Lily smiled as she saw the city coming quickly in front of them. She might have resigned herself to allowing the hikami more of an active roll out in the wilderness, but in the cities people would not be so likely to trust a beast. Lily had been particularly annoyed when it had told them of it's intentions to stay with the group almost a week ago when they'd left the jungled area. Lily had hoped that it would stay behind.

Being in a city again though... it filled Lily at once with the opposing feelings of tremendous anticipation and fear. She looked around at the road to see if she could get her bearings. They had been travelling mostly north-east. Depending on how quickly they had travelled, they might be near Sanlet, a city mostly known for being large. It was a traveller's city, located midway between the capitals of (KINGDOM NAME) and (KINGDOM NAME), and also being close to one of the port cities and one of the desert areas.

She looked around again. She had been here once with her parents. They'd been on business and had left her to look around the markets.

"Gavin," she said, calling the boy over. She frowned, and decided that she should probably include Terrin on the little chat she was about to have. She didn't know if he knew much about the major cities and thier businesses. She carefully moved her horse nearer to Terrin's mount as Gavin rode up.

"This is Sanlet," she said quietly, pitching her voice so that the two males in her life could hear her. "It is a traveller's city. There are a number of merchants here, all willing to sell you your own wallet for a few silvers." She smiled and looked at Gavin. "You can tell that we're at Sanlet because of all the copper pipes around the roofs. People here make a lot of money because of all the travellers between (KINGDOM NAME) and (KINGDOM NAME) and the rains come off the jungle and fall here." She glanced at Terrin. "A lot of the high politics goes on here," she continued. "Documents all around. Be careful of anyone who looks like he might be noble: he probably is, and we don't need trouble." She paused. 

She needed to think about business opportunities. "Paper doesn't have so much of a premium here, especially if you don't care what else might be written on it. On the other hand, the number of people inflates food prices, and the number of noblemen increases the prices of spices even more." She smiled ruefully. "Not that we could afford to get into the spice trades..." She wished that some of the spices weren't so expensive. She had loved that perk of being rich.

"Are we going to go to the markets then?" asked Gavin.

Lily smiled a bit uncomfortably. Gavin probably wanted to have something to do <i>other</i> than think about travelling for a while. The two of them would have stopped by now, had a bit of a rest somewhere. Lily herself wasn't entirely certain that she wanted to be around the bustling crowds just yet.

"I'm not sure. There are some things that I need to check on first. If there's time afterwards..." Gavin sighed and Lily winced slightly. The boy was right, they should be stopping at the markets of every city they passed. It was just that... well, they probably wouldn't be able to set up a trade route near here anyhow. They had a home already, and she wasn't going to give that up to live nearer to any city, let alone one that was so much closer to Ryan. "We'll see."

"What are you going to have to check on?" asked Terrin.

"I'm going to go see a healer." Gavin looked at her with obvious concern in his eyes, but she offered nothing more on the subject. "At any rate." She frowned. "We wouldn't likely set up a route coming near here."

Terrin looked at her curiously. "Why?"

"Well, it's a little bit far from where we're based. Unless we wanted to find a new home nearer to here, it would take us..." She calculated the distance in her head. "Almost a month by normal roads. And we'd have to go through <i>his</i> city." She shrugged. "It isn't <i>that</i>profitable."

Terrin nodded. Lily did too, then concentrated on the city ahead of them. By the time they were at the gates, her knuckles were white upon her reigns, though she was certain that nothing more of her composure was out of place. Terrin kept looking at her, concern in his eyes, but there was nothing she could do about that. He hadn't trained himself to keep his emotions hidden, and probably didn't even see his sidelong glances as a failing. 

Gavin, on the other hand, should have known better. The boy was doing almost the exact same thing as Terrin, though he was at least hiding it a little bit better. The group entered the gates fairly quickly as there were no guards impeding the flow of traffic. 

They went to an inn, and Lily gave Terrin the reigns to her horse as she entered.