Not a very good one, mind. Good merchants tended to have slightly more foresight than to attempt to make a quick profit off the certainty of war by hauling a large shipment of horsemen's lances, greatswords, chain barding, and other such essential armaments of cavalry and heavy infantry units to, of all places, Muse. This would be because, while such armaments were, without a doubt, difficult to get a hold of in the Muse vicinity, even the slightest effort at research would have told a good merchant that the Muse army was comprised mainly of light infantry, special forces, and all-terrain ranger bands; and just a bit more effort would have told that same good merchant that the few regiments of cavalry and heavy infantry that Muse did maintain had, by order of General Hauser, two entire warehouses full of every lance, sword, or piece of armour that those regiments might need, five times over.

Theran Lappel was, however, not a good merchant. A rented warehouse half-filled with oversized lances, swords, and enough sheets of horse-sized chain mail to blanket a good-sized portion of land could attest to that. Which was more or less why Theran Lappel was currently bent over a mug of cheap wine (which shared many of the properties of its country cousin, cheap beer) in the most commonly frequented bar in Muse, one rather aptly named "Drowning Sorrows".

Theran Lappel was also not a very perceptive man, at least not when facing large financial loss. Had he, perhaps, paid more attention to the woman with clothing white enough to match her pale blond hair at the bar, or actually noticed the gradually rising level of noise rising from the group of assorted rough-looking men and women in the corner, he might have saved himself a lot of pain.

But, as previously noted, Theran Lappel was about as perceptive as he was good as a merchant.

All things considered, this was most definitely not Theran Lappel's day.

No, not at all.

Oulan smiled as she came within view of the gates of Muse. {Hopefully, Annabelle's on top of things,} she thought.

Her smile went away a few minutes later as she saw the guards refusing entry to a merchant who was obviously quite agitated about the whole thing. {Oh wonderful... a lockdown,} she thought facetiously. {Probably Jess' work... that boy always did jump the gun when it came to bad news.}

Stops at Kuskus and Coronet had aquainted her with the situation regarding the encroaching Highland Army. She'd been surprised, having thought it would take a *bit* longer before someone broke the treaty, but not shocked. Her main thought was how out-of-touch she'd been, to miss this even with her 'friends' in every town in the States keeping information for her.

{Never mind that now,} she thought, changing her course slightly to pass around Muse. {First, I need to get inside.}

An hour's walk saw Oulan passing by the east side of the city, on the road that usually led travellers to the Rockaxe and Highland passes.

Oulan had a somewhat different destination in mind.

{Annabelle won't like me using this,} she thought as she saw a certain copse of trees some distance north of the city, {but she can be as mad at me as she wants once I'm inside.} Moving to the center of the patch of forest, she stopped by a large tree stump. Stepping to one side of it, she grabbed the roots and heaved, eventually pulling the 'stump' up to reveal a trapdoor under the stump's cut-off taproot. Opening the trapdoor revealed a tunnel headed south.

As she climbed down into the tunnel, pulling stump and trapdoor closed behind her, Oulan remembered being shown this siege passage by Annabelle the last time she'd served as a bodyguard for the Museian mayor.

{Ironic that,} she thought. {It was during the negotiations for the same peace treaty that just got broken.}

The bodyguard knew that the passage led into the basements of the city hall, opening into a little-used storeroom. {If I've timed it right,} she planned, {I should get there just in time for the six PM dinner break - assuming Jess still gives 'em one - so I should be able to just slip out in the crowd.}

Her guesses proved true, and a few minutes later Oulan was inside the city and headed for the bar. {First stop, checking in with my local 'friends,' she thought jovially, and walked in.

Neither four bottles of a red wine by the name of Crimson Rain nor gloomy thoughts of a very old acquaintance succeeded in dulling Anita's senses enough for her not to notice a rather more recent acquaintance making her entrance through the front door of the bar.

She'd first met the red-haired bodyguard about a year and a half ago, when they'd both taken on jobs as caravan guards for a trader out of Antei. The roads in the Toran Republic now were a lot safer than they had been a year and a half ago, when deserters from both of the armies that participated in the Gate Rune War swelled the population of bandits to saturation levels. No trading caravan could go three metres in the open without fear of a bandit attack. Their caravan had been more fortunate than most -- they'd only been ambushed once, but it had been by about 34 revolutionaries turned bandits at once. It had been after that bandit attack that she and Oulan had really gotten acquainted with each other.

And, Anita wryly observed to herself, noticing the number of female heads that had turned at the bodyguard's entrance and had remained turned, It seems some things never change..

She stared into her glass for a moment. Ah, hell. Valeria will keep. The familiar, sleepy half-smile appeared on her face as she called for another bottle of wine, purposely raising her voice to catch Oulan's attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she observed the bodyguard's head suddenly swivel in her direction.

"Oi! More wine over here!"

The voice rang out, far louder than it had to be, over the general noise of the tavern, and Oulan broke into a grin. {Well, I'll be! I wonder what Anita's doing here?} she thought as she began to push through the crowd towards the swordmistress' spot at the bar.

Madeline Rousseau sat at a small table in the corner of the Drowning Sorrows bar, nursing a drink and moping. {What's that scumbag playing at?} she wondered, in reference to her immediate superior in the Muse hierarchy, Jess.

(For those who have no clue what I'm referring to here, go read Jess chapters 8 and 9.)

Taking a sip from her glass of wine, Maddie sat and stewed in her near-depression. She looked down at the glass in her hand, considering downing the whole thing, ordering another, and repeating the process until able to forget about the day's events, but quickly rejected the idea. {That was what landed me in this fix in the first place,} she thought dejectedly, and set the glass down.

It was just then that she caught sight of a shock of red hair entering the bar, at taller-than-normal height. {Annabelle?!} she thought wildly, standing up and craning her neck for a better look.

It wasn't Annabelle: this person had a shorter head of hair than the Muse mayor... {..but she's worth looking at, nonetheless,} Maddy thought. {Tall, lean but well-muscled, graceful even wending her way through a bar...} She tried to swallow through a dry throat, and impatiently drained her glass. {...and she's familiar somehow...} the secretary thought through the wash of heat the wine provided her.

Then it came to her. One of her childhood friends had worn her fiery hair the same way, in a short bushy style cut short in front to clear her field of vision. Maddie had always tried to stay aquainted with her, because the young lady was in her own way as... non-traditional... a daughter of Rockaxe as Maddie herself, which had meant that Maddie had actually considered confiding her - preferences - to her.

Then one day her family had been killed, and the girl had just vanished.

{...Oulan??} Maddie thought, picked up her bottle of wine, and began to work her way toward the bar.

Oulan, working her way through the agitated crowd, finally settled into a barstool next to Anita. "Yo! How've you been?" she half-shouted over the noise. "I haven't seen you since that caravan in Toran!"

That had been quite the affair: Oulan remebered with some amusement Anita negotiating extra pay from the caravan master *during* the bandit attack. The normal guards hadn't been anything special, but they'd been brave enough, holding off two-to-one odds until Oulan and Anita had unbalanced the scales the other way.

Anita gave her the same sleepy half-smile Oulan remembered from the post-journey celebration. "I've been okay." She looked the bodyguard over. "And you're still wearing as little as ever, I see." The smile grew marginally wider, and was that a vaguely predatory glint in her eyes?.. "Some people might get the wrong ideas from that, y'know..."

"Eh?!?" The bodyguard almost physically shrank back, eyes wide.

Anita kept up the act for a while, then burst out laughing. "Joudan, joudan.." (Joking, joking..) she choked out between laughs, reminding Oulan that the swordmistress was just as well-versed in High Harmonian (Japanese in RL) as was the redhead -- not that that was what was foremost in her mind at the moment.

The bodyguard visibly relaxed, letting out the breath she'd been holding. "Jou'dan ja'nai! (That's not funny!) Don't do that!..." she aimed at the chortling swordmistress, who didn't seem to hear her.

Abruptly, Anita's laughter cut off in mid-laugh, her mirthful expression instantly transfiguring into a distinctly predatory grin. "...tte ka," (...not.) she whispered throatily, her voice pitched just low enough that only Oulan could hear.

"Geh!!" Oulan choked, shrinking back again -- which only served to send Anita into further gales of laughter, and to give the bodyguard a very flustered expression.

After they'd both had a bit of time to calm down, the conversation took a more normal turn.

"So what have you been up to lately?" Anita asked, the words vaguely muffled by the glass she was holding to her lips.

Oulan sighed theatrically. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you..."

"Aa? Honto ka?" (Oh? Really?) Anita replied. "Why don't you tell me and let me decide if I believe you?"

Oulan gave Anita a cockeyed grin. "Just remember, you asked..." she warned, and proceeded to launch into her tale of the last few weeks. "It all started when I heard about a monster preying on women in North Window..."

At a table near the centre of the common room, Theran Lappel was beginning to find it difficult to differentiate between the noise of the pub and the pounding in his head.

Most people have the hangover after they get drunk, but noooo, I get the pain before the gain. Forget your sorrows. What a crock of shit.

Gradually opening increasingly bloodshot eyes, the erstwhile merchant glared balefully at the glass of cheap wine before him. The glass of cheap wine completely failed to respond, which annoyed Theran for some reason.

"Ignore me, will you?.." he muttered, right before violently lifting the glass and downing its contents in one gulp. He'd just finished pouring himself another glass of the wine when the load of alcohol he'd just ingested finally hit his brain; and although it's debateable whether he really had much brain for it to hit, the result probably wasn't very pretty.

Groaning pitifully (a noise that no one heard over the din of the common room), Theran Lappel put his head in his hands and allowed it to slowly sink to the surface of the table. So caught up in his own pain was he that he completely failed to notice that the group at the corner table was now loud enough for the angry tone of their words to be heard from several tables away.

Not that he was likely to have noticed them anyway, but it's the principle of the thing.

It was at that point that someone else made it over to Oulan and Anita's table, having worked her way through the crowd for several minutes. Laying a hand on Oulan's shoulder, Maddie said, "Excuse me."

Oulan was a bit slow to reply. "So after the kid ditched us, I - huh?" she finished eloquently as she glanced back at Maddie.

Pausing for a moment, Maddie gulped - {I wish I had my glass ready,} she thought - and pressed on. "I - you look like a friend of mine from Rockaxe, so - Are you Oulan?" she asked, in her nervousness omitting her usual profanity.

Oulan took a moment to blink and try to remember the old days - then the face of a childhood friend who had seemed to get in trouble as often as Oulan herself floated to the surface. "Maddie? ..I-I mean Madeline Ru- Roh- oh dammit!" she cursed, bringing a smile to Maddie's face.

"Rousseau," the brunette laughed, "and Maddie's fine. It *is* you! Nobody knew what happened to you when your folks got killed! You got laughed off by that ass Gorudo, then you just vanished! What've you been doing all this time?" she asked, then laughed, "Damn it's good to see you again!"

Oulan gave her childhood friend a cockeyed grin. "You too. As for what I've been doing, I'm a bodyguard now-"

Anita cut her off. "-not to mention caravan guard, all-around warrior, and the person who is possibly telling me the wierdest story I've ever heard. Aren't you going to... introduce us?"

Oulan glanced at Anita and blushed, just a bit.

Maddie noticed this, and caught her breath. {Could that mean...}

Anita raised her eyebrows at Oulan from behind the glass, and Oulan continued. "Um! Uh, Madeline Rousseau, Anita of the South, a swordmistress and the best drinker I know of. *Don't* let her goad you into a drinking contest or you'll end up under the table."

{No way in hell,} Maddie thought as Oulan went on.

"And Anita, this is Madeline Rousseau, former trouble child of Rockaxe right along with me, and... Maddie, I don't know what you're doing now," the bodyguard asked lamely.

"I'm the chief aide to Lord Frickin' Jess, and I don't like it much right now, thanks," Maddie growled, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

"Yipes! I've had to work with him - I feel sorry for you," Oulan said, putting her hand on Maddie's arm in sympathy. "I hope the pay's good."

Maddie wasn't paying much attention to anything after 'sorry for you,' since she was *sure* that the temperature in the room had jumped ten degrees when Oulan touched her arm. She took another gulp of wine and stammered out an affirmative.

Oulan might have noticed that, but her attention was divided right then: With a bodyguard's sense for a hazardous situation, she'd noticed that the corner table was getting ugly. She moved her hand back to the edge of the table, bracing for a quick pushoff, and nodded at - at whatever Maddie had just said. She had more important things on her mind.

Theran Lappel had just gotten up from the center table when the noise from the corner skyrocketed. Wincing and holding his head, he staggered two steps sideways, jostling a chair.

The chair belonged to one of the shouting men, and he rocked forward, spilling his drink into the face of the man across the table. Said man came to his feet with a roar and threw a punch at his despoiler. The target, the man Theran had just jostled, had started to turn around to see who had bumped him, and was thus totally off guard. The punch sent him over the back of his chair and into Theran, who went staggering away from the impact and overturned the table behind him, spilling food and drink everywhere.

What followed was an excellent example of an emotional flashpoint: a bar full of not-really-sober people worried about war bore some resemblance to a room thoroughly soaked with gasoline. All that was needed to set it off was a match...

...which the table tipping had just provided. Insults flew, fists flew faster, and the bravos in the corner closed ranks and began pummeling the rest of the crowd.

In short, a tavern brawl.

As the table went over, Oulan grabbed Maddie and stood, putting herself between her old friend and the commotion, but that proved a useless maneuver when the rest of the tavern erupted into violence. Cursing, Oulan began moving towards the bar.

"'Lanny! What're you doing!?" Maddie yelled. "Head for the door, we've got to get out of here!"

Oulan shook her head and shouted back over the noise, absently backhanding a drunk with a broken bottle as he loomed behind her. "Too far! We'll never get there without someone getting hurt!" {Most likely you,} Oulan commented in her mind. Turning back to Maddie, she explained, "We'll head for the bar! You can hide behind there till this dies down!" Glancing back, Oulan called, "Anita-"

She caught just a glimpse of the white-haired woman, wielding a chair with the same assurance as she normally used a sword. She shot Oulan a sleepy half-smile before vanishing into the crowd.

"Damn. Good luck," Oulan muttered as she plowed through the crowd toward her chosen defensible spot, Maddie close behind her.

Some time later, Oulan and Maddie were sitting at the now-empty bar, the tavern a shambles behind them. The bartender had left, and the two were trading Anita's salvaged bottle of Crimson Rain as Oulan checked herself over for scrapes or other open wounds.

Maddie took a swallow from the bottle and set it down in front of Oulan. "I hafta admit, 'Lanny... you fight damn good," she stated, the alcohol hitting harder than usual in the aftermath of a half-hour of adrenaline.

Oulan finished her self-inspection and took a swig of her own. "Lotsa practice, Maddie, thas' all," she replied, a bit tipsy herself. Anita had never returned, and if Oulan's experience with the woman held true, she was most likely in another bar already. "I gotta say myself, I'm impressed w' how far you've gotten. I half figured you'd end up a housewife in R'ckaxe."

Maddie was so incensed at this that she forgot the bottle. "Housewife!? Do I *look* like a goddamn housewife!?" she sputtered.

Oulan blinked, sat down, and took another swallow of wine. "No, y'dont look like a housewife. And somebody who looks 's good as you, too... shame, damn shame."

Maddie blinked hard at that, and began to blush slightly. A voice in the back of her head said that it was a perfectly innocent compliment, but the buzz of the alcohol made it easy to ignore. "So why'r you in our hellhole?" she asked.

Oulan blinked. "Hellhole? Muse's nice. 'Course, Jess is a pissant, but Lady Annabelle's nice, and she won't let him get too far outta hand." She hiccuped. "Annabelle inna market for a bodyguard? Y'know, war 'n all..."

Maddie thought for a moment, then gave up as the alcohol proved too much of a hindrance. "I don't know... Jess is a right rat-bastard, though. Damn, 'Lanny... ya sure can't hold your liquor like ya used to. Care to... go somewhere to sober up?" she asked, her mind now nagging at her about all the mixed signals she'd been getting from her old friend.

Oulan looked at Maddie out of the corner of her eye as she took another swig of wine - a familiar buzz in the back of her head warning her she'd had enough. "Whadda you talkin' about? I'm not th' one wobblin' in her chair, Maddy." In an effort to stop the buzzing, Oulan shook her head. "Ow! That hurt. Wha'd I do that for?" she asked, then looked around. "Damn bar's a wreck. I gotta room at th'inn... y'wanna go remi.. rumu.. rmem.." In frustration, she shook her head harder. "OW! Talk about th'old days?" she finished.

Maddie's eyes lit up. "'F course, 'Lanny. Now why don't you just grab on to my arm and we can walk up the nice stairs together," she answered, thinking {Oh damn, the woman's large. I hope to hell she's not too drunk to walk.}

Oulan nodded. "Hokay. Wish Sier was here - she'd help. Y'd just hafta be careful she didn't bite you," Oulan joked, chuckling at herself. The two women managed to stagger up the stairs to the rooms, which were luckily not damaged from the brawl.

Sitting down on the bed, Maddie commented, "Now you tell me all about this Sier and why she left you all alone here..." while thinking to herself, {Am I really that lucky? Is 'Lanny on the rebound?}

Oulan grinned, heading for a seated position on the bed. "Sierra's her real name... a real vamp-" She heard Maddie's sharp intake of breath and chided, "Not THAT way! She n' me, we were like sisters.. but she was goin' crazy, had to leave." With a *thump,* Oulan sat down on the bed and leaned back against the wall. "Didn't like that. Saw why sh' had to go, but didn' like it. Ever'body leaves..." she complained.

Maddie supressed her urge to cheer at what seemed like confirmation of her suspicions. "Well don't you worry. I'm sure you'll find some other nice lady to be your... sister," she finished with a grin, and flopped down on the bed next to Oulan. "That was a horrible thing to do, leaving you all alone..." she commented, putting a hand on Oulan's shoulder.

Oulan belched and nodded. "Yah. 'Scuse me... damn booze allus gives me gas.. Jus' make sure next lady doesn' bite," she rambled, causing Maddie to straighten up and look at Oulan.

Blinking for a moment, Maddie lost control of her mouth to the alcohol. In her momentary lapse, she said "Bite? As in... y'r into that kind of thing? Damn, Lanny.. I never woulda flagged you as the type... if ya know what I mean..."

Oulan, on the verge of sleep, gave Maddie an uncomprehending look and tried to explain. "Not really... I mean, she hadda or bad stuff woulda happened... not good f'r vampire to go w'out blood..." She made an effort to say more, but all that came out was the beginning of a snore.

Of course, when an alarmed Maddie grabbed her and started shaking her up and down as if Maddie were the elder Genkaku grandchild, Oulan didn't stay sleepy long. "What?!" she yelled. "That, that's.... what the hell did she do to you, 'Lanny?"

Oulan's only comment for a moment was "Fu-wah, fu-wah, fu-wah!", then she recovered enough consciousness to grab Maddie's wrists and pinch, causing the smaller girl to release her hold on Oulan's shoulders. All the bodyguard could manage after that was "D-do-don't do that. Urrrrppp..." before she had to run for the Porcelain Goddess.

This left an upset Maddie muttering to herself on the bed. "I was almost ready to try... Rrrr. Well this is just great... goddamn ex-girlfriend... this was so NOT the evening I had in bloody mind..."

Oulan, returning from her brief illness, caught the last comment. "Oohhh... at least the world's not spinning anymore," she began, following with, "Y'r stronger than you look, y' know that?" Then there was a pause as Maddie's comment sank in. "Girlfriend? Whadda you talkin' about?" Oulan asked intelligently.

Maddie blinked innocently. "You know... that bondage-queen Sier woman you were talking about? Damn, 'Lanny.. when you're looking for a one-night stand you should at least have the decency to admit that you're on the rebound... a girl could get the wrong idea..." she finished.

This left Oulan thoroughly flustered. {Bondage-queen?? One-night stand?!?! On the....} she thought disjointedly, breaking out into a huge blush as she remembered a certain conversation with Sierra. "Um, uh, I, er, uh..." was all she managed to say as Maddie giggled on the bedside. Then the alcohol and fatigue bit back, along with a lot of curiosity about some things the vampiress had mentioned. "Oh, why the hell not?" Oulan commented, then tackled Maddie back onto the bed.

The next morning, for Madeline Rousseau, dawned bright and glorious, and not even the prospect of going to work under Damn Ratboy Jess for eight hours could dampen her enjoyment of the day.

Of course, the aforementioned work required getting up, which presented an embarrasing conundrum to the Muse assistant clerk. Finally, she prodded Oulan's shoulder lightly. "'Lanny.. 'Lanny, wake up. I've gotta go to work, and I think you threw Jess' kilt somewhere..." she commented.

Oulan, already waking up thanks to a healthy dose of sunlight, murmured "Hmmmn... wha?" sleepily, then bolted upright as Maddie's comment hit home. "JESS' Kilt!?!? What in the name of the 27 True Runes were you doing wearing JESS' kilt!?" she howled, then noticed her own state of undress. "Eep!" she squeaked, just as any Greenhill schoolgirl might, and yanked the covers over herself. "Umm.. I.." she hemmed and hawed, then memory of last night set in. "Huh, Sier was right. That *was* fun..." she commented.

Maddie blushed at the question. "Err... it's a long story... see, I was kind of on a bender and..."

Oulan gave her a sudden worried look.

Maddie eeped and began babbling. "Eeew! No! He just took me home, and I kind of stole his kilt to wear to work since I sort of.. errr.. messed up my own and..."

With a serious (though not unsympathetic) look, Oulan asked "Are you sure he didn't do anything..."

Maddie cut her off. "Yes! I mean no! I mean... Um, I was fully clothed when I woke up..." she dithered to a stop, flustered.

Oulan grinned at her - friend? Lover? {Time enough to make up my mind about that later,} she decided. Still smiling, she asked, "And all the underwear was on right-way-round?"

Blushing (as she was only dressed in the items in question) Maddie answered "Uh huh..."

Oulan's grin went from sympathetic to teasing. "You're OK then," she giggled. "You *stole* his kilt?!" she asked incredulously.

Maddie frowned. "Goddamn bastard told me to be at work or he'd blackmail me... and now he's blackmailing me anyway!"

Oulan developed a frown of her own... one much darker than her friend's. "Why that..." she grated out, a hand slipping out from under the covers to grab items of her apparel. From the activity behind the concealing sheet it seemed Oulan was trying to dress and preserve her modesty at the same time.

Maddie nodded, pulling on her shirt. "I mean, I was blackmailing him first, but that's besides the point! He purposely embarassed me, and now he's making me do nonsensical FOOLISHNESS! Bloody rat-bastard..." she growled, in a tone so much like Oulan's that the redhead grinned, then became serious again.

"Blackmailing you? With what?" the bodyguard asked, leading to an explanation of the Annabelle situation. Nodding in understanding, she commented, "Oh. Yeah, I can see how that's a problem. Good thing you never did that in Rockaxe!" she laughed.

Maddie suddenly looked very small. "As for Rockaxe... well, there was a *reason* that I had to leave, you know..."

Oulan gave her a flat look. "You didn't..."

Maddie nodded.

Oulan blinked. "Wha? With who?" she asked, then whirling on Maddie as a sudden thought struck her. "Not Alexandra?!"

To Oulan's relief, Maddie laughed. "No. And tear her away from her happy little land of sexual tension? Like bloody hell. Do you remember that girl who married the head of the armorers association when.. er.. we were about twelve or thirteen...?"

Oulan winced. "Oh no. Not that old fart, he's more traditional than Stupid Gorudo!!" she mourned, then paused in sympathy. "Well, I see why you had to leave. I remember when he decided I needed a good thrashing to make me a 'good Rockaxe girl' again..."

Maddy gave Oulan a sardonic grin. "His wrist never did heal straight."

Oulan winced. "Oops."

Maddie smiled wanly at her redheaded girlfriend. "Anyway... You off on another of your crusades?" she asked. "You always did like to play the hero..."

Oulan returned the wan grin with a bright one. "Actually, I'm probably going to be hanging around Muse for a while, what with the war and all-" her grin widened, "and we can't let anything happen to Annabelle, can we?"

Maddie's grin turned smug as she moved in to plant a quick kiss on Oulan's cheek. "Do I look like that upsets me?" she asked, then asked, "I've gotta get to work, or Jess will have my ass. Later?" with a hopeful look.

Oulan nodded. "Yup. Later!" Dropping the sheet to reveal the fact that she had fully dressed herself, she commented, "Now to get that bodyguard post with Annabelle..."

It was a few days after that when everything went to pieces. Oulan had gotten her job as a bodyguard to the lady Annabelle and Maddie had been going about her job as usual.

Then Jess fired Maddie, and promptly left the city (fortunately - had Oulan caught him after that, the assistant mayor might not have survived.) Madeline, in turn, left to find the errant mayor, convinced that he was up to something... and she exchanged gifts with Oulan before she went.

Maddie turned to Oulan, exasperated. They'd been arguing for an hour now. "Like hell you're coming with me! No offense, Lanny, but you'd stick out like a bull in a freaking china shop going through Highland. Besides, don't you have to get your employer the hell out of here?" she finished, a point that struck home.

Oulan sighed. "I've *been* to Highland, Maddie. I have friends there, too... but you're right about Annabelle." She paused. "I can at least see you to the border, though. And I'm not taking no for an answer!"

Now it was Maddie's turn to sigh. "Yeah. Like I said... you always did have that protection thing going for you." She cast a sharp glare upon the bodyguard as she continued. "And that's why you ONLY go to the border. How screwed is Rockaxe going to be if something happens to Anabelle? You know that you're the best choice for protecting her..." she pleaded.

Oulan laughed. "Rockaxe is pretty screwed up already! ...But you have a point. Still... if you ever need contacts, or information from locals..." Oulan pulled out her travel knife and sliced off a lock of her hair, which she then tied into a little good-luck charm knot. "..go to the inns wearing this, and if someone asks, say Oulan sent you."

Maddie blinked. "You mentioned... your network of friends, right?"

Oulan nodded, and to her surprise, Maddie frowned. "Thanks. Have any pens on you? I don't like to leave with a debt..." the clerk asked.

Oulan snorted. "Do I *look* like I carry quills around? Hang on, I should have a writing stick here somewhere..." she commented, rooting through her pack.

Maddie grinned wryly. "Shoulda remebered that." Fishing out a document, she began to scribble on it. "...If you had an alias, what would it be?" she asked.

Oulan grinned just as wryly as Maddie. "Madeline? Just kidding..." she added at Maddie's glare. "Hmm.. Sasha. Sasha Miuret," she stated.

Maddie frowned in concentration. "Alright then..." she signed a mark into the document, which she then handed over to Oulan. "Here you go! And don't lose it. I wasn't able to steal many before I left," she said. To Oulan's questioning look, she asked, "You were planning on getting back into Muse, weren't you?"

Oulan looked down, and gasped. "This is an entry pass! You rifled Jess' desk, didn't you?" she asked with a respectful grin.

Maddie grinned back. "Sneaky bastard took half the important documents in Muse with him... but I have the other half! Poor idiots in the office won't know what to do with themselves with me n' Jess gone," she finished.

Oulan laughed ruefully. "Oh no. Poor Annabelle!" she said with a smile. "I don't envy the other bureaucrats... and the best part is, we can blame it all on Jess!" she cheered. "Well, I guess we'd better get ready to go.. the Rat has enough of a head start on you already," the redhead finished, picking up her gear.