The crystalline drops of dew, still forming on the shorn grass, glisten in the glow of lingering starlight and the faint glow of the wakening sky.  Moving along the flagstones with tender steps, Ithi'Ka detects the motion of Kasumi's martial practice and steers her path toward the gaping arches of the barracks facades, moving among pools of shadow, from one to another in a halfhearted, but hopeful, attempt at stealth.  She finds it captivating to watch the precision and ease of Kasumi's movements from the lingering dark... she has always felt fenced off from those she knows, even the few she cares for.  The monk may be one of those... so out of place among these gothic spires and animated dead, this nation of darkness, Ithi'Ka cannot help but find her fascinating.  The physical attraction is there as well, gnawing at that core of Ithi'Ka's primal needs that she so desperately tries to bury.<br/><br/>For this moment, though, she's able to shut out the normal reactions-- embarrassment, jealousy, loneliness-- and just watch.  Kasumi's smoothly connected motions and artful dancing seem to impart some of their fluidity by proxy, and she's there with the monk, savoring that emptiness, that void.  A cool darkness spreads in her mind, an emptiness, giving her chaotic mind a moment's peace, the sense of losing herself to something else.  Such a relief, such peace... is this what death is like?  But it's not just emptiness... it's a desire to be completed by something, a desire for perfection, as if in the absence of distraction the need can be made clear.<br/><br/>She watches for some time, she knows not how long.  She then emerges into the light of the open yard, the cold gray of the lightening sky, her footfalls silent among distant insect songs and the morning rustle of elm trees.  She draws back her hood, letting herself be recognized, and approaches with her hands loose at her sides.  Her head is dipped as if in submission, and she waits for Kasumi to acknowledge her presence before approaching further.  Habits die hard, and this is the way of her clan... or was, when there was such a thing.