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In that instant... Emelyn did something that a woman should never do in front of a man- at least... for the sake of their general inability to deal with it. ...She began to cry.

It was not a bawling, heavy torrent- nor one of those noisy, red-nosed breakdowns in which the eyes turn practically haggard with the exertion of one's misery- but rather, a quick welling of emotion that spilled out of her eyes with a soft, almost squeaking sigh that came as a ragged inhale of breath. An infant wealth of moisture poured down from her eyes in an instant and... almost as quickly, she reached up to wipe them away.

But this was not a momentary welling of tears- these, like the complicated emotion behind their creation- would replenish themselves, and Emelyn realized that a hurried coverup would not and could not suffice here. She put her head down into her hands- not to hide- simply resting her cheeks on either palm and shaking her head in a show of self-disgust at the outburst.

"I'm... sorry," she said softly, a hiccuping sigh breaking up her words. "I don't know what's wrong with me." She turned her head away.

Emelyn was- if not returned to her placid emotional state- at least surprised out of the bulk of her tears by Thom's gentle, almost desperate measures to dispose of her tears. She shook her head softly to move his hand away from her face- but not because she hadn't appreciated the touch of someone. Those who had come across her in the past handful of months- as few and far between as they had been- may or may not have noticed that the hedgehog girl found nearly any excuse to touch them- and whether it was a hug hello or a comforting hand on the arm... more often than not, Emelyn didn't realize she'd done it. She didn't realize that there was something that she couldn't create for herself out here. There was no wild, feral version... of human affection. It was something that Moreau had no hold on, no lease on offering it up to the islanders to try and gain their loyalty. If anything- it was the one true thing he could never touch... and yet, Emelyn had accidentally given it away with the rest of the village's comforts- scorned it as surely as she'd scorned her duplex.

The months in the wild- over half a year, now- had taken its toll on Emelyn. And Thom- poor Thom, who barely knew the hedgehog girl- and certainly had never met her before her feral escapade- was receiving the climax of it.

"I'm sorry." There were no rampant tears- only residual moisture, and a welling beneath her blue eyes that would not fall. Her voice, now, was the great betrayer of her emotions. It was soft- and yet- damaged, somehow. "It's just been a long time out here. I didn't know it was...getting to me the way it was. You didn't do anything wrong." She looked directly into his eyes, a silent apology waiting within hers.

"Umh," she said- more of an exasperated sound than a word- a mere huff of breath peppered with noise as she wiped her face with her hand. "I don't even know if I want to. After all this time, going would be giving up." Of all things- a smile came to her lips. But it was a wry, ironic smile amidst the rest of her emotional canvas of face. "Not that I know what I'd be giving up. But I just don't think I'd be happy in the village."

Emelyn stopped then, to realize what she was saying- and to whom she was saying it- and was aghast. "Thom- I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have said anything. Look at me, putting on a scene. I don't even know how you've been doing. What was that you said- earlier... about... someone being out for your blood?" She said it incredulously, still using her fingers to gingerly wipe the fur on her face clean. Then, she had another sad moment when she remembered that she didn't even know what she looked like- what her last transformation had done to her- or how human her face really looked. What Thom saw- Emelyn had no inkling of. She hadn't for months. And- instead of imagining herself as her first transformation, what she had seen in a mirror before being delivered into the wild- a part of her let her pretend that she was as she had been before. Human- beautiful... normal.

Emelyn did not repond to Thom's remarks about trying to return to the village. As far as she was concerned, the subject was closed. That... and she couldn't hope to explain any further to the man a subject that had become so important to her- how her decision to live in the wild and her subsequent troubles because of it had become a sort of framework for her life. She'd focused on surviving, on contesting Moreau's hypocrisy- first, to find some way to give herself comfort after feeling so lost and abandoned during the lockout, and after what had transpired between she and Ambrose. Even Moreau had promised to make her life worthwhile- to take care of her, give her precedence... and while she didn't care for the preferential treatment- she did hope that it meant she wasn't alone. But after she'd found herself unceremoniously dumped into the wild, cold and alone... she'd realized the true meaning of what it was to be abandoned. She had told this to no one- for, truly, she didn't quite understand it as being within the numbers of her motives- but one of the reasons she had refused to return to the village with the others... was due to that gnawing, cold feeling in her gut as she'd stood on the edge- watching the others happily returning to their showers and their comfortable beds. It meant not only that they were easily bought, but as a symbol that it could only be a matter of time before Em might be abandoned- yet again.

But she knew that there was no way she could simply walk back into the village as if nothing happened. It would mean that Moreau had won- and, more than that- she would have cast aside a half a year of her life to a cause that obviously wasn't worth fighting for. It was too painful a thought to dwell upon... and Thom... would never understand. Emelyn barely did, herself.

Instead, her words revolved around his.

"...I doubt you're a... dickhead." She said, smiling genuinely at trying to force the imagery from her mind. "And no one makes a good impression on everyone here. ...Having 'enemies' peppers the boredom. I think people make up reasons to be offended just to have something else to focus on. It probably just means that you're interesting enough to be that new focus."

Natsumi felt her mood lightening already, it was almost like being back in highschool with her old friends... Minus the current topic of discussion. She looked over the claws, giving a thoughtful look. Couldn't cat's retract their claws? She kept that to herself though.. she didn't want ot talk about future transformations. That was a bit too forboding to think of. "No, not at all..." she paused, looking her over again "Well now that you say it..." she gave a light teasing laugh, "No. You should see my feet! I think I'm turning into a shovel, not an animal."

She smiled as they made their way through the forest and onto the bright sandy beach. Somethign about it made her feel more comfortable... Though alot of people liked the beach, so she simply wrote it off as that. "I have no idea what I am... I haven't asked. And I can't even begin to guess." She certiantly wasn't going to ask now and have to face that.. jerk, Sabin. Shrugging all that off though she paused to kick her shoes off. "I hope you don't mind."

Natsumi smiled, leaving her shoes there.. Not like anyone was going to steal them. Heck, most people were losing the ability to even wear shoes. Her feet, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the warm temperature of the sand. The gritty soft feel was pleasent too. With that done, she paused to wait for Kikue to finish as well, taken aback by the sudden action but thenthe little colorations revealed themselves nad it made sense. She let out a soft "oh" and smiled, nodding. "Yea," she paused to hike up one of her sweater's sleeves, showing off her speckled arm. "I know I have scales so some sort of lizard or something..." she almost grimanced. Lizards weren't quite as cute as Leopards... but atleast she wasn't a spider or something creepy like that.

With that, she pulled the sleeve back down, moving up towards the edge of the waves, and turning to head down one part of the beach, stopping and slowing to meet Kikue's pace. "So, you said you lived in Tokyo right? Is it really that crowded?" Okay so it was a fairly dumb question... Everyone knew tokyo was rather crowded, but it was conversation.. And she hardly remembered being there.

Natsumi simply walked for now, until they needed to head back. It felt good to move around again, back home she would walk everywhere.. But here, there wasn't much to walk too. She felt herself getting more and more lazy.

"I would have loved to have visited more before I left. Farest I ever went, even with my friends or my brother, was the bigger areas of Kyoto. Ofcourse it was pretty nice where we lived. Quiet, except for the tourists."