Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was early, and the market was already bustling with activity. Rowan, a basket hooked at her elbow, tripped down the broad street lined with vendors, a smile on her face. As a reward for her hard work, aunt Corwen had rewarded her with some money to spend on a treat for herself. She had, of course, also sent Rowan with a list of necessities she wished the girl to pick up as well. But those could wait, Rowan decided. First, it was time to indulge. And Rowan had not taken long at all to accustom herself to indulge in the finer things life with her aunt had to offer.

She paused at a booth that had fresh fruit and inhaled the fragrant sweetness deeply, then moved on towards another booth that held alchemy ingredients. Nothing terribly fancy, just a variety of dried herbs and roots. And the prices were ridiculous, so Rowan moved on. She passed booths of clothing, running her hands delicately over the fabrics, and finally found herself coming to a halt at a jewelry stall. The pieces were finely wrought, but Rowan could sense an element of magic to some of the pendants, though she wasn't entirely certain what kind of magic it was. She picked up one piece and frowned thoughtfully, the markings on her hands and face flaring slightly when she touched the jewelry.

"Ahh, now dat be interestin' . . ."

Rowan heard a voice with an accent that sounded unusual to her, and glanced up to see the man who was standing nearby at the jewelry booth. Her eyes widened, if such a thing was possible for an Oblivionite, at the sight of him. Rowan had never seen another of her race that looked quite like the man. And he seemed to ooze power. She wasn't sure whether she was frightened or awed or a little bit of both.

She looked to see what it was that he might be commenting on, thinking that he was perhaps holding an especially powerful or beautiful amulet. But he was not looking at a piece of jewelry, he was looking at her. Rowan swallowed a little "eep" of a sound. Gathering up her courage, she managed to get some words out, though her voice was embarrassingly squeaky. "I'm sorry, sir, whats interesting?"

Rowan frowned as he pointed out the same phenomenon she had just been noticing. She knew her marks grew brighter sometimes, though she had yet to make any sort of correlation between her surroundings or her emotions and the reactions of the markings. "My name is..." She began, planning on introducing herself (he really wasn't as unnerving as his appearance had led her to believe) but then a commotion arose and distracted her.

A Keindred appeared to have eaten a goodly amount of the vendors wares, and was now looking rather shamefaced as both Ekundayo and the vendor was yelling at the poor thing. The way her new acquaintance reacted, Rowan could only assume the two were bonded. She had never met a bonded Keindred before. In fact, she had only ever met one Keindred and that was the battered old Toki. she couldn't imagine him being bonded to anyone.

"Oh dear." Rowan said, looking at Vilzun who was curled into a little ball. "I certainly hope he doesn't get a stomach ache. I don't imagine eating jewelry can be good for him, can it?"