After what, at least to Scarlet, felt like hours upon hours of sobbing cries that had lasted, in reality, for maybe five minutes, Keera had cried herself out. Hiding the grin on her face, banishing the laughter into the depths of her being, Scarlet schooled her faces into a mask of compassion and pulled back a little, so that she could see Keera’s face.

“Good Gods, what happened to you?” Scarlet asked, compassion again thick in her voice.

“You vanished. You, you were just gone and the nurse told me you wouldn’t be back for a week.” Keera responded, new tears welling up and a slight accusatory tone sneaking into her voice.

“I thought you didn’t want to work with me. You were so tense around me, as if you were afraid of me. And the first chance you got, you didn’t even wait for me, you instantly went looking for another partner.” Scarlet answered, her voice quivering, almost breaking, as she was doing her very best to sound young and vulnerable. In addition to that, she made her eye-lashes flutter a little, as if to hold back tears, while in reality, she was using a trick to make them water, even managing to get a tear to run down her face. Deep in the privacy of her mind, she congratulated herself to her performance and from the horrified look on Keera’s face, she had swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Now, Scarlet only needed to reel in her catch.

“No, I didn’t mean to…” Keera’s voice broke again, more sobs coming out and Keera clung to her once more, causing Scarlet to roll her eyes where she couldn’t see it, wondering how long the crying would take this time.

But when she realised that the sobs were, in fact, choked off words, she focused on her role again.

“Sorry… I’m so sorry... “ a stream of apologies came falling from Keera’s lips, as she convinced herself that all the bad things that had happened to her, had been her own fault. Guilt for the thoughts she had, about Scarlet killing her, back when they had just started out. Even dreams that had featured Scarlet flashed back into her mind. And her guilt almost crushed her when she realised that despite all that, despite the way she had pushed Scarlet away, hurting the poor, young woman for no reason, Scarlet was now here, embracing her, caring for her.

Back in her role, Scarlet started to mirror the apologies, even managing to make her voice crack and add a few more tears to her cheeks, while clinging to Keera, holding her tightly. A tiny part of Scarlet noticed that it actually felt good, to be held in an embrace, even while she kept her wits about her, to make sure that nobody could sneak up on them. Curiously, she was not too worried about Keera, doubting that the other had the mental faculties to be a threat in the current situation. And, unless she had managed to find a very well concealable knife, she knew that Keera was unarmed.

They clung to each other for a few minutes, until Scarlet noticed someone approaching their dark corner of Albertina. From the feeling the mind gave her, Scarlet was easily able to conclude that it was another psion, a male one at that. Neither Nedri nor Mendar, she knew the feeling of their minds, it was one she hadn’t closely observed. Not that that fact narrowed the possibilities in any way.

Shortly before the figure reached them, Scarlet gently removed Keera’s arms, pulling her up and turning the two of them so that they faced whoever was approaching together, holding hands. To conceal the fact that Keera had cried a great deal more than she had, Scarlet used her sleeve to wipe her face, while taking a deep breath, making it look like she was gathering herself. Internally, she was triumphant, with a little luck, it would be a golden opportunity to cement her hold over Keera. If the creepy sensation she felt from the approaching mind was spot on, she doubted that she could have staged it better.

“Who goes there?” Scarlet asked in the darkness, a part of her wishing that the sky wasn’t clouded or that she knew the customs for having Crystal Monster materialised in town.

Male laughter came from the darkness and a dark shape became roughly visible.

“I was looking for my newest plaything.” a male announced and Scarlet noticed that Keera started to shake. Scarlet cursed internally, it could be the perfect opportunity that had delivered itself to her, but it was a risk. After a split-second, she decided that sometimes, she just had to roll the dice and take the risk.

“Keera is not a plaything!” Scarlet answered, her voice agitated and a little rough from her dramatic actions before.

“And who are you to say that?” the voice asked, but the male made no further attempt to approach, staying in the dark.

“I’m her friend!” Scarlet announced, internally cringing how cheesy it sounded, but the fact that Keera’s hand squeezed hers made her think that it had been the right choice.

She felt a casual probing, soft and insidious and missdirected it, guiding it into a mental trap, a simple memory-snippet of searching through the trash and grabbing something sharp. Just the surprising pain, nothing more. There were more painful things she had felt, but the suddenness of that particular memory made it excellent to use in traps.

She heard a sharp hiss in the darkness, getting a slightly better idea of her opponent. Experienced and certainly not weak, but not well trained. A street-brawler, compared to her formal education in combat. Not an enemy she would want to face, especially not without a very good plan in place, but also not an enemy that could walk over her.

“Better hope we never meet out there, plaything’s friend. Or you will be another plaything.” the voice announced and the dark shape turned, vanishing into the dark. Scarlet could still feel him and was quite sure that she would have to keep an eye open for him but wasn’t too worried. His words told her that he wasn’t willing to risk a serious, psionic battle within the walls and out in the wild, she would fight fair, using her definition of fair. Any fight that she walked away from was fair.

“Did he hurt you? While I wasn't’t here?” Scarlet asked Keera, her voice soft but with a bit of an edge in it. For the first time, she didn’t need to fake the emotion, she truly hated that sort of sexual predator. Preying on those weaker than them, on those too weak or scared to fight back.

She saw Keera nod next to her, before the other started to walk to the wall, pulling Scarlet along with her. There, Keera sat down, leaning against the wall behind her and pulling Scarlet down, next to her. Scarlet let her have that bit of freedom, that bit of control.

Sitting there, the whole story came tumbling out.

After Keera had been shown to her room, she had gone and talked to the guard, trying to learn more about Albertina and the way the town was run, flirting a little to ease the guard’s tongue.

Some time later, Aida had approached and told her that Scarlet had ditched her and would be back in a week or two, laughing while she spoke, insinuating that Keera was too useless to even make another newcomer want to team up with her.

Keera managed to pull some more information from the guard before going to eat and that was where she was found by Telram, the guy who had approached them before. He had just returned to Albertina, after a some time out there. At first, he was sympathetic, flirting with Keera and offering all kinds of help, even to take her out there. Keera admitted that she had been ecstatic, an experienced person, offering to help, without asking for anything in return.

Scarlet had to suppress a scoff, nothing in life was free, ever, but she held her peace.

Keera continued, describing how Telram had gone out with her, guiding her through the forest for some time, even managing to track down two monsters that he killed.

It made Scarlet curious what sort of monster someone who had harvested for months, maybe years, had but again, she held her tongue. It didn’t matter at that time.

Keera’s voice got very quiet when she described the night and how Telram had forced himself onto her, overpowering her physically and mentally, making her a prisoner in her own body.

Hearing that, Scarlet got to her knees and simply pulled Keera into a hug. Her sympathy wasn’t even faked, while Scarlet had always managed to defend herself, she had been overpowered before and knew the fear. The only thing that had saved herself had been her psionic power, combined with the will to use it with reckless abandon.

Sitting there, Scarlet was quite surprised when she realised that, if the chance arouse, she would happily destroy Telram, at least if she could do it without great risk or fear of consequences.