Crackles and pops reigned out through the night as the fire raged in front of her. These kinds of nights were truly boring when there was not one single soul other than her own within these dark entrenching woodlands. Perhaps it was for the better as Manic had told her, but it still made her at unease both from anticipation of a visitor and the fear that someone would try to hurt her. That fear wasn’t as great now; however, since a couple of days prior she had finally acquired a friend to keep her company. That friend was nothing more than a wolf, but it was more than she had beforehand. And with Manic’s in and out disappearances, it was enough to keep her company and protect her until he would return again.

Gentle digits stroked against soft bushy fur of the beasts head absentmindedly, her gaze fixated upon the roaring fire in front of her. She missed Manic…He was a funny guy and it bothered her that he had to leave all the time, cutting their meetings short to only a couple of hours. And then he scolded her not to do something foolish like talking to strange people. On top of that, he wanted her to carry a weapon with her, but the thing was…She couldn’t really swing one if she wanted, unless it was like a fencing deagan of sorts, or perhaps a dagger. The sheer momentum of swinging something other than those two weapons would throw her balance off so bad; it would counteract anything she really wished to accomplish by doing the action in the first place.

Thinking further on things, that wasn’t the worst of it…During their last meeting Manic had given her an odd looking chess piece and explained that she should use it in times of emergency. Alaina paled at the thought of what he would say to her now…Her curious had gotten the better of her and she released the demon within the piece, only to realize just how scary and massive he was in comparison to her. The funny thing was…That sort of thing would protect her when the time of need would come? Hardly…All it did was stare at her and laugh, which angered her to no extent. But when she ordered it to return, it simply left without any word. Where it went, the God’s only knew and she didn’t care!

There was a look of annoyance that crossed her face at the recollection of that creature. If she was so funny she would show him something really funny when she would tell Manic on it! Though, when that would take place would remain to be seen… Drawing in a breath of air, all of her attention turned to the wolf’s head resting in her lap at the time. “Hey there, you awake? I need to get up, please.” There was a long pause where she stared at the wolf intently, noticing that it held no intentions of moving. Again she tried, this time in a pleading voice, “Plllleeeeeaaaassssseeeee? I need to get up. So get up up up!” With the last three ups her lips curled up in a smile and the voice grew cheerier. That would be all it took as the wolf lifted its head long enough to allow her back to her feet before resting it back down upon the ground.

Once to her feet, a sudden unease shifted over her and in sheer nervousness the little girl glanced around curiously, unsure of who or what was there. In a shaky voice the girl piped up her voice loud enough to ask, “Who’s there…?” If it were anyone, she certainly hoped that it was Manic and not that creepy thing from earlier…Whatever it was, she wasn’t ready to face it just yet…

Her steps were stiff, each single movement clearly forced and almost seeming against her will. She didn’t want to be here, oh, she would have preferred to have been anywhere but here! This was her absolute last resort, but she still didn’t want to have to use it. To do this would mean she would have to swallow her pride and Manic would have all of her dignity along with her eyesight. There was only so much she had been able to take, though; getting her feet stuck, tripping, falling over at the most inopportune times, and being unable to eat… it all brought her to one conclusion and that decision had been to seek out Alaina Kiety as Andros had told her to do.

Since she hadn’t wanted to risk getting lost, she had tied a small leash around her velociraptor’s neck and brought him along to guide her. Maybe that wasn’t the wisest decision, considering she didn’t trust the animal not to go running off after anything he saw as he had already attempted that once before this evening, but at least if there was any danger he would end up growling which would most likely warn her.

As she walked, she thought she heard a voice, but dismissed it. It was doubtful that there was anyone here, except for this Alaina person, and she didn’t think that she would be stupid enough to be talking in the middle of the night. It was probably just a noise in the back of her head, or even an animal. Bugs didn’t seem to like her very much, so it would make sense that they would want to annoy her and make her life miserable.

However, her opinion soon changed when the raptor stopped in its tracks. Cordelia looked down and tugged at the leash, clearly wanting to keep moving. She had no idea what time it was and wanted to be in and out of Norwood as quickly as possible. The animal didn’t budge, which cased her to swallow; could things get any worse?

“Who’s there…?”

The woman blinked and looked in the direction of the tiny voice. Cordelia simply stayed where she was, not wanting to put any more or any less distance between herself and whoever it was that had called out. The girl didn’t sound very happy… in fact, the tone almost sounded afraid. She wasn’t quite sure what to do, considering she didn’t even know if the girl was talking to her or not. She hadn’t heard anything else, including the girl that was somewhere around there.

Sighing, she lifted a blackened arm and winced at the movement, brushing her black hair back and out of her face. Cordelia should have just left; she was here taking Manic’s advice, of all people, and she didn’t even want the help! She could get through the blindness on her own, without the help of that Alaina person, or anyone else that tried to pity her and help. “I suppose I should say I’m sorry, if it was actually me that disturbed you…” she mumbled. Why was she even saying she was sorry? It wasn’t like it was her fault that she was blind and couldn’t see a thing. “I was looking for someone named Alaina… or at least something like that. You sound so young though, so I don’t think you’d know who I’m talking about. But, you know, if you do, that’s fine. I don’t think I need her help now though. I mean, I might, but… ugh. You know what, let’s just say this – do you know where I can find someone named Alaina Ki… something?” The words tumbled awkwardly out of Cordelia’s mouth and she looked away from the direction she had been speaking in, but there was nothing really she could even look at. Cordelia bit the inside of her lip, still unsure of the decision she had made to come here. It wasn’t like her to ask for assistance, or even recognize that she needed it, and to do that in a situation like this only made her feel weaker and in less control than she already was.

Spinning in a whirl of movement, Alaina faced the foreign voice only to gasp at the sight of the woman. What in the world happened to her…? The thought disturbed her, but she decided it best not to ask a question pertaining to it. Instead, her eyes trailed to the creature at her side and leash bringing the two together in unison. After a couple of moments she was able to piece together why the woman was here to help her, just from the appearance and the creature in her company. Granted it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to have along her side to guide her, but she supposed it would make due.

Before she could respond the woman, the wolf within her company limped up to its feet and took its stance alongside of her. With a smile, the girl bent down to pat the wolf on the head lightly, “It’s okay, Valucie. She won’t hurt me, why don’t you go lay back down by the fire hmmm?” The girl’s voice was cheery and upbeat. A smile present upon her face, all attention drifted to her, before clasping her hands together in front of her. Cocking her head to the side, she continued her study of the woman and after a few moments she finally spoke in a soft serene tone, “Alaina Kiety would be me, if that’s who you’re looking for. There’s no one else here and I know no one else with the same first name as me, soooooo I would be her!” Finally, a visitor and one that couldn’t possibly hurt her even if she wished to do so.

Excitement began to build up inside of her at the thought of what the woman could possibly want from her. Could she want to hurt her…? No, there was no intent held within that woman’s appearance, no less in the state she was in. What could she possibly want though…? Was she here to play? Doubtful…No one willingly wanted to play a game with her, no less a stranger like her. She knew her name…So it meant someone sent her, but she didn’t know anyone other than Manic. Shrugging more so to herself than anyone else, her voice picked up again in melodic tone, “Manic sent you didn’t he!? He probably feels bad that he’s not here all the time and sent someone to keep me company; it’s really lonely out here. And…” All train of thought trailed off to another, leaving her speech to fall dead shortly after.

Eyebrows knitted themselves feverishly in though, before softening again, “OH! You haven’t seen a big scar—Oh…Nevermind.” It was at that point she remembered the condition in which this woman was, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…Well…You know, the whole seeing thing.” Laughing nervously, the girls hand lifted to the back of her head to rest there for the time being, “Sooo uhmm…Can I ask your name then? And why you’re here…I’m sure it’s not to keep my company.” Alaina’s voice grew more and more depressed with the closing of the statement and a sigh would usher forth from her lips at the finish of it. Lifelessly her arm would drop off to her side, knowing full well that the woman was probably not here to keep her company after all. Which still left the question, why did Manic send her?

“It’s okay, Valucie. She won’t hurt me, why don’t you go lay back down by the fire hmmm?”

Cordelia lifted her eyebrows beneath the bloodied bandage around her eyes as this was said and held tighter onto the leash when Emeric started growling. He seemed to still want to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him, especially since she couldn’t even see what it was he wanted to go at. She hit him lightly in the side with her knee and made a quiet hissing sound to let him know that such behavior wasn’t appropriate. If he continued to act like this she was going to have to lock him in the closet when she returned home. Upon hearing that this little girl was Alaina Kiety, her eyebrows went up even further and her jaw dropped just slightly. Manic had sent her to this young child? He had to have been kidding. She was so young… Cordelia couldn’t possibly burden her with trying to help… and how could she help?

She knew the girl wasn’t lying; only troublemaking children did that and those kinds could usually be sorted by the tone of their voice. A soft smile came to her face and Cordelia nodded her head. “Then you’re precisely who I’m looking for, dear,” she said, her tone seeming to lose the awkwardness she had before. She had been expecting this Alaina person to be a creepy old woman with crazy hair that she attempted to braid; she had been so lucky that it was a little girl! At least she knew that a child wouldn’t make fun of her for wanting help. “It’s very nice to meet you sweetie. Alaina is such a pretty name.”

“Manic sent you didn’t he!? He probably feels bad that he’s not here all the time and sent someone to keep me company; it’s really lonely out here. And…”

Her lips pursed when she mentioned Manic, and a wave of confusion and skepticalness swept over her when she mentioned Manic feeling bad. The idea of him feeling guilt was so extremely foreign to her, especially since she had only seen him angry and acting without a second of hesitation in the past. He didn’t have the capacity to care; it was impossible for someone like him. The poor girl… she was probably too young and naïve to realize that. Cordelia wouldn’t be the one to enlighten her, though; if Alaina had been older she would have scolded her for being so foolish, but she wasn’t the one to blame here. If anything, it was Manic’s fault for making her believe that he cared! How sick was he to try and manipulate children? “Manic did send me. You’re very smart to have thought of that. Why are you always out here though, hmm? Especially if it gets so lonely.” She would have ruffled the girl’s hair to make her feel better, but the fact that she couldn’t even see her presented a problem when it came to doing that. Oh, well. Hopefully she would understand.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…Well…You know, the whole seeing thing.”

At first she had felt a twinge of bitterness when she had mentioned seeing something that caused her fists to clench. Perhaps she could have seen whatever it was, had it not been for Manic. She seemed very apologetic and nervous though afterward, since she probably hadn’t even realized what she said until after she said it, so Cordelia couldn’t help but forgive her. It was an honest mistake, even if it was on a subject that was still more than just a bit sensitive for her. “It’s fine…” she muttered, sounding a bit distant. It really wasn’t fine, but she couldn’t yell at the girl for one simple mistake. Besides, it was this girl that was possibly going to help her. To yell at her would only make Cordelia seem like the bad guy.

“Sooo uhmm…Can I ask your name then? And why you’re here…I’m sure it’s not to keep my company.”

She sounded so sad that it made Cordelia feel a bit down, too. It was no wonder Alaina seemed so lonely; the only things out here were animals, trees, and plants, not to mention simple passersby’s and bandits who wouldn’t care whether or not Alaina had someone to take care of her or not. She had said that Manic wasn’t there all the time, which implied that she had to have met him a few times before. He wasn’t the kind of person a young, impressionable child should be finding company in. Was she so desperate that she had to turn to Manic?

“How silly of me… I forgot to give you my name! I’m Cordelia, but if that’s too long for you, Cord is fine too.” Usually, only Eliel was the one who survived calling her nicknames, but Alaina was too cute for Cordelia to make her struggle with her long name. “As for why I’m here… well… Manic told me that you were so special that you would certainly be able to help me with my little… problem.” Absently, her free hand lifted up to the bandage around her eyes before falling into the pocket of her jacket. Cordelia felt a bit bad for exaggerating and making it seem like Manic cared even more, but she thought that Alaina might actually need to hear that. “And I can stay with you for as long as you’d like, too.”

She couldn’t just up and leave once the girl had helped her; not when she was all alone. That would just be plain wrong.

“Manic did send me. You’re very smart to have thought of that. Why are you always out here though, hmm? Especially if it gets so lonely.”

The girl frowned and turned her back to the woman, before moving off to the side of her crackling fire, where she would pause and peer into its upwards stretching flames. There were lots of reasons why she was out here, but there would some reasons that she just didn’t know so she filtered those out, leaving the ones she could explain without issue. Sucking in a deep breath she would begin, “I asked him if I could go with him, but he said it would be too dangerous to go with. I begged him and he wouldn’t let me, I understand though. He told me he was a very bad man, but I told him I didn’t care. Not once has he tried to hurt me and I actually….Feel like I exist with him. Everyone treats me like a dumb girl, a burden and a trouble maker, it makes me sooooooo angry.”

Fine muscles tensed and clenched in her jaw, while her hands balled up into tightly woven fists. The action would quickly cease with the following words she spoke…

“As for why I’m here… well… Manic told me that you were so special that you would certainly be able to help me with my little… problem.”

When each of her muscles relaxed, a wide spanning grin slid across her soft countenance as she spun around on the heels of her foot to face the woman. Clapping her hands together, each of her digits would interlace themselves together, before dropping both of her hands downwards to come to a rest upon her thighs, “Awwww, he’s too nice to me.” As the last word trailed from her lips, there was a smile that took hold of her lips at the sheer thought of Manic saying something like that. While it wasn’t all too uncharacteristic of Manic to say something like that to her, it still wasn’t entirely expected. It was all she needed to hear though, because she finally came to the decision that she would indeed help this woman with her “little” problem.

Stepping forward a couple steps so she was not but a couple of feet from that of Cordelia. Pausing momentarily, her attention shifted towards the animal in her care, “There’s a tree just off to your right, the branch on that tree is about where your shoulder is. If you could tie the leash to that, we can begin.” Of course the woman couldn’t see, that’s why she gave her the descriptive location of where she should tie it to. It was the eyes that had been blind, not the mind or any of the other senses. Logical sense would be this woman’s weapon to replacing her sight, that and her other senses.

“Now…I want you to take my hand. Use my voice to establish where I would be roughly and try to decipher the distance I am from you by using your ears.” Just as the words left her lips she would lift her right hand up in front of her to offer it out to Cordelia, “You know I’m young by my voice, so I’m shorter, which means my arms are shorter than your own. Use that as a rough estimate to locate my hand easier. The reason I’m having you do this, is because when you become blind or eyes prove unfaithful, you have to use your other senses to pick up the slack. The most reliant sense is your ears, but even they can prove deceiving. The next is Touch and then finally scent…” The girl patiently waited for the woman to act, curious to see if she’d catch on or simply brush her off as a stupid girl.

“… He told me he was a very bad man, but I told him I didn’t care. Not once has he tried to hurt me and I actually….Feel like I exist with him. Everyone treats me like a dumb girl, a burden and a trouble maker, it makes me sooooooo angry.”

The child’s voice didn’t sound like it was where it had been before, which confused Cordelia slightly. Why would she walk away? What was the point of it? Even so, she listened, trying her hardest not to make a comment when she talked about Manic. He was a bad man, and she was sure Alaina could have found someone so much better. At least he knew he was bad and had admitted it, though. “I can see why that would make you angry,” she said. She wasn’t sure how she could feel like she existed or belonged with Manic, of all people, but it wasn’t her place to question what a child felt. “I’m sure those people are idiots to think that, though. I could try to convince him to let you go with him if you’d like, since I’m sure it’s more dangerous here than it is anywhere else.”

“Awwww, he’s too nice to me.”

Cordelia laughed slightly. “Well I can understand why. Why wouldn’t he be so nice to such a sweetheart?” she said sweetly, although inside she was completely bitter. Manic was nice to no one. He was a terrible, terrible person and now he was taking advantage of such a darling child. The next time she saw him he was definitely going to pay for this. She listened to Alaina as she was directed about the branch and she bit her lip, hesitating out of the fear that she might embarrass herself. She went over the directions in her head and slowly reached out, feeling around for the branch for just a moment before finding it. She took Emeric’s leash in hand and tied it around that, sighing softly. Why did she have a feeling that things were about to get a lot worse?

“You know I’m young by my voice, so I’m shorter, which means my arms are shorter than your own. Use that as a rough estimate to locate my hand easier…”

Again she bit her lip, almost trembling. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Alaina or thought she was a stupid girl, it was just that she really didn’t want to embarrass herself. As if being blind wasn’t a bad enough sign of weakness… if she couldn’t do something so simple as to take her hand, then there was no hope for her. Cordelia inhaled deeply, going over the details in her head. She was going to assume Alaina was around Kaiden’s height, since that was really all she had to go off of, and the girl sounded closer and was probably directly in front of her. It would be a dirty trick for her to be off to the side. With a little bit of uncertainty, she reached out her hand to where she thought Alaina might be, at first not feeling anything as her hand was a few inches off to the left. She moved her hand though, grasping the girl’s forearm after another try and moving her hand down her arm until it reached her hand.

“You sure this is gonna work…?” Cordelia said in a more meek tone than what was normal for her. She glanced away for a moment before turning back to Alaina, not even going to bother trying to be optimistic. Optimism wasn’t for her. “Whatever… what now?” She heaved a sigh, waiting for more directions.

The girl’s eyes transfixed themselves upon the woman’s every action, scrutinizing the delays and the manner in which she moved her hand about as a guide. That would be a sure way to give away her weakness and it would take some time to rid her of that unnatural hand movement. Deciding not to stress a whole lot on the thought of it, Alaina would simply wait and watch the woman as she made a move to grab her hand. Once she did, Alaina’s fingers curled around the woman’s hand in a gentle squeeze, noticing the faint shake in her hand.

Smiling faintly, the girl tilted her head only to giggle as she looked at the woman from the odd angle, “Come come, don’t be nervous. I’m not going to make fun of you and it’s only me out here. So what do you say?” The girl smiled again and offered another light squeeze to the woman’s hand just to make sure she understood, before releasing it. “Now, lets continue….I want you to focus all of your attention upon sound and only sound. I won’t speak and I won’t tell you where I am. I want you to be able to decipher where I am by only using echo and reve—Revbr…Errr. You know…That one word…That’s long and stuff.” A brow cocked itself at the thought of how she was going to get the woman to know what she was talking about, but it would be to no avail.

Not only could she not pronounce it, but she couldn’t even recall a spelling for the word which only made matters worse. Hopefully she would understand without the added assistance of the big word. Deciding not to wait for the woman, she would continue, “So to explain, every sound echoes. It echoes off trees and walls, mostly everything but smaller objects. But I don’t want you to JUST focus on that, try and pick out the sounds of the grass and anything else that I might step upon on the ground and use that to help as well. But I guess I should finish my first thing about echoes…If an object like me was to stand at a point around your body, the echoes would be deafened in the direction I stood from you. Your ears are like funnels that absorb information, but if I was standing there, it would receive no information from that direction, other than the noise I make. So think of it like slight deafness, I guess.” The girl’s brows knitted and furrowed in thought at what she was saying, not really sure if it made sense or not.

“I’m sorry if I’m not good at explaining…I’m not word sav—Friendly. Or something like that. Urgh…Lets just start.” A soft laughter erupted from her lips only to be quelled to silence before she would begin her slow and cautious movements around the woman. Once she reached a point all movement would stop and she would stand to allow the woman to pick out where she was. If she should guess, Alaina would move off to the woman’s right flank to stop again. Should she be found again, three steps backwards would be taken and movement would cease to see if she would be able to figure out her location again.