You gonna need a folk (Open)

[Naraseren]

The man let the child tow him to the supposed king. It wouldn't take much effort to wrench his wrist free from the tiny hand's clutch, but he somehow figured it to be wrong. Based on what, he didn't know.
"My king! My king, let me introduce the greatest hero of our time. The Landstrider!"
He closed his eyes and sighed. This childgirl was overly enthusiastic, as well as overly active even for someone her age.
"I disillusion now, I am not…" He began, but the girl interrupted him, saying:
"Noble and righteous, but his greatest virtue is his modesty."

He greeted the dragon-king with a respectful bow, but did not kneel down. The dragon mustered him for a while.
"So thou art the one claiming to be the hero of these people? Please do consider joining us as they do. They need heroes like thou." The king said.
"It is only them who claim so. I'm not more than but a helpful man wandering the world."
"And if I ask thee as thy king to accompany us, what willst thou reply?"
This could be his downfall. One cannot defy a king without risks, yet he decided to remain truthful.

"A king you are, doubtlessly, your grace. But not my king. I belong not to kings and lords, and belong not to any peoples. I only belong to the land that I wander all my life. I may accompany your journey, but only for the sake of the people. And I will part with you then, and continue my own endless way."

Meanwhile the folk returned with whatever they brought and they gathered around the king.

[Aleena]

The Landstrider - though she had heard no stories of him, a glance on Merel's excited face was enough for her to understand that this man is really important. He had to be a true hero if Merel looked at him with so much enthusiasm. And his objection? That meant nothing. As the other girl said, modesty is his greatest virtue, and heroes are almost always modest (at least she suspected so, as she had never met a hero earlier).
She looked at him even more curiously. He was still not nore than an armored man, but now she saw the dragon following him, and this dispelled all her doubts.
But then she stared at the man with a bit of disapproval. If she understood it well, he had just refused the king's offer in a quite polite way, but she saw no sense in it. Then she understood: if he would settle down, then he wouldn't be a wndering hero anymore. So this is the right thing to do for him: to show up, and when everything is fine disappear again. Aleena calmed down a bit.
A wandering hero, a dragon-king, a quest, fabulous weapon - she couldn't believe that it was her dull life. When did it start? When she first met Merel in that forest - she realised with a bit of surprise. And that wasn't a long time ago. However, now it seemed like it would have been someone else's life before that meeting.
But the villagers came back, and Aleena was woken up from her dreams and memories. Now she concentrated on the king again; what would they do now?

[Naraseren]

* * *

He stood on a snowy peak. Dragon's Peak? No, there were mountains around, poking through a veil of clouds. In the distance an odd animal, half horse, half eagle, flew peacefully, before disappearing in the mist of clouds.
Barefoot in the mountain snow a bride stood before him. They stood there hand in hand. He reached for her veil of sackcloth. As he lifted it, locks of hair cascaded from under it in brown curls. Out of thin air, a raven landed on their hands, two iron rings in its claws.
He forced himself awake.

The man sat up on his bedroll and looked around the camp. Three carts, packet so full that they threatened to collapse any moment, formed the boundaries of the camp, the people gathered between them, around several campfires. Eradyrrassil was already awake, he stood watch over the nearest campfire, idly playing with the flames, braiding them together with his will like one would braid hair. An impressive use of magic, though not yet enough to brew firestorms.
Not many people were awake yet, but some early risers were tending the oxes and mules and the few horses, that the company brought along. These animals pulled the carts and carried supplies on the journey.
The sun was rising from flames on the eastern horizon, and to the south a steep slope rose into the mountain range of Massacre Mountains, or Rennrahkashkretyl, as the Dragon King and now an increasing number of villagers called it.

Their march was two days long as of yet, and this was the dawn of the third. The hardest part was ahead of them, scaling the mountain's steep slope, but a vast plateau awaited them on the top of it, and the place of the first settlement of the reborn kingdom of Rennrahkash. King Gratzerilasshis has gone forward, to prepare the settlement as he said.

The man stood up, looked around carefully. First of all, he sought a childgirl in rags. He spotted her, peacefully sleeping by the neighbouring fire, not far from her friend, and among her newfound followers. Childgirl's legion, he thought. This young teen was the greatest fanatic of Landstrider stories he has met, and likely the greatest one to be found in the whole world. Not the least surprising that the local "believers" made her their leader of sorts. During the two past days, everyone interested, as well as many uninterested, could hear every existing Landstrider-story at least once, but usually several times. His only relief was that he hasn't heard new, made-up stories, they faithfully kept to telling only ones that had some minor resemblance to his actual deeds.
He said a short prayer to Aislinn, wishing a very long, sweet, peaceful dream for the zealous childgirl. As she was apparently immune to tiredness, this was the only way for him to have a few more hours in peace.

The man only joined the journey to help the people, and there was indeed allways a need for another pair of helpful hands somewhere.
He still planned leaving once the caravan reached its goal, but it was more and more likely they wouldn't just let him leave too easily. He dreaded the moment.
He walked around to see if anyone needed help.