User blog:Wuldnakest/The Cat and the Bird Part 1

        "Name?" The customs agent asked me.

        "Llewellyn," I replied as I handed him my papers. I bit my lip as I awaited him to butcher my name as all Easterners do, along with every Westerner not from Kemrie.

        "Hroo-air-hrin?" he sounded it out. By now I had come to expect the Easterners' inability to pronounce an "L" because they didn't have that sound in their own languages. Even though everyone's inability to make the air go by the sides of the tongue instead of over it wasn't unique to the East, I hadn't gotten used to it.

          "Just 'Doctor' is fine," I told him. "I'm here on business. A town in Siaina needed a doctor, and so I was sent here."

          "Yes well, Rouie," he began and I winced at that nickname, "I think we need you in our quarantine room for inspection. We don't want more new diseases into our country."

        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">I nodded with an obviously annoyed smile as I took my papers back and picked up my luggage, following another customs agent to an out of the way room to be inspected for sicknesses. It was true Westerners had accidentally brought a plague to Siaina on the Mist Continent, but we had already started our own inspections back home for healers coming here to work. I was OK to go by Westerner standards, so this extra security seemed unnecessary.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">After a few long hours of redundant examinations of my clothes, me, and luggage, along with some demonstrations of my healing magic, I was eventually free to go. I walked out into the street of Iangsio, or "Yangzhou" in the Common language, and started looking for a carriage that could take me to my destination. This place was supposed to be the capital of Siana, so surely I should be able to find someone to take me into the country's interior.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">The buildings of Iangsio were beautifully built as one might expect a country's capital to look. The buildings had several layers to their roofs that were curved upwards slightly, and there was an extension of the roof on each floor's balcony. The balcony stretched all around the floors as well, something Goidelic buildings never have. Many buildings also created a horseshoe shape in their floor plans with a garden in the central courtyard. These Iangsio people must all be very skilled gardeners as each of these gardens was amazing with many beautiful colors, and some even had designs made from flower arrangements. Nearby one of the horseshoe buildings was a carriage, just for me.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">"Hello!" I greeted a carriage driver as I came up to him and he looked down at me from where he was sitting. He was wearing a long dark robe that stretched to his knees in his sitting position with brown pants underneath. On his head he wore a long, perfectly round, yellow hat that looked like a musician's cymbal. "I'm looking for passage to uh," I checked my papers again. "Zow-Toon-Nah?" I looked at the paper and then up, and then back at that name. "I'm never going to get used to this place."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">The carriage driver gave me a puzzled look. I looked back up at him, and it became clear he didn't speak the Common language. I dropped my things and held my papers in front of me as I pulled a pen from my pocket. I circled the name of the town and handed him the paper, hoping for the best. He took one glance and then handed it back to me, shaking his head. I knew it was a long shot, given these people used pictographs instead of an alphabet. I thumbed through my papers until I found my map. My superiors had already circled the town's location on it, and I gave it to the carriage driver hoping this would work.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">He grinned and nodded his head as he gave me back my map. Then he faced his open palm at me, and then pointed to each knuckle of his fingers. I figured he was counting that way instead of using his whole finger like Westerners do. When he reached fifteen, he turned his palm up and held his hand out to me. I figured he meant the ride would cost fifteen coins, and I put away my papers and produced my coin purse. I paid the man, and hopped in his carriage with my things.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">Along the way I examined my fingers. Siana's counting system was strange, but I could see it was probably more efficient than ours given that you could count higher with fewer fingers, and I was impressed with it. I looked up to find us riding over foothills into the deep forest, and in the distance I saw a couple steep, rocky mountains, just like I had seen in pictures of this place before coming here. They were shrouded in mist, like as I had expected them to be, but on this clear autumn afternoon, I could see more of them than normal.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">Perhaps an hour or so into the carriage ride, I saw something like a tiger, though obviously not a tiger given that it was bipedal, running away from the road into the forest. I didn't get a good look, but something told me I saw some type of monster. I thought of the selkies, faeries, and merrows from home, and how they were usually quite docile. I hoped the monsters on the Mist Continent were the same. <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;">        <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:16px;font-weight:normal;"> I awoke when t <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">he driver whistled at me to get my attention, and then pointed into a valley. In the silver moonlight, I could see a huge river. I could clearly see the calm glow of paper lanterns and lighted houses nearby on a ridge beside the river. In the forest a ways from the village on the opposite side of the river, I thought I could make out another village, but the lights were so dim that it could have just been my imagination. Nevertheless, I was happy to be able to settle down for a time and get to work.