With each step along the road, Joli's boots squelched a little of the sandy grit and wet shale fragments from which the road was composed.  She had made a sing-song rhythm of it while it was dry, but now that the rain and dark had sullied her mood, the rhyme had droned on, worn slow with her pace, and its words took on the obnoxious malevolence of an annoying little dog's incessant squawking.<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;">  'Red fairy red, green fairy green, what was once hidden some day to be seen, white fairy white, blue fairy blue, nothing to say now but farewell to you...'</span><br/><br/>Since an hour past dusk, she'd borne the nagging worry that somehow she'd missed the town in the dark.  Scenarios for the night had roved her mind with fluttering, nervous wings-- that she'd wander all night and wake lost in the forest, hopelessly far from town... that she'd sleep in the rain by the side of the road and wake with pneumonia... that the rain would wash all trace of her passing when some roaming band snatched her up, to eat her or worse.  Likewise, she'd kept her pace by fantasizing of magnificent scenarios-- that she'd stumble upon a fairy ring or a farmhouse and be welcomed in like some noble, exotic dignitary, toasted by firelight and stuffed full of goose, raspberries and red wine, but the latter imaginings were growing harder and harder to focus on as the chill of the rain settled in.<br/><br/>"Fuck me, and I've not even left the highway yet," she said aloud, the thought amusing and annoying her.  "I hope I get better at thi--" and she stops in the midst of the road, blinking into the drizzle and night as she makes out lights, twinkles of amber in the darkness.  "HAH!" She cries girlishly, grinning stupidly into the night and placing her hands on her hips as if she's been made sport by a friendly prank, and she levels her finger at the lights, laughing and chiding.  "You had me going there.  I really was."  Grinning and tipping her hood-shrouded face up to the rain, she laughs softly and enjoys that cool sheen on her face for a moment, then sets off, her boots crunching the wet flakes of stone as she sets off for the inn.<br/><br/>-<br/><br/>The inn's plank door rattles twice in its frame, then there's a soft thud as Joli's shoulder forces it open.  From within the stooped, diminutive girl's cloak comes a squeak of surprise at the rattling door and the sudden light, a sound cut off when she sets her mouth-- the only prominent feature of her face not obscured by the shadow or her over-sized, soggy hood-- is drawn in with a self-conscious grimace.  She then stands upright with a sudden attempt to maintain her dignity, her mouth suddenly adopting a pretty-lipped frown of jaded self-confidence.<br/><br/>Thus affected, the small, rain-soaked specter does her best to swagger up to the bar before she realizes she's left the door open, then turns hastily to close it before resuming her arm-swinging strut past the merchants, to whom she tips a curt nod.  Her path swerves away from the bar when she realizes that this would make her visible to the whole of the room, and she makes her way to a table by the wall.  It's a big room, bigger than any inn or tavern she's ever been in, and she's pretty sure that those guys in the corner are mercenaries-- really mercenaries, people who fight for money and all!<br/><br/>She settles her gear against the leg of the table beside her; a horned bow protrudes from the reasonably light load of gear, its nocks unstrung for the rain.  Once she's seated and reasonably sure that no one's staring at, mocking, or trying to murder her, she tips her hood back from her head, revealing bright, curious eyes, long-lashed and large with excitement barely contained and undaunted by the meagerness of her coin.