The girl didn't answer, and it was reasonable to assume that she wasn't going to, at least so long as she continued to attack him. He was going to have to defend himself if he wanted to walk away from this.

In response to her swing, he crouched under it and kicked out his foot, intending to sweep her off her feet. If he was successful, he intended to try and grab her arms and pin her to the ground, using the one advantage he was sure he had on her: weight.

The girl was fast. Wily, even. She was skinny, too, and knew exactly how to wire her way out of things. She could swing her arm out to slash at Eld's throat and have it retracted just as quickly, down by her side, ready to swing or stab again provided the right moment's notice.

She did just this when she missed her target. Except as she retracted her arm, Eld kicked her feet out from beneath her. The girl let out a loud and angry hiss as she landed forward upon the palm of her left hand. Instinct demanded she catch herself, lest she fall upon her face--which was actually inevitable, or would have been had she not reacted as soon as she had her hand upon the floor.

Before he could get a hand on her, though, the girl had already pushed forward with her hand upon the ground. She used what little weight she had falling forward to further her lunge forward, and she passed Eld by with convoluted effort. She landed several feet adjacent to him on her hand and the balls of her feet.

Her right arm hung by her side, loose and capable of use. It was set between her feet, just as the other hand, and she pushed forward with both, all the while kicking with her legs, immediately throwing herself forward like a quadrupedal animal. Like this, she could--quite literally--amount distance in leaps and bounds, and inevitably isolate herself with the darkness, where she blended in the most . . .

Eld grabbed at her, but missed; she was too quick on her feet, and within a second of falling was out of his grasp, and soon after that out of his sight. He wasn't sure how far the "area" (for lack of a better term) extended, but it was at least far enough that she could remove herself from his sight.

He doubted she had fled, though; he was certain that she was circling him, waiting for her chance to strike.

"I don't want to hurt you," he called into the darkness, "but I will if I have to. I'm not ready to die just yet."

All he could do for the moment was wait, his senses alert for her next move...

Eld was so prepared for an attack, and yet . . . none came. Not an unexpected one, that is. Not something that he couldn't see coming from a mile away.

It was prompted first when she spoke, awkwardly though it was. The girl had still gone unseen, still somewhere in the deep recesses of the darkness, and where she was unseen, her body's movements were mostly unheard. There was no sound of shuffling or running, crouching or crawling, as somewhere in the dark, the girl crept close to the comforting surface of darkness, upon her hands and feet, crawling from one side or the other, sizing Eld up and deciding her approach whilst she had the opportunity of silence awarded to her. But it never came to be, and she wound up speaking to Eld again before she even took an approach to him:

Your shadow . . . why?

She creeped silently through the darkness for another moment, taking a brief second of silence before she elaborated upon her question:

Why do you have no shadow?

Though, she perhaps wasn't looking for a response--only acknowledging that she was having a problem, and Eld was the center of it. It was just as she spoke a second time that she appeared again, crawling on all fours from Eld's left, before immediately rushing. She kicked forward with both feet and pushed with her hands. The girl leaped all at once, claws out for Eld. She fully intended on leaping into him and digging her claws into--and perhaps straight through--his chest and back, where she might have the opportunity to sink her teeth into his throat . . .

"This place...isn't good for me, I think."

He showed no sign of reacting to her dive until the last second; he turned to her and grabbed her arms, outstretched as they were to disembowel him, and fell backwards, placing a foot to her stomach to launch into the air--less of kick, though, and more of a push.

From her earlier display, he knew she would most likely land on her feet no worse for it, so he kicked to his feet as part of his roll, turning, and charged after her, timing it so he arrived just as she was to land.

He reached for her arms once more, driving into her in an attempt to bring her to the ground, with him on top. He easily weighed more than her, so as long as he kept her arms pinned to the ground it was unlikely she'd be able to do much.

"I can't let myself die yet; so if you don't stop, I'm going to have to hurt you."

Indeed, as soon as she hit the ground, the girl tried to scramble to her feet. She attempted in vain to get as far from Eld as possible, and was inevitably crashed into by the man, driven front first to the surface darkness, and momentarily stunned. She hit the hard surface with her head and it shocked her, but it took her only a second to realize what was happening, and she immediately reacted.

The girl struggled. Eld was practically on top of her and had her arms by the wrists, behind her back, and held in a tight and painful way. Her face was driven into the surface and she felt her cheek flatten against it. She tried, at first to wriggle her body away from his. She could do that; she'd done it before--but it didn't work this time. Eld's weight was holding her to the ground, as well as the vice grip upon her wrists, and all she did was make the sudden and growing pain in her body worsen by fighting against him.

But she was desperate, and Eld might be able to see that. She let out a despaired whine and tried to squirm her legs, move her knees and thighs and try to either kick Eld whilst he was atop her or assist in wriggling herself away from him.

She was panicking. Her breathing was increasing rapidly. Eld would feel her heart in her wrists, or perhaps even her back if he was pressed up against it; it was going a million miles a minute and she was straining with every muscle she had. Fighting, now, like a scared animal.

She's frightened. It seemed incredibly odd to him, that one moment she could be snarling with anger and chomping at the bit to kill him, and now could be so panicked that harm would come to her.

Instantly, he felt guilty, but he couldn't release her just yet. "Please calm down; I don't want to harm you. If you promise not to try and hurt me, I'll let you go."

He relaxed his grip as much as he could allow and still prevent her from clawing at him--at the very least, he could ignore her kicks, given that she had no horns on her feet to stab with him. Hopefully she would assent to this arrangement, because he wasn't entirely sure what he'd do if she didn't.

The girl let out another whimper, this one louder than the last.

She couldn't manage to "speak" the same way she did before. Before, her voice was everywhere all at once, carried throughout the entire expanse of darkness. She couldn't do it. Panicked and pained, she replied to Eld, but was unable to do so in the voice she might have preferred. Instead, Eld received her real voice. When her lips parted for her to speak, there was no sound everywhere at once. There was no methodically monotonous and enigmatic tone. There was, instead, a meek, panicked, frightened, and pained rasp. Her voice was terribly small and had a strong rasp to it, perhaps even making it sound unpleasant to the ears--like someone that had smoked every day of their lives for sixty years . . . or someone who hadn't used their voice in years upon years.

"P-- promise?"

She'd heard him, no doubt. The whole time, everything he said, she'd heard it all. The fact of the matter was that she didn't take any of it to heart until he had her face down and pinned painfully upon the surface darkness. It was only then that words became something important.

Unfortunately, she didn't grasp the very concept with which he was trying to get her to agree. The girl whined and struggled again, this time even more fruitlessly than the last, until it seemed as if she were on the verge of tears. She tired and hurt herself under Eld's custody and as her body was giving up, her mind was starting to come to grips with the reality of her loss, and an overwhelming feeling of defeat rekindled every fear she'd ever had of another living being.

"What is--" she took in a deep, sharp breath, followed by a whined out word, "--promise?"

He was not quite prepared for that; but he had to think of a good explanation quickly, as he was afraid she was hurting herself the longer she remained bound. Also, he was beginning to suspect that she only attacked him out of fear, thinking he was a threat, as if she truly felt some kind of personal animosity towards him he doubted she would have changed her mood so quickly.

"A promise is...something you do no matter what. So, as long as you don't try and hurt me anymore, I will not try and hurt you anymore either--forever. Okay?"

Had she been more knowledgeable, he would have perhaps revealed himself to be an idealist; certainly there were many out in the world who went back on their words, and for not usually significant reasons. But he did not promise things easily, and when he did he intended to fulfill them no matter what.

The girl strained. Eld had loosened up a bit, but his weight was still against her, her cheek was still upon the surface darkness, and she was still in pain.

"Y-- you will not . . . hurt me . . . if I do not . . ."

Eld's definition of promise did make sense to her, though. She grasped the concept rather quickly. Truth be told, despite the animalistic ways she had about her, she had the capacity for intelligence. She was capable of coherent speech, for one, and even abstract levels of understanding, such as learning quickly what Eld meant by "promise," and memorizing it for future reference.

But what hope did she have that Eld was telling the truth wasn't entirely founded. She was still scared of him, and there was little he could do to alleviate that. She was going to be afraid of him for some time, probably. As such, she was going to be cautious of him--but on top of a capacity for intelligence, she also had the capacity of hope, and it seemed morality was in her, too: if this happened, if Eld let her go, she was unlikely to attack him if he made no move to lay a harmful finger upon her.

"I promise I promise I promise," she whispered in desperation.

He couldn't help but believe her; more than anything, she didn't want to be harmed, and so long as he didn't do anything to startle her and make her feel threatened he believed she'd hold up her end of it.

"Okay." Slowly, he let go of her and got up, taking several steps back so as to give her some personal space. "I'm sorry for hurting you, but I didn't want you to hurt me, either." He wanted her to understand that, while decidedly more calm, he was still acting under the same instinct she'd been: defending against a potential threat.

"Are you okay?" he asked with concern. He didn't think he did more than maybe bruise her a little, but he wanted to make sure.

Once Eld let her go, the girl wasted no time in putting distance between them. She got onto her hands and knees and crawled away, amounting a fair ten feet between Eld and herself. It was only then that she stopped and turned to face him, but didn't get up from the surface darkness. She sat upon it, arm over arm, painfully wincing with the discomfort in her wrists. She sat upon her shins in an almost Cizokian way, though it was unlikely she recognized the origin of such a practice. The girl had trouble keeping eye contact, and parted her lips several times to attempt speaking, but was inevitably only making drafts of what to say.

She rubbed her wrists. ". . . hurts."

But as much as her wrists hurt, she was becoming somewhat convinced that Eld wasn't out to cause her pain. So what, then? What did he want with her?

"You want . . . use me?" she asked. Through her pained and raspy and scratchy voice, there was a tone of vindictiveness. "Starve me and turn me loose . . . ?"

But on top of it all, all the anger in her voice, she was remarkably sad. Defeated. There was inevitably nothing she could do against Eld, and if he wanted to use her for something, then fighting would just be delaying the inevitable. She was still frightened of him for this very reason.

Eld couldn't help but be confused as he shook his head. Why these notions had entered her head was beyond him; as far as he knew, he'd never expressed any desire to do anything more than survive his encounter with her.

"No, I want neither of those things; I'd no more starve you or use you than I would have the same done to me." He wanted to impress on upon her than he meant her no harm in any sense of it, not simply that he didn't wish physical violence upon her.

"To the best of my recollection, this is the first time we've met. Why do you view me as a threat?" he asked, hoping that her answer might shed some light on his situation.

The girl stared at Eld awkwardly, as if she didn't understand what he was saying. The truth was, though, she understood perfectly what he was saying, but not the reasoning behind it. She had the look of confusion befitting a victim of abuse suddenly finding herself in the presence of a good Samaritan. It was confused, scared, and altogether cautious, and all with good reason.

"That is what . . . other smell like you . . .," she replied.

Her language was somewhat broken, and had been for the duration of this encounter. Some sentences, shorter sentences, were sound, but the more abstract ones always seemed to be missing something. She'd the capacity for intelligence and linguistic capability, but not the education required to master it.

"What he did." Who, she didn't say, and even if Eld were to pry, she'd just stare at him awkwardly, unable to find the right adjectives to describe the mysterious him.

By this point, she sounded outright pained to use her voice. It was more raspy than before and much more quiet, and clearly not for lack of will to speak. She was beginning to find it difficult to near impossible to use her voice as it was, unpracticed and raw and painful, and soon it might shut down on her completely.

"Another...?" But all Eld got in return was a stare; either she didn't want to talk about it, or she lacked the verbosity to explain. It was clear that she wasn't used to speaking to people, and her voice seemed to be raspy from what he guessed was a lack of use.

"If it's easier, you can speak to me how you did before," he stated, gesturing around them to indicate when her voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was a little unsettling to hear something like that, but it sounded like it was painful for her to speak as she currently was.

He couldn't help but wonder just who this other person was and what they did, but he wasn't certain it was his place to ask. "How did you end up here?" he asked instead; this was a little more related to what he ultimately wanted to know, which was where he was and how to get back to where he'd been.