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And open the door did -- quite suddenly and loudly, banging back on its hinges against the wall behind it. The entrant was, however, far more remarkable than the fashion in which the door had been opened. A small gray-brown fawn had tumbled into the shop, its eyes glowing blue as it looked over its shoulder to the girl that followed close behind, shouting, "Pali! Get back here right now!"

The fawn seems almost to grin but continues its rather stumbling progression around the shop, its pink nose twitching slightly as if it is sniffing around for something. The girl trails after him, looking frustrated, and then casts around for the shopowner, her face blushed pink. "I'm sorry, miss, the damn beast hardly ever listens to me," she says, only sounding partially apologetic. Her hair frizzes out from her head like a dandelion's tuft and if it weren't for its golden color one would say that she was a gypsy -- her clothes certainly seem to speak for it, and her accent tends toward that of the gypsy's as well. If she is a gypsy, however, she is possibly the palest, blondest, most be-freckled gypsy girl that has ever been. Around her neck a small stag swings on a leather thong, its swirling patterns matching those on the flank of the strange fawn.

The fawn stumbled dangerously close to a shelf full of ceramics and Lytka lunged after him, grabbing the scruff of his neck and just stopping a headlong fall into the fragile items. "I told you you should have stayed with the caravans," she chastised him, only half-hearing the shopkeep's words in her distraction. "You don't have enough control over your damned legs yet, you foolish thing! What are you looking for? Agh!"

The girl froze and clutched a hand to her head as if beset by a sudden headache. "You've gotta get better at doing that or I'm going to bloody fall over someday," she muttered, more to herself than to the fawn. As the mental image the fawn had sent faded away into a dull ache in her temples, Lytka looked up at the shopkeep, her eyes narrowing as if seeing her just now for the first time. "You think she has...how can you bloody tell?" she whispered, holding her hand out, palm flat vertical in front of the fawn's face as he tried to send an answer over their still-developing mental connection. "No no, don't tell me, it hurts more than it's worth," she said, ruffling the deer's in a semblance of affection.

She was still staring at the shopkeep, her eyes searching. "I'm Lytka," she came out with suddenly, "and this is Palialas. He's...special. Do you..." she frowned slightly, still wary of sounding insane to those who didn't believe the stories of the guardians. Hell, she hadn't believed them until a few months ago herself. She took a few steps toward the counter where the woman stood and brought her hand to the totem at her neck, holding it out for the shopkeep to see. "You don't happen to have anything like this, do you?"

((I figured that's where we were timeline-wise, no worries. You could just use his uncerted totem too if that works!))

At the sight of the totem, Palialas stumbled forward and butted into the shopkeep's hand with his nose, sniffing the little brown stag happily. Lytka watched him with interest. "Hmm. I guess the poor guy's been lonely," she mused, almost contrite. Her eyes snapped back up to Juhua.

"Yeah...the Wood. I, uh. I didn't believe the stories either," she remarked, running a hand through the nest of hair at the back of her head. "But it's kind of hard to deny when you've suddenly got a feisty little fawn following you around." She rolled her eyes at Pali in a combination of affection and annoyance. The deer snorted and flicked his blue eyes back at Lytka before returning to her side and shoving his head against one of her hands. She sighed resignedly and gave him a scratch behind the ear before turning back to Juhua. "How long have you had the totem?"