[center][h3]Peacock[/h3][i]In which our fantastic heroine struggles with words and provides Heilong Yu (as played by [@Nerevarine]) shelter, all the while bombarding her with questions, completely unaware of the language barrier between them. Action![/i][/center]

 The sensation of having somebody dump words directly into your mind, avoiding all those weird little tubes and bones that make up the various bits of the ear, was something of a novelty for Peacock. The assorted rat wranglers, mud harvesters, swindlers and flim-flammers that made up what remained of the crowd didn't seem to react to the words. Peacock concluded that either this message was for her mind only, or everyone else was just way too busy doing whatever it was they were doing to respond.

 "[color=fff200]Then we're two peas in a pod, two rats in a trap, two...[/color]" Peacock paused to try and think of another way of explaining just how similar their situations were, then dismissed the thought (or lack thereof) with a shrug. While the girl displayed an almost comical lack of concern for the almost comical lack of knowledge either of them had regarding how they ended up here, the rows of red eyes attached to Peacock's slender mechanical arms glanced around, trying to keep an eye, or eyes, on everything.

 "[color=fff200]...pickles in, yeah, that doesn't work. Out of the sun, gotcha. Can fix you up with that, at least![/color]"

 And so Peacock turned around with a dramatic flourish of her arms and marched, with a rather exaggerated gait, back down the street and over to the building she'd woken up in. It hadn't changed much since she left it a moment ago. The door still lay on the ground, hoping it could grow some legs and begin life anew as a table. The interior was dark, save for the flickering embers of the fire in the middle of the room, though a rudimentary ventilation system allowed the smoke to leave by creeping up through the cracks in the ceiling to slowly suffocate whoever happened to live just above ground level. The pair of corpses slumped in the room adjacent to the front room were beginning to make themselves known, as not even the stench of rot and sweat impregnated into the walls could mask that sort of corpse-stink. It was the sort of place that not even vermin would be seen dead in.

 "[color=fff200]One dank, sun-free hovel, just what the doctor ordered,[/color]" Peacock stepped over the door, took a few careful steps to navigate her way around the broken bits of furniture that were scattered about the place, and finally crouched down next to the fire. It produced a token amount of light and heat, but it was cosy enough.

 "[color=fff200]Erebus, Shams, don't know [i]either[/i] of 'em. It's not New Meridian either. I woke up in there,[/color]" one mechanical arm extended out, and a comically oversized gloved hand pointed at the entrance to the other room, "[color=fff200]and I [i]know[/i] I fell asleep on my own bed last night. So what's with you and the sun? Not a morning person, huh? And what's with bypassing my ears? That's some weird trick! And the axe, carrying a chopper like that around, like you're looking for trouble, or trouble's looking for you...[/color]"

 Peacock's arm snaked back to it's previous position. The row of eyes on it just stared. Clearly, Peacock was quite oblivious of how weird her own tricks were.

 "[color=fff200]...and, uh, hey, you probably don't want to go in that room. It was like that when I got there.[/color]"