It was as though her words stood burning before her. The indents and sharp creases to her eyes stiff, aching to be answered; how long would this take? She couldn’t decipher Roland’s eyes, she didn’t understand or recognized pity even if it was briefly grown by some variant in those clear blues. The look was foreign, and it made the steady calm fracture so very minutely under Roland’s gaze, triggering the subtle flutter behind her chest, the familiar prickling crawling up her legs.

She should have been used to all of it, and having been raised in lands that thrived merely on survival alone, she should have been blessed to find any home regardless of its beliefs. But having been given two paths, a freedom rarely observed or provided between heathens in the wilds, the lack of knowledge burned in the air with a calloused laugh.

She stood silent as his words drifted, low and soft; she stepped closer.

“The Basin is a place for Unicorns…,-“ It was hard for the young one to appreciate his candid humour. More so to appreciate the gifts that he had mentioned would truly come to pass, the rewards for serving a cause that appeared to burn at the back of her skull. As these words congealed into coherent words, making sense, and too much of that sense, the youth found herself turning her head away to look at the shifting, pulsing movement of the waters. She saw two faces, two lives behind the canvass of a growing empire; and how small and fragile they were, under the void, under the canopy of ideals far larger than what both of them had originally brought to the ‘table’. And having been brought to the Basin’s table, they would be crafted into useful bodies for the purposes of the crafter, their leaders.

Her face shifted into a blank and unfeeling appearance, lost in whichever throes her thoughts had left her. The previous laughter had all but sucked out of her from the shroud that covered them, flushed from the nervous, frustrated idiocy that had since rolled over as Roland explained what made the Basin.

Her ear closest to him shifted up, as her eye caught his with his final remarks. Encouragement, all so inviting sprang from his lips; every word seemed so sure that Sia would have rather accepted the terms and be done with morals. Who needed morals when one wasn’t lonely, running, always escaping danger without having a chance to live life for what it might be? With people…

But it was all she had brought with her, those codes that had burned brightly every time a life was taken from her. Regardless of species, the injustices witnessed on every leg they crossed burnt nightmares into her sleep, too many goodbyes to paint a dreamscape of neverending faces.

For a moment she thought she might lose it, laugh, because it was funny how the world was working around them. But the chill that had threatened to turn her away from the Basin stopped as she saw Roland smile. Watched as it curled, soft, warm… she smiled with him, a ghost of an impression as her eyes watched him fixedly.

She would not ignore what the Basin stood for, would not forget what Roland had told her. Sia was sick of running, sick of being scared to death and relying on those she loved, simply because they often sacrificed too much to protect the weak. And she was weak, so very weak and useless. And they had died while others had suffered to protect what they loved.

There was nothing left to protect anymore. “Perhaps you are…,” her voice was a whisper. Her eyes glinted briefly in the low light as a result of the decision she had just made. Who knew how accurate Roland had been? Perhaps there was some hope wedged and hidden there… Her voice arose again, her smile no longer strong, waning. “So, there might still be a place and purpose for me yet.” It wasn’t a very convincing effort. She couldn’t help but carry a weight in her vocals, the weariness in her body that had sung and drawn out in that moment. Mentally, physically, spiritually she felt as though she had been wasted away all together. As if her soul had been spread out on a thin slice of bread, being bit off slowly from one end to the other.

“Roland.”

A slight tremor cracked in her voice, before she shifted closer towards him. It might have been foolish of her at that moment, but she felt it lurching outside of her at the time, powerful as she came beside him to lean in shoulder to shoulder; that childish need to be held despite the high probability of being repelled or pushed away. “Sorry, I hope… you don’t, mind.” She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breathe. She would have been happy to just stand there, as they were, close enough to reassure herself that she wasn’t completely alone.

[[ooc: she's so strange and simple... >P ]]