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"Ah, Adimus? Well, nice to meet you. I'm River," the bard said, patting the gryphon.

At Zaria's comment that crowd was beginning to move, River immediately threw a bag or two over Adimus's saddle. River never carried much since he usually traveled by foot or whatever ride he could find. A bard wasn't exactly the richest type around.

Ok. Here goes nothing. River grabbed the saddle, put his left foot in the foot hold first and then swung his right leg over the saddle, seating himself comfortably on the gryphon. Oh, ok. Just like horses. He picked up the reins and looked over at Zaria. "All ready!"

Apparently, Elenda moving hadn't helped. Great. He just won't shut up. Hmph, I can take him on any day! Which meant Halo was going to bs his way out of the situation or try.

Halo sighed and chuckled lightly. "Aransadorien, I do commend your efforts, but that is a question you should pose to your critics and then hear their responses." Boy, was that a BS answer. Of course, the critics wouldn't care if Cain didn't like their responses. That's why they were critics!

Halo didn't mind the mountain. It was "deader" than forests, but still had its own wildlife. He was adventurous and rather liked nature, but had lived in a city too before.

Halo was trying to imitate his brother, and he was going to try for as long as he could. He just hoped that he wasn't discovered too soon. Geez, Brother, why are you involved in all this weird politics stuff?

Ew... Clearly, nothing was going to make the guy shut up especially since Cain had laugh so LOUD. To get rid of drunk people Halo usually left the scene or knocked them out unlike his brother, who sometimes helped them if necessary. Even though Halo was the better healer of the two, he did not like disgusting sites. Blood he could deal with, but puke and grime was a little different.

He couldn't move ahead. Pepole were in the way and everyone was moving down the hill. Go faster! He probably shouldn't knock out Cain, and with all of Cain's armor, he wasn't even sure if he could knock down Cain. The Baron was bigger. And if he did knock out Cain, that could mess up the whole process if Cain fell over. Thus, knockout was out of the question.

Halo wondered if he should just stay silent, let Cain ramble on, and just ignore what he said. Because what Cain said wasn't exactly what he meant even if he was BSing. Of course Halo cared! He just didn't know names and places and people... "I'm sure we all do."

Nova began to move with the rest of the crowd. Adimus, naturally, would follow along. After a minute or two, Zarìa decided it would be best to start some sort of conversation.

“So, how did you come into being a bard?” she asked. She could couldn’t imagine aspiring to have such a lowly line of work. She could only imagine choosing such a profession if her only other option was thievery. But then again, she had never really liked playing instruments.

Her husband had encouraged her to take up an instrument or two, in order to keep her occupied, and at her own discretion, she had taken up the harp and the flute. She hadn’t had any particular skill with either, but she had learned to play them well enough.

Luckily, no mishap befell the bard in his few minutes on Adimus. The gryphon was pretty tame and followed obediently behind Zaria and her mount. It then began to inch up next to Zaria so that the Adimus and Nova were side by side.

River grinned. "The excitement. The joy. The chance to have my work passed down into the ages!" he exclaimed. Zaria was probably going to look at him as if he was a mad idiot, so he quiet down a little. "But I digress. I grew up around the performing folk, and so I caught on, and the rest is history." He grinned again. "Do you sing, dance, or play any instruments?" he asked.

When he had first woken up to the performing folk, he had been very confused. It was obvious he had a history because he was too old to be a baby, but he didn't know and they didn't know, so he began a life anew. They had found him in a river and given him his name.

Seodred laughed a bit at Zuuta's expression of "not having an easy time". He let her finish her description of the wild stryders she had been attempting to train, every once in a while digging his heels into Enynwa's side so that she would slow down. She could have easily gone much faster, but also run over half the crowd in the process.

"I would imagine they are most difficult," he responded to her sincerely. "Penned stryders are the most difficult to handle, at least in my experience. To you, it must seem that giving a stryder freedom is counterproductive - indeed, how does freedom make one trainable?" He had been looking down the hill as he spoke, noting the clouds of dust rising over the crowd as the quickening of hooves stirred the road. He looked back to Zuuta then, and continued talking. "You are right. They are not standard steeds."

Seodred pointed at the hound that was trotting along by Zuuta's side. "What is it that makes a man, or woman for that matter, and her dog inseperable? There is disipline, to be sure, but those who offer true companionship are raised with something a little extra..." He leaned in, raising his eyebrows and giving a sideward glance toward Enynwa. "By all means we both took a beating getting used to each other, but now she is my equal. It took a lot of love and devotion for us to come this far."

Zuuta almost smiled at Seodred's words, almost being a key word. When she thought about it, she found that his words struck true. With almost any other kind of steed, it was quite easy to train them without becoming too attatched or getting to know them on a personal level. This made it possible to sell them to good owners without much trouble. But applying this to stryders had failed her family time and time again.

"So what you're saying is that they're like big scaly dogs, huh?" she said half-jokingly, accompanied with a light chuckle.

A young-looking elf woman that had overheard their conversation rode near and stated her two cents. Zuuta sighed, the elf's naiive words were stirring up her usual headstrong behavior. She also didn't like the how she hid her face beneath her hood. Was she afraid of being recognized or something? Whatever the reason, it rubbed Zuuta the wrong way.

"There is a reason us humans can't get along with each other as well as we do with our animal companions," She stated, trying not to show any annoyance in her voice. "It is almost impossible for humans to trust one another without doubt. Doubt is one of the few things - in my opinion - that truly seperate us from animals. Once you have an animals trust, it will almost never judge your actions or intentions. But with humans, once you befreind someone, you have to constantly reassure them that you are indeed worth trusting or they will begin to feel unsure."