Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs

Chapter 5 ~ Dens and Dragons

  Rita's expectations of events to occur were not met when she returned to Glenton. She was, of course, congratulated on the success of their mission (of which she was suspicious since they haven't really done anything) and brought to a great feast. During the week, she explored the streets of Glenton in order not to get lost again and has learned them all since she was a fast learner. What bothered Rita was when the Ruby tribe's mission was going to start. By rumours which could be easily found in the Ruby tribe, Ellancelot has still on her mission and was not returning for quite a while – a fact which disappointed Rita a lot.

While on one of her daily walks around Glenton, Rita was walking through her favourite part of town – Amethystine Square which was part of Bournemouthshire Square. The Amethystine part of the square was as lively as ever with many dancers and street performers. Rita wondered whether she should join the Amethyst tribe since it appealed to her a lot, she was secretly quite creative and marvelled at the sight of anything to do with art but the thought of having to meet the annoying Kiera a lot and deal with the small tribe leader made her think twice about it. Rita saw the same dancers with the purple silk robes which she admired quite a few days ago and as they were about to leave in the evening, she decided to gather her courage and approached them.

"Umm...hello?" Rita said nervously as the dancers drew their attention to her. A young girl stepped out in front of Rita, supposedly the leader.

"What is it that you want?" the girl asked putting her hands on her hips.

"I was just wondering how you did all those tricks before; I love your dance a lot, you see..." Rita started mumbling, she was not sure exactly what she wanted from the dancers either but she did want to at least acquaintance with them. The dancers were not very sure about what exactly to answer themselves so they simply invited Rita with them to a bar. Of course Rita could not drink much from there since she was only 11 but nonetheless that did not affect her conversation with the dancers. They were a friendly bunch and very strange to say the least but Rita admired them a lot and the dancers even shared some of their secrets with her – they explained to her the technique of being able to escape anything which tangled Rita even if she was captured and tied up, a technique which would prove useful later on. After many hours of laughter and chatter, Rita decided it was time she headed back since it was already midnight. As Rita walked down the streets of the Ruby tribe, Rita noticed some movement. She decided to follow discovering that the figure was some thief. For now, Rita decided to just follow the thief which led her to Bournemouthshire Square. Rita nervously checked the time, it was indeed 2 in the morning and now she was feeling a bit nauseous, could this have been another raiding party? Rita started to wonder whether she should show herself and escape with her people; she could finally live the life which she was used to yet she could not help but think that there may be a better way of life which she could find and help the rest of the Sixth Realm. She noticed that even after a while, only the same thief stood there, checking the loot; they were probably the only one there. Rita wondered if it really was the same raiding party since the people of the Sixth Realm usually moved in groups at least of two or more people. As Rita moved closer, she noticed that the thief was none other than Anastice. Rita approached Anastice who at first startled, drew out her daggers but she then recognised who was standing in front of her.

"Rita?" she was shocked, maybe even slightly disappointed. Even after a while, her demeanour remained serious and she still did not relax her position, "What are you doing here?"

"Pardon?" Rita choked out the word, "What do you mean? And what's with that manner of speech? Don't tell me it's because I stole your fashion sense of wearing a scarf?"

"Pff, hardly" Anastice smirked but returned to being serious just as fast, "You have not returned from the last raiding party; everyone regarded you as either dead or a traitor."