Warning: This is NOT a fluffy scene.
Xanadu Weyr - Meadow
// A large, slightly rolling meadow is set high enough above the riverbank on both sides to avoid suffering from flooding, healthy ground cover and grass spreading out from either side of the dividing river. Scattered amongst the meadow are a variety of weyrs, each with a narrow path leading up to it from a main, winding road. Some are set under a few trees, while others sit by themselves. The meadow continues with gentle rolls and dips, grass tall and short waving in the slightest of breezes, and eventually those hills grow higher and steeper, ending in a large ridge that provides a fine view of that meadow and the rest of the Weyr, gazing out over the multicolored roofs of the houses and the cliff that holds the caverns.
Runner stables with the paddock beyond are to the south beyond the meadow weyrs, and a smithy and a woodcraft shop are settled closer in towards the path to the clearing. Trees border the northern side of the meadow, and more of those low, rolling hills can be seen to the northwest. A road passes through the meadow, coming from the east and used by traders and crafters alike. Wagons laden with felled trees from the forests or ore from the mountains are hauled by burden beast up the road through the meadow, over the bridge spanning the river to be processed in the appropriate workshops.
//
Where the riverbank rises to meet the meadow's edge and a few dragonlengths from the closest bridge that spans the breadth of the river itself, a peppering of wagons sits in an unkempt line off the road. Each filled to brimming with ore, they were clearly headed for the workshops to drop off shipment and took a break before the final admittedly very short trek. Whatever made them stop here rather than making better use of their time is unclear, but the one who minds the wagons does not appear to belong on them. The traders are absent, and instead perched upon the herdbeast driver's seat is a man swathed in darkness. He wears a black jacket that might be a rider's jacket, but is adorned with silver clasps and ornate black stitching hard to see unless up close. His fingers are bejeweled in rings, though one hand is wrapped in black cloth, the silver chain around his neck swaying slightly as he leans forwards to dig into a satchel set between his heavy black boots. Permanently, intentionally dissheveled black hair fits all too well with the roguish scruff that lines his face, and the kohl rims of his eyes that only worsen the severity of the too-light damning seablue of his eyes. He doesn't fit here, in all of that nefarious gawdy fashion that glints unpleasantly in the afternoon's light. At least, not as part of the trader caravan. The beasts shift nervously, tossing their heads, stamping their hooven feet in agitated timing. They sense what is not immediately evident from the expanse of the meadow, that unearthly thing that remains partially submerged in the Rubicon's mixed waters.
The young weaver girl is in her bright chartreuse floor-length skirt that has been pinned up to her knees like a kilt revealing skin-tight neon green leggings which clash hideously with her dress. Her top is a bright mix of yellow and green plaid that buttons at her neck and wrists, she is the most vivid colored victorian school teacher one may ever see. The whole outfit means that she might be visible from the bridge of the Yokohama. For all intents and purposes, this far out into the meadow is much further than Evangeline travels typically, but today finds her attempting physical activity in the way a fish attempts archeology. Poorly. From the moment her feet hit the meadow she is moving at a pace that could be a jog for her but is a fast walk for anyone else, she puts on little bursts of speed her skirts flopping with the effort and arms moving in small windmill like motions, hands flopping out to her sides giving the impression of tiny bird wings. Adding to the spectacle is the fact that she meanders, nowhere near linear; she veers to one side of the path or the other in a zig-zag fashion that might speak to a lack of commitment to the task at hand. Every 200 feet, she stops, breathing heavily and shaking her head, her dirty blonde hair held back with a bright yellow headband that she removes and puts back while sweat is wiped from her eyes. The caravan of trader supplies makes a perfect focal point, she fixes her eyes on it after taking several steps at a walk and begins her flopping jog again. There's not a lack of try in the plump young girl, but a lack of apparent success. Halfway to her goal, she stops and walks ten steps, balling up pale fists and gritting her teeth before throwing her body forward again. Arriving near the wagons, she stops short and bounces on her toes, head bobbing from side to side in evident curiosity.
Those too-light eyes, chillingly callous look up at the unquestionably odd movement in the distance not-really-fast approaching his general location. For any sort of reaction, he has plenty of time to do it, but the man clad in black and menacing silver accents does little besides turn that gaze upwards at her. Once she's within throwing distance, he adjusts to resting an elbow. The movement is fractional, yet acknowleging- a concept that might be deemed uncommon given the whole of what he presents. The Weyr isn't his. It couldn't be. He's not the Weyrleader, and he sure as hell doesn't ride gold. But that poise is a bold, nonchalant arrogance that details command. That claims this space, these wagons, this ground as his- and she's trespassing. That look of his slips over her, taking in the hideous colors, the adept runner's form, the.. pause.. required before she actually makes it close enough for words to carry without shouting, because he can't be bothered with that much effort. Once there, once she's tilted her head at him in silent inquiry, one heavy brow raises 'neath the almost too-long black strands of his hair that seem slightly damp as if he'd just been swimming. "Can I help ye, lass?" The accent is dense, something not easy to pinpoint, but gravel-touched and serpentine just like the rest of him. His volume is relatively low, having no desire to raise it to accomodate anyone. The black-wrapped hand fondles something within that satchel, though lets it go before it's raised from the rumbled edges of it, the mystery clinking muffedly back to join whatever else is within it. A deft adjustment of fingers collapses the opening of it, banning its contents from easy view, though as subtle as it is, he doesn't seem to care to hide anything about it.
Nothing about this girl reads danger, her bright colored clothes and round cheeks of a girl who has yet to reach womanhood. The amount of color alone disarms many; all of her mannerisms are that of a happy, relaxed child. There's a bounce to her steps as she approaches the forboding individual, slowing down to keep a third of a dragonlength between her and the dark man. Bright with curiosity, her brown-green eyes move from the top of the man to the bottom, and back again, her nose is slightly crinkled, and brows are up with piqued interest. A tightness exists in chapped and bitten pink lips, a crimp that sticks to her face and adds a seriousness. Fists ball up nervously, the air of authority is not missed, and when it catches, she takes a small unconscious step back, her body knowing what her mind does not. The bag is noticed but is not focused on; eyes wander over the man's entire outfit and illicit an upturn to one lip, nose tucking the other way ever so slightly to add to her child and fey like air. As the man speaks, Evangeline tucks her lip into her mouth, her right-hand raises, and she inserts a knuckle into her mouth. "Um, sorry sir." The voice is a meek tenor a shade too high pitched for someone of her age. "Um. Sooooooooo." The hand not up by her face goes to her shirt, pulling it down and fiddling with the pleats nervously. "I um. Saw your wagon, I am so sorry sir it's just." Blustering through her words come out quickly, and she borderline babbles, it's clear that outfits aren't the only oddity. "SOMETIMES." The pitch in her voice goes up, she leans her shoulders back and sticks her chin out in a false attempt at confidence. "Traders have fabric, and um, I have marks." Both hands ball up again, and she places them at her side, swaying her hips from side to side in palpable excitement. All her nervous energy comes out in her body, head moving from shoulder to shoulder and hips swaying, every bit the excited puppy.
"Sorry?" The word is drawled in that natural way of him that expects the world to wait for his responses, tainted by a faintly annoyed amusement. Where womanizing is something he is all too well known for, with those who know him at all, this one is not yet a woman. This one doesn't get that immediate essence of breech of space and the taste of the Devil's temptation that comes with it. Not, not yet anyway. The meekness doesn't irk him, though. If anything, that is what keeps his attention upon her. That attention, Faranth, there's something about it. It alone bares weight. Bares down upon her as if he's looming over her even when he doesn't bother to move from that seat he's in all likelihood briefly stolen from its true master. His study of her is intense, thorough, seeking something that he alone searches for in just about everyone. If he finds whatever it is, he doesn't show it. "Aye, sometimes they do. But-" Ki'lian straightens, his black-wrapped hand gestured widely over the wagon and its brethren- the others staked into the ground to keep the beasts from running off with them. Those wagons hold nothing of the sort. Just ore. Raw materials that would grant nothing of aesthetic value until the Crafters have their way with them. Only after that grand display is granted and she has a moment to absorb exactly what she made so much effort to approach, does he settle that elbow back down in its place upon his knee. A thumb brushes over the back of his ring as he considers her. As he lets the pressure of him and whatever decision he's yet to make of her sit between them in an uncomfortable, pregnant, suffocating air. Then- "You shouldn't share that you've got marks to lose. Not very savvy of safety beyond the walls of that Weyr, are you?" Critical, and not entirely kind, but there is the makings of a smirk on his face, just touching the left side of his mouth and crafting lines into the rogue's scruff. "Unfortunately, the men you're looking for are away for the moment. Perhaps if you wished to make clothing from rocks, they'll make some kind of arrangement with you." So why is he here? Why is he going through a bag that is assumably not his? Well, he's not hid anything from her thus far. "Is there a reason you came all the way over here-" His silver ringed fingers flick lazily in the direction from which she 'jogged' "-like that." Like.. all of that. There is no good descriptor for what he saw approach him.
"Sorry— um." The words stutter out her head tucked down and into her one shoulder, the discomfort of the current situation hitting her quick and hard, but her own awkwardness and track record for overreacting to false danger is a blinder. An injured bird crawling under its wing, her ear touches her shoulder, and she holds the pose, lips pursing out and breath quickening. Another step backward, her fast-moving mind searches the dark man again. There's a disconnected appearance in brown-green eyes, past experiences being reviewed, and pulled through, and her mouth moves from one side of her face to the other. Arms rise and cross over her chest, the young woman's body doing its level best to guard her in ways that her mind has not accepted she needs. Both eyes flicker to one side, and then the other, happy bouncing ceases as does the swaying. Absence of movement while speaking is punctuated by the fact that she had not stopped moving throughout the conversation. Shoulders scrunch in, and her whole body collapses inwards, elbows, shoulders, knees all make her smaller. Despite all of her physical response, the heavy weight of the person she is speaking too crushing her like a can. She continutes in a meek sing song voice. "Oh- rocks, no. I mean. Maybe. This is still in the Weyr, sir, I- at least probably." While appearing to shrink slowly away, a dying flower that is withering in front of this much to large foot come to stomp on her; she summons the smallest smile, "I mean. I can make anything. Mostly." Somehow part of her is not connected to reality; wherever her mind is, it's keeping her comfortable though her voice trembles; there's a good chance that is her baseline. Popping her lips out, the sound audible and an overly broad grimace finds her face. The expresion is much too dramatic to be taken seriously as lips flatten out comically. "This is my running outfit, it's all I have." The assurance in her tone and a slight lift to her chin lend credence. "IS it fun? Being a trader?" Dear lord Evangeline just stop. Persisting through discomfort is one of her goals, so here she is, throwing herself to the wolves.
Despite the lack of challenge to making her crumble, apparently watching her do so is enough. Ki'lian's tongue sweeps the back of his teeth, parting that grin slightly into something a bit more menacing. "You mean, we're at the outskirts of the Weyr, love. You see that river." His head tilts a bit, a nod with his brows raised towards the water vast enough to be seen despite the steep hill that protects the meadow from flooding, "That is a border of the Weyr proper. Just a little further, and you'll be well on your way to Blackrock." That's a hefty overexaggeration, but of a Dark-ridden man covered in glints of jewelry, being subtle is not his forte. "You want the rocks," A lopsized, languid, callously arrogant shrug steals his shoulders as he reaches just to his side to pull a large hunk of it from its stack, its compatriotes tumbling down in a miniature landslide, "-Here, take them." And it's tossed to her in an underhand throw. He's not looking to beam her with it, don't worry. But, it may hit at the level of her leg if she doesn't put her arms out to catch it. "Free of charge. In fact, make something worth my while with it, and I'd make it worth your while." It doesn't hurt him, of course, since this shipment isn't his to start with. Her question following the lifting of her chin brings a chuckle from deep in his chest, a breathy thing that crosses the line of nefarious with ease. "I've been called that before. I've been called many a'thing before." Mostly less nice than that, he implies. In personal joke that entertains him well enough. "No, lass, here I happen to do some other things besides mind carts. You're a candidate, I see. I suppose you ought meet him." Does she feel it? Dread. Fear that curls up her spine like an ice-chill that matches those eyes that have yet to leave her. The feeling of hair standing on end upon the back of her neck. Whispers. Hundreds of thousands of whispers too-distant to make out anything, but every single one forelorn in a warning that cannot be heard. With it, from over the side of the embankment does a massive bronze ascend. Like some deathly reaper, a psychopomp readied to take that which he finds back down with him, the haunted figurehead of Zyddagath surfaces from over the crest of that hill. Black sails, tattered and war-holed spread partially like a flag risen, his dark paws curling wicked silver talon into the soft Pernese soil. Rivulets of water spill from him, his hide corroded and corrupt, the taint of verdigris and petulence making it difficult to ascertain where the wet sand ends and the true hide of him begins. Skeletal, he is a wreckage of a thing that shouldn't be real. Faceted eyes whirl slowly, a mixture of red-oranges, as he settles beached upon that slope as a backdrop to the man in black.
Making Evangeline crumble does not earn one any praise, this is a girl who will cry if you bring up her dead cat and has been known to break right down at the smallest push. There's no prize in crushing flowers. The hill is examined, her soft eyes looking to the river and noticing its entire existence for the first time with a soft "Oh- I um. See." Quieter and quieter, her voice losing the battle against her nerves. Evi reaches to catch the rock and misses; it clatters to the ground, and through her soft pale Weaver hands, as it hits the ground, she squeaks, jumping backward before bending and snatching it up with greedy feral kitten paws. "O-okay." Turning it slowly in one hand, she examines it while taking another step back, her face changes from one of demure confusion to large frightened eyes and revelation. "Thank you— but isn't this um, worth marks?" Gentle purity escapes her lips, eyes searching for a knot of some kind on the dark stranger. The lip she was nibbling on has been sucked into her mouth, a teensy tiny fish that realizes it's been swept out to sea and is desperately trying to remember how to swim. Smaller and smaller, Alice would be proud as the shrinking of her body and soul is only exasperated by the infinitesimal steps she is now taking. That danger alarm she has on Snooze is currently working, "Yes' um. I am a candidate. I have um. Chores, sorry, sir." Ignoring the growing pit that she once called a stomach, she has finally recognized danger, but on Pern, as in anywhere else, it's amazing the things a woman might due to avoid seeming rude. All of her manners are fully intact as she GASPS audibly, the hand not holding onto the stolen ore covering her mouth, thumb pinching her nose into her index finger to silence her surprise. Total stillness, eyes go to the bronze dragon and back to this stranger. Dragon, man, dragon man, her head shakes back forth as her mind attempts to coalesce itself, and the assault upon her mind brings slow, quiet whimpers, the smallest of injured puppy sounds. "What. IS. THAT." Each word is said with a tone that only escapes shrieking due to the breathless nature of the speaker. She's not screaming, but she is moving three more steps before turning to leave and gagging. The same way a person might not run from a wild animal, Evi has enough self-preservation to walk away, taking gigantic steps as fast as possible without actually running.
There is absolutely nothing beautiful about this dragon. He is a wraith, brutal, gaunt, and charred black as if he was a vessel burnt by fire and sunk to the deepest trenches, only to rise again in unhallowed seas. These, o'er World's End, where those waters churn with the souls of lost. THOSE are what whisper to Evangeline. Those are what beckon her not away, but closer. Unintelligable, unfathomable voices pitched and sunk as if caught up in the to and fro of the tides in those eternal, forsaken, Stygian waters. That angular face that seems to be little more than hide drapped over a dragon's skull tilts to let one of those eyes watch her. Fortunately, Zyddagath himself wouldn't dally in the likes of dealing with candidates, but His gets pleasure out of it. Devilish, twisted pleasure out of this sort of reaction. She may crumple easily, she may be no challenge at all, but Ki'lian hasn't yet achieved what he wanted after his intense, soul-penetrating search found what he was looking for. There is no knot on him, not any sort of mark of Xanadu or wherever he so hails. The dragon may wear straps, but even those are crafted in a manner that reflects Ki'lian alone- blackened and silver-studded. Answers to her question about marks goes unfielded. For when she turns to run, the man slips off his perch and in a few strides catches up to her attempt to escape them. "That, my dear-" He starts, reaching to grab her arm at the bicep, and whirl her around to face the bronze properly, "Is Zyddagath." His grip with his good hand is tight. Uncomfortably tight. There will be a bruise there, likely with the impressions of rings. "Now now, you aren't afraid are you?" Condescending that tone, though still low and gravel-touched, his accent thicker as a breath of laugh escape him intermingled with those words. "You'll offend him acting like that." Is a lie, obviously, and he makes no effort to make it sound believable. "What sort of candidate runs from a dragon?"
The world is full of different people, some of them more vulnerable than others for the simple fact of birth, age, or circumstance. Evangeline is not hard in any way, she's soft and unphased in a way that is rare and invites cruelty upon her by those who long ago forgot their own innocence. Whatever that thing was, it was a giant NO for the feeble girl, her feet doing their best to help her escape, but her efforts are futile. Gentle and sweet Evi gets a few steps before she screams, both in surprise and with the pain as the hand touches her, and she begins to tremble and whimper. The soft near groans that escape her lips are near sobs, no tears have appeared, but one of her hands reaches up to dig her claws into this man's hand as she is forced around to face the so-called dragon. The monster before her is such a far cry from the dragons that she is used to that she is riveted in place staring at him her eyes giant pools, and her lips parted slightly so that her slight panicked sounds can escape. Mmmm. Mmm, hmmm mmmm, the pitiful sound of an animal trapped and preparing for her own oblivion. "Please, sir, you are hurting me. I have somewhere I need to be." The sound escapes with a small sob, her voice a weak cry. "Please, sir, please." Evi is not above begging as her claws dig as deeply as she can get them into this man's hand, but she isn't struggling. Somewhere inside this weak half-formed girl, there is a strength, one that saw her through terrible things. Silence overtakes her, and while she will maintain keeping her fingernails embedded in this strange, awful creatures flesh her eyes take in Zyddagath, the whimpering ceases as the shock takes over and any survival instincts she has takes precedent. The voice in her head that told her to hide under a dining table to avoid being crushed to death, the spirit guide that put her on Zhelinath to find her way here has her now. "Sir, he is lovely." The strength in her voice is deceptive, there's no shake, but she is lying through every tooth in her face. "I have places to be, please, sir." Still so polite, but her eyes are vacant of feeling, everything she has is running on her lizard brain and much in the way a prisoner of war might she will do what she must. "I have chores, someone is going to miss me." The statement is almost a threat, but it's the most authentic thing from her mouth yet, and there's a coldness to her voice one would not expect. Say what you want about Evangeline, but she is a survivor.
Something that is typically absent in Ki'lian is pity. Narcissistic to a fault in most things, the world revolves around him, save those insecurities painted on his flesh beneath all those dark layers he covets. A grimace crosses his features as the bite of her nails digs into the flesh of his hand, which only serves to tighten his expression, make it more severe. To set tension into his jaw, though the grin there never quite dies. He doesn't let go, though the pressure doesn't worsen. He does nothing else to her except to hold her there. "Chores can wait. There's plenty more of you to fill your absence for a few minutes." Does that inspire any breath of confidence? That he doesn't plan to keep her here and submit her to this for an eternity of misery that dragon seems to embody? Probably not, and he doesn't really mean it to be. "Don't lie to me." The bronzerider warns when her politeness waxes onto the rediculous, though he sounds more bemused than threatening- even if the whole of him takes care of that menacing part. "That typically doesn't end well for anyone. If you really can't think straight with a dragon around, so be it." A gutteral sound rises from before them, deep in the throat mottled with age and decay. It's some ghoulish mixture of a hiss and a creel, never amounting to a roar, retaining semblance more to the demonic than draconic. Those leathery gun-holed wings spread, ghostly smoke and ash that blackens the lengths of the skeletal spires of his limbs shift and move as they collect under him. And with a thrust of coiled muscle that must exist somehow in the Black Pearl'd beast, he leaps for the skies in a hideous display animated by some dark power, taken to the skies upon tattered sail. They're buffered harshly for a wing beat. Two. Then he's gone, growing smaller in the distance towards Azov. Ki'lian waits, his kohl-rimmed gaze following his dragon for a moment, before returning to watch Evangeline's reactions. "Why did you take that knot?" This is more serious, the smirk gone. The grip remains, but lessens in intensity, just to bar her from escaping before he gets some sort of answer. "What makes you think you're ready to stand before those eggs if you can't stand before him?"
They say that your life flashes before your eyes a second before you die, Evangeline has had that flash before and every move made by the man has her body tensing and trembling in preparation for the ominous warning. At that moment, she realized once that she had not lived her life at all, that her life was short, her flash nothing more than an epilogue. Evi knew that night that she did not want her story to simply be an epilogue. The lost brown eyes of a puppy who insists on remaining a puppy, dart from the hand to the man's face. Though controlling her face is working, her breath betrays her fear, each breath coming fast and hard with visible chest movement, her nostrils flare and shoulders rock back and forth. Every ounce of the person that is Evangeline is focused on holding onto this man with her fingernails. Before today she had never truly met anyone bent on harming her, suddenly all her past experiences are sharply in view, and all the people she was scared of are dolphins because she now knows what a shark looks like. Silence can be deafening, Evi is not giving up her words to this man's mocking, and she sets her jaw and seals her lips shut. The dragon stops her breathing, the ghastly black form of the creature has her holding her breath for half a minute. Oxygen deprivation forces her to exhale, and her respiratory rate doubles in speed, moving extremely close to the kind of hyperventilation that could lead to fainting. "Let me go." Is whispered out, words coming out whispy and nearly inaudible. None of his questions are answered until he questions her knot, and then in typical fashion, when she can't think of anything else, she tells the truth. "I had nothing to lose." In any other company, this truth would seem dramatic and gruesome, but what's this man going to do tell on her? The hand on Ki'lians is released, dropping to her side and slowly sliding into a hidden pocket in her skirt, slowly fumbling for something. "Sir. Please, I am going to ask again. LET ME GO." Finding her voice, she raises it directly into this villain's face, possibly spitting on him. "The eggs are smaller than him." She adds, because she can't seem to help herself, her innocence reappears for a moment as she mentions a weird truth of the world as if this awful excuse of a person next to her might not know it.
All at once, her wish is granted. Her arm is released. There's no more tethering force keeping her to the spot except for the intensity of his commanding, demanding presence still creating that drowning pressure over her. She could escape it all now, if she finds the legs to do so, but those ice-touched eyes stare down at her. Waiting. Waiting with patient impatience that counts every second yet doesn't mind eternity. That's where his mind resides, afterall, in that plane of existance that dragon embodies. Ki'lian exhales, a prolonged and perhaps disappointed sigh. Not disappointed in her behavior, no, but rather the answer to his question. Her behavior, her response to his actions seems written off as though the means to the end simply doesn't matter. All that matters, is getting what he wants. "That isn't good enough." He's said it before recently, he feels the familiarity of it on his tongue. The abrupt moisture on his face draws a darkening cruelty that wasn't present before, since all of this was initially hung on a factor of entertainment and twisted interest. His free hand, the left wrapped up in a cloth bandage that likely hides something significant beneath its layers, wipes across his face roughly- the sound muffled but grating between cloth and roguish scruff. "You're looking for a big pet to keep ye warm at night, I take it. A dragon doesn't fix all the holes in your life, lass. Do you have any idea what you've signed up for? Do you think you're ready when you couldn't even run to get away from what scared you?" Her excuse makes him straighten to that same arrogant, cocksure poise, the looming relinquished by questionable degrees, even if his displeasure isn't. What also starts to receed like the black tides that must have born him is his attention, his attraction to whatever he saw that he had to have. Whatever whim needed to met, succeeded or lost enough that the curiosity is satiated and thus the serpent coils back into the tall grasses. His thumb brushes against his rings again, the same rings that left the temporary form of this memory upon her arm. "What's in those eggs won't be. Not for long."
Do you know what you wish? Are you certain what you wish is what you want? In this case, yes, she is absolutely certain that she wants to get away from this swamp thing standing beside her. Now that she is free, she takes a single step back, creating space but not running outright. Possibly because with the speed of her breathing she can't really move until she calms down, her own bodies adrenaline has crippled her and the shaking redoubles now that the danger ebbs minutely. Evangeline puts her hands on her knees, doubled over with the effort to calm her panicking body. Craning her neck towards the man, cold sweat dripping down her face, she pushes the hair out of her eyes so she can watch this sharp-dressed cruel man. His questioning of her is met with silence. Her eyes taking him in the way a hand remembers its first hot stove, everything about whoever the hell she has run into is memorized if only so she knows who is in her nightmares. "I am-." She stops herself midsentence before her tongue can work faster than her head, as her mind wonders if she owes this man anything at all. No. She doesn't owe him anything, her hand rubs the spot where pale never seen the sun before skin will have bright bruises hidden by the modesty of long sleeves. The last words she will say to this man, are somewhat ironic in the fact that they continue to display the broken kindness in the lost girl. An unbreakable spirit filled with hope. "Will figure it out, I know." She knows nothing, her body slowly allowing her to back up several more steps and retreat. Once several steps from him, she spares one more glance for him, the actor starring in her bad dreams. With a speed that would not seem possible before, she runs. Really runs, her hands still flap a bit at her sides, but something about fleeing for safety has inspired her. Man, will she have something to tell Risali on there next exercise date. Whoever that is, she is totally telling mom.