[The Mythic Scribe]

The day was bright. Cold and all but clear and crisp with a lot of sun and not a cloud in the sky. A soft wind blew throughout, sending chills and pinking cheeks. Despite the temperature, Vale proper was still lively and busy, populated but not enough to make it overly crowded. You could hear the familiar tinkling of bells as doors opened, the ever-present buzz of chatting and talking, the soft roar of vehicles on the street, and occasionally a call from some food stall or peddler going about the streets sounding out above everything else. Numerous people held shopping bags filled with all kinds of things, a good number of those things food stuffs, as the farmer's market was only a few blocks away. The smell of cinnamon wafted through the air, able to be traced back to a certain vender and their glazed pastries, a group of four standing beside him as well.

"Oh, I just love cinnamon rolls!" exclaimed a member of the group, almost bouncing up and down in excitement. Prim wore the same clothes as always, but now with a scarf, thicker tights, earmuffs, and uggs to combat the cold. "They're just so sweet and warm, perfect for a cold day!" A cute giggle escaped her mouth as she turned from the other three members of her team to face the person selling the aforementioned pastries. "Hey Noel, it's absolutely amazing to see you again. Looks good as always!"

"Aww, thanks Primrose, you're such a sweetheart! I'm very much looking forwards to that order for next week. My niece will love it, I'm sure, she sings your praises day and night!" The plump woman smiled warmly at Prim before blowing a strand of thin carrot-colored hair out of her face. That proving unsuccessful, she simply pushed the strand behind her ear and into the wool hat hiding the rest of her graying locks. "I can see why though, your mother's pastries are so delectable I have half a mind to just raid the place right now! And you're not too shabby yourself! Look at that, ballerina, flutist and violinist by day, huntress saving the world by night! Your teammates, right? Oh, you grow up so fast!"

Prim giggled again, complaining "Ell..... Come on!" But it was all in good spirits, no matter how slightly embarrassing. "It's huntress in training by the way, I still have almost four years until I graduate from Beacon! Yeah though, these are my teammates, the members of Team Betray! Okay, so it sounds kinda bad, but trust me, it's awesome, we're awesome! Noel, say hi to Akeldama, Ace, and Fallow!" As she said each name, she pointed to their respective owners off-handedly, actually messing up whose name belonged to who because she was mostly focusing onto Noel at the moment.

Noel did just that, waving at the other three students with her gloved hand. "Hello children, it's very nice to meet you. But you're not here to listen to some antediluvian croak prattle on, are you?" She laughed good-naturedly before saying, "Now, I bet you're here because Prim dragged you along for my cinnabuns. Some of you look like you could use some fattening up, there's no use in training if you're not well-fed is there? Come on, whaddaya say?" Before letting anyone answer though, Noel started up again, determined this time. "You know, I'm not giving you a choice. One cinnamon roll for each of you! Ten percent off too! It's the least I could do for this angel's friends."

[EdgeyReyes]

It wasn't often Akeldama got to enjoy the colder weather of Vale, her sleeved huntress uniform gave her just the right amount of protection from the cold but she could still feel the cold on her hands and face. She hid her laughter at Primrose's antics about cinnamon rolls.

'Cute, too cute'. Entered her mind without her realizing as she was thankful that she didn't say it out loud. Her thoughts drove away as she heard her name, but then saw Prim point towards one of her other teammates, while she just stayed quiet since it was a minor issue.

However, Akel's attention was brought when she heard about "fattening up". To this, she immediately looked towards her chest and spoke in somewhat of a mumble "Not my fault it goes straight to my chest". After this, she spoke up and was quite clear "I'll pay for all of us, my treat. Ah, just to avoid confusion I am Akeldama. Nice to meet you. The one in the fedora is Fallow which just leaves our dear Ace." As she took out a black wallet from an inside pocket in her coat and pulled out the correct amount of lien. While a small smile came through her lips which then made the sweet mostly colour-blind Akeldama into a sinister Blood-Heart with such a minor change of her facial expression. Plus the natural daytime sultry look in her eyes only seemed to amplify this little curse of hers 'cute or sinister' it was for her no in-between.

[Augustus]

Ace didn't mind the cold, so long as he had his coat. In fact, he didn't mind most things so long as he had his coat. With it, he could be comfortable practically anywhere... even on the side of the road at some kind of baker's vender. He had been "dragged along" by his new teammate and was intrigued to say the least. Vendors such as this were nothing new to Ace but the city of Vale was, so he did not protest to this little excursion.

He had been admiring the architecture when his attention shifted to Primrose's explanation on the wonders of cinnamon rolls. When said teammate gestured to him, he gave a mock left handed salute with two fingers, fully aware he had been dubbed Fallow. If anything he was glad Prim mixed up his name, just for old habit's sake. However, when Akel had reintroduced him as "our dear Ace", he gave the same mock salute with his right hand without saying a word. He laughed internally, remembering how fun it was to confuse people.

When Ace noticed Akel paying for his food he thought: 'that just won't do'. So, he drew a rough sum of lien from one of his coat's many inside-pockets and, while the kind vendor was procuring their order, slipped the money into Akel's pocket. "Pocket-placing" was almost as difficult as pickpocketing, but it was no challenged for Ace. Then, with his pride intact and a cinnamon roll brought before him, Ace's thoughts were as follows: 'Do I want to know what would happen if frosting got in my hands? Or continue this trip with dirty gloves? Also, do they know about my hands? not important. Where are the napkins?'

[arcus_gray]

Fallow had been standing around with his hands in his coat pockets while he waited for the conversation in front of him to finish so that they could move on. His only real motion was to smile and nod politely when he was pointed out by his leader. Not having bothered responding when Primrose had introduced him as Akel. Given that he was more interested in his surroundings than the conversation he happened to notice Ace's hands at Akel's pockets and a smirk crossed his face and he leant over slightly to speak lowly into Ace's ear. "Get anything good?"

[The Mythic Scribe]

Prim clapped her hands gleefully as her teammates accepted, giggling and accepting her own cinnamon roll from the old friend. "Thanks Noel!" she exclaimed exuberantly as well before facing Akeldama to thank her too. "And Akel, you didn't have to do that! Oh, it's so nice of you though, thanks! I'll make sure to make it up to you somehow, next thing's on me okay?"

"You girls are such sweethearts," Noel said fondly at the two, though one could notice that it was done to quickly cover up the look she had at seeing Akel's unfortunately malicious smile. Taking the lien from the team's leader, Noel counted through quickly before shoving it somewhere in the machine. She then proceeded to hand out the pastries dripping with glaze to the four, a warm smile accompanying. "Eat up darlings, it's a cold day out here and nothing warms your body and soul better than a sweet treat." As she saw Fallow's-no, wait, that was Ace, yes, Ace's hesitation at her pastry, Noel noticed the gloves he wore. "Oh, silly me, I forgot the napkins! You wouldn't want to get those gloves you all are wearing dirty!" She slapped a hand to her forehead before passing them out to the four. "Now you can enjoy."

Primrose did just that, sinking her teeth into the delicious confectionary in glee, savouring the sweetness of the glaze, the soft richness of the dough, and the light kick of the cinnamon. No one could best Noel when it came to cinnamon rolls. "Oh my god Noel these taste so amazing! Just like every time. How do you do that? How do you make these so delicious?" In the meanwhile, the 'sweetheart' tried in vain to keep the glaze from dripping all over the place, before just deigning to sigh and take another bite instead.

"A magician never reveals her secrets," was the genial woman's reply, winking at Primrose playfully. "I'm very glad you're enjoying my pastries, there's nothing better than seeing such sweet children enjoy what I make for them, that just warms my heart better than anything else." Seeing as the team had reason to stick around for a little longer, to finish the rolls, Noel took the time to converse with Prim. "Are you and your team planning to go anywhere else in particular today, Primrose?"

"Hmm?" Caught slightly off-guard by the question, Prim swallowed the bite that she was chewing at the moment, then quickly took the napkin and wiped her mouth with it. "Oh, yeah! Akel and I thought it would be nice to take the whole team out on the town and all! To get to know each other better. Right now I practically know nothing about my teammates, I mean well not nothing, they're not strangers or anything I mean we've kinda gotten to know each other and I kinda know what they're like but we haven't really gotten to bond or anything or develop trust, which is like the most important part in a team-not to say I don't trust you guys," here she quickly turned to her teammates and back, "I totally do, I mean maybe not completely yet, but I do!" Realizing that she'd gone on one of her famous tangent rants again, Prim blushed in embarrassment. "Sorry, I kinda talk too much." Turning to face her teammates, she asked, "So uh, yeah, actually, what do you guys want to do out here? Akel and I thought we'd do a little shopping..."

[EdgeyReyes]

"Well blood is always a good form of repayment". As Akel's malicious smile has yet to change. Her fangs making themselves known with her smile, but thankfully for Noel's heart she poked her tongue out in a childish manner. Akel accepted the pastry and sunk her teeth into it straight away (GET IT! HAHAHAHA... it's funny). Akel accepted the napkin from Noel and essentially ripped a fair amount of the pastry off with her fangs before she pushed the pastry into her mouth. A warm, yet still malicious smile came over her face as she let the ripped off pastry sit in her mouth for a still moment, she hummed a small tune as she consumed the pastry.

[Augustus]

In no more than thirty seconds, Ace had successfully made a makeshift glove, covering the one her currently wore, out of napkins and accepted his pastry with a thankful grin. While Prim was rambling on Ace turned to Fallow and whispered one word: "yes". He then proceeded to take a rather large bite from his pastry, as if to make a point. The bite left a minor amount of frosting on his cheeks but he did not care nor would he care until he had finished consuming the pastry. The treat was surprisingly good. It, along with the atmosphere of his situation, reminded him of what he called 'home'. He then turned away from Fallow, having made his point (or not, either way he would consider it a win), and began listening to Prim's ramble. It made him glad that she said she trusted him (would make life easier in the coming days), but when she made the distinction between trust and complete trust Ace thought to himself 'challenge accepted!' Taking another bite, Ace noticed a familiar marking in the opening of an ally. His face lit up, remembering the last time his 'family' had been in this city. He turned to his new team, having thought of the perfect bonding activity. "Hey," he said getting their attention. "I think I have an idea... follow me." He then began to approach the ally. Luckily, they didn't know the kind of things that happen when Ace gets an 'idea'.

[arcus_gray]

Fallow smiled and happily accepted the pastry and napkin and ate quietly while his teammates talked only pausing when asked about shopping. "The library. I need to return a book." Once ace started to walk off Fallow wrapped the napkin around what remained of his pastry so that he could pocket it and then followed Ace.

[The Mythic Scribe]

Noel laughed good-naturedly at Akeldama's joke, though it was a little too loud and you could probably see the uneasiness on her face. That quickly went away though, and the woman simply shook her head, still laughing quietly. "Oh sweetheart, you're adorable and funny!" Fixing the silver-haired girl with a warm, look, Noel patted said girl's arm with a mittened hand. She really did enjoy meeting new people and having a laugh with them. She also really did enjoy seeing people enjoying her pastries, and as such, was brought much joy seeing the members of team BTRA dig into their cinnamon buns. Unfortunately, it didn't bring her too much joy to see that they were departing. "Oh, you're leaving?" she asked when Ace turned to do just that. "Well, I guess the lot of you better get on your way then."

Meanwhile, Prim was a little too focused on not getting any crumbs or whatnot over herself, focused enough to only realize that Ace said something when she saw him leaving. "Hmm? W-" She swallowed the bite she was chewing first. It was a big one, at least to her. Small mouth and all. "We're going? Alright... Uh..." Awkwardly, she transferred the pastry to the same hand that was holding the napkin, using her free one to readjust the small saddlebag that served as her purse for the outing. "Okay, then, let's go!" It was then that she realized that 2/3rds of the remaining portion of her team had already moved to go, which made the moment a little more awkward. 'Or you can just leave now, that's fine' Waving a goodbye to Noel, Prim scurried behind the other two, beckoning for her team leader to follow.

"So... where exactly are we going?" asked Prim. At the moment she'd caught up to Ace, looking up through her lashes at the taller figure. "Is it a surprise? I love surprises, I think they're amazing! Well, good surprises... It's a good surprise, right? If it even is a surprise, I mean... Really though, I hope it's not a bad surprise because that would be bad, I mean, it's in the name right? Once a friend of mine said he had a surprise for me and I thought that it was going to be a bad surprise because well, he really isn't the nicest person, not to say that he isn't nice, I mean he's not mean, but he's kinda juvenile y'know, still teasing and pulling things, that kind of guy, so anyway, I thought he was going to spring something terrible on me but then it turned out to be a surprise party! It wasn't even my birthday, and I didn't even know what we were celebrating, but then he revealed that it was to celebrate me going off to Beacon and training to become a huntress! That's where I got Wisteria from my dad, who really organized the whole thing."

[EdgeyReyes]

Well Akel had actually realised that the joke sounded weird without the context of her previous nicknames from Signal. She was just about to explain when one by one her teammates walked towards their next destination. "Sadly so, still have a lot of activities to do and Beacon's workload is nothing easy. So until next time, I bid you farewell Noel"

Akel gave a short bow with her right hand over her left, a short bow which seemed to take after Mistralian culture. With that she turned around and slightly increased her walking pace to catch up. She listened to Prim's rambling f4om surprises to her friend then coming ss to how she acquried her weapon. Walking right beside Primrose and content on just listening.

[Augustus]

Ace approached the marking on the wall and placed a hand on it. A wave of nostalgia hit him like the brick wall in front of him. With a smile on his face, he turned left into the ally, not particularly caring if his team was following. Deeper in the ally, it split off into other allies, which branched off themselves. Unknown to most, Vale had a practical labyrinth of brick hidden between their buildings. But Ace had no problems navigating it. The etching on the first wall indicated, but didn't provide, the necessary directions. Ace used that indication as more of a reference than a guide because this had been the only area in Vale he had been to before. He had come with his "family" a few years ago and they followed the same path he walked now. This is the part where Ace thinks of something poetic to say about that but right now he's a bit too excited for that. After an uncountable number of lefts and right that would likely confuse anyone who didn't know the symbol's meaning, they came to a makeshift fence. Behind the fence, two sounds were most prominent: the cheering of a small crowd, hushed slightly due to the discrete nature of whatever they were doing, and a snarling sound of sorts, clearly not grimm but no friendlier. Ace was about to push open the gate when he thought of something and turned to the team that had followed him asking one question, "None of you have any problems with gambling right? some people do and I want to make sure..."

[arcus_gray]

Fallow  knew something was up when they were lead through multiple alleywaya. Clearly this was something peoplw didn't want found that Ace was taking them to. Likely something illegal. He was dostracted from his thoughts by Prim's chatter. She really is a talkative one isn't she? [/B]  Before he knew it they had reacjed their destination and it took a far duller mind to figure out what they had just been brought to. "Normally I don't but given the circumstances i think I'll be making an exception." As he spoke Fallow walked straight at Ace amd his usually calm and quiet voice rose somewhat.

[The Mythic Scribe]

As Ace led the team closer to wherever he was going, Prim began to worry a little. The alley maze was getting a little dizzying and she couldn't help but think that their destination was something less than wholesome with how hidden it was. This uncertainty had made her steadily grow silent as she quickened her pace several times to keep up with Ace, even falling behind sometimes and almost getting lost. Prim didn't really have anything against mazes but she hated the thought of getting lost. She really did. God knew what would happen if she was claustrophobic as well, but luckily she was not. Eventually Prim resigned herself to clinging on Fallow's sleeve like a child would to their parent. It was probably annoying to him, but honestly Prim was too nervous to care.

When they finally reached the secretive place that Ace was leading them too, Prim's fears had definitely not been assuaged. "G-Gambling? I-I-I... I'm not-I'm not really the type to um, to gamble... And you know, I didn't really bring that much money with me and I don't really like putting something like money up to chance or whatever. I don't even like buying lottery tickets or playing slot machines! Even arcade games are kind of something that I hesitate. I don't know Ace..." Primrose's brow had creased, her eyes darting around, never really settling on one place. Clearly, the little huntress-in-training wasn't all too confident at the moment. "I know I said that I trusted you but this place looks really shady Ace. I don't know. I don't know. But..." She hesitated for a moment before looking back at their team leader. "Akel's our team leader. What do you think?"

[EdgeyReyes]

Akel wasn't really fond of the alleyways her vision made everything a lot darker then it normally appeared to be. Akel took note of Prim and her apparent unease during their navigation of these seemingly labyrinth of alleys. Akel made several notes mentally about Prim to make sure that she could make her more comfortable for future events.

"So we have one who wants to go, one who is willing to make an exception, but given the "circumstances" Akel also did the quotation marks with her fingers just to drive the point home. "And our dear little Prim who doesn't." Akel took a moment to double over what she said. "While I do have nothing against gambling I do think there would probably be some other activities that we would be able to enjoy as a team. Provided that you guys interest aren't more grown up in nature." Akel thought for a moment to make sure that she didn't miss out on anything that she could of said. "Don't get me wrong, this is nothing against you Ace, but I'd rather do something that doesn't involve any of our members feeling uncomfortable."

[Augustus]

Ace listened to his team with one ear while rummaging through his pockets. When he found what he was looking for, it was his turn to speak. "Please" He said in a mildly taunting voice. "This is practically my family! I grew up in rings like this." He opened the small container that was in his pocket and proceeded to put on green-tinted contact lenses. When he spoke next, it was in a different voice entirely, much deeper and a tad louder. "Come now Primrose, do you fear your own path? HaHa" If his team were not watching him talk, they likely would have thought a fifth person had joined them. In reality, Ace was just good a voices. He reached into another pocket and began applying something to his face as he continued. "I will vouch for us. We'll go in and take a look around. We don't have to stay. I just though it would be nice to have a little extra lien for our shopping trip." Now with a face covered in a generous amount of stubble, Ace reached into yet another pocket. He had to go through every interaction he had with Prim to come up with that argument, but he felt it was solid enough. That, plus his neutral green eyes, hearty yet comforting voice, and kind smile could reassure most people, even if they say him apply the cosmetics. He was not done though. the words of his 'aunt' rang in his head: Make them want it... After sculpting what appeared to be putty, Ace now sported a more rounded nose before he continued. "If what I'm told about teams is true, then we are to be family. That means our families are family. Be at ease-" Ace then stood tall, having been crouched slightly so Prim could make eye contact without looking up. "It is not as though we are playing cards... that would get ugly."