She burst out the door. For a moment, she had to readjust to her visual input. She was in the corner room of down the balcony's isolated top hall. The place was dimly lit with warm, safe torches. More light was faintly visible from the rooms below, which were safeguarded by mahogany rails lining the open hall. At the edge of the hall, a person halted. Her hands froze as the were just pulling her sword up over her back. Her cut up, almost useless rags stunk from across the long hall. Her greasy, mangled hair was let down and dirty. Even from the distance between them, Felicity could see how bare and meatless her arms were.

Millions of wordless questions caused static to blaze inside her head.

The woman reluctantly turned to face her. Her deathly pale face was devoid of much expression, aside the hints of melancholy blur in her multicolored eyes. It was unbelievable to say, but she was worse off than Felicity.

For a moment, silence crept across the empty hall.

Felicity remembered.

Rumors had been flying around that the leader of P.A.L.E. was mentally insane. Or maybe someone attacked her and there was a traitor amongst them. Daisuke had seen to Ashla and told them that she was, in fact, having a mental breakdown. Felicity was since then looking around for her.

Her speech impairment made her shouts very distinguishable. "Ashwa!"

She ran across the camp, sand getting on her leg's wrappings. She kicked up grains of broken rock with her sandals, ponytail bouncing behind her. "Ashwa!" Felicity hollered, "Ashwa!" People and barrels flew past her, the clumsy child ran into several people. She apologized and continued. Felicity was there for her teacher, even now. She would not fail her mentor now.

Arming swords clanging in their shealths as she ran; Felicity pulled her flamberge back to it's proper place as she ran to the edge of the camp. She skidded to a halt, noticing a discarded hair ribbon half buried in the sand. She looked up ahead to see a familiar figure walking out into the desert.

"Ashwa!"

The woman stopped, dead to the spot. For a moment, silence. Then, she straightened her outfit before turning to face her. The two girls were now face to face. The redhead gave her a grim expression of worry. "You okay?"

The woman opened her chapped mouth, "I'm leaving. This is it, I'm done."

Felicity just stared at her. Wide, green eyes were backed by a mouth with a slight frown, "What?"

The young woman frowned, trying not to take notice of the pain in Felicity's tone. "This era of life is over. I'm going."

Felicity scoffed, as if something was wrong with her, "What? Ashwa!" the kid tossed her arms, "This is youw home, youw famiwy! Do you eel nothing fo them?"

The brunette looked at the apprentice, "That's why I'm leaving them. What good is a mother who can't provide for her child?" She looked away again, "This is what is best."

Childishly, Felicity shuffle her feet, a silence taking over them. The redhead was thinking. Surprisingly, Ashla waited for the teenager's response. She simply watched the sand dunes as the wind carried them.

The sun lowered to where the sky was pink. At this point, Felicity had her answer. "Okay, it seems wike I can't convince you."

Felicity's footsteps led her by her side. "I'm coming with you."