The soft touch of his fingers across her brow juxtaposed with the death-shrieks of the grass below made her sick, and Paige couldn't help the soft sob that escaped her chest, barely listening to him. She could smell<em>everything</em>, in the way only the nauseated could, and her eyes opened, tears spilling down cheeks as she pleaded with him silently to get on with it, ignoring the warnings. Her stomach roiled, pain echoing through every nerve ending. She didn't care what he did, as long as he did it. The wash of embarrassment caught her off guard, the pain turning it into horrible humiliation, as he began to work. It was slow, as he began to drain a bit of her stores, ebbing away at her power. She grit her teeth. Paige had been hoping that she could get away with avoiding sex on the excursion. It was too bad that she'd forgotten about the sympathetic empathy. It didn't usually bother her in the tower. At most she would know when a potted plant needed water, and she avoided the herb gardens out back of the kitchen.<br/><br/>As the pain faded, his emotional transferrance became more obvious, and a flush rose in her cheeks. She knew the emotions were from him, and as her eyes dried, they flicked away, avoiding every kind of eye contact. His concern was a balm on her shattered nerves, but the attraction... Paige had known her body was attractive enough, but only Duncan had ever shown signs of wanting her. She was a half-breed. They always said that prejudice was dead, but not for halflings. They were short lived, clumsy, and ugly, to the elves, and to the humans, they were too pretty by half, unnaturally graceful and they envied the longevity - they would live long enough to be satisfied with life, but not long enough to find hell in life. She pushed the emotions aside, as she sighed in relief.<br/><br/>So he thought she was attractive, he was a human. And he resented her, but one could appreciate the beauty in a thunder storm, and still hate it for endangering them, right? "Thank you." She said, closing her eyes to focus on the link, and attempt to stem its flow. She ignored his scolding of learning to siphon emotions. She had absolutely no talent with the mind-magics. Telepathy and empathy and the like. The only sort of mental feedback she could get was from plants. She could no more siphon than she could grow wings and fly.<br/><br/>She pulled back from his fingers, wanting away from his touch.