<div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i62.tinypic.com/6j1w5s.png">[ img ]</a></div><br/><br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">"Who is there?"</span></span><br/><br/>Julian's back straightened as he heard the voice, sweet as honey-dew, echoing the same words he asked. He cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes as though trying to pierce through the surrounding darkness to make a form out of the entity which began to present itself before him.<span style="font-style: italic">Oh! Dream of joy!</span>He thought sarcastically and rolled his eyes. At first, the man wondered if she was a forest witch like those he heard of back in his world, but as he gave her another study, he wondered if she was not like one of them ghosts he encountered during his voyages, perhaps a fairy, that sounded even better. One step backwards the man made as the woman's form advanced into the clearing where the man stood. The warm light from the candle lamp now bathed his silhouette with its light. First, he noticed the movements of her eyes as they shifted between his diary and his sword in the other hand.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">"Who are you? Why are you out here all alone?" She motioned toward the journal. "Are you a writer?"</span></span><br/><br/>To speak something, his lips the bright-eyed one parted, but instead, he found himself hesitantly studying the feminine creature. The second question that came across his mind was that, if this woman was human then what was she doing at an eight hour walk away from the closest town to their current location in the Kingdom. The way she was dressed, he noted, spoke of a woman who was perhaps very wealthy. Was she lost? Her hands held tightly to her skirts and she seemed worried. Julian glanced at his sword and put it back in its leather sheath before tightening his belt.<br/><br/>An hour ago he had stripped himself off his long teal colored frock coat and double-breasted beige west-coat and has remained since in his cream-white shirt and fall front light-brown breeches that had silver buttons and ties at the knees. Back in his homeland, a man walking around in public without a vest or a coat would be the equivalent in other places of traipsing about in an underwear. Although he stood tall and sharp, he did not look anything close to the unassailable style and the sensibility of the fashion approach he had over the way he dressed when on ground duties. In reality, the red sash which hung from around his waist must have made him look more like some sea pirate than the actual respectable sailor that he was.<br/><br/>The gentle touch of a fair breeze raised the back of his short hair, and the sounds of the frogs and crickets brought back the man to reality. The man ignored the buzzing distraction of one dragonfly to his left as a hand curved into a ball, bring it to rest against the side of his waist. He achieved a formal bow before the woman. He shifted his frame into another erect posture and eyed the woman with curiosity.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #80BFBF">“Madam, I am not a writer. I am an outsider, a traveler to be precise. I am on my way to Misthaven. Others call it the Enchanted Forest.”</span></span>He decided not to give the female any more details and instead,<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #80BFBF">''For the dear God who loveth us, I desperate now ask the same of you. What is a lady doing out here alone at such dark hours of the night? Isn't she not scared?”</span></span>Julian drew his eyes away from her for a brief moment as his lips curved into a smile. When he glanced at the mystery guest once more, eyes never fluttering, he slowly closed their distances to offer her a clean white handkerchief<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">in case</span></span>the female needed it to wipe out the stain of dirt he noticed on the side of her face.<br/><br/>Indeed, he was a very visual being.