[img]http://i.imgur.com/SsySWU5.png[/img] [i]“...eh?”[/i] Confused, Leila took several steps back as masses of billowing clouds accumulated around her as the dragon exhaled. The puffy chunks of white encircled the area she was standing in, temporarily blocking her sight. Instinctively, she waved her hands around in hope of spreading the clouds away and clearing her sight, while she stumbled backwards in the same attempt only to realize immediately that the stumble was a great mistake. Reminded by the feel in her right foot the moment it came into contact with the ground, she closed her eyes and held her breath and expected the wrenching pain that was bound to be shooting up from the ankle - - yet nothing happened. Her foot supported her weight just fine. More than fine, actually. Instead, at the moment she felt very comfortable - calm, relaxed, and relieved of the crippling pain that once occupied most of her body. She inhaled and did not feel the ache in her ribs that had been present ever since the battle back in the caves. In those few seconds the many injuries sustained over this journey seemed to not be there anymore. The clouds around her dissipated, leaving her standing there, still not fully comprehending what just happened. She looked down at her body and her hands - the clothing was still ragged and dirty, yet her body felt much better. The damp bloods of blood on her clothes remained, but they no longer felt like they stuck to the damaged tissue underneath it. The various cuts and bruises on her skin seem to have simply … vanished. As if she wasn’t used to being in this state just yet, Leila let out a couple of coughs, and it looked like a few tiny puffs of dragon breath were propelled into the air. “Ha, unlike those who reside in Nowhere, humans do not fully...” She looked up to see the dragons, and turned around to look at her fellow lost souls. They, too, seemed to have experienced the healing effects of this cloud the dragons exhaled. Most notably Inadi’s arm, which Leila remembered being hurt severely earlier and - she’d admit - was a bit worried about. Leila did not resist the urge to hop up and down slightly, landing on her once injured toes and heels, just for the weird, sort of ironic devilment of it. The pair of dragons seemed to be rather content with this scene. The other one, seemingly not as much. The tension in this scene did seem to have lessened considerably though. Ace even came forward and joined her there, patting the nose of another dragon. And then, as if she suddenly remembered something, Leila stopped in her bouncing acts and looked at the dragons again. She decided that the dragons probably didn’t like having to bend the necks down to the ground to talk with humans, and so this time, when she spoke, she took advantage of the fact that the loudest she could manage to usher was restricted no longer by that now-gone injury in the chest. [b]”...thank you!”[/b] [center]* * * *[/center] So Vince is gone. Vince’s funeral wasn’t the first one Leila attended, and certainly not the first one of a person that she didn’t know well. It felt a bit different from the other ones though. She didn’t know why. She eventually settled on attributing that to its being held in a realm different than the one she was familiar with, although she knew that it was not the correct reason. She almost hoped she got to know this person better before he went away. [center]* * * *[/center] Angry trees. Leila stayed quiet for most of the first part of their trip into Nowhere’s dark side. It wasn’t the normal calm, composed silence that was often seen from her, however; as her brows remained furrowed most of the time. The dark was never something she enjoyed, while this realm seemed to be themed around it. Her eyes eventually got accustomed to the low levels of signals in form of light, but being aware of everything happening in an environment like this proved to not be much better than having no clue whatsoever. They kept the amulets the queen lent them. Leila still wore hers around her neck, dangling inside her renewed outfit she obtained from her later stay in Sol. The green glow probably was actually much fainter than it seemed, taking into account the increased sensitivity towards light her eyes were now tuned to. She pondered whether it would be a good thing if the light had been actually bright enough to illuminate the surroundings and not just the little area on her shirt. An illumination green in hue applied to this scene would probably have done the opposite of making it less unsettling, though. Is that tree moving? What is in the leaves? What is that faint light in the distance? Are those falling leaves, and if so, why are they falling upwards? Sometimes she thought she’d seen wrong, sometimes it turns out to just be their shadows. Other times there really was no explanation for what was happening. Her awareness was cranked to high levels as she took caution in every step she took, to the point of nearly not placing her foot anywhere not previously visited by the steps of someone else in front in their group. The guides were leading their path, although even they didn’t seem absolutely certain where they were headed. Had they a destination? Or were they just exploring aimlessly? Were they exploring but instead with the intention of finding something? Were they going in a straight line - everything in this forest looks so alike - or were they just walking around in circles? The group paused to inspect a particular scene. Leila was almost certain when she agreed that it was one that they had once encountered - she would have been completely certain, if not that demanded her explain how that one tree somehow had materialized in a previously empty space within this time. A straight line was just a circle of infinite radius, after all. Leila mind would have wandered off to think about inversive geometry if it had been another day. Yet now, in this bizarre forest of crooked woods and twisted creatures, fear overrode the temptation of distraction. Leila followed Jasper, Haku, and Inadi; staying near the centre of the group, where she felt more safe. Some of the other lost souls were also conversing with one another. Most notably, the suggestion of “sacrificing” one of them in the case of danger, and who that sacrifice ought to be. Leila wasn’t sure what to feel about it, if anything - and she also couldn’t decide whether that by the fact that she would indeed prefer someone else to die instead of herself, she actually was agreeing with that notion. Thoughts about Vince emerged and Leila decided she didn’t want to think about that anymore. The sounds of conversation covered off most of what would have otherwise be heard from the distance depths of the forest, and Leila found it to be at least better than having to guess what the other sounds were. For a moment, though, the talking stopped, and things fell eerily silent. Refusing to change the state of ignorance towards whatever fearsome implications the environment might bring, Leila made her own attempts at covering out those signals - with the only thing she happened to be capable of coming up at the moment: incidentally: Ace’s “This is Halloween”. Curious how Leila actually found that song to be somewhat familiar, although not remembering where exactly she heard it before. Perhaps it was sung in a way too different to bring up exact memories. Perhaps she had not heard of the song at all. She decided anyways that it sounded nice. She started humming, in a faint voice just loud enough to distract herself and hopefully not anything else possibly lurking nearby, the tune to the song. She didn’t know the lyrics, though. [i]na na na na na, na na na...[/i]