Merri quickly stood up, and tried without much success to run away from the figure that had just collided into her. The direction she chose to run had been a mistake, especially since a big tree root stuck up directly in front of her. The man she had run into seemed to be nice and reached down to give her a hand. Instead of doing what was expected of her, she pushed herself off the ground all by herself. "I don't need you help," she said as she stood up causing the hood on her cloak to fall off without her notice.

"Well okay then," he said before he noticed who she was.

"What are you staring at?" she demanded of him. "I have to go. Bye." Merri started to walk off, but he caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder. "Creep, go away."

"Why are you running away from the ball?"

Whoever this guy is, he's not very smart to be pushing my buttons like this, she thought. "I have no idea what you are talking about. I've never been to a ball," she lied.

"Yeah, and I'm not standing here right now. Stop being difficult. It makes my job so much harder."

"Your job?" Merri asked.

"Fine, you can go get yourself killed," he said. He turned around and walked the opposite direction she was going in. Now I really hope he doesn't go tell anyone that I'm not anywhere near the ball anymore. I was being sort of stupid…Well he's gone and hopefully I'll have a peaceful journey from now on.

She walked for what seemed like and hour or two before she decided she was definitely far enough from Frell. It would be extremely nice if a buggy or something of the sort was to come by. There was nothing better to do than dwell in her own thoughts so she did. He was so cute though. Merri hated that part of herself: the part that always wanted to argue or a lot of the time find the good in things. Off in the distance she could see lights. She had to be approaching Hondiel and was very thankful it wasn't further. She didn't want to be thought of as some noble who never walked very far and had feet like a baby's; she just had never walked so far in her entire life.

Once she reached the town, she asked a passerby what was a good place to stay for the night. He pointed to a tavern that was a little ways down the street saying it's prices were reasonable and they kept it pretty clean.

She paid the tavern keeper, changed, cleaned up, and plopped into bed.

The next morning Merri awoke put on a simple dress and went down to get some breakfast. She was starving and so hopefully they would have something filling down the stairs. She sat down at an empty table not sure exactly how she was supposed to go about getting food. To her luck the tavern keeper came over just then, "Is there something you might fancy this morning miss?"

"Umm… do you have a special?"

"Well miss, in fact we do. It comes with goat cheese over a nicely cooked piece of pig for 8 copper KJs."

"That's fine I supposed. I'll have one."

"I'll be back out in about 20 minutes when it's ready. In the meantime you can sit or talk to some the other travelers. I'm sure you can find your own way to pass the time." She decided just to sit. In here she'd probably run into creeps like the guy she had bumped into last night.

It grew quite boring just sitting there all alone. It was weird but she was actually relatively happy when a young man-an attractive one at that-her own age came and sat at the chair across from her. "Can I buy you a drink?" he asked. It's probably another creep, she thought. But wait, I ran away. I can be a totally different person now. I can change along with life. I'll try at least.

"Sure," she said. Oh god, I hope he didn't mean he wanted something in "return" for that. Too late now. "I'm Merri."

"Drew," he said as he reached out her hand meaning for her to shake it. She took it. Nice hands, she noticed. "It's a pleasure to meet such a lovely lady."

Merri blushed. Not sure quite what to say she said, "Well I'm happy I could meet you. It's one less drink I'll have to pay for." That was rather blunt; too bad. She knew she must've looked like an idiot, sitting and staring at his dark chocolate hair, his milky teeth, his eyes of honey-I must be starved. He was looking at her in a funny way so she explained, "I'm just really hungry."

He laughed at that and dug around in his pockets looking for something. At last her pulled out a piece of bread. "Here," he said handing her the piece of bread. "I promise it really isn't that stale."

She took a small bite into it, just in case it actually was stale. "Very good," she told him raising her eyebrows as she said it. "You must have gotten it somewhere fresh this morning."

"If you want to go ahead and think that you can," Drew told her.

Merri laughed and looked at him suspiciously, "Well I know that it tastes good and that I'm going to eat it. There's not like poison in it or something deadly is there? I'm not planning on dieing today."

"Well then your in luck, the poison I put in there won't kill you today precisely. It takes its time. I think I can guarantee the effects will set in by the end of the week though." Just then Merri's food came. It actually looked quite good. "You better stick with that though," pointing to the food that had just been brought out, "if you really aren't planning on dieing within the next week though." Merri smiled. Just before the man who brought their food left Drew asked him for two drinks.

Merri dug into her food, hoping she didn't look like an animal or something of the sort. Had she had any dinner the night before? "So," Merri began after she had eaten enough to stop the growls of hunger coming from her stomach, "what are you doing here in Hondiel?"

"Well I was actually supposed to be meeting someone this morning, but they didn't show up. Well he's probably late. That would be pretty typical of him. But who cares about that? In fact I'm glad he didn't show up when he was supposed to. It gave me a nice opportunity to talk with you." Did he plan on charming her to death or something? Compliments were always so nice.

Even after Merri finished her breakfast they talked, and they had fun doing it. It was fun indeed taking turns to make another person laugh. Merri could finally be more like her name. After a while of talking Drew finally said, "Ah, at last the person I was too meet is here. You don't mind if I call him over to sit with us?"

"Go ahead," she told him.

She looked over at the man who had waved back at Drew. She knew him already. Well perhaps not knew knew him, but still. Drew started talking, "It's about time." Talking to the both of them he added, "Merri this is my friend London. London, Merri."