<span style="font-style: italic">Alais</span><br/><br/>Alais stiffened slightly when she was addressed, looking away.  She had half-hoped to remain unnoticed, and slip away after she knew Zane was well, though she knew that that would never have happened.  She shook her head slightly, bangs further obscuring her face.  â€œNo.  I had thought about going to a hotel, butâ€¦â€ she let it trail into silence.  â€œI can always go to another town, if itâ€™s an inconvenience.â€<br/><br/>Staying at the edges of the room, she felt the enormity of the situation she was in for the first time.  The world she had so desperately constructed around herself was lying in rubble at her feet, the world she had hidden from her daughter exposed to the light at last.  Nothing would ever be the same.  Now, she would only be able to struggle through this new world, the new Styx, and she wasnâ€™t sure sheâ€™d ever fit in here again.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic"><br/>Liliane</span><br/><br/>â€œUmmmâ€¦okay.  Is thatâ€¦not normal for, well, all of this?â€  She waved vaguely around her, trying to indicate the entire world they were in, of reapers and, apparently, shifters.  Looking at her hands, twisting nervously, Liliane said, â€œI justâ€¦I donâ€™t really know whatâ€™s going on with everything.  Itâ€™s a lot to take in.  I hadnâ€™t even heard of any of this untill, like, a day ago!â€