World Tree MUSH

    The princess had been returned, albeit somewhat emotionally scarred by the ordeal in the goblin encampment, and everyone involved had recieved a share of reward for their efforts... Yet within under twenty four hours, the very same princess had gone missing from her room in the night. ... That's certainly a problem, and once again the whole kindom is up in arms with the news, search parties wildly checking every last nook and cranny of the wilderness. Well...
    No one seems to be searching the towns.
    Wellspring is a small town about a day's ride away from the royal palace of Rosalia, and the inn is quiet at this time of night; only the inkeeper, his wife, and their daughter are in the common areas, and even they are a little surprised when a pony pulls up to the stables, gets tied off, and their door opens.
    The small, hooded, figure in the fine dress is clearly a noble, and they dare not ask her reason, they simply take her coin as she settles into a seat, starving from the road, with an order for whatever is being cooked for the night and a quiet place to bed down.
    Anna never thought she'd be a fugitive in her own country, but the longer she stays in any one place the longer the denizens of the Abyss have to find her. She has no desire to stay longer than morning, not with Peacely within another day's ride from this place, she intends to leave as soon as possible come first thing in the morning.

    Such a thing should be terribly surprising. Afterall, what kind of princess would not want to stay in the comfortable, warm safety of her castle? ...Well, this one, apparently. But those who saw her in the goblin village... maybe they got the kind of sense of her that this is not truly such a surprising thing in the end.

    The news likely reached the inter-World adventurers that had helped with recovering her from the village, too. And it'd certainly be a grand thing to say, that Shirou Emiya did, in fact, manage to track the princess down through deep insight and clever detective work...

    But the truth is, he wasn't actually searching for her at all. The fact that the redhead was there was, truly, just a coincidence. A halfway stop back on the way to the Vine that would take him back to the Tree, and from there to Tonbokiri's crew's place.

    Here, Shirou likely stands out even more so than during the 'operation'. 'Modern' clothes contrasting in such a way to the garb of the locals to such a degree that it might seem outright alien to them. Or maybe they just peg Shirou for some eccentric scholar or mage from a foreign land, who knows.

    Whichever that case may be, Anna finds that vaguely familiar face - if she is able to recollect it from the middle of her rage-hazed memories - sitting down opposite from her, without any hesitation, cradling a cup of some cheap tea that the inn's proprietor had brewed for him earlier. 

    ...He had not thought his plan of approach any further than that, honestly, so there's a few akward seconds there, where he just stares at the tea, sips at it, lowers the cup, and then stares at it in silence for a few seconds longer.

    "...I would say it is nice to see you," Shirou says eventually, voice kept a bit quiet from the weight of the memory that accompanied their previous meeting. "But I can't imagine you are feeling very well, after... everything."

    Ah, but perhaps Shirou doesn't stand out as much as he thinks. Anna's world being so deeply ingrained into the tree that interworld fashions and style sare more common than might be expected. There's even cellular reception, and the inn? ... It has wifi, in spite of its rustic appearance. The innkeeper is in jeans, himself, because everyone needs a good pair of rugged jeans.
    Nevertheless, the runaway princess is wolfing down a bowl of warm soup by the time the youth sits himself down across from her, causing her to slow down and eventually stop all together as she glances up from under the rim of her hood.
    "... You." She says, voice little more than a whisper, recognition in her tone. "... You are... Sir Emiya." She says after a beat of searching her memories for the youth's name.
    Briefly, her lips twitch downward into a frown. The memories of the goblin encampment come flooding back and there's a dangerous flash in shadow-shrouded emerald eyes, before the girl sets down her spoon. Her axe is nearby but she doesn't reach for it. Yet.
    "I cannot very much say I am feeling well after the past twenty four hours, no." She admits. "Have you come to bring me back?" She asks cutting right to the chase.

    It probably shouldn't feel too off-putting to be called 'sir' anything, for Shirou, considering he comes from a culture where honorifics are very common. And yet, being called 'Sir' now has... a strange tinge to it, for him. Why does that feel so different from '-san'? Language is such a strange thing.

    "I can hardly blame you, considering everything," Shirou allows with a sigh, taking one quick sip of tea before setting the cup down.

    The cup hits the table just as she asks him that important question. But his expression remains largely calm in spite of it, and the vague threat of her axe nearby.

    "Why would I do that?" He asks her in counter after a few seconds of letting the question linger in the air. "I don't think it's right to make a girl do anything she doesn't want to do. And you definitely don't look like you want to go back, you know? Besides..."

    And now that calm expression breaks, to let a vaguely nervous smile slip through. "I, uh, don't think I would have much luck in trying to bring you back anyway, even if I wanted to."

    So then he's not here to take her back.
    This is good. And with a soft sigh filtering through her teeth, the tension in the girl's shoulders fades by a degree. But her lips remain pursed in that frown.
    "Unlike you, others would be quick to disagree. 'Royal duties and obligations', they would say." She practically spits, surly and irritable at the mere thought. "That girls of noble status such as I should remain in the courts as cherished dolls to fawn upon and dote over while we go through the motions of living in polite and civilized society."
    Another slot breath and her eyes narrow.
    "You wouldn't have much luck, I assure you. I would make it as difficult as possible if you tried. But if you are not going to try... Then why did you approach me?" She asks, genuinely curious and... Sounding a little lonely perhaps.

    "...So *extremely* not wanting to go back then," Shirou helpfully observes with a faint wince behind his words over the sheer *weight* of the princess' distate for... princess-like life. "I'm not going to pretend to even try to understand what that's like."

    The verbal reiteration of the threat against attempts to force her to come along draw a quiet gulp within the red-haired boy's throat, but he doesn't let his gaze wander away from her, not at any point, no.

    And she asks him why. Why, indeed. "...Who knows?" He offers first with a roll of shoulders underneath the jersey. "I honestly don't know if I had any particular reason. But if I really had to think of one..."

    He pauses deliberately there to pick up his tea again, taking a calm, long sip from the cup. A steadying breath leaving past his lips helping to calm the nerves the princess with the rage of a berserker behind her had inadvertantly spiked up within him.

    "...I guess it felt like it wasn't right for you to be alone, at least for a little while."

    That's right. Extremely not wanting to go back. Especially now with her tribe in shambles, she has nowhere to return to to escape the life of royalty that she clearly does not want.
    Shirou's answer... Does not seem to be what the runaway princess was expecting.
    Opening her mouth with a sharp breath as though to speak, she is left speechless for a beat, jaw hanging open for the span of several seconds, before she snaps her jaw shut with a quiet click.
    "... Mn..."
    Soup forgotten for now, she awkwardly sits herself up a little straighter, hands folding together in her lap out of habit more than anything else before she finally speaks again, eyes downcast.
    "I can't stay anywhere. They could come for me at any moment like Ser Railton said and Dame Sakai said." She murmurs. "I've never felt so alone before this." Admitted hesitantly "So..."
    So...?
    "Thank you... For your small kindness."

    Shirou waits for her reaction to his answer with bated breath. He's still a bit uncertain of how this girl might end up reacting to... anything he would do, really. A hint of stiffness shows in his shoulders, even, when she first opens her mouth, only for no words to come out just yet.

    He waits patiently. Watching her carefully the whole time.

    And then she finally speaks. And at the end of it, come the words of gratitude, and the tension leaves Shirou's muscles.

    "Sometimes small things of kindness are the only things we can really do," he says, fully setting the cup down again, letting it be forgotten for now. Giving the runaway princess his full attention, instead.

    "I can only say I understand part of how you feel," he admits. "I can't say I've never been... chased by anything in any point of my life." Then, if that's not the part he can associate with, could he mean...?

    Rather than elaborating, he purses his lips with subtle concern, and moves on right away to ask of her, "What do you plan to do, then? If you can't stay anywhere..."

    "I'm not sure you could understand how I feel." Anna replies numbly, fingers clenching into the hem of her dress in a tense fidget, eyes still downcast. A slow breath and the girl bites her lip.
    "It's not about being chased, I..."
    "I'm so angry." She whispers.
    "I never realized it until that night at the village when everything happened, it all came pouring out. And now it won't go away, no matter how much I try to calm myself." She says in a glum tone, before she looks up.
    "I'm going to hunt them. The ones responsible. Every last one of them, and I'm going to kill them with this axe, or my bare handsm or whatever I can get my hands on."

    "Maybe not," Shirou concedes with a slow nod of his head. "But at least--" He has to forcefully cut himself off there. No, maybe it's best not to try to make that comparison right now.

    Her plans, as she states them, bring a faint frown to his face, auburn brows tugged close to each other with it. "...For the rest of your life?" He asks of her outright, seeming... not entirely pleased with the prospect, even if he might claim to understand her reasoning behind it all.

    "Will you really be happy with that?"

    Will she really be happy with that...
    That sure is a question. And there's a hesitation to answer it as the girl rubs her elbow with one hand in a slow and awkward gesture.
    "I don't know." She answers truthfully. "Not for the rest of my life. I intend to settle it and be done with it. Preferrably as soon as possible. But."
    There's a pregnant pause.
    "I don't know if that will make the anger go away, and that's what scares me the most." It's an honest answer at the very least. "Something inside me broke, that night in the village. I felt it break. I felt it when the anger escaped and I couldn't control it."
    One hand rises now, rubbing at her temple. "Now it's there, hiding but never fully hidden. I see it in the corners of my vision, I feel it in the pit of my stomach." She bites her lip. Hard. Hard enough to taste the blood in a moment as she clenches her fingers.
    "Gretch once told me that Anger is like a keg. You can put a spout on the keg. Let it out little by little. Or you can kick a hole in the keg, and it all comes out as it pleases. But there's no fixing the keg until it's empty of everything inside it."

    Something broke inside her that night in the village.

    It's unfortunate that Shirou himself doesn't quite realize the similarity of their situations. Something broke for him too, one death-filled night. The difference between the two, though, is just how that brokenness manifests itself within them.

    "What if it the way to settle it ends up being way longer in the distance?" He asks further, lips still pursed with that same concern. He feels like maybe he should be able to word that in some much wiser way... but unfortunately, he's hardly a trianed psychologist, himself.

    "Gretch... sounds like wise man," he offers, at the very least, in a softer voice. "But I suppose the trick is in trying to figure out how that fire from the keg doesn't end up burning things you don't want to burn. Including yourself."

    His eyes wander downwards from her face, to the bowl of soup she'd left on the table before. "You should keep eating, Primrose-san," he tells her. "Everything you've gone through, and everything you're planning to do... you're going to need the warmth of good food in your belly."

    Wether or not she follows that little piece of advice, his amber gaze turns back up to her face, considering something in silence before finally making a decision, in his head. "Tomorrow, I am going leave this World again," he tells her. "Do you... want to come with me? It might be easier for you to find a place you can stay safely in. Somewhere you can at least get a breather in."

    "Gretch is dead now." Anna reminds pointedly, a sour note in her tone, before she's reminded of her soup. "Ah..."
    Slowly, she resumes eating. Taking her time because the soup is still pleasantly hot, but also to talk between mouthfuls.
    "I do not know." She answers honestly. "But if I have to pave a road in nothing but blood and bones to settle it, then I will." She's set on her course. There's no changing her mind about this.
    It's when Shirou asks her to come with him that she blinks once. Twice. Three times a little incredulously. "G... Go with you?" The question is repeated at first.
    "That would be dangerous for you." She points out "I could be attacked at any moment. You could be killed as a result, I..."
    She pauses.
    "I wouldn't want that on my conscience..."
    "But."
    There is a but.
    "There was something I wanted to look into, before leaving, myself. A day's ride from here is a hamlet called Peacely. They've been having issues with demonic creatures. ... I thought it might be connected somehow. ... I would not mind not going alone."

    She could be attacked at any moment, and he could be killed as a result?

    That prospect... does not seem to shake Shirou in any way or form. "So should I ignore a girl in pain just because of that?" he asks over that, even. "Besides... I'm hoping off-world we can at least find some kind of protective measures for you. The people who are housing me for the time being might be able to think of something for that... If for nothing else, maybe it will be worth coming just to find that out."

    There's still something she wants to do here, though, she says. And he listens. He considers that prospect. He's... perhaps not entirely happy about letting a young girl wade into potential demonic incidents on her own, even if this particular girl has more than proven her capability in taking care of herself with such things.

    Saber and the Tohsaka from his world would surely yell at him over this thought, if they were here.

    "I'll come with you then," he offers, without any hesitation. No matter the prospect of danger that she had just stated earlier. "Wether or not you decide to come with me after, at the very least... I'll at least help you with this. So you won't have to be alone for a while, at least."

    That. That reply... Seems to genuinely catch the young princess off guard. He'll go with her. And then she can decide later to go with him or not but. He'll help her.
    "... You are kind, Ser Emiya." Anna murmurs, setting her spoon down, soup just about finished.
    "I will... Sleep on the matter I think." She eventually decides after a moment of longer thought. Whether or not she can handle herself is one thing, but the whole issue is really whether or not she can handle it alone. And if she's willing to acccept that help.
    The answer till come in time, maybe.