Anna
Amicia De Blanc
A road leading out of Gorgonys.

Sun shone through her shudders and a knock roused her from her stiff bed that morning. She dressed, layering a skirt over two thin petticoats and a loose jacket over her shift and chemise. Terresol was rarely cold so she didn't feel the need to dress or pack for colder weather, though a cloak was folded at the bottom of a linen bag, which she threw over her shoulder.

Usually, a birthday was a celebration, but for Amicia, today felt a little more like a funeral. And she'd attended plenty to know.

Quietly, she slipped out through the back of the mortuary building so as not to make a fuss. She didn't like attention and she knew the priests and priestesses that took care of her would only make the day sappy, And when you've worked in the funerary business for as long as Amicia, you get sick of sappiness quickly.

Without a second look back, she walked through the town and into the market, letting the clashing smells of food assault her nose, sweet apples and harsh spices mixed together and she scowled.

Whilst the young woman had never left the town of Gorgonys, she still knew her way out. Down a road lined with signs she couldn't read to places she'd only heard about in passing. For longer than she was willing to realise, she had planned ahead for today. For the day she left the smell of decaying corpses behind, though it was a smell that lingered and clung to her skin like a badge. A warning for would-be friends and enemies.

The morning dragged on until it became afternoon and Amicia sat beneath the shade of a tree on the roadside for rest. The grinning sun had beat down on her all day and the small girl was not one for stamina. It dawned on her that the journey ahead was going to be long and difficult one and she almost wished she was back in the mortuary, preparing an embalming fluid or washing a body. She longed for that familiarity again.
Karen
Campbell and Odette
The road leading into Gorgonys

Terresol had long and winding roads that stretched down and across the countryside, with thick rounds of hay placed neatly to break up the rolling, verdant hills. The weather was warm, but not too warm to require anyone to take off their coats. It was a nice day for a carriage ride. 

They had come from Greenwall, where they had briefly intercepted the courier at a tavern overnight. From the looks of things, it was the same courier who had received word about the most recent shipment of cargo that came into Carmine Bay. He was a young boy, no older then fifteen, and Campbell surmised that he was probably a spy disguised as a page, who when traveling on the road broke out a courier's outfit. Why he was on his way to Gorgonys and not to Sol was beyond the both of them, but they weren't exactly in the business of asking complex questions. 

Last night, Odette had stolen his horse and quickly flipped it to an Araedian stableboy for a hefty profit. With those profits they bought a carriage, which they were now using to track down the page, who seemed content on completing the last leg of his journey on foot. They gave him an hour before setting off down the same road towards Gorgonys, and it only took a half an hour before they spotted him in the distance. 

"Oi!" Campbell stood up in the front seat of the wagon, waving a thick arm in the air to grab the boy's attention. "You there, boy!" 

The courier turned around, hesitating a moment before waving back. 

"Are you a courier?" Campbell asked, closing the gap between them with his horses. 

"Aye." The boy said, looking up at the pair. "Why'dya ask?" 

"My wife—" Campbell looked over to Odette, who had fallen asleep the moment they got their wheels on the road. He nudged her in the arm and she sprung into action, fixing the sunhat that had fallen askew and pushing her sun-glasses further up her nose.

He continued, "My wife and I had a son who was a courier, from a House in Limani. He was shot in the neck by an arrow. It's not safe to be walking around these roads alone, even with the plague. Where are you headed?"

The courier slowly placed a hand over his neck, his fingers idly rubbing at his trachea, "I'm from Limani..." He muttered, shaking his head. "I'm headed to Gorgonys. I've got trade reports from the Southern I—" 

Campbell cut him off, "It's settled, then. Climb on back and we'll be off." 

Without a word, the courier reached into his pocket and placed a few silver on the arm of Campbell's seat. "You're a generous lot. You don't know how much this means to me. The plague is really heating up on the coast, and you can never be too careful."

"Oh, yes." Campbell replied, watching as the boy walked around the side of the carriage. "You never know whose out here. Mad people, bandits, the lot of 'em." 

The boy propped himself up on the back of the wagon, climbing into the bed and standing there, hands on his hips. "I don't know how to thank you two, it just doesn't seem fair that—" An arrow impaled itself into his breast, and he fell back into a pile of empty boxes. Odette placed her foot on the back of the driver's seat, leaning over to notch another arrow and loosed it into his neck. The boy slumped down, dead in seconds. 

"Another job well done." Campbell said, dusting his hands off on his pants. Odette gave a light nod, sitting back down in her seat and once again placing the sunhat over her face. 

Little did the two know that the entire affair had happened next to a solitary tree, where an unnoticed girl had been sleeping.
Anna
Amicia De Blanc
A road leading out of Gorgonys.

Amicia had not been asleep, merely resting her eyes as a carriage rolled down the road. The sound of wooden wheels and hooves on the stone caused an eye to crack open and her mouth to turn down in a scowl.

Watching silently, she noticed the driver and the woman inside seemed to be talking to a young boy who had passed her moments before and curiosity struck. She left her bag by the tree and tucked her chain down her chemise to quieten any jangling it would make.

And, carefully, she slipped towards the carriage and pressed against the side where she wouldn't be seen. At the mention of the plague, her nose scrunched up in distaste. A body had been brought into the mortuary once with signs of the plague, she had refused to go near the room for a week.

She wasn't sure why she was hiding, really, but as soft footsteps began approaching her side of the carriage, she ducked underneath (with help from her childlike stature) and she watched feet walk past her and listened to the soft thump of feet above her.

Idly, her hands picked at grass and daisies that had grown between rock as she listened to the boy above her speak, and then something fling through the air and enter something, then silence.

Until a thump sounded and the carriage shook above her. Like the curious cat, Amicia crawled out from beneath the carriage, back to the side she had been hiding against, but this time she peaked over the side of it, with little care for the couple seeing her. It was likely that she had forgotten they were there at all.

The young girl had not been expecting to be witness to a murder on her eighteenth birthday, but then again, it was unsure whether or not she registered it as murder. All she knew was that now there was the dead body of a young boy who had (moments ago) been walking and talking, laid lifelessly in the cart with two arrows sticking out of him, blood pooling and dripping through the cracks of the wooden boards below.

Forgetting that there were now two fully grown adults, likely staring at her, she reached over the side of the cart and poked a knuckled finger into his arm.