<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/lB240Kg.jpg?1)      </div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Penn Bogues</strong></span>(http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=73849)<br/><b>AC:</b>19<br/><b>HP:</b>44/44<br/><b>Status:</b>Normal<br/><hr/><br/>When Sera awoke that morning, Penn had been waiting.  She'd curled up against the wall, barely occupying the cot at all due to her manner of sleep-- drawn up like a newborn rabbit, her worn-thin traveling blanket covering her from head to toe.  At those moments she could have been a child with curious customs, nothing like the freakishly quiet little killer that stalked the common room some nights, watching travelers and workers in every inn where the two of them stopped, or lurking on cliffsides and in the shadows of pine boughs when they slept in the wilds.<br/><br/>Her blanket, rolled over her meager possessions, was strapped to her lower back as she sat in the window, and it seemed she'd been watching Sera sleep.  She stretched-- arching her back and extending her arms before her, but offered no "good mornings" or other pointless chatter.  She simply watched and waited, fiddled with the fastenings of her scabbards, and studied the meager view of the street.  A small dog was dashing at the heels of passing horses in the street below, splashing at puddles here and there, nosing at refuse and droppings.  The mangy thing was old, probably half-blind.<br/><br/>When Sera spoke, she didn't respond-- he hadn't asked her anything directly.  And when he was ready, so was she... at his heels, a few steps off and meandering like a cat following the master of the house.  They made their way down the turn of staircase into the common room, where clanking dishes and subdued morning chatter were rich in the air.  Food had been set out, and the meager morning sun was insufficient, so lanterns were lit.  A merchant squabbled in hoarse whispers with another, apparently irate over an unsettled bill the night before.  A middle-aged woman rotely swung herself back and forth to keep the colicky baby at her shoulder fast asleep while her other children fussed over a broken hunk of bread and cheese.<br/><br/>The innkeeper, his face flecked with broken capillaries, stared up at Sera under the awning of his thick brow.  Following her companion, Penn never met his eyes-- she simply snatched whatever foot he was offering and stuffed it somewhere out of sight.  The move was so quick that the innkeeper actually started-- perhaps a half second after she was out of his reach, he jolted as if waking from near-sleep, his mouth forming a shady curse for the strange, and rude, young woman.<br/><br/>As the door slung open, Sera's genial words smoothed over the tension left by his companion's aloof temperament and disregard for propriety, and they were off-- onto the bricks of the city, on a mission.  The possibilities charged the air like a coming storm, and the waking city was stirring to life around them.  As she followed Sera, darting around suspect puddles and gliding through the crowd like wind, she momentarily slowed and veered off-track to drop a hunk of bread soaked in gravy and a hunk of dry mutton-- all things she'd swiped on her way through the common room-- to the scraggly dog she'd seen from her window.<br/><br/>So it was in this fashion that they arrived at their rendezvous-- with Penn quietly shadowing the gregarious Sera, her diminutive form more like his shadow than his companion.<br/><br/>(Appropriate mood music) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx6BNwXBaA)