A tender touch on Levani’s cheek pulled her from her trance towards the forest, the inviting emeralds disappearing towards the background as her attentive, golden gaze slid down to the man positioned on her lap. Something in her skin tingled for it, and though she had been no stranger to his gentle, assuring touches before, she wondered if it had more meaning than she’d been attributing to it. What it meant from him, what it meant to herself. This touch reminded her from before their fight, where he had pulled her from her enveloping fear with something similar, and the memory led to the arm around her waist, warm and secure, and the lips pressed to her own. Warmth blossomed in her chest for the recollection, across her cheeks, grateful that he was busying himself with getting upright. She was not ignorant to such delicate things, such primal things, of mortal bodies, for even several of the tribes had been proud to share their complex and beautiful rituals, but she had never been a part of things. She was created alone, she was made to be alone, for there were no others exactly like her. Even now, in this human flesh, she was unlike Kallo - she was only a mask. Yet still, her body was reacting of its own accord, as though it knew more than she, still alien as it was to such things, brimming with that feeling, that emotion, that she could not name before.<br/><br/>“I am alright. Nothing that rest and salves cannot handle,” Levani had responded absentmindedly, hardly regarding the plethora of nicks in her skin where armor was not there, or was not thick enough. The bruises would be more apparent soon, she was sure, body battered as it was while the wind was knocked from her lungs. She felt that Kallo’s would be larger, deeper, though she knew that he would heal well in due time despite their profoundness. “We are at an old home of mine, deep in the glade, south of the cliffs. The foraging is plentiful here and the black has not seemed to taint it so much. I figured it a good as place to rest as any,” she replied to his inquisition of where they were, while she repositioned herself behind him. Having watched him undress, for the case that she should ever need to know, her fingers deftly found the clasps and buckles for his plates now. There was little pause to aid him, quickly undoing what held the piece together, then slipping it from his body once she had finished. The thought had crossed her mind to do it before he awoke, but she had found her body too drained, too tired. She had hoped what heated in the pot would sap that exhaustion from her bones.<br/><br/>The questions of the creature, and its effects on her, were inevitable. Levani had known this, expected this, and she knew it unfair to continue an impossible charade. Still, she was unsure of how to answer her companion, her lips just as wary to relay any sort of story or admission. How much could she tell him? How much could he know? What would he do if he knew the truth? If he ever saw the truth? The thoughts made her ache for her fur, to flee, and shed this life behind, though such a feeling was passing and she thought it remarkably silly. She would give her life for this place - she would give her true form for it as well, and she would not be one to abandon it for selfishness.<br/><br/>Before Levani had been able to devise some sort of answer, some sort of response that was both sincere and guarded, Kallo had remembered his shattered sword, and she frowned slightly at the heaviness of his tone. It was not shocking, seeing as it was his weapon, a masterpiece of design if only for the difficulty alone, but there was furious emotion threaded there, and she wondered its implications. “I am afraid I could only find the one piece,<i>sul’ima</i>,” she conveyed with a sense of disappointment, rising from her spot at the foot of the hillock. She gestured toward the golem of rock, who had folded itself neatly by a red bark tree not far off, and it rose, revealing a large shard of his blade. “I am afraid to say that I am no blacksmith to mend it, though there is a tribe some miles from here that can do such things, or we can return to the battlefield where we felled the beast, but the earth swallowed the condemned land hole. I cannot promise that the other piece or pieces of it will be found there,” she said, concerned eyes watching him closely, should his anger manifest in a manner that she had not been witness to before.<br/><br/>“We can do either, or both. It is up to you, Kallo,” she assured him quietly, holding her tongue that he would need a weapon regardless, for the battle that they were destined to fight. She moved towards the pot, stirring it quietly, the water having turned scarlet from her additives, and she burst the berries to sweeten the flavor. “Was it a gift?” She asked now, remembering that the only time she’d seen him holster such rage, it had been the discovery of the pendant of his brother. She glanced to him, to watch the expression of his face, to listen, before digging into the pack that she’d managed to save from the field, and pulled out two cups. She filled both with the warm tea, seating herself back at the foot of the hill, placing his cup beside her, should he have no immediate desire to drink, or wanted to inspect what was left of his sword.<br/><br/>Silently, Levani sipped her drink, promptly grounding herself with the tart flavors, the aroma intoxicating, the berries offering a near drug-like effect to calm and soothe. When she’d had the moment, she said simply, “That creature was one of the others.” Her eyes flicked to him, to see if he remembered, to see if he understood. Her words were a careful dance. “I remembered them from my youth. They were old even then, so long ago. They were one of the Watcher’s oldest. I was looking for them when the black came. They must… they must have been hiding all this time. It must have found them and they’ve been fighting it, or I would have found them before,” her voice tightened as she spoke, but she forced strength into her words, lest she lose them and could tell him nothing. She couldn’t tell him that she saw herself inside its face, that she was afraid she would end the same way. That the corruption would overtake her and she would die knowing she had tried to kill him, or she would succeed and lose her mind to eternity. “That’s what it meant to me. Now drink. We need our wits about us to decide our next course of action carefully. That was not the source of the black here - merely a symptom.”