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Perhaps it was because he'd been commanded to find Merro, perhaps it was natural instinct. It could have been fate. It was possible that the Saints granted serendipity to emotionally unavailable golems masquerading as human men. Whatever the reason, when Merro dared to take a second look at Letalus, he looked up and towards her as well. Grey eyes meeting dark blue, time was suspended for a moment.

He couldn't decide if he felt inordinately lucky that she'd stumbled across him or humiliated that she, of all people, heard him play. He put both thoughts aside and dashed forward, fast enough that he was around her and in the alley before she could turn. He grasped her wrist and pulled her further into the shadows. The top half his face was obscured by the hood of his cloak, which he was quite grateful for, because he was certain his characteristic poker face would be ruined by whatever could be read in his eyes.

"You're unharmed," Letalus announced, as if she needed it pointed out. His voice was quiet, even and monotone.

Ah, and here was the Letalus she knew and loved not.

The spell of music was broken, but his mere presence in Parnell combined with the suddenness of his movements and the way he was looming over her had her quite off her balance.

There was yet more, of course. The life force of the scrawny young wolf was fading after two days, and in point of fact Letalus and Tomlin had been the one to put paid to the few brigands she'd wounded, and so the excess of energy she had felt after the battle had merely been from wounds, not kills.

A few drops of her own blood had merely awakened the sword and given it a perfect silver sheen for some moments. A fat game hen had been worth some hours. The young wolf had given her days. But the wolf's life force was running out, and the blood that had fallen upon the blade from the battle had only been good for the long ride from one town to the next.

The draining effects of the sword had already been preying upon Merro, but thoughts of what to do next and of what lay behind had distracted her from noticing the increasing headache and tiredness as being anything other than the expected travel fatigue and result of the excitement of recent days. Shocked into stopping and simply staring wide-eyed at a face she could not see, a phantom face that she overlaid in her mind with the sight of him playing a lute under the starlight, Merro let the dizziness overtake her.

She meant to reply to his statement of the obvious, but even as her mouth opened she didn't know what she meant to say.

I'm fine, to the darkly hooded face before her.

It really was you, to the memory of nights she'd snuck out of her room to listen to him play.

You found me, to the memory of his outraged shout.

A new thought flitted across the surface of her mind, that she ought to inform him that she was not in fact fine, though she might be unharmed, for her vision was darkening and she felt not quite right.

"Letalus?" she asked in confusion, as he - and everything else - suddenly vanished from her sight. Her eyes dimmed, her knees bucked, and Merro suddenly fell.

"Merro?!" Nova was unsure of what sudden aliment could affect someone so quickly, especially since she couldn't really see past the mountain of a man that stood in her field of vision to the woman. Surely he didn't stab her? After witnessing Merro's sudden collapse and then Letalus turning to face them, Nova released a startled squeaked as his eyes fell upon Leana, a dagger in hand. That dull look in his eye was much more nerve wreaking than when she first saw him. She couldn't be certain that her previous thought was not indeed true now.

"The man's gone mad!" She thought to herself as she huddled closer to Leana's neck, feeling very uneasy as thoughts whirled in her mind about what this man intended to do to her new companion.

Nova's tail frizzed out resembling a fuzzy caterpillar, hissed softly, and spoke to the man that loomed in front of them, "What manner is this warrior, what do you intend to do to this woman?" Anyone could assume that one such as Letalus, being a battle driven individual displaying a heart of stone and ice on his face, could see the oddness of a small fluffy critter snapping at him as if she were 10 feet tall, even odder still that a comprehendable voice was coming from the mouth of this ferret. "You best place the dagger to the ground if you intend on using it against her."

Leana had watched what had gone down, and when Letalus turned to her asking her to come closer, but...he had a weapon out. What in the world?

She didn't know what to do, but merely stood there, staring in shock. The look on Letalus' face scared her. Nova had spoken out for her, but Leana couldn't move or speak. She didn't trust him, and they'd already seen Merro fall over once he'd approached.

Then another odd thing happened. A young woman ran between the two of them. At this point, Leana stepped back a bit. Maybe he'd get distracted with the newcomer, then she could sneak off, grab Merro, and they could get the hell out of there.

Letalus stood slowly from his kneeling position and loomed over the women. Though the light behind him made his features hard to distinguish, a ghost of a smile played on his lips, made much more chilling by the fact that his eyes were as dead as ever.

"One girl will serve my lady as well as the other," he said, putting away the dagger. "You both bleed." He charged forward suddenly, thrusting at Sentelle with the cursed blade he'd discreetly picked up from Merro's hand when he stood up. While the glaive was an impressive weapon, it would be difficult to wield properly in the narrower enclosure of the alley. His hand shot out, intending to close his hand around the staff and pull Sentelle to him.

Nova secured her little paws to the fabric of Leana's top, she would not be falling off for anything short of someone prying her off with a steel rod.

Swiftly, and without any shred of clumsiness, Leana hopped up a stack of crates on the side of a house and onto the rooftop. She stayed on the slanted side Letalus couldn't see, and went around towards the back of the alley. Merro was behind him, but his attention was on the new person.

But how would she get Merro out of there? Once she picked the girl up, there was nowhere to run.

Wait, on one of the buildings walling the alley there was a balcony. The door to it was closed but there was a window next to it. Maybe she could hop back up to the balcony after getting Merro, and then run into the building and out the front, hopefully confusing Letalus. She'd just have to ready her grappling hook quickly. If it were long enough, it'd reach the roof but unfortunately it wasn't.

Taking a deep breath, she leapt down into the alley to reach Merro's side.

OOC: You can stop me in midair or whenever you want Nami...that is if Letalus pays attention. ^_^