Sunspire Mountains all the butterflies have turned to vultures in my stomach

if she had even an inkling that his hormonal body was fumbling with a lighter to ignite the torch he was starting to carry for her, esmé would have snatched it out of his hands and used it to clobber some sense into him. what a pity for the both of them if that flame ever caught. he was going to get his feelings hurt and she would be a sieve to any contrite emotion. 

the kicked-puppy question punctuating his reply to her moot aroused some confusion. why had she left him at the glade? she'd told him several times she was leaving. it wasn't like she said she was going to the gas station to get cigarettes. for that reason alone, she had to cover a swathe of possible instances he would tab as "abandonment" in his binder. "in the glade? i didn't leave you. i left. why did i leave you behind once you started following me? i didn't, you just disappeared. what do you take me for anyway? your keeper? i'm not." she rolled her eyes with exasperation; what erroneous act had she done to deserve such ligature? 

oh yeah. that one erroneous act. she would argue she had done right by herself, but homicide was homicide in the unfair bullshit court of whatever deity sentenced her to riley. sisyphus got off easy with his gods.

"otherwise i haven't the damndest idea what you mean. anyway, back to this man," she steered them away from his brickly sensibilities/mental logjam and pried some more about this vulgarian he'd taken up with. he ate from their cache, and rootless nomads like herself didn't have any practical use for caches. it didn't bode well, in her opinion. "no, mmm. i mean, were they together? running together? were there more of them?" esmé haplessly pelted him with questions. "so one of the men sends you ... on an errand? what was at the waterway? what did you and this other man speak about?" 

because if one of those wolves had sent riley on an errand, and riley didn't return from that errand, they might be looking for him, find success, and possibly by proxy, find her. that was a fortissimo fuck no from her. while she didn't fear them, she preferred a bucolic lifestyle these days, and only the occasional murder. #justgirlythings

anything that interfered with her designs also interfered with her patience, and this man was already getting her wick without even meeting him. "what was his name? the one who calls you 'peaches'," she shuddered with irritation, the tip of her tail lashing like mad.  

she hadn't forgotten about the SoGgY TrEes or the commencement of hostilities that had taken place there, but that was a riley problem for another minute. the populace of the area's pestiferous underbelly were of more importance to her presently.