Spring 29th, 514 A.V.
She took the long way from the Celestial Square. It was raining lightly, enough to cover everything. The weather didn't really matter though, Ireth avoided the Cursed Bridge like she would a plague, even though it would have saved her a good half a bell to get from the Square to the Western Quarter of Nyka. She didn't care though, better to remain in a good mood and to take the long way to get to where she was going.
Smiling beneath the hood of her old cloak, Ire wiped a lock of hair from in front of her eyes and patted a pocket in her cloak, listening for the crinkle of the paper that sat within. Last night when she had returned from the Celestial Garb, Vysia had a letter for her from her friend Killigan, asking that Ire meet him today in the West so that they might busk together. Simply knowing that this jester of a friend had written her a letter, complete with over-embellished scroll work and little squiggles on his cursive, made her laugh. She knew he meant no harm or had inclinations, just being a good friend.
A glint caught Ireth's eye and she looked up, shielding her eye from both the glare and the rain. Some sunshine was gleaming off of a window upon the Wizard's Thumb. It wasn't very often that the busker came to this part of her adopted city, and she never grew tired of looking up at the Center for Worldy Magic Studies. She hadn't a clue what they taught or learned there, only that it was beyond her comprehension. A couple of tall coniferous trees edged the red brick tower and people whom she figured were students streamed in and out. Another window lit up with a flash. It was thrown open quickly, and pale gray smoke poured out of it, a young man alternating between coughing and laughing as he hung out the window to get to the fresher air.
If she was correct in her memories, the Western Quarter was occupied by masons. The stone pendant Savio had bought her that hung around her neck every day had been made here, somewhere, at a place called the Blinding Light Studio. Perhaps she'd go there someday...
Her destination grew into her view just as the rain let up. The clouds decided that they weren't going anywhere, but at least the rain was going to take a break. As the buildings and homes began to grow fewer in number, the enormous Nykan Walls blocked view of all else beyond the city. To some extent, Ireth thought it was silly that nearly everything in the City of the Aperture was made of the same dusty-rose colored stone, but resources were resources and the people used what was readily available to them. Some of the buildings had been decorated with or supported by dark woods, but other than that it was almost the same reddish stone for as far as the eye could see. Perhaps that was one of the reasons Nykans loved color so much, it broke the monotony of their one-colored city.
Ireth took the main street that ran directly into the Walls, to the one gate that allowed folk access to Nyka. Ire hadn't been to this place since she'd first come to the city, nearly three seasons ago now. Armored monks were attending their duties, searching and questioning all that wished to leave or enter Nyka. As Ireth approached, she watched as four of the brutish brothers laughingly turned away a man with a cart full of soggy pottery. "Yer not welcome here lad!" One of them shouted, "Come back when you have some respect! Coming into this city is a privilege, we don't need your kind cluttering our streets." And so it went. The potter cussed a couple of times, but left accordingly, understanding that he was nothing to the monks, even when they weren't on a rampage.
