Found the thoughts! Found 'em found'em[i]found'em--[/i]

You know, it'd be really damn nice to find a state somewhere between burnt-out husk and last-minute panic.

The sword doesn’t get left behind, barely. She's fleeing, using as many of the tricks she'd used to pursue as her tired frame can muster, but in reverse, and her fingers' claw-like grip on the hilt of the sword simply refuses to be lifted.  Normally this would be where she offers a prayer to Hermes to lend her speed in the escape but--

Ah. Erm. Um.

It could have been good! [i]So[/i] good! The lights wink out and with them goes the promises of all of, of, of [i]this[/i], but turned to peace! To commerce! To enlightenment and uplift-- 

No, no, strike the uplifting. She's still learning that, and it's hard.

Still! Imagine this, but turned to-- not to exile, exile is the wrong word, and so's expansion, but! To allowing people to [i]leave![/i] To search out some barren planet that they can make their own! To the free spread of ideas and music and stories and politics, to anything but [i]oh god she's still behind her--[/i]

She's alone. She's alone and she's running and she's trying not to think about how she's being chased by someone genetically coded to fuck her up and the idea of standing and fighting is unthinkable and the more she tries not to think about either of those things they more they swell to fill her entire mind. She's being driven by the prey instinct--not to plan, not to fight, to go anywhere so long as it's [i]away[/i], and she knows that that's what the wolves want, and--

Run! Just run, find something better on the way!