"It's - always worth it, for me."

(That is the sort of thing his soul says about him.)

She looks at her hands again. "Don't want you hurt."

"Well. I don't want you hurt - I don't want anyone hurt. And people listen to me because I'm the one with the city-sized healing aura."

She grins, just slightly, seeming very tired all of a sudden, and nods, and then goes serious again. "I..." she seems to think better of whatever she was about to say, or perhaps she's just having trouble talking again. "Seen, too many people hurt. Enough. Done. Understand?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm okay. I've - seen a lot of people hurt too. I don't like it."

"Yeah."

"We go?"

"Yeah."

"...My name is Taliar, by the way."

"Denice."

She wobbles to her feet and retrieves a nondescript blue backpack from the nook she's been hiding in. She continues ignoring the food and clothing.

Well, she can ignore them if she likes.

He gets up and leads the way out of the alley.

She hesitates when they get to the street, and tenses up again, but takes a deep breath and continues following him.

Nobody bothers them. A few people smile at Taliar; he smiles back. Some of them glance at Denice, but for the most part she seems to be folded into some kind of pseudo-invisibility field, an aura of 'oh, that's Taliar's problem'.

He leads her to an inn, about fifteen minutes' walk away. The front doors are open, but Taliar goes in the side, avoiding the sparse crowd of early diners. The hallway back here is empty, and after a couple of turns it leads them to the pair of small adjoining rooms where Taliar and his father are staying.

She's pretty stressed out by this, though she does relax a little when they get back indoors and away from other people. When they get to the rooms she puts her pack down on the table and then seems to be at something of a loss.

Yeah, so is Taliar.

"Um. This can be your room until we leave tomorrow. It was going to be mine but then I didn't end up needing it." Because he didn't sleep for three days. "I can share the other room with my dad."

She nods, then after a moment tilts her head. "You okay?"

He smiles wryly. "Yeah. I should actually sleep tonight, though. I hope I figure out how to keep the healing aura going in my sleep soon."

She nods.

"It's okay. Hurts, but not..." she gestures vaguely, "not new."

"Sounds familiar," he says. "I bruise really easily, it's been that way all my life, I know it's - possible to get used to that kind of thing. But I was still really glad when I got my healing aura."

She nods, and before she's even quite finished the gesture, she flumps into one of the chairs by the table. She looks... she's not crying, and she's not trying not to cry, but she's the sort of unhappy that's more likely than not going to build to tears.

"...do you want a hug?" he offers hesitantly.

She stiffens, and doesn't look at him, but nods.

So he goes over to her chair and tucks his soul securely into his shirt and hugs her.

She leans into the hug, just a little bit desperately, and, yeah, now she's sobbing.

Hugs.