Posted! A short one.

In response to Ace's gravitational pulls: Newton's third law of motion pledges to differ.

And the bandwagon:

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[b]Harper[/b]:
Just...a very nice person? He's younger than Leila is by one year, but he's probably become the only person Leila came to see as a peer. He just gives off an aura that makes Leila feel it's okay to not put up any facade when interacting with him and having someone to open up to may prove valuable later [s]when she breaks (even when Harper is not okay with talking with her because he'll be in his own depression pit)[/s].

Depending on what happens to Harper later on, Leila will probably either grow a bit fond of Harper's personality (friendship!) or turn him into some kind of role model-ish figure and end up building up a distance between them.

[b]Ace[/b]: 
Despite her being all optimism and fighting hard and all Leila doesn't really know Ace well. For now she's just grateful because Ace saved her life. But then just like very much everything else in the witch fight, doing that probably took its toll on Ace as well and Leila knew that, so whether the life-saving incident would spark interaction or just worsen that guilt complex she's starting to develop is yet to be seen.

[b]Inadi[/b]:
Leila doesn't really like Inadi. Not sure exactly why - probably partly the same mindset on her end as everyone else being uncomfortable with how Haku acted. He's been a really tough fighter - she saw that back at the caves and with the witch, but that combined with him not showing much emotion (at least not perceived to) probably also caused the impression that he's prone to violence, and that's reinforced at the cabin when he speared the guides and all. Then he lacks that 'interesting mind' part that was why Leila was pretty blind to Haku's other potential personality flaws.

This might change, though, since those are really just initial impressions.

[b]Lesley[/b]:
Just. The pink hair. Gorgeous.

That aside though, Leila's a bit...intimidated by Lesley? 6 feet 4 and long pink hair isn't really the most approachable image you find of a person.

But then again, him being a rainbow mage is just awesome and fascinating to an extreme.

[b]Jasper[/b]:
Interesting thing: Leila probably thinks Jasper the most "ordinary person" out of the entire group, even though some things she does Leila cannot comprehend. Not as much affinity there in comparison, but yeah. She's interesting, to say at least.

[b]Riley[/b]:
A bit like Harper? Just...very friendly and it probably feels really secure being around her. Riley being hyped over things and the whole "dragon tamer" thing probably will make Leila a bit uncomfortable though - which means she'll feel safe staying with Riley but she's gonna be very insecure when Riley's around along with other people? It complicated.

[b]Guides[/b]:
Major aesthetic crushes. Songbird especially. Leila has an odd concept of "pretty", so whether that's a good thing remains to be seen. There's also that persistent intrigue because they're beings from another world? Although Leila probably will have growing emotions towards the guides after what they've done for the humans.

[b]Others[/b]:
The dead ones - she didn't really get to know all those people up until the events of Sol, so no especially strong feelings towards Emily and Eric's deaths. Vincent, not really, either, since the only interaction between them was Leila crashing into him on the catbus and that wasn't exactly pleasant.

The one person she interacted the most with was Haku, in that some of his remarks sparked Leila's interest in his mind. His personality that got on the nerves of so many others didn't really bother Leila that much, instead she seeked identification with him through shared perception of certain things about the world. But of course, Haku's dead now. Leila's mostly just...confused over it.

Not that Leila doesn't feel grief over people dying, it's just that her lamenting is more of "I don't want that happening to me as well" and less of being genuinely sorry. Haku and Avian's death were otherwise significant in the sense that she perceived them as the strong ones, so it's harder to imagine them dead, having believed they'll be okay on their own all this while. Bonus "valuable research subject lost" points to Haku as well.

Also regarding Harper and Songbird and everyone else's injuries: for the people she cares for she actually develops a strong sense of empathy towards those she got to know. And as much as she's scared of dying she doesn't like to think of people dying - so she'll make efforts to help if given the chance and capability, but it could be ultimately still be mapped onto a selfish intention.

Yehp, Leila a terrible person.

Leila doesn't know what to make of the newcomers yet, so impressions are to be made.

-----

The part on mental health:

Feels are happening and she has no idea how to deal with them. Not good. This fight might as well have just pushed her over the despair event horizon, but not just quite yet. At one point she was willing to kill the witch and only didn't do so because she wasn't capable of doing so, and when she realizes what it means to want to kill something that badly in retrospect it'll make her start doubting a lot of things.

The rest time after the fight though, she'll probably just...try very hard to think things through. Certain parts are sure to require "enlightenment" from the other Lost Souls because many events deal with things she isn't familiar with, so that's to be looked forward to. Whether she'll accept that she can't figure it out or just break down because that fact depends on the circumstsances. In general though, it's likely that she'll put back on the attitude back at the start of the journey, when she had nothing to care about but her own mind - re-embracing that attitude is probably going to be used as a way to prevent further damage because she didn't care about what's going to happen to other people if she stays okay. Well we all know you can't exactly "un-feel" things so the best she could do this time around is [i]pretend[/i] she doesn't care. Having a hard time persuading herself about things is probably an unavoidable scenario. This can go that bit bittersweet or simply full out traumatic, again, depending on the circumstances.

But yeah. The whole "developing feels" thing might go either way and we'll just to wait to see what happens.
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