Heron Lake Plateau I guess I keep a-gamblin'

Raleska's gaze was unflinching as she watched her words take effect. There was the thing about words, once spoken - they tended to course down a person, trickling through the way water finds a current -- and then, they pooled: either that pool turned stagnant and bitter, or it found its own course and eventually, passed clear.

Cinder was not to be deflated - at least not visibly. He redirected her misdirected aggression with tact that not even most adults possessed - Raleska felt impressed, and she was quick to quell the fanning fingers of quiet admiration that threatened to take ahold of her.

She considered his question with all the compunction (and equal reservation) of a child and then blurted: "I like swimming." Then, she realized she had opened up herself to be ridiculed for the things she did like -- if her brothers were still alive, they would sink their claws into such an opening, and torment her mercilessly; she half expected Cinder to be the same, and again challenge seemed to snake into her gaze, laced with fragments of distrust.