[h2]Madara[/h2]

	The half-palanter looked out of place in the small shop of both furniture and assorted knick-knacks - a slender yet strong figure in an almost immaculate dark green tunic weaving through the cramped interior of the shop with an odd kind of meticulously rehearsed ease. Even with a backpack slung over her shoulders and apparently heavy pouches tied to her waist, there was nary a sliver of fabric brushing against the wares. Long, slender, spidery fingers tracked the items on display, the ends of her pointed and oddly glinting - perhaps lacquered, or at least oiled - fingernails almost, but not quite touching the surfaces of the more finely crafted pieces. 
	[i]Always almost.[/i] Perhaps it was a generalized mutual respect towards craftsmanship in any form, for she herself was a seamstress and a seller of assorted special wares. She preferred if people weren't overly handsy with anything on display, either. No matter how much you washed yourself, skin was [i]inherently[/i] a bit oily. Fabrics, paper, wood, they all soaked it up, just a little. And more expensive pieces could have hundreds of contemplators who didn't quite want to take the plunge. 
	It was perhaps in stark contrast, then, that the very same half-palanter was also a somewhat accomplished surgeon. Same general concept, she would say. Just messier. Much, [i]much[/i] messier. 

	Madara had in technicality little use for furniture made so far from her little town - not that of the ordinary variety, anyway -, but there was little to peruse in this quaint little village with, indeed, less than a third the houses of her hometown and none of the benefits from the added trade and business due to the transit between Nemhim and Wenal city. Some market stalls, someone to fix your plough, a herbalist, a winery (for later, either to celebrate, or ... just because) this here carpentry store and, of course, the main aim for this detour. 
	Would anything come of that? Maybe, maybe not, but there was no do without try and you had to go out of the way if you wanted more [i]supplies[/i] beyond what traveling merchants offered nigh free of additional effort (but not free of sometimes rather excessive monetary cost). The two she left behind could deal with that and anything else usually expected of her just fine. 

	The small figurines of prooga displayed next to chairs, spinning wheels and other utilitarian items seemed almost as removed from the place as she herself, all traces of the original event they were commemorating long gone, but as it appeared, not quite forgotten. Well, at least one in the village had [i]been[/i] then and there. Someone had taken the time and effort to painstakingly carve even the hair on some of the wooden prooga. Idly, she wondered if the same hands had crafted the sign above the door. 
	[i]How long had it been, now?[/i] Perhaps enough to be not quite as early in the morning. Palanters tended towards nocturnality and slept little. Humans ... not quite so. She wasn't entirely certain on which side penin fell, but heavily suspected that it was closer to the latter, especially in a village as human-oriented. 
	A politer time for unscheduled visits, it would be. Without further ado, the ever so uncanny woman slipped out without making a purchase, straightening her shoulders and preparing to brace herself. But ah, it was actually quite mild now, almost warm, quite unlike the earliest crack of dawn.
	With long, measured strides, she headed down the street, fully intent on just making an appointment out of herself. 

	There were sparse people wandering on the streets, minding their own business, and she would have reached her destination just the same, too, if it weren't a small bit of something [i]particular [/i]catching the front and center of her field of vision just as she was taking the right turn that would have led her straight to Bor Manor, necessitating a pause and a quick side-step onto the grounds of whichever villager just happened to have their house across the street from both the inn and the guardhouse, and behind a carriage parked there.
	The tall, armored man approaching the Fadewatcher Station? He quite very [i]definitely[/i] had a hand on his sword. A smaller guy - also armored, but resembling a Fadewatcher in his attire, albeit not bearing their tabard - was facing the street. Well, [i]something [/i]was definitely happening, and it might just come to be that her services would be needed even before she got to where she was headed. Not that she'd be intervening just yet, oh no - she had no intentions of engaging in open combat with two professional-looking armored swordsmen with just teeth, nails and a dagger. 
	She [i]could[/i] fight, if need be, but she was not a fight[i]er[/i], and it would be terribly unproductive if the only person in vicinity who knew how to attach a tendon to bone or sew a jugular back together [i]before [/i]you bled out got her hand lopped off during the first stage of the conflict. It was only practical that she simply resolved to protect herself rather than rush headlong into ... whatever was actually about to go down in there. Surely, no one would aim to ambush a guardhouse through the front door, [i]the very people who you'd usually go to in case of an armed break-in[/i], in the middle of a village, with just two people? 
	The smaller guy might have noticed her already, for better or worse, as for a moment he appeared to look straight at her. Oh well.