“All right, Kiddo.” said Malesmesch as he grinned down at his charge, “I got permission from yer pops. As long as I look big and imposing while we're there, and we take an entourage along, we can go visit the market.”

Laesara looked up from her studies, a rare, honest smile brightening her features. “Excellent.” she said, putting it aside, “Lets go, then.”

Her bodyguard laughed. “Thought you'd say that. Good thing I'm all ready, right?” he chortled.

He's so common Laesara thought, fondly, Like a breath of sea air. He was a reminder that she had not always been what she was, a relic of another life that informed her choices of that day. She put on her elegant cloak against the cold and did her hair up in a simple, yet elegant and practical, getup .

He gestured in a mockery of formality and, almost playfully, she followed his gesture out to where her carriage and entourage awaited. From the faces among them – guardsmen and trader-trained servants – she knew they were hand picked by her father.

So. He expected such a request. How very like him. she knew that Malemesch reported on her to her father, and for the time being she appreciated its convenience.

The chill air tried to n** through the boards of her transport as they headed to the nearest Ashen City marketplace, and it swirled around her as she disembarked at the market's edge. She stepped, regally, into a world unlike any other she had experienced.

Strange sounds, sights, and smells washed over her. The Market was a positive collection of merchandise and people alike, a cross section of her many-layered world. Here, a man selling charms. There, a woman selling cloth. There were things mundane and things spiritual and things more unusual still – relics and pelts and strange bubbling brews.

It was a lot to take in for Laesara and, surely, would have overwhelmed a lesser mind. Hiding her delight, she bravely went towards a merchant's stall, where, it was advertised, artificially-type Selala were sold to interested parties. The sparkle of the scale-like tiny insectoid creatures intrigued her, as it likely did many a young girl.

It is not likely, I bet, that this merchant gets young girls of quite my standing! thought Laesara, almost giddily as the shopkeeper noticed her and her escorts, her bright eyes widening in surprise, I think this excursion will be fun!