Firefly Glen Why won't you chase after me?

He felt just a little triumphant when the girl's face fell even further. He didn't want her to be sad, of course, but he patted himself on the back for being able to identify a damsel in distress. This was what all the stories were about, after all.

Still. He felt for her as he padded a little closer, closing to a conversational distance.

"Oh," he said, as if he could not see the misery writ into the lines of her face. "Where're you headed?"

She was small, he thought, but of an average age to be out on her own. Not like the boy he'd seen before. Perhaps she was experiencing the same fit of nerves and homesickness that he'd felt when he first left home. Or perhaps it was something else. He had to admit that she didn't really seem to need any help — but he couldn't exactly just walk away and leave a sad girl to her own devices, could he?