AHeartlessNobody Member

Cassie had blocked everything out for a moment, covering her eyes and having her eyes closed tightly as she knelled there, but it didn't help much. Even if she managed to block it out, she still knew where she was and that she was trapped in this tight space, just like the day of the invasion. Her parents putting her in that small dark room, the young girl hearing her parent's screams. This was too much like it. Her sobs continued, her body trembling and when she felt someone take her wrists, a small scream escaped her lips, in a split second fighting with the person until she opened her eyes and saw it was Serix. He was here. She wasn't in that hidden room of the house as her parents died. Her sobs continued to rack through her body and she allowed herself to be pulled against him, hugging him tightly and burying her face against his neck as her crying continued. She listened to his gentle voice, his soft words, slowly breaking through beyond the panic that left her heart racing. She tried to do as he said, focusing on him. Without his glowing eyes and him holding her close it might have been hard. But with him holding her so close, it was almost in dong so he was smothering out the cramped darkness, allowing her to block out the situation better than she had curling in on herself moments before, "J-just stay with me....please...." She answered quietly, nuzzling herself as close as she could to him. Hearing his breathing and feeling his chest rise and fall with his, she managed to try and match it. It took a moment to get the fast paced breaths to get to that slow speed, but soon she had it down, taking careful breaths, trying to get there thoughts together. This wasn't the invasion. No one was killing anyone. She could get out. She just had to fix something. She could do that right? Maybe. She hoped. A few minute passed and by this time, her breathing was a little steadier and her sobs had stops so that only a few silent tears were escaping. She was still shaking, a nervous and still a small amount of panic to them, but was much calmer than she had minutes before. Pulling back just a little bit to look at him, then she looked to the door through the darkness, trying to continue to keep her breathing matched with his, she continued, "I need to find tools....my dad might have packed some?" She was sure he did. Her father never went anywhere without tools. It was just who he was. There was sure to be some. She paused for a moment though, still wrapped up in his grasp and so close to him. It left her heart skipping a beat, and now with her calmer and her mind not obsessed with being trapped, she was all too aware of them holding one another so closely. And next, she did something that even she herself wasn't expecting. She, in a rather quick movement, pressed a short kiss to his cheek, "Thank you Serix..." Then, just as quickly as she had done that, she had gotten out of his grasp, heading to the boxes to go through them, her cheeks more red than they had probably ever been, her mind racing with what she had just done out of instinct without even realizing or thinking about it. She closed her eyes tightly for a moment before opening the boxes, trying to sort through all of this in her head.

Mira kept her eyes cautiously on the young man as he held up his hands, trying to prove his innocence as he spoke to her, explaining that he just wanted to see how she and her mother and been getting along safely without being within the kingdom. Well, the real answer to that was fairly simple. For one, they lived so far out into the woods that not even the bandits dared to go there. And two, with her mother's protection spell, it was absolutely impossible for anyone to get near their home even if they did see it. But, again, she couldn't tell him that part. He continued on with his speaking, and then, he gave news that made her eyes widen, ** “My name is Prince Destrian Forthwind, first and only son of King Merek Forthwind."** So, this young man was none other than the prince of the nearby kingdom? But what was he doing out here? And what were the chances that out of all of the humans in that kingdom she could have met wandering about in the woods, she had to have met the _Prince_. Her mind was flying at this new information, and at the same time, she was conflicted with so many emotions as well. One half of her was frightened beyond belief even more at the news this young man in front of her was the Prince. After all, it was his father that had outlawed all magic and threatened to kill any witch or wizard that might be found out. His father had killed many innocent witches and wizards merely because of what they were and not who they were. It was his father's fault and prejudice that her own father was dead, and she was so sure if he knew this prince might react the same and try to kill her as well. Yet...at the same time, another side of her was smitten. She had read so many books about this sort of thing and had wished for so long that she could be thrown into one of those plots. After all, what young woman wouldn't want to meet a prince and have a fairy tail of her own? Okay, so this maybe wasn't exactly a romance. After all, the prince was just asking to know about her home because she was a 'citizen of his father's kingdom' as he said, but still, that child like side of her was thrilled. Though, she managed to hide this side very well as she spoke to him. "I understand, but my mother and I live far too deep into the woods. Not one bandit has ever come across our home. I can assure you, Your Highn....um...Destrian?" She stopped herself from using the formalities of the prince as he had told her before and continued, "My mother and I are perfectly safe."

Cassie smiled at him and nodded when he asked if she could show him around, "Sure. I checked out all of the rooms when I first got here. A lot of them are pretty much empty, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to show you all the rooms anyway." She walked out of the hanger with him and started to open doors to show him each room as she spoke, "Basically you know which one the bedroom is, you know the storage room with all our food and stuff. Of course there's the generator room. The bathroom. All the rest are pretty much empty though or have scrap metal." She opened up room after room, letting him see what she was talking about, getting to the last room, opening the door to let him see the room full of scrap metal, "See? Nothing but pretty much junk in here." She kicked a rather large pile of boxes full of the scrap metal, thinking she hadn't kicked it hard enough to do anything to it, only when she did, the huge pile began to waver, "Uh-oh." She moved back with him just in time as the pile fell and she gave an embarrassed smile, "Well, I guess that goes to prove I'm not the most graceful person around. Or graceful at all really. I'm kind of clumsy actually." She joked, before she stepped forward, confusion on her face. "Hey." She said, climbing over some of the fallen boxes to look at one of the walls of the room better, "There's a door here. I didn't see this when I walked through here before. But why is it hidden behind these boxes?" She looked back at him, though of course, knowing he couldn't give her the answer, began to push the boxes out of the way of the hidden door before it was completely visible, "Seems like its got the same scanner lock as the hanger has." Placing her hand against the door, she watched as it slid open, walking inside with him, looking around. There wasn't much in the very small closet type room, just three boxes that were taped up. She walked over to one of them, bending down, and taking out her pocket knife, but it open, only to have a deep frown on her face slowly pulling out the contents, "This....is my parents stuff. They must have brought it here just in case they needed to hid here...." She pulled out a few things. Changes of clothes. Books. Even toys they had brought there for her to play with. She swallowed hard, a silent struggle coming over her momentarily before she covered it up, quickly putting the thing back into the box, not even daring to open the other boxes, "Let's go eat. I'm hungry." She said simply, though as she closed up the box again and stood up, she turned to see the keypad on the door flickering, making her confused, and then, much to her shock, the lights went out all together, the door slamming shut. She gasped, wide eyes as she stepped over to it, trying to force it open, her breath growing uneven once again as her mind raced at the thought of them being trapped in this room, "No, no, no, no!" She stopped trying to force the door open and instead, knelt down, her hands covering her ears in panic, her eyes shutting tightly as she tried to block out the fact they were trapped in this space, though it wasn't working very good. Her sobs began now and her body trembled as she closed in on herself where she sat.

At the feel of his hand on her shoulder, Mirabella tensed and spun around to face him, quickly backing at a few steps, holding Grounii closely to her. For a moment, it seemed like she much dash off after that, but she knew that would just make her situation look even worse. But, then again, this young man seemed to be doing a fairly good job at making it even harder for her to stay calm because now he was saying that he wanted her to take him to the cottage where she and her mother lived. Oh, why couldn't she have just kept her mouth shut? Why hadn't she just said thank you to him and went on her way? She was seriously beginning to regret not staying within the safe boundaries of her mother's protective spell. She seemed a bit nervous as the two stood there, her searching for what her answer would be and finally found herself shaking her head and taking a few worried and cautious steps from him, "N-no. My mother wouldn't like me bringing a stranger home." She wasn't exactly sure what this man was up to, but it didn't feel safe. Even if she was just a human living in the woods like he thought her to be, what reasons did he have for 'wanting to see this cottage of hers for himself'? It wasn't making him look good that was for sure. She took a few more steps back, almost stumbling over some roots of a tree as she did and catching herself on the truck of the same tree, feeling her heart pounding at the situation she was in and what it might mean for her and her mother if things continued to go downhill. Why did she feel so intimidated by him, even though she was more powerful with spells up her sleeve? Maybe it was the high class disposition of the young man? Or maybe it was the not knowing what he was up to? Well whatever it was, she didn't like it. Standing up straight after having caught herself on the tree, she nervously moved her gaze back to him, trying to keep as much distance as she could from him in this small clearing, "You have no reason for coming to my home and it would be dangerous of me to allow a man I don't know see where I live."

> I may be really stupid (or let's say tired) but when I'm trying to add a picture I'm not sure how to properly use the hyperlink or image options when it comes to the proper structure and sort of link the code is looking for. IMG? HTML? etc. So can someone kind of help me step by step to say add an imagine to a post/signature or put a link in a post? How I did it was I just went to where all the code symbols are the top of the reply box and I clicked the image symbol. After putting in the url for the picture I left everything else as it was and the picture showed up. I put a picture below to show you how it should look with the url in. 

Cassie smiled when he rolled his eyes at her sarcastically and laughed when he responded with that snarky tone that, despite would have likely annoyed anyone else, left her happy. Nodding, she handed the remote to him, placing it in his outstretched hand. Once he took it, she moved closer to point to all the controls on the remote, speaking about each one as she pointed to it, "Okay, it's pretty simple. You use the joystick here to change it's direction, you press this green button to turn it on, use the red to turn it off. Oh, and the blue button over here is what you press if you want it to hover in place." Once she had explained all that to him, she took a step back, nodding to the robot that was now sitting back on the ground, ready to go fly again when he would begin the controls, "Try not to crash it. I mean, it's a pretty tough little robot, but I still would like to not have to fix something on it again if something happened to break on it." After spending that long in working on, she would have hated for something to get broken on it so soon to the point she would have to end up fixing it all over again. She stood beside him, carefully looking over at him, that small smile back on her face once more, "Well, what are you waiting for? I know you're dying to test it out, so give it a shot."

Mira stood there, a nervous air about her as he stood up, tempted to back away when he moved closer to her, but steadied herself, tensed up, and when he held out her small black cat to her, she carefully and with shaky hands took him, holding Grounii gently in her arms. The small cat meowed happily before squirming to make his way up her arm and sit on her shoulders. At this, she smiled at the cat, letting him nuzzle her face, before she once again turned her wary gaze to the boy at the question of why she was in the woods so far away from the human kingdom, asking her if everything was alright. How was she supposed to respond to that. She couldn't just ell him that she was a witch and hide form human society to keep herself safe. That would surely get her killed. He would probably drag her back and have her hung. Or burned, or whatever else it was that they did to spellcasters. Or, even if they kept her alive, her exsitance in the human kingdom would likely be torturous with lashes to the back and males taking advantage of her. Her mother had told her of all those things happening to their kind and she surely didn't want to go through that herself. So, what could she say to avoid any of that? She looked back to him, her green eyes meeting his as she brushed some of her dark hair from her face, speaking in the best way she could answer, hoping he wouldn't ask too many more questions and she could go before things turned bad, "I...I don't live in the kingdom. I live here in the forest with my mother, in a cottage some ways from her. She...is a very anxious woman, who fears the crime and bad intentions of those within the kingdom." At least that was the truth, and it was said so that maybe it wouldn't be too suspicious. Glancing over her shoulder toward the way they had came, she began taking a few steps back from the young noble man, and when she looked back to him she gave him a nod, "Thank you for finding Grounii, but I think I should be going. My mother will expecting me soon and she has warned me to not speak to strangers. So, farewell." Giving a slight curtsy in good manners, as her father had taught her to do as a way of being polite when he had been alive, she quickly turned, hoping to rush off before the young man could ask her more questions.

Cassie glanced over at him when he sat down, and she caught the water bottle tossed to her, opening it and taking a few sips out of it before she shrugged, speaking to him, "Actually, I think I'm almost done. That is unless my dad was sneaky and put a few secrets into the robot's mechanics, which would mean it will take a little bit longer than expected, but I'm hoping that's not the case. At least with the smaller robots that is." She capped the bottle of water and set it beside her before she went back to work, tightening and replacing things within the robot, and just a few minutes later, she was fairly sure she had it. Grinning to herself, she pointed over to one of the smaller tables against the wall, "Hand me that remote off of the table so I can test it's functions so far." She stated and when she was handed it, stood up, looking over at him, "Cross your fingers and hope this works." With that, she flipped it on and the old robot began humming to life, lights on it and such blinking. Very slowly, once the robot was booted up, she moved the joystick on the remote, laughing with relief and joy that it was actually flying around, "Yes! It works! It actually works!" She was so happy that, in her joy, she found herself hugging Serix around the neck, laughing happily before she realized it and when she did come to see she was hugging him, she pulled back, feeling the tension and awkwardness between the two before she let go completely, taking a step away and letting go, silent for a moment as she kept her eyes back on the robot as she drove it around using the joystick. After a long moment of that she glanced over to him, "Do...you want to try and drive it?"

Cassie stepped away once he said he had it, watching closely this time. He stood as she had told him to and she didn't feel the need to cover her ears with the silencer on, so this time she could watch him took aim and shoot. This time the bullet went straight through the center and he turned giving her a lopsided grin that made her laugh, her heart skipping a beat at the way he looked at her with that confident air. Walking over, she playfully and mimicking his smug attitude she patted his cheek before taking the gun to reload it. "Don't get too cocky, Serix. That's a sitting target. it gets harder with moving ones. We'll have to wait to practice that once I get some of these robots running." Some of the robots here were made to easily take bullets undamaged so she was sure they could use them for target practice later on. She should probably get started on that now that she thought about it. Having finished reloading his gun and handing it back to him, she smiled, "Okay, here. You do what you want right now. Practice, go get something to eat from the storage or whatever. I'm actually going to continue working on the robot I was fixing yesterday." With that, she walked over to the small remote controlled robot and knelt down, opening it's back up again to set to work. This particular robot was smaller than the others and so she was pretty sure it shouldn't take her that long to get it working. She hoped it wouldn't anyway. But then again, this was her father's work and he had been known to make thing more complicated than they looked in order to keep people from stealing the concept of his different mechanical inventions. She sighed, clipping a few of the wires and replacing them, speaking up load enough for him to hear. She wasn't sure if he was in the room with her anymore so she spoke load enough that he should have been able to at least hear her from the down the hall, "Yo, Serix, mind bringing me a bottle of water to sip on while I fix this thing?"

Mirabella felt her heart hammering in her chest with worry for the small black cat that was running between the trees and under roots. Where was he going? And why on earth was he running off like this? He was normally such a behaved animal and she never had any problems like this before from him. Pushing back branches from her way as she went, she frowned, seeming to loose sight of the small cat. She looked about anxiously, terrified that she might now ever find the small shape shifter. What if he couldn't find his way back? What if he got hurt and she couldn't help him? What would happen when she went home and her mother asked where he was? She ran her hands over her face in a frustrated way before she continued pushing forward, heading further into the woods than she was comfortable with. The further she went, the more hesitant her footsteps became and the more fearful she was. Was she getting closer to the human kingdom? She hoped not. She would hate to stumble upon it and something happen to her. She moved forward though, determined to find her friend. Pushing back branch after branch and making her way through the brush, into a rather small clearing, relief swelled in her, a smile coming to face at the sight of the black cat sitting there. Only that relief washed away quickly and instead she froze in her steps, her smile faltering at the sight of a human male kneeling down next to Grounii. This was bad. Very bad. She stood there, for the moment unsure how to react, just looking at hi wide eyed, a slight fear in her eyes at the memories that ran through her mind. Memories of the day her father had been killed by humans that had been passing through the woods. Memories of the human children who had beat her and thrown things at her until her mother had to rescue her. This human was obviously of the higher class from his clothes and the higher class were the worst kinds. They were the more judgmental and would be quick to try something to harm others. Humans were no good. Humans were evil. This one was too and would likely kill her for being a witch. If he found out she was a witch that is. Maybe she could just make this a quick passing? Just say thank him for stopping her cat and go on her way? Yes. She could do that. Yet, it had been so long that she had spoken to anyone besides her mother it took her a few seconds to kickstart her mind again to figure out what to do. She forced herself to seem calmer, despite her fear of this human, managed to take a few steps forward, watching as Grounii, the forever brave animal he was, actually purred, allowing the human to pet him and even rubbed his head against the human's hand, "I-I'm sorry. That's my cat. He's a little bi of a trouble maker and always runs off. Thank you for stopping him for me." She looked to Grounii, kneeling down, "Come on, Grounii. We have to get home." The cat though was stubborn and after walking over to Mira to rub against her, went right back over to the human before she could pick him up, rubbing against the young man, and even hopping up into his lap, "Grounii. I'm sure he doesn't want to hold you all day and we have to get home to cook supper.Now, come here." Still the cat stubbornly meowed and even this time layed down and yawned, completely and obviously purposely ignoring her commands. This made her rake a hand through her hair in a frustrated and nervous manner, eyeing the human for a moment anxiously before she carefully stepped over to him, with the intentions of trying to pick the cat up, but she found herself stopping a little ways from where he knelt, her fear getting the best of her and making her unwilling to move any closer to the human, her body tense, "Ummm....maybe.....if you stand up he might come back to me?" She offered her voice suddenly quiet in hopes of hiding at least some of her fear.