Entering the workshop, Adrianna considered just ducking out the back. The Dimura certainly wasn’t interested in being healed, and had hardly acknowledged her. Adrianna wouldn’t have really cared, except for the fact that the woman suggested she wanted to be healed later, as it if was Adrianna’s sacred duty to simply follow them around until she decided she wanted to be healed. Until then, she would continue to injure herself further, and make more work for Adrianna. [i]What joy.[/i] The whole group was clearly preoccupied with other things, and Adrianna knew that there was a whole abode for the healers, should the group wish to venture there. The one she had healed addressed a child who was in the workshop, and Adrianna realized she recognized the girl from a short while earlier. She had been the one rushing through the halls when she left Taliya’s. 

She found her gaze lingering on the kid, but that shifted abruptly when Ethan gestured to her, and Lionel pat her on the back. The man then continued to speak, and his words battled Adrianna. [i]Back[/i] in town? [i]job?[/i] Hadn’t they just talked about how she didn’t work for Taliya? It wasn’t her job to heal everyone just as much as it wasn’t a wood magi’s job to grow trees. Adrianna liked to help others, but she hated being treated like she was only as useful as her magic. Most magi she knew didn’t refer to others in that way, and Adrianna found herself wondering if perhaps Lionel had no magic at all.

“I uh…guess?” Adrianna said, puzzled by every passing moment this guy lingered around her. Fortunately, he busied himself inspecting the Machina next, and Adrianna watched him get quite close to the machine, and then a man who seemed in charge suggested he back away a bit. Adrianna had seen her fair share of Machina, having lived in one of the larger cities growing up, but she never saw one with the mechanisms that this one had. It looked to be a child, like a companion or ‘nanny,’ but was definitely set up for combat. Perhaps a bodyguard to a wealthy child? Her gaze shifted back over to Amune…wondering if she had some kind of status.

As the man in charge talked with her companions about Cecil, she realized what was bothering her so much about the kid. She had been using a lot of magic lately, and as she began to waver on her feet, Adrianna stepped out from behind the others and steadied her. “It’s okay, kid.” Adrianna guided her to a spot to sit, and then pulled her own water skin out of her bag. “Here, drink a bit of water…Did you get in a fight, too? Using that much magic in such a short time is going to wear you out.” Adrianna was trying to be friendly, but the look on Amune’s face was nearly that of pure horror. Had…she been trying to keep her magic a secret? In Mutebo? Adrianna clamped her mouth shut. She had spent the last few years on the road trying to hide her magic, of course it would frighten a child for her to just “out” the young girl like that.

Adrianna knelt down in front of the girl, meeting her at eye level. “Sorry for upsetting you by speaking so abruptly. I’m Adrian. I have luminous magic, and I’m a healer. I can tell when people are hurt and need to be healed, and I can also see…some of the exhaustion they feel when they’ve used a lot of magic.” Like two of the people she walked in with. “What’s your name?” Perhaps being honest with the kid would help her be a little less afraid. And if it backfired, there was always the door. 

In her periphery, Adrianna noticed the guy she healed going up and talking to the Machina, but she didn’t turn her attention from the kid completely. She got the impression that something was…wrong between the two, but as they seemed to know each other well, she wasn’t going to judge. After all, she cut off all of her hair and walked around pretending to be a boy—how could she judge the strange things other people did to feel safe?