** Rosa **

There was another person in my camp. Another, true person, not an NPC. My eyes trailed the woman apparently named Amelia as she wandered slowly around the camp I’d made. It was a nice name, simple and pretty.

When the war front had first moved to this area, this Pagutum Heavy Mage Platform had broken down after some of the devices that kept it aloft were damaged. I’d killed the stranded crew of the house sized box of steel and claimed it for myself, using it to shelter from the cold.

Although the exterior was made of metal, and therefore very susceptible to all the properties that entailed, including heat conduction, the engineers had thought of ways to counter it. There was a very healthy layer of insulation between that metal and the crew quarters within. Currently, we were standing in the very cramped galley of the vessel while Amelia gazed around with interest.

"Just a little thought, but do you think you could make it work again?" she asked offhandedly, turning those pretty burgundy eyes on me. "You know there's a reward for bringing one of these in?"

"I'm aware, but I lack the expertise," I said quietly.

"I don’t. I have the artificing tree. She's pretty banged up, but if you could scavenge other wrecks for parts, it might be doable," she mused, turning back to stare at the ceiling where some pipes ran along it.

I tried to move past her in the cramped space, specifically without touching her, but she turned back, and we were suddenly nose to nose. Far too close. Every part of me was screaming to get away. No one had been in my personal space like this in an incredibly long time, and certainly not in such an intimate manner.

"Fuck, you're gorgeous," she murmured, her warm breath shifting and tickling its way over my lips.

I opened my mouth to speak, only to find myself short of the breath I needed to push the words out. I'd never seen eyes that were burgundy before, but it was an intriguing colour choice. Eyes gave so much depth to a colour, when compared to a screen or dye. The slight variance of shade and hue from one fleck to another bringing life to otherwise simple light.

"Sorry," she whispered, not moving a muscle to rectify the situation.

I swallowed in an attempt to fix my sudden lack of breath, but it didn't work. Neither would my body, betraying the raw need of my mind to get out of this place, to put comforting meters between myself and this entrancing girl. Entrancing? Where had that word come from? Slipping into my thoughts like a stowaway, it nevertheless echoed a truth that this woman held my attention in a vice.

"Can I ask something?” she whispered again, her eyes roaming my face with impunity.

I nodded in reply, still robbed of speech. I hope she realised that she'd need to step back if she wanted an answer.

"Why did you stop? Why didn't you just kill me?" she asked, her hand reaching up as though to mirror my action in that moment, although her hand faltered and she allowed it to fall back to her side.

I could only shrug, and miraculously I found just enough air in my lungs to reply, "Ask me again when you've gotten to know me better."

"That sort of implies that you're going to give me the chance to get to know you," she said with a slow smile. Oh...bollocks, she was right.

"Possibly," was my answer, and I felt my face betray me as her smile heated my cheeks.

Her smile was frankly rather unfair, the way it curved her already sensuous lips into a smirk of that raw wattage. Then she pressed her lips together for a moment, just a thoughtless movement on her part, but seeing the way her large, soft lower lip compressed… what was she doing to me? I was losing control of myself, my thoughts running rampant along topics that were normally far removed from my mind.

“Aww, she’s blushing!” Amelia teased, but she stepped away and let me have my personal space back, which was rather kind of her.

Narrowing my eyes, I decided to remind her not to get too complacent. I let my form fall apart into the wraith of black and blue smoke that I really was, and moved across to invade her personal space this time.

“Remember who you’re teasing,” I whispered, getting in close with that haunting chorus of voices that my wraith form had.

“Right,” she squeaked, and now it was her cheeks that were burning with warmth.

I turned away before I reformed into the Witch form, so that she wouldn’t see my grin of satisfaction. Then I stopped when I smelled something strange. I turned back to her and frowned. What was that scent? I’d never encountered it before, but it was vastly different from the fear and anger that I’d smelled previously.

It was tangy, just a little sour in the way that you knew it would lock your jaw up for a moment if you tasted it, but there was also a spice and a sweetness to it. The sour tingle helped give a little spark to the otherwise heady sweetness. It was a rich flavour, and I wanted to figure out what it was.

I moved closer again with a thoughtful frown, following it back to the girl that was the source, and stared into her eyes. What was she feeling right now? What was bringing out this intriguing new flavour?

Her eyes were wide as I got closer and closer, and the taste in the air only got more potent. I was filling up with the stuff, and I realised with a jolt that whatever emotion she was feeling right now, it was potent. Far more potent than fear or anger.

“What are you feeling right now?” I asked curiously, tilting my head while I tried to get a read on her.

Her eyes were squirrelly, darting about the the room, then to my body and face. Her face blossomed into an even more impressive blush than before, and I found I rather liked that rosy cheeked look on her.

“Uh, why are you asking?” she said with a nervous chuckle, taking a step back, but I followed her.

“Whatever it is, it tastes delicious,” I said breathlessly, opening my mouth a little to let the sweetness dance on my tongue.

“It tastes…? You can taste people’s emotions?” she asked, looking confused and a little alarmed. The taste in the air dimmed slightly as she was distracted from whatever she’d been feeling. No, I needed that emotion back.

“Yes,” I murmured, moving closer still, since that seemed to be eliciting a reaction. “It’s what I feed on. I tear it out of the NPCs, but players don’t work like that. It floats off them like a scent.”

“Oh wow that’s… something,” she laughed nervously.

“So whatever you’re feeling… tell me what it is,” I demanded softly, moving right up and back into her face now.

“U-um… I’ll tell you when you get to know me better?” she asked with a large helping of uncertainty.

“Deal,” I smiled, turning away again to search for something more physical and mundane to eat.

 ****

** If you are not reading this on SH, it has been stolen. My author alias is QuietValerie. Come find me! **

“Liar! You know that the money belongs to me and the town!” she screamed, the knife she’d been using to make dinner now being waved at me.

“I-I was going to help everyone with it! I just needed to fix myself!” I told her, wishing and hoping that she’d get it this time.

“Oh so you think I made a mistake when I gave birth to you huh? You think you just get to change things around like that?” she scoffed, advancing on me with rage in her eyes. “You used my money to do it too! Insulting!”

“That’s… What? You didn’t do anything wrong Mum! Nature just messed up with me!” I cried, backing away from her. What was wrong with her? Why did her eyes shine with such a strange, malicious light?

She was shaking now, and I turned, trying to get past her to the door to the kitchen, I needed to leave. She was scaring me now, something was wrong… I didn’t feel safe. I needed to leave, right now, I decided, and wiped my clammy hands on my shirt, trying to get the fear off them.

“I’m leaving,” I said, hating how small and scared my voice sounded.

“No you’re not! We’re not done with this conversation,” she barked, lunging to stop me.

She must have forgotten the knife was in her hands, and the lunge brought it into contact with my arm. The sharp blade dragged up the limb, drawing a ragged, bloody gash through my flesh. Oh my god… my mother just slashed me with a knife! My mother… my mother just hurt me. But she was meant to love me right? Why? We both stared at it for several seconds in shock… then something changed in my mother’s eyes.

She looked up from the gash across my arm with a look that drew all the warmth from the room, replacing it with a deathly cold. Oh no, please no. She lunged again, but with purpose this time. I twisted and tried to throw myself desperately away, but I wasn’t quick enough. The blade pierced my skin around my hip and for a nauseating moment I felt it grind against the bone... then it caught.

I fell to the ground, my mind a fuzz of shock and terror as I realised that I was going to die. She was going to kill me… mummy was going to kill me. She lunged again and I heard myself begging, pleading for her to stop. This time she hit me square in the chest, below my left breast. If the blade had been sideways, it would have slid between my ribs… but it grated against the bone there too.

“Please… Mum! Please no! Please stop!” I cried, trying to crawl backwards across the floor. I felt like I was going to throw up.

She lunged again, directly at my stomach this time, and I lurched up into a sitting position with a scream scrabbling at my stomach to stem the flow of blood, to keep things inside. I couldn’t find it, where was it? Where was the wound? I needed to find it, oh god was it already too late? I didn’t want to die!

“Hey! Hey! It’s okay!” someone said, their hands on my shoulders.

No! She was trying to hold me down! To finish me!

I exploded into smoke and surged away, clawing myself across the floor and up a wall, then compressed myself as small as I could go, hiding in the corner between wall and ceiling. No one could reach me up here, she couldn’t reach me up here. I would be safe, away from her, away from everyone.

“Hey… um, Witch? It’s okay, it was just a nightmare,” a soft, calming voice said. Why did she sound strange?

“Leave me alone!” I roared, feeling whatever counted as my hands solidify into deathly sharp claws. Two could play at this, if she wanted me dead, I’d take her with me.

“If you want,” the soft voice said, and I saw her figure back away, even as her huge burgundy eyes stared up at me with concern.

Burgundy? That wasn’t a colour that humans could have naturally. How did Mum have burgundy eyes? I blinked my strange wraith vision several times, but I couldn’t quite tell what was different, what was wrong. I needed to take a physical form, I couldn’t… I needed…

I fell to the ground, and shifted into the form that gave me the most comfort, my Tod Sifv form. The fox girl with the tail, the big, huggable tail. I pulled that tail to my chest and backed myself against the wall, staring at the person who had invaded my camp. Who was this person? No… I knew, we’d met last night.

“A-amelia?” I asked, my voice just as small and fearful as when my mother had tried to kill me.

“Uh, hi… yeah,” Amelia nodded, staying on the other side of the room, although she did sit down. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I said truthfully. I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t been okay since that day, and before that, I hadn’t been okay too, but that was for different reasons.

“What can I do to help?” she asked, and I was struck by yet another emotional scent, but this one was faint.

It smelled nice, like the wildflowers up near the edge of my property. Would it be okay to try and get closer? What if the scent was deceptive, trying to lure me in? But no, a smell that sweet could not mean anything awful.

I pushed off the wall and crossed the floor carefully to sit gingerly next to her. Close enough to get more of the emotion she was giving off, but far enough away that I could escape if she tried anything.

“Let me sit here,” I said softly. “Please do not try to touch me… but… you’re giving off a nice emotion right now, so please keep feeling it. The taste and smell is… soothing.”

“I can do that,” she nodded, her expression softening further, and with a start of realisation, it occurred to me what the emotion was. It was compassion.