The buildings, they were much different from the wooden buildings back home. The roofs had strange scale like rocks on them instead of hay and the windows weren't just wooden shutters but made of glass - that expensive and strange opaque material that some elders wore on their eyes. The village had stench of the countryside to it. Dry and many times stomped animal dung were mixed in with the hardened dirt roads. The noise too was amazing. On the way to the city, past the farmlands of the valleys it had been serene chirps and songs of crickets, buts here the babbling of crowds muffled all else. The streets were busier than the home village had been during a festival, dozens of people moving past and talking, arguing around what seemed to be like some sort of stall with clothing hung on several racks for display. A particularly heartily smiling older woman in a blue tunic who stood behind the the open air counter was ranting on about something to the small crowd which had gathered around her.<br/><br/>Another stranger passed Astrid. A tall and burly man with brown braided beard and a shirt hanging from his waist with its sleeved knotted into a belt. He was carrying a heavy looking steel hammer, a bigger one than the village smith had owned; the hammer head rested against his shoulder. In his other hand hanged a loose canvas bag from which emanated a delicious warm smell of bread. He wasn't interested in the little witch for long and averted his gaze as he passed her. The smith began climbing an ascending street that split off from the wide dirt road Astrid was in. It went further up towards the hill on which the village was built and after a brief ascent squiggled between tall stone buildings. More and more strange looking people passed by the girl. Well, at least they were human, and most seemed to have quite pleasant expressions on them, even if many seemed too busy to pay this little wanderer much attention.<br/><br/>Calden too was positively smitten with the change in scenery. There were so many things going on that even if he'd had had a body he would have probably forgotten what to do with it right there other than stand around dumbfounded. His words staggered as he just spoke something in an answer, "Uh- uh- food? I- I've no clue. What's going on? Can barely hear you and all I see through this cloth is just sooo many people, so many people. I think they're people. Do they look like people? They feel like people, their auras seem so normal and fluffy."<br/><br/>He didn't spot them all in time though. A gentle small frame bumped against Astrid's back. It was a little kid, no more than seven or eight, though it was difficult to tell the exact age. The kid had short hair with messy brown bangs that covered her brows and almost her eyes as well. Her mouth was pursed into a stern downward frown and she looked up towards Astrid with two wary brown eyes. Her clothes were really different from those that the kids back home would have had. On top of her colorfully embroidered multi-colored dress she had a light poncho; it hid her hands.<br/><br/>She spoke apologetically, averting her eyes somewhere. "Uh, erm... sorry. I was just-" The kid stopped mid sentence, a sudden surprise spread on her face. She turned back to Astrid. "Whaat?! What?" Her hands had been discreetly going through Astrid's pockets, but now the kid tapped them so obviously that everyone looking could see what she was doing. Nobody in the village seemed to care though, at most they grinned with mild amusement. "Miss you have nothing in your pockets? Nothing!" She invaded Astrid's personal space and stepped in to actually look into the pockets instead of just feeling through them. "How? Why? Where on earth did you stumble from? No food, no money, no trinkets, no nothing..."