Fancy seeing you here

Posted on Thu Jun 25th, 2026 @ 3:58pm by Kaelen & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Neda Amariah

Mission: Shackles
Location: The Planet
5207 words - 10.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Above all else, child, subtlety is your friend. Be seen only when it serves you and remembered only when it is too late.

"Coming through! Express delivery!"

By now, the basket snatched several stalls ago and held aloft overhead was already bereft half of its initial load. The fruit, a garish yellow in colour, had toppled out in rapid succession and, being of the consistency to favour immediate splat-age, had peppered the distance traversed with inconveniently-placed mush. It was not, as it happened, the reason for haste, more an opportunistic attempt to elongate the opportunity for it, which is exactly why it was eventually abandoned entirely on an completely different stall. The basket didn't land in any case, falling to scatter its remaining hoard with just the right amount of localised chaos that very few noticed where the flapping robe of the hooded culprit turned sharply down a side street and came out into the crowded procession on the other side.

Weaving diagonally through a crowd of people very intent on moving slowly en masse in the same direction might have thwarted a lesser person, but the hood perservered, ducking occasionally because that's where the better gap was. There was an inconvenient moment where the only option was to join the current, swept along by pious persistence, but it was exactly the kind of situation that elbows were made for. Freedom was tantilizingly close for a minute but an eagle eye caught the appearance of potential pursuers and then the only option was to submit to the shuffle of processional reverence.

They were chanting now. She did her best to join in.

The sudden, undignified jolt that sent Dr. Reynolds stumbling into Oliver's shoulder had barely registered before Kaelen’s diplomatic belligerence went into overdrive. He caught only a passing glimpse of the hooded figure—the frantic, desperate agility of the escape, the familiar Bajoran ridges bridging her nose, a fleeting flash of sharp hazel-brown eyes beneath a shifting cloak, and a profile he would recognize anywhere in the quadrant.

Amariah.

In his former life, her name had been synonymous with a very specific, highly localized brand of chaos. She wasn't malicious, but she was a universal lightning rod for catastrophe, and by extension, whenever their paths crossed, Kaelen usually ended up being the one holding the conducting rod.

With a rapid murmur of apology to his startled companions about an "urgent communiqué," Kaelen was already moving. He pulled his thermal coat tighter and flipped up the heavy, dark hood, instantly adjusting his stride to match the solemn, rhythmic shuffle of the chanting locals.

Fifty years of diplomacy inevitably led to at least some competency in tradecraft. Whether in rugged borderlands or at black tie receptions, diplomacy and espionage frequently went hand in hand. After all, negotiating a treaty often required knowing information one was not supposed to have without ever raising an eyebrow. Over the decades, Kaelen had picked up an array of practical tricks to bend his presence to his surroundings, how to blend in and make himself unremarkable. Within seconds, the Denobulan had melted into the flow of the pious procession.

The procession was chanting a low, resonant dirge honoring the ancient dead of the highlands. Kaelen flowed through the sluggish mass of devotees, offering a gentle nudge to clear a path here, a hushed, reverent apology there, never breaking the collective rhythm of the walk as his long, quiet steps carried him swiftly through the forming gaps. Kaelen slipped into the rank immediately behind the target, his wide eyes scanning the crowd for whatever or whoever had put her in such a hurry. He edged forward, his shoulder brushing against hers as she did her best to harmonize with the local grey-skinned ascetics.

Up ahead, the parade began a slow, sweeping turn around a massive basalt archway, veering toward the main temple steps.

Before Amariah could follow the curve, Kaelen's long, fingers snaked out from beneath his sleeve. With quiet authority he clamped his hand on her shoulder, but he didn't follow the turn—instead, he anchored his weight and kept moving her straight ahead, pushing her out of the parade's path and into the deep, shadowed recess of a narrow alleyway.

He pressed his back against the cold stone, keeping his grip tight enough to prevent a sudden bolt but gentle enough to signal he wasn't her pursuer. Pulling back his hood just enough to let her see the familiar, ridged curve of his brow and a very flat, unamused expression, Kaelen leaned in.

"Amariah, what in the celestial expanse are you doing on Allhallow Prime, and whose life is about to be made infinitely more complicated by your presence?"

There had definitely been a time earlier on in their acquaintence where veiled attempts to attract Amariah's attention, specifically those that also involved laying a hand on her with any kind of authority, would have been considered a case of very poor judgement. There was every possibility that this had been information gathered the hard way, through experience and endurance of consequence, but with enough time now between Then and Now the explanation became a lot more convoluted.

If the Bajoran allowed it, then it was expected, and if it was expected, then that meant she knew ahead of time just exactly who might wind up in a position to sequest her away into dark alleys for her 'own benefit'. The fact that Kaelan was willing to risk the aforementioned ramifications also added a layer of precience to his defense, and so the wheel turned. He knew that she knew that he knew that she was up to her eyeballs and liable to refuse to admit it. Theirs was a relationship that very much resembled the hedge maze in the middle of the central park that the children of Allhallow Prime liked to disappear into to irritate their parents. Neither believed the other ever truly had the upperhand.

It took less than a second for disgruntled resignation to evaporate into a cajoling smile that might have actually worked had it not failed so spectacularly in the past.

"Hello to you too."

Amariah, like many of her ilk, held a perhaps not-unwarranted belief that she was charming. Certainly, she possessed a level of charisma that was tiresome to argue with, particularly because arguing seemed to be the woman's favourite past-time. She was also, according to several volumes of incident reports, a liar and a con-artist and, if some annecdotes were to be believed, manipulative and sly. She'd always considered that quite an ugly way of putting it; resourceful would have been more preferable, with a smattering of courageous and adaptable. If asked to decribe herself, Amariah would have said she was a problem-solver.

The fact that she was often solving problems of her own creation was really just pedantry at its worst.

"As lovely as it is to see you again," she continued, eyes darting to peer over his shoulder into the dregs of the dispersing throng, "You've caught me at a busy time." Already, the coiled tension in her muscles hinted at impending flight. She was a slippery one, a less-experienced man would already have lost his grip by now.

Her radiant, cajoling smile did absolutely nothing to ease the sudden, sharp ache brewing behind Kaelen's eyes. Experience had taught him that this specific smile was a reliable barometer for impending catastrophe. If Amariah was present and grinning like that, a ruined day was practically a statistical certainty.

Nothing with her was ever a coincidence. He remembered Rigel IV all too vividly. She had "coincidentally" bumped into him at a high-profile diplomatic gala, and by midnight Kaelen was explaining to the host, a highly suspicious local magistrate, how his family’s prized pre-reform scripture plaque had somehow wound up sewn into the lining of his formal dress cape. Only after intense forensic examination did the plaque turn out to be a highly sophisticated replica. While he had no evidence, Kaelen was sure that Amariah had planted the decoy so he would draw the heat while she quietly slipped away with the genuine artifact before the first interrogation session had even concluded.

He could have asked her how she had tracked him here, or how she knew he had traded the prestige of Starfleet for the frayed edges of the Mary Rose. But he chose to preserve his breath. Asking Amariah for a direct answer was like trying to scoop up the Allhallow mists with a sieve; whatever explanation she offered would be a beautifully woven tapestry of half-truths and theatrical fabrications.

Instead, he simply raised a skeptical brow, blocking her view of the street.

"Busy with what, exactly? Because the last time you were 'busy', I spent three weeks explaining to Starfleet Intelligence why I was suddenly in possession of a stolen shuttlecraft."

While waiting for Amariah’s undoubtedly colorful defense, Kaelen noticed the narrow alleyway had growning noticeably darker, but it wasn't due to shifting mists. At the far end, silhouetted against the amber glow of the distant market lanterns, two figures had stepped into the gloom, approiaching  with a slow cadence.

T'Ango and Gunnar, having come for the cathartic aspects of the festival had decided to take part in the ceremonial and ritual parts as well, both in hopes that those would enhance the overall experience and because both had some background in xenosociology and couldn't resist observing a major cultural event for a different world first hand. They'd debated a bit about taking part in the procession, given the quasi-religious aspects, but it appeared open to outsiders, making it likely there'd be no awkwardness if they remained silent through vows, creeds or responses they couldn't join. Though that consideration was more one of simple tendency to honesty; Gunnar, for all that he appreciated faith and had studied many in order to provide the best care to patients on more than just the physical level, was what his chaplain friend called a 'Universalist Agnostic' - someone open to but equally unconvinced by all faiths - while T'Ango had a sincere faith, but her gods were not the jealous variety.

So they had picked up festival robes and made plans ...but having a private room after having been separated for months, they had spent longer getting reacquainted and then napping afterward than originally planned. As a result they were taking a short cut through an alley to join up with the evening's procession.

To anyone looking, they would have stood out as off-worlders even if their hoods hadn't been down, revealing a blonde head with a neatly trimmed blonde beard with hints of ginger and a felinoid head with a gold earring and elaborate tattoos around the left eye. Heightening the effect was the fact that Gunnar stood nearly 2 meters tall, while the ear tips of the petite Dosadi beside him barely came to his shoulder. As they moved down the alley, those ears perked, orienting on the couple in the midst of some sort of intense encounter who were partially blocking their intended passage.

What sharp Dosadi ears could pick up put the marine on a ready footing as it sounded like something untoward was going on, and while she couldn't be sure of the dynamic, the smaller of the pair was giving 'snared prey'. Gunnar noticed the change in attitude, and glanced down, catching a look from T'Ango that whatever polite and non-confrontational request for passage he'd planned should be put on hold. A fractional tip of his head acknowledged that he'd follow her lead, which given the implicit trust between them was a fairly normal pattern in any case.

"You know, shuttles are listed as stolen more often than you'd think," T'Ango interrupted in a deceptively friendly casual tone and flashed a feline smile. "I've borrowed one that was briefly mistaken as stolen once myself. The question is," here her ears oriented on the person with her back against the wall, "if it was for honorable or dishonorable purposes."

For the entire duration of Kaelan's lament, the Bajoran wedged between his bulk and the wall had held his gaze with an unwavering guile that might almost have passed as confrontational had it not been mostly dominated by a mocking hitch of a single eyebrow. Had circumstance provided a better reaction time, it was an expression that could have withstood decent scrutiny once her intended escape was further compromised by the interjection of fresh company. As it was, the prevalence of suspicion weighted towards her motives meant that Amariah didn't entirely get away with a slight variance in her stance, or the flare of provoked mischief that saw her calculate a retaliation well before Kaelan's diplomatic instincts had a chance to kick in.

The smile she gave the pair conveyed the practised resignation of perpetually patient benevolence.

"He complains a lot for someone who repeatedly falls into the trap of expecting to talk his way out of bad situations." An over-exaggerated shrug suggested affection as she added, "The fact that it sometimes works hasn't done a lot to disuade him. Still," a hand reached up to pat the Denobulan's cheek, "at least it keeps things interesting."

Kaelen’s eyes flicked between the bearded human and the diminutive, gold-eared Dosadi, his mind instantly running through a dozen permutations of threat-assessment. With Amariah, a simple coincidence was a statistical impossibility. Had she hired these two? Were they her marks, or her partners-in-crime? The Dosadi's casual interjection about "borrowed" shuttles was far too convenient, a perfect conversational wedge designed to disarm his authority and paint him as the unreasonable party. And then there was that hand on his cheek. He caught her fingers with a gentle but unyielding pressure, lowering her hand but not releasing his loose grip on her sleeve.

"An honorable theft is still a nightmare to clean up for those needing to maintain diplomatic relations with the original proprietor," Kaelen said, his voice instantly pivoting into his warmest, most resonant baritone. He offered the newcomers a broad, disarming Denobulan smile, his wide eyes scanning their posture, their clothing, and the subtle tension in the tall human's shoulders. They carried themselves with the quiet confidence of people who knew how to handle a crisis—or cause one. "And I assure you, this young lady's definition of 'honorable' usually involves a high degree of property damage and a very creative ignorance of legal statutes."

He tilted his head slightly, positioning his body to block Amariah's primary line of retreat while keeping both strangers in his field of vision. "But where are my manners? I am Kaelen. And while my companion here would love nothing more than to frame our reunion as a harmless, domestic bicker, I must advise caution. If she has recruited you into whatever grand endeavor she is currently fleeing, you may want to check your pockets and your luggage. Rigel IV taught me that lesson the exceedingly expensive way." He kept his tone light, conversational, and entirely pleasant, treating the tense standoff as if it were a polite reception cocktail hour. Let them show their cards first.

A felinoid ear had flipped back at the woman's response, an indication of judgment that the answer to her question had amounted to 'dishonorable'. Gunnar, despite the degree to which he'd assimilated during a posting to the embassy on Dosad, wasn't so inclined to judge on that basis. However, after listening to various crew give to every conceivable excuse for avoiding exams and/or ignoring medical advice, he had a nurse's well-honed BS-detector and it was going off. When the woman put a hand to her seeming captor's cheek, both had immediately considered that what they'd happened upon was a lover's quarrel, or one between partners in crime, or both. T'Ango's weight shifted to her toes, but only that - even if a weapon was drawn, the marine felt confident she could take them both. Gunnar, a peaceful man by nature but used to the result of any fight involving T'Ango, dropped a hand toward the medkit at his hip.

Those postures altered with the man's reply, though T'Ango didn't relax entirely - there was still a non-zero chance that he was her partner and using a skill for smooth-talking looking to get their guard down. "We just saw a woman pinned to a wall, and couldn't well just pass by," she explained. "Lt. T'Ango, of the Dosadi Imperial Marines, and this is Lt. Arnason, Starfleet." The introduction was made with an air that carried the assumption that their respective associations were enough to explain why they would never pass by someone who might be facing a threat. "We were on our way to the ceremony, but if she's a criminal you've apprehended, we'll gladly assist you taking her to the police."

This time, the pointed look Amariah served the Denobulan was not laced with any veiled duplicity. Instead, it very openly accused him of creating a mountain out of a non-existent mound of dirt that was now quickly escalating to the kind of complicated mess he was apparently tired of dealing with. Indignation painted her cheeks a fierce red but, composed through sheer deployment of stubborn wit, the Bajoran turned her weight so that she now leaned her shoulder rather than her back against the wall and with that subtle shift, Kaelan was now faced with the undivided attention of all three of his current companions.

"Yes, darling, by all means tell our new friends what horrendous crime you've intercepted. Be sure to give them all the juicy details, the ones that explain why you dragged me off the street just to whine about your previous dissatisfaction. We aren't even travelling together," she directed over her shoulder to the pair behind. "I didn't know he was on this planet until he grabbed me. One might argue," Amariah suggested directly into Kaelan's gaze, "that it's a bit ridiculous to cry victim over situations you insert yourself into without invitation. But you have a wonderful imagination and a very well-practised ability to tell a good story so I'm sure we're all thrilled at the opportunity to hear what you've come up with this time."

Kaelen’s mind spun through a dozen rapid-fire permutations of the current board. Starfleet and the Dosadi Imperial Marines. On any other night, Kaelen would have welcomed the presence of fellow uniform-wearers with a relieved sigh and a warm, diplomatic handshake. Tonight, however, the coincidence was simply too neat. If there was one thing he had learned from his historical misery with Amariah, it was that her plans often involved layers of theatrical misdirection. Was this the opening play of a classic triple-blind hustle? He had once heard of a heist on Orion Outpost 4 where she had "accidentally" run into an old acquaintance, only for two perfectly timed "peacekeepers" to intervene. By the time the acquaintance had finished explaining the misunderstanding to the authorities, his security clearance had been cloned, his ship's manifest rewritten, and the "peacekeepers" had vanished into warp space alongside Amariah with a hold full of stolen dilithium.

Were these two actually off-duty officers who had unwittingly stumbled into her gravity well, or were they highly specialized actors running interference? The Dosadi’s rigid, combat-ready stance and the human’s confidence certainly looked authentic. But in Amariah’s world, authenticity was but a commodity.

He let out a soft, melodic chuckle, his posture remaining perfectly relaxed as he slowly let go of her sleeve, though he kept his body angled to cut off her easiest path out of the alley.

"A truly tempting offer, Lieutenants, and I commend your swift devotion to order," Kaelen said, inclining his head in a respectful, shallow bow that perfectly projected the gratitude of a law-abiding citizen. "However, I must concede that I am not... aware of any specific municipal codes or planetary statutes this young lady has violated on Allhallow Prime yet. Key word, of course, being 'yet.' To hand her over to the local authorities without a concrete charge would be a tactical blunder of the highest order."

He turned his disarming, wide-eyed smile back to T'Ango and Gunnar, though his focus remained sharp. "You see, Amariah has a truly masterful talent for transforming herself into a tragic, persecuted victim at a moments notice. If we march her to the local watchhouse right now, she will play the part of the fragile, bullied tourist harassed by an overbearing Denobulan and two heavily-armed off-world vigilantes. The local guards—who are already notoriously protective of their festival's solemn, reverent atmosphere—would likely release her with a profuse apology and a handful of complimentary spirit charms. Meanwhile, the three of us would spend the rest of our shore leave filling out Allhallow municipal incident reports on triplicated basalt tablets and nothing we say will hold timely weight with the authorities."

T'Ango's offer had been a test to see if the woman was in fact a criminal that the man had intercepted and not his partner. Declining their help in delivering her to the authorities, especially with the added warning that they would be the ones detained, failed it rather spectacularly.

...except that he gave every impression that he was telling the truth, right down to his scent. So either this Kaelen had truly had the kind of run ins with her that she triggered a reaction even a Romulan might consider paranoid, or he was an extremely accomplished liar. If he was her partner in whatever grift was going on, the latter couldn't be ruled out. The problem was that his antipathy toward her seemed genuine, and to T'Ango's Dosadi sensibilities everything about the woman screamed 'con artist', so why would such an extraordinary liar partner with someone so obvious about who she was? Unless she was acting to give that impression in order to make him look trustworthy... Yeesh, I'm the one starting to think like a Romulan...

She spared a glance up at Gunnar, who, having been practically adopted by Kali's family, had a far better grasp of sorting wheels-within-wheels thinking from actual reasons for suspicion.

For his part, Gunnar was weighing the same impressions and thoughts, though there was a hint of amusement on his face from the imagined description of them as 'heavily-armed'. Among his friends he was somewhat known for generally refusing to carry a weapon. In fact it had become something of a running joke when he was in T'Ango's company that he didn't carry because she fought better when he didn't carry her. And in this civilian setting she could be said to be heavily-armed only by virtue of having built-in weaponry due to her felinoid claws. But at T'Ango's look, he nodded, understanding that it might be better for him to lead now. He hadn't grown up immersed in Dosadi concepts of honor, and he had considerable clinical and personal experience with both paranoid thinking and people trying to put one over on him. "Forgive me for being direct, but if that's the case, why waylay her at all?" he asked falling into the kindly just-trying-to-understand tone he might use with a patient presenting as confused and potentially in mental crisis. "I get that she's played you and may be trying to play us; that seems obvious enough unless she's acting that character for her own reasons, but it could easily have been local police who spotted a woman pinned in an alley, and if what you say is true, then you knowingly put yourself in a bad position."

For the bulk of the human's reply, Amariah's expression had meandered through variations of 'he has a point' to momentary protest and affront before finally settling on a decent amount of circumspect pragmatism. Somewhere amidst the summary, her character had emerged a little on the tarnished side but the logic was sound. More importantly, it worked decently in her favour, which accounted for the bright smile she settled on once the final swing had landed.

"Knowingly putting himself in bad positions is Kaelan's specialty," she answered for the Denobulan, and once again the scrunched-nose affection was executed well enough to almost seem sincere. "He likes to think he's helping," came the next addition, a semi-conspiratorial divulgence offered over her shoulder as she leaned back towards the pair as if to invite them into the privacy of a discreet disclosure. "You watch, any minute now he'll start claiming he intercepted me for my own good."

Kaelen let out a soft, defeated sigh, though his eyes sparkled with genuine amusement. "My dear Lieutenant, I must gently object to your choice of vocabulary. 'Waylay' is such a terribly aggressive term. It implies a level of malicious ambush that simply does not fit the scenario. And while our charming Bajoran friend here would love for you to believe I am merely a victim of my own overactive savior and / or victim complex, there is a very simple, very rigid matter of mathematics to consider."

He leaned back slightly against the cold alley wall, his wide Denobulan smile returning in full force. "The galaxy is a rather spacious place, containing roughly $400 \text{ billion}$ star systems and countless trillions of sentient lives. For two entirely unconnected individuals to randomly bump into one another on four separate planets, across three different sectors, in the same quadrant, with absolutely no prior planning, coordination, or tracking... well, the probability of such an event is roughly $1$ in $10^{18}$. To put that into perspective, it is mathematically far more likely that the four of us would simultaneously and spontaneously combust right here in this alleyway than for her bumping into my crewmate in front of my eyes to be a complete coincidence. So of course I had to investigate and stop her to verify if it was truly her, or if I was merely suffering from a highly specific hallucination. If the universe indeed intends to throw such absurd odds at me, I prefer to make sure—especially since I left my flame-retardant underwear on the ship."

A blonde brow lifted. 'Waylay' had been the less aggressive of the words that had come to mind at what had looked like woman pinned to a wall by a larger man. But it wasn't worth arguing. Kaelen didn't strike him as prone to violence, so he judged the worst scenarios weren't likely, though concern remained as to obsession or delusional thinking. "I can understand concern for a shipmate if someone you believed to be criminal might have used a bump to rob them, and clearly her presence is triggering for you, so perhaps that rationalization seems rational," he replied mildly, offering a gentle smile in return. "But I've experienced far too many highly improbably things to put much credence in your math. And I'd suggest you should perhaps re-evaluate. By your system, T'Ango and I should have burst into flames before running into former crewmates long since signed onto a civilian ship. And yet, we encountered them here by chance. In fact, what lead us to them was even more coincidental, as we first encountered crewmates of theirs and worked out the connection."

"Well, not that coincidental." T'Ango cast a teasing grin up at him. "One of them was an Orion medic - I swear you're like a magnet for that."

He gave her a was-that-really-necessary look, but then took the hint that bit of humor might soften the critique he'd just put to the man. "I suppose that and Kali walking in a few minutes later, does put my contact incidence for Orions and Romulans well outside the normal range."

Amariah's expression had taken on an exaggerated sympathy, squished in around a slight grimace of empathetic awkwardness. "I think you're being far too harsh on yourself, Ambassador. I was actually going to give you the benefit of the doubt, at least enough not to call quite so much attention to your infallible ability to insert yourself into my life. I might even have been persuaded to ignore the amount of times you've dragged me into dark places," she continued, eyebrows raised in the process of mentally calculating just how many instances that would entail. "As hard as those have become to keep track of. If it helps," Amariah offered magnimoniously, "I give you leave without condemnation to go about your business, we can allow these two to continue their collection of coincidences, and I will try to recover from the disappointment of your lack of interference. It should be relatively easy since I have no memory of requesting it in the first place."

One again, the megawatt smile did a decent enough job of smothering all underlying impatience.

"Everyone wins."

Kaelen listened with an expression of polite, unbothered interest, though his internal diplomatic machinery was operating at maximum capacity. An Orion medic. A Romulan. Former crewmates on a civilian ship. Kali. All intersecting on Allhallow Prime, in this exact marketplace, on this exact evening. To an outside observer, the Lieutenant’s tale was a heartwarming chronicle of serendipity. Kaelen, however, icould not shake the feeling that he was witnessing a beautifully rehearsed ensemble. The narrative threads were simply too dense, the key players too neatly arranged on the board.

Whether these two were genuine officers caught in Amariah’s powerful gravity well, or highly specialized actors running a nested "wheels-within-wheels" misdirection, he had to admire the complexity of the script. If they were her marks, she had already successfully turned them into her pawns. If they were her partners, they were playing their roles with Oscar-worthy sincerity.

And then there was Amariah’s sudden, magnanimous offer of safe passage. “Everyone wins.”

In Kaelen's experience, when a target practically begs you to walk away from a closed door, it is because they have either already secured the prize, or your presence is actively blocking them from picking the lock. Either way, continuing a stubborn rhetorical battle in a damp, shadowed alleyway while being potentially outnumbered 3 to 1 was no longer a productive endeavor. And if they were genuine, well, he had planted the seed of warning; if they chose to let her play them, the invoice would arrive in due course.

With a soft laugh, Kaelen released his remaining physical tension, letting his hands slide comfortably back into the deep pockets of his thermal coat. He took a single, elegant step backward, ceding the narrow corridor to the three of them.

"A magnetic attraction to Orions, Romulans, and long-lost crew mates... truly, Allhallow Prime is the grand crossroads of the quadrant tonight, Who am I to stand in the way of such a magnificent cascade of destiny?"

He gave them a shallow, perfectly executed bow, his dark hood shifting slightly over his ridges.

"A pleasure, Lieutenants. Amariah... do try to keep the damage to the local economy to a single-digit percentage before sunrise."

With a final smile that betrayed absolutely none of his lingering suspicions, Kaelen turned on his heel. He stepped out of the alleyway's gloom, instantly melting back into the crowd gathered on the main road, leaving the three of them to their edeavors.