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"He?" Jay said as she gave up on tying the dog as she watched Michael simply toss it over his shoulder. "Now are we talking the dog or Kiru?" Her tone more than implied what answer she thought it was. She was unsure how health 'put them against each other' for the moment other than it might make her more of a target for him if he needed sustenance.

"Let's get this mess out of the way first before that topic is unburied," the ranger said quickly cutting off any answer Micheal might have had to her previous statement. "If you feel like showing tomorrow night, I'm at the waystation in the town like before, ground floor room this time though. Probably won't have to tell you which one as you can probably figure it out on your own with your skills. I'll try and tie up lose ends with the farmer during light hours after I get some rest."

It was obvious that something had gotten to her over the last few days.

"Cause I'm human."

She didn't look at him as she said it. She just got up after repacking the rope and slung the backpack over the shoulder of her good arm.

"I'm going to go give the farmer a brief message so he doesn't do anything rash," she mentioned curtly as she walked toward the entrance of the farmer's hut.

*flashfoward*

The day had already flown by to next eve. Much of it had been spent sleeping, tending to her arm, caring for Dulcimer, revisiting the farmer again with the story she had concocted, eating one meal, making sure Dulcimer was all right, and then sleeping again in the room she had checked in. It was fair after twilight and the ranger was tossing some in her light sleep...

Groggily the ranger's eyes opened to the dark ceiling of her quarters. She had just had a dream where the shadows continually moved and seemed to take a life of their own before all converging on her in a slow circle. It had been a suffocating feeling and was probably what woke her up as far as she could tell.

"Too much," she muttered as she sat up and rubbed her eyes of the sleep sand.

Tossing aside the thin covers she got out of bed, she stumbled to light the usual candle and made her way to the small pitcher and rag sitting on a stool. Slowly she dunked the cloth in the water and wiped her face down of the dirt from the last few days, the small cuts on her face when she had been hassled in the previous town stinging when she rubbed too hard out of carelessness at one point. She really needed a good wash one of these times. The creek, though still fairly cold at this time of year would have been good but then...

The ranger took a large inhale of breath as she let that memory slide away for now.

When she was done wiping down her face and arms, she switched out of her nightclothes and went on to unpack a small container of oil and another cloth and began to tend to her armor.

Jay set aside the leather armor and got up to undo the wood bolt on the door, motioning for Micheal to move inside. For a brief moment, she wondered how different it might have felt to invite a guy in like this had she been raised like the other girls from her home versus her life with the apothecary and the road.

"Wasn't sure you'd come," she said fairly quietly, almost not even audible to herself. "It's been a long day or two and suppose we both have some stories to tell." Lifting the armor and oil from the bed, she nodded for Micheal to sit while she took the other end of the bed to sit on.

"Shall I start or would you like the honors?"

It took a moment for Micheal's request to process in Jay's mind - she had caught her returned 'human' comment retort much faster. In the weak light and with her attention elsewhere she had not seen anything of notice, but it was pointed out to her, the darker stains and larger tatters were apparent.

"Outside of swiping one that is drying or checking around for any that are of no use to someone, most are either hand made in these parts or need to be fitted for by someone. I suppose I can check for some widows if they have extras assuming I can guess what fits you."

She looked away with something akin to shame on her face as she addressed the 'human' comment.
"I suppose deserved that bit of tone though for the words the previous night, though mind you foul moods make for foul mouths." She began to oil the armor in her lap as it helped distract her from her emotions. "But yes, talking was something I wished to do tonight. First of all, can you explain who Kiru is, more so than someone who betrayed you in the past? Maybe what happened..." she paused for a moment to think of a way to pinpoint the place, "...back at the woods outside the other town will make more sense if I know. Maybe I'll be able to explain it better somehow."

"That might be speaking too soon I'm afraid," she sighed. "He might not want to do it himself, but he wasn't holding back when telling me to kill you... at least until I purposely injured myself and drank that bottle of holy water you gave me."

She was now looking down at the wrap around her hand as she continued cleaning. She had forgotten to tend to that small reopened slice earlier and now the blood had all but dried and affixed the cloth to her skin.

"Whatever tricks he had played with my eyes disappeared when I had cut my hand and the voices finally seemed to go away with the water." She looked back up at Micheal. "For salt water, you could have mentioned that one packed a bite when it goes down," she said, completely oblivious to the irony.

"Bladeshards, I wasn't expecting it to work the first time," she half muttered referring to the cut before Micheal spoke up and explained a little bit about what Kiru had been actually doing to her and something else she hadn't expected.

She stopped oiling the armor on her lap and put down the cloth to point at Micheal.

"Wait, you were in my head at the time he was? But if... the water..."

One could honestly see the gears working in her head as a look of apprehension crossed her face.

"Is that why in blazes you were acting out of sorts the night before or did something else happen I don't know about after you left?"

After Kiru left...? Burned his insides...? But...

The ranger had opened her mouth to say more, but Micheal turned the topic and so she closed her mouth and quit pointing like a fool, returning that ill-mannered hand to oiling the armor.

She had gotten Micheal and not Kiru with the holy water?

Something twisted inside her. Her eyes cast downward toward the object in her hands almost as if she were to look away, the dirt would return. Micheal had brought up the shirt again, but Jay couldn't think of anything to say in response. All that kept playing through her mind was the conversation with Kiru, wondering who Kiru was, the holy water, and the fight with the dogs. She kept trying to wrap her mind around it, to make it fit with everything else she had known, but it was so much, so much to understand at once...



((The delayed shock from everything is finally kicking in...))