Dingy - 37

She watched him carefully, studying his reaction with her mismatched eyes. She knew before he moved that he was readying himself to leave. She could see it in the way he finished his drink, the way his eyes darted.

The unfamiliar location sparked a mental searching within the wiry young woman. Saint Patricks... unbidden, images of shamrocks and tiny bearded men sprang to mind, memories that she'd never bothered to encounter before. Saint Patricks... a cathedral. Water from a church. Shadows drawing round...

Holy water?

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Again, a dozen half familiar connotations flooded to mind.

Surely he was joking.

Her legs unbent, and she found herself standing to follow, eying the barkeep warily and offering a curt nod. She didn't buy it. What she knew of this world, what context spoke- demons were a thing of her former life. This place was supposed to be different. Colder, more brutal. God was a desperate hope, prayer was delusion. She was done with the ethereal and the otherworldly; this place promised hope of a different definition of normal. John had just taken that from her.

Rhainn's jaw clenched as she moved for the door, no longer looking directly after John. Her steps were blind, mind churning. A vague sick feeling wrestled with the whiskey in her stomach- the physical sensation of hopes being quashed. Well fine. If this world wasn't what had been promised by her contextual memory- then she would simply have to adapt. She was tired of running, anyway. Time to move on to find something to stand against, and fight. Da would be so proud of her, battling demons and evil whole world away from the reality she knew; what a good little paladin's daughter she was.

A bitter growl parted her lips through clenched teeth as she pushed open the door and moved back out into the rain, oblivious to where John was or was not.

One Man's Treasure - 37

She didn't meet his eyes as he spoke, his voice as smooth as silk across her frayed nerves. Her mismatched eyes swept the surroundings, and she tried hard to swallow past the lump in her throat. Mortification burned within her, despair tempered with aching- she had to find him. She had to find Dante. Again and again, her mind hammered out the details of her barely formed plan; ask Adrian to help, and find Dante. Then figure out how to get home.

Still, as he spoke, his voice quiet and smooth, she peered over to him timidly through a fringe of misplaced white hair, timid and cautious. She watched him place his hand upon her tearstain... and even as she obediently stared at the spot, it vanished before her eyes.

Her heart beat faster, and her eyes grew wide. This wasn't right. Things like this- and things like her- did not have a place here in this world. All of her strange new knowledge said that this wasn't possible.

She felt fear- and hope. So Adrian wasn't what he looked like, either!

Her lips parted in a startled gasp, and a frail sort of smile crept over her features. A timid, tired expression, as she studied the place that her tears had marked not moments ago. "I- I see." She stammered.

"S-so you're... not like everyone else here, too?" She asked quietly, daring to meet his eye with hers. Her heart began to hammer frantially against her chest. She was taking a risk... but Light, if it were true, just imagine! Maybe he came from back home, too! Maybe he knew a way out?

Possibilities rose and fell beneath a tide of hopes, dreams beginning to form before fading. She didn't know anything yet.