Riding Into the Typhoon

[Watcher Three]

Storm's Eye. The mountain range housed a city that would have made the ancients whose remains they'd built it on proud. Between magic and sheer numbers, the citizens had managed to raise towers both inside and outside the mountains in a matter of months. And sitting in the middle of the city, under the largest three towers, was a castle flying a black ship on a red flag. That was Typhoon Company's home.

It was also where Watcher lazed about, playing with his cat. Of course, he couldn't see her, but he could feel the fur under his hands, and he could hear the purrs and mewling as he pet and played with her. There were a whole range of other things he could discern just from those two bit of sensory input - From the size of her, this cat was barely more than a kitten. He imagined that she must've been adorable to look at.

Scooping the cat up, he walked out the door to his room, to the lift that would bring him down the tower, into the main part of the castle. It was time to actually start his day.

[Bee]

The salty sea air was the first thing Zandri noticed when she awoke. The second thing was the distinct, rancid scent of human existence, a glorious mix of sweat, piss and vomit. The distinct sound of a bustling city was just audible over the sound of the ships crew frantically preparing to dock.
With a groan, Zandri sat up from where she lay beside two barrels and a spider desperately spinning it's web in a corner. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, shook the flask beside her head. When she heard the faint swish of liquid inside, she grinned and downed what was left before finally standing up. Someone groaned several feet over, rolled over and went back to sleep. Zandri made sure to give him a little kick on the way out.

"Up ye," she said with a heavy accent, "Ve vill be arriving."

She heard the man sit up as she ascended the stairs to the ships deck. As the sunlight hit her face, the city came into view. Another one. Another city, another port. But this one was surrounded by a mountain range. She found herself looking at those more than the city itself. In an abstract way, it reminded her so much of home, the way the sand dunes towered in the distance, sometimes as large as castles. Climbing one could take hours. But those mountains were taller than her sand dunes by far, and this cities towers were bigger than their palaces.

She headed to the front of the ship, tan hands gripping the rail. As they pulled in to dock, she sunk to a knee and prayed to the Great Mother, giving thanks for a safe journey.

[Watcher Three]

As the lift went further down the tower, Watcher rubbed his eyes sleepily. He seemed to have gotten some sand in there at some point, and it was bugging him, no matter how little function his eyes might have had. The movement disturbed the furry little cat, who leaped down and sat on the blue-haired man's boot. The lift was basically a huge, empty, cask with chains attached to pull it up and down. Who had set it up, Watcher didn't know, but it had proven to be an indispensable tool all over the city. Certainly, running down the stairs was less convenient.

The lift stopped, and he turned his attention to the messengers, traders, and his fellow Typhoon members chatting and lounging in the hall outside the kitchens. Then, there were also the guests. Outsiders who either needed security, or a temporary place to stay while they tried to sell whatever they sold to the Typhoon crew. In short, the area around the kitchens was a mess of people. Watcher could pick out individual conversations as he passed. Some of them were very private ones that might have made great blackmail material. That wasn't something the Admiral did, though. he didn't like to blackmail people.

In fact, his mind wasn't on any of that at all. He just wanted to eat breakfast and play some cards before he had to go on his rounds. He insisted on doing a shift of rounds himself, no matter how much anybody wanted him to stay in the castle.

[Bee]

At the bottom of the ramp, Zandri adjusted the small burlap rucksack over her shoulder before taking her first step onto this foreign soil. She glanced around, nodding to her travel companions these past few weeks at sea, now scattering like sand in the wind, never to be together again. It was a fact of life, and she did not feel sad for it.

With a smile on her face, she drove into the crowd, seeking out a tavern.

"Much sorry," she apologized as she bumped shoulders with a stranger. As he turned to grunt a 'don't worry about it', her fingers snaked around the ties of his purse, loosening it and shoving it up her sleeve. She grinned and kept walking until she was around a corner. Only then, did she dare explore the contents of the purse she had stolen.

Quickly, she emptied the bag and threw the silk purse away behind a barrel, hiding the evidence of theft. What she found inside was disappointing to say the least. Only three of these foreign coins, and a spool of white thread with a needle stuck into it. She kept the coins in her hand and tossed the thread into her light rucksack. Her shirt needed mending anyway.
She continued on, pausing only briefly to ask directions, as best she could, to the nearest tavern.

[Watcher Three]

Watcher's breakfast was pretty huge. It had to be, for some reason. The sheer amount of energy it apparently took to keep his senses working well enough to keep his blindness from being a hindrance was a whole lot more than anybody would've guessed. Ten minutes into his massive meal, a man came tromping into the main hall. Even through all the chatter, the Typhoon's leader could hear who it was. Barq. Fucking Barq. Acted all cool until one tiny thing went wrong. And then the tiny thing got blown out of proportion. He calmly continued slurping up noodles, not visibly paying the man any attention until they were face-to-face. As Barq shouted, Watcher imagined lots of hand motions and a red face accompanied his speech.

"Watcher, I've been robbed. Robbed! In your city. Do you see this?! My purse is gone! My money!"

Now, Watcher was quite sure that the older man hadn't been carrying much. Somebody who hadn't heard this idiot before might have dropped whatever they were doing and go looking for what he assumed was probably nothing more than your average pickpocket. Of course, most people might have also had the imagery of Barq patting his belt for his money bag. The blue-haired man just looked up, slightly disinterestedly.

"Oh, whatever would I do without your blustering, Barq? Finish a meal, maybe? Actually enjoy that trash beer you sell me four times a year? Not go chasing pickpockets because you're an oblivious fucking waste of oxygen?"

The Typhoon Admiral at his full height was a couple of inches shorter than the source of his annoyance, but the crazed look on his face was enough to make Barq flinch. Very few people had ever heard Watcher actually yell. It was a new experience for most of the crewmen currently eating. His eye was actually twitching as he searched for the largest bit of food he could hold in his hand and grabbed a sandwich before angrily stuffing it halfway into his mouth and stalking out. Barq might have been a tremendous idiot, but it was bad for the Company if people heard about their associates getting stuff stolen from them. On a hunch, he walked to the lift that brought him down to the docks, continuing to munch on his sandwich and letting the look of disgust fade as he ate.

[Bee]

The Lady Luck saw to it on that day, that she would have to test her child. Zandri, for all her efforts to be discrete, just happened to seek directions from the very person who had gone out searching for a pickpocket. Fate was a curious thing. Fate saw fit to kill her people, her family, burn her home to the ground and wipe her existence from the face of the desert. But fate also brought her here. Fate brought her to the sea, to the wide, beautiful ocean. She'd never have seen so much water, of not for fate. Fate was the ship that carried her through life.

"Excuse. Just off boat. Look for dvink?" she asked the blue haired man as he ate, "And bed to sleep? Yew know vere?"

In her hands she held the coins she had stolen, unaware that this man she had chosen to speak to, was looking for what she had taken.

[Watcher Three]

It took Watcher a moment to respond. He took a last bite, and then turned on his heel to face the owner of the distinctly accented voice he'd just heard. It was an interesting one, for sure. Pretty familiar, considering the amount of traders that came in from the desert, but this wasn't a trader. A trader wouldn't have asked somebody in a Typhoon uniform for suggestions on places to stay. Not usually, anyway. He moved his eyes up and down for a moment before deciding that the woman's eyes were probably a few inches below his. For a moment, the sound of coins clinking in what he assumed was her hand raised his suspicions, but then he mentally shook his head. A pickpocket wouldn't walk up to somebody in uniform, right? Not unless they'd never been to the city before. Either way, showing one traveler a place to sleep wasn't a big deal. He shrugged at the woman.

"Sure. But it might take some walking. It's a busy season in Storm's Eye."

He gestured up the road with his sandwich, then turned, waiting for the sound of footsteps behind him.

[Bee]

The soldiers in her home land did not have uniforms, exactly. They carried certain weapons, marked with the sign of the Father. Men, women. They dressed almost the same, think woven robes to protect from the harsh sunlight, or light clothing for the warriors. But there was no uniform, because nobody was the be set apart, put higher in rank. Even Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses, were expected to do their share for the community. Even more so, because they were a servant, not only to the people, but to the Gods as well.

Zandri felt a stab of homesickness, but quickly buried it like a sandstorm. She grinned at the strangely dressed man and nodded her thanks.

"You is kind," she said, "Not many help. The Goddess smiles on Kindness."

She followed, having no reason not to trust this strangely dressed man, but she was no fool. She'd had her share of negative experiences traveling. Foreign woman with no companions? Seen as an easy target.

She would not let her guard down again.

[Watcher Three]

"Yeah, well... meh."

Really, all Watcher was doing was dragging some poor woman along with him for company while he made his rounds. Many of the more public inns and hotels were on the water, anyway. So, he waved off her compliment. He didn't think of himself as a particularly kind person. He ran the biggest mercenary organization in the region, and possibly the continent. While he might've been kind on the surface, even he didn't quite know why. His eyes wandered as they walked and he wondered exactly what the foreigner behind him was seeing of his city. He knew what it looked like, in theory, but his blind eyes couldn't show him the reality. He looked at her curiously.

"I don't suppose you've seen anything like the Eye back east, huh? Or this many ships."

That was another thing he was curious about. He was from the north end of the desert, not the east. The towns there were laughable compared to the ones that had sprung up along the river that Storm's Eye sat at the end of. He had no clue what the other large cities in the nations he traded with were like at all. And it was unlikely that he would be able to go see for himself unless he handed his job off to one of his assistants, which was not something he wanted to do.

[Bee]

His question made Zandri pause. The displaced Princess touched the scarf draped around her head, remembering how her father presented it to her, woven with his own hands. The intricate, geometric patterns in the fabric told a story like a tapestry, if one just knew how to see the abstract shapes and symbols as people and animals and cities.

"Zere is nothzing to ze east," she replied faintly, continuing to follow. "Nothzing."

She took a deep breath, then forced a smile back on her face.

"Zis city es... how say? Ehh... Beauty! But I never come to here. It is, ah... good place?"