Merienda couldn't say she was surprised at being stopped. Between her different race and Calendi's apparent similarity to a mage's familiar, she was questioned by at least one guard at practically every human city she passed through. It was funny thing: Merienda lived her whole life among high elves, and it wasn't until she visited a human country that she was made aware of how different from them she was. "Maybe that's just how humans are," she complained to Calendi in druidic as they pass through the checkpoint. "Always dividing and classifying. Hells, they even have endless separations among their own species. Hmm... Maybe it's not so bad. Perhaps it's just what you have to do when you're so short lived."

Calendi, whose understanding of even Druidic was tenuous at best, merely gave her a quizzical look, then took to the skies. With a sigh, the wild elf pulled aside from the throng of people and reread the letter. She wasn't aware her task in helping the empire was going to be quite so... direct. She appreciated the straightforwardness of the instructions nonetheless, and the emperor (or more likely the person who actually sent the letter) at least seemed appreciative of the help, rather than demanding and impatient like she had feared.

She asks around the town for a bit of time, getting pointed in the right direction to the Golden M eventually. Calendi, back from stretching his wings, alights on her outstretched arm and hops up to her shoulder, and the two of them enter the inn. "Seven people." she says to him in Druidic once again. "I wonder if this Emperor is a touch superstitious."