddaya want."
He seems much grumpier.
"Yeah. It bit me!" He still seems grumpy, but he pulls his pant leg up to show her something that definitely looks like a bite mark.
to-your-heart
"Wow - you must have been quite brave," she says, taking a more thorough glance at the bite and trying to evaluate if it needs medical attention.
"Yeah! I even tried to kick it!" Telling him he was brave seems to have improved his mood somewhat. The bite is not actively bleeding at this point, but there is mud and bits of wood inside the bite, and it's likely to get infected if not cleaned soon.
He nods. "'s why I'm not playing." He grabs a nearby stick and drags it through the mud halfheartedly.
"There's nothing fun to do when you've got a bite."