There is something niggling at me. A feeling as if there is a critter creeping across my skin, under it, burrowing and pressing, but I do not understand it. This boy has a sort of magnetic draw that calls to me and as I open before him, eager and friendly, it only seems to grow. No reason to fear. It makes me beam at him. I was guileless for the most part, even if some of my naivete had been tarnished by terrible things (such as Zuelika, her murder, and then that scary boy). To me, when he said the words, I was assured he meant them. That, too, was attributed to that crawling sensation.

It seemed my entire life was centered around one goal: find Zharko. Even when I found him, I lost him, and I often wondered if maybe he didn't really want to find me either. I knew I wasn't strong. I was weak, cowardly, miserly, all things my mother had said and it was true. Here I had run from this boy. Here I had cowered. If he hadn't been nice, the truth was, there wasn't much I COULD have done.

When he says my name, I nod vigorously, jaws parting on an open-mouthed grin. Yet I shut it with a quite snap, angling my head to the side in a puppy-ish manner. "Zharko is his friend," I assert, certain of this. I had SEEN them with my own eyes. Enoch must be mistaken. "Oh!" I say, thrill making me jolt up to my toes and back down again, tail slapping against the ground as my haunches lower, but not quite sitting. "Thank you! If you find him then I will be in Asteraia. I'm staying with a friend there for now. I don't really have anywhere else to go." I make a stricken face, then glance down, ashamed suddenly of my lack of everything.

When he shuffles forward, my head snaps back up, wide eyes watching complacently. I turn my head slightly, making it a bit difficult, to see what he is doing, and the moment his muzzle touches my shoulder I feel a zing. I missed it the first time, so into my chatting, and I blink in stunned surprise until he pulls back. But before he begins his question I lift a paw and poke it out to touch his leg, feeling that odd electric jolt again and making a gasping sound. "It feels like when you are out in an lightning storm, right before it hits. Only when we touch though. That is weird. Is this normal? Is this you?" I do not realize that all my words might swamp him. That Enoch is a quieter fellow - I was quiet too because I had no one, but here, with someone listening, I cannot hold it in anymore.