[Various Locations] City By The River (Meera)(Finished)

[Aren]

"The cold, miss Ysane, is simply another enemy our minds must struggle against," he informed the young drykas girl, unable to put much feeling into the words. The phrase could have been assumed to apply to anyone, but Aren was talking about his own people, in this particular instance. An akalak who could not easily withstand such meager discomfort was more than likely an akalak who could not keep his Other in check. Because of this, most of his kind considered a little cold, or heat, or pain no more than annoyances. As Meera's warm flesh touched against his own, Aren's spirit's felt suddenly lifted, for some reason, and he looked at her with a wide smile. "Can you smell that? It's the Bastani bakery!" The wind carried a sweet scent in the air, and the akalak would recognized that smell anywhere. The bakery was just getting started when he was a child, and he had grown up with it almost like it was a best friend. "It's on the second tier, come on!" Without even realizing what he was doing, Aren took hold of Meera's hand and broke out into a light trot. His face was almost like that of a child receiving a gift on his name day.

[Meera]

Had Aren paid attention to their differences in height? Meera was young, but now she felt it, being pulled along by this massive blue giant around Riverfall - literally. He held her hand - which caused a minor freakout of her stomach and she likely would have thought to expel her stomach's meager contents had he not started a full on sprint to the second tier.

The thought of something to nibble on gave her hope. The water had done its job for the most part and her headache had definitely subsided, and fresh sunlight lifted her spirits now that it ceased to cause pain. She joined Aren in his enthusiastic run, his large hand holding her arm out almost perfectly straight in their height differences.

Meera wondered how uncomfortable it must be to run with a large scythe on his back, but remembered what he had said to her earlier, that much was more of an annoyance then anything. To find this cold a simple nuisance was astounding, as Meera's cloak flew open and waved behind her in their speed.
Whether Aren had meant his words directed at his own race or something applied to all, Meera could not be certain. He had appeared older than her, maybe pushing his mid-twenties, and the Akalak upbringing was likely vastly different than her own, so she had simply chalked it up to him being more experienced and worldly than herself.

When they finally slowed, Meera found herself out of breath. She hadn't the training her guide had, had she even known about it, and her body was doing that funny thing it did when she was near Aren. She couldn't remember how to breathe. Once they had finally come to a stop, Meera pulled her hand away. Dark eyes lifted to his face, breath huffing quickly now in soft clouds.

[Aren]

He was not even out of breath as they slowed, then finally came to a halt. Looking back with an idiotic grin, Aren felt Meera's hand slip out of his, just then noticing the exertion he had put the girl through. "Come on, miss Ysane, now isn't the time to rest!" After giving her a few moments to catch her breath, the akalak took her hand again, leading her towards their intended destination. Fortunately for Meera, this time at a walking pace. As they stood there, in front of the bakery, childhood memories threatened to drown Aren like a great flood. Every scent triggered an image or a sound from his past, and the memory accompanied a feeling. Most were good, but all, of course, could not be. He looked back at the drykas girl he had towed here, his childish grin at least lessened into a moronic smirk, "This is it. The gods' own sweet shop," the akalak whispered, almost with reverence.

[Meera]

She made a sound similar to "yurk" when he took her hand again. She had been in the process of making a different sound but at his warm, calloused hand, caressed hers she had swallowed back her word.

He slowed his lead and Meera was thankful for it. It allowed her to catch her breath and slow the loud pulsing in her ears. She regarded the sweet shop with disinterest.
"Sweet shop? Sell sweet?" She asked with blonde brows knit together. A hand was brave to feel her braid for any hair out of sorts and quickly was ducked back into the warmth of her cloak.
"Never had a sweet before. What is it?" She continued, her eyes taking from Aren his rather adorable grin to better examine the shop through its window. Meera hadn't realized she still held his hand, and suddenly upon the realization she felt rightly silly about it all, but didn't take her hand away. His palms were rough. Meera's were rough as well, but her weapons were the bow and dagger, and more so the reins of her Strider. This made her hands softer than Aren's in her youth and less vigorous work. For a moment she squeeze his hand to press more of her smoothness against his rough, before tugging him into the shop, her own grin matching his in her excitement.
It would be an adventure to try new things!

[Aren]

"You've never had a sweet?" Aren could hardly believe it. What was wrong with the horseclans? It almost made him want to bring a bloody pogrom down on the heads of all those heathen drykas. Before he had a chance to further curse the plains folk, however, Meera dragged him into the bakery in a flurry of excitement, her hand squeezing his tightly for a moment. Inside, there was a plethora of sweets and other baked goods. Aren didn't remember the names for any of them, save one, his decades long childhood having ended over fifty years ago. He did, however, remember the one he liked best. The akalak hoped that the store still made the little round delights, lest he break down in mock tears right this very moment. "Those... are sweets," Aren pointed out a grouping of elongated, finger looking things, to Meera. "Those too," he sighted down a pair of half-moon shaped treats, off in a corner of the display. "And those..." he finally spotted them. They were still here. After fifty years, Olkaot was still making them "...are my favorites," the akalak pointed to a couple of little, spherical masses displayed prominently in the middle of many other delicious looking sweets. "Those are called Severed Heads," he informed his drykas companion, almost drooling at the thought of tasteing one after more than a half century of enforced abstinence.

[Meera]

The store was colourful and bright, but most importantly it was warm. Meera could already feel her cheeks thawing and she released her hold on Aren to explore. The sweets were many different colours, and as Aren pointed out, many different shapes. There was a bin with finger-shaped treats, which did not interest Meera at all. The other bin looked like small crescents, and the last, although the most visually appealing, had turned off Meera's interests at Aren's name of them. She was sure it was a translation error, but she had to double check.

"Severed Heads?" She repeated as she looked to the sweets. They didn't particularly look like what she would know a severed head to be, so to be sure she looked at Aren and made a slicing motion across her neck. She gave a light shiver from the cold still seeping into her flesh and tugged her cloak in a bundle under her bust.

Her shoes stepped gently as she examined the other wares. There were clear crystalline spheres on small wands in many different colours. Meera could not read Common too well, so she was left with the impression that each colour was a new flavour, though she couldn't be sure. She selected a purple sphere-wand, and with a quick glance to Aren behind his back, she selected a blue one. A private smirk graced her lips as she continued to browse.
There were balls of bright red, triangles in a series of orange and yellow colours and small mound-looking soft sweets that seemed like they would be chewy. The small mound shapes were in different colours as well, and their mounds appeared to be basic shapes, mostly spherical. She selected a few of those, one in every colour before moving on to ribbons of brightly lit sweets, that Meera had confused for fabric until the moment she touched the sticky tape. She avoided that.

She couldn't rightly buy out the entire store to taste one of everything, and eventually she made her way back to the crescent shaped candies. The finger cakes did not appeal, and the Severed Heads did not, but the crescent cookies just might do the trick, she decided, and so she packaged up two cookies, one for each of them, for purchase.

[Aren]

"It's just a name," he laughed at what he knew was a question meant to determine the acceptability of the Severed Heads as actual food. "They're good!" Aren tried to explain, alas, to no avail. Meera had already gone off on her own to inspect the store and it's array of goods. The akalak, in the meantime, stepped over to the counter, "Olka, how have you been, ya old man? Doing well, for yourself, I see," gesturing at the store, which was much bigger than he remembered. The other akalak turned around to see who was so impudently referring to the master of the Bastani bakery, and who was going to see themselves cut off for at least a season, for said impudence. When he did so, however, he recognized a face he knew all too well on the other side of his counter. "Aren, you sly dog, you! Who you calling an old man, anyway? I'm only a few years older than you," the now more jovial Olkast, replied. "And a few pounds heavier, from the looks of it," Aren noted, as Olka rubbed his belly absentmindedly. "So, I expect you'll be wanting the usual, then?" the round bellied akalak asked, to which his younger friend nodded. "Two of them," Aren clarified. "Not like you ever only got one," Olka laughed heartily, reaching into the display to pull out the last two Severed Heads of the morning. He packaged them up and handed them to Aren, as the younger akalak dropped a couple of silver mizas into his hands for them, and for whatever it was that Meera had bought. Just as he did so, the drykas girl in question was coming back from the other side of the store, with her own package in hand. Aren knew what she was going to say, but he wasn't going to take no for answer. She was going to taste a Severed Head, if it killed him. Of course, no need to tell her that, yet. "Come on," he told the young drykas, gesturing to the fact that he had already paid for them both, before looking back towards the counter for a second, "take care of yourself, old man." Olka only waved, busy as he was with another customer at the moment.

[Meera]

As she approached Aren again, he had been speaking to the proprietor of the shop like they were old friends. He had done the same thing with Nystir, the bartender back at the Kulkukan. Everyone must know everyone, and Riverfall must be a very well-knit city. It reminded her of the Webbing her people used, which only made her hide her face from Aren to have a small frown.

She left with Aren, curious to know why he had paid for her selections.
"I have money," She started with her voice sounding sweet. "I could pay." Meera didn't understand why he had paid for her when he didn't have to, but she bundled her small pouch of sweets into one hand and with her free one took Aren's again. Regardless of how stupid it made her feel, it was actually really nice and as an added bonus he was quite warm and for that reason he served as a sort of insulator for her.

Inititally walking aimlessly, or so it seemed to Meera, she let her eyes wander to the town. On the second tier there were other shops as well, and a brightly tented street. The tents interested her, but there was something she wanted to do first: eat her sweets and test them, and to see if these little confectionaries were as good as Aren said.

As her eyes traveled she spotted a small park area and without thinking she pulled on his hand as she walked away from him to investigate more. A park would be a good place to eat her sweets.

It wasn't just any park, however. Lava flowed like water over the rocks and poured itself to die in the cold water that hugged the shore of a beach. The second tier had a platform for a scenic outlook and Meera took herself - and Aren - to the rail that was erected for safety. The sun was behind them but rising steadily, but it made this place no less beautiful.

The small sign said it was someone's Tears. Meera didn't see anyone crying, nor knew of any God that would cry beautiful fire such as this. After taking her look, she broke her hold on Aren and sat on a bench to go through her selections.

[Aren]

At Meera's innocent insistence that she could have paid, Aren merely smiled, knowingly. He could have told her why it was right, and proper, for a man taking out a lady on a tour of the city to pay for things (as his mother had taught him), but the truth was he had just felt like it. His mother would have said that when a man wanted to pay for a lady's things, he was in trouble. The thought should have disturbed the akalak slightly, but, right at this very moment, he found himself simply not caring. The drykas girl had promptly found one of the most beautiful places in the second tier, and in fact all of Riverfall, to stop and eat their treats, whilst they enjoyed the view. Standing behind the safety rail which gave way to the splendor of a cascading lava flow, Aren remembered that he had always been a little afraid of this place, for some reason. "These are Valkalah's Tears. They say if one were to follow this red river, it would lead them to the old city of my people, after which the flow itself is named." The akalak had always wondered if that was true, thought he doubted anyone would be trying to find out any time soon. As Meera's hand pulled away from his, Aren felt a strange sensation that made him want to hold on tighter, but she was already gone. As he looked back, he saw the girl sitting down in a nearby bench, eager to inspect her goodies. Unstrapping his scythe with his free hand, he quickly brought said hand to his back before the weapon had even begun to fall. The snaith landing squarely in his palm, Aren brought it around to the fore with a twist of his arm. Placing the rather large, cumbersome weapon to rest at the foot of the bench, the akalak took a seat next to Meera, a pair of Severed Heads packaged safely in his arms.

[Meera]

"You are not from here, either?" Meera said, not even bringing her eyes to him. They were much too busy further inspecting her treats under a scrutinizing brow, holding them up closer to her vision and turning the gummies in her hand, almost searching for imperfections.

"Thank you for buying, Aren." She selected a yellow gummy and nibbled it in half, watching him sit as she did so. She held the The chew was sour, and had hints of a spice Meera was unfamiliar with. She did not like it, and she was worried about trying the purple gummy because of that, but found it to be a tasty little treat, tasting almost exactly like a berry in flavour. Meera almost ushered forth a soft squeal of delight at the treat, but was able to remain quiet throughout her chewing, which was polite.

The other gummies were just as delicious as the purple one, with the orange one being her favourite. The green was a sour thing as well, but it did not have a spice to it, which made it tolerable.
Several halves of soft chewables were replaced back into her package. She had a thought to offer them to Aren, but decided they were too yummy to give away.
Having no concern for health, Meera chose her crescent cookie. She had wanted to purchase two, and give one to Aren, but he had foiled that plan. She offered the other cookie to him.

"For you," She spoke softly. She didn't exactly know why she wanted to buy it for him, but physically shrugged her shoulders when she realized it was probably for the same reason Aren bought her treats.