Camilla lay in the darkness. Some part of her mind struggled to say the name but the terrible compulsion seemed to be fading. There was something near her then, a presence that warmed her somehow, it closed around her and she caught a vague impression of an animal, perhaps a lion or a wolf and then the light seemed to grow in pressure, enfolding and squeezing until she wanted to scream in pain.

With a convulsive jerk Camilla returned to consciousness, her hands grabbing hold of Cydrics chest. She felt his lips on hers and lay still for a moment unable to focus her scattered mind. Her chest rose suddenly in a gasping intake of breath. For a moment she just lay beneath him, looking up into his worried eyes, unable to move, scarcely able to breath. Her chest hurt like she had been beaten and her mouth tasted like blood.

[b]"What... what happened,"[/b] she asked in a dry cracked voice, making no move to extricate herself from beneath him. The fragmented pieces of the last several minutes swirled in her mind but refused to come together in any meaningful pattern. Someone had been saying something. It had been important or at least Cydric had thought so.

[b]"Someone said something about a Tzn..."[/b] a painfully electrical buzzed burned through her skin and she almost yelped. It felt like a flash of heat from a fire complete with sparks.

[b]"A word I didn't understand,"[/b] she amended. It occurred to her belatedly that she was still laying beneath the Imperial. Reaching up she lay a hand on his cheek. Somehow she knew that he had saved her from something terrible, although what exactly remained unclear.

[b]"What is going on?"[/b] she asked, shaking her head.

[b]"That is an excellent question Frauline,"[/b] came a response from an unexpected direction. Camilla pivoted her head and saw a tall man in an impressive black leather coat and a wide brimmed leather hat. He had lean craggy features, and his eyes glittered with intelligence. He wore some sort of armor, mostly concealed beneath the knee-length leather coat and an improbable number of pistols hung from several belts. One of his pistols was in his hand, he wasn't pointing it at Cydric but the hammer was clearly pulled back.

[b]"What IS going on?"[/b] he repeated her words, altering the emphasis to suggest that he had best be pleased with their answer.

[@POOHEAD189]