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Startled by the suddenness of the shove - and the way it hurt her, just because the older Essentic was so much stronger than her that it was scary, the flutterby jumped a bit and backed away. Quietly, she listened to Vin-Vin's harsh words, but her gaze never left his eyes. For a moment she was almost frozen to the spot by the sheer force of the emotions that were being thrown at her. The accompanying rise of emotions from the direction of the house made her head hurt, and Rhian winced even as she nodded.

"I'll go," she said softly, and turned away to walk off. "But... I'll come back later." Have your time, "Grandpa", you need this. And really, leaving didn't sound that bad with the hurricane-strength emotional storm that was swirling up, increasing in strength. Walking at first, the Alter broke into a run by about fifteen paces away, and then kept running until she was out of physical sight of the upcoming clash. Only then did she fall to her knees, the force of emotions from the estranged brothers strong enough, even at this distance, to make her retch.

Rhian had never been around emotions this intense before, not even when her Mama and Papa had been apart. This was - this was something entirely different, and it made her head ache with the ferocity of the feelings. Even now she could feel the two's emotions, could almost see them in her mind's eye; the black lightning storm that was Vin and the blue hurricane of the Duke threatening to swallow and consume her very being in their path of destruction.

She had done what she could.

Now it was up to them.

There was hardly any need for slowing down. By now, the Duke's tetchiness had risen to high enough levels to fall back into his usual long-legged striding, yet Aoi's pace regulation served as much as to put a damper on his speed as it did to let him catch up. Much like an overeager cruiser shuffling into a traffic jam, with a little pang of annoyance, Banning was made to realise some self-control might be in order.

When Aoi's calming gesture and that gentle transfer added to the overall sense of 'cool down' and 'it's alright', the man actually felt his peace of mind return somewhat. The welcome fresh air soothed him just as much, dousing that feverish confusion, for now. He was doing something again, he would get his answers now. The anticipation was only metaphorically killing him, he'd faced worse, that's what he told himself. Everything would be alright. The spark of hope he'd denied himself to nurture for so long was steadily growing now.
When Rugo was involved, everything would be alright.

But then, why...
No, let's not be naive. Something was wrong, his brother needed his help, somehow, but he hadn't come to him.

For once the noble truly appreciated Aoi giving him the time, and the mental shelter to sort his thoughts out in the crucial moments before this would all ome to the turning point. As much as he felt lighter already thanks to the young Essentic's care, there was no denying he was still quite a wreck, looking like he'd lost two weeks of sleep instead of three days by now, only to be invigorated slightly by a sudden breakthrough.

Banning was in no state to do more than notice how this ordeal was taxing Aoi as well, but his efforts didn't go by unnoticed. It was with a final thought to repay him for this later that Bane, ironically distracted from his own issue for just a few seconds, unwittingly rounded the corner to step into the open battleground.

__~

At the other corner of the ring, to speak, Rugovin had quietly watched Rhian leave. He would apologise to her later, once all of this was through. If he still could, at least. For now, his heart had steeled, like he had just melded on a particularly spiky sort of armour, distant and intimidating. Right now, he left no room for remorse. Whereas Banning had lived in obliviousness for all this time, ignorant of his hardships and only dealing with a sense of loss, Rugovin's experience of this time-between had been quite a bit more hands-on.

Just as Rhian had left his view, and he had turned away from her trail with a grave nod, like an elderly veteran getting a headache from everything around him, just then, when he looked up to feel Aoi's presence startlingly close -how had he not noticed-, Banning stepped into the open area.
Into the battlefield, with all the infuriating innocence of a lamb, ignorant and self-righteous. He had no right to look like that, he'd had his life.
How did he dare to look so bad, as outwardly shaken up as Vin would never admit he felt himself. It hurt to look at, it angered him more with every passing second.

With narrowed eyes, Vin greeted him, dignifying his younger sibling with little more than a darkly livid glare and tensely laid-back feathers.
Fight or flight. He would not flee.

__~

Just as it had caught Rugovin somewhat off-guard, Banning could never have been any sort of prepared for this moment. It took him longer rationally than intuitively to recognise the person standing mere paces apart from him, and he halted a ways off, at a respectful distance, unable to process the animosity so clearly radiating off the one his life truly revolved around.

As if it wasn't overwhelming enough to see him, worn and withered and rugged and proud, standing there firmly, head held high, all in all so very much himself that it was almost inappropriate, that smouldering scowl was all the more baffling.
It simply didn't fit, there was no sense to it, and yet it made this moment all the more frightening, like an apparition coming to haunt him at the pinnacle of an ages-long nightmare. There was a reproach in that hard glare, he had done something wrong, but by Iris, he couldn't figure out what, and the more he looked at his elder brother, the more sharply his despair rose to find out what the nature of his crime was.

Hadn't he done what he could all this time? He'd worked so hard to find his peace, to never truly attain it outside of the numbness of exhausting from working himself into a daze, to honour his memory. But...
He'd been... here all along?

__~

Watching Banning's expressions go from surprised, eyes wide in wonder, to concerned and confused, those narrow eyebrows furrowing together, his stance losing its hold and making him recoil subtly, it all fuelled Rugovin's temper all the more.

Lost your tongue again, little coward? Can't bear to look at me now huh, what's the big deal, brat. Just like always... just like always, yes. You've grown up, you've matured, but deep inside you're still my lost, indecisive little brother. Damn you straight to hell and back.

"...so there you are. Took your time for it."

Caustic and harsh the words came, in a voice rough and mockingly subdued, filled with enough spite to drown out the true undercurrent of what he was feeling underneath his anger.

__~

Where Banning had been unable to find anything to say initially, not even thinking of speaking to what could only be an awkward dream, or a reality he no longer fit in as long as this continued to make no sense, his elder sibling sure seemed to find the right thing to say.

The words were a clear reproach, an unfair one at that. How was it that HE was the bad one now, how could-
No, this couldn't be right.

"...not like you did any better. What took you so long."

The retort sounded more like a boy realising he is being treated wrongly, but only shyly dares to retaliate, uttering a weak sassback as if uncomfortable with his own snark.
He could clearly see that he'd just managed to piss his brother -was he still who he looked like, after all this time?- off enough to look like he was ready to pick up a shovel and come smash his skull in with those words. That reckless, base-less amount of anger thrown his way at least sparked Banning's own sense of injustice into action. Why would he stand for this? If people wouldn't tell him what he'd done so wrong, they should get off his back, preferrably right now.

"Why didn't you come back to me, if you were here all along."
There, have a taste of your own glare.

__~

How dare he, how DARE he say that. It took all of the Mimicker's self-control to hold himself steady, but already the pressure had hit its mark. Clenching and unclenching his fists, locking his jaw and holding it in, he struggled to not 'go and pick up a shovel', until he felt he had at least enough breath again to speak up again.

"Not sure if you noticed, brother-mine, but you see, I've regrettably been outlawed for a while now."
"Been held back a little by some annoying folks with guns and stuff for a while too... You know, I just got hung up on a few trivialities." For the last forty years. Hah.

"Don't act like I don't know that." The left corner wasn't defenseless either. Come on then, let's talk this through, raised voices or not. There was no room for feeling sorry now.

"Oh, you think you do? You think you know what I've been through?"

"I could have protected you!"

"But. You. DIDN'T!"


... There, I said it.

By now, Rugovin was standing there, poised like a wrestler facing a most loathed opponent, refusing to be intimidated and letting out his rage. Now that he'd thrown out what laid heviest on his heart, all he could do was wait, hold back, trembling with tension, fangs bared, challenging Banning to retort to that.

But what could he say to that? With all the influence he had, for all the wealth he'd gathered, he indeed hadn't done anything to help his brother, whom he had conveniently, and realistically, presumed long dead.
Slowly, things were dawning on him, but what he was being blamed for was something he couldn't possibly have done right. How naive did Rugo want him to have been? How gullible and desperate does one need to be to truly believe that out of the thousands, ten-thousands slain, the one you cherish would have miraculously been spared? Had he been wrong in believing it was a lost cause?

All in all, he couldn't deny that he had done nothing, with reason, but at the same time, that this day proved that he had been alive all along...
It quite simply broke his heart, the realisation trickling into it and with every touch of frost chipping off another delicate shard.
How could he ever make up for this?

"..I'm... I'm sorry...?"

At the pinnacle of Banning's powerlessness, unable to hold back his tears now when they came, sparingly but undeniably there, he withered now. Who cared about rationality now. No excuse, however sensible, could ever erase the past, could deflect the crushing guilt as he began to understand how much he'd failed him.

"You're. Sorry."
Stern, biting, even harsher than before.

"You don't even know, you don't KNOW what you're sorry for."
The louder he spoke, the more he let his anger out, the more Rugovin innerly quailed, squirmed away rom his own fury, nigh going murderous over his own unfairness. As much as he spat out the hate towards his brother, his treasured, loved brother, he would have rather driven a stake through his own heart than continue this barrage of vengeful acid.

The first emotional clashes all but knocked Rhian off of her feet, and as they continued to roll over her she did, in fact, fall to the ground, reeling with each emotional blow that was dealt. Still, some little point of stubbornness kept her from giving in to the very real pain of an empathy caught in the midst of an emotional hurricane. Some little piece of stubbornness within herself, the piece of her that led to her constant rule-breaking tendencies, refused to allow her to play the part of the fragile little girl. She could deal with this, she was made for helping with this kind of thing – quite literally, in a sense – and by all that was holy if she couldn’t help in the midst of the storm she’d be there to help with the clean-up afterward.

Somehow during the emotional onslaught, Rhian’s slim fingers found her wind-up key and started to wind it up. By the time the brunt of the storm had subsided, she was almost finished – with what, she didn’t know exactly. Rhian had never truly used her key before, not for anything; she knew it was a last-resort ability and as such had refrained from using it. Now, however, the time had come to test it out – she could feel it. And with speed that belied her nauseated and wincing form, the flutterby took off at a dead run to the battlefield. Once she got within visual range, it took less than a second for the female Essentic to decide which of the two to focus on; Aoi was better at talking Vin down, and Banning... he needed her talents at the moment. Skidding to a stop, the flutterby fell to her knees beside the younger brother, her hands releasing their grip on the fully-charged key.

With an audible ‘snap’, Rhian’s key sprang into position behind her, twirling slowly and producing a sort of hum eerily similar to the sounds she had been making to comfort Vin earlier. Her antennae twitched once, their bright amber glow set off and diminishing under her now eerily-bright, solid blue eyes – even the sclera of the eye was blue and glowing; her pupils had vanished, for the moment. It only took her a moment to turn the electric-blue pools in the younger brother’s direction, and then an isolated pool of eternity began.

Aoi could only watch, saddened, as the reunion of the brothers went far from smoothly. The dense mixture of outrage and anger, of sadness and regret, that floated so heavily through the air was starting to make him feel sick. He usually kept a buffer zone of energy devoted to preventing excess negativity from harming him, but he’d lost all that when he made the ‘comfort blanket’ for Banning. It was a subtle effect he’d created for the Duke, but it was that very subtlety that cost him so dearly; just blunt emotional help would have been easy, but gentle, long-term, residual aid that remained with the subject cost far, far more, very taxing on the floramancer, essence-wise. Little was Aoi to know that the pain hadn’t even begun.

What happened after the argument was through had become foggy to Aoi, in the aftermath; he remembered being thrown aside, from Banning perhaps trying to protect him, something like that…but the one moment he could remember, that he could never forget, was the sight of Vin grabbing hold of his younger brother. The sight of the horrid black lightning gathering like clouds before a violent storm. And the realization of what was about to happen.

As Vin coursed the ages of suffering through Banning’s helpless form, Aoi became acutely aware of a particular response he’d programmed into himself long ago. During his ‘dark’ period, the time where he would purposely exhaust himself constantly, inflict suffering for being what he had perceived as an utter failure, he’d learned a method of constant self-punishment. This automatic, forced empathy he programmed into himself was very simple; if someone felt great physical or emotional pain near him, he would feel it, quite literally, as if he’d stepped into the shoes of the suffering individual. This held strong so long as his telepathic networks were intact. Today, his networks were at full sensitivity.

Today, he was reminded that the awful punishment he’d forced into himself was still quite thoroughly in place, even after all that time. And he had no ‘insulation’ energy to protect him.

The blur of his memory began as the first currents of suffering were laced through Banning, but that was far from the worst of it. Vin, as he released the pain, felt it himself. Aoi’s punishment mechanism was not only mirroring the agony of one brother, but two, at once. His already weakened form was assaulted from within, fiery torrents of suffering rocketing through his defenseless mind and body from the physical and emotional torment that he empathetically absorbed from the brothers. Some part of him tried to scream, tried to cry out, but his body was paralyzed as the affliction of misery vented through him. He felt everything around him slow down, somehow…which only assisted in the feeling of being trapped. The world, now, felt quiet, empty; he couldn’t quite manage to pay attention to anything else around him as his last remaining essence dwindled away in his body’s automatic responses, trying to use these scarce reserves to insulate him, to no avail.

All that would be seen from the outside was Aoi’s seated form adapting a ghastly pallor, slowly as the surge between the brothers continued. His eyes lost their glow, and his entire being seemed to wither like a plant during a terrible drought. Within his mind, many minutes passed after the Vin-surge completed, yet in reality it was at most a second, perhaps two. He saw the world begin to go dark around him, and he felt an all too familiar feeling; one night, during his dark period, he had exhausted himself so very severely, he’d nearly reverted back a stage, nearly lost the last wisps of energy keeping his body alive. He felt that again, today, as the world seemed to fade. Yet in the last of these mentally-perceived minutes, he recalled his saving grace, as he nearly lost sight of the world.

The plants. For a vast amount of time now, Aoi had been slowly syncing further and further with them, binding their roots into a giant network and sharing energy with them, depositing every little bit he didn’t need each day into the flora he so greatly cherished. He sat, now, upon a massive well of Essence energy. It was finally time to make a small withdrawal.

Back in reality, as focus was drawn towards the fallen siblings, what much looked like Aoi’s lifeless body fell to the ground, face first in the grass. But what could have been perceived as a giving up, or inability to hold himself up any further, was in actuality far from unintentional. The well, in a gentle, small way, was now tapped. Aoi carefully took into himself the precious, precious natural energy of the roots, and slowly he began to have feeling in his arms, his legs, eventually his fingers and toes once more. He knew Vin now needed him; in his out-of-body, slowed experience, he saw Rhian rushing towards Banning, she was okay, the Duke would be okay, but Vin was left alone, and Vin needed Aoi. He took just enough energy into himself to feel reconnected with his now feeble body, and a supply to fuel his magic towards helping the fallen Mimicker. His body suddenly took a fast, shaky intake of breath, and he feebly stood, his tortured mind whispering a soft promise to the plants to return the energy he had taken before fully returning to his equally ravaged body.

Aoi stumbled over to Vin, face alight with worry. He did all he could to hide the devastating effects he had just endured, and focused all of his will on the Mimicker. It would seem Aoi managed to avoid anyone seeing his near-collapse in the ensuing attention paid to the brothers. Soon, gentle healing energies began to flow, and Aoi simply poured soothe into the other Essentic, resting his hands on Vin’s shoulders carefully. I’m here for you, now, and don’t you dare resist.

Elst, as his dear Timka fled towards the scream, followed suit, making the slight trip to grab a first aid kit he kept in the bathroom. In all the confusion, he thought perhaps someone had been injured, and that the kit could possibly help.

She couldn't think properly.

That was the first thing Rhian really noticed upon the deactivation of her ability, as the key wound down and the light faded from her eyes, taking what was left of her energy with it, and leaving her with nothing to combat the ills that the emotional confrontation earlier had left on her. She wasn't in as horrible a condition as Aoi was, and she wanted - no, needed to get up and go to him, to go to her older brother and try and help him too, Banning was doing better but Aoi and Vin-Vin still needed her help! Only... she felt oddly disconnected from her body, barely noticing that she was shaking all over, that her antennae were drooping, their light having gone dead; that she was looking wan and exhausted, with even her hair losing its usual glossy shine.

Rhian tried to speak, but all that came out at first was a series of coughs and dry heaves that left her body even more drained than before. Swallowing thickly, exhausted, dull blue eyes turned to Aoi and Vin, reaching out in their direction with a wildly-trembling hand. She was so tired, so very tired and ill but she wasn't done yet, and wouldn't be until she could help the rest of her family. "Please..." she said, her voice little more than a cracked whisper, and completely unaware of Longway's presence beside her, the wingless butterfly lurched in the other Essentics' direction - as tired as she was, as ill as she felt, they needed her and Aoi was so much worse off...

A tiny, brief glow flared up from her antennae, as Rhian pulled on her Essence to reach out to her brother and Grandfather, to try and ease their pain, even if just a little - ooooh, but that wasn't a good idea, she thought belatedly; the little puff of aid and energy wasn't much more than a candle in a thunderstorm, but it left her without much of anything left to draw from.

Still conscious by some miracle, Rhian swallowed dryly, trying to force down the nausea that had overtaken her stomach and the feeling of absolute exhaustion that held her in its grip. She hadn't taken as much of the bast as Aoi, but she had still felt it; the physical pain of the lightning hadn't touched her, but that emotional explosion was strong enough to take a minor empath down, let alone the two Essentics that relied on it almost as much as breathing.

Thus, though she still had her consciousness somehow, she was far from being able to do anything. She just wanted to close her eyes and rest... but she couldn't, not until she knew if her family was going to be all right. So she continued to draw on the little sparks of her reserves that she could still feel, just enough to remain conscious and aware, because she needed to know that everyone would be okay, everyone had to be okay, she couldn't lose another member of her family, not after losing Lauss...

At the sign of Rhian struggling, and wavering more with every moment, miss Longway couldn't but help take matters into her own hands. The younglings had done what they could and more, now the adults needed to take charge again. At least, the few of them who were still thinking clearly.

Wrapping her arms around Rhian, calm but firm, the woman curled the young lass into her hold, much like she was handling a tired kitten. The only difference was that it took a lot more strain on her back to heave this kitten up, and Rhian wasn't as much of a featherweight as she looked, but it wasn't impossible to do. With a little huff, she lifted the flutterby up off the ground, partially hugging her close as she wobbled about to find her balance for a second, her tail lashing in silence to steady herself.

Easy now, girl, take it easy dear.

Timka had been about to turn on her heel and carry Rhian into the house, to evacuate the scene one at a time, when quite out of nowhere, Misha was standing before them. Gulp, what's...with that... look, bunniebuns?

__~

During the ordeal, the one who had remained the quietest had been Misha, surprisingly.

This was not his business, not his fight, and with distant concern he'd watched his younger siblings fling themselves right into the middle of the fray. He could tell there was little point in calling them off, this was what they had to do. It was a part of them as much as it was a part of himself to be quite unable to do anything at all, and feel little need to meddle.
He'd been acutely aware of the fluctuating reserves in the area, his ears raised up a little attentively, and now that things had died down there was no doubt a lot of vital energy had been burned through in a short amount of time. Why was Aoi refusing to charge up more? Surely the nursery could take a little more leeching without sustaining damage...

Around the time that miss Longway and Elst were starting to skip into action, Misha briefly withdrew into himself. He had to look after the young ones first and foremost, and he would. Something in his gaze became cloudy, when in turn his forehead crest lit up in the dark. Only once the glow had reached a good luminosity level did he stride over to his owner, without words keeping her from moving his sister away from him just yet.

With a calm gesture, he reached up and tapped his index and middle finger to his shining chakra, then gently touched Rhian's forehead. There wasn't much to see at all, save for perhaps a soft residual shimmer.
Have a touch of sunlight, dearest sister, it might not be much in the dark, but may it allow you to stay with us for now, ne.

It wasn't hard to tell she was struggling so hard to stay conscious, that she was worried, and couldn't possibly allow herself to faint right now. Misha wouldn't allow her to fade with those things on her mind, no, so he gave her a little of his own charge, energy from that peculiar Sun that only he had found, deep below Drente's surface, so far from where it had once shone.

"It's alright, Rhi... You can take a break now, the big idiots will be fine... And we'll look after you and Aoi, too."

Ah, there it was again, his normal presence. Talking softly to her, tenderly brushing a few strands of hair out of her face, he tried to ease her worries, tell her it was okay to stop fighting now. They had this covered, shush now, hmm.
He'd see to Aoi as soon as she was settled.

__~

As the ones unaffected by the thunderstorm were fussing about the victims in moderate peace, the two main causes of this mess were slowly managing to get a grip, thanks to Aoi and Rhian's care.

Out of the two of them, Rugovin was the one closest to utter emotional exhaustion now, with every passing minute going quieter. By now he lacked the spark to even cry properly anymore, and the worst of the weight on his chest was being lifted thanks to Aoi continuing to soothe him.
Like a child settling into a feeling of safety again, his nervosity dulled down to give way to a dense, disoriented fluffy fog, and for quite a while all he did was to just hold Aoi close to him and pet him, like the lad had turned into a living pillow.

It was only once the mist had lifted as well, allowing him to regain some clarity, that Vin managed to glance aside again, and meet his brother's eyes.

Between them both now hung a mutual shame, competing with their pride to find a fragile but lasting balance of being able to truly look at one another without either lowering his gaze. For all the words unspoken between them, in that instant the communication was clear.

Both Rhian and Aoi had told him there was no way Bane would reject him, and he'd had trouble believing it, lacked the courage to hope. Now that he finally had the chance to look his brother in the eye, face to face, knowing he'd made his point to him, conveyed his situation to him in the most socially inept way possible, he could allow himself to accept the truth he'd been too desperate to believe in.

A short nod was exchanged between the two of them, and then both of them stood up, getting back to their feet in synchronisation. Banning held his balance, weak on his feet, a gem of a headache brimming under his skull, and only broke away from Vin's look when he saw he too managed to stand. The Mimicker had to go through a bit of added discomfort, but his physique was sturdy enough to accomplish getting to his feet, while at the same time safely gathering Aoi in his arms and lifting him up as well.

Now, the two of them, standing apart yet oddly enough, on the same side of the chasm between them and the others, seemed about ready to cross the gap again. Neither appeared to be able to figure out what exactly to DO though, glancing at everyone else present in turn. Trying to find themselves a stance, an appropriately demure form of presence, they looked about as comfortable as a pair of children being introduced to a new class.

Ahum.

It took a while, but eventually Vin set himself into motion, tiredly striding over to Elst, feathers low against his grey hair, barely wanting to look at him. He was all too keenly aware of what he'd done, something he'd never intended to happen yet again, and he couldn't but try and let Elst know the guilt he felt. Halting a step or two away from the man, holding the flowerchild close to him securely, he quite bluntly failed to find anything appropriate to say.

On his end, Banning turned to his two employees and Rhian, and quietly addressed the young lass when Timka gave him the room to do so. Finding no distance between them now, he softly thanked her, in barely a whisper, thanked her for what she had done for him. He could only hope the others knew what to do to help her and Aoi now, and if there was any way he could do his share, he gladly would. Right now he was a small step beyond feeling his own exhaustion, though that would surely catch up with him soon.

Aoi was not quite aware of his surroundings as Vin lifted him up, his peripheral senses growing fuzzy as his mind slowly advanced the front line towards the realm of sleep. He did have some will left, however, which he focused on keeping up the steady flow of soothe into Vin, accented with empathetic pain relief, all gently focused on flowing away the aches of mind and body. It took him a few moments to realize he was being carried.

Aoi blinked, slowly, looking more consciously at the now more distant ground, immediately voicing soft protest, shifting slightly.

“…no…should save your strength, I can walk…you don’t need to…”

It was not on the floramancer’s mind in the slightest that he himself should be conserving strength as well. Wincing slightly as a rather pointed headache began to set in, the Alter looked around, to Banning, Longway, and his dad and essentic siblings as well. He groggily noticed that his little sister was getting plenty of aid; that was good, Banning too had managed to stand…what’s Misha doing…

Before he could fully register it, Elst was suddenly closer, hi dad…

-

Elst watched as Longway handled Rhian’s care, along with Misha, and turned to check on Aoi again, but lo and behold he was already near. Face softening with worry, he looked down at the floramancer, looking him over for any symptoms worse than tiredness, but he could see none. Regardless, he gently brushed a petal out of Aoi’s face with his hand, feeling his forehead as he knew was common for parents.

“Aoi…are you alright…?”

Voice laden with concern, he motioned that he’d like to take the Alter into his own arms, to best care for him. There was a quiet response from Aoi as he did so.

“…’m fine, dad…don’t worry…”

She never thought a couch could be as comfortable as a four-poster princess bed, but at the moment Rhian was beginning to think that at least one was even better. The flutterby felt like she was sinking into the couch itself, just all cushioned softly and comfortable. It would be much too easy, at this point, to just fade away into sleep on this comfortable, comfortable couch. But she still had some things to do, she decided. Glancing around at the awkward brothers, she licked her lips dryly and attempted to speak.

"Jus'... go an' hug each other... a'ready," she managed to get out of her mouth, if a but garbled and slurred together. She accompanied her suggestion by reaching up a bit to tap at Vin and get his attention, hitting him with the full force of her best puppy-dog pout... though it was a little more eerie than persuasive at the moment, with the color drained away from her irises. "You need it," Rhian added simply, not adding that she wanted a hug too - she could get one later.

When she could move.