In short order Anne catches up with Xing as the young woman jauntily makes her way through the forest to a clear game trail just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Anne remains behind her, however. Anne notices, as she walks, that this Xing is actually shorter than them all and thinner, the overall difference making her look younger as well. The pirate is taken out of the evaluation of Xing when her subject poses a question.
"Where is your group from?" Xing asks.
"Different times and places. I forget the details...don really matter to me." Anne shrugs, picks up her pace a little to get a better comparison, bringing out her hand to hover over Xing's head and then back. The top of her head was roughly just below Anne's nose.
"I see, so you're all Strangers too. I thought so with your accent, and you all feel different. Like Jim and Horse." She giggles and stops to pick at a bush off the trail, plucking the light yellow-green leaves and balling them up in her right hand, but also puts one in her mouth. Anne watches with hands on hips and brows raised. Xing stands up and smiles while chewing. "I call these Pep Leaves, because they give you a little pep when you chew on them. Even better when you make them into a tea!" She says then resumes leading the way. Anne snatches some leaves off the bush, sniffs them, and takes a tentative bite of one as she follows. It tastes bitter but palatable, and she decides to chew on the few she has as they go on. As promised, she does feel a little 'pep' in her step that cuts through her drunken grogginess.
The group is led to a clearing near the river dotted with large tents and populated by a dozen or so people, all in their late 20's to early 40's and dressed in tunics, trousers, and dresses in what Albert would recognize as being much like what a peasant would wear in medieval Europe. Although the people were also of different skin colors, mainly light tan to dark. Most have a similar far-off look to their eyes and are engaged in either conversation with each other, playing a hand drum, tambourine, and one mandolin can be heard from somewhere in the camp.
Xing's arrival is greeted with a small uproar of applause. She rather undaintily spits out the leaves she's been chewing on and embraces a group of young men and women who come to meet her. They all address her as 'Master Xing' and ask if they can have a training session, until they see Anne then the others come out from the wood behind her. They receive a similar greeting, as if they're old friends of the camp.
"Heyyyy I dig your hair!" says one woman as she comes up beside Anne and gently strokes her long hair. Unfazed, Anne also spits out the leaves she's been chewing and replies "Why thank ya, I got it from my mother."
Xing replies to her apparent students first "Training will be after dinner, as usual my dears, remember to be patient." She then introduces the group "These are new fellows! Strangers, like our Lizard King and Horse! I found them at the falls."
"Strangers, you say?" says a voice from behind the crowd, which parts instantly to reveal the source.
It was a man in his early 30's, wearing only a ragged and faded pair of blue jeans and a necklace that rests against his chest, which is tanned from hours/days out in the sun. He doesn't so much walk as he slinks towards the group of newcomers with an inquisitive look on his face. He smiles as Xing throws her arms around him. "Hello newcomers. I don't know you, and I'm going to assume you don't know me. I'm Jim Morrison, the leader of this troupe, originally from the good old United States of America, from the age of free love." His eyes fall on Anne, and he breaks his embrace of Xing to approach her first, reaching out for her hand.
"And...who...are you...oh lady of the inferno...beautiful...deadly….dare I risk your touch? Yes. I do." He says in a slow poetic cadence and a raised brow, in a slight bow. Anne smirks, and familiar with the flattering gesture gives him her hand.
"Anne Bonny. Pirate. And flattery will get you...everywhere if ya keep up." She flips her hair back and utters a small "Oh" as Jim kisses her hand.
"You've been neglected. By yourself and others." Jim says, kissing her hand lightly a second time looking up at her. "No more here." He says as...a promise? Anne certainly hears it as a promise that makes her heart flutter ever so slightly. Jim releases her hand, and comes to the other two, smiling and bowing at Yuzuki and reaching out for a handshake at Albert "Your Americaness is glaringly obvious. I like it. Which era of our great land are you from? And does she speak any English?"