Young Writers Society

Rana was in the Town Square, taking in anything and everything that she could: the sights, the sounds, even the smells. It was the next thing she needed to learn. She'd perfected her people skills -- was well on her way with language skills -- now she needed to learn economic skills. She wandered through the market leisurely, looking around.

Susan was currently in full panic mode with a capital P. She'd somehow managed to get separated from the team. That was simply not supposed to be possible, with all the very specific procedures in place to ensure exactly this situation would never happen. It had all worked perfectly on every other mission she'd been on, but today time was clearly intent on messing up her day because somehow she'd managed to get herself completely lost.

All three devices that were supposed to tell here the locations of Daphne and Jessica had frozen at the time they'd and place they'd arrived in at which meant they were clearly malfunctioning somehow. She knew they'd moved away from the drop off point and into the public to begin their search and then things got a bit fuzzy from there. She couldn't put a finger on exactly how or when she'd lost track of them.

Susan knew that someone had to have attacked them in someway to make this happen and she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad had happened to them. She couldn't dwell on that however, her training had been very clear about what she had to do in a scenario like this where every single thing that could go wrong had gone wrong and the emergency recall features, including all the failsafes had failed. She needed to do her best to avoid making any accidental changes to the timeline and work on establishing communication either with her team or headquarters which meant her first course of action should be to get to some secluded place.

She was currently in what she recognized as the Town Square from the map they'd handed out at the start of the mission. That was about the worst place she could be, there were people all over the place and all she had to do was bump into the wrong person and there was no telling what disasters could follow as a result. She made her way through the market, walking as fast as she could while swerving to avoid people like the plague.

There was a lot going on. Rana watched vendors shouting the praises of their own wares. Children darting back and forth. Women carrying purchases away from various stalls.

Her eyes locked on a girl rushing through the square, looking stricken. Well, that was interesting. Rana sped up a bit, walking towards the girl. She looked like the type of person that interesting things happened to. And Rana wanted to be anywhere that interesting things were happening.

It's not like she had anything better to do just then.

Susan continued here mad dash through the square, mentally berating herself for forgetting to go intangible and invisible before committing to running through the square. Now she was stuck in a situation where she couldn't just randomly make herself vanish into thin air without alarming somebody but if she didn't do it she was going to mess something up anyway.

She saw a girl approaching in her direction from somewhere and then two men carrying a basket of something. She jumped to the right to avoid the baskets, completely forgetting about the girl from earlier and then her worst nightmares came true as she ended up barrelling straight into the girl.

Rana put her hands up to steady the girl as she crashed into her. Well, this was one way to get an introduction. "Oop, you okay there?"

"I'm so..so..sorry," began Susan, immediately going very red as she realized what had just happened. And then she realized that she'd not only bumped into but just initiated a conversation with someone from another time. At this point it was far too late to run away with no explanation, that would only cause more problems. She had to deal with the situation quickly and run off as soon as it was appropriate to do that.

Then she realized the girl had asked here if she was okay. Susan managed to nod. "So..sorry again. I wasn't paying enough attention to where I was going."

(ahhh, I'm so sorry for the delay! Feel free to nudge me in the future, I totally missed this notif >.> )

"Hey, no worries!" Rana flashed a grin. "It happens. Just glad you're okay."

{No problem!)

Susan found herself smiling back. "Th...thank you. I...uhh...I should get going."

"Where you heading?" Rana asked, friendly, but also snooping as she took a step forward in the direction she thought the girl was going to go.

"Uhh...," Susan said, instinctively grabbing a strand of her hair as the tried to think of an answer. It wasn't just the fact that she shouldn't be telling anyone where she was going, it was also the fact that she herself didn't have any idea where she was headed, besides just that she had to get out of her current location. "...nowhere?" She blurted out an answer before she could figure out a properly convincing lie.

Rana squinted at her. That answer didn't make any sense at all. People didn't run away to go nowhere. That was just silly. "Nowhere?"

"Umm, nowhere as in...." Susan said, hesitating for a moment, before she decided she may as well go through with it. It was going to be more suspicious otherwise. "Just...umm...nowhere in particular, but away from here."

"Oh." She must be trying to avoid someone. Rana could certainly understand that sentiment. "I know a neat little ale house. Do you want me to take you?"

"Uhhh..." Susan, said considering the idea. She wasn't a hundred percent sure what an ale house was supposed be. "Is it far?"