A Most Excellent Adventure (Attn: Bella/Natlya)

[Locke]

Terric

It was the dilemma of the ages. Terric really had to use the facilities, but he did not want to put on pants either. There was a little water closet down the hall, and he didn’t care who saw him go, but Wetlanders might take offense to a naked Aielman casually strolling along in the halls. Finally, his bladder made the decision for him. He tugged on his tan, algode britches and made his way down the hall. When the cooler air in the hall hit his shoulders, he realized they stung. She must have raked them much harder than he’d realized last night. He noted it with a small laugh and kept walking.

As he stood relieving himself, he thought back to the previous night and the previous few years. It had been too long. Far to long. It wasn’t anybody’s fault per say, his last relationship had just been different. Not that he had any intention of turning this into a relationship. The Tower was his wife these days anyway.

Natlya Cade was right, they did not need little Terrics or Nats running around. This might have only been a one time thing, or it might become something more regular. He realized, he was content either way. On his way back to the room, he stopped a maid. The short woman seemed torn between staring at his chest and it’s countless scars or turning away red faced. He asked her for a breakfast for three and a pot of tea before carrying on. He could distinctly feel her eyes on his back as he passed, but when he turned, she was disappearing down a servant’s stairway.

While he waited for Natlya Cade or breakfast to arrive, Terric busied himself making sure they were packed and ready to leave. Idly in the back of his mind, he entertained the notion of staying another day and just leaving the next morning.

[Bella]

Natlya felt a little bounce in her step as she walked down the corridor and then down the stairs. Those very stairs made her grin, remembering how she couldn't stop mauling him on the way up... It was just fun, and she knew it to be a memory that would make her smile for some time to come. (How could it not?)

She knew she didn't love him. She, in truth, didn't know him that well in a other-than-physical sense. Between the sparring and previous night, she could say she knew him well physically...

Would this just be the one night or maybe something returned to? She didn't know. On that thought, however, she decided to buy more tea than just for this one night. She had definitely not been prepared for what had already happened, so she didn't plan to get caught out like that again in that way. Better safe than sorry, and if the opportunity presented itself...

"Good going, girl," a voice said from her right as she reached the bottom of the stairs and the first floor.

Blinking, she turned to see one of the serving girls standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She had an open, easy grin on her face as she evaluated Natlya. She must have been working the night before too. Nat considered playing dumb, but why?

"Thanks," she said, turning to face the woman with a smirk. "I was just heading out. I need to get something."

"Oh," the serving girl said knowingly. "You need some tea."

Natlya was surprised for a moment and then she laughed. Why should she have been surprised? "Yes, could you direct me to a local herbalist or apothecary?"

The girl waved her hand. "I have plenty." She turned to go into the kitchen, pausing at the door and smiling over her shoulder. "A girl has to find her joys in this life, eh?" She vanished into the kitchen just as a maid came down and bustled in after her. "One man asking for three meals? What in the Light has he been getting up to in there. I don't even want to im--"

The door shut behind her.

Another smirk from the young Gaidin. One man ordering three meals? It didn't take much by way of deductive reasoning to figure out who she was talking about.

The waitress came back after a moment and gave Nat a small pouch. Natlya looked inside and saw just the herb she needed indeed. "Thank you," she said, reaching into the small satchel at her hip. The other girl tried to wave her off, but Nat pressed a pair of coins into her hand all the same. "Thank you," she repeated with a smile. "Add a mug of hot water to the tray of the man getting three breakfasts?"

Laughing airily, the waitress assured her it would be done and Nat hurried back up the stairs and into their room. She found Terric regrettably dressed and packing. She smiled as she shut the door behind her. "All set," she assured him. "There was a very helpful waitress downstairs."

[Locke]

Terric

Natlya Cade arrived before their breakfast did. They hadn’t unpacked much the night before so he hadn’t needed to do much to get them ready to go. When she returned to their room, she found Terric sitting in the middle of the floor, clad only in a pair of algode britches. Terric knew the look she gave him well enough. Carefully marking his page, Terric put aside the book and stood. Maybe she would be amenable to his plan. Casually striding over to his traveling partner he said, “I have a proposal of sorts.”

She had found her vest somewhere along the line. He slid it from her shoulders and began to fold it. They wouldn’t lose it this time. “We aren’t in an actual hurry. Nor have we actually decided on a destination.” As he spoke, he idly began untucking her grey shirt.

“Instead of rushing to get on the road again, why not spend another day here? I find I actually quite like it here,” he said, lifting the shirt as he spoke.

[Bella]

As he approached her and began to remove her clothing again, she grinned up at him and moved her body to help in each movement. How could he expect her to follow along with what he was saying while he was doing this? Yet somehow, she managed to do so. He was talking about staying another day.

Could it be? After all the years of training hard, without a great deal of free time, to think of just being a bit...lazy and languid for a while, so to speak, was an almost unheard of luxury.

"I think that could be a very good idea," she agreed as she reached for his waistband. "I'm finding myself enjoying it myself, and you are right... We are not expected at any time. It's just you...and I..." Humor and warmth flashed quickly through those hazel eyes as her eyebrows rose and she smiled that million-light smile again.

She wondered if they'd make it to the bed this time...

[Locke]

Terric

Clothing didn’t seem to be on the agenda for the morning either. Not that either of the Gaidin had any complaints. Terric in fact was coming to the conclusion that beds weren’t totally useless. They just weren’t meant for sleeping. Around midday, they managed to remain dressed long enough to visit the shops and find lunch.

They spent most of the day browsing in various shops without any real intention to buy. Occasionally, however, they would come across a shop selling various items they would need for their journey. Here, Terric would set about haggling with the shopkeepers. Their stipends from the Tower would have covered everything they wanted and more, but half the fun in shopping came from haggling and the rush of getting the best deal possible.

As the lanky Aielman purchased a small fruit pie off of a street vendor, he caught sight of a small crowd of children staring in fascination at a man with a cart. He seemed to be doing tricks with a brightly painted wooden spool on a string. Terric joined the crowd as the man looped the string between his hands and let the spool swing like a pendulum. With a flick of his writs the string was free and the spool was back in his hand. He dropped it again and it spun hanging a foot over the ground. Another flick of his wrist and it was back in his hand.

“What is this device?” Terric asked as the crowd began to disperse.

“This, my friend, is a joy wheel,” the man said with a grin. “Want to give it a try?”

Taking the strange toy, Terric tried to start simple letting the spool fall and return to his hand. He managed the first part. It stuck the cobbles and never returned to his hand. The man took it back and demonstrated again. Still Terric couldn't manage the basic trick. He was becoming frustrated, but not angry. This was a difficult puzzle, that was all. Glancing over at Natlya Cade who probably didn't care about the joy-wheels, he fished around for some coins and bought a wheel.

“Do you want to sit down and get lunch?” Terric said, still struggling with his new joy-wheel. “We can figure out where we are actually going with this trip.” Terric sighed as he untangled the string from around his fingers.

[Bella]

Natlya wasn't much of a shopper herself, and was more interested in making sure their little personal expedition was well-supplied. Her mind kept luring itself back to how they had spent the morning. It left her in about the same state as a good morning of training, but it was definitely a lot more fun.

Every time Terric stopped to haggle over something, Nat stood back and let him handle it. In her mind, she was musing over a past version of herself and thinking how much easier it would've been to just steal the items. She considered ways to do just that over every item he haggled about, though obviously she kept it to herself.

However, the joy wheel was another matter...and Nat found herself filled with fond amusement watching his fascination and attempts to manage it.

"It's in the wrist," she offered as they walked away from the vendor, smiling as they continued on. "Lunch sounds good, and a plan sounds even better. Not that I haven't been thoroughly enjoying what we haven't planned for yet." She laughed, because she knew that what had happened so far had definitely been unplanned and unexpected for them both!

They found a vendor selling a sort of meat sandwich in a paper wrapper, which she took one of and Terric two before they wandered off and found a quiet bench on the side of a lesser used street to sit and eat.

After spending a little time consuming the food they had just purchased, Natlya thought over where they might head and where she might like to end up, scuffing her feet idly against the cobblestones beneath them. The weather the beautiful, and she was almost tempted to say, 'Let's just stay here for a while!'

She didn't, though, and instead said the next thing that came to mind. "Have you ever seen the shore?"

[Locke]

Terric

Terric settled himself onto the ground in front of the bench, his shoulder pressed gently against Natlya Cade’s leg. His joy-wheel temporarily abandoned, he ate his sandwich watched townsfolk passing going about their business.

“I can’t say I have,” Terric said, enjoying the sun on his face as it peeked between the rooftops. “It does beat my idea. I was going to suggest, getting a shop front, putting up a sign that read ‘Warders for Hire,’ stay till the lease ran out, and return to Hama Valon and go about our lives as normal. Going to see the shore is much more sensible.”

“Is the sea anything like Lake Somel?” Terric asked resting his head against his friend’s knee. “I’ve managed to cross more rivers in the last few years than most Aiel see in their entire life. I think I’d love to go see the shore with you, Natlia Cade.”

[Bella]

Natlya smiled as he leaned against her and she stopped swinging her feet. Her fingers would idly find their way into his hair from time to time as she listened and thought. She was glad to know that she hadn't been the only one thinking of just staying in Baerlon. It was the most...simply pleasurable time that she'd had in a long time.

Who wouldn't want that to continue?

"I'm not so sure anymore," she said. "I think I like your idea better!" Nat laughed, light and warm. "I doubt it's anything like Lake Somel," she went on a little more seriously. "It's not really anything like a lake. I've not been to the shore often, for it was a long way, but the times I have were wondrous. There's...just something different about the shore of the sea."

She trailed off thoughtfully as her mind tried to wander back into memories, but she stopped it before it got too far. Those memories might make her sad, and sadness, she would not tolerate now.

"We could keep to the roads, through White Bridge and Four Kings and south. Or we could go a different route and take a boat down the river," she thought out loud. "Either way, the journey will take a while, but it's not like we have anywhere else we have to be just yet, eh?" She looked down at him, her fingers somehow having found his hair again, and smiled. "We could set up that shop a while first, eh?"

[Locke]

Terric

Natlya Cade continued to play with his hair in a way Terric would have found indecent or at least embarrassing, many years ago when he was still new from the Threefold Land. These days, he found himself thoroughly enjoying the touch. It wasn't that public here, and Wetlanders did seem to have a different standard of decorum. That brought up fond memories of their kiss on the dance floor. Had that only been a night ago?

“If we aren't in a hurry, I would like to sit here with you until the gleeman returns to the in. Then we can dance for a little before going up stairs so I can rip your clothes of. Then we can get back on the road in the morning” He took a bite of his second sandwich. His fellow Gaidin continued running her hands through his already unruly, red hair.

“However, Natlya Cade,” Terric said leaning back to look up at her. “If you keep playing with my hair like this I might have to find us a secluded roof top.” The Aielman punctuated his statement with the very un-Aiel motion of reaching up and winding a lock of her red hair around his finger. They could always leave in the morning.

[Bella]

Nat liked this side of Terric. When they had first met, she hadn't really known what to make of him. Although to his defense, she was in a pretty dark place then. The loss of Morgan was still a seeping wound at that time. Then when they had gotten together, it had been to train and to spar. They'd had conversations, and gotten to know each other somewhat, but it was still...a little uptight on both their parts.

Now, though...they were both bearers of the fancloak, and without other obligation except to take a little time for themselves to relax, they were both loosening up. And Nat found she enjoyed seeing it in him. She found she wanted to see more of it.

And after all the years of training and go-go-go, she liked enjoying the lazy pace again. Just for a little while, at least.

She grinned at him without shame, because really...well, she didn't have any. Never really had. He was quite forward and she had no problems with that at all. Life at the Tower had made her appreciate straightforward approaches more than she once had. "I like your first idea, although your second can quite be arranged," she said, leaning forward to better meet his gaze...as she kept playing, slow and idle, with his hair.