Vaelora had her compass out. It had been out for most of the morning, consulted at sporadic intervals like you were checking the time to make sure you were still on time for your destination. She walked with total confidence in a direction only she knew it was towards.
Raum could begin to see a city emerge. Larger than anything they'd passed through since Capimus.
The towns they had passed through since Capimus barely had a functioning defense force. One, maybe two soldiers if they could afford them. This town didn't just have on soldier. They had a full line of them, posted at intervals, watching the road lead in.
A checkpoint was set up at the entrance. Three people ahead of them were being processed. Each one was looked at the way you look at something you're still deciding whether to let through.
Vaelora put the compass away when it was finally their turn to speak.
"State your purpose," the processing guard stated.
"We're staying the night, then passing through the other side the next day," Raum responded.
The processing guard raised his eye brows, then looked at Vaelora.
She didn't respond, instead standing still waiting for an actual question to answer.
"Are you two... a couple?" He asked, part sincere, part doing his job.
"No we're-"
"Yes, we are." Raum said stopping Vaelora before she could say anything else.
Vaelora's ambient body heat began to raise. The processing guard tugged at his equipment.
"Welcome in. Stay longer than your term and there will be consequences.
"Thanks" Raum said, pushing Vaelora in before she could say another word.
Once they were clear Vaelora finally let it out.
"What was that about. A couple? Us?!" She demanded.
"Look" Raum said pointing to the wall of the first building on their right side.
A vivid illustrated warning of air pirates. The main threat to towns close to the coast. A crude drawing of what an air pirate ship looked like was drawn. It would have been the equivalent of a tug boat in the air if such a thing ever existed up there.
"I didn't think a city like this would have warnings posted up about air pirates."
Vaelora leaned in, making a noise with her mouth open. "What am I looking at exactly?"
"Once you get noticed enough, they will make one of these for you" he told Vaelora.
She leaned in further. The illustrated pirate was roughly human-shaped, vaguely threatening, holding something that was either a weapon or bad perspective.
"That doesn't look like me," she said.
"It's a type."
"Were you ever this type?"
"I faced a crew that had that same pirate flag." He kept walking. "Demolished them. before my own crew got the idea."
Their conversation was interrupted by a round red projectile that caught Raum directly on the shoulder. He looked up to see the window still above them empty. A second one had already been thrown towards him which he caught before it splattered over him.
Vaelora was already laughing. Then wet, pale yellow paint from a brush landed on the side of her mail corset.
"HEY!" Vaelora screamed. She looked up to see an older woman standing by the open window, but she looked more apologetic and mouthed an "I'm sorry" to her.
"Is this what it's like to be an air pirate?" Vaelora asked.
"This is for someone else."
Towards the center of the town they finally saw what was causing the projectiles. A procession that moved through the city square. It was an official escort, five soldiers, two at the center of it.
The official leading them was well built, unhurried and dressed in a white suit and pants that had no business being that clean in a city where people were throwing produce and paint. He moved through the square the way someone moves through a space that has always been theirs. Not like he owned it, but knew what would and wouldn't hit him.
Walking beside him was a prisoner. Lean, roughly Raum's height, messy brown hair, charcoal jacket with cuts along the sleeves where the fabric had been parted deliberately. Through the cut gaps were scars, barely visible. A wide yellow scarf pulled up just below the mouth, covering the neck entirely. Besides the paint and produce, it was the only pop of color on the man.
He walked where the escort was taking him. No performance in either direction or making an attempt to escape.
Projectiles that stained began to condense and land on the prisoner.
They crossed the square and then they were gone.
Raum looked at the corner where they'd disappeared for a moment.
The soldiers from the end of the block had arrived. Four of them, moving with the practiced purpose of people who had decided the fastest solution to a problem was to move it somewhere contained.
"For your protection," the one in front said, "We need to keep you in a holding room for the night."
Vaelora looked at Raum. Raum looked at the soldiers.
---
The holding cell was clean and more spacious then any of the rooms they had stayed in until this point. Two separate beds were on either side, with a long bench between the two. Besides the iron bars it could have been mistaken for an actual room.
Vaelora was too busy picking paint off herself to seemed bothered by the bars.
Raum leaned his back against the wall and looked at the window.
Outside in the corridor, he heard the passing of footsteps then dialogue.
"Still on for tomorrow?"
"Far as I know. Warden hasn't changed it."
"The foreigner. The one with all the-"
"Yeah."
Their conversation continued through whispers, as if they weren't supposed to discuss whatever it was in public.
---
They were finally let go in the morning.
A guard walked them through the paperwork with the same thoroughness as the gate. He handed them back what had been taken and told them, with genuine civic sincerity, that visitors to inmates awaiting sentencing were permitted between the hours of seventh bell and midday.
Vaelora looked at Raum for directions. He was already walking.
The prison was a separate building from where they'd slept. A guard at the entrance checked a ledger, confirmed the visiting hours, and walked them down a corridor that went deeper and quieter as the light from the entrance got smaller behind them.
He stopped in front of a cell door and said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.
Raum looked at what was on the other side of the bars.