[color=D6CC88]The child stayed oddly silent as the party ran from the manor, holding tight to Ethan after he refused to put her down.  She was still shaking, but their headlong flight was taking on a surreal quality, like she was just watching it happen to someone else.  The same sort of thing had occurred when she and Wyth fled her village.  Everything had seemed so strange, like it couldn't possibly be real.  But it was, and so was this, and Amuné felt lost.  The tightness in her chest made her feel like she was going to cry, but no tears came.

When they finally stopped, and Ethan set her down, the girl sat beside him, running her fingers through Wyth's thick fur as the cat settled his head in her lap.  "I don't understand," she said softly.  "Why...why did all this happen?  Why did Zander kill the mayor?  Why did the Machina kill the guards like that?"  All she could feel right then was drained.  "Why are we running?  We didn't do anything wrong.  If Mommy thinks you did something wrong and you hide instead of facing her, it looks bad.  We...we should go with the lady that helps the mayor.  Zander's not with us -- whatever he did, we didn't help."  She remembered how the "healer" had been so eager to use his papers on Cecil, had he been trying to hurt the Machina as well?  She shivered.  "And that was before we met him, too -- if he'd stayed, he might have hurt us.  We should make sure the guard knows so they can find him before he hurts anyone else."  He was a very bad man, posing as a healer to get close to people and then hurting them.  Something like that was very wrong -- it made light of everything healers stood for.  Her mommy would have been aghast at such behavior, and Amuné didn't feel like she could let it go unchallenged.[/color]