Alastair apples are a botanical anomaly, so it might be more apt to describe them as something else. They grow in the normally very wet and loose soil of Alastair, but have the curious ability of harenening the swampy texture around them into something firm enough to even build upon. Perhaps this is why the crest of the country bears one of the fruits as a headed symbol?

The street they walked on was clear for the moment. Traffic had surged to the center of town as the markets opened. A few birds were all that came to the street to cover the sound of Icara and Gwindon’s footsteps. Partway away from Cherno’s shop, Gwindon pulled on Icara’s shoulder.

“Wait a minute, are you sure that disguise is enough? Maybe we should think of something else to do for now.”

“Well the poster seemed to focus on my eyes, for obvious reasons. Like Cherno said, I wasn’t exactly hiding myself or using a variety of outfits this whole time. It won’t last forever, but it should be enough to weave through a crowd like the markets will have. Once we get to wherever this official is, we’ll keep it up as long as we have to.”

“But you’ve still got the demeanor of the person they’re after. Maybe we should wait until the crowd thins out?” He questioned, rubbing his chin.

Icara moved back and grabbed his wrist, pulling the knight forward. “Lucky for both of us, you’ve already given us a pretty good alibi if we get caught. Just pretend to be my father like you did for those other hires and we’ll faze through the crowd. No place better to hide than in plain sight, right?”

He tried to protest further, but knew the futility in it. After she realized she didn’t have to hold his wrist, she let him go and put both hands in her pockets. Gwindon watched the way she walked the uphill streets toward the town center. There was an inelegance to every motion, but every little thing felt practiced. Even in a casual manner, he wondered how focused she was on her outward appearance. Compared to his own walk, a heavy march in its own right that was clearly drilled in by training, it was hard to imagine them travelling together.

At the final street junction, they crossed over a large bridge with a fast river roaring beneath it. Even louder than the rapids were the sounds of market trading. People and carriages moved around each other in fluid patterns, stopping and starting at the various stalls and money changing partitions. Icara paused at the top of the bridge’s arc and admired the crowd for a moment. Inside her pockets, both hands flexed and unflexed, unsure of how to enter the tangle of bodies without drawing attention.

Gwindon lead them this time, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pushing her into the mass. Icara struggled at first from the rude assistance, but soon followed him as best she could, if only to avoid being swept away by the bustle of business. The crowd was a mix of pleasant and pungent odors, the products and people filling the air as tightly as the traffic. One stall caught Icara’s eye, forcing her to slip away from Gwindon’s grip to inspect closer.

It was a banal fruit stand carrying an arrangement of foods ready to eat and a listing of prices above them. She approached one of the boxes first and kneeled down with wide-eyes. They resembled oranges, but had a deep orange color like a fresh sunset. The old man working the stand noticed her enchantment and grinned, leaning forward with a grin to pick one up and hold it out to her.

“Did the smell catch you, miss? Alastair apples are the beauty of my wares, you must have a knowledgeable palate,” he said, stroking his beard with his off-hand.

Gwindon pushed his way back and found her as she took the offered fruit. Icara brought it close to her nose and deeply inhaled, closing her eyes as she did. He watched her face tense for an instant, but relax as she sighed out the scent. A smile warmed over her expression as she stared at the food.

“I remember having these as a kid. My mother always used to ask that they cut the skin off of them, and I fought to make them keep it on. The insides are the same as other apples, so I always felt cheated when they didn’t have the skin.” Icara explained, rolling it around in her hand before turning to Gwindon. “Funny, this is the only thing native to Alastair only. They were always rare when I was a kid though, I’m shocked to see a merchant on the street selling them.”

“You’re quite right about their rarity in the past, miss. Thankfully for me, these are from the border expansions. Colorful little borders with trees entice people to come in and buy these delicacies,” he said, picking up another and wiping it. “I personally don’t care much for planting trees to tell you that stuff, but it helps ward off invasions from the northern and southern countries. Everyone’s been so busy with war these days...” he mused to himself.

Gwindon moved next to Icara and handed the man enough money for an apple. “We’re in a little hurry, Icara, eat it on the way.”

“Where do you get all this money from, exactly?” Icara asked, standing up.

“I’m still a former knight, you know. Not like I was poorly paid for my services. I’ve been surviving off of the rest of my money for a while, keeping it in a few places as I travel. Trade cities make it easy to store things these years, and you can get credit from the guild houses in major cities like this one.” He answered, leading them back into the crowd. “Not all of us need to mooch off of others because we lack money of our own, you know.”

Icara rolled her eyes and took a bite from the apple. The moment the piece entered her mouth, she spat it out on the floor and coughed. People in the crowd moved away from the rude gesture and Gwindon turned around to grab her arm.

“Hey! You wanted that thing in the first place!”

“This isn’t a real Alastair apple... it’s dehydrated or something. That merchant must’ve stolen a sapling and is trying to pass it off as a real thing,” she turned around with a glare on her face, but Gwindon caught her. “I’m going to make him label those things properly as faulty!”

“We’re not going to get into a fight with some merchant or whatever guild he might be in over the flavor of a fruit!” Gwindon said in a low voice, yanking her closer to him.

She pouted in response and took another bite of the apple. Her face contorted in exaggeration, but she moved with the former knight. The crowds eventually thinned as the passed the main trading area. Most of the traders here had more stable shops established, selling clothes and tools instead of perishables.

From in front of one of the stalls, a group of men dressed in padded armors walked in the opposite direction of Icara and Gwindon. Their leader sported a metal helmet, and a few flashes around his neck showed off the chainmail he wore beneath it. Icara clung tighter to the knight as they passed, but the head soldier held out his arm to stop them.

“Hey, what’re you doing walking around in full armor like that for? You working for the crown as well?” he asked in a gruff voice before he looked at Icara suspiciously. “Hey wait... that girl looks familiar.”

A pale faced man from the back of the group moved forward with some parchment in his hand. He flipped through a couple of them and occasionally glanced up to Icara. Gwindon pulled the man’s arm off of him and moved out of the way of the group. They all turned together and gripped for their weapons, but he only glanced at them disappointedly.

“Alastair must be on hard times to actually hire rabble like you. We’re going to be on our way, go and decide if you need to chase us down at your own pace,” he said, pulling Icara away from the group with him.

The leader drew his sword while Icara watched and chewed another bite of apple. He grabbed her other arm and yanked back hard enough to make Gwindon lose his grip. He brought his face dangerously close to her own before grabbing at the wrappings around her face. Gwindon took a step forward, but hesitated as he saw Icara drop the arm with the apple down.

She tossed it into the air, distracting the man a moment as he watched it fly up. The apple didn’t even manage to reach its peak before she yanked her arm free and moved to the man’s side. He tried to grab her again, but the apple came down and hit him square on the head. Icara forced her heel against the back of his knee and put one hand on his chest, slamming him into the ground just as she caught the apple.

Both Gwindon and the other mercenaries were shocked at the blaze of a takedown they had seen, but Gwindon reacted first. He bolted towards an alley ahead of them, waving for Icara to follow.

The leader stumbled onto his stomach as the others tried to help him. “What’re you standing here for?! Get them!”

“I don’t know Alph, they don’t really match any of the listings we have... well, aside from one of the female leads. But she’s supposed to be travelling alone. They might be petty thieves of something, not really a big profit,” the pale one responded, putting a hand close to his mouth and whispering the next part. “Plus, you know, you got taken down kinda easily there. I think we should keep looking for easier ones. With all the people looking for that one girl, we can’t really afford to slack off on finding an easier grab.”

Icara had only managed to reach the entrance of the alleyway as the leader got back on his feet. Their eyes met for an instant before she rounded the corner away from them. He looked down at his hand before grabbing his sword off the ground and turning towards the way Gwindon had run.

“Fine, I’ll go look for her then. You go and look for some other score,” he said, looking over his shoulder as he sheathed his blade again. “Or would one of you lot like the tell Lilith that we didn’t find anyone again?”

The men shivered in place and shifted awkwardly on their feet before heading back around the market place. Once he was alone, the leader set off after the pair.

Gwindon and Icara had meanwhile resumed a walking pace after gaining some distance. These streets were also empty as the ones around Cherno’s shop had been, but they were far larger. Every building had a few glass windows and showed signs of life from them. Almost all of them had some sign denoting the name of the establishment hung somewhere on the outside. The streets themselves seemed to bend out of their normally straight lines just to accommodate the structures. At the end of the road they found one more such building, but with a distinctly plain outside. Only the ornate columns on the outside denoted any sort of creative flair in design.

“State and sanctity?” Icara read the sign out front, written in blocky, gold text.

“That sounds like the place we’re looking for,” Gwindon responded. “How did you want to go about this, exactly? I doubt we’d get far if we just head in and ask for information about the political climate.”

Icara took a bite of her apple and chewed in thought. “Hmm... well, you’re still an official knight most likely. We can just tell them that you’re looking for someone from your homeland. Would be easy to imply they might be hiding out in the region or something, and ask about the neighboring nations at the moment.”

“You can’t expect them to have records on things like that, Icara. The most they’d have is things on local knights and nobles, not anyone from as far away as I am, even if my kingdom wasn’t dead,” he reminded her.

“But it’s the only thing we can really do, right?” Icara said, shrugging as she moved towards the door.

Gwindon looked up at the sign a final time and sighed before he followed after her. The entryway was a plain wooden door with no visible lock. Icara pushed it open with a surprising ease for its size and entered. There was only a door to the right and a desk with two people at it. One was a young woman seated behind it, writing down notes on a large parchment with a worried look on her face.

Beside her was a larger man, even taller than Gwindon, but clearly younger. His armor was full plate metal, with the helmet resting on the desk he leaned against. All of his clothes were polished incredibly well, and the few pieces of cloth were of high quality. Icara narrowed her eyes to see through the bandages on her head better while they approach. She jumped when the man pounded his fist against the woman’s workplace.

“Berkahn preserve me! Where are we supposed to find her? It’s a mockery that this new bastard king can’t keep the monsters from the city. Does he have any clue the kind of danger we’re all in if there’s one of those things living here?!”

“A-Archpriest Daylon, I understand your concern, b-but we can’t exactly mount a full assault just for someone possibly affiliated with a demon...” the woman meekly responded to him.

He stood upright and grunted. “Fine. Not the intermediaries fault that Koshchei is doing his best to muck things up for the vanguard. He’s too consumed with politics and human conflict, can’t see the demons at our doorsteps. I’ll join the hunt myself if I have to.”

“The hunt? Are you looking for someone?” Icara asked, moving forward but staring at the ground to avoid showing her eyes. She also managed to make her voice sound higher and more effeminate to disguise herself further.

“Yes. I’m looking for someone pretending to be a former princess of Alastair, who was killed by a demon a long time ago. That and another woman from a southern kingdom. Keep an eye out for one with large scar on her left eye, she’s been seen talking to mercs from—”

“Excuse me,” Icara cut him off. “But... what was the name of the first woman?”

“Icara Valarus,” he answered before looking between him and Gwindon. “...why do you want to know?”