Sam wanted to take her eyes away from him, from the man who had broken into her home and kidnapped her and threatened to slice her ear off. But as he spoke to her, ignoring the warnings from Dorothea and the dwarves, she found that she couldn't look away from his eyes. He words washed over her and she ignored everything else about the campground. For those moments it was like he was the only thing that existed. And then he was gagged and Dorothea and the dwarves tried to resume a normal conversation. But when Sam turned back to the fire she could feel his gaze on her and she could not get what he had said out of her mind.

She hated how his words impacted her. She hated him, she shouldn't have been listening to him. But Sam knew he was right. Once he had said the plan would fail she knew it was true. She hadn't wanted to admit it before but now she could no longer lie to herself. She hated how she felt her heart aching at the thought of a war ravaging a world that was not her own, of how she had allowed herself to be walked over. That wasn't like her. Ever since finding herself here she had been acting so unlike herself that looking back now it made her a bit sick. Sam wasn't the sort of person who cowered and hid away, or was dependent and timid. She was independent, she was a fighter, she controlled her life, and she could take care of herself. Sam lived alone without apprehension in one of the unfriendliest cities in her world, and had worked her way through law school on her own, defying age old beliefs that women couldn't do it. She had been acting like a victim, something she told herself she'd never do. Sam wasn't from this world. She wasn't made of porcelain. She wasn't a damsel in distress or some purehearted maiden. She was the goddamn hero of her life story. She may not have skills and strength like the Marshal's, but Sam wasn't weak.

And she did know that things were never what they seemed. And she knew that she wasn't satisfied with the gag around the Marshal's mouth. He had more to tell her, some more to explain. And Sam was going to hear it. Princess of Eldonia be damned.

Sam looked over at the cat and, despite the fact that she liked Dorothea, she felt angry with herself for letting a cat tell her what to do. Dorothea may have been a princess but Sam wasn't one of her subjects. "Don't stop me," she told her firmly before standing up and striding purposely over to the Marshal. Her movements dared the four at the fire to stop her and she paused in front of the Marshal to consider him for a moment. Then she bent down and pulled the cloth down from his mouth so it hung around his neck and knelt so they were at eye level. "First," Sam began, glaring at him with her own ferocity, "you're going to tell me your name. Then you're going to tell me why it is you care so much about stopping the queen when you, in fact, work for the queen. And convince me. Convince me that you mean it. Because maybe then I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say."