"Marking...?" Iris repeated. Then the metaphorical lightbulb went off. Right. Her tattoo. "Oh. It's supposed to look like a lotus."

Altair frowned, just a little. "I have not seen a lotus," he said slowly, tilting his head. "And I don't understand what it is." He did step closer then.

"It's a tattoo of a lotus," Iris replied again. That's really all she could say about it. "A lotus symbolizes overcoming difficulties." She paused for a moment when she realized that he probably had no idea what a tattoo was. "It's ink under my skin."

Altair nodded slowly. Ink under the skin? He had never seen that before. And he'd never seen colored ink like that, either. He could see pink and a bit of yellow, where most inks were dark blue or black. For a few moments he was tempted to touch it, to see if it felt different.

When there were no more questions forthcoming about the tattoo, Iris finished putting her clothes on, effectively hiding the lotus from view.

Altair frowned a bit when she covered it up but then shook himself a little. "Start stretching. It will help."

"Yeah yeah..." Iris grumbled as she did so. It was a lot like yoga, really, so it wasn't anything she wasn't used to doing. She made a mental note to see if she could sidetrack them to India. That could be fun.

Altair settled across from her, removing enough weapons that he could stretch easily himself. He didn't really need to, but it was familiar and relaxing, and it might distract him from thoughts of Iris.

The stretching was actually kind of relaxing to Iris as well, in spite of her soreness. It felt good to shift from one movement to the next, and it gave her time to let her mind wander.

She noticed quickly that it kept wandering to Altair.

Altair was really more flexible than he looked, and he went through his own routine of stretches. It wasn't much different from Iris's, but he had a few stretches that were different and a little more complicated.

Although it really didn't help that most of the time he was facing Iris and so could see her stretching too. Which just inspired thoughts he didn't know if he wanted to banish or hold on to for later.

Iris stole a few glances at him as he went through his own stretches, and she couldn't help but try to imagine how he would look without the six layers of clothes on. She tried to shake those thoughts away, but they were stubborn little bastards, and she couldn't get rid of them.

Altair decided to take it easy-ish on her today, and waited for her to finish stretching. "Better?" He got to his feet fluidly, picking up his weapons again.

"A bit," Iris replied, gathering her own things. She had considerably fewer weapons than he did.

Altair led the way outside. "Race to the tower." He pointed to the correct tower so she'd know where she was going. "No rules." Besides the obvious ones like don't draw attention to yourself and don't kill anyone, but he didn't need to remind her of those anymore.

Iris looked at him for a moment, and then took off. Being smaller and lighter, physics dictated she was faster and more able to jump and climb than he was. But she knew very well that there was a very good chance she would still loose. She still gave it her best shot.

Altair got there before she did, but not by as big a margin as normal. He smirked faintly at that. Good. If she could get that close to pulling up even with him then she'd have few problems outrunning guards.

Iris clung to the side of the tower for a moment before dropping down next to him.

"I almost had you that time," she said.

"Not quite yet." Altair smirked faintly. "Now up to the top." Because climbing was easy for her, and the movement would loosen up her muscles again and make the next leg of the journey easier.

"But I just got down," Iris said even as she jumped up to the first major handhold. The climb to the top wasn't difficult, and the view from the top was nicer than she thought it would be.

Altair didn't listen to her grumblings, just joining her on the top. For a moment he considered showing her how to fall properly, and then decided they'd start smaller. Just in case. He'd seen men break things from landing wrong, after all.

Iris was already sitting comfortably at the edge of the tower roof, watching the people down below. People-watching was her primary form of entertainment, now that there was no technology at all. She glanced over when Altair came up to the roof.

Altair spent a few moments watching her before he switched his gaze to the people down below. No guards or anything. Always good to check.

"We'll be here for another day or two before we move on. If you need anything, you should get it while we're here."

"I'll make sure to," Iris replied. Because there was a distinctly feminine issue that was due to arise soon, and she needed to be ready for it.

Altair nodded and sat there, just watching everything go by below them. In a few more months Iris would be done with her training, and perhaps then he could give his trecherous thoughts more consideration.

Iris stole a few glances at him as they sat there. Nope, those thoughts from earlier still hadn't gone away, no matter what she tried. Oddly enough, though, she found she didn't want them to go away.