She waited, head cocked to the side at the remarkable show of restraint on the part of a man that ticked all the boxes for being dangerously familiar with violence. The witch tried not to think about how it might have happened any other way, though there were things before the river that she yet remembered. Things that terrified her, things that made her see red rage.
Rage was the fuel to her steely resolve, burning clean and hot. It was absolute and it made her impervious to everything in the way that youth made teenagers live forever. It made her just stupid enough to act like a smartass. Still, it was a good act. Mel played by a set of simple rules, the foremost of which being that if you flinched, you lost. She assumed she had always been a sore loser, just as she assumed the rules were universal.
Seconds ticked by with no response from the tight-lipped woman as she waited, flashing a grin as Eli flinched like he had invented it, turning on heel to walk away several strides, only to stop, sniffing a breath. Admittedly, it seemed mean spirited if he was harmless but for his manners and she hadn't been all that lucid on arrival either. The Spire was much closer than it had seemed walking to the infirmary not so long ago herself, and she wondered if maybe he had managed to wander in by accident after being dumped here. While he looked capable of taking care of himself from a physical standpoint, Mel had to admit to herself that he seemed a bit disoriented and maybe a bit of a meathead, and if she was really honest with herself, helpless. She had only scratched the surface of coming to understand the intricacies of life on Caido and it wasn't as if they were leaving any time soon.
Heaving an audible sigh she rolled her eye, glancing back at him over her left shoulder. "Not a chance, but you seem a bit lost. You can follow me back to the temple so long as I don't get the both of us lost." She didn't wait for long - he'd walk or he'd lose her - and while not all that confident with her sense of direction she could make the building out in the distance against a darkening sky - they'd find it. She was sure.
Rage was the fuel to her steely resolve, burning clean and hot. It was absolute and it made her impervious to everything in the way that youth made teenagers live forever. It made her just stupid enough to act like a smartass. Still, it was a good act. Mel played by a set of simple rules, the foremost of which being that if you flinched, you lost. She assumed she had always been a sore loser, just as she assumed the rules were universal.
Seconds ticked by with no response from the tight-lipped woman as she waited, flashing a grin as Eli flinched like he had invented it, turning on heel to walk away several strides, only to stop, sniffing a breath. Admittedly, it seemed mean spirited if he was harmless but for his manners and she hadn't been all that lucid on arrival either. The Spire was much closer than it had seemed walking to the infirmary not so long ago herself, and she wondered if maybe he had managed to wander in by accident after being dumped here. While he looked capable of taking care of himself from a physical standpoint, Mel had to admit to herself that he seemed a bit disoriented and maybe a bit of a meathead, and if she was really honest with herself, helpless. She had only scratched the surface of coming to understand the intricacies of life on Caido and it wasn't as if they were leaving any time soon.
Heaving an audible sigh she rolled her eye, glancing back at him over her left shoulder. "Not a chance, but you seem a bit lost. You can follow me back to the temple so long as I don't get the both of us lost." She didn't wait for long - he'd walk or he'd lose her - and while not all that confident with her sense of direction she could make the building out in the distance against a darkening sky - they'd find it. She was sure.
