The hours until the ship touched down were...uneventful. Pained as she was to admit it, even to herself, Vanahara was...not so great at small talk. At least at the Academy among her fellow Metallics, things had settled into a kind of pattern—people didn't talk to her, and she didn't talk to people. Now that she was thrown into a group of strangers, however, she was out of her element (literally). After parting ways with Drew with a stilted smile, she wandered the ship, at a loss for what to do. She almost paused in the common room, but spotted one of the hydromancers—Nataly; she really needed to remember names—sleeping in a corner, and crept past. 

When she found a suitably dark corner, Vana paused, checking that no one was watching her too closely. She pulled one of the pouches from her belt and tipped its contents into her other hand. With a sound like sloshing water, a scrap of the Storm-steel from earlier that she'd managed to hold onto dripped into her palm, gleaming slightly even in the dark. Eyes lighting up with interest, she cupped both hands around it, tilting it back and forth to study the way it moved. She'd never seen metal like this before—it was almost like molten silver, but it was cool to the touch and the battle on the deck had been proof of its strength, not to mention she could sense it was very fine quality. Its only fault was its unwillingness to hold one shape—while it was easy enough to form a sphere or a cube standing alone in a hallway, it still took focus she might not have in the midst of battle. After a while, she sighed, letting it drip back into her belt pouch before setting off again on her rounds of the ship. For now, she'd keep it to herself, but later she'd see if their new arrival knew anything about Storm metals.

Inevitably, she found herself back in the engine room. This time, at least, the engineers didn't seem to object to her presence and simply ignored her. That suited her just fine as she made sure to stay out of their way and merely sat, palms pressed to the metal pipe behind her, gaining a little more understanding of the ship's workings with every passing minute. When the call came that they'd landed and the Commander was going into town, Vanahara joined the small party. At the order to not give themselves away as mages, she blinked, both confused and concerned as to why it would be necessary. It was simple enough, though—her clothes were rough as they were. The only strange thing about her attire was her bracers, and she merely tucked them into a larger pouch at her side. Her arms felt strangely bare without them, but they'd be at hand if she really needed them.

Stepping into the tavern, she realized she probably would. This was a rough joint, that much was obvious before they even entered, and once Vana was inside, her nose wrinkled of its own accord. 

"Scantily clad women, an undercurrent of violence, and utterly drunk men," she muttered as she sat with the other mages on one of the outer seats. "What a [i]dazzling[/i] combination." For a moment, she thought that the atmosphere could only get better, not worse—and then a boulder crashed through the door, a man was set on fire, and Vanahara could feel a headache coming on. She couldn't keep the scowl off her face, either—this was exactly why mages were feared throughout the known world. Bad examples, the lot of them.

And one of those bad examples was coming their way now. The ice mage was making a circuit of the room, slamming her fist into people or tables with impunity. Vana's fists clenched under the table, knuckles going whiter and whiter with every crash of cutlery and tankards as the mage hit each table hard enough to send them bouncing. She ground her teeth, but stayed where she was, remembering clearly Hayes' instructions to stay incognito and trying to block out the jeers from the other mages. 

The ice mage, of course, made the mistake of coming around to their table. With a sneer, the woman raised her fist to slam it into the table—

And found it stopped, inches above the wood. Vanahara's hand was clenched around the bottom of the mage's fist, forearm straining as she kept it from making contact with the table. Once she was sure the other mage wouldn't be making the same deafening racket as at the other tables, she released her hand easily enough, settling her own back in her lap and meeting the ice mage's eyes calmly. 

"That's enough of that, thank you," she said quietly.