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2412 Xavem 24, Reshpe
Kymalin gritted her teeth after she ran a hand down her hair and still found bits of lesium in it. It has been a day and she's still lugging around traces of having been inside that cursed mine.
The humiliation that came when she first clawed her way out of the pile of rocks that collapsed on the cave's lip, covered head to toe in purple dust, was still fresh in her mind. Some of the shard fairies that she staggered past stared at her like she was going to slaughter their children for dinner.
For the record, she might just do that if they kept staring longer.
It's even more humiliating that after a whole day of dusting and fussing about it, she still has enough bits on her hair and on the furs of her collar to build an estate. Some of those had spilled inside her clothes making her back itch. Gods of Calaris.
It was enough of an experience to warrant her trip to Elshire, to a tavern, to a stool by the counter. She stared angrily at a man who did nothing but polish glasses and wipe the countertop. The man had been wise enough to ignore her except when she asked for more and more refills of ale on her glass. He hadn't even blinked when Kymalin chugged the whole content of the glass in one gulp and still emerged fine.
Oh, he didn't know that diluted ale won't do her away. Kymalin could last a whole week drinking it and still make it. She wasn't going to be affected by some simple brew, not when she had tasted saleh from her mother's reserves and that rosado Reeca once stole from a passing merchant.
Ah, wild days those were. If there was one thing Kymalin was passionate about, it's wine. She could smell authentic liquor from a mile away and she could outlast a graspel when it comes to drinking games. But chugging ale alone in this miserable city wasn't doing anything to her foul mood. The fact that the ajilte-flavored ale she ordered tasted nothing like ajilte but instead of socks wasn't helping either.
Kymalin gripped her glass, wincing when the skin from her torn nails hit their beds. Even her fingers were still stained purple from clawing at the rocks. She gritted her teeth again and took another swig.
Elshire was supposedly a territory where the Brownie army lived but after the Synketros's capture of the Capital, the entire army was moved over there, leaving Elshire to the rest of the brownies that either couldn't serve or were deemed unworthy by the Sovereign to join in the war. Most of the people here were displaced merchants that got stuck when the trade routes were seized. Perhaps, Sylfior was behind that as well.
Kymalin cast a wary gaze at the people around her. She discovered that taverns, especially at this time, were a booming business. It's because the entirety of Elshire has been nothing but a depressed lump of land for the last two months.
She stared at a brownie family seated at one of the square tables. There were at least five children, all thin and forlorn, wearing what seems to be pieces of cloth patched together. Three of the children sat on stools pulled from other tables, nibbling on small pieces of what looked like bread.
