His name is Richard Fredrick Fillmore Appleby and he is sure his plan is going to work this time. Granted, it didn't work the last few times, because things kept going wrong, but this time it should just work like it's supposed to, or he's going to scream.

Rick's buddies, Randy, and Roger, draw their daggers and hide in some bushes on either side of the pass, while Rick puts on his apron, his wide-brimmed hat, and his gloves, and then unfolds his little fake refreshment stand and lines up a few bottles of booze and a few water-skins next to a hand-written sign.

It's a well-traveled path. He shouldn't have to wait long for someone to come along.

The two someones who come along are pretty young women in a highly atypical combination of well-dressed and unguarded, absent non-person conveyance of any kind, and seemingly unperturbed. Their arms are linked, and their heads are together, discussing something inaudible at this distance. 

Ooh, easy marks!

"Hail the travelers!" Rick calls in a polite voice. "Can I interest you in some refreshments?"

"What kinds of refreshments? Apparently I can live on booze now!" she calls back. 

The young man behind the small, flimsy, folding refreshment stand smiles.

"Then you're in luck! Booze I've got!"

"Cool." 

They approach the stand. 

"Hey, do you know where the nearest, uh, settlement is? We're...lost." 

They're lost? This might finally go right!!!

"Well, you're about a day's walk from Zaryn's Landport."

He doesn't say in which direction.

"Can I interest you in a bottle?" He names a low price in gem currency.

"Sure." She rummages in her bag and pulls out a couple of little crystals. "A bottle of what?" She's not expecting banana cordial or grand marnier at that price, but she still wants to know before putting it in her face. 

And now they've seen where she keeps her money!

"Oh a very nice bottle of NOW!"

He attempts to snatch the gems out of her hand. Roger jumps out of the bush and goes for the bag. Randy... helps. Sort of.

She flinches back, more on instinct than anything, clasping the gems down into her fist as she falls on her butt in the dirt. 

She was HOPING that these men were NOT bandits. Since when do bandits set up lemonade stands instead of just ambushing you immediately? 

She fumbles for the runes newly branded on her soul, and calls up a shield of Protection magic before any of them can touch her. 

"That wasn't nice," she says in a tone she manages to keep from wavering as she climbs back to her feet. 

Roger smashes face first into her shield and breaks his nose. He reels back, clutching his face and repeating, "Bydoz bydoz!"

Randy just kind of stands there, looking just absolutely done with everything.

"But, but, everything went perfectly this time!" Rick complains, like he thinks the world is just being unfair and also cares about being fair.

Randy grabs Roger and prepares to run, if the apparently-mages turn hostile.

Oh no. 

"Hey wait!" she blurts, and drops the shield, and--where--oh, there--

Holy magic washes out of her hands, to stem the bleeding and ease the pain in Roger's nose. 

Randy and Roger kind of stumble and pull on each other and accidentally orbit around a couple of times before finally figuring out which way is which and also pausing in bafflement at the healing. Since when do victims heal bandits?

"Guys, come on!" Rick begs. "We can still take her! Maybe!"

     "I don't care anymore!" Randy explodes. "I don't care! We've been listening to you for weeks and you fuck it up every time and I can't take it anymore!"

Rick reels back in surprise. "The plan almost worked this time!"

     "Rick, I think the only person your plans would work on is you," Roger says sourly, poking at his healed nose and giving the mages confused and wary glances.

"But!"

     "We're going home," Randy says. "We're not fronting you any more cash for fucking refreshment stands or what-have-you. We're going home and we're leaving you and your stupid-ass ideas behind."

"You said they were great ideas!"

     "That was two weeks ago! Before I saw how bad they are! I was wrong! I'm man enough to admit it!"

They are kind of ignoring Lucy and her twin at this point, though there are still a couple of daggers absently pointed in their direction.

"--Uh, guys? If you let me see your nose, I can set it and heal it properly, so it doesn't heal crooked."

All three of them stop and stare at her. Right. The mages.

"...is my nose crooked?" Roger finally asks.

"Looks fine to me," Rick offers.

"Well now I know it's fucked," Roger sighs.

"Hey!" Rick objects.

"Oh just let her do her thing," Randy exclaims, throwing up his hands. "Why not! It's not like we've got any pride left!"

Roger lower his dagger and sheepishly approaches.

"This is going to hurt," she warns him, and then grabs his nose and pulls it straight and heals it before he can flinch away hard enough to unstraighten it. 

"Fuck! Godsdamnit! Fuck! Gah. Is it straight? Fuck, I don't care. I'm with you, Randy. Let's just go home. This stopped being fun ages ago."

"You're fine," Randy sighs. "Come on."

Two of the three bandits turn away and start walking down the path.

"Hey. Hey!!! You know I can't go back! Guys! Guys!!!" He starts to run after them, hesitates as he looks back to his little folding stand, reaches for it, stops, turns to run after them again, stops, and then just lets out a frustrated cry. "Fine! Fine! Quit! It was just a game to you anyway! Why shouldn't you quit like a couple of lame quitters! Augh!"

Slowly, he turns to face the twins. He winces, hard.

"Gotta say, I'm with them, this was a dumb idea."

"It, it was not! It just didn't work!"

He folds his arms defensively.

"I'm not sure I understand what the idea was? Like, why didn't you just...hide behind some rocks and ambush us?"

"Because then we wouldn't know where you keep your money in advance, would we? Every part of my plan was carefully arranged!"

"...We have one bag between the two of us."

...she's right. They do.

Rick tries to object, tries to object again, and can't quite find a way to.

He looks away from her woodenly. "It's not my fault things keep messing up my plans."

"Maybe you're overthinking things," she suggests gently. "The classics are the classics for a reason."

Rick gives her a weird look. "Are you telling me I should just murder you and take your stuff?"

As if he could. She would destroy him.

She giggles. "I don't really advise trying that! But, like, in general, as applied to situations that do not involve banditry." 

"So how come your friends could go home but you couldn't?"

Rick slumps, a hangdog expression on his face.

"They're from Zaryn's Landport. They have families there. Me, all I've got is a Wanted poster." His voice lowers to a tight-jawed grunt. "For, um, fraud. Not larceny."

"Huh! What kind of fraud?"

Rick flushes. "Can we not talk about that?"

He blinks, suddenly.

"Also why are you talking to me at all? I'm a bandit and you totally... I mean, ah, have a nice day? You totally stopped us so I can just... trouble you no more? Aw, I need to figure out what to do with the fake refreshment stand..."

"--Oh, hey, is there actually booze in that bottle?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. We bought some before we set out. For the plan."

"Cool." She tosses him the gems, picks up the bottle, twists it open, and takes a swig. 

Ricks stares at the money for a long, long moment.

"Did you just actually buy something from me? You can't do that! It's a fake refreshment... stand..."

Rick realizes what he's saying, and buries his face in his hands.

She toasts the bottle at him. "I needed the refreshment."

Rick just lets out a high-pitched groan into his hands and then drops into a sitting position on the ground.

"What, would you rather we beat you up? 'Cause, like, I can do that if it would make you feel better."

"No making more work for me on purpose without a good reason."

One of those giant butterflies wafts gently by. It lands on Rick's head, and he freezes, feeling its weight. But it takes off again a moment later and flutters away. Rick looks up, blinking in confusion. After a moment he returns his attention to Lucy.

"Why are you still here if you're not going to beat me up?"

“Well, I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere, and you don’t seem like you’d be happier all by yourself.”

"I'm fine on my own," he says, you know, like a liar. "I'll just... think of a new plan! Yeah."

Rick wilts under the awkward silence.

One of the nearby horses nickers.

"Is this plan by any chance also going to include attempting to beat people up and steal their things."

"I'm not actually any good at beating people up?" Rick offers weakly. "So. It'll probably. Have more steps, than that."

Snort. "Yeah, no, I'm not letting you do that."

"What?" he yelps. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean I'm press-ganging you into being our native guide!"

Rick gapes at her for several long moments.

"Native guide? But. I was going to." He can't even finish the sentence because he doesn't have a new plan yet.

"But you didn't!"

Rick is confused about what she means by that. That he's terrible at this? Well he'll show her---wait no shit he means he'll show... where was he going with this?

Oh right. "I have to keep trying." He really really wants a plan of his to work, just once.

He tries to unobtrusively get up and start packing away his fake refreshment stand.

She won't obstruct him at that. 

"To beat people up and take their stuff? Why would you have to keep trying at that? It's a bad thing to have happen."

"Well yeah, but lots of people do it. And none of my plans require hurting the marks! Much."

He folds up the stand, slings it onto his back with a wince and a grumble. Then looks back and forth to figure out which way he should go.

"Do you think we won't stop other bandits if we meet them?"

"Um. You're like, a powerful mage with combat mutations, right? You two can probably take any of the local bandit groups, yeah..."

He's just going to. Start walking. That way.

Yseult walks over to him, grabs him by the waist, and sits down, pulling him into her lap. 

Rick sputters and flails, overbalancing with the packed stand on his back, and entirely failing to get away.

"What?! Hey! What are you doing?! Guh??"

He can kind of feel her boob powerful mage can totally kill him-

"H-Hey!" Also, he's sitting in a girl's lap in the typically-feminine lap-sitting position and that's just demeaning. "Lemme go, huh?"

"What part of 'we're press-ganging you into being our native guide' makes you think I am going to do that." 

(She leans in a little closer to subtly smush her boobs on him more.)

Rick flushes as the boob-contact cuts off his next objection.

That sure is some boob-contact.

"Um. I guess I can. Travel, with you, and tell you about stuff? For a while? Since we're probably going in the same direction anyway. Unless you're trying to get to the ocean."

"Not especially!"

"Okay."

Rick's embarrassment at lap-sitting continues to war with boob!

Yseult is totally on the side of Boob, here :3c

"So where are you wanted, exactly--no, wrong question. What's a good route to somewhere you're not."

"Um."

Rick is spending a lot of attention on Boob, yes.

"I'm wanted in Zaryn's Landport. It's south of here, but they don't enforce laws outside their walls, 'cause inside the walls lot's of merchants use it to send goods down the River. Or get goods from the River. Um. Basically every direction from here is scarier than here. West is Relvos territory. I'd guess you were coming from that way, being a mage, except you're human? Most Relvoans are beastmen. North is the Dragon Empire's main trade road, and they don't mess around. I guess there isn't anything important if we go east? Except the border of the Green, obviously."

"'Where are we from' is, uh, complicated. Is the River metonymous for smuggling or something?"

"I'm sure smuggling happens on the River. It's the River. Everything happens on the River."

"Is it, like, the only river around?"

"There are lots of rivers but only one River," Rick recites. "Um, it's like fifteen miles wide and is what separates the Sands and the Green? You've never heard of the River?"

"You may approximately model me as having fallen out of the sky with very little knowledge of the world and less experience using my powers."

Rick is not one of those people who has the concept of 'mental model as a deliberate act'.

"I don't get it but okay."

He hesitates, due to continuing Boob, but, "Can we go now?"

She raises an eyebrow at Yseult. 

Yseult hauls him back to his feet with one last boobsquish. 

"Okay, great, um, great."

He pauses.

"Where are we going?"