Juna sat there in the piercing darkness of the dank and cold cell, surely only one of many among this Aretan dungeon. There was enough light for Juna to firmly see the suffering of her companions, although it was impossible for the elvish woman to alleviate their suffering. Only a doctor supplied with medicinal supplies or a mage skilled in the arts of healing could hope to assuage it. So for now Juna sat helplessly, assembled down upon the hard wet stone, engaging in conversation with her injured leader she was unable to help.

“Well, you’ve proven me for a fool then, Lothren,” Juna replied to Lothren first comment, of which she could not deny held the truth. For he was right to say, even should she succeed, she could not hope to take shelter in the city with blood on her.

Yet his second comment made a flash of red come over her face, which appeared without the elvish woman’s permission. She would vanish it if she could, but it was no easy thing for the sensuous body to obey the rational mind. Juna had no idea that her leader could feel such a thing for her. His declaration that she was like home, and that he would save her, his sister, seemed to her more a cover for a more intimate revelation.

“W-well,” Juna began at last, embarrassingly stumbling over her words in her embarrassment. “What are you saying, Lothren? Surely this is all just a jest on your part?”

In the meantime the conversation turned towards more pressing matters, and Juna eagerly went to collect herself, and control those emotions which had embarrassingly swayed her temperament.  She was in luck, for she managed to collect her, and it only took her a little time, and by the time the conversation had shifted she no longer was overcome by the confusion of her heart, and it had switched towards the guard who thought it fitting to survey the lot of them. She recalled the man from earlier, an unremarkable man distinguished to the Ytharien for the token understanding it had seemed that he had felt. 

Whether or not he was understanding of Lothren’s speech would be revelatory on whether his sympathies were the mere mistakes of the naïveté of a youthful soul or whether they had stemmed from truly honest sentiments which held some weight. Lothren certainly was not giving him honeyed words, what with claiming that he ought to be thanking him for burning down villages and herded their people away. Even Juna could not believe that was what Lothren was really doing.

It seemed that he was not impressed, and Juna expected that his goodwill had been greatly limited in actuality. Yet he soon proved her wrong. When Lothren had requested water, he fetched it as requested, and Juna was genuinely impressed that an average man such as he was able to overcome the intense hatred which she emanated around the men they’d encounter in recent hours. 

The canteen was eventually offered to her, but the elvish woman firmly lifted up her left hand in a jerk upwards, the palm of her slender fingers open, and with a shake of her head said, “There’s need for that. Other’s here need it more than I do.”