<div class="floatright">(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/2125/duskq.jpg)</div><br/>Promise didn't seem to have any objection to being followed, nor having someone sit near her.  However, her eyes stayed dutifully upon the horizon, watching the demonic hordes in the event of a raiding party.<br/><br/>When the two offered to bring her along, she paused for a bit, continuing to eat but considering her words.  Her eyes showed gentle confusion, as if in honest befuddlement as to why they would be doing this for her, although it was unclear whether she failed to understand kindness itself or simply didn't see any reason it should be directed to her.  Perhaps she no longer fully understood the values of leisure and luxury.<br/><br/><strong>They want to trick you.</strong>The words echoed through her mind.<strong>A warrior must be prepared.  Death does not sleep.  Death does not wait.</strong>It didn't feel like a proper translation, but it was the only way her mind was able to make sense of such thoughts.  Sometimes it hurt to have such alien forces pulsing through her head, but she could handle it.  Pain wasn't something she hadn't long grown accustomed to.<br/><br/>Of course, pain wasn't something that she spent a lot of time considering.  It was so much a part of her that sometimes the only true understanding was determined by its absence, something that she hadn't properly felt since Sonya had given her that fur cloak.  What had happened to that, anyway?  She must have lost it at some point when the rush to battle began.<br/><br/>When she finally spoke, she sounded just a little unsure, as if her thoughts were final for the moment but lacked the firm conviction of eternity.  "Someone should stay to make sure they don't send another raiding party."  Perhaps she wanted to come, or perhaps she just didn't really understand why she would ever want to come.<br/><br/>What would happen if the pain ever truly stopped?  Would that be death?  Would she have peace?  It seemed like there would simply be sorrow, that she would lose all sense of the joys of battle, the only time when she felt as though existence was worthwhile.