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Alja heaved a long sigh upon hearing Seele's explanation. Graves and Sieg made a little bit more sense now. There was only one way Graves knew how to [i]have a disagreement[/i], and things getting [i]heated and emotional[/i] sounded like code for it snowballing violently out of control either during their fight or immediately afterwards. Her jaw clenched, though she did her best not to show her frustration. As much as she wanted to deck Graves for starting a fight [i]now[/i] of all times, he was clearly broken up, and being yelled at never helped anything. At least it seemed like it was resolved now. So she took a long, [i]long[/i] calming breath and let it out slooowly, and by the time it was gone the violent impulse had abated and worry had taken its place. She'd never seen Graves like that.

But that was neither here nor there. Pressing either him or Seele right now would make it worse more than anything else. She'd grill someone later on what the hell happened, but this was not the time. So she elected to ignore it, steamroll right past it for the moment, and consider Seele's second question. As soon as it was asked, she sagged a bit. Nowhere near as much as she had in front of the door, of course, but she was obviously bothered by something.

"[color=d1fffc]The others went to another guild--Children of Letria--to see about pullin' together. Safety in numbers, you know? I didn't go with them, I wanted to...talk to Leaves.[/color]" Her voice slowed as she spoke, until she finished and it ended up ground to a halt. She took a sharp breath and stared up at the sky for a moment, trying to squeeze the evident emotion out of her voice some and meeting with minimal success. "[color=d1fffc]Didn't end up answerin' me when I knocked on her door.[/color]" A part of her knew that it was possible, if not downright likely, that Leaves had just been asleep. But that more reasonable voice was shouted down by the choking feeling of guilt. By the time she dropped her head, though, she'd managed to wrestle it back down, and she looked down at the girl next to her with a wide, [i]genuine[/i] smile.

"[color=d1fffc]Ha, listen to me divin' into self pity. I'm alive, hey? I'm sure things'll get better from here, right? Graves is good at pullin' himself together, he'll be just...fine...[/color]"

She trailed off as the recollection of the conversation she'd had with him in the sewers resurfaced, and she sobered up almost immediately.

"[color=d1fffc]Listen, um, Seele,[/color]" she started, "[color=d1fffc]you remember how I wanted to have that convo with you at some point? Could we...uh...do that sometime soon?[/color]"