With his vision slightly impaired by the dense clouds above, Rivers squinted his eyes a bit to get a better view of the girl in front of him. He noticed how she backed away when he drew near, wavering a knife of her own. Rivers felt his eyes widen a bit at this, and he held his hands up. "Woah, now, I'm not here to hurt you," he assured her quickly, taking a step back. He wondered if this girl was just naturally wary of strangers, or perhaps she noticed the blade he was welding? Rivers himself forgot he was holding it until this point, and with an indifferent shrug to himself, slid the knife into his back pants pocket. Might as well have a weapon on hand, as he didn't currently possess one.
Rivers nodded in agreement as she told him about the potential threats of the woods. "Yeah, I know first-hand..." His attention transferred over to the sparrow that had flown from the trees and by the wolfess. He gave it a smile as well, not wanting to seem rude or standoffish, and turned back to the girl, who introduced herself as Wretch... after calling his name different indirectly, no less, but he one-sidedly had to agree with her on that. It wasn't the most common name, but Rivers supposed that's what made everyone different. He hadn't heard a name like "Wretch" before, but there was a first time for everything.
He looked over at her knife as she told him that she took care of the other bandit, and after looking back into her eyes, nodded, but didn't speak. Then came the question he actually had been anticipating: why did Rivers help in the first place, anyway? "I guess I couldn't just let a woman like yourself get roughed up—no, make that killed, by some son of a bitches like them," he chuckled, letting a smile come across his mouth again. "The least I could do was help you out. I couldn't just watch you get hurt." He shifted his weight to his right leg, letting his arms cross over his chest as his head tilted a bit to the left.
Image courtesy of miez!
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