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O Father Sky, Mother Earth...
I pray that you give me strength.

Sue got a restful sleep after the battle to save Rin (and the group's supplies.) She saw a peaceful dream when she rested. The skies were a pure, cloudless blue, and the grasses of the plains were tall and lush green. Sue darted between the blades of grass, until reaching a clearing where there was a tiny campfire and a single hut.

Sue looked upon her father's face. He looked a bit different, for he hadn't grown a beard, and his brow was not wrinkled with the stresses life brought him as a crew member. There was a woman sitting beside her father, who pulled her hair back in a pony tail. Sue didn't remember who she was, but her face looked familiar. Just like her father, the woman was smiling.

"Welcome home." the woman said.

In reality, a small smile curled on Sue's face as she slept well into the morning. She would have kept it had she not heard the noise of commotion outside. Sue groaned as she sat up, catching a glimpse of Marina's misadventures with her tent. If only she could have stayed in her dream longer. She wanted to know who that woman was.

Like some of her comrades, Sue packed up quickly and rolled up her tent without incident. The nomad gazed skyward as Julia departed, and looked quickly back to the ground when a newcomer was making quite a bit of noise. Sue dared to step closer, unable to see his face quite yet.

When the blue-haired man addressed Roy, Sue finally got a good look at him. Something about him felt familiar, but she couldn't place her finger on it. She only had to listen to her father's speech and Roy's explanations to figure out who he was.

Lord Hector. Sue heard of his last moments from Roy and Lilina - he was a brave warrior who fell in battle to defend his homeland. She'd never personally met him, but held a great respect for what he did for Lycia. Seeing him face-to-face was a rather strange thing, but the odd was ordinary in Learania.

"We were just resting here for the night. We were on our way to meet someone, but bandits ambushed us on the way." Sue explained, stepping closer to Hector and Roy. "If you want, you can lend us your strength I'm sure that weapon you're carrying isn't just for show."

- Kierkess Renvald -

Still brooding over his failure to spectacularly decapitate the enemy commander, Kierkess had quietly fell in with the rest of the group whose country and motivations were still a tad fuzzy to the red knight. Right now he was most concerned with carving a niche out for himself in this world and affixing it with the banner of justice as to placate the part of his mind that might have protested violence. Of course, the latter portion of that last sentence was not known to him as characters are not typically so self-aware.

Aforementioned brooding was, by the way, taking place cross-legged on the dirt whilst hugging his halberd close. It would have seemed to any observer that he was in a dangerous mood, so dark was his expression and so gleaming was the dutifully cleaned halberd being held close. In truth, however, he was simply playing the role of "Brooding Character #3" until more gainful opportunities arose. Sadly, circumstance had conspired such that Kierkess had not been the subject of the earlier "pranks" nor had he been the victim of anything requiring his surely charming brand of overly brute force. He glanced at the new commotion occuring elsewhere and, though the blue-haired muscle-man gave him hope of action, it appeared he was not in fact an enemy.

What did catch his attention, though, was the flapping of a certain affront to manliness. He glanced there reflexively and at once sprung to his feet and readied his halberd. By the time his pounding headache had recovered from the sudden rise, the rider of questionable womanhood had already taken to the air. This allowed his rage to subside slightly as he peered curiously at his axe and wondered what exactly he would have done with it anyway. Maybe given her a...light tap on the head? A stern warning? "Hrm...blast, women are troublesome opponents..." He considered redirecting his anger at the possible blue-haired surrogate currently attracting attention, but decided it would probably be frowned upon by his colleagues.

Which, that being the case, brings us back to Brooding Character #3.

The group returned with Leena's stolen goods, which she was very grateful for. The shopkeeper took very careful inventory of everything. It wasn't all there, but most of the important items were back in the convoy where they belonged. Leena didn't want to sleep. She wanted to be alert, and to have the hammer handy should bandits try and sneak up again.

When the campfire was lit, she stayed in the wagon. She stared at the flickering, orange flame until the peaceful sounds of songbirds lulled her into sleep.

Morning came quickly. Leena rose up from the pile of goods she rested against, stretching her arms and taking a good look around. Thanks to her sleep on the wagon, a tent wasn't necessary. She avoided the 'pranks' that happened to some of the others.

To her left, a man with red hair slept underneath a tree. She remembered that this was the human form of the guild's Fire Dragon. It was hard to believe he could change shape from something so large to an average size like that.

Leena wanted to step closer to FD, to wake him up so he wouldn't get left behind. But as she went toward him, the memory of the flames came rushing back at her. They were so close, to the point where they almost singed her clothing. Leena hesitated. She didn't know if the Fire Dragon could breathe flame in his other form, but she didn't want to find out just because she tapped his shoulder while he was asleep.

Leena cautiously stepped backward, making her way from the wagon. She headed in the general direction of the congregation, and stopped midway when she saw the man in red armor. He was quiet, muttering something with his weapon in his hand.

Keeping a good distance from the redhead (as she knew him to be careless with his axe), Leena regarded him with a wave. "Good morning, sir." she said. "Are you a new guild member? I haven't seen your face before. They know of me, but this is my first time helping the guild with my own two hands."

Always trying to look for the positive, Leena flashed her classic shopkeeper smile. "I guess we just have to do our best. We'll be learning together." she told him, with a hopeful gleam in her eye.

There had to be some way to satisfy both parties without resorting to fighting. Help from others would be welcome in trying to calm Hector down. As the nomad walked off, Roy spoke.

"Rath." the young lord started, calling out to the Vice Captain's back before chasing after him. Catching up and walking by his side, he continued. "Hector is already involved just by appearing here. Sending him to Eyris, without giving him the slightest bit of information about the current situation, is not going to protect him from this war. That sort of ignorance might get him killed. Your argument for not letting him join us can apply to Wil and Ora as well. They don't know the enemy, the enemy has done nothing to them, and they want to be involved in a war that isn't their own. Hell, Wil isn't even in any condition to be fighting yet! Hector is offering to help us for the same reasons they did! We all want to help you, Rath. Don't turn down help just because he's new here."

Roy then shook his head with a sigh. "You've got enough on your plate with managing us and worrying about Songhua. I'll take responsibility and keep an eye on him. I'll even get him updated on the current situation so that's one less responsibility for you. You might not like it and it might be morally distasteful, but it's a lot safer for him to stay with us than it is to send him back to Eyris alone."

Regardless of whether or not Rath stopped, the young lord stopped walking beside the nomad and turned to face Hector, who had approached him. "I think we sent out a scout to find our allies, so I don't think we'll be moving until we hear back from them. I'll try to fill you in as best I can until we hear back from her."

((May edit depending on what FD does. May also edit if needed for other things.))

- Kierkess Renvald -

Kierkess cracked open an eyelid and at once saw a female visage of blue hair that sported no impressive beard...which is to say, it was not the newcomer to the camp. She was, however, someone with an unfortunate resemblance to a certain other person.

He sprang up with glorious battle axe clenched, phasing out the ridicule that had surely just spewed from her lips. "Aha! Now, I..." he trailed off there all of a sudden, his legs wobbling and a groan involuntarily escaping the red knight. "Not this again..." He'd apparently not learned from before and had stood up too fast. Feeling a bit light-headed, Kierkess held up a finger so as to politely inform the woman he was about to split (with his axe) that she should wait a moment whilst he regained his balance. He blinked a bit, rubbed his forehead, and otherwise got his bearings. Following a short pause, he resumed the menacing axe-killer position after a friendly nod to assure the woman that he had recovered. "Right, now then! I'm going to...to..." This time, he gave pause because he'd just recalled that harming women (with his axe) was something he had never quite enjoyed. Unless he was too crazy to care, like with the cleric from the other day. Good times.

However, as he'd had a moment to calm down, he was now stuck looking from his halberd to the girl and back again, trying to find an excuse to save his dignity. "...I, uh, split a man in half a few days ago? ....Ahh...erm, I mean, with my axe? And...just look how it shines now! 'Tis a glorious blade, this. Yes. Ahem...wait, who are you?" he added all of a sudden, doing what some in the sane community would call 'noticing'.