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Her stroll down the side hallway was rather short lived as she noticed the guards focusing on her from the other side of the corridor, and yet who could blame them? She wasn’t exactly fitting in as planned. All at once Czigani felt the twinge of nervousness slowly creeping into her mind, sowing doubt and urging her to simply run, and never look back. But no matter how quick she might be, there was no way that she’d make it out in full view of so many, not to mention the wounds she’d still had from nights before. The young Fotian couldn’t figure out why in the nine hells her life had taken such a corkscrew of a turn, where life was once a linear path that she could clearly see the future beyond and her purpose, but that light near the end was slowly dimming as the path split into many undecided directions, and the erection of barricades and hurdles seemed to spring forth. 

[i]Stop it you fool!...[/i]

The girl mentally reprimanded herself, snapping out of the brief moment of hopelessness. She was better than that and if death was her final destination so soon, then she would welcome it.

But it would not be today.

The overpowering aroma of one who wore entirely too much scented oil had permeated from another connection of the hallway as several of the guests -being led by a rather tall, slim, long haired…[i]male[/i]?- was heading toward Czigani. At that moment, her eyes darted from one side of the hall to the other, hoping she could slip into an adjacent room before it was-

“J’in al’rek!”

The girl cursed under her breath in the native Fotian tongue as the stranger stopped and addressed her, and if that wasn’t enough, she felt the Seraphim’s hand brush against her shoulder. She really didn’t need to be seen right now, especially not by a one of the many pompous royals milling about the palace as though they had nothing better to do with their worthless lives. And on top of that, she certainly didn’t like to be touched by [i]anyone[/i], especially one who clearly carried himself above all others and smelled like a female whore.
Although, the humor in the Royal’s last comment hadn’t escaped her either, since Czigani herself was smelling worse than a Fotian heffer in the dead of Summer. A long, hot bath sounded absolutely wonderful, but…
“Apologies, m’lord.” Czigani finally said in a low voice, doing her best to keep her face hidden under the hood. “I-I am not feeling well at the moment.” She held her side, which wasn’t entirely false as she still felt pain in her ribs. “Thank you for the offer, but I must be on my way.”

Czigani really wasn’t sure where exactly she was going, nor which direction a good place to lay low would be, but what was abundantly clear to her, was that she needed to clean up and rest or her recovery time would be that much slower.