Raking stout fingers through her wild curls, Agdis growled her frustration, drawing bemused stares of those around her as she stomped one foot before cringing slightly in discomfort for her trouble. Rubbing at her sore thigh, she let go a massive groan. She just couldn't take the city anymore. The filth and disorder were getting to her, the madness of it all. The shanties of the refugees with nowhere else to go slap-dashed up against any vertical surface amidst gutters overflowing with muck, the hogs and street cleaners hopeless to keep pace. The dissonant shrieks of children, washerwomen, workers, and hawkers like some raucous chorus of the damned. Hell if she didn't miss the regimented orderliness of the military camps, or better yet, the quiet of her mountains...

A while later she strode out through the city's southern gate with a bottle of something strong clutched in one powerful hand. She skirted the lakeshore until she found a massive fallen log jutting out over the water. She tested it's balance first of course, then,  sure it wasn't going anywhere any time soon,  she walked out a short ways before sitting down to stare out over the water.  Stretching a bit to trail the fingers of her free hand in the cold reflections below,  she grimaced. The ache was a good one though as her shoulder, shattered by a golem's punch in the battle for Dunmeath so many months before, flexed beneath her vest. With how many pieces it had been in, it had taken three surgeries to remove all the shrapnel of stone and bone, then months of physical therapy to get everything restored and back in order. The military's hospital moved slowly, when it moved at all, but she really couldn't complain. At least they'd been able to save her arm and leg...

Lifting the bottle to her lips she took a swig, then poured a little out over the water for those who'd been less lucky, for the friends she'd lost, and for those she knew she would lose still. May they find peace in what comes after...

It had been quite some time since he'd ventured this way. Not since the march towards Dunmeath at least by the vast army, numbers vastly reduced by the time they returned in scattered dregs and many not making the sojourn back at all. It seemed like the funeral processions had lasted forever, the city a mass sea of black mourning and faces dry of tears were few and far between. Like a non gaunt one was now. Thankfully he'd amassed, scraped and saved enough coin to be able to afford food for himself and to still pay his assisstant a livable wage in these trying times, but those stores wouldn't last forever, and his kindness was going to have to become somewhat limited again. After all, he didn't want to have to go back to his previous career. While lucrative, certainly, he didn't want to bloody his hands further. He'd left that life  - largely - behind. He hadn't even seen Hui in awhile to come and collect any manner of 'favors' either.

His eyes caught on motion above him, his ears twitching faintly as they tilted in better observation of his surroundings. The flap of the straw satchel would close, looped through the leather throng to contain his gathered herbs. Despite his hired help's insistance, he'd wandered out today instead to do the gathering, finding a need to stretch his legs through something other than the cobbled streets.

A familiar scent bittered the air with its presence, one he recognized well. He would straighten, rolling his shoulders to relinquish the tension built from crouching so close to the soil. One hand rose, rubbing over the back of his neck as he made the small hike up the mossy knoll to better perceive the stranger perched on the over arching log. Only to see them pouring the liquid from their seat and into the open air below. "Decide you aren't thirsty after all, friend?" The rasping gravel of his intonation would reach out, while not overly loud, he hoped to be heard over the bauble of the merry stream as it danced over the rocks.