There were only two reasons why her adult self ever cried: anger born from sheer futile frustration, and losing someone important to her. As a child, she had also cried when she had been hurt, but either the latter years had hardened her until she no longer cared, or being hurt now only made her angry. 
	The young lad they had discovered in the valley stumbled over near to where she was and slumped weakly to the damp, slimy, rocky ground, breathing heavily from the exertion of the flight. She lifted her brow from the flat of her axe, trails of tears still staining her face, and looked at the man, trying to figure whether or not she should get up and try to help ... check whether he was fine. Not before long, though, the guy lifted his head enough to look her in her reddened eyes. That was it. He was fine. Just exhausted enough to not care where he flopped over. That matter settled, she lowered her forehead to the flat of the axe's blade once more, closing her eyes. The metal was nice and cool.
	 She heard someone making their way over to her, but did not bother to raise her head again. What was the point? Since she had not head the prone guy being torn to shreds, it was obviously not a fiend, and since they were still capable of walking, they probably did not need immediate help. The person evidently decided to take a seat beside her.
	[i]"Well, this is some fucked up shit we're in, huh."[/i] That was the jingling man's voice.
	She opened her eyes again, but did not bother to otherwise move, not yet. [i]Indeed. It was.
[/i] She felt a hand on her shoulder, and finally raised her head again, though she looked vacantly ahead, rather than at the person next to her. The former assassin had found a stick and was poking at the stream running to the side. The young lad was still lying on the ground. There still were people who cared, though, she guessed. 
	[i]"Y'know, it's not all that bad. We're still alive, and that's good. We can rest and collect our thoughts. Make plans for the road ahead of us."[/i]
	"Not all of us," she dully pointed out in response to the first half of what he said. Strange words people used for comfort... Sure, it could [i]always[/i] be worse. There could be even fewer of them left. Any or all of them could be short a few limbs. Most likely, she had already seen worse - lost someone much closer to her in her old life, killed someone in this one... ([i]It associated with regret, and Regret she called it.[/i]) As if the potential for or existence of even greater misery made any lesser griefs utterly invalid. 
	"Things always move on," she noted, and then inquired, "Do you think he'd be back?" Still in the same flat voice. Tears were no more flowing, though the marks still remained. Now she looked closer to just blank. [i]Do you think he'd still be, well, [b]him[/b]?[/i] He had said he had died several times before, and yet had lived again. He had seemed human enough, not ... empty. [i]Much more human than at least one of us.[/i]
	Perhaps she should have stayed and fought, after all. At least tried to fight, rather than run with abandon... ([i]You know you had no chance. You decided then and there. What use would there have been in two people dying, rather than one?[/i])
[i]	"So, now that we have this opportunity to rest and recover, why not we take this time to, y'know, actually introduce each other? We all have names, right?"[/i]
	Names. She had never had a need for one before now, as she had no one to call her by one in this life, in this world of beasts. She had just been, well, her.  A perspective. An 'I'. And whatever name she had carried before was not contained in her memories. She had had one, in her old life, sure, but no recollection of what it had been. She was a human woman, right? What would a human woman be called? Eliza? Alice? Neither felt quite right, but in the lack of a better one, something along the lines must do for a time being. Until she found one that felt more befitting. 
	"Alice," she noted after a long moment of silence. "You can call me Alice."
	The former assassin sauntered over to them, but did not immediately respond. It had been easier alone, in a sense... If you were on your own, you could not lose anyone, and but for rocks and lack there was nothing to be angry at.