Perhaps she had heard the words but they did not feel truly familiar.  Books still existed and she had been an avid reader in her younger years, but the concept of any kind of love felt foreign. Even her parents, she did not think they were together because they truly loved each other.  It was a matter of survival.  They needed each other.  They needed her as well, she was their ticket to security.  Or at least, she had been.  The thought made the need to get to them all the more urgent.<br/><br/>She took the jar from Geraint and followed his lead, applying the oil where it needed to be applied.  It was odd to be so close to him but still smell nothing, so much so that her nose wrinkled as she tried to sniff the air.  She had to give him some credit for the fact that he was still willing to risk his hide despite her fears about a possible connection with Blackvayne.  Either he was just a good person, or he was seriously motivated to get a chance to figure out more about her former master.  “Most of them man the walls or stay near the castle, my parents are the only ones that live near the humans...” She said as they moved toward the tall stone walls that marked the outer edge of the village.<br/><br/>The door wasn’t really a door at all.  The ground had shifted, and some of the stones had crumbled, leaving an area big enough to fit through.  On the other side, there were tall grasses which obscured the view of the break in the wall.  It was not enough to fit an army through, but more than enough for Geraint and Vara to crawl through.  Once they made it, she let him through the grasses to the area where the village had a few homes and farming areas.  Just as she predicted, there was clothing out on lines.  She snatched the first dress she saw and pulled it on over her body.  The fabric was rough and not like the leathers and soft clothing she usually wore, a benefit of serving Blackvayne directly.<br/><br/>She waited until Geraint also donned some kind of clothing before grabbing a kerchief off the line and wrapping it around her hair.  It would not hide her face completely, but no one around her would expect her to be dressed like this.  “Stay close.”  She motioned, as she led him down a pathway, toward more small, hand made houses.  Most were made with mismatched bricks and clay mortar.  Sturdy, but oddly shaped.  They passed several of these homes before Vara stopped and sniffed the air.  Fear flooded her face and her step quickened, until she made a sharp turn toward one of the houses.  She did not need to step inside of her childhood home to know that something horrible had happened.  She could smell it.<br/><br/>“Blood.  It’s...It’s them.  I...We should leave.  We should go now.  I don’t want to be here.”  There were independent windows on the dwelling, but the door had been something left over from the old world and she stood close enough to see through the small window on the front of it.  She did not see bodies, but there was blood on the furniture within, more than enough to kill a person.  Vara turned away, facing the path they had walked in on.<br/><br/>“Please...” It was the only word she could muster.  The animal in her cried to be free, so she could run out of here on four legs instead of two, but she knew that would expose them...