After a few more minutes of tapping around in the small room, Thea’s constantly-moving personality was once again starting to bug her. Even if it hurt like hell, she wanted out of the room’s confines. She felt as if she were slowly going insane, not to mention the small mix of guilt and anger she felt at Lucas’s comments.<br/><br/>Sighing quietly, she walked over to her bag and opened it, removing a small cap and placing it on top of her frizzy hair, tying back the mess with an elastic band.  She tied her jacket around her waist, shoving her bag on her shoulders, and ducked out under the carpet door.<br/><br/>She mainly just wandered around for a few minutes, hugging the wall and trying not to fall. She was heading outside in hopes of finding something interesting, when she ran directly into a rather large, muscular body.<br/><br/>“Crayton?” She asked carefully, looking up to find his grey-blue eyes and shiny bald head.<br/><br/>“Mouse?” He gave her an equally confused look, “Whatcha got them glasses on for?”<br/><br/>“Been one hell of a day since you left,” She half-smirked, which turned into a full out laugh as he slapped her on the back and lead her out the door.<br/><br/>~*~<br/><br/>“So let me get this straight. You woke up in pain and fell on the floor. Then Lucas came in, you shoved yourself into him, and then insisted you were only using him as a muffler, before dismissing him. And now you’re pissed because he said some stupid things?”<br/><br/>“Don’t patronize me. Look, now I have to walk all the way to Lumina with this guy, and it’ll be an even bigger hell than the ride here with you.”<br/><br/>The man took a long long moment of silence, placing his cigarette between his teeth and drawing i back, knocking ash onto the dry ground.<br/><br/>“You’re just upset that he challenged you. You’re used to being the Alpha,  and now you feel threatened because someone’s trying to take that position away from you. You’re reputation’s all you got behind your name, and you don’t want to lose it because of some Beta you think is less than you.” He drawled, keeping his gaze forward on the setting sun.<br/><br/>“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult,” She replied, looking at him across the opening in the tent. They each sat on the ground, leaning against one of the PVC poles surrounding a back doorway. There were about three feet separating them, and Thea was glad for the space. It made her feel like she were free to think by herself, while also having someone else to confer with.<br/><br/>“Let’s put it this way. Where I used to live, there were a ton of wolves. Everywhere. Before I actually start, you gotta understand that I personify everything, so don’t think I’m crazy for some of the things I say. Now, in my first home, there was a pack that lived not too far away. I got to know the pack, not personally, of course, but the way it worked. There was one wolf in the pack who strutted around, and would snap at everything and everyone who tried to go suggest anything different. Everyone eventually learned not to question him. Until a wolf from outside the pack joined in with the Alpha’s own. The two wolves both took control of separate parts of the pack, and eventually faced off for complete leadership,”<br/><br/>“And what happened?” Thea asked, though she had a feeling she would regret the answer.<br/><br/>“They slaughtered each other. They both died a long, painful death from their unhealed wounds. The pack left the area and I never saw them again.”<br/><br/>“That’s pretty bleak,” She grimaced, and Crayton turned to look at her, studying her expression for a few minutes.<br/><br/>“Yeah, it is. Don’t know why the Alpha didn’t just let it go,” He gave her another sideways look and sighed a bit.<br/><br/>“You can stop hinting at me, you know. I get your point,” Thea was getting a bit tired of this whole cautionary tale crap.<br/><br/>He chuckled slightly, shaking his head. “You remind me of a girl I once knew. Four or so years ago, when I was your age.”<br/><br/>“Is this another warning for me on my legendary journey?”<br/><br/>“No. No, actually, I proposed to her and she laughed in my face. Said she wasn’t interested in becoming my house wife. She left the next day,” He seemed pretty amused by the whole account. “Never met a wilder soul in my life. Hell, she’d probably even go knife to hand against you just because she wanted a story to tell.”<br/><br/>“She sounds great,” Thea added, sincerity in her voice. She always had a fleeting bit of hope that whenever someone mentioned a lady of wild nature, they were talking about her mother. Maybe the escorts had lied to her when she’d asked what happened to them. Maybe they wanted to see her reaction to her parents’ death. Maybe they’d just been toying with her. It was ridiculous, stupid to put energy into a lie, but she held onto it. With all her ignorant hope, she held onto it as if it were a kite being carried away by a storm.<br/><br/>“She was. Really into cultures from before the GI. She used to be a historian, before she was kicked out. Made me this necklace,” He took out a small circle of wood with an unrecognizable design carved on it. “Said I needed a bit more luck in my life, so she gave me an elephant. Unfortunately, her artistry skills were a bit out of practice.”<br/><br/>Thea made a motion with her hand, and Crayton kindly handed it over. Now that she looked a bit closer, she could see a bit of the design on it. A bit.<br/><br/>“It might be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” She said, smirking, though unable to stop studying it’s rough features.<br/><br/>“Agreed. But, now its yours. You’ll be needing it a whole lot more than I will. And we can’t have you dying out there, can we?” He joked, though Thea could see the emotion hidden behind his smile. This was a good bye gift, and she had no idea what kind of farewell this was. It could be a “see you soon”, a “we’ll meet again”, or even a bittersweet “it was nice knowing you”.<br/><br/>She rolled it over and over in her hands, before hooking it around her neck and tucking it under her shirt.<br/><br/>“You knew how much I would hate this, didn’t you?” Was what she said. What she meant was<span style="font-style: italic">Thank you. You’ll be the first person I’ll take care of when we win this, I promise.</span><br/><br/>The man just gave a simple laugh, lovingly rustling her hair before stepping back inside.<br/><br/>“See you later, Mouse.” He tossed behind him, leaving Thea alone under a dark sky.