As Halieu and Rian (mostly Halieu) lead the way back to the tavern, Ren grabbed at Halieu's sleeve and proceeded to grab his forearm. The boy gave a meek apology at the action. Halieu offered him a slight smile even though he knew the action was more or less pointless.<br/><br/>"Don't worry about it. Sometimes I feel the same way. At least you have an excuse." It was meant to be slightly humorous and hopefully lighten the mood a bit.<br/><br/>They made the rest of the trip to the inn in silence. Upon entering, they showed Ren to a booth and he offered to get them something. The two had already eaten, but they didn't want to be rude and turn down the offer. As a compromise, the two simply ordered water.<br/><br/>Halieu took a drink of water then realized they hadn't introduced themselves. "Ah, yes," he said, "forgive our poor manners. My name is Halieu Hitsugaia."<br/><br/>It seemed Rian's mood had improved slightly after having something to drink and he swallowed what was in his mouth, ready to introduce himself. "And my name is Rian Hakitsu," he said cheerfully.<br/><br/>Halieu chose not to mention the fact that while he was glad Ren had found a ride he could not have entered down in a more conspicuous manner.<br/><br/>As time went on, Halieu began to notice that he wasn't being pushed as forcefully from the boy's mind. At some point Ren's guard dropped almost completely. Halieu had adjusted his power to account for the pressure in the boy's mind so he wouldn't have that constant shoving sensation. As a result, when his guard was lowered, Halieu unintentionally plunged deep into the boy's mind. When it got so far that he was seeing the boy's memories, he realized what was happening and immediately pulled back out, adjusting his view to just generally scope the surrounding area, without going into much detail.<br/><br/>As if he were somewhat ashamed of digging so deep into someone's mind unintentionally, Halieu lowered his head slightly, averting his eyes to stare at a wall somewhere.<br/><br/>When the boy next spoke, it surprised Halieu. He'd touched on some odd, troubled thoughts, but he didn't go into detail and had disregarded them. Hearing Ren's input made him realize he'd been hearing distressed thoughts from a lot of people. His curiosity started to automatically push his mind farther into those around him, but he pulled it back again.<span style="font-style: italic">I'm not entirely sure I want to know what's going on here.</span><br/><br/>"Well, you're right," Halieu said. "something is definitely off." At the remark, Rian gave him a curious look, as if asking him to go into detail. Halieu just looked at him and vaguely shook his head.