Despite her shyness and general wariness of strangers, Verena didn’t see a reason not to give the pair a straight answer. She wouldn’t tell them as much as she told her, but she wasn’t planning on outright lying.<br/>Shaking her head to indicate that she had indeed been intimidated by Tarkus’s stature, she replied.<br/>“My name is Verena...He just startled me, is all.” She looked up at Tarkus briefly, having to tilt her head back to look up at him. She quickly averted her gaze however, and squished herself to one side of the hallway and began scooting past the pair.<br/>“I’ll, um, be going now” she coughed, continuing her attempt to make herself as small as possible and maintain maximum distance from Tarkus and Vasma. Her face was flushed with embarrassment at having been caught hiding, so she stared directly at the floor to avoid eye contact. Admittedly, this probably was not the best course of action, but she wanted to minimize the amount of contact she had with the pair.