A pleasant sensation, a distracting one, warmed the worn face of a traveler in the way it always did at this hour with its rays. The morning sun was a blessing, gentle enough to caress rather than oppress as it did in other places - summer or not. It now found itself above the boughs of the forest flanked road, illuminating much if not all of it and draping the rest in soft shadows which swayed at most in the breeze. For many days prior it had done this just as well, year after year beyond number or even recollection and well before the path here existed surely, but for the past few weeks and months it also revealed the aforementioned wanderer. She had avoided the open throughout its majority, seeing it only sparsely through the branches above but not without reason.

Whereas most men could walk freely in the day without fear, rather greater safety in doing so, her odd figure could not. It was only now as she drew closer yet to the mingled town of men and elves did she have no other option but to set down the road in plain view; concealing herself would only arouse worries if she were discovered, ones that often met in violence if panic was not preceding and prevailing. So she endured the end of her travel on the dry earthen road before her, distancing herself from her concerns of being so vulnerable by musing on the sky above her.

Even with one pallid eye marred by a wicked scar that drew from brow to cheek, she admired it and the openness of it all before her, letting it lull her into a sense of better memories.

But those did not last, not as she drew ever closer and ever nearer. The seriousness of her nature and her concerns played themselves out as her jowls curved from subtle contentment to disciplined calm. It returned to her, this levelheadedness, when she saw the outskirts before her unfolding; houses built along the path with some among the trees and fields and others right beside the road. All the same, she moved onward and into the foreign land with the same pace her large feet carried her before, the dull glint of the sun upon her armored breast and the rest absorbed by the dark tatters of her faded robe and cloak.

A few folk, busying themselves in conversation beside a low fence, became quiet. A woman in humble tan threads pushed her child behind her and the man, once leaning against the fence, stared just as wide eyed as them both. He didn't move - almost as though he feared that if he so much as twitched the stranger who towered over him as she passed would cut him down where he stood. Others tending their fields or stock likewise slowed to various halts, with at the most hushed mutters and murmurs circulating. They were unpleasant words, some spoken in the common tongue, others in elven, but the former were far more critical than those latter. The wanderer paid them no heed in response, though in heart she felt their bite just as much as she had before; they were just as much daggers today as they were ten, twenty, if not thirty or more years ago.

It took her time, with onlookers still staring the entire way, to reach the gates of the city. While manned by mostly various elf blooded guard, the men on post before her rose to their feet at what they saw coming toward them upon the road. Many tipped their helmets or cupped their hands to their brow; what [i]thing[/i] was so bold as to walk into the city and just what was [i]it[/i] exactly? Of all of them to react however, the youngest and most inexperienced man did. He was a boy playing soldier, perhaps just old enough to have found his way into the guard on good favor or debts he or family owed, either way he raised his weapon and challenged the tall, strange woman. Rushing closer as he did, spear at the ready, he raised the point but perhaps a few feet from her; his cohorts hesitated behind him, unsure if he was doomed or if he would actually stop her.

And stop she did.

He glanced unsteadily from shoulder to shoulder, realizing he was alone despite his mustered demand to know who she was and what business she had; [i]"You, thing, who - who are you and w-what is your business?"[/i]

The other few men fell in, keeping their weapons low at the ready, attempting not to escalate matters any further but unsure just what it was they were looking at let alone dealing with. She was this odd melding of woman and terrible beast of prey, with a tawny fur to her, strong limbs and injuries of old; unsightly, so they felt, but unnerved all the same. Not quite a monster as they expected or had heard, but not at all what they were prepared to meet on this day at their gate.

She moved carefully the left hand to remove her hood, revealing her ferine muzzle in its fullest. They stared at one another in brief, man and beast, observing the cold lifelessness of one wounded eye and the vibrant gold of the other that punctuated her features. The threatening spear shook a little, but shivered more when her low, rumbling voice spoke with near regal authority.

"I am Sakaala and my business is work."

[@Mag Lev]