Samaire couldn't stop crying. Shame burned along every nerve ending, eyes stinging no matter how fiercely she wiped them. Cheeks reddening with humiliation and tears alike, she knew she cut a pathetic figure. She was no First, no true avenger, a failure of Cathan. Her whole life, her uncle had tipped her chin up, had shown her how to keep her pain locked deep inside. [I]Never let them see you falter,[/I] he'd told her. Samaire had thought she had learned the lesson well. The nymph watched her impassively, with all the indifference of nature. It was not the spirits of her childhood, bound by old blood and deep affection for their watered down kin. Suddenly, fiercely, Samaire wanted nothing more than to be in Cathan waters, held by the river spirits that knew her heart, that loved her as much as spirits could. It was a childish wish, but no less ardent. The spirit of the woods spoke only truth, even as her wordless speech shamed Samaire. She'd hobbled an unwilling creature. It was a man-thing, yes, but looking at it now it was hard to call it an abomination. It had not truly fought her in the past few weeks. It shrunk away whenever she neared, snapped its teeth, but it could have escaped. There had been nights when she was too tired to be vigilant, fingers stumbling on the chain. It could have ran, and yet... She forced herself to meet its eyes, vision blurred by tears, nose running. She sniffed, hiccupped, and looked away. There was an intelligence of sorts there. Not human, not quite, but not purely animal either. Samaire wiped her eyes again, took shaking breaths and fumbled for her words. "" She made a frustrated sound. It had been so long since she had spoken in spirit tongue. The words seemed just beyond her reach. "" "I don't know what to do," Samaire slipped back into common, frustrated by her own inability to properly speak the language. She had no way of knowing if the nymph could follow her words. "Or where to go. I don't have any clues. I don't know who sent the glass-eyed men. There was nothing tying them to any of our rivals, no motive for them to slaughter my family, no trace of [I]anything[/I]. I have to find whoever is responsible--it's the only way I can reclaim any shreds of honour. My family will die out, but I can't let our last memory be one of shame." She paused, fingers loosening on her blade, lowered and only a breath away from falling to soft earth. The tears in her eyes sprang anew. Samaire rasped, "When I kill those monsters, then I get to join my family in the beyond. I just want to be with them again."