"Oh! My! Gosh!" Chen bounces up, almost standing in her stirrups to see as the balloons come into view. Her horse (she named her Hei because Chen took the black mare) prances forward nervously, feeling Chen leaning forward, and realizing she's distressing her mount, Chen leans back and urges Hei into a trot instead so that she can get to the full view over the hill faster!

The others might be forgiven for not immediately riding forward to match Chen. She had spent the entire trip bouncing up and down at new sights, sounds, and smells. She had been popping up out of hay bales and accidentally causing the boat to rock, and generally being an incorrigible little bundle of energy the whole trip.

You have to understand, it's not that Chen hadn't seen the countryside. She had her painting spots near Sourcefall, and a few special places further afield. And she had been kidnapped and dragged about a fair few times. But mostly, Chen flew, and the people who kidnapped her flew and stopped at little cottages or glades, whatever safe place they knew. She saw the world from above it, and often at a blur when she was in a hurry. She never just [i]traveled[/i]. So on this trip, bouncing from wagons to boats to horses, everything was new and exciting because Princess Chen of the Northern Wind, for all her training and skills had just never traveled this way.

There had been a little glimpse of Chen's regular life when they got the horses. She had to go back, so she had stepped a little distance from the horses (so as not to startle them) held out her sword, and then zipped off just like that! She'd been back at the shrine within moments, bowed and offered payment without trying to negotiate, and then zipped right back, the whole morning's walking trip done in about fifteen minutes. And yes, she had been showing off a little bit, but she also didn't want to keep her new friends waiting, so she'd gone for a speed record on that route that wouldn't be broken for decades. 

But, back to the balloons. Chen rode forward and caught the first glimpse of the flying dragon, bringing Hei to a stop. This, she had never seen. Her parents had taken her to visit the Sky Castle when she was little, but they didn't go to the market below (or maybe they were there at the wrong season, she didn't know) and so this was the first time she had witnessed their trading like this. It was incredible, almost beyond words. She gently urged Hei to a stop and just stared from their hill as the world flashed with dragon breath and the balloons began to take off. 

"Amazing. This is just...have any of you ever seen this before?" She turned back to the group, sparkling wide eyes aimed mostly for Rose who seemed the best traveled. "This has to be special, right? They can't just do this all the time, can they?" She asks nobody in particular.