Aruna was sitting there reading the books the golem had brought her. She found the material very confusing and difficult to grasp, but then again she had only very limited knowledge of how to read. She had the knowledge, sure, but she rarely used the talent and had difficulty working out the words. What she was able to make out made almost no sense to her. She sighed angrily and slammed the book onto her lap with a [i]THUMP[/i].

She closed her eyes and just sat there. She had already eaten the soup next to her bed (It was delicious), memorized the room and been over every corner she could see (six times), and had gone through every probable and several improbable methods someone would attack her and she could defend herself. In other words, she was bored. She tried to think of why anyone would attack her, beyond the reasons she already knew. (Just in case Lidda was mistaken about it having been a guard) but she couldn’t think of any other reason than because she was a haf-breed. She hadn’t offended anyone she thought, she hadn’t had time to.

She was also becoming increasingly annoyed at herself. No matter what she did her thoughts always returned to one thing, and the less she had to occupy herself the more her mind began to return to it. Deven. She hated how his thought seemed to consume the rest. How a simple thought about him would destroy her concentration in s second, no matter what she was doing. Seriously, she’d only met him once and he had been required to save her life. He probably thought she was a clumsy ditz who couldn’t save herself. And he’d be right, plus she was a half-breed. He couldn’t possibly think anything about her other than ‘wow, she’s weird’, so what was the point in torturing herself.

But the thoughts still came, so instead of succumbing to her feelings of longing, she fell deep into her suspicion. She let herself image all the horrible things he could want in return for saving her life. She made herself think bad things about him. She used the part of herself that she could always trust, her paranoia. [i] He’s just like everyone else Aruna, no matter what he says. He wants something in return, but he’ll bide his time to tell you what it is. He’s a horrible person, just you wait and see.[/i] But then another art of her spoke up, a part of her she hadn’t even realized was there. [i]So why are you still thinking about him?[/i]

It was for this reason why when Mei spoke to Aruna she jumped and her back let out a scream of pain. She bit her lip and then forced out a smile to her roommate. "Nothing, it was just an accident. I was... Disturbed by the psychomancy demonstration and went for a flight," she motioned to her bandages," it didn't end well. What about you, why are you here?"