The Tangle but if this changed your life did you have one before

the stranger persists. even as eske recoils he does not appear to have given much consideration towards her demand as he moves to close the distance. she deliberates for a heartbeat of a moment and with a decision that surprises even her she curbs her inclination towards aggression if only because he's had several seconds in which he could have ended her life but hadn't taken the opportunity. in fact, he seemed less interested in her and much more interested in the strange thing around her neck. that is what truly stills her natural aggression. because she wants to know what it is. she wants to know if it's going to hurt her and thus far he's the only one that has showed peculiar interest in it in a way that suggests that maybe he might know something.

he presses his nose to her neck again and she lets out a low, reluctant huff but otherwise allows it, this time. "i don't know." she responds a bit briskly, feeling her previously kept at bay aggression begin to bubble slowly in her chest. if he doesn't know then what good is he? and why would she have any inclination to keep allowing him to touch her? she doesn't. "there was this great big ...bird. maybe." eske isn't sure what she saw. a bird. a dragon. it made no difference. it was big and loud and the last thing she remembers before the grog had set in and she fell unconscious only to wake up with the collar around her neck. "i fell asleep and then i woke up with this ...thing on me." she explains, finding that she's looking to him for some kind of answer despite that she isn't so sure she can provide her with one anymore than anyone else.