it's odd to feel anxious, she thinks, without the threat of inflicted parasite. this trek had left the unsavory visitors of some of her camp mates dormant, but was that only by sheer luck ? the whole dream visitor thing seems absurd ... but perhaps she's a touch of a skeptic. if respective gods hadn't intervened (sans the illusive goddess of magic requesting gale martyr himself, technically), why would some stranger with an otherworldly power suddenly and conveniently come to the aid of another ? it doesn't rub her right, surely, but it isn't her place ... isn't her fight, nor her fate. (is it human curiosity or the unfortunate call to empathy that drove her to stick around ? it wasn't like this unknown guide could do much for the volatile magic under her fingernails, behind teeth clamped tight.)
still ! she wiggles her way up the hefty ruins overlooking city - for a moment, the entirety of the realm draws quiet. people below simply living ... parents and their children, passing traders and adventurers, guards swapping shifts while cats hunt their late night snack. one of the few cities she had yet to see, even trailing father's coattails after the death of her mother. she wonders how much of it was delegating perilous routes to others versus how much of was actual fate. not that it matters now - she'll see baldur's gate and write her father about it. he'll tell her she should consider coming home for awhile.
he'll tell her that her roses are wilting and her staff isn't throwing anything for the crows. and she'll perhaps consider it, teeter on believing him. (but home is a sore spot, no matter how she decorates or manipulates spaces - there's a ghost there that she cannot simply face.)
" hope you don't mind, @scarbound. " she barely notices him in the haze of her own thoughts. and even before he answers, she takes it upon herself to sit a comfortable distance away ... rings clattering against stone, traveling dress fanned out around her sitting form. truly she doesn't care if he does or doesn't, it's a better view than some of the other elevated spots - and she's notoriously selfish, or so she's been told. hands tuck between thighs to ward off the evening chill, lungs swelling with a heavy breath. (it's wonderful to be out of that shadow cursed mess.) " i was beginning to think we'd never get here. " her stare doesn't pull from skyline, though her sentiment is clearly directed his way.