Kiara nodded briskly as she slid down from Kit's back. "Keep watch for me?" she asked the dragon quietly. He nodded with a small huff, curling his body protectively around her, and she knelt to place one hand on the earth.

She could do this. Her father had explained it to her--years ago, but she remembered how it was supposed to work. She was fae now, properly fae. She could do this...

She closed her eyes, then let her magic start to spread out from her fingers, bleeding into the dirt, then the roots of the trees around them, then further.

Where are you...?

---

"Right." Kiara bit back a small smirk. Looking to their hosts, she assured, "We'll be back as soon as we can--but you should start getting your people together, get them ready to move."

"Yes, I believe that's what humans call them," Lanaya replied thoughtfully. "I can't say I've ever been that far myself."

She never left the woods, really. She got most of her news from traveling birds, who heard it in turn from other birds and creatures, and so on and so on--like an incredibly long version of a party game where players whispered a phrase to each person down a line one at a time.

"Eh, impulse control is overrated," Hana scoffed, grinning as she took the offered glass and lifted it up. "So! What are we toasting to? Friends? New journeys? The spectacularly hilarious awkwardness of finding out that both Thrax and I courted you at one point?"

"Better you than me," Adri chuckled wryly. "I can barely keep all that stuff you told me about different grades of ores and ingots straight." She shrugged again. "Ah, well. I'm good at being able to tell when someone's trying to cheat me, even if I can't assess stone quality--I'm sure we'll do alright."

She glanced up at him sidelong, then bumped her hip into his gently. "Hey," she said in a slightly softer voice. "You've got this. I'm right here, okay?"

"Thanks." She whistled for the hound and tossed him a treat when he perked his ears up, clearly knowing that he was about to get food.

"C'mere, you," she chuckled, giving the treat a few moments to begin working before she bent to heft him in her arms. "Woof." She staggered a bit. "Well. He's lighter, but he's still big," she half-laughed as she tried to finagle them into a position where she could at least somewhat comfortably keep a good grip on Vander.

"...I'm sorry," Krysta offered, the smirk bleeding from her tone. She didn't have much experience in the field of romance--or, well, any--but she'd certainly seen a lot of it, both as it unfolded between her two closest friends and in the way her parents were nauseatingly besotted with each other.

Which meant she didn't really know how to offer condolences for this sort of thing. "She, ah...sounds nice?"

Shae found herself sitting up a little straighter and leaning into the frame of the window to get a better look as the new guard emerged from the carriage.

What...?

She'd never seen anyone like him. She'd never even heard of anyone like him--she had to assume he didn't have any magic, or he likely wouldn't have risked taking a job in Connloath, but still...she could come up with no other plausible comparison to his appearance than perhaps a fae creature.

She watched as Master Alstead detached himself from his small retinue and stepped forward to offer the stranger his hand. Though the aerie was located at the highest point of the manor proper, it was still only three stories up, and it did border the interior yard. On a day like today, when the wind worked in her favor, she could faintly hear conversation in the courtyard below, so long as the participants spoke loudly enough.

Which Alstead often did. "jovially booming" was probably the best descriptor of his typical tone. "You must be Ser Zjhe," He said in welcome, despite stumbling a bit over the pronunciation of the name. "Well met, well met. I trust you had a speedy journey?"

Della skittered back from his lunge instinctively--and her hand snapped out to grab the insignia off the dirty floorboards just as automatically. If this stranger was that intent on getting it back, it was clearly valuable.

She had no interest in stealing it, but in this city there were really only a handful of things an insignia like this could be. And one of them might be very useful to her current job.

She straightened up and took a step back, fingers curling tight around the prize. "What is it?" she demanded sharply. "Why do you need it?"

Varyyn eyed his extended hand for a long moment, then looked up with a wryly arched brow.

"You do know the risks involved in making a deal with a demon, don't you?" It was difficult to tell from his tone if it was said in jest, or a true warning.

@wandering_giraffe

---

It had been months since she'd been stuck, been forced into a form she didn't want--and now there was this.

The potions she'd been using to control her shifts were losing their potency, and she didn't know why.

The small--relatively speaking--dragon was hunched over an almost perfectly circular jungle pool. Well, "puddle" might have been a more accurate descriptor; and it was certainly too regular in shape to be natural.

Such features were rare, and she'd been lucky to find it--she thought it might be a remnant of whatever lost culture had crafted the crumbling ruins around her. She honestly had no idea what they would have used it for, but she had a very specific purpose in mind for it.

She craned her head back, trying to peer up through the think canopy to find the crest of the moon. The jungle was thinner her--again, thanks to the ruins--but there were still enough trees that she knew she would only have a few minutes of full moonlight on the water.

She just had to hope those few minutes would be enough.

Della didn't normally take jobs linked to the Ruby Hilt--then again, she didn't normally get offered jobs that paid as much as this one did. Apparently, the heir apparent to the second-largest smuggling ring in Zantaric had been found dead just a few weeks back, and his associates had put a retaliatory hit on his assassin.

Pretty standard for how things worked in this city, all things considered. And while Della didn't usually like to take jobs from the organized gangs, for fear of looking like she was choosing sides, well...she was running low on coin, and the Hilt was offering a frankly offensive amount. She'd just keep clear of the city for a few months once the job was done, leave things to settle themselves. Should be simple enough.

Problem was, now she had to find a contracted killer who no one had actually seen.

She exhaled sharply as she ducked through the tavern doorway, automatically turning her face away from the raucous group of three who were stumbling out passed her into the rain-slicked street. Even for this place, she tended to be eye-catching, which was not exactly something she wanted right now.

She dodged her way through the scattered tables to make for the bar, doing her best to keep a low profile--but she was so intent on keeping her face hidden (and her tail tucked up under her cloak) that she missed the slightly crooked leg of a chair and caught her foot on it.

"Shit." She nearly fell to her knees, but managed to catch herself on the edge of the table. Praying that the table's current occupant wasn't going to be a special brand of asshole, she started muttering apologies as she pushed herself up with one hand and tugged her hood more firmly forward with the other.

(M for probable violence)

@wandering_giraffe

---

New additions to the household staff were rare--Finian Alstead was not a man so well enough in means that he was frequently adding to the manor's relatively sparse collection of servants, save to replace those who were leaving their posts. Or those who had died, as had been the case with Shae when she took over for her mentor in the aerie.

So it was no small subject of gossip amongst the housekeeping staff when Master Alstead's new bodyguard was set to arrive. No one knew anything about him--only that he'd come recommended to Alstead from a contact outside of the country as "the best you'll find for what you're willing to pay".

Shae didn't pay the gossip much mind, though she would admit to a niggling of curiosity. But she kept to herself--she rarely interacted with the master of the estate, except when he needed to send a direct message by raven. Aside from taking her in as a girl, he really didn't seem to have much interest in her. He let her be, and she returned the favor.

Still she couldn't stop herself from moving to the window of the aerie as the sun crested toward noon, when the newcomer was meant to be arriving. She had a fairly good view of the main courtyard from here.

Morgana had to bite back a hiss when Cora grabbed Nik's chin to turn his head. She was willing to believe the sorceress knew more about Nik's condition than either of them, but she really didn't like the way the woman kept jerking him around. Literally.

She swallowed down any number of complaints, deciding now wasn't the time--they seemed to have something of a deadline, and she didn't want to interfere with it.

That is, until Nik's grip on her hand tightened, and then he suddenly lurched forward as though pulled by strings. She cried out wordlessly and grabbed for his arm with her other hand, trying to keep him steady.

"What did you do?!" she demanded, snapping her head around to bare her teeth at Cora.

"Ser Kit" snorted, but neither he nor Kiara commented, both more focused on the task at hand. The dragon banked to begin flying in the direction of the refugees' encampment.

---

"Well, we know the general direction she went," Kiara murmured, eyeing him a bit warily for a few moments longer before she seemed to decide not to worry about the way the magical pick-me-up was affecting him. Not for the moment, at least. "And...I mean, yeah. Kit can track pretty well. It should be enough--it hasn't been that long, she can't have got too far."

"Usually no further than the mountains," Lanaya replied thoughtfully. "He and his mate used to nest there, before she..."

She sighed quietly, then shook her head. Summoning up a small smile, she said quickly, "Well, that's a long flight, even given good weather. If he's gone further, it's not surprising he hasn't returned yet."

Hana shot a quick glance toward the gnoll, a flash of memory from their brief but intense sojourn to the plains playing behind her eyes. She shook her head slightly and looked back to the captain with a customary half-smirk half-smile in place.

"We'll be fine, promise."

Nani nodded, glancing up from their current vantage point to try to judge their distance. "The currents will be rising from the northwest." She pointed to a jut of rock not too far from their resting place, which overhung a sharp drop down the mountain "That's probably our best bet to catch a rise--once we're airborne, we should be able to navigate from current to current."

She traced a path through the air up toward the tip of the spire with her finger. "Wind is moving counter-lee--ah, I mean, counterclockwise. As long as we don't try to fly against it, we should be alright."

"Well...yeah." Krysta gave him a sidelong frown. "That is how it works." She sighed and rolled her eyes, leaning back. "My tutors have been trying to teach me better control for years. Bit annoying, really."

Risa felt her face heating yet again as Hayate had to cover his mouth to muffle a laugh. Goddess, she couldn't believe she'd just said that--to her brother, maybe, but to a near-stranger?

Thankfully, Hayate seemed more amused than offended by her outspokenness. She'd just have to be more careful with her tongue. She "mmm"ed quietly at his answer, unable to keep herself from thinking wistfully about what a nice perk to a job that would be.

She loved her work--genuinely--and she was good at it. But there was a certain pressure that came with crafting her pieces that often left her more tired at the end of a day than she should be. She couldn't help wondering what it might be like to be able to indulge "passing curiosity" while she worked.

Like when she'd made the earrings; because they hadn't been for a shop patron, she'd allowed herself to be freer, looser with the design than she would have been normally. It had been...nice. Relaxing, even.

"Hm?" Oh. Her birth. Right.

She half-sighed, half-laughed and shook her head slightly. "It's nothing, really. A story my mother used to tell me--she swears it's true, but, well..." She chuckled a little sheepishly and shrugged. "According to her, just before I was born, she...found this injured rabbit. Not far from the temple actually. She took it back home and nursed it, then let it go when it was well again." Another little shrug and a self-conscious chuckle. "As far as I know, that part's all true, and relatively normal. My father confirms it. But she says the night she released it, the rabbit came back to her in a dream, and offered her a--a gift for helping it. I was her first child, and she wanted me to be exceptional. So that's what she asked for, and this dream-rabbit said that would be her reward."

She glanced up at him bashfully and shrugged again. "She's, ah, very adamant that the dream meant something. But, well...I mean, I'm hardly anything exceptional. So."

"...I should be able to handle that part," Kiara said, her tone going expressionless and hard. "But I'll need to be on the ground to do it. And as close to where we wanna have this meeting as we can manage--I don't want to potentially get the refugees caught in crossfire, but we should be close to them if we wanna head off the mercs."

---

"Puppy?" Kiara started forward slightly, worried by the way he shuddered and gasped. But--no, he just seemed alert. Much more alert.

She still eyed him warily for a moment. "Sooo, you good?"