SERAVEL ROVODIA IS A REBEL WITH A WARRANT. As the head of the Daily Embers, a chronicle criticizing the tyranny of the current ruler, Seravel gained significant enemies who preferred to keep the truth in the dark. When a number of small accidents st...
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2412, Rab 20, Kindreth
Sera stared up at the shutter of the small window overhead, twiddling his thumbs in his indecision over whether to slide it back or not. His gut still recoiled at the thought of having to switch carts, and being a nuisance was the last thing he wanted to be.
The merchant from Gaimouth waited beyond the sulfuric radius of the volcano, but it was somewhere in Gligan that she told him she's off to Percester, a city somewhere in Alkara and that she's going to drop him off in the middle of nowhere.
"A trader's got to work hard for that grena," the merchant told him with a malicious smirk on her face. "Now, pay up."
It's only because Sera was here under official orders that he had something to pay the wily aksaba-driver. If he was asked, he'd never pay a single versallis because she broke her oath.
But he understood her perspective. Perhaps it's because he lived in security all his life, never worrying about his next meal, that he failed to realize she had other things to do other than provide him transport. After all, he was the one who plucked her off the street and made her detour all the way to the acrid wasteland that was Gaimouth.
Now, after he was able to hail another passing merchant on his way to Calca, he sat in the inside of the cart along with the rest of the wares questioning if speaking up and asking a question was the right thing to do. He had been on that edge since the past hour, or at least, it felt like it. Time was next to impossible inside the never-changing cart, and the crates of ajilte and kegs of powdered sariega leaves couldn't have given him enough clues. Worse, he didn't have a timeteller with him, and staring at one for the entirety of the journey would have killed his motivation.
He'd kill for something to look at other than the lifeless crates, though. The cart's build closed him inside four wooden walls. The splintering planks reminded him of the boards he sometimes used to block out the noise from the palace grounds when he was coming up with an article so close to the deadline he set for himself. No windows showed him the moving landscape as the cart rumbled along, even though the monotonous droll of wheels sloughing through silt proved they were still crawling towards their joint destination.
Finally, he dug his teeth on his lip, rushed up, and slid the shutters aside. The back of the merchant's head slipped into view, the sheared dark brown locks bouncing with every step the aksaba upfront took.
"Hey, um...sir," Sera cleared his throat, retreating to the shadows of the cart's gut. It's okay, maybe? "Would you mind if I ask you something?"
A grunt. "As long as it's not another rest stop, I'll see what I can do," the merchant grouched. Sera, it seemed, had asked for too many.
"Apologies for that, um, sir," Sera said. "I'm not used to long-distance travels. Take this as my first time."
