Itxaro could barely focus on Kolvar's words as they spilled out of her translator. Her dark eyes were locked on his nimble hands as they worked at a near-imperceptible speed. He seemed as either-handed as a spider and similarly dexterous. The alien's hands gesticulated and twisted in strange ways and she felt a warmth growing in her leg, not unpleasant. Itxaro watched as the red-streaked flesh knitted itself back together under Kolvar's touch. He began chanting in a tongue yet unfamiliar to her even in this alien world, and the translation device read back an error screen. When all was finished, Itxaro couldn't even tell which leg had been shot. 

She laughed in disbelief. [color=fff200]"I think you're gonna put our medics out of business, Kolvar. Thanks. Wish you were tagging along with us."[/color]

The alien was curious just why she'd been attacked in the first place. [color=00aeef]"I am curious about the reason why you were wounded by your own crewmember."[/color]

[color=fff200]"Yeah, I'm curious about that too, Kolvar. It wasn't one of ours who did it, though. I don't think so, anyways. Human politics are a little complex,"[/color] She replied as she stood up, testing her leg as if it were a new and alien part of her body. It felt fine. [i]Better[/i] than fine. Better than she ever remembered. She wondered if she could get a full spa treatment from these mages, a sort of rejuvenating treatment.

Kolvar continued. [color=00aeef]"If I may speak freely, I am worried that each faction is using you against each other. And once they are finished dealing with the other faction, they will try to enslave you. I know your captain wants to resolve this situation peacefully, but I would be cautious of Kareet and Silbermine. There is no telling what their true intentions are.”[/color]

Itxaro appreciated the alien's candor. [color=fff200]"Thanks, Kolvar, but I think that's something my crew has considered one hundred times over by now. They're a paranoid lot. We're just gonna have to take it one day at a time, I think."[/color] There was growing suspicion among all parties, it seemed, and Itxaro was already weary of it. She was glad to get away from at least some of the humans and try to diffuse whatever conflict was growing. 

With a wave, she said her goodbyes to Kolvar, hefted up her pack, and headed to join the rest of her party. She took one last look of the Jotunheim. An ugly thing in her eyes, a foreign scab on the landscape, and she was happy to be leaving it. 
[hr]

Itxaro spent the next several minutes frantically running around Silbermine's camp like some mad tourist. She watched smiths work metal with foreign tools into alien shapes. She studied tailors as they transmuted crude fabrics and leather into fine clothing and boots suitable for a human form. Glenn knights in full plate tested their mettle against one another as they clashed in a makeshift arena. Itxaro had been to many renaissance fairs back on Earth, a guilty pleasure for her, but this was like nothing she'd ever seen. It was all [i]real[/i]. 

One Glenn, large even for their race, called out to her from their small tent. "Human! Come, come, try my food. You'll grow as strong as our host Lord Silbermine on this stew." The Glenn wore simple and stained clothes and bore no antlers atop their large head, so Itxaro assumed this was in fact a female Glenn. She couldn't resist, of course, and was drawn to the Glenn's tent by both her call and the powerful and unknown aromas sent forth by her cooking. 

[color=fff200]"You don't do to-go orders, do you?"[/color]

"Tew-go?"

[color=fff200]"Nothing. Can I take that in a flask or something?"[/color]

The Glenn smiled, showing their large forager teeth, each row like a line of little tombstones. "I was told you humans are strange. But it can be done." She doled out a massive portion of stew into a dried and painted plant of some kind with a stopper affixed to the top, not unlike a gourd bottle. More than Itxaro could ever hope to eat in a single day. Not that she wouldn't try. 

[color=fff200]"Thank you. What's this called?"[/color] Itxaro asked as she slung the bag over her shoulder like a bandolier. It was surprisingly heavy.

The Glenn responded in kind, but not to Itxaro's satisfaction; the translator failed her, as she should have expected. Itxaro asked what was in the dish, but was met with similar disappointment. She thanked the Glenn profusely before realizing she was meant to be leaving with Silbermine and scrambled off. 
[hr]

Itxaro just caught the tail-end of their host's speech before they departed. She didn't find it difficult to keep pace with the Glenn, especially now that her leg was mended. She fell in line next to Mallory and Shirik. Itxaro felt light despite the gloomy marsh; even in this swamp she found beauty, admiring the wild and alien plants that grew from the murky puddles, tufted stalks which bore large and luminous bulbs at their ends. She barely paid any attention to the party's banter until Silbermine's voice cut through. 

[color=fff200]"They go well, Lord Silbermine, thank you,"[/color] Itxaro said, slipping into the antiquated speech she often used when addressing him. For fun, mostly, as if she were acting the part of a medieval knight in some play. Anyone fluent in English would detect the mirth in her voice that the translator flattened. [color=fff200]"The resource in greatest demand for us now is time. Given enough, we should be able to mend our home."[/color] 

She switched off her translator and looked to Mallory.

[color=fff200]"So, what's the plan? We shouldn't let this cocksucker know what we actually need yet, right? Keep it vague?"[/color]

[hider=Mentions][@Eviledd1984] [@Expendable] [@Cath][/hider]