[Seasonal Event] Another Day in Andaris

[Jade]

_________________________

4th Trial of Saun, Arc 716

It was raining... Yet another day where wet precipitation fell from the sky to coat the cobblestone roads with muddy, messy puddles. One would think in Saun, there would be more sunshine than rain but Andaris must have been experiencing a storm of sorts and, needless to say, it was putting a bit of a damper on traveling.

Of course, among those who had been delayed were none other than Ziell, though he could care less how quickly he left the city. Andaris was nothing like Ne'haer, but it provided enough of a distraction and rest for the Immortal. Like everyone else, the rain had put him in a bit of a gloom as he found most of the time his thoughts were preoccupied with memories of Daia, his first love. She'd been killed by a mortal, thus provoking a war between his brethren for their extinction. As pained as he was, Ziell could never instigate, much less participate in such a thing as war. Besides, human women had their uses.

A groan followed from the opposite side of the room as Ziell's eyes followed the noise. A curvy brunette slowly untangled from the sheets, rolling over and away from the light of the window, “Is it morning already..?” She'd mumbled.

Ziell reached for his pants and slid them on, his shoes following. “Actually, it's midday.”

“Midday?!” The brunette exasperated, popping up and barely covering her bosom with the sheets. Like she had a reason to really, after what they'd done, “Were you not going to wake me?”

“Trust me, love,” Throwing a rather large bag over his shoulder, he reached for his shirt of the foot board, “You needed the rest.” Spoken in such a way, the mortal would never realize the innuendo laced within the words.

“You're leaving already?” Her pout was evident, yet she was more alluring than sad due to the fact she'd dropped the sheets to stretch out. Ziell chuckled, a small smile on his face as he reached into his pocket and approached her. Leaning down, he planted a feather light kiss on her forehead and pressed coin into her palm.

“Remember this,” He told, bending to speak against her ear, “Even if it's an arranged marriage, you might still find what you're looking for. You can't run from the past... Most certainly not the future.” With that, he pulled away, leaving the girl stranded in bed, dumbfounded.

Ziell didn't even bother to throw on his shirt. The moment his foot stepped out into the road, the rain stopped abruptly. His torso paled, skin seemingly radiating with a chill that reflected broken ice. Lips parted, a lull of a voice so low and soft that few could hear, much less feel the power in the air as a spell was cast. The sky grayed while a cold wind pushed through that would draw attention from all around. However, the Immortal appeared so casual and mortal that he was confident no one would ever suspect who or what he was.

Few had, anyway.

Rounding the corner, the chill in the air draped over the surrounding buildings and streets, growing cooler by the bit. His skin was lightly tanned again, power vanished from his form till there was no sign left to out him. Ziell turned another corner and walked directly through the marketplace.

Now to restock supplies, purchase gear, get a mount, and then he'd be off. Pausing to look around, he frowned slightly.

Where to start?

Posting Rules and List

Hello lovelies, feel free to join in for a chance to meet an Immortal. However, keep in mind that I will be following a 3 day posting rule. This rule means that if it is your turn to post and you don't do so within 3 days, we're skipping you and moving onto the next person. Listed below are the posters in order of who goes when. If you fail to respond 2 times within the thread (that's 6 total days of wait time), you will be kicked.

Sorry folks but I've got a thing about waiting and 3 days is my max. With that said, lets have some fun!

1. Jade
2. Daliane Andaris
3. Alistair
4. Tristan Venora
5. Faith
6. Nir'wei

[Daliane Andaris]

The book would be completely soaked now; Daliane should've brought a coat. Yes, the season was a hot one and it sometimes brought delightful trials-- today was not one of those trials.

Earlier that day, when he entered the library, he could not recollect it pouring so heavily. Then again, he was not giving the weather too much attention. While heading toward the library, he was thinking about the book he wanted to check out, the very book he was holding over his head now. The book he was thinking about told of special creatures, one he wish he had the luxury of riding. Even someone like himself, a lord, could not just claim one of these extraordinary beast for himself. Daliane only read bits and pieces of the book so far but this particular creature is not easy to obtain and did not obey just anyone. In fact, many did not belong to a person. Like many other specimen, they were wild and listened to their own instinct.

Unlike many specimen though, these creatures are dangerous and can breathe fire hot enough to melt one's skin.

The cover of the book is similar to his house sigil. Yet the dragon on the cover was much more detailed and the color of the sky, not gold.

The front of the book was pressed against his head as he hurried home. Daliane was so worried about the rain, not wanting to be completely soaked, he took many wrong turns and ended up in the marketplace. He had never been to such a place, everything he ever needed always being provided.

Daliane was a bit frightened now. There were so many unfamiliar faces surrounding him and so many were unpleasant. With the book still pressed against his head, he looked around the marketplace. Those big brown eyes of his revealed just how frightened he was right now. Everything was so different. He moved slowly, cautious of every step that he took. He did his best to stay out of other's way but he could only do this for so long. Daliane was destined to bump into someone.

"Ooof!" He bumped heads with someone, falling to the ground and causing who ever he ran into to drop their things. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. I've never been here and it's kind of big and-- Mary?" After grabbing a few of the person's things, he recognized the white haired woman. She moved fast trying to get her things but once she heard her name, she stopped.

"Iz dat me lawd?" Mary gave him a toothless grin."Whet ah ye doin' herr?"Her grin had vanished and like a loyal servant, she helped Daliane to his feet. "Lookat ya m'lawd, ya wet!" Mary gasped, touching Daliane's damp clothing. Thank the seven he was not soaked but he was not completely dry either. "Come, stan' heh." Mary pulled Daliane under a large tent, where someone was selling food. "I'll get ya a new cloak, yes. It's whet m'lawd needs." Grabbing her things from Daliane, the old woman left. "I'll be back, me promise."

"Thank you Mary, thank you so much." Daliane called out as he wrapped his arms around himself and watched her leave. "Oh."

The air grew sort of cold around him, which was unusual and out of place. "What is going on?"

Common-Xanthea

[Alistair]

He had just gotten back from Venora after an intricate political meeting with Lord Peake Andaris. Although he did not wish to return to Andaris so soon, work with the univeristy - a job he'd recently taken on - had begun and he was never one to make an ill first impression, at least not to an employer. The Venora was wearing his silk brocade vest with the Venora pin as usual, others eyeing him as he walked the roads wearing his aristocratic ensemble. Whispers often followed the heir to a Great House coming and going - whether it be merely acknowledgment, praise, or poisonous gossip.

Unfortunately, Alistair was quite hungry. It'd been a long and tumultuous journey without much food to greet him once he'd arrived in Andaris - merely some bread and the touch of water. He had come to the city square to search for stores with pleasant stock and prices, but along his way he'd discovered something entirely different than what he expected: a unique feeling, to say the least. A shivering cold, but one rare of Andaris in Saun to say the least, and one that felt more than merely a gust. There was a mage here, perhaps, he could only assume. What sort of magic could produce a cold wind, however? Perhaps some tilted form of Abrogation?

No matter. Nothing could be said or done unless that presence well... presented itself, surely. Alistair, rather than focusing on his strange leak of intuition, caught out a familiar face in the crowd and falsely smiled. A young man from a powerful family. Daliane Andaris, who had spent a great deal of time in Venora, and thus had been at least something of an acquaintance to Alistair. The nobleman approached the other and waved hello. "I'd just met with your brother, Lord Daliane, and..." his thoughts trailed off for a moment. I wonder where that came from? he asked himself. The man had an unhealthy obsession with magic, and now a portion of him wished to unveil the mystery so that he could learn from it or something like that.

Daliane could be a good person to ask - perhaps the chill was merely Alistair suffering from some onset medical condition that he would need to defer to another doctor. "Did you feel that chill?" he asked the young man. "To me, it felt unnatural. Perhaps it is unsafe to be here?" He bit his lower lip. The man knew enough about transmutation and other devious forms of magic to think perhaps that such gusts and anomalies were a precursor to something else, like an act of great cataclysm on the city. It wouldn't be a surprise considering the greater Coven presence in Rynmere lately, as well as the tensity over the civil war. He became lost to his thoughts and placed his fingers beneath his chin to stroke it as he pondered. Maybe it was all just a histrionic freak-out on his part.

He'd become quite paranoid after all of that had transpired as of late, which was quite against his usual character.

[Tristan Venora]

It was raining again, but Tristan didn’t mind. The young noble was probably one of the few people in Andaris, if not in the entirety of Rynmere, who loved rain, thunderstorms, and other kinds of bad weather, so when thick, wet drops started to fall from the sky, he decided to go for a walk.

As he stepped out onto the street, he met his neighbor who was just on her way home from work. The woman had her cloak thrown over her head to keep it from getting wet and looked decidedly uncomfortable. As Tristan walked past her, their eyes met for a moment.

"It’s a nice trial, isn’t it?" he remarked. He hadn’t put anything on his head. Wet, dark locks framed his face, and drops of water occasionally landed on his face which didn’t bother him at all. The past season he had been too hot, and he had wanted to take a bath anyway later that trial.

"Ummm … it’s raining, my lord", his neighbor pointed out and looked at him as if he had gone a little crazy. Tristan laughed and nodded. "Indeed, it is. I love the rain. It might also keep Veljorn and his army from advancing for a while. I really can’t stand that guy."

His cousin’s husband and his insane wish to be king even though Rynmere already had a king and he might plunge the kingdom into chaos with his actions were the only things that dampened his good mood somewhat. He didn’t understand why Veljorn and Zvezdana couldn’t just do something else, such as sleeping around, getting drunk or taking drugs, like other frustrated people and let him and the rest of Andaris live in peace and enjoy their lives.

"Well, I gotta be going. I want to get a few things from the market", he said and waved because he really wasn’t in the mood to dwell on that matter even a bit or a trill longer.

~~~

While most people stuck to the walls of the houses and tried to walk under the roofs so that they wouldn’t get wet, Tristan walked in the middle of the street and observed his surroundings with interest – until the rain stopped abruptly, the sky grayed, and the air around him grew so much colder than it should be on a Saun trial.

Shivering slightly, he wrapped his cloak tightly around his body before he entered the marketplace. The cold was unexpected, but it was not a major issue. It would give him a good excuse to buy a new hat and gloves and possibly visit a tavern when he was done shopping.

"I wonder if it will start to snow next", he said to whoever cared to listen and thought about where he should go first. There were so many things he wanted to get! "Snow in Saun would be something, wouldn’t it?"

[Faith Augustin]

Faith

The young woman who was walking through the market that trial was pensive. Nervous, even, in truth. This evening, she was due to be branded again and she was nervous about it. Now, Faith knew that she shouldn't be, that she had no right to be, but that didn't change the simple fact that, beneath the very calm and controlled demeanour, she was a boiling pot of nervous. She had been branded last just over an arc before and so she knew without a doubt how much it was going to hurt and she really was not feeling like it was something she could just shrug off and pretend wasn't happening.

But that was what she had to do. Because, she knew well enough that for the next few trials, she was going to be slow and in pain and so she needed to make sure that she had bought everything she could in order to ensure that Master did not suffer because she was injured. She had planned the menu for the next three trials, and so now she was in the market having bought all of what she needed. Except she had stopped at this particular stall, which sold salves and so on. She would need those in order to heal as fast as she could and to stop the brand from getting infected. She lowered her head to the salves, looking at each one and then lifted her head and asked in her usual quiet voice.

"Excuse me? I need something that will help to stop a burn from becoming infected. Do you have anything that might help?" she asked, and the stall holder, an older woman nodded

"Yes, of course. Maybe some of this, it has aloe and calendula in it, it will sooth the burn and fight infection. Is that the kind of thing?" she asked kindly enough. Although, the young woman in front of her was obviously a slave, from a number of visual cues. She was branded on her right shoulder and on her neck.The one on her shoulder was old and faded, but the one on her neck was probably only about an arc old, to the trained eye. She was wearing a nice yellow dress with a black corset, over which was an obviously decorative, but still evidently what it was, slave collar with a chain hanging from it which split and then connected to the two slave cuffs at her wrists. Her light black cloak covered her against the rain, but wasn't warm which she was grateful for. She smiled her thanks at the woman and purchased the salve, putting it in her basket with slow and careful movements, as always. As she turned to continue on her shopping trip, Faith kept her eyes down and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. And tried not to let the nerves get the better of her, but she was fairly sure that the woman who owned the stall had seen that her hands were trembling slightly

[Nir'wei]

Though it had only just passed midday, Nir'wei already felt like he wanted to crawl back onto his sleeping mat and go back to bed. He'd spent much of the early breaks of the morning in the Skye Verath Lodge, urgently working alongside all of the other handlers and stablehands to prepare all the available mounts and keep them on perpetual preparation. With the rising tensions, it'd become a necessity. Even though they were now working with a significantly smaller force since the previous engagements, it was still an unfathomable workload for such a small volume of staff - Poppy, who normally hummed and sang while she worked, was dead-silent as they tended to injury after injury, most of them sustained during training exercises. Enormous pressure was mounting, rifts between various staff members were gaping wider than ever before and it showed on all their faces.

It was all too much. His workload had grown unbearable, the circulating rumours of attempted assassination and civil war were frightening beyond belief. The Lodge had always worked on behalf of the Iron Hand, they were funded by Iron Hand captains. He didn't want to take a side! He'd not even spent a year in the city and now he was expected to aid the monarchy, a family he'd never seen nor talked with, against another family he'd never seen or talked with, both sides aided by entourages of families he'd never even heard of. All of it was so distant, yet at the same time, it was all around him. He'd come to the obvious conclusion. Pack his bags, gather whatever tools and gear he could afford to purchase and prepare to leave the region at the next possible opportunity.

Which, of course, led to the market. A dreary affair, especially given the overhanging gloom of light drizzle and dark clouds, but ambling through the puddle-pocked cobblestone streets in a perpetually-soaked white shirt and brown cotton slacks was entertaining nonetheless, mostly because of the looks it gained. It turned less amusing when the rain cleared and a chill started to settle, making the Sev'ryn stuff both hands into his soaked pockets and shudder quietly to himself. "What's the point in two suns if neither of them can warm you up," Nir'wei huffed to himself.

"Oh stop complaining, it's not that bad," Archailist snapped, cutting Nir'wei from his train of thought and nearly making him stumble straight into the path of a slave woman stood in front of a herbalist's wooden stall. He apologized, head held low, and shuffled around her quickly. Damnit, familiars were wonderful things, but Archailist seemed to have the worst timing for his outbursts and, worse still, seemed to revel in this fact. Nir'wei had barely begun to form a mental scolding before an image of needles and threads was shoved into his mind's eye. "You need to get sewing equipment, first off, so you can repair your clothes if they get damaged during the trip. Better to invest in a sewing kit than spare clothes that will just as easily get ripped apart when you're not even wearing them."

He'd never sewn before, but, Arch was right. Nir'wei forged ahead. "Maybe if I'm lucky," Nir'wei muttered to himself as another set of temperature-induced convulsions riddled his soaked body, "they'll sell some coats too."

[Jade]

_________________________

“Yooou therah!”

Ziell picked his head up from the gentle gleam of a labradorite stone gripped within the curved metal base of a ring to look upon an old, yet wise wrinkly face of a woman. Her cheeks were rosy, if not a bit dirty from the fresh fruits placed in front of the table she stood behind, and her hair was a salt and pepper mess of brunette. Dusting of her hands, she gestured toward him with a kind of bite that made the Immortal straighten a bit.

“Vhat are yah, deaf?” Her accent rang out, hands still pointing toward him. “Yah vant to poot a shurt on before yah vlind somevon?”

Looking down Ziell dropped the bag he'd been carrying to throw his shirt on, though he left it unbuttoned. Modesty was but a mortal concern... “My apologies, I didn't realize I was causing such offense.” The woman scoffed at his response.

“Offense? Oh, surah.” Her head tilted as her eyes shifted to look at something behind him when Ziell turned. There among the crowd stood a woman, here and there, staring at him. Even some of the men who'd stopped by stalls across the way turned ever so slightly to gaze upon him. He frowned a bit.

“Ah, I see.” Ziell looked back at the ring, his finger tips grazing over the stone. Labradorite was a gemstone often worn by the most skilled animal tamers due to its play of colors, meaning of strength, rarity, and price. It was also one of the Immortal's favorite stones, for trivial reasons. Though he'd let the pain of her loss fade a long time ago, the stone still reminded him of Daia. He didn't hesitate when he snagged his bag back up, dug through its contents, and present coin to the merchant for its purchase.

With the ring boxed, Ziell dropped it back into his bag and nodded toward the old woman. “What's your name?”

Taken back a bit, she answered, “Henrietta.”

Pausing to think, Ziell turned back to the crowd, “Tell me, do you believe in fate? Destiny? Those old prophets and their tales of the future?”

“Oh geez,” Henrietta shook her head, “Yah're crazy.”

Ziell laughed just as the crack of thunder sounded in the sky. “I am entertained.” The drizzle started, slowly picking up into a steady pour when he approached Henrietta's stall to purchase fruit. She didn't seem inclined to deal with him, but accepted the coin he offered for a few apples, pears, and plums. However, as he turned to leave, a hand shoved into his back while his bag was ripped from his grasp.

Ziell didn't move to stop the person but heard Henrietta scream over the noise of the marketplace, “Thief!” Her voice bellowed, her hands pointing again. “Thief! Stop them!”

That was when the Immortal turned to look as a child sprinted through the crowd, old eyes watching expectantly as the Immortal's skin paled and a cold, cold chill settled over the marketplace. Ziell wasn't angry, he'd guessed the child would steal his belongings when he first stepped into the marketplace and saw him lain against one of the stalls, hidden and seemingly napping.

Ancient words whispered into the air while again, the rain halted abruptly and the water on the ground began to freeze. People would noticed, but hopefully their attention would be on the child. As the spell was placed again, Ziell straightened and watched the scene unfold, skin returning to normal, however, the temperature within the market was quickly dropping and soon it would feel like the middle of Zi'da. The frozen water on the ground would make walking or running extremely dangerous as it would be very easy to slip.

Anyone running after the boy would be in for a tough chase.

[Daliane Andaris]

"Oh, please try some, m'lord, try some and tell your family of my cooking!" The fair skinned young woman told him while holding out a bowl of creamy potato soup accompanied by a piece of buttered bread. The woman owned the small tent Daliane had took shelter in and could not help but overhear Mary call Daliane a lord repeatedly. She did not know what great house he belonged to but it had always been a dream of the woman's to work in one as a cook. A part of her hoped that dream will come true today.

"No thank you, I am not hungry right now." Daliane shook his head and made a hand gesture denying the food. He did not want to eat right now. Daliane wanted to return home and leave the marketplace. "Do you mind if I stand here until that old woman comes back?"

She frowned, placing the bowl of soup on the table."I do not mind at all, m'lord." Pain could be heard in the woman's voice and Daliane was beginning to feel remorseful. The teenager did not mean to hurt her feelings, he just didn't have much of an appetite right now.

"I will speak to my grandmother, the Duchess of Andaris!" He raised his voice which snapped the woman out of her own misery. "I do believe she runs the household. I'll tell her about your food, despite not tasting it. But maybe she'll come and try it herself." That would put a smile on the woman's face. He could not promise that his grandmother would visit the market, nonetheless he did not have to. The cook was happy with Daliane's answer. She continued cooking and making meals with a steps lively than before. That put a smile on his face.

The smile still plastered on his face, Daliane looked around the market. He listened to people shout at each other and cringe a bit. The lower class was not arguing, however, just simply communicating. Sellers wanted the buyers to know what they were selling and buyers wanted to make the sellers aware of what they were buying. Yelling seemed to be what made this possible. Daliane could hardly hear himself think. He could hardly hear the Venora approaching.

Daliane would have paid Alistair no mind if it were not for his flashy clothes. The style was not one many wore here and so Lord Alistair stuck out like a sore thumb. Venora men were never ones to disappoint, always looking their best no matter where they were going. He waved back, overlooking Alistair and thinking of how much he favored Tristan (or how much Tristan favored Alistair?). Handsome is a common trait but there were also other things. Daliane could not exactly pinpoint it. Tristan and Alistair looked like cousins is all. "My brother?" He hasn't seen his brother in quite sometime. Daliane made note of Alistair's voice trailing off and wondered if the heir were feeling the same way he was feeling earlier.

"Yes! I felt it earlier, what could it be?" He nodded his head when Alistair continued to speak. "You could be right, Lord Alistair." Something bad could be happening this very moment. Or maybe not. This was all almost too familiar. But he's never experienced cold weather in Saun. I'm just thinking of something else.. He placed his book over his heart and moved it in a circular motion very slowly. He thought of his encounter with Ziell. Like today, the weather was colder than usual. Wait, could that be it? "Cause of the chilling wind could also be--". He didn't finish his sentence. That was in Zi'da, silly. That's a cold season. Instead, he laughed at his own foolish thoughts. As much as he would love the cause of this to be Ziell, it couldn't be it. The Immortal did not appear where he isn't needed, Daliane thought. "Nevermind."

The marketplace was still loud but Daliane could hear someone yelling thief over and over. "Who's that?" He stepped out from beneath the tent to get a better look. Daliane's eyes found an old woman with a look similar to Mary's pointing a finger at a boy carrying a bag much larger than himself. "Oh no, who does the bag belong to?" He asked Alistair like he'd know.

That's when he noticed him. Besides the woman was the man he had thought about since the first night they had met. Daliane couldn't forget his face. "It's you." The starstrucked boy dropped his book and moved forward a bit.

As if to prove his hypothesis is correct, he watched the man smile and whisper something. The rain and puddles on the ground turned to ice. "Alistair...it's him." Daliane did not point at who he was talking about he just stared at Ziell. He slowly exhaled, the boy's breathe showing how the temper had dropped.

Common-Xanthea

[Alistair]

"Your brother?" he asked himself, verifying exactly in his head if that was what he'd said. The man laughed and shook his head. "Oh, dear. Seven forgive me. I meant your cousin, Lord Peake," he corrected himself. Regardless, it was a mistake of speech, and he dwelled not on it. Instead he listened to Daliane as he expressed a similar feeling, which made it very unlikely that Alistair had concocted some illness, he imagined. Well, that left a few options, some of them magical. Alistair didn't know of all of the magics that were out there in the world of Idalos, but he did know of some that could apply a chilling effect to the environment around them. Aberrant mages could - for example - chill brick and bodies to their will, before degrading them. He supposed elemental magic could do much the same. Of course, a portion of his mind figured he was merely being overly dramatic and that the effect would disappear.

All of that would imply a murderous attack on the people of Andaris, as he doubted a mage would cause this chilling effect merely out of boredom. To do such a thing was dangerous, especially due to the superstitious nature of people in Rynmere, Alistair included. He pondered the possibilities further - artifact? He considered. Sudden winds from Cyrene Bay?

As he wondered and as Daliane theorized alongside him - though likely in a quite less magical fashion - he watched a boy dash as a woman called 'thief!' after him. The nobleman shook his head, trying to withhold his surprise considering the brash nature of many of the peasants of Andaris. Daliane asked him who it might have belonged to, the doctor merely shrugging. "As far as I'm concerned, it could belong to a pig farmer. Who cares, really?" he asked him. This was, in a way, the older and more traditional nobleman reining Daliane in to an extent. It wasn't wise to worry about trivialities such as some commoner having their purse stolen in Andaris. Such a thing was an occassion as rare as birds chirping or a Krome rolling around in mud. What followed, however, was Daliane's face in exceptional surprise; a sort of momentous joy washed over him. Alistair quirked his brow.

"You alright?" he wondered. Maybe this is illusion magic, the man considered. A certain possibility, given the strangely excited nature of Daliane crossed with the wisps of cold air.

Suddenly, a piercing cold filled the air. "Ah!" he exclaimed. The temperature dramatically dropped, to the point of causing a violent shiver in Alistair's body. The man had spent most of his life in the perfect climate of Venora, one that hardly changed even in Zi'da. The cold and he did not do well, not at all. "It's who?" he asked, his jaw already beginning to shake. The man wore thin silky clothes - nothing about him was prepared for this absurdity. But now the fear of magic increased, or even worse... some sort of Immortal or their Champion or whatever they called them. He frowned. I only came here for some bloody food, he whispered beneath his breath.

Shivering and shaking, the man looked again to his fellow noble. "Daliane, perhaps we should get inside? I..." He had to admit, the situation perplexed him. Magic had drawn him in due to his curiosity. The power it could bring about. This thing he was experiencing now was certainly something of power... the question only remained - what kind of power?

[Tristan Venora]

"Snow in Saun would not be a good thing, my lord", the woman whose stall Tristan had stopped at told him sternly and arranged her wares so that he could see them better. Whatever she thought of him personally, she still wanted to make some money. She was selling various beverages as well as small snacks and fruit. "The harvest would be destroyed, and the people of Rynmere would suffer as well. They would be ill prepared for such extreme weather at the beginning of Saun and come Zi’da a few would almost certainly starve."

Tristan frowned a little as he heard that. He wasn’t particularly fond of criticism, but then he nodded as she did have a point. Even Sabaissant and the people in his grandmother’s palace would not be entirely unaffected. Faith would not be able to cook those delicious meals for him anymore. But then again, if there was nothing he could do about it, why shouldn’t he enjoy the few good sides that such a sudden onset of winter would have?

"Would you like something to drink, my lord?" the woman asked. "Sure, why not?" Tristan replied and accepted a cup of tea as he was thirsty, and the warm drink would probably make him feel better. Sipping from it occasionally, he stood there and watched the people that passed him by. It was a bit of a hobby of his. When he had been younger, before he had been forced to work and do other adult things, he had often spent breaks outside and made up all kinds of fantastic stories about the people he had seen.

In his imagination the world had been full of crazy mages, dragon slayers and evil liches that trembled in fear when they saw him. He smiled as he remembered, but the smile disappeared abruptly and he quickly put his cup down as he heard a loud scream.

"Thief! Thief! Stop them!"

He exchanged a brief look with the merchant before he disappeared into the crowd and ran after the child, not caring that the ground under his feet had turned to ice and it was so slippery that he nearly fell a couple of times. He was quite fond of ice skating, besides he’d survive a few bruises. Alistair would treat him for free, and Faith would pity him and cook delicious food for him.

He needed to catch the little thief before the guards got him and return the bag to its rightful owner, whoever it was. He had talked to those that had been condemned for thievery. Prison was not kind to its occupants, and he doubted that a child that was desperate enough to steal a bag in such a crowded place had enough money to pay a fine.

The thought of a child in the hands of those that thought they dispensed justice made him deeply uncomfortable. Maybe they’d show mercy if he resolved the whole issue.