The man pulled himself up to his full height, the hawk moving to resettle itself onto his hand again; cleaning its feathers like this was an everyday occurrence for the two of them. It could very well have been, for all Naya knew. The girl’s fine features twisted into a scowl when she saw that he’d left the jam abandoned in the dirt, affronted by his blatant refusal of it. “I shan't be going anywhere unless you answer my questions first; you are mage-kind that much is obvious. But from where do you hail, and what did you intend wandering these deserts?” The stranger asked, his voice even without a trace of doubt in it.

“I do not know what this word, ‘mage-kind’ means,” Naya grumbled, very obviously irritated by his questioning. “I come from there,” she tells him, stretching out her arm and pointing north with her dagger, “…and I’m going that way,” the witch finishes vaguely, moving her arm and weapon so they are both now pointing south. “The rest is my business. Now leave me be. Take the jar with you, I won’t be owing you anything else,” the girl demands, giving him a pointed look before kneeling and putting her dagger away in her boot. She digs through her satchel again and this time retrieves a couple of handfuls of yarrow leaves, tearing them up and rubbing them together in her hands. Typically the plant was used to cure fevers and swelling, along with being used in minor warding spells, but Naya knew it would help keep infection at bay as well.

With little ceremony, the witch reached down and tore a swatch of fabric free from the hem of her dress, wrapping it around the small wound and tying it tightly. Normally the brunette wouldn’t have worried about binding such a small cut, but with the sand blowing wildly out here, she had to take extra precautions to keep it clean. “Why are you still here?” she asks him, raising a brow at the man creature. He had been nothing but kind to her, but his presence made her uneasy. “Get back up on your friend and go,” she demands again, nodding towards the salamander who was bedded down and waiting patiently for its master’s return. Naya had never seen anything like it before, the biggest lizard that called her forest home was the occasional iguana, so this creature was truly something to behold. [I]’It’s beautiful,’[/i] she thought to herself, her eyes passing over the salamander’s rough looking scales before returning her gaze back to the heavily cloaked man.