For a moment, the dryad looked as if she might shrink away, and though she lingered, her hands emerged from the tree in such a way that it wasobvious she was wrapping her arms around herself. She had the look of someone trying, fighting to be braver than she felt. "Picking my brain sounds... unpleasant. But you don't seem unpleasant. The human tongue is not my first tongue, and I am not so good with words that mean something other than what they mean." She halted abruptly, realizing she was rambling nervously, casting furtive glances at the mouth of the tunnel.<br/><br/>"My name is... My name... my..." Her voice cracked. That simple question, asked so earnestly, so guilelessly, fractured the fragile illusion of composure. and she began to shake her head. She gripped herself tighter, the words pouring forth in a cascading torrent, like a dam had been broken within her.<br/><br/>"It is still coming for you. It will never stop coming for you. It fears the chained devils, as I do. I... I will be punished for failing to capture you. It will be punished for failing to capture you, and so it will never stop. They have driven us all mad with fear, more than a little. It was a minotaur, once," The dryad looks to be on the verge of tears. "But they remade him, made him more like<em>them</em>."<br/><br/>Distantly, the sound of shod hooves against the stone floors of the labyrinth reached Artorius' ears. The implacable pursuer was drawing nearer once again. Even as the dryad poured out her heart, she seemed to fail to realize the time conveying all this was costing him as the threat drew nearer.<br/><br/>"If you have some way to hide from it, Sir Arty, then hide – else fly away, as fast and as far as you can –"