"And so you do use illusionists? I thought so, but I wasn't su- What?"
Everyone had fallen silent. Thinking she'd said something wrong, Ilmena coughed nervously, looking around at the others.
It was then that she noticed that they weren't looking at her, but at something behind her, in the forest.
Brows together in her confusion, the girl turned around.
"I don't see anyth- Oh!" Ilmena stood up quickly and hurried to the girl's side. Upon seeing that she was unconscious, the runaway rolled her over. Noticing the girl's unusual clothes, she frowned, but turned to the others. "She's a human."
"A
human?" cried one of the women, staring with more than a bit of disgust, clearly disturbed. Upon Ilmena's fierce glare and "
I'm a human, so I suggest you either put aside your prejudices or leave.", she looked down, muttering something to herself. Probably about how Ilmena was the daughter of pigs and a mud-dweller, but it didn't really matter.
Tekuri stood abruptly, dropping his metal plate with a slight
clang as it hit the ground. "I think we've had enough visitors for tonight. Clan Peacock and girl- Eeta, or whatever your name truly is, we leave. Now."
"But what about her?" Ilmena asked, voice a bit too shrill for her own liking. "We can't just leave her here for the wolves! Or werewolves- it is a full moon. Do you really want to have a female werewolf hunting you down because you- um, left her to, er. Die..." She finished, voice no louder than a whisper, not wanting to meet the head of the clan's angry stare.
"Fine. If you can pay for her passage, she goes. But I'm not putting her on the caravan. Blurin," he said loudly, to pull the attention of the man away from the strange human girl, "If Eeta pays, then bring the girl on."
Blurin and Tekuri looked at Ilmena expectantly.
She winced, but reached into her coin bag and, trying to think of the girl's wellfare and the lessons in helping other creatures when they have need of it she'd learned throughout her life, and not of how she much gold she was spending- and in one night!
"Here." She thrust a large, square gold coin into Tekuri's hand, not looking at him, instead choosing to glare at his shoes. "One golden shell. You can have it transfered to the money of your choice at the border- I gave you all of my universal gold already, so I only have Imorna coins left. Take it or leave it."
He took it.
At that, Ilmena spun on her heel and went back to the covered wagon, head held high as she ignored the curious gazes of the other gypsies. Finding the corner near the back that she had been sitting near before, she sat, trying to block out the sounds surrounding her- Blurin asking someone to help him bring the girl onboard, Tekuri asking the Alven if he wanted to come with them, the idle gossiping of Tidana and her friends...
All the human thought of was the strange girl's clothes. They were familiar, and she knew where she had seen that style before. The summer before, a human family had decided to move to the Otherworld, after deciding that their world- Earth- had no place for them. One of the daughters had been a year or two younger than she, and had told her stories of Earth. Including what the rich women wore.
"Earth," Ilmena muttered to herself, raising her head and staring into space, eyes narrowed. "She's from Earth."
(('Tis quite hard to not unintentionally God Mod when one of the characters near you is unconscious, and the other's player won't be online for three days. So I had to use the wonderful and amazing powers of the greatness that is the NPC. Or, in this case, many NPCs.
))
can't find the sig from this set, so instead, you get a
.