A pleasant glow lit the shepard’s well tanned cheeks as the girl next to him heated his blood with the touch of her silken hip against his thigh.  Her alluring garments were a marvel to behold adorning her magnificent body, and he regretted deeply that such fashions could clearly never catch on here in the two Rivers.  He lead the blond down the winespring way towards the Water Wood, chatting animatedly as he went.<br/><br/>“A warrior?  Ha!  I do just fine with this staff at the summer tournaments, Sylvia, but I leave soldiering to Danil.  Light knows he deserves that title more than anyone here—though you wouldn’t know it when you saw Tam al’thor and my da get serious at the archery tournament.  Every year or three they get serious and start splitting each other’s arrows in the bullseye ant a hundred paces.  An’ I can’t shoot a bow to save my life, for all da’s crazy Flame and the Void trick.<br/>“I’m a shepard, you see.  A sling and a staff are weapon enough for me.”<br/>At one of his favorite pools, he reluctantly released the charming blonds arm to doff his cloak and lie it over a fallen tree trunk.  Then he slipped out of his hunter green jacket and folded it into a cushion, offering Sylvia a seat upon it before settling down next to her.<br/>Wrapping an arm about the beautiful girl’s bare waste, he regailed her with the wonders of the two rivers, starting with the local history of these woods, and working his way across the countryside, all the way too the sand hills if she didn’t shush him, but not without holding her close as he chatted amicably, and if she didn’t press him away, eventually reaching across with his free hand to caress the blond girl’s knee.<br/>