39th of Winter, 516
The location that Nemori found herself felt far away from the main city, the twisting effect seeming to disappear. Nemori was glad, although the newness of it still felt strange. It had been a slow process of getting used to everything twisting and taking her on wild goose chases, and she was slowly getting accustome to the city. She still missed Avanthal badly, the safe familiar flat snowy plains forever lingering in her heart. The area itself was not normal, not like she would consider normal anyway. The houses were layered differently, meshing of architectural designs with no regard for each other. It was as if the designers had an argument and were determined to mess up the other as much as possible. An elegant wood door had been sunk into a disorganised stone building. Raw, unpainted stone roughly slotted together haphazardly. Where was she? The road beneath her had the same disorder to it, swapping between dirt patches, wood patterns and stone decoration. As she stared down at the floor, as she was accustomed to doing in order to hide her hair and eyes, she tried to count the steps between swapping but it varied so wildly that the task quickly became redundant. The streets were busy, people rattling about and shouting. They carried different things with them. The smell of fresh fish occasionally wafted through the air and she wrinkled her nose at it. The smell was bizarre and unpleasant. It was when she could hear water that she realised her location, some sort of port? She glanced up.
They was a long wooden platform that reached out to slowly lapping waves. Were they anywhere near a sea? She could not remember anymore. It would not surprise her at all if this was some illusionary construct ocean. For a moment she found herself staring out into the waves. It seemed to reach far into the distance, it was a good illusion she concluded. They was a thin gap where the shore ran. It was a scruffy beach, patches of grass breaching closer to the water and the sand looked pebbly and unpleasant. Nemori knew no different, it was the first beach she had properly seen. As far as she could tell it was normal. It was slightly breezy, the waves were relatively calm in the distance.
Nemori found herself walking along the shore. The sound of the waves on one side and the busy docks to the other. The pebbles and sand made walking more difficult. The sand causing her to sink and the pebbles digging into her shoe uncomfortably. Occasionally she would find some debris, interesting shells or pieces of wood that had washed up. These she stopped for, crouching down to inspect them more carefully. The shells were pretty, and she would study the patterns and shapes before returning them to the sands. Complex spirals and more flat leaf shaped shells. She had no use for them, and did not want to take them from their environment. They were surely for a purpose?
The driftwood she spent more attention to, attempting to measure it up by eye. The shape she was looking for she was unsure of. Some of the smaller pieces were discarded and the larger pieces were too big to carry comfortable. The perfect pieces, the ones she wanted, where medium sized. The wood was slightly soft to touch, even when not wet. She hoped they would be better to practice her carving with. She gathered a few in her arms before making her way back over to the wooden platform. As far as she could see nobody was using it. She settled herself against one of the support beams. The brick base pressing against her back. A quick glance up at the busy town. It seemed content to pass her by without attention. Nobody should be paying attention to her, she hoped. She placed the driftwood in her lap and pulled her backpack around, starting to search around for her dagger.