Ashley sat in the windowsill, her back against one side and her right foot against the other while she waited for Mikhail. From here, she had a clear view of not just the ocean, but also the door to their hotel suite as well as the streets. Her bored gaze wandered between the room, the streets, and the ocean. With each ship that appeared on the horizon, Ashley's left hand instinctively reached for her pocket-sized book of scriptures, and remained there until she was sure that it wasn't the Santa Lyrica. There seemed to be some commotion in the streets about a pervert on the loose, but Ashley thought little of it. [color=#ff39d6][i]Wow. A pervert. Who could have imagined dressing like that would cause lewd men to come out from the woodwork,[/i][/color] she thought self-righteously. A lady like her was above such brazen tactics as showing off her skin to strangers. Hers was an [i]educated[/i] woman's game—one that worthless men like that would surely fail every time.

Aside from her newest contestant, an exception whom she tries to push to the back of her mind for the time being.

Realizing that she'd been impatiently looking at the door to the bath for a moment too long—as if expecting to see something—her slightly embarrassed gaze wanders around the room. Abruptly, she had a revelation: [color=#ff39d6][i]Ah. This is a couple's suite, after all.[/i][/color] With every thing she noticed that wouldn't be in a normal hotel room, her cheeks became a slightly brighter shade of red. [color=#ff39d6][i]Okay, maybe I am a bit brazen myself.[/i][/color]

Suddenly, something breaks her train of thought—a bang, which would have been barely perceptible at ground level, in the noisy streets below. From her vantage point, she could see smoke rising in the distance, and as she watched it, she felt her heart beating faster. Had they disembarked higher up the coast, and approached on foot? It became apparent in that moment that Ashley didn't know what her pursuers looked like—she only knew what ship she needed to steer clear of. Eyes locked on to the smoke, she listens for another explosion, barely noticing Mikhail's return as she hopes desperately to be wrong.

[color=f7941d]"Anything show up yet?"[/color] he asked, but received no reply.

No second explosion. Either it was nothing, or the battle she imagined might be happening was already over—a bad sign.

Various feelings—instincts, Ashley called them—waged a war for dominance in Ashley's mind. Torn between her desire as a knight to investigate and protect the peace of this place, and her duty to guard Mikhail, Aleria, and the mission, her face betrayed no emotions—only the urgent look of someone thinking fast. Underneath the darkness clouding her heart, there may have once been a scared, helpless girl who was in over her head, but now, she couldn't feel anything that she would call "fear." Instead, perhaps, there was a "weight" of responsibility.

[color=#ff39d6]"I wish I could give a clear answer. Did you feel that?"[/color] Ashley asked Mikhail. Surely, she thought, the bathwater must have been shaken as a result of the explosion. [color=#ff39d6]"Either way, we've no more time for luxuries. We're regrouping,"[/color] she says plainly, exiting the room and holding the door open for Mikhail. As she said this, she scowled at herself for not having given everyone some kind of signal to watch out for—or, at the bare minimum, a deadline to return to the ship. Remembering her remark to the captain about "herding cats," she couldn't help but wonder if she could be so lucky a second time.

[color=#ff39d6][i]Everyone is counting on you. If you can't act like a leader—with or without coffee—you should just let Mikhail take over.[/i][/color]

As these thoughts are going through her mind, she almost forgets to toss the hotel key into the wooden bowl sitting on the desk at reception. That's when she remembers that Mikhail still has her money. She looks at him as if to ask for it back, but then turns away and keeps walking, as though now weren't the time to worry about it. Or perhaps, she thought their funds were safer with him, after all.

Unfortunately, she only knew where one person was, and it was the person she considered the most dangerous of the nine. However, someone as tall as her would have a much easier time trying to find someone in a crowd than either of them, so Ashley felt it was her best move. [color=#ff39d6]"We know where Tonka is. Let's get her first. Lead the way,"[/color] she said to Mikhail, drawing closer to him. One hand on her scabbard, she eyes everyone in the crowd warily, as if unsure who she were looking for. She seemed almost... no, she was definitely tense.