[w a n d e r l u s t]

She'd been lucky to hear about the caravan when she'd passed through the city a week ago. Passing off for a traveling mercenary had been a child's game, especially since she didn't mind being payed a beer and a dollar a day, and she'd set herself up on one of the travel-tents at the end of the group. Four days since they'd left, and not one of them had tried talking to her... which was a good thing, since they wouldn't have enjoyed the answer. Shrouded in a thick swathe of dusty brown cloth, only the muddy glint of her eyes and a stray strand of soot-black hair showing in the formless mass, she was like a brooding cloud as she watched the dark blue horizon.

[Introducing: Ziggu. This post isn't half as long as the other ones, so I hope it's short enough. x33]

Shaeman was another member of the caravan, riding a dark grey horse somewhere near the middle. He was playing as a mute warrior, which meant that no one expected an answer from him. He wore a black cloak which splayed out over the hindquarters of his horse, and the hood on the cloak had been pulled down low over his eyes and hair, hiding the fact that he looked different to the others.

There was the faint ruffle of cloth as the hidden figure shifted her position, dark eyes slowly drifting from the blank noon horizon until they met the black cloak of the horseback traveler. He didn't look like the sort to purposefully stand out, but he hadn't actually made an effort to fit in either. A voiceless warrior, on horseback no less... Most of the people in the caravan were merchants or nomads, and though they could fight, they didn't have the easy, trained movements of a professional. To her, the silhouette was like a crouching lion surrounded by housecats. Even the horse was a wonder: most found it hard to survive even a day in this desert, reason why most people used long-lasting camels. Of course, there was shade, water and food in the caravan, but...
Her eyes narrowed, and she turned away. Something was niggling at her, and she would keep one eye open until she found out what.

Shaeman took the reins in one hand, taking a short drink from a canteen hanging from his belt. His sword hung at his hip, a bow and quiver slung diagonally across his back. The horse tossed its head, flicking its long forelock out of its eyes. Shaeman was glad that he had asked his sister about which sort of horse to take. The one he was riding, who's name translated as 'darker' was a breed that had been bred to survive in deserts.
Shaeman looked around his silver eeys hidden by the shadow of his hood. Seeing something move out of the corner of his eye, he looked towards it, twisting round on the horse's back (he was riding bareback). It was the mysterious person that kept to the back of the caravan. He turned back knowing that they weren't a threat at that moment.

The unkempt feathers in her back bristled nervously at the moment her slanted eyes caught a pale, icy glint in the horseman's hood, and she quickly drew her gaze away again. She couldn't help looking back to the warrior's dark outline; it was like trying to ignore a strolling mountain. She drew her face further into the folds of cloth until her eyes could barely peer over the edge of her wrappings and her dishevelled hair obscured most of the hole she'd fashioned when smothering herself inside the lightweight weave.
Well, nothing was going to happen if she didn't jump in, was it? She hated feeling as though ants were gnawing away at her insides, and anyway it was about time she got her legs moving if she didn't want to get crotch cramps.
The wide strips of coarse brown fabric enveloping her twitched and brushed together as she dropped nimbly off the end of the travel-tent she'd been sitting on, and she then marched further up the caravan until she intrusively stopped beside the warrior and his horse. Though most of her face was still shadowed by a greasy wave of black hair, the slanted almond of her eye and sharp outline of her nose were clear against her pale skin as she looked defiantly up at the man.
"So, wot's yer reason fer bein' a shmuck an' comin' out 'ere in th' middle o' nowhere?" she asked directly, diving right in.

Shaeman looked down at the person who had addressed him, slowing his horse to a slow walk. He observed her for a few moments, not speaking, and then he opened his mouth.
"I am seeking answers." He said simply his face still hidden by the shadows of his hood, although his silvery eyes glinted through the darkness. The horse snorted, tossing its head again to rid itself of a few flies that had settled on its nose.

The steely gleam of the warrior's eyes made her sweaty skin prickle, and her mud-brown gaze darted to the minute little things buzzing around the horse's head. A hand snapped out from under her many-layered tunic, picking a fly right out of its flight and bringing it casually up to her face as though there was nothing more normal to do, and she calmly observed it as her rasping voice once again escaped the strange, shambling silhouette of cloth she seemed to be.
"Funny, en't it," she muttered, a mocking edge to her words. "Ah came 'round 'ere lookin' fer answers, too. 'M a bit better 'n yer, though: Ah've alr'dy got sum."
Her eyes flickered momentarily to the warrior, and the black nails of her half-hidden hands tightly gripped the wings of the fly she had captured.
"Yer a filthy," she ripped off one of the wings, "lyin'," snapped the other wing with barely a sound, "sneak." A flick of her wrist, and the insect was lost in the sands beneath the travelers' feet. "Mute warrior, mah a**."
Calmly, keeping her expressionless gaze on what she supposed was the bottom half of the horseman's face to avoid his eyes, she watched him on the edge of her sight. Mute was out of the question; warrior, on the other hand, was probable: she could still feel that twinge in her belly, as though there was something she hadn't quite noticed.
"Passin' thah pleasantries, what kinda questions ya lookin' fer answers to, eh?"

[Sorry for the long, slow posts here x0 I'll try to shorten.]

- S'ok -

Shaeman's mouth curved into a half smile. He halted the horse, his gaze still on the woman. Her insults didn't faze him, not many ever did.
"I do not talk much, that is true, and the answers I seek are my own."

The cloth-swathed girl cocked an eyebrow at him, her trailing garb shuffling as she testily crossed her arms. Answers were what she wanted, what she needed, and what she'd get.
"Tha's strange, Ah coulda swore ya talked 'bout answers instead o' questions," she sneered, coming to a stop just as his horse broke its pace. "Ya plumb deaf or summat? Nah, not even, I tink ya jes' ha' no brain ta begin wit. Ah ent askin' fer the answers, dipwad. Ah'm askin' fer thah questions. Want tha' Ah repeat it in French, mebbe, or d'you prefer German?"
She took a step closer. She didn't like how he was acting all calm, as though he wasn't even worried in the slightest. What, was he dim in the head or just plain full of himself?
"Yer no' normal, Ah feel it in mah skin. So answer thah questions I give, 'kay? I'm s'pposed ta be the pr'tector, see, of this caravan 'ere, an' Ah don't want no trouble wit some Dummkopf who tinks 'e's 'igher 'n anythin' what touches thah ground. Ya hear?"
She knew she was getting everything muddled, but this guy was seriously unsettling her. She didn't like his eyes. We wouldn't he d*** well look away for once?

"The answers I seek are my concern, and my concern alone." Shaeman said quietly, but firmly. At the mention of him not being normal, he gave a half smile again.
"I could say the same about you, strange one." He drew back his hood, silver eyes and hair glinting in the desert sun.