Artemis jolted to attention when a voice called out through the forest. The Lantern tumbled to the floor, scorching more fallen leaves black, and she hurried to lift it. She wasn't really keen to start a blazing fire right next to her. In a forest. A highly flammable forest. Clutching the Lantern to herself, she tried to make herself small as the voice went on. Her legs tensed, ready to take off and run again – away from the people and the wolves and the [i]demons[/i]. [color=darkturquoise][i]The marid.[/i][/color] She wanted to laugh at that. Wasn't that just a bitch of a joke? The girl who'd taken their name and styled herself as their channel to man, and now she was dropped in a world full of them. A giggle was beginning to claw its way up her throat. Or maybe it was hysteria. Clamping her hand back over her mouth, Artemis bit her lip in an attempt to quiet herself. Focus, she had to [i]focus.[/i] What was this stranger saying? Pirates? What sort of name was Morlyanem…mien. Whatever. Her heart was still pounding in her throat, a frantic beat like running feet against the ground. [i]Gods,[/i] she wanted to run. But run where? And into what other sort of monstrosity this blasted forest had to offer? The voice didn't seem hostile… but neither had that rusted knight. So basically, either she ran off again into some terrible creature, or she stayed and walked into the arms of a potentially terrible creature. Fantastic. Her frenzied mind whirled again and again through her laughably limited options. All the while, the Lantern's steady light cast the forest in red dye. The Lantern… it was something she had, at least. She thought back to that terrible flame cast on the wolf. Maybe she shouldn't have had it at all. Artemis gritted her teeth and pressed her eyes shut. Then, before she could reconsider, she pushed herself to shaky legs. One hand trailed along the rough tree bark at her back, the other clutching the Lantern's cast iron loop at the top. Artemis stepped out from behind the tree to face this new stranger. This marid. It was a child – a young boy in a frog mask. Artemis' eyebrows pressed together and she didn't have to fake her confusion. Or her fear, or her exhaustion, and [i]hells[/i], it would've been easier to say she stood there before him naked in her turmoil, but she had the feeling admitting that would mean she was truly lost. So, she did what Artemis did best. She crafted a character. Artemis stood before him, soaking wet and shivering. She'd lost her boots somewhere between the river and the woods, so her feet were bare against the forest floor. Dirt and flecks of blood coated them, as well as up her arms and face. Pale smears of her paint were scattered across her skin, dripping away with the water. Her bright blue eyes shown violet in the Lantern's glow and her silver hair mimicked the stars above. Artemis stumbled a moment, steadying herself against the tree again. When she was no long in danger of falling over, she brought that hand across her body to clasp her arm. She curled a bit behind this makeshift shield, warily eyeing the boy. Her eyes flicked from him to the girl sitting on the shore – with the wolf. She felt her heart rate spike at the sight. If going with the boy meant going back to them… even if the wolf wasn't as dangerous as it seemed, it likely wasn't going to welcome her after she'd seared half its face off. Artemis looked back to the boy and tried to swallow around the lump in her throat. She started shaking her head in a slow, halting motion. Then she opened her mouth to speak in a frail voice. [color=darkturquoise]""[/color] She wrapped her native language around herself like a heavy cloak, a familiar weight pressing itself on her shoulders. She didn't know if she was strong enough to move under it. Tightening her grip around the Lantern's warmth, Artemis did her best to steady her breathing as she looked at the child in the mask. [color=darkturquoise]"Pirate?"[/color] She thickened her accent, the one her tutors had stripped her of long ago, and strangled the word with her memories of home. Artemis didn't miss the irony of using honesty as a disguise. But she supposed it was unrecognizable on her by now – and as good a disguise as any.