<div style="text-align: justify;">Alannah drew her head ever so slightly backwards at his tale, her eyes wide and her mouth lightly open. That was horrifying! Demons? Turning to <span style="font-style: italic">ash?</span> A hastily constructed scene with a screaming, burning, crumbling person played out before her inner eyes. She snapped her mouth shut and looked about uncertainly. <span style="color: #4080FF">"Yeah, ya did meet a mermaid,"</span> she told him, eyes shifting restlessly from side to side. <span style="color: #4080FF">"But won't ya be in trouble? I mean, I don't think there'd be a second date if ya were getting chased down by mutant bears all the time."</span> She laughed uneasily, trying to conceal how nervous his stories actually made her. Mermaids were one thing, but having to accept this whole other strange, twisted world was something else entirely.<br/><br/>She turned so that she wasn't facing Dimitri anymore, and rested her hands in her lap. Well, hers and one of Dimitri's since she was still unwilling to let it go no matter how unsettled she was. She could still see him out of the corner of her eye like a dark and confusing outline. <span style="color: #4080FF">"I'm sorry,"</span> she finally said, after what had felt like minutes to her. <span style="color: #4080FF">"It's just a lot to take in. I mean, yesterdee ya were just this very attractive customah, then ya turn out to be a demi-god, and <span style="font-style: italic">then</span> I find out just how much that entails."</span> She sighed. Her half-eaten pretzel was lying next to her, but she had completely lost her appetite. <span style="color: #4080FF">"I mean, would ya blame me for being surprised?"</span><br/><br/>His hand was larger and much warmer than hers, and she gave it an involuntarily squeeze as she spoke. She could feel the butterflies take flight in her stomach again. What if Dimitri, too, could see how crazy it really was? Or worse, what if he couldn't? She had to make him understand how different he was. She wasn't used to such a large mythical world existing, and now it had landed smack dab in front of her in the shape of a boy with dark brown hair and a rare laugh that made her feel like the sun had aimed a spotlight right at her. What she wouldn't give to hear it again.</div>