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It was a long road from Torensten.

Celes had known what to expect when she’d chosen to bypass an airship ticket between the two cities and had rented a chocobo instead. She’d known because she’d completed this trip dozens of times both with and without company, and she knew that the journey could take anywhere between five to eight days if all went well. It was worth it for the money she saved on airship tickets, and the experiences she could have along the way.

That had been a lot easier to tell herself before she’d left and there was nothing around her but corn fields and grass.

Now she was in the thick of things, just past the Provo border, three days deep into travel. The air smelled uniformly of dead leaves and chocobo dung. The sky was an overcast gray. The wind was biting in a way that made the already cool temperature even worse. Celes shivered and drew her cape around her to block the worst of it though it did little to protect her stinging nose. She knew what she must have looked like right now – blotchy, hair tangled, hunched over on the back of a bird that had no interest in speed, elegance, or basic dignity – but she decided that she didn’t care. Travel by chocobo had one more unique point in its favor over airship travel, and that was that she could multitask.

Before she’d left the Wyvern’s Rest, she’d made sure to check through their current list of requests to see if there were any jobs to take along the main road between the cities. There was as it happened, and she’d taken it despite it being generally under her skill level. Something about clearing a colony of griffons that had taken to harassing the local trade routes. Generally, this road was one of the most patrolled in all of Zephon, but since the griffons had taken to hunting on the border between the two territories, neither the forces of Provo nor Torensten had jurisdiction. That left the job to mercenaries, and a nobleman in the caravan business was willing to pay top dollar for it.

Why not take the request? It wasn’t like she had anything more important to do.

She came into the trading post which served as the mission’s rendezvous by midday. The post itself wasn’t much to write home about. A few traveling vendors here. An inn there. There were watch towers made of wood stationed on either end with the road stretching between them like a snake. Celes found her way to the chocobo stables, paid fifty gil for the bird’s greens, then started towards the inn. She had the request in writing in her bag. She knew more or less what to expect. Or she thought so at least. She’d hardly shaken the sleep out of her legs before she realized that there were far more men crowded around the outside of the inn than there should have been. And they were all carrying swords.

Her first thought was a bandit ambush. Her second, more rational thought turned out to be true. The men hardly spared her a second glance as she approached – not until she’d stopped in front of one of them and asked him, ”You’re mercenaries, aren’t you?”

The man was grizzled and sweaty with half a beard that he was clearly quite proud of. ”That’s right,” he said. His voice sounded like gravel.

She sighed. ”Well, that’s just great.”

The man watched her for a moment before he swished something around his mouth and spat on the ground. “Can’t say I caught your name,” he said.

She looked past him towards the door to the inn. There had to be over a dozen men lingering outside let alone however many waited past the doors. ”Celes Chere,” she said. ”With the Dragonblades.”

”Haven't heard of you. Though the Dragonblades…That’s that Dragelion guy, right?”

She turned her eyes back to him and kept them there for a beat longer than she should have. Then she turned on her heel and muscled her way towards the door. ”Excuse me,” she muttered as she edged her way past a man that smelled of equal parts campfire smoke and body odor. ”Coming through.”

She hated when this happened.

Usually, her jobs were straightforward and simple. The client makes a request. She completed the request. The client paid her for her work. Simple. Sometimes, however, said client was too eager for the job to be done and decided to hedge their bets wherever they could place them. Only after their meeting point was swamped with hired swords would they question the genius behind placing multiple requests with every stray mercenary they could find.

And it was quite the group of strays this client had managed to gather, it seemed. Once inside, she saw a few ex-soldiers lounging by the piano, at least three dozen thugs crowding the bar, and what she swore were a band of pirates lingering by the window, muttering to themselves. Celes took in a deep breath to steady herself – one which she immediately regretted. It might have been cold outside, but there were too many warm bodies in here to tell, and they all reeked of dirt and booze.

Celes opened her bag and pulled out the request form to check the name of her employer. ”Percival Garnier,” she read aloud. Then she shook her head and placed the paper back where it belonged. ”I’ll just need to find him and talk to him myself. Then we can clear this up once he knows the Dragonblades are involved.”

[attr=class,ooc-notes]Hope this is a decent set up!