[IMG]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u79/SharpshooterJack/markerOlanfaded_zps63d2f0e2.png[/IMG]
[h3]The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest[/h3]
[I]It is as I feared, then,[/I] Olan thought sadly as he continued listening to their defeated assailant. [I]Not even Angora herself seems convinced that the people she killed previously were actually after her or her sword. It was all based on the basic assumption that they [/I]might[I] attack her. Luckily it seems that she is starting to question that way of doing things herself, but that doesn’t bring back the people she has killed...[/I]
He sighed to himself, closing his eyes as he tried to think, somewhat distraught that none of the others saw fit to help him with this exchange, leaving everything in his hands. Oddly though, it felt as if the responsibility was not new to him... as though being decisive had once been a core part of who he was, but had been left behind at some point, long before he had lost his memory. There was still flashes of this old him – how many “old him”s were there, he wondered? – such as when he had attacked Rilon or earlier, when he had thrown himself bodily at Usha to save his friends... And then there was the reaching to his hip reflexively, as though to draw a weapon that was not there. It was something deeply ingrained in his body and soul, just like the ability to use the true words and seeing the “second nature” of things. Second nature... what, he wondered, would he see if he had been able to look at himself? If he glanced at a mirror, would he see something else besides his own face looking back? [I]Behind the veil...[/I]
He shuddered at the thought; for some reason, those words seemed to resonate with him very strongly.

“She admits that she attacked the other people first,” he translated Angora’s words for the others, opening his eyes and maintaining an uncharacteristically serious mien. “And says that she felt like ‘the natural thing to do’ was to kill them before they could kill her.”
He looked around at the others nervously, but also with an alien hardness in his gaze that seemed like it belonged to someone completely different than the usually lighthearted Olan; it was a contrast that seemed to cut even sharper due to the omittance of his habitual “you know”. “It’s not her fault that she is like this, I think... She can’t control the aura that is affecting everyone, either, but it seems to come from something... else.” He sighed and shook his head. “This is my own observation, but there is something in her that isn’t mortal that’s affecting her... and it’s fused with her. We can’t leave her, or she will keep killing people.”
He fell silent when Angora spoke again, listening intently. He switched to true words once more: “I can translate anything,” he told her confidently, “if you can remember the words, I can tell you their meaning.”