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Kataio walked slowly with Tynan neither one was speaking. He had led her to a grassy area and stopped. I guess it is time for sitting and talking. She huffed and sat at his feat, he sat close beside her. She shivered slightly, the night air still being a little too cool for her liking.

"Ok, the masks." She looked down at her own yellow gold mask. "They seemed to be cursed to this form. There are many versions of what happened that night they were cursed but I guess we won't know until they get their memory back or we unearth some more clues." Kata held out her mask delicately to Tynan and he took it with as much care as one would take a new born.

"So this thing is a living being? Just like the other masked children." Kata had nodded in response. "When does she change? I am figureing it's a she due to the markings and ornimentation."

"We don't know specifically when they change. It's more up to them, when they are ready to come back to this world." She shrugged and ran a finger down Zahar's cheek. "They don't remember their past from what I gather though."

Tynan moved his hand slightly on Zahar so Kata's fingers just barely touched his. He smirked viciously, "So you are a mother. This should be interesting to watch. A child with no parents or parenting experience takeing care of one of these masks."

"Don't even start Tynan." Kataio moved her hand away and looked up to the endless sky. "We all have to learn some how. I guess I will learn a little differnet then some. You know skip the fish, then the cat or dog, and go straight to child." Kata smiled lightly. "I am not afraid of what this mask will bring me. It will be hard, I know it, I can feel it. She will be worth it though."

Tynan looked at her then down to the mask he held. She had trusted him with something she already loved. He could easily destroy it but she trusted him so much, and it made him feel good. Ty frowned and held the mask out like a precious jewel to Kata and she took it back.

"Kata, I came here for another reason then to chit chat about these masks." He paused and looked around, he had been nervous and Kataio knew that. "It wasn't even to check and make sure that you were taking your meds, thank Terawl I brought enough for three of us-"

"There aren't anymore of us here are there?" Kata cut in sounding slightly worried.

"No, it's just us and the rest of the Masquerade gang. Anyway, as I was saying I have big news." He smiled, a true smile heart-felt and all. Kata hated suspense like this. "Xantara and Jaeger are getting hitched. I mean we all had our couples of sort, but they are making it legal and binding." He shook his head not knowing of this was a good or a bad thing.

Kata furrowed her brows and made to say something then shook her head again. She liked the idea of settling down, while Tynan was obviously disturbed by the thought. She would have no other then Tynan. Kataio stood up quickly and stated, "Well that is good for them. Best of luck."

Kata stormed off into the woods, Tynan caught up to her and pulled her back into his arms. "What's the matter Kata?"

She shoved him off with her free hand. "Nothing is the matter, ok? Good for them. Let Terawl bless their path and lead them to happiness for all I care!"

Kataio held her mask closer almost protectivly. Her heart was breaking and she was anchoring herself with Zahar. Tynan would never love her the same, that's why she moved away. There was an anger in her eyes, mostly dimmed by sadness.

Tynan gulped confused at Kataio's actions. He thought she would have been happy, this was unexpected. He reached out for her and she flinched away.

"You pretend to understand me. You pretend to care about me, but all you ever do is hurt me. Tynan I ran not from the bounties, not from pressure, but from you!" She furrowed her brows again and bit her lip hard. "I know you and I will never be like Xantara and Jaeger. You never would be able to do it. I had to run from you because I love you."

She turned her face from a stunned Tynan. Sure he knew all along that she loved him, but her words hurt him. Kata looked around nervously before fleeing Tynan. Zahar had been held tight the whole time. Kataio did not run all the way back to camp but stayed on the outskirts watching everyoe sitting around the campfire.

Kata stopped moving and leaned against on of the many trees. "Oh... I didn't see you there." Kata looked away trying to regain her calm look before glancing up at Haisyn again. "You are more then right. I am haunted..." She added more quietly, "by an ex-boyfriend that I love." She rolled her eyes at how stupid she was for still loving him.

"I... well it's complicated. I went off cause I thought something was just outside of camp. I was right but it was something I wish I really hadn't seen again." Kataio wasn't good at rambling about herself unless she was asked specific questions, so she fell silent. Her hand absently stroking Zahar as she watched Haisyn. "What are you doing out here with the party and all?"

Kata shook her head and said, "Maybe we should find a place to sit?" She walked towards a few fallen trees close by and sat on the ground using one as a back rest.

Tynan had slowly followed after Kataio trying to think of what to say to make things right. He stopped dead when he saw her with another one of the girls. A little eavesdropping? Or should I leave? He decided to stay a safe distance and sitting in the shadows.

"Tynan, that's his name, he is hard to explain. Everything is a little hard to explain when it involves him." Kataio sighed placing her mask on her lap. "I love Tynan, he is the only one I know I will ever love. He has hurt me, not intentionally, but it keeps happening." She shook her head the next bit sounded childish. "He will never love me, he never has. I feel used... I feel like I mean nothing to him at all. He came all the way here to tell me I was invited to a wedding for friends, something I will never have of my own." She stopped talking abruptly and looked at Haisyn for judgement.

Tynan gulped in the distance unable to move. This is how she saw him and no matter how much he wanted to run he couldn't get up.

"True, but why would he rub something in like that. Someone else could have came just as easily. Xantara and Jaeger came from the Center, a place the mutates living beings like myself and my friends, and now they are getting married." She waved her hand above her head and said with an airy voice, "Blessings of Terawl to them both." She shrugged and rolled over what Haisyn had said. "So you have family problems as well?" She said a little more distantly, "Then again I didn't have a family so that was my problem..."

Tynan really wanted to leave. She thought he was cruel enough to come here just to hurt her. Kata thought that Tynan was just playing another game with her. It made him sick to think that he had given her this impression.

Kata took a deep breath in. "I was bought from my family, I guess having an eldest daughter was a bad thing, and brought to the Center at the age of 3 or 4 I spent most of my life there. I had no real friend and by the time they started to try and get us to go against each other some were crazy enough to try. Tynan and I banded together then. We looked out for each other and were in our mid teens by that time. Slowly we found others that were getting tested that were sane and well we escaped a few years after the tests became more intense." Kata sighed and sivered. "You see Tynan was a bit of a loner like me I only trusted him, he betrayed that a few times but not in any major way. You know telling people my powers, letting them know my weaknesses and such..."

Kataio shrugged. "The song I sang earlier was about when we got free of the Center. We were mostly paired up with a partner and stuck together like that. Tynan though... he dissappeared. I was left alone in the woods, much like this, for almost 4 months. Finally Xantara, Kya and the others came and got me. They gave me a purpose again."

Tynan bowed his head. Boy did he ever screw up. He had thought that he was helping her, freeing her of himself. He didn't stay away forever though, did that work to his advantage?

"I guess you guys are my purpose now...," she mused aloud. She continued musing, briefly. "If Verran had know what happened then, had known how I felt, I doubt he would have left me like that. I wonder if this Tynan really knows what he did to you? Guys can be really stupid when it comes to things like that, Verran proved that much to me on more occasions than I can count." She laughed, one of those laughs that tries desperately to lighten a situation that's gotten too heavy for comfort. "Or I could be reading too much into it again. I do that a lot. He doesn't sound like he's too much like my brother anyway. I suppose the only way you could find out would be to ask him, and if you're anything like me, you don't really want to do that..."

The way she'd said that indicated that she had, indeed, not asked Verran, and that she didn't really have any intention of leaving herself vulnerable enough to do so. He'd come after her... that was enough, right? ...Right?

All of this was giving her a headache. "Subject change! Lets look at your mask. You felt anything from it yet or anything?"

Kata laughed happy to move on. "Oh... no not really. I mean she has been rather unobtrusive." Kataio looked down at her mask, then at Haisyn again. "Are they supposed to make you feel things? I mean there has been nothing really projected toward me." She frowned a bit.

I gotta set it up first... Ash was wary. Silva was cool, for a bad guy, and she knew he deserved respect. She figured he didn't want her to tell on him any more than she wanted him telling on her. If he wasn't so... evil, she might have tried to get him to teach her how to use that type of sword he had since she'd acquired one of her own. But he was bad, and probably intent on hurting everyone still. He had some sort of use for her right now, probably, or he could easily have taken her out if he felt like it. She was a kid, and she was a little crazy, but she wasn't stupid.

She started back to her mini-digging project, and decided to see how nosy she could be before he tried to make her shut up. How'd you get back anyway? Didn't they drop you through a worm hole or something? Might as well try to find out something while she was here.

...Maybe she was a little stupid for not feeling the need to be afraid of him...

~

Haisyn took the mask from her gently, examining it the way she'd examined Ash what seemed so long ago. Had it really only been a few days since then? Her expression lacked that hungry look she'd had before, though, that unspoken need for someone to care. She shrugged and handed it back to Kata. "Not necessarily. Ash only projected at me a couple of times, when I was really down in the dumps. Actually I think that was part of why she decided to come out, to make me cheer up for a change. But all of the masks are different, respond in different ways to different emotions and people. Your little one might not even be quite awake in there yet."