Thanking the host who brought them to the table, Kieran then turned his attention back to Anabelle. “No, actually. I travel for work. I am not in town very often, actually.” He admitted. Anabelle told him that she didn’t travel very much, but she wasn’t fond of the ocean. He felt like she was telling the truth, but that would mean that maybe she genuinely didn’t know where she had been from. He debated bringing it up right there, but the server came back and asked for their orders.

Kieran ordered a variety of vegetables with some chicken as well, and then chuckled. “I don’t think I am a city guy. It’s interesting, but I feel like a bit of an outsider looking in most of the time.” He explained. 

Kieran paused for a few moments, taking a sip of his drink. “Thank you for coming out to lunch with me. He didn’t know how to bring up the next topic, but it had to be done. “I was hoping you would be willing to talk with me... I know that I am a stranger, and I am not…by any means trying to upset you. I just want to understand what happened the other day, when I came into the hospital. And so I am going to start with what I know about that day, and we can go from there.”

Many mages, when confronted suddenly with their abilities, responded with hostility. Elementals were the worst. They could burn down an entire building before they had a chance to take a calming breath. Healers weren’t usually so dangerous, and their lack of defenses was part of the reason that they had been dwindling in numbers. “I was hurt. I was seriously hurt. More than enough for a bandage alone to heal. I’m not a city guy. I wouldn’t have gone all the way out to the hospital if I thought it was something that could have healed on its own. There was no one else tending to me at that time, it was just you.” He could still see the magic on her, but Kieran wasn’t ready to reveal his own hand just yet. He needed to know more about her background before he supplied more information.

The pair was interrupted by the food arriving. Kieran thanked the server, assuring them that he didn’t need anything else for a while. He looked down at his food briefly. There was steam rising from it, and while he probably could have started eating, he felt like he needed to finish his side of things for Anabelle. “I…know people like you. Not many, but a few. But… there are a lot of things I don’t know. Like, what are you doing here? And what do you know about what you do? And-“ Kieran caught himself. If he got himself worked up with questions, he would just overwhelm Anabelle. He was hoping that she could talk to him of her own volition, and he wasn’t going to get that by intimidating her. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I get a bit…over-excited, and you don’t know me that well, but I would really like to hear this from you, rather than just listening to my own assumptions and getting nowhere with them.”

In his mind, she likely knew about home, and had been taught to hide what she could do because of that. He didn’t want to spend the entire meal beating around the bush and not addressing the fact that he wanted to talk to her about her ability. If they could just get past the part where she tried to deny what she could do, he could find out what part of home kept her from returning, or if she perhaps had been wanting to go back but couldn’t. He hoped to convince her to come back, at least for a little while. She could do so much good back home, and she could be around others who would teach her more about the things that she one day could do, if she wanted.

-.-

Devon. It wasn’t a particularly enlightening name, but it was nice to finally have something to call the man. Rhys agreed to share, and began to open her bag, taking out the things that would perish the soonest. She had some fruit—the banana was not surviving very well in her bag, and some meat that had already been cooked and seasoned a little. As she sorted through her bag, reorganizing things so that the rest of her perishables wouldn’t perish so quickly. While she was organizing, Devon went over to the lake. She watched him a bit, and then laughed as he talked about entering the mind of a fish. “What, is it too big for you and you’re afraid you might get lost?” She teased. Rhys almost laughed once more before she realized that she had said that to a virtual stranger, and she clamped a hand over her mouth nervously. She took a breath before relaxing once more. He probably wouldn’t be that angry with her. She slowly began to part her fingers. 

“Sorry.” She said, chuckling nervously. “Sometimes I speak without thinking first.” She lowered her hand down to her lap and shook her head. “Usually, I speak without thinking at all.” She added, teasing herself because it was pretty true, and also because she hoped Devon would see that she wasn’t trying to drive him away—this time.

“Bread would be perfect. I have two bananas that probably won’t last till morning, and a bit of chicken.” She split what she had in half, giving him a whole banana, and some of the chicken to put on the bread. It wasn’t a gourmet meal in the slightest, but it was better than nothing. Rhys stopped conversing for a short while to eat the meal. The sun had set, and darkness was spreading across the sky. “Would you like to take turns and keep watch? Or does your…mind just sort of pick up on when others are around like a sort of burglar alarm?” Rhys asked. She seriously doubted his magic worked anything like that, but if she didn’t ask, she certainly wouldn’t ever know for sure. Besides, if she could get away with sleeping most of the night and still feeling like they were decently safe, she would be ecstatic. 

Once that was established, Rhys could only think of one other question she had for the night. She put her bag to the side and knelt down by the lake, refilling her waterskin and drinking from it. “Do you have any place in particular in mind?” She asked, taking her hair out of the loose braid that had rested over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to wash it, because it would be silly to sleep right after, and she was just going to continue traveling. However, she did want to braid it over the other shoulder the next day, and so for the night, it would be loose.