[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220419/d955e440c95ac6f731dc5e649ad359eb.png[/img][/center]
[right][sub][@Obscene Symphony][/sub][/right][hr]
In the middle of the night Lilann opened her eyes to darkness. Her heart beat fast, her breath quickened, dread enveloped her, and then in the span of a moment the feeling vanished. Such occurrences were not unfamiliar to her; night terrors had troubled her since her first steps in Dranir, and often left her much worse for wear than this. Usually, though, traces of her nightmares followed her to the waking world, ephemera in the peripheries of her eyes and ears, or a sensation like falling. Instead she just felt…afraid, almost bestially so. 

But she was accustomed to fear, too. Before long she was asleep again, and this time she was awoken by something very real: the sound of her own name. 

Morning had come to the graveyard, which meant sunlight had followed it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it was already staining her hair blue, and reached instinctually for her hat, which she donned before she was even fully upright. Her back ached from the hard-packed earth, but a long, drawn-out stretch popped her joints and filled her with a pleasant warmth. Behind her, her tail curled and uncurled itself, as if in mimic, and she let out a satisfied sigh. Not her worst night on the road by any means, she’d even had company this time. Company who was an earlier riser than she was.

[color=8E939E]“Was this part of your… funeral… thing?”[/color] Kyreth asked, already on his feet. Lilann didn’t pick up on the strain in his voice, it was too early for that. The shakiness she caught, but her mind was not quite as awake as her body.

[color=skyblue]“Mmhg…hn?”[/color] she answered, then realized those weren’t words and tried again. [color=skyblue]“Funeral thing? Was what part—”[/color]

She saw the gashes then, inches away from where she’d laid her head, and froze. A feeling like the one that had woken her earlier in the night began to bubble up within her, but she pushed it down. Instead, in its place she let grow a sense of fascination. She twisted about; the marks encircled the entirety of their small, ill-defined [i]‘camp’[/i]. 

[color=skyblue]“Oh, my…”[/color] Lilann mumbled as stood up, eyes pasted to the clawed earth. [color=skyblue]“No, this wasn’t me. This is…interesting.”[/color] 

Interesting indeed. It was wild—well, no, actually, it was the opposite of wild, it was [i]deliberate[/i]. It had to be. She didn’t know of any animals that made patterns like this, and a creature would likely have just attacked them in their sleep. For a moment she suspected Kyreth might have done this, and that perhaps she’d had his measure all wrong, but, no. Looking at him, it was clear to her that he was just as confused as she was—or that he was a [i]very[/i] good actor. 

Perhaps this was some sort of omen, diving punishment for lying about the dead for a place to sleep. She looked down to the plaque in the ground, the grave marker for a man she did not know. The stone was old, cracked and mossy, and when she’d first arrived the dirt about it was entirely undisturbed, unlike most of the others which bore indentations from the townsfolk who came to kneel and pay their respects. It made sense, the name on the plaque sounded Tainted—that’s why she’d picked it. Odds were no one was coming to visit a dead Tainted in a small Finnagund town except another Tainted, and no matter how sour the sentiments it would have been bad form to chase someone off for performing a funerary vigil. 

At least, so long as that vigil didn’t end with the cemetery being torn up. Damn. 

Lilann threw on her coat and slipped her tail into a fold in the lining. [color=skyblue]“We should go. I don’t intend to take the blame for whoever did do this, and neither should you,”[/color] she said, hurriedly stamping the ashen remains of kindling into the grass, and dumping out the little bowls of incense before tossing them into her satchel and slinging it over her shoulder. The lyre and mask she clipped to a hoop on her hip. Lastly, she settled her longsword into a strap on the back of her coat, high enough so that its point didn’t drag on the ground, but low enough that it didn't disturb her hat. 

[color=skyblue]“Bounty House, then? Before someone shows up with flowers for their nan and see's what's become of the place.”[/color]