Rifkinn appears out from behind the bushes onto the path that leads up to the Order of the Dragon Shield.

Looking around, he spies a familiar figure of a tiny Gnome lass. She is standing over in front of the mule. Before he speaks he hears the sweet voice finishing the last of her words…

“....and they still aren't giving you the love you need, are they beau?” Marssi exhales a frustrated sigh, with her eyes looking at Beau with a pitiful look. “Here take these,” she pulls out a few sugar cubes and holds them high in the air for the mule who eagerly but gently nibbles them from her outstretched palm. “Just don't tell Rifkinn I gave you them.” She gives Beau a loving smile and pats his nose.

“And why are you up here?” Rifkinn asks quietly as he walks up behind Marssi.

“Just checking on poor Beau. Someone needs to feed him.”

Turning around to meet Rifkinn’s gaze, Marssi asks, while putting her hands on her hips “Why are you here? You following me again?”

“Everyone needs a stalker,” Rifkinn replies with a smirk across his face.
.
“I found this crumpled up on the floor of your house when I stopped by tonight.”

Marssi holds up a paper and shows Rifkinn….

A dark-haired Elven woman sits astride a fierce dragon that blasts a field of necromancers and their creations with its fiery breath. Behind the dragon, several paladins and assorted warriors engage in battle with more zombies, while bloody and burnt, hacked-up body parts lie strewn everywhere. Apparently having ventured too close to the draconic beast, a Halfling thief is pierced through the chest by its monstrous claws.
There appears to be something written on it.

A charcoal drawing reads:
"The Order of the Dragon Shield -- Warrior Auction and Spar -- 428"

“Ah, that's nothing” Rifkinn waves his hand distractedly.

“Well, you have tried to show them you’re done! But they don't seem to want to let things go!” Marssi says with a frustrated look on her face.
Marssi rummages through her backpack, producing a colorful dunce hat she shows Rifkinn. “Very fitting, I think,” Marssi exclaims with a sly grin.

“Since Mystylaine and Rekon felt the need to give you this...present, I thought I’d give one to them. If they still want to take shots at you for calling out their previous mistakes, instead of acknowledging it and moving forward, they can have a hat that fits the part” Marssi then places the dunce hat on the doorstep.

Marssi, sticking her nose up in the air hauntingly, turns and says to Rifkinn, “I think we are done here.”

“Sure. I’ll meet you at the gate,” Rifkinn says to her as she walks off.

Looking around, Rifkinn proceeds to pull a brown paper bag with a smiley face drawn on it out of his haversack and walks off behind some bushes.

Returning a short time later, Rifkinn mutters, “A gift worthy of their intellect, I think”.

Rifkinn places the bag on the doorstep, takes his flint and blade out. Setting the bag alight, he then pounds on the hudge wooden door. Turns on the spot, winking and giving beau a “thumbs up”, he strides off to catch up with Marssi.