Chapter 1, Part 3

A curious figure: long, straight blonde hair tied back in a simple queue; thick black foreign boots, tufts of fur flying out at the ankles; and billowing behind him the sides of his bright white unbuttoned ankle-length coat as he rushed past the cars of the caravan.

His boots clomped abrasively on the red brick road, a combination of his inelegant stride and clear determination to conquer everything – literally – in his path. For while his gait shifted normally enough on the balls of his feet, and his knees bent naturally enough, his upper torso remained still, tree-like, half-paralytic in movement.

His face seemed similarly braced: firm-set blunt jawbone, hints of tension underlying his cheek muscles, and nearly-white pale blue eyes one could not quite tell if they were narrow or narrowed. There was little else one could glean from his body posture; he remained so casually stiff no one could truly pinpoint if this were typical or circumstantial.

The edges of his rebelliously white coat billowed as he stepped around the caravan. “Where is the navigator?” he demanded to the nearest human being he located, who happened to be a hunched-over old man half-buried in his own beard.
The old man snorted loudly before responding, “I dunno.”

“I need to speak to him about our inexcusably delayed departure!”

"I said I dunno, Master Rat Boot.” With a skeptical glance down at his addressee’s fur-capped footwear, the man fell silent.

“Rat boot?” With a sniff, he corrected, “These wildcat fur boots were sold to me by an authentic Rhayadan shoemaker from the northern region of mountains.” He spoke in an accent so implausibly absurd that it seemed likely to be his own invention, a distinguishing characteristic by which he tried to appear more exotic or eclectic. Still, regardless of his intent, the result ultimately manifested itself in the smirks that twitched up from others’ lips the first time they heard him speak.

His current listener, indeed, appeared more bemused than impressed by the peculiar inflection of his words. “If you say so, good for you.” And the man trudged away, leaving stiff-back Alcandor Mavros, second son of the esteemed Leonidas Mavros, no more informed, but all the more furious.

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