Later that day Shadow got her first look at the town, if only from a distance. Leeside was a lot bigger than Lorvale. It had to be over 20 times the size of the village (Annie had finally gotten around to teaching her more math! It was still neat). It was known for being the newest addition to The Sun Road, which was a big, important road that linked together most trade throughout Grigod (which was the name of their kingdom). King Dominic had recently (A few years back… Shadow had trouble considering that ‘recent’) extended the road out further to link it to Leeside. Annie said Leeside was probably big enough to qualify as a city at this point, but they hadn’t gotten around to making it official yet.

There was a big river running next to the road, which was known officially as The Golden River, but when people talked about the Sun Road, they were generally referring to both the road and the river at the same time. A lot of trade went by boat as well. Apparently, a lot more than by road.

Shadow had never seen a boat. She was looking forward to having the opportunity.

Her short time in Lorvale had really helped her comprehend a lot of what Annie was explaining about trade and the kingdom and such. She was still fuzzy about much of it, but having seen an actual settlement really helped to keep her flights of fancy in check when she tried to extrapolate stuff.

That didn’t mean she was any less excited to see the huge town in person. Shadow was bouncing along, squinting at it in the distance and cursing her day-vision. She couldn’t make out much detail with it still so far away.

“Shadow, looks like we’ll be passing a caravan. Ready to make your first appearance?” Jonas told her, pointing down the road.

Shadow jerked her head over and her eyes widened. There were people over there!

She couldn’t believe she’d missed them! She saw many figures and over 40 wagons trundling toward them on the road. They were still a good ways off, but still, Shadow really should have seen them. She blamed the sunlight and her distraction squinting over at the almost-city.

After the shock had passed, her face lit up and she nodded enthusiastically at Jonas, and hopped back up to two legs. She’d needed to drop back to all fours a couple of hours back, but was feeling rested enough to walk upright again. It was a good thing too! She wanted to be at her best for the caravan people. Even if standing wasn’t strictly necessary, she certainly wasn’t going to waste all the practicing she’d been doing.

Shadow had already missed a couple of groups of travelers they'd passed over the course of their journey. She'd been out hunting both times, which was terrible luck as far as she was concerned.

But she wouldn't be missing this group!

She started brushing off her forepaws and checking herself over. After a second she ran over to Annie, pulling out her wax tablets.

After maneuvering its bottom edge to her chest and pinning the tablet there with her left paw, she popped out a claw on her right paw and started writing on it.

‘Annie! Can you help check me over and rinse my paws off? I want to be as pretty as possible!’ she scrawled.

Her handwriting (Paw-writing! Claw-writing? Eh, handwriting was fine.) was messier than usual. She wasn’t used to writing with her arm bent the way it was, and she was still working on the best spot on her chest to support the tablet and keep it stable.

She’d come up with the method earlier today, shortly after she started messing around with her tablets again. It was surprising how easy it was for her, now that she’d really been training her paw use. She’d only practiced for a little over an hour and she was writing fine. Sure, it was a messy scrawl, but it was definitely readable. There was no way she’d have been able to do this two weeks ago.

She was feeling quite proud of the accomplishment. It was nice to see her practice was showing real results.

Annie looked at Shadow’s excitement and grinned, nodding in response to her request.

“Of course I’ll help. Here…” Annie grabbed Shadows tablets and tucked them into her own pouch, before grabbing her flask.

“Hold out your paws for me,” she directed.

Shadow eagerly complied, rubbing her paws together as Annie started pouring water over them.

She would have just licked them off, but licking herself clean was another one of those activities she’d learned she should refrain from doing any more. Humans really did seem to have an aversion to using their tongues for anything that wasn’t eating. Or talking she supposed. She wished she could use her tongue for that.

Shadow finished rinsing her paws and started to shake them dry. She was bouncing up and down as she started looking herself over again, this time with Annie’s help.

Thankfully, they’d polished her scales again today, and she was shining very nicely. Her scales did a surprisingly good job of staying waxed, even through sparring sessions (especially when they weren’t doing things that knocked her off her paws).

She and Annie had worked out a once-every-three day schedule. Sometimes she’d get repolished earlier if something happened to mess it up, but normally keeping to the schedule was sufficient for her to stay nice and shiny.

She’d tried to convince Kirrik to wax his scales too, but the big beastkin would have none of it. It was a true shame. Shadow thought his grey-green scales would look a lot better with a little shine to them.

In the meantime, Annie brushed off a few spots on Shadow’s back and helped her rinse the bottom of her tail. Shadow must have accidentally dragged it through some mud. By the time she was all cleaned up, the caravan was getting pretty close.

Shadow took back her tablets and tried to look normal. She definitely still had a bit of bounce to her steps, but she couldn’t help it.

It only felt like a moment before the two groups were within shouting distance. The four members of Shadow’s group had bunched together a bit and moved off to the left, so they wouldn’t get in the way of the wagons.

“Good travels!” Jonas called out towards the caravan in a friendly tone, followed shortly by Annie and Kirrik. Shadow started waving a paw enthusiastically.

They received a chorus of replies and nods, with a few people waving back to her as well. There were a good number of people. Some of them were dressed similarly, or perhaps a little nicer than the villagers back in Lorvale, but there were also those that wore armor kind of like Annie and Jonas did, only some had metal and head coverings too.

It was only with an effort of will that she kept her grin narrow.

So far so good!

Shadow’s group slowed to a stop when one of the armored people broke off and jogged up to them.

“Ho, travelers! How goes your journey?” the armored human woman asked as she came to a stop herself.

She looked around at their group. Her eyes paused for a second on Shadow, her face looking slightly confused, but nothing more came of it when Annie stepped forward and extended a hand.

“Our journey’s been going well, although we did have somewhat of a rough start. Annie.” Annie introduced herself.

“Samantha. You can call me Sam.” She answered, taking Annie’s hand and shaking it. A quick round of introductions followed, with Shadow writing her name on her tablet and offering a paw to shake.

Sam gave her a curious look, obviously noting her lack of speech and the fact that her paws were, well, paws, and not hands, but didn't actually say anything other than "nice to meet you" as they shook.

She went right back to Annie after and started talking.

“Sorry to hear about your rough start. Where are you coming from, and what happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” Samantha queried.

“Lorvale.” Annie told her. The road they’d been traveling on had been combining with quite a few others the last few days, so it was a reasonable question.

“We ran into a giant tatzelwurm. We… did end up killing it, so it shouldn’t be a threat any longer. The road was torn up quite badly during the fight though.” Annie explained.

Sam looked surprised.

“The… uh… tat… worm thing did that? Tore a road up? Wow. It’s some sorta magic beast? Can’t say I’ve heard of them before.”

“Ah, yes, it’s a large, armored, snake-like creature. It seemed to be able to propel itself through the ground with earth magic. They’re normally only found in the mountains. I’m afraid I’ve only read about them in passing myself.” Annie described.

Sam nodded along, looking impressed.

“You all fought one of these things?” She asked, before waving off any attempted answers. ”It doesn’t really matter. Caravan’s bound for Lasthill, not Lorvale. Thanks for the info!” Sam said with a wave, breaking off into a jog to catch back up with the front of the caravan.

In the meantime, Shadow had drifted away from the conversation and was busy waving and nodding to people as they passed. They were mostly human, but there were a few beastkin as well! She saw one that had a lot of feathers and a whole family of fox people!

She’d written a big ‘Hello!’ on her wax tablet and showed it to anyone who greeted her back. Some people ignored her, and she did get a few glares, but most people at least gave her a wave, and there were quite a few that were pretty friendly! One older human lady even complimented her on her scales, which earned her a hastily scribbled ‘Thank you!’. She preened a bit at that. It was amazing how good a few words from a stranger could make you feel.

She really wanted to talk to all of them, but the caravan kept moving, and she couldn’t exactly strike up a conversation unless she started to follow along.

It was honestly kind of surreal, meeting people like this. She’d gotten so used to being the center of attention in Lorvale that having people just wave and go back to what they were doing felt strange. She was... fitting in. Everyone seemed to be taking her at face value. There were a few odd looks, especially from the beastkin and some of the armored people, but no one actually said anything about her appearance (aside from the scale compliment!). She did notice quite a few people looking between her and Kirrik with some amount of confusion, and wondered what that was about, but overall, it seemed like plan ‘be a beastkin’ was working out.

She knew questions about her appearance, or the fact that she couldn’t talk would probably come up if she interacted with anyone longer term, but it looked like she was good to go as far as passersby were concerned.

Before long, the caravan had passed, and they were on the move again.

“That went well.” Annie stated.

Shadow nodded enthusiastically.

‘It went really well!’ she wrote.

“Even that guard, um… Sam, only seemed a little curious. I think between the clothing, and your demeanor, people are definitely taking you for a beastkin.” Annie let out with a sigh. She sounded very relieved.

“Told you so. Nothing to worry about.” Kirrik interjected with a smirk.

Annie raised an eyebrow at him.

‘Yeah! It's really great! Let’s get to Leeside! I want to see the town!’ Shadow had started literally hopping around in front of the group, grinning wildly as they tried to read the tablet she was showing them.

Annie started laughing and it spread to the rest of the group. Shadow felt a little silly but she was so excited! This was going to be so much better than Lorvale had been now that she didn't have to play dumb. She could talk to everyone! At least as long as they could read. Annie said that should be more common in the bigger settlement.

After a bit, the laughter died out, and Annie’s eyes started getting a little misty. She bent down and scooped Shadow up off the ground in a hug, squeezing her tight.

Shadow wriggled a bit—she’d dropped her tablets!—but after a moment she settled down and hugged her mom back.

“I love you so, so much. You know that?” Annie whispered to her, before pulling back a bit so she could look Shadow in the eyes.

Shadow gave her mom a warm look and nodded, before stretching a bit to nuzzling her cheek in return.

Annie took a few more shuddering breaths before letting Shadow back down.

Her mom took a moment to compose herself and Shadow retrieved her tablets. Jonas came over and ruffled her ears a bit as she collected them.

Annie looked over their little group.

“Alright. Stay safe. We have a town to visit.”