Tormented Tarns spiders in your hair, spiders everywhere

”Awfully quick to be asking someone for their needs, miss. Why? What are you offering?”  The dark stranger spoke with obvious amusement – a sentiment Sien did not feel particularly inclined to share. She fought the urge to turn her eyes toward the heavens and ask the Creator for the strength to put up with this…well…unwelcome intruder. Frankly, any number of choicer descriptors had flitted through her mind, but so had Niall’s voice, reminding her, ”Aim to be courteous, Sien”. Tall order, that. Instead of openly expressing distaste at his choice of response, Sien put on her best customer service face, the one that said, “Boy, am I glad to be here right now at this moment talking to you; there is no other thing I’d rather be doing and no other place I’d rather be.” She had a feeling the look was decidedly more strained on her face than it’d ever been on Niall’s, but it was the thought that counted, wasn’t it?
 
Scanning the male with a neutral eye, she took in his bedraggled appearance and sized him up, filing the details away just in case, feeling only a little guilty as she did so. For a few moments, she struggled to come up with a response to his initial inquiry, not in small part because she had to keep discarding the ‘inappropriate’ and ‘out-of-character’ ones that her mind was habitually predisposed to. The silence had nearly stretched itself thin before she finally hit upon something bland and unassuming enough. ”Scenery and spiders.” She said politely, almost genially, with a small nod toward the ponds to make it clear she was not including herself in either category. Her reply left a lot to be desired, but Sien felt entirely justified; it was the stranger's own fault for presenting himself as a such a skeevy character. The implications of what he’d said had not been lost on her, and it was entirely off-putting, not least because she had yet to achieve sexual maturity and he was easily twice her age, if not more, judging by smell and appearance alone. And yet - forgiveness and understanding. She clung to the thought like a lifeline, quietly repeating it like a mantra in her head. Forgiveness and understanding.