She let the matter drop, but for a moment before the child schooled her expression, she looked more than just disappointed.  She looked hurt.  She hardly listened when he told her about why he’d come, just noting that he was supposed to see Ms. Primm.  Instead, she was thinking.  She recalled the Masquerade.  She remembered the woman’s pain.  The woman wanted to be alone, yes, but had she used magic, trying to get Cain to leave?  Amuné wasn’t so sure about that.  Even if the lady had used magic, that meant he could feel, though perhaps his emotions lay deeper.  Either way...he was still lying, and there was no reason for it.  It wasn’t even a /good/ lie.  It didn’t occur to the girl that he might believe it himself.  Instead, it seemed like he was deliberately rejecting her.

Just like the others.  Once they figured out what she could do, they turned on her.  They shut her out, and they repaid kindness with hate that stemmed from fear.  Amuné had thought he was like her, and maybe that meant he would understand her better, but it seemed she’d been mistaken.  He’d been kind.  He’d helped her when she was in trouble.  She had hoped he might become a friend, that she’d finally have someone who knew what it was like to be an outcast and who could teach her to be okay with it like he seemed to be.  Her hope made his rejection more painful.

She lead the way in silence to the edge of the forest, and pointed off toward the front of the school, where the main gate was.  “The entrance is that way.  Someone will take you to Ms. Primm.”  The girl sounded subdued, and she didn’t quite look at Cain.  She knew she should return, but between not being completely over the taunting earlier and the man’s perceived lies, she was not ready.  She made no move to leave the shade of the trees herself.

[@TheMinorFall]