Her idea of a good time.

[Nayt]

When she heard Tanis's voice in her head again, Eroina felt instantly guilty. She wasn't supposed to say that, was she? Her eyes widened just a bit as she stared ahead blankly, her fingers trembling. This was all her fault, wasn't it? Tanis getting upset like this, and feeling the sudden desire to leave. To her, it made sense. All she had to do was think of everything that happened before. After the event in her room, he wanted to leave, but she asked him not to--so he helped her with the gift he had given her, and then he wanted to leave again, but she asked him not to once more. Now, he wanted to leave again--and he was going to. Each time, it was because something she said or did, and this time Eroina couldn't keep him from leaving this time.

"T-Tanis, w-wai--" but he was already leaving. There wasn't anything she could do to stop him from leaving, either--nothing short of going after him and clinging to him to make him stay, but what good would that do? She'd just be making him stay against his will--if that. He'd probably just break away from her, anyways.

Feeling dejected, the girl sulked in her chair. She really liked Tanis, not in the same way that she liked Fifteen, but she really really like him, anyways! That was a man that she wanted to be her friend, and though she honestly felt that way about him (albeit in such a short time; Eroina was more than naive enough to befriend a stranger after a five minute conversation, let alone an intimate moment together), it didn't seem like he did. Or it at least felt that way to Eroina. Once more she sulked in her chair, sinking down a few inches in her seat.

Was life really going to be this difficult? For the rest of the time she spent thinking, was she going to be in these sorts of situations--where she had to make choices that were so subtle that she'd never notice? Choices that she could never make correctly, and always upset someone?

Eroina pouted at the thought.

[supernal]

Fifteen merely nodded and let the man be on his way. He took all of the information that he had gathered about Tanis, which wasn’t all that much but still volumes more than Tanis knew about Fifteen, and condensed it all into a tight knot of information. It was then gradually pushed to the catacombs of his mind, where he would be able to recall it at his fancy, but where it would occupy none of his current attention. The final thought, scribed to the very bottom of Tanis’ figurative dossier was Fifteen’s thin regret at having to eventually dispense with such a prudent individual.

Tanis moved to the door, Eroina made no motion to stop him aside from a feebly voiced desire, and Fifteen remained unmoved. He seemed a statue, as a matter of fact, until far after he saw Tanis’ form engulfed by the shadows that lay beyond the doorframe, and until he could no longer hear footsteps bouncing off a stone path.

“I’m starting to think,” The word left his palate so sharply that a trained ear could easily know that Fifteen’s tongue was an instrument that knew how to decisively break silence into meaningless shards; years of practiced turned the silver tongue into a silver sword. “That I might be bad luck. This is the second time that a man, who has displayed no small interested in being in your company Eroina, has left you in my presence.”

Fifteen’s once stoic face turned into a veil of crunched up sadness. His eyes dropped, his brow furrowed just enough to express his involvement in the situation, and his hand fiddled lackadaisically with one of the nearby utensils. He heaved a sight, spread it out across the table, and spoke in a softer voice.

“I’m afraid that your day might be better if I had never come along. I wonder what it is that I'm doing wrong.”

[Nayt]

"N-no . . . you're all right . . ." Eroina stated as she shook her head.

She couldn't blame Fifteen--or Tanis. Eroina liked the two of them enough that they may as well have been faultless in every way. If only Baleron had been here, too . . . nonetheless, there was only one person here in the Gala that she felt was at fault for all the commotion she had experienced.

"It's all me," Eroina whispered, pouting.

Though her reaction was childish, sinking in her chair, pouting, and losing the drive to eat, the feeling itself was not. It wasn't even when she had more than one person together. Eroina would have been able to maybe see that one of these men had personality faults that conflicted with each other if that were the case--but no! She had encountered problems with Tanis earlier, and the way Baleron acted around her, she knew that she'd have eventually encountered problems with him, and then Fifteen . . . it was her decisions that disappointed Fifteen the most, and though Eroina hadn't noticed it before, she was starting to now--now that she was thinking about it.

She didn't want to elaborate, she just wanted to let Fifteen know that she didn't blame him in any way. She couldn't! He didn't create any of these problems, she did! If she hadn't forced Tanis along so much or left Fifteen or looked for Baleron . . . everything would have been fine . . .

"Is being around other people always this hard?"

[supernal]

Fifteen edged his seat closer and closer to Eroina's side of the table. He let his hands be free of the minutiae, freeing his fingers of their duty of fiddling with the stems of wine glasses and the shafts of utensils. Instead, he let his hand move down the leg of the table until he found Eroina's own hand, a hand that was paradoxically warm for a re-animated corpse, and he drew it back up to the table. He held her hand while he spoke softly.

"It's not you." The cold to his voice was a facet of his personality that many people missed. It seemed to work well for him and, with the way that his lips curved when he talked and with the way that his tongue shaped his swords, it seemed only natural. But now his voice was devoid of that cold, and it seemed at once alien and comforting.

"If anything, you're the last thing. You're a wonderful hostess Eroina. You're polite, charming, and try to keep the peace as frequently as you can and to the best of your ability. It's the others." Now the cold came back to his voice, and it was sharper than ever. His eyes narrowed, and he drew them to the archway that Tanis had once occupied.

"They just…they just don't understand. They're more selfish than they let on. I was never too warm about Baleron, and now I can expect to be the same about Tanis, but for your sake I was willing to at least temporarily suspend any enmity. I did it for you Eroina," His voice dropped down to a whisper. "And they couldn't do that, could they? They could only think about themselves."

His voice dropped even lower, and while still gently clasping her hand in his, Fifteen leaned closer to Eroina. His eyes searched hers.

"If you were to ask me, I'd say that it seems that they don't really care all that much.

But I do."

Fifteen pulled away from her now, and sidled his chair back to its original position. Now his hands took up their purpose, wrapping around glass stems and utensils, and his voice was again of the norm.

"It's not always so hard. I suppose you just have to find the right kind of people to be around. Not everyone likes the same things, or thinks the same way. That's why some people are friends, and some aren't."

[Nayt]

Of course it was nice when Fifteen leaned forward and took her hand, even if she couldn't actually feel his hand. There was no way for her to feel warmth or any sensation at all there--her fingers and toes were just the worst parts on her body for feeling! An entire finger or toe could come off, and she'd have probably never noticed.

Nonetheless, it was still nice to know that he was comforting her. Eroina continued to stare at the table. All of these problems . . . no matter how much Fifteen said it couldn't be her fault, she still felt as if it was all caused by her. Why did it have to be so difficult? With everyone else on the island, Eroina had never encountered problems with socialization (though her life had still been so short up until now)--and certain aspects of potential difficulties were just too difficult for her to want to believe . . .

Eroina didn't want to accept that! The notion that Baleron and Tanis didn't care about her . . . why would they have been so nice to her before? The only people they didn't get along with was eachother, it seemed--even though Eroina was afraid that she had caused all their problems.

"Y-you . . . you really think . . ." Eroina sniffled, "Th-that . . . that B-Baleron a-and T-Tanis . . . don't like me . . .?"

It was a terribly depressing thought. Eroina wanted to think that they were her friends even if she was a bit of an annoyance for them--making them do things they didn't want to do and all. What if it was true? What if they really didn't like her? Why would Tanis had done so much for her if he didn't like her, though?

[supernal]

"Oh," His voice was soft and reaching; his words, their gentle curves, brushed against her cheeks in much the same way that his fingers might. Though they didn't. "Oh, don't cry Eroina. It's not your fault. You are a perfectly polite and amiable person. If they don't like you, then it is their fault and their loss."

He leaned in again, so that he could drop his voice to a whisper. His eyes seemed to shine a bit brighter now, and when he spoke his voice came out in two layers. Both of those unassuming layers urged one to a state of complacency; that Fifteen's voice was a pleasant one to the ears, that it soothed the nerves, and that it made one want to remain nearby.

"I don't know what their reasons are Eroina, and I won't pretend to. All I know is that I like you, and I'm here. Tanis and Baleron aren't here." He leaned in closer and closer still, so that when he spoke, it was not a twist of the mind that his breath worked against her flesh. It actually did, and it rolled down her cheek in velvet waves. "What does that tell you?"

He broke away again this time, and his eyes and voice were quick to return to normal.

"I'm no telepath, but simple math gives me at least a vague direction to look towards. Do you still not hunger Eroina? You've barely eaten at all."

[Nayt]

Eroina looked upon Fifteen when he spoke to her. Her eyes constantly threatened to look away and at something else--but what? What else was there now to hold her attention? What reason had she to be here anymore? Eroina didn't know anymore. Out of the three people new people she had became exceptionally close to, Fifteen was the only one left.

Take from it what she could . . . Eroina didn't want to. To do so would be to admit that there was a possibility that Tanis and Baleron didn't like her, regardless of how kind they had been to her--and it would be to admit that she was the cause of her own social undoing. In the end, she would perhaps never believe that Baleron and Tanis had done anything wrong on their own volition, but that she had caused them to do so. She would not have believed that they were shallow or anything of the like, but that she was simply an unlikeable person.

"N-no . . ." she shook her head, "I'm not hungry anymore . . ."

The girl's voice was no stronger than a whisper. She couldn't muster any louder tone; all strength had been effectively removed from her. It was so disappointing, to have brought all this together for a banquet, and--in the end--she couldn't eat, and quite frankly wanted to leave.

"I . . . I kind of . . . I kind of want to lay down . . ."

[supernal]

The girl had no spine. All most people needed was a gentle push in the right direction and then they took off all on their own right, but this girl was just a bowl of jelly. She gave way to every force that would act on her and could not stop up on her own, no matter how much support she may have been given. It was, to no small degree, insulting to Fifteen. He was trying to give legs for the girl to stand on, but rather than take his help like she should have, Eroina was willfully turning him away and choosing to live the life of an invertebrate.

But his voice did not betray the acidic turmoil that bubbled just beneath his skin; that raged against the cage of his flesh and twisted his bones. Fifteen’s voice dripped in the same manner that it always did. Calm and collected, laced with an outer layer of sweetness but cold at its very core. Precise.

“You want to lie down? Here, I’ll help you to your room.” Fifteen stood up elegantly and stalked towards Eroina, his gait exuding all the grace that his nobility implied, and extended his arm out towards her. His smile lit sweet, his eyes shone gently, and he waited patiently. “The day has been taxing on you, I’m sure of it. And we all need some time to ourselves to just…relax and recharge, right? When you’re done resting Eroina, seek me out, will you?”

[Nayt]

She didn't know that Fifteen, too, had been pushed away--to know such would have been devastating for Eroina. It was good that he said nothing about it; that knowledge alone would have been enough to make the girl want nothing more than to lay in bed and sulk for the rest of the week . . .

Eroina accepted Fifteen's help up, but didn't necessarily let go of him after this. In fact, with a sullen meekness, she held onto his arm as if it were her un-life was on the line and Fifteen was the only person in the world that could save her. It may very well have been the case, in fact--albeit the fact that her un-life was not threatened in any way, shape, or form. In fact, despite some the violence that Baleron subjected Fifteen to, Eroina wasn't in the least bit injured or physically worn out--not that she'd have felt it, in any case.

It went without saying that she was not an emotionally mature human being. She was barely even a human being in the first place. While she preferred to be joyous and content, she was equally as capable of feeling dejected and depressed, and very little stimuli was necessary to push her in one direction or the other. It was all just a matter of maturity, and having being new to life, it wasn't an aspect of the mind that she had developed all that much at all. She may have looked like a girl around her mid-teen years, but she was as emotionally mature as a child . . .

Inevitably Eroina did exactly what she had criticized herself for before: hesitantly and with a small voice, the girl inquired so bluntly to Fifteen, "Will you rest with me?"

[supernal]

Fifteen was visibly taken aback by her question, his face painted brightly with heaps of confusion and contemplation, but the great machine of his mind churned heavily as he worked through the possible solutions. He had expected something like this to come from Eroina, though not as quickly as she offered and not quite to the degree. He knew that she had nothing sensual in mind, but it was a big step in the right direction either way. Everything needed a foundation, and this was exactly it.

"No." Fifteen said decisively, and quickly followed with a tone softer than silk. "Not yet at least. I have…some things I need to take care of. My wife, you see, I'm sure she must be worried about me. I haven't spoken to her since we parted, and I don't want her to raise some kind of alarm."

He moved his hand down Eroina's arm and gripped her hand with a certain tightness to it, a certain kind of urgency, but he was always gentle with her. The kind of firm hold that one applied to a fragile piece of china that one did not wish to drop but neither did one wish to break in one's hand.

"But soon Eroina, I can promise you at least that much. For now, you'll have to rest by yourself. But, if you sleep soon enough, I may be able to visit you in your dreams. Wouldn't that be nice?"

He gave her a frail smile, one that threatened to fold in on itself and break, but managed to withstand the force of a passing breeze.

"Does that sound nice?"

He kept them moving into the halls of the palace.

[Nayt]

No.

It struck like a blade through the heart--the heart she didn't have. Eroina half-shut her eyes and gazed ahead blankly. By virtue of knowing where her room was, she unconsciously kept them moving in the right direction; all it took were a few slight nudges and pulls in the right direction, up a flight of stairs, and so on. It wasn't remotely difficult to get there without paying it a thought.

Which was good, because she couldn't bring herself to think about that at the time. Eroina continued to simply stare ahead blankly, wishing she could feel a tightening in her chest right now; it would have made her feel alive, when progressively with each passing second she felt deader and deader. Fortunately, though, Fifteen made amends. Sort of. He gave her hope, at least.

"I-I'll sleep as soon as I get in, then . . ." she whispered, hoping it was true . . .

Getting to Eroina's room didn't take long at all; just seconds after she made her meek declaration, in fact. Once there, she regretfully let go of Fifteen and pressed up against her door. If Fifteen indeed wished to return to this room, he wouldn't find any difficulty. Just up some stairs, down a couple of halls, and that was that.

"I'll sleep as soon as I lay down," she reaffirmed for the both of them, "So I can see you again . . ."

And given no resistance, she'd do just that: opening her door, closing it behind her, and laying down as if there was some imperative need to do so. There was a good chance that Fifteen wasn't going to come back to see her, but she didn't think about that, let along acknowledge it.