Awoken

Ashe watched his smirk as she clipped the flask back at her hip. Fear. Her lip feathered at that, and something hard filled her gaze. She wasn’t afraid of him, she had a healthy wariness of the strange magic user but she was not afraid, damnit. She didn’t respond to him, but he was removing his shirt - why was he removing his shirt? Her eyes narrowed as her head tilted, perplexed as his hand pressed over his heart. When he looked back at her, those gray eyes of his struck her as unsettling - something not quite original. Was he something else, where he was from? He didn’t look away from her as he went on, speaking of near death as a hand braced upon the ground. Her gut twisted as he spoke of her strength, as if he had known her for more than the minute he did. As if he knew anything about her at all. She wasn’t exactly sure she’d call festering desperation strength. Her fist tightened over that push-knife, and she didn’t answer him.. Part because she didn’t know how to answer his assessment, and part because her limbs, her eyes, her chest began to feel very, very heavy. As if the very earth were pulling her forward and down. Ashe blinked at the sleepy and unexpected warmth, watching his eyes flash into a quite hated shade of blue. There was the pinging of warning bells in the back of her mind, telling her something was wrong.. Instinctively her mind reached out, grasping for something that was no longer there with the alarm that dimly rose in her. She held his gaze for as long as she could as the color drained from her face, as her legs swayed until she dropped to her side from that crouch. Her breath grew very heavy, her heart a slow thud as blackness pushed at the edges of her vision. The world tilted as Attraes apologized, but she could barely understand him. No, was her final coherent thought as the ground rushed up to meet her and … oblivion. *** Ashe didn’t move when she first awoke. She kept her breathing steady, even as she breathed in the scent of a campfire, of cold night air. She kept her ears open, even as she heard someone stirring about over the sound of a gently crackling fire. She kept very still, feeling the bark of the tree behind her, the large shirt draped over her, the weakness that permeated her limbs. She tried to quell the racing of her heart. Attraes. Attraes had done this. Idiot girl. She waited for another minute. Two, before she finally stirred, fire-blue eyes flashing open as she slowly assessed her surroundings. They were in the same clearing, it seemed, the grass around them dead and blackened as ever. Ashetta swallowed harshly, her mouth painfully dry as she tried to blink away the hollow bleariness. Funny that when she should finally sleep, she would awaken feeling worse than she had since the last time she’d been poisoned. She took a deep breath through her nose as she assessed herself next: beyond feeling like she had just somehow survived copious amounts of belladonna, she felt nothing amiss. She hadn’t realized how much she had been dreading such a thing until she knew she was okay, that no one had done anything further.. As far as she could tell. She fought off the wave of nausea at that, finally flicking her gaze to the one responsible for this spell. She was quite startled to find he was looking at her, and the absence of his shirt had her realizing it was over the top of her. She held his gaze until he turned his back to her, starting to speak eloquently about first impressions. Her lip curled back in a sneer, but he couldn’t see it. She shoved his shirt off of her, forcing her limbs to work as she sat up, eyes never once leaving Attraes. She scoffed aloud as he named her his savior - she was no one’s savior, not a soul. Taking advantage of his back turned to her, she braced herself against the tree he had lay her against.. And she tried not to panic at the thought of someone touching her, moving her, as she lay unconscious. She pushed herself to her feet, and she fought to hide the trembling in her legs as she leaned back against the tree. She steadied herself just as the dark-haired man turned back at her with a bird upon his finger, gray eyes that should have been sightless settling on her. Her eyes were wary as she regarded him - smiling, his skin full of color and all around appearing far more lively than when she had found him. How much time had passed since then? She wanted to glance at the sky, to gauge the time, but she didn’t dare take her eyes from him. As he spoke of.. feeling her essence... her lips pressed into a thin line. Wrong about the strength, she thought. Nothing about her was strong, not anymore. Not that she needed to tell him that. Easy to understand what his magic was - to take from others and fuel himself. He said she’d saved his life. Would he have died without him.. feeding on her? Was it her soul he took from? Her magic? Questions, questions, questions. Not yet. She had never seen this kind of magic, and it took every ounce of self control not to burst with all she wanted to ask him. ”Correct,” she hissed at him. The hand that wasn’t keeping her steady against the tree hung close to her hip where her knives lay - Reckoning in its scabbard on her back would take too long should she need it, and she had to remind herself of her magic. She was not helpless, would not be helpless. She tried not to let herself think about all he could have done to her. His face and his voice both were kind and gentle now… but she of all people knew not to trust such things. Stupid, idiot fucking girl. ”Nearly killing me isn’t what one might call a good fucking show of gratitude. Who are you, Attraes?” Attraes ashetta it's live or die my way.