Amara still smiles, more from wonder than anything else.  She doesn't yet dare to let herself think of happiness, of life, too afraid that whatever he's done to get her away from this place can't hold together.  She holds him tightly, like a child clings to the parent that soothes them after a nightmare, still too numb to do anything but agree, to follow him.<br/><br/>Before she quite knows what's happening, she has her things back -- not much, but enough to have kept her travelling for some time.  Now, with her own clothes miraculously back on, the boyish gear that always earns her strange looks, her pack and weapons near to hand, she has time to think of the details.  That quick look away, the relief in his face, the way the villagers had deferred to him -- reluctantly, but they'd given in -- and most of all, in the sun's growing light, she can look at him and begin to trust that she truly is being taken away from that place, to whatever safety they can find in the world.<br/><br/>"Your hair is so short," she says, shaking her head and smiling that wondering smile again.  She remembered it longer, just long enough to look wild and tangled, with one lock that always insisted on falling over his eyes.  No danger of that now, she thinks, startled to realize that she wants to test that hair, to see how it would feel under her hand.  Tempted as she is to override whatever scruple is keeping him at a close but still proper distance, something holds her back for now, and she only leans slightly closer, to return his quiet murmurs.<br/><br/>"I thought they were compatriots, once," she says, and a faint cloud darkens her face.  Her hair is still an almost incongruous halo of light in the sun's rays, the dark tresses shining red.  "Once they were good people, and they did good things... I wish I could tell you what happened to change that, but I hardly know myself."  She sighs, realizing with a pang what strange and bitter lessons she had learned.<br/><br/>"I broke with them weeks ago... I'd been travelling on my own, not quite sure where to go... I'd thought of home, but --"  She breaks off, unwilling to give some things force by speaking them aloud.  Home is perhaps no longer the right word, in any case.  "But I was staying to the safer paths, and stopped here... there was a child missing, the whole village in an uproar searching, and I stayed to help.  That was when Xavian--"  Again she breaks off, now forced to try to control her anger so she can speak.<br/><br/>"He knew they would kill him, but it seems he didn't want to die alone.  I have no idea what he told them -- no one ever bothered to explain precisely what they thought I had done -- but they believed it all, and the rest I suppose you know."  Suddenly she smiles, ruefully, but brilliantly, shaking again from the full force of her relief.  "You know me -- I always wanted adventure first.  I waited as long as I could, but finally I had to get away from that place."  She doesn't say she'd been waiting for him, isn't quite sure that's even true while she's speaking, but suddenly she thinks that they both know exactly what she means.<br/><br/>"How long have you been looking?" she asks, a little too abruptly, seeking safer subjects.  The dark girl casts another glance in Marius' direction, brief but unmistakeable in intent, and Amara just resists a frown, instead leaning closer.