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She blinked at him, somewhat startled by the admission. "Really? Didn't you say you had had a girlfriend?" Shouldn't she have been telling him nice things? Peyton frowned, thinking back to some of the kinder things that had been said by those she considered her friend. He kept talking, but she'd fallen into a spell of introspection that had taken her back to the years before becoming a hunter. To the countless schools and innumerable students. Of all the harsh and hurtful things that had been said to her, or all the times she'd simply been ignored.

Rather suddenly she leaned forward and pulled the Myst forward so she could wrap him in a hug. It wouldn't fix everything. It wouldn't change the way other people around Deus acted. But maybe it'd assure him that there was someone that cared, that thought he was a good guy.

When she pulled back she gave him a smile, then blinked as the question he'd asked just before she'd assaulted him with a hug came back to her. "My shoulder?" Pale eyes glanced down and the left, as if she could see the mark that decorated her skin. "No, this happened about a week and a half before the tournament. I almost dropped out, actually, since for the first week my arm was in a sling. I couldn't move it." She sniffed, and it was half bitter, half amusement.

"You've got your own battle scars," she pointed out with smile, pointing a finger towards his chest. It wasn't visible now, but she'd seen it when she'd run into him on the beach.

Folding her hands back in her lap, Peyton sat back again and offered a crooked smile. She should have been more proud of her performance in the tournament, she knew that, but there was a large part of her that was still bitter about having lost to Jack. "Yeah. I mean I could move it by then, but I had zero strength in it. so that had was next to useless." She chuckled, a little color spreading over her cheeks at the high praise aimed towards her combative skills. "I don't think I have to worry about you ever intentionally upsetting me, and that'd be the only reason I'd come at you so ferociously."

Things took a slightly sobering turn, and the almost laughter faded. She was still smiling, but it was a knowing sort of smile that didn't carry any humor. "Yeah, I learned that." Their situations probably weren't the same, but they were close enough. Evan hadn't been angry when he'd gone after her, not anymore, he'd been..

<Crazed?>

Peyton's nose wrinkled at the choice of word, but it was accurate. Never in a million years would she have ever expected Evan to have done what he did. But it had happened, and there was no going back now.

She shook her head, shoulders raising in a shrug. "It happened the day before the titan's arrived. I might have gotten more care, but things got really crazy. I was pretty easy on it for the first week, but I didn't want it to stiffen up once I could move it again." Another half shrug, and a hapless smile. It didn't help that she was a Sun, and that she was unwilling to back down from a challenge. It really didn't help that she was naturally pig-head and stubborn.

Her palms smoothed along her thighs at Roland's question, and she pursed her lips, thinking about it, before offering up an amended version. "Best to just always watch your back." It encompassed not pissing people off, and expanded upon it, Incorporated her own experience, without divulging details.

"The toughest." She grinned, a little cockiness leaking in around the edges before tanned features softened at the offer. It made her blink, and for a long second or two she looked up at him, considering, then she dipped her chin in a nod. "Deal."

The tension that had settled around them seemed to have dissipated, and Peyton reached for her own forgotten packet of food, poking around at the contests with her fork. They'd cooled, but the bag was still on the warmer side. She ate me.