Just Another Day

"The sales and accounting are finished. Let's go, m'dear," Doctor Newbury said to Shanku a good week later. She smiled from her position in the shrouds and quickly came down. Shanku had patiently stayed on the ship and helped the men as she waited for Doctor Newbury to keep his promise. They walked down the gangplank and into the beautiful city.

Slowly. To Shanku's surprise, the ground began to pitch and buck like a ship in a storm. Doctor Newbury explained that obtaining sea legs often came with the price of difficulty back on land for the first day or so. With a groan, Shanku resigned herself to focus intently on her stride so she wouldn't topple over or into anybody or anything.

All through the market the streets were lined with stalls and vendors selling all sorts of wonderful things. Beads, necklaces, flowers, perfumes, clothes, knives, herbs of all sorts, eels and snails for sale, and some of the strangest fruits and vegetables Shanku had ever seen, including a giant squash being sold by a tiny gnome. Aside from the gnomes, the people she saw were the natives of Mruha. Tanned and dark haired, always smiling and dressed in bright, flowing clothes, and sometimes also in flowers, wood, or grasses.

Doctor Newbury had a time reigning in his companion. She was constantly darting through the street and looking at every shiny thing that distracted her. He didn't have trouble by the fish stall and got a chuckle out of her grimace.

"Bleh, fish!" she stuck her tongue out.

"You're now officially a sailor," he laughed.

"Ooo!" Shanku darted off once again to a pet store. She sat down on the cage of a fox next to a parrot and goat.

Doctor Newbury shook his head as Shanku and the parrot began to have a conversation.