[color=orangered]"Lothren is wrong about this"[/color], Annara said, her voice only slightly lowered. It wasn't the first time she voiced her opinion on this and after the first few raids, she had given everybody hell who killed somebody for defending their home... only to be humbled by having to kill somebody herself, a girl only a few years younger than her who surprised her when she entered a house and dragged her to the ground, knife in hand and desperate courage in her eyes. The young woman knew that if she hadn't stabbed her in the side, she would be dead now, but feeling the hot blood rush over her stomach, being unable to mend the wound, watching this stranger die a slow and agonizing death... It took her several days before she would eat again and even now, weeks later, it weighed heavily on her conscience. It wasn't the first time she killed somebody - the Aretan raids on her people rarely ended without blood being spilled - but it was the first time she truly felt soiled by something she did.

[color=orangered]"I'm not going to hurt anybody unless I absolutely must. You know that, Alan."[/color]
He had been the one to find her, hands still pressed on the wound long after the girl stopped breathing, tears streaming down her face and begging the spirits that they might yet let her live. He had been the one to pull her away from the lifeless body and to comfort her until she gathered the strength to go and wash herself. But Alan had been a little harder on her ever since, his critique a little less fair, his jokes at her expense a little more waspish, his flirt a little less sincere. Something had changed - perhaps he had thought that she wasn't capable of doing such a thing until then and was disappointed. Whatever it was, their friendship was suffering as a result of it and she had not yet summoned the courage the take him aside and talk about this.

Instead, Annara did the only thing she could right now: She reassured him.
[color=orangered]"Nobody is going to get hurt tonight. I promise."[/color]