Ankyra Sound There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon

He was reeling. Raleska processed this with a frown, feeling a sense of culpability for what she had accidentally inflicted. It had not been her intention but... to someone hurt, intentions were often irrelevant.

I was never one of them. But he was -- maybe not in blood or spirit or the way he deserved, but he had once been not Rusalkan -- and once upon a time that felt so long ago, that had meant everything.

She could have grappled for something to say to ease the hurt she saw dart across his champagne eyes, but she wasn't in her best, most clear-thinking state of mind at the moment. She was still feeling lightheaded, still on edge from the panic moments before.. and still, dully aware her time might be coming to a close.

His hackles bristled like little quills, outrage outpouring from his every swath of skin. And then something -- she didn't know what -- fled across his face. A flicker of blackness. Of outright fear. Or shame, or something unspeakable.. she didn't know, but she read into that emotion well and a sense of dread knotted tightly in her stomach. Her brow wrinkled as she tried to make sense of his most recent words. ".. What..?" Was it because of the Dragedans, surely hid in the depths of the Grotto?

Was he giving her a chance to escape, before they caught wind of her presence?

It didn't jive -- not with the way he had reacted to being called one of them, and not with.. well, all of it. If he wasn't one of them, why was he here? Raleska felt that sickness in her stomach grow, gurgling unhappily into something worse than dread. She didn't know what was going on -- but the shade that had darkened Ephraim's face fleetingly was possibly one of the most disconcerting things she had ever seen -- and it filled her with kindred apprehension.