Firefly Glen but when i go to sleep at night, don't you call my name

Riley tried, truly, to stick with the bucks and punchesTiercel's conversation dictated. It was like sitting out a rowdy bronc -- eventually his faculties tired, and he was presented with the sobering reality of any wannabe-cowboy -- that this ride was coming to a swift conclusion (and interjection, most likely by merit of momentum + gravity + immovable object -- in this case, earth), and he had lost the last vestiges of control long ago.

He didn't think questioning the intention of a stranger was without merit, but Tiercel chugged on, leaving him no room in which to interject. By the time he had processed his rebuttal she was several zipcodes over in terms of subject geography, leaving him to furrow his brow and try to think anew.

She moved and his dull gaze followed her suspiciously. At last came a pause in her speech, the lift of her tone suggesting a question that was not rhetorical.

Click, shift, whirrrrr -- he didn't understand the reason for this exercise. A monster was something indescribable. Something that was not right - with eight legs, or spider jaws -- a monster was something to fear. A monster was something he did not understand. His brain wracked up possible answers to this confusing scenario. "Anything which hurts me." He responded, his tone thick and speech slower than iced-over molasses. There had been many monsters in his life: his mother, his aunt, his father. He had known many more, not all related to him by blood -- that haunting image of Merrick and his kiln-fire eye had yet to fully fade from Riley's subconscious. There was a monster, too -- and Riley felt an age old fear seize him that he was every bit the monster in which his ancestry dictated.