"Qīwù," I called, to get the girl's attention. "Here."

I handed over a small bundle of cloth.

"My coin purse!" She explained, before her look turned to confusion. "Why do you have it?"

"Someone stole it from you," I said, pointing to a boy running ahead of us. He'd brushed past our group, and I'd seen him cut the strings on it in brief moment. But… "I stole it back," I said. "Seems like you were right about the kind of 'characters' around here."

"Honestly," she replied, "Petty theft wasn't the sort of thing I was thinking of. The city itself is fairly crime free when it comes to the mortals."

"Mortals?" I asked, my ears perking at the use of the word. Last I checked we were all still going to die, some day.

"Ehhhehe," she gave an embarrassed laugh. "The world cultivators use for those who don't. Cultivators of our caliber won't live forever, but it's not out of the realm of possibility for someone like you, Venerable. How old are you anyway?"

"I'll be honest with you," I said, "I'm not really sure. I think twenty or so?" She nodded sagely at the first part, as though she expected it, before her face kind of froze mid-nod as the latter part registered. I watched it go through a range of emotions.

"WHAT?" She more or less shouted, turning some heads as we walked down the cobblestone road. "How are you so young? I thought you just looked that way. You're younger than I am!"

"I'm… sorry?" I replied, unsure of where to go with this, and her face went white as a sheet.

She immediately got down on her feet and would have slammed her head into the ground if I had not made a thin layer of Nebula there before she could do so.

"My sincere apologies to the Venerable," she said loudly into the ground, "That was indecorous of me." If her shout had attracted attention, this display definitely didn't help.

"Get up," I said, looking around while lifting her to her feet with a flick of a finger. István was watching the whole thing with a bit of amusement, while Viktor had wandered over to a food vendor and had a chunk of meat in his hand so large it actually looked proportional. Which made me concerned about what kind of monstrosity it had come off of to be so huge.

Well, I suppose if we ever encountered a living version of it, he could just gnaw it to death. I grinned, it made for a funny mental picture.

I set Qīwù back on her feet, and we continued our walk, although I could now hear flickers of chatter around us.

I can hear you, you know, I thought, as I overheard some of what was being said. The bit about me looking 'interesting', stung a bit. Definitely would be a different set of of whispers if 'Falling Snow' Alessa was here.

For once I was glad I was already 'Venerable Azure Sky'. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what sort of 'interesting' nickname they would come up with for me if left to their own devices. I didn't want to be 'Little Sister Bird Perch', or 'Tiny Elder Foxkeeper'. Both Steeve and Yuèyīng had a habit of sitting on me when I was around and not moving. It was like growing two very large, colorful clumps of moss.

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Qīwù still seemed upset about her mistake. I didn't care except for all the noise and attention tracking. I could explain it more for her later, but I assumed as of right now it was best not to get into it. Forgiveness felt like a bit of a weakness in a situation like this. External appearances, anyway. We could do whatever once we were in the visual and audible security of an inn.

We were still well on the outskirts of the city, but behind us stood the towers of lights. Even this close I couldn't make out much other than that they were there. I wasn't sure what were were looking at, and even less sure about what was so cool about this city. It just seemed very foggy, dark, and humid.

Wooooooooo, went the wind.

And there was that. There was a light breeze going towards the towers of light, and every time it did the ground kind of resonated in a way that made it sound like someone was pretending to be creepy, only the incredibly deep low tones in the harmonic took it all the way into actually creepy. Which made me wonder how I was going to get any sleep tonight with all the racket.

A taller building popped out of the fog in front of us, and Qīwù's face lit up. She had us all follow along towards it, seemingly very eager to make up for her earlier misbehavior.

"The Falcon's Eye," she said, "Our inn for the night."

"About time," Viktor said, "I'm sleepy." Somehow in the few minutes it'd been since he got his huge haunch of meat, he'd finished it off. I'd be a little sleepy myself, or so I thought until I realized that he'd spent most of the trip here napping. To each their own, I guess.

The front door of the place was hewn from a single slab of wood, with a giant eye in the center, the iris composed of what looked like amber and glowing from the light inside the establishment. We entered, and a young woman in elegant clothing stood behind a counter, the whole setup feeling very familiar to the front lobby of my old workplace, only far more ornate.

"Welcome, esteemed guests," she said, bowing in a motion with a little bit of a curtsey to it. "How may we assist you?"

"Venerable is in search of a place to rest. Do you have any suites?" Qīwù said, gesturing to me like it wasn't obvious who she was talking bout. Viktor and István flanked me as though they were guarding my personage, and my form of dress was incredibly ornate compared to everyone else, even them. Who else would it be?

"Yes, I have something for the esteemed Lady. I expect everyone will be staying together?" The woman asked, looking at us. So I was a 'Lady' now? Cool! And here I never thought I'd graduate from being 'that little shit', as Grandpa had once said when I hid from him. The thought brought a fond smile to my face.

"Of course. Thank you." Qīwù said.

"One moment," the woman said, and walked behind the wall through the door to her left. A similar one was symmetrically positioned opposite. I supposed they had keys or something back there.

"Here you are," the maître d'hôtel said as she returned. In her hand was an amber-colored crystal, diamond in shape. It was the key to the room, or so I assumed. She bowed again, holding it out with both hands like presenting a gift to a king. It was a little much, and Qīwù spared me the embarrassment of having to deal with it by picking it up for me.

A bell chimed somewhere above us a deep sound to match the wooo of the wind that thrummed as if in response. Everyone around me looked upwards at the sound, but I kept my eyes on the woman in front of us. Looking at her in aura, I could see she was actually more powerful than she'd let on.

It wasn't to a level that gave me any pause, but definitely above the average joe walking around outside. Interesting - I idly wondered how much it cost to keep someone like that on staff.

I could see this aura, which was grey like the fog, thrumming in response to the sound of the bell. She'd closed her eyes when it had started chiming, and with the last strike she opened them again, the similar grey color in her pupils seeming to swim.

"Please allow us to serve you as needed, and enjoy your stay at the Falcon's Eye."

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