For a moment, Wri looked at the man, perplexed. The scar that leaped across his face told the tale of one near brush with death, and his eyes seemed to imply many more. And no wonder he would come so close to Lady Death so often, with ideas like those. Ask for more clothing? It's not as if she didn't have clothes, and it's not as if it were going to warm up any time soon. She might as well begin to learn to handle herself in this sun-forsaken cold. And even if they did give her clothing, it would just be another thing to lose whenever fortune decided to give out.

Wri furrowed her brow, [color=ccccee]'You really don't understand much about how the world works, do you, old man?'[/color]

The swishing of Aborran's ludicrously ornate robes drew her attention away. She held her arm out as the others had to receive a mark, holding the wizard's gaze with an intensity that seemed to discomfort him. Good. It put her on edge to have someone holding her arm like this; it meant she couldn't move if she needed to. If she was going to be uncomfortable with this situation, so was he. Maybe that would encourage him to get it over with faster.

As the mark glowed and faded, and the king's adviser quickly scuttled away from her, Wri turned back to the old man who had spoken. She drew a breath, but was interrupted by the boy's gleeful outburst. Her mouth closed to a line and she leveled a withering look at the child. Was he really more concerned about sweets than anything else right now? And no one else saw any problem with having this child along on their journey. What was he to be, a mascot? At least she knew that she could survive on her own and avoid burdening the group. She somehow suspected that the boy wouldn't even be able to manage that. Were he a child of Eerum, he would be dead already, and rightfully so. She turned her gaze downward, then took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

Travelers. Travelers and their sweets. Travelers and their food. Travelers and their drink. They took it all for granted. In some ways she hoped that the journey ahead would be a hard one; it might serve these water-logged strangers good. It really wasn't clear to her how they had survived as long as they had. Only one of them seemed to have even the vaguest sense of awareness of the room, and one of them was going so far as to wear a helmet! She was fairly certain that she could rob three of her four companions blind on the spot and the king himself wouldn't see it happening. How, then, did they survive, out there where they were unprotected, where there were real people trying to steal from them, exploit them, kill them? Was she going to have to play mother to these clueless oafs for their whole trip?
 
 
[hr]

Wri realized that at some point the room around her had lost focus. She gave herself two breaths to regain her composure. If something had happened in those moments when she had indulged herself with her little internal rant, she might not have reacted quickly enough. Perhaps, she thought grimly, these people were rubbing off on her. She shuddered, and told herself that it was only because of the cold.