Bayonne Bazaar

Ahremen had been groggily walking through the Bazaar. Two nights in a row of patrolling the coal district had taken a heavy toll. She watched as the wine bottle fell, it seemed in slow motion to her, she wanted to react, she knew what to do, but her arms an legs just wouldn't move fast enough. "Oh no." She whispered. The last time she had bumped into someone from the city had not gone well for her. She looked down at the spilled contents, and slowly shifted her gaze upward, hey eyes finally looking on the snow white hair of the woman she had bumped into. "Oh NO" It was like seeing a ghost to her. "No,no. No need to apologize at all, all my fault!" She hurriedly said.

In her head, her sleep deprived brain had to work through the fact that the odds of two people with snow white hair NOT being related was astronomical, so undoubtedly, this girl was related to the unsavory old admiral she had nearly come to blows with mere days before, and that, should this encounter go awry, no doubt both the old admiral, and then her own father would hear about it. She gritted her teeth and decided sucking up would be consierably less painful that a few more days without sleep.

"Oh, you know, just a tad bit tired and all, I uh, had a disagreement with my father and boss, so he's been putting me through the ringer."

Ahremen thought quickly, as quickly as she could in her state anyway. Wine. The girl was after wine, she could fix that!

"Oh dear, cheap, how about free, we make our own, I'd be more than happy to replace your bottle with some of the temple's" flashing a smile she added "It's a little, well, thick I guess is the right word, but I assure you its quite tasty."

She stopped to think for a moment, the coal district still wasn't what you'd call safe, but in looking at her the girl seemed to know what she was about. "You don't mind a little dirt do you?"

She thought for a second, the last time she had shared her other names, the man hadn't had a clue what she was talking about, odds are this girl wouldn't either. Best to just stick to the simple one then.

"You may call me Ahremen Arkah, it's a...pleasure...to meet you Roxanne. And good. The Coal District has a well earned reputation and can be rough for the uninitiated, although I seriously doubt you'd have any issues at my side."

Fletcher, she would have to remember that name, she had the unfortunate feeling she'd be hearing it a lot. This city seemed to be lousy with them.

"Perfect!" She exclaimed "You know we could probably do with one or two of you types around the place honestly, I mean I'm sure there's technicalities to hammer out and yadda yadda yadda, but you know assuming it works out, I'm sure there'd be plenty to do and theres always food and wine and..." She stopped mid sentence, why was she yammering like this? "How odd" she muttered to herself.

"As for me well..." That was a tough one to answer, even if she were to be completely honest she didn't do much of anything. "I guess you could say for now I'm in training as it were, doing odd jobs for the church and things of that nature, I actually have guards of my own though, although I've insisted on not needing them endlessly, they're quite good at blending even though they insist on wearing the church's outfits most of the time, if i know them though they're around here somewhere watching."

"You get used to it" and then added just loud enough to hear "or so they keep telling me. I wouldn't bother with the waving though, they aren't very interactive. haven't hear them utter a word once, much less wave or sit, I'm sure they do but I've enver even seen them eat or drink, which is weird because they're around all the time...you'd think they would ask for a holiday or something once in a while. Whatever, Omir knows I don't want to have to schedule shifts or anything."

She stopped talking in order to dodge a wagon as they kept walking. "I'd call it more than a religion personally, most religions are all about tithing to keep the church in good repair or to buy the priest a new airship so he can spread the word more expediently or whatever. When Father Chamberlain showed up, I hadn't eaten anything for two weeks except a rat I managed to steal from a smaller boy. The Coal District is a shit hole, but it was a whole lot worse before he got here. It's not perfect, and a lot is changing, not all of it I fully understand, but I think it's for the better."

Ahremen was taken aback by the question "Well no of course not all the time!" ...right? "I mean I can tell them to wait outside whenever I have something private to do, and they wouldnt dare disobey, they're just nearby enough to respond quickly if needed." ...right?

"Chocolate?" She had never had it before, she stared at the dark brown block longingly. "I don't know, are you sure it's ok, it must be expensive?"

Ahremen is a bit surprised when the girl simply reaches over and pops the chocolate in her mouth.

She blushes and turns away, holding one hand to her mouth. It was indeed sweet. "I think I like it quite a bit" she said.

This girl certainly was a cheerful one. It couldn't hurt to give her one or two extra bottles could it?

Ahremen was catching the giggles now too, although why she couldn't quite say.

"We do feed a lot of people yes, no to the cats though. I don't think cats would like the bread much anyway. Our god is called Omir, I haven't read everything like I'm supposed to, but I think the gist of it is, a long time ago, a group of people did some pretty nasty things, so he showed up and washed them in his own blood, wiping away all their evil deeds, so now, as the metaphorical ancestors of those people, it's our job to pay Omir back with our own blood. I think."

"Well, father won't talk about it much, but some of the others say it used to be that you only payed back other people's blood." She thought about it for a second, while she held out her hand hoping for another piece of the chocolate "I can't say I've ever had to pay back any blood though, if anything I've only actually received it. Isn't that odd?"

This was the first time she had ever actually thought about any of this, times had been so good lately, even when accounting for all the trials Highlan put her through, that she hadn't even taken the time to think about why all these things were happening to her.

"Does your sun god not ask for anything? It seems like being the sun would be an awful lot of work right?"