your poker face ain't fooling nobody

But there was also the desert, to skirt the worst of the fallout from the eruption she'd be forced to move through the desert and even into the northern regions of the continent not only would that take her longer to get back she didn't particularly fancy the idea of braving the extra cold the calamity had wrought. Samara also only had a small store of herbs to help with her joint pain, a gift from Deathbelle and one she desperately needed, having depleted her store long long ago, and she wasn't keen on pushing her luck on that again.

So eastward it was, but that meant getting closer to the volcano than was really comfortable. She tried her best to give herself as much space as she could but one particularly harrowing day on the shoreline had taught her that the water wasn't safe either. So she'd tried to establish a happy medium, inland but not too close to the big angry fire mountain.

Though being this close to the volcano had started to bring out the memories of the time she'd been along its base. Rhyme's face returned to her frequently. She could remember the sort of flustered shyness he'd shown back then, how he'd laughed at her joke. The strength of his limbs as he'd supported her weight. The kindness he'd shown a total stranger. The ache to her pride, of having been discovered so totally helpless as she had been had dulled to the point of disappearing over the time she'd spent in Abaven, she'd never been comfortable being so dependent but she'd come to be okay with it around him...

There was some bitterness there too though, he'd kept her at more of an arm's length when she'd left than even that first day. Samara knew there was much on his mind, that he was struggling under the weight of so much but it almost hurt, that she'd learned to be okay with the idea of vulnerability in his presence and he clearly didn't feel the same.

She was so wrapped in her thoughts that she didn't notice the familiar scent that reached her as she maneuvered carefully among the roots. It wasn't until the hulking familiar form of Rhyme himself was in front if her that Samara stopped. She stared for a moment, uncertain she simply wasn't imagining. Then she moved a bit closer, still a fair ways away.

"Rhyme?" She asked, her voice strong but uncertain. He looked like shit, he was covered in gunk and the parts of him not wet with mud had clearly not been cared for in some time. There was something about the manic fervour of his movements, the way his gaze slid over whatever was in front of him without a single hitch that planted a deep seed of dread in her stomach... what had happened since she'd been away?


"Speak!" Think!