The wagon ride to Lumendell took five days, and Ashara spent most of them bored out of her mind.
She'd never been away from the troupe before. Not really. The furthest she'd ever gone was the distance between two towns, and even then she'd had fifteen dramari around her. Delara's tea, Maren's cooking, Lysa's endless questions.
Now it was just her, a pack full of donated supplies, a bandaged arm, and a merchant driver named Pol who smelled like pipe smoke and wouldn't shut up about grain prices.
Also, she hadn't had sex in almost a week.
[I'M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND!]
"By the way, uh... You dramari?" Pol asked on the second day, squinting at her from the driver's seat.
"Yeah."
"Huh. Took me a while. You don't got the horns. Or the grey skin." He gestured vaguely at her. "You're all... brown. And, uh, normal-looking. No offense."
"None taken, I guess."
"It's the eyes that give it away," he said, nodding like he'd just solved a mystery. "That amber. Dead giveaway. My cousin's wife was dramari, had the same color. 'Course, she had the horns too, big spirally ones, so it was a bit more obvious."
"I'm hornless. It happens sometimes. Genetic lottery."
"Huh." Pol considered this. "So do you still, uh, you know, have a..."
"Yes."
"I didn't even finish the question."
"You didn't need to, buddy. And yes."
[And if I go another week without using it I'm going to jump head-first into the mouth of the next direwolf I see.]
Pol turned back to the road with his ears red and Ashara smiled to herself and watched the countryside roll by.
---
On the fifth morning, Lumendell appeared on the horizon, and Ashara forgot how to breathe for a second.
She'd heard about this city. Everyone had, on the countryside. But hearing about it and seeing it were two very different things. The outer walls alone were taller than anything she'd ever seen, and the gates were wide enough to fit four wagons side by side. Crystal spires rose above the rooftops, glowing faintly even in the daylight.
Inside was chaos.
The fun kind. Every direction she looked there was something new. A dwarf hammering glowing runes into a blade at an open-air forge. An elf woman selling potions out of color-coded vials. A street performer juggling balls of conjured fire while a small crowd cheered him on. Ashara almost stopped to watch before she remembered she wasn't here to perform.
She was also getting stared at.
Not subtly, either. Her outfit, the same layered silks and hip scarves she performed in, was turning heads left and right. A man at a fruit stall damn near walked into his own display trying to get a look at her. An elven woman sitting outside a café tracked her for a solid five seconds with her chin in her hand and a very studious look on her face.
[Oh? Hello.]
The elf was tall, long silver hair, legs for days, wearing a fitted tunic that showed off a very nice pair of—
Ashara walked into a signpost.
[... Okay. Focus.]
She rubbed her forehead, asked a vendor for directions to the Adventurer's Guild, and followed the main avenue until she found it. The Guild was impossible to miss, a massive stone building at the center of the city, four stories tall, with the Guild's crest carved above the front doors. People were flowing in and out, adventurers with weapons and badges, clerks with stacks of paper, a dwarf carrying what looked like a monster's severed head in a burlap sack.
Ashara watched him walk past and decided not to think about it.
Inside, she picked the least intimidating clerk she could find, a tall elf woman with short blonde hair and a very organized desk, and set Rain's token on the counter.
"Hi. I'm here about Vanguard Academy."
The elf picked up the token, turned it over, and her eyebrows climbed.
"... This is Instructor Torreth's mark." She said it like that couldn't be the case. Like she'd been told two plus two equaled six and was going "no, that can't be right".
"Uh... yeah. Rain. She gave it to me."
The elf looked at Ashara, then at the token, then back at Ashara, and Ashara could practically see the woman recalculating.
"Instructor Torreth asked you to enroll at the new academy?"
"She suggested it. I'm taking her up on it."
A pause.
Then the elf pulled a folder from beneath the counter and slid it across in a neat stack. Enrollment packet, orientation materials, residence permit.
"The inaugural term begins in two weeks. Orientation is the day before. Don't be late, and read the materials before, not during." She paused again. "Riverside District has affordable inns. The Copper Kettle is reasonable. And don't let anyone charge you more than four silver a night. Dramari or not, you're a Guild affiliate now."
"Thanks," Ashara said, gathering the stack against her chest. "I appreciate it."
She walked out of the Guild hall and stood on the front steps for a second, blinking in the sunlight, holding an enrollment packet for a combat academy.
She had a moment of clarity, then.
[I just signed up to learn how to fight because a woman I slept with once told me I had potential. After sex.]
She blinked.
[... Cool.]
---
The Copper Kettle was small, clean, and cheap enough. Her room was tiny, just a bed, a desk, and a window overlooking the canal, but it had a door that locked, and right now that was enough.
She spread the orientation materials on the bed and skimmed until she hit the instructor list.
Celeste Armitage — Advanced Combat Instructor
Griff Stonehewn — Survival & Monster Ecology
Haytham Wells — Magic Theory & Tactical Spellcasting
Lirien Duskwhisper — Aura Control & Mana Management
Kael Riversong — Weapons Mastery & Enchantment Basics
And there it was.
Rain Torreth — Basic Combat Instructor
Ashara stared at it.
Rain was going to be her teacher. Her combat instructor. The woman she'd ridden into the mattress at a countryside inn was now, officially, in a position of authority over her.
[That's going to be a fun first class.]
She gathered the papers, set them on the desk, and lay back on the bed. She could hear the canal through the window, and further off, the hum of the city, thousands of people living their lives in a place bigger than anything she'd ever known.
She thought about Delara, Lysa, the troupe watching her leave.
She thought about the direwolf's yellow eyes.
Then she thought about that elf outside the café with the silver hair and the long legs, and grinned.
Two weeks until the term started. She was alone in the biggest city in Velthara with nothing to do and nobody to answer to.
[... I can work with that... if I can find at least one person to fuck before I lose my mind, that is.]