[i]This one is strange... I didn't think Dragon domain merchants were so aggressive. Maybe she's behind on sales or can't find a good market stall?[/i]

Lacking enough etiquette to prevent her own impropriety, she stared long at the gathering, before starting to lose interest. She wasn't in the mood to entertain a traveling merchant. They were usually selling snake oil and fake antiques anyway. Nor did she believe hunting bears would be to her benefit. Sure, they were cute and fluffy when you saw them at a distance, but they were all teeth and claws up close. Fei Lan wanted nothing to do with it.

She approached the bar and fumbled for the coin purse she had stashed in her sleeves. It jingled and shifted under her grip, but felt lighter than she had remembered. 

[i]Oh no...[/i]

Quickly, she pulled the drawstring on her coin pouch and checked the contents, desperately hoping her fears weren't true. Her lips curled into a pout. She winced as she counted only three stamped silver coins left, and frantically wracked her brain, trying to remember where the rest of it had been spent. There was barely enough here to buy breakfast, let alone a night's stay at an inn. Her trail rations were running low as well.

The tavern keeper shot her an expectant look. His wrinkled brow seemed to say "Either buy something or get out," as if he already knew what her dilemma was. 

She choked down her exasperation, letting only a curt sigh escape. Often, she would stop by small villages to perform "miracles", cleansing wells and healing minor injuries to cover her travel expenses, but she hadn't come across even the smallest oasis of human life in the past week. Either she had terrible luck or this town was in the middle of nowhere.

[i]Bears, hunh?[/i]

She definitely needed the money, and any job as dangerous as hunting bears would definitely pay well. She put two fingers against her brow and began kneading the tension under skin, hoping to massage away the frustration as she weighed her options. Fighting was not well-suited to her abilities, but she could be a scout. Very few beasts could sense her presence while she was shrouded in fog, and she could just call on the local water spirits to find the bears.

With a quick glance as the tavern keeper, she swallowed her anxiety, put down her last three coins on the counter and order a flagon of stew and skewered meat for the road. The food was promptly furnished in thin cloth bindings. She nodded in thanks to the bar maid who brought it, and started towards the job board. 

In a soft voice, she hailed the adventurers and directed her attention at the swordsman.  

"If you'll have me, I can offer my services as a scout."

There. She said it. Not an ounce of nervousness in her voice, but it knotted and bundled itself in her chest instead.
She wore a shimmering steel-white hanfu dress beneath a simple hooded cloth robe that was obviously much too big for her small frame. All of her clothes were immaculately clean and in pristine condition. She thought of the rangers she'd met previously, and recalled their tattered cloaks, dirty faces, week-old body odor. No forest tracker in the history of the world looked like she did, or so she believed.
She didn't know the first thing about tracking animals like those rugged mountain men in her homeland, and she was sure to garner some suspicion from this group. She kept her head lowered a bit to keep her face covered, leaving only the delicate features of her mouth and chin visible.