<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ccff">The girl who called herself Clio knew when she had first been welcomed by the Romani folk that she would have to leave someday, that she was not truly one of them, and that her presence would cause a rift in their otherwise peaceful lifestyle. She knew that, wherever she went, it would be much of the same. Her senses had told her as much and it was that otherworldly sense that had never been wrong before. There were some who lived in the world who had the Sight; they were sensitive to such things. Clio had just hoped she would pass herself off as just another who was prone to know things rather than reveal her true nature. After all, true magic was now forbidden in the world, since the last world was fought using it.<br/>
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What occurred now in the very tent that she set up every night, sometimes in different lands, as they wandered the continents, only secured what she always knew. Still, her heart sunk down to her gut and turned cold even as blood raced through her veins, speeding her breath and making her head throb like a drum. Her past crept up like something unbidden when Tomasin lunged like he did, spewing words from his mouth like venom to strike her worse than any physical blows. The words fairy slut echoed inside her skull, bouncing off her brain before it started to sink in. Even though the stranger had come to her rescue, she spared no glance for him. Instead, luminous dark eyes were glued to the twisting face of the Romani leader’s own son, feeling his hatred, even beyond the drunken stupor he was in.<br/>
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The terror seeped away from her face until the frozen expression crumpled in on itself. Both men’s voices faded into the background as her vision swam and she turned away, breath caught. It was time for her to leave. Even though Tomasin wrenched himself away just as the stranger released him with a dark look on his face. He made no more moves toward Clio, however, for even in his drunken state acknowledged that some things were not worth his own life.<br/>
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“This isn’t over,” he warned her, sweeping his glare over to the man as well. “And you have no right to be here either,” he snapped, moving away from the both of them. The entire tent shook when the other man pushed the flap aside and ducked back outside into the night, leaving both Clio and the stranger alone together.<br/>
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She turned her attention away from him and to the mess that Tomasin had made of her space. Cards littered the floor and the crystal ball that acted as a propped to the mystique had toppled heavily over next to her chair that lay on its side. Her foot had landed on the veil that had been used to cover her face, though now her hair acted as it, the mussed dark waves fanning out over her shoulders with stray strands teasing the small, delicate features of her face. She was as a moth was. Pretty, in its own way, but also easily torn apart and killed. And right then she looked like she could be pulled apart and left in two pieces on the floor.<br/>
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“Thank you,” she eventually said, long lashes fluttering as her dark gaze lifted up to meet the stranger’s eyes, curiosity piquing in their depths. “But you did not have to intervene, sirrah, I would have been fine-- I… have perhaps overstayed my welcome as is.” For a long moment, the girl looked lost, eyes glazed and lost in thought while her eyes rolled to where Tomasin had just disappeared back into the night. Finally, her attention sharpened and she once more steadied her attention on the strange man. “You are a stranger here to this land, stumbled here by accident and not on purpose,” she stated, knowingly, eyes searching his face. “You also walk with a heavy burden on your shoulders.<br/>
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Blinking, she hesitantly moved forward, hand extended, and touched the side of his face with her bare digits. They were warm, humming with something just underneath the surface, like tiny invisible feelers that sunk into his skin. “Bloodlust, a killing instinct, always at war with the man inside. Your soul is intact, but…” She dragged her hand away, cheeks flushing, and looked up with a curious, but haunted look on her face. “It is owned by unnatural desires,” she finished, awkwardly. “You are a hunter.”<br/>
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This time she drew herself completely away from him, eyes roaming once more to the sounds filtering in from the festivities outside. “We must go, I think…” Her sights came back to him again as she replied. “What can I do to repay you, sirrah?”</span>