<div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a4/7c/b3/a47cb3f5dd52631f4f260dc271ebd785.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/>Alara Raye DeLeone knew where she stood.<br/><br/>It was a place she had called home after only a few weeks. It was somewhere that she had known for a long time, and yet had only begun to explore. It was where she had met him. Where she had fallen in love. Where time had slowed down to a crawl as she cherished each moment. It was where she had challenged her parents for the right to love and marry as she wished. It was where she had been granted that wish, and blessings from her parents to do so. It was was where she felt her life spread out before her like mist. Visible to the eye, but ever shifting. It was where she wasn't afraid anymore. And it was where she would marry him, if he was of a mind to do so. It was where she planned her 19th birthday to be the most memorable of her life, combined with her wedding.<br/><br/>That date was only a few months away. If she could convince him to marry her. He had kissed her a few times, but nothing more. But she could feel the genuine affection he held for her. The love, desire, and longing for more. She wanted him just as much. It was almost crazy how much that was true.<br/><br/>Her natural instinct to reach our and brush his mind with her own was met with a warm, but bored fuzzy thought. The man of her affections drifting nearby with his partner on a routine mission of excavation. She sent him some happy thoughts of her own, with a promise to give him something more entertaining to focus on when he returned from duty.<br/><br/>She then let it go and began to walk towards that area, taking in all the beautiful sunny, clean aired surroundings. She had not cast out her senses to detect anything more than another neighbor passing by her on the sidewalk. Nor had she done what her mother said could cost her dearly, even in a safe place. It was Safehouse after all, and everyone<span style="font-style: italic">knew</span>that nothing really bad ever happened here. So when the earth beneath her shook violently, knocking her from her feet, she did not immediately try to sense things around her for danger. No, instead she sensed for people injured nearby.<br/><br/>She released a pent up breath when none was found to be injured... but held it again when once more there was another violent shudder that did more than knock her from her feet. It sent her flying into a nearby tree. Crashing into the limbs of the outlandish looking plant that snagged at her clothes and hair, temporarily trapping her. She gasped at the feel of one or two of the sharp branches breaking her skin and causing a bit of blood to flow.<br/><br/>But that was not the worst of it. No, the worst was the moment she heard<span style="font-style: italic">his</span>goodbye.<span style="font-style: italic">~"Good bye, Alara. I'm sorry."~</span>The sudden silence and presence she had grown to know so well going dark, unable to be reached. She instinctively searched for his power signature, finding nothing. His mind ripped from her ability to find it. And the moment she saw the stirring of the giant worms where she was temporarily trapped, writhing out of the ground, rapidly approaching her location, and knowing that is where he<span style="font-style: italic">had</span>been just moments before.<br/><br/>"No... no.... NOOOOO!" She cried out pathetically. Already feeling the presence of her family coming to her distress, so profound was it. She felt herself start to fade into shock from the loss. Her heart wanting to stop. Or at least she felt as if it should stop at that moment.<br/><br/>Her mother, Danni DeLeone, pushed the others out and then prompted her mind to accept, to understand. She didn't want to, but Danni would not let her lose herself to the moment of sorrow. She pushed open her mind further, Alara only moaning slightly wanting to go into the darkness where he could be found. It was a strange sensation to feel her mother pump her mind into kicking up the adrenaline that made her heart begin to race. Her body not allowing her to fade out into a welcomed blanket of blackness that was denial.<br/><br/>Alara slowly began to breathe again. She felt her mother's soothing touch, and her father's frustrated anger at not being allowed to help. She felt the rest of her family touch at her to get her moving. She looked up and around herself, tears running like rivers down her face. She was unharmed, if a bit in shock from the sudden impact from loss. She could feel the racing of her heart now, driving her onwards to remain aware. And for the first time she was able to hear her mother's repeating statement within her mind.<br/><br/>~<span style="font-style: italic"> Get moving! You can not die here helpless and dishonor his wishes. You need to help those around you to flee. GET MOVING!</span>~<br/><br/>Then her father's mind touched her own again, and she felt his love and support. Also telling her that she needed to see what it was so they could eliminate it from the colony. His words filtering in as Danni finally allowed it, the anger (not at her) in his mind's voice evident.<br/><br/>~<span style="font-style: italic">Get up a real hero knows there's a time for vengeance and a time to mourn, now get up and protect everyone and take your vengeance.</span>~<br/><br/>She felt more of her senses returning, and slowly began to disentangle herself from the tree she had been caught in, her ire awoken fully by her father's words. She was going to let the anger take her, not the shock. She was determined to fight, but where she would be found for the next couple of minutes was extracting herself from the alien tree as the worms bore down closer to everything around them.