.talithatempakumu strong {color:white;}
</style>
For half a moment, she was hopeful; his green eyes had fell upon her. He was acknowledging her presence, and without hostility or ill intent. As much as Talitha wanted to stand up and be strong and take charge like she always would, she merely gave a very, very hopeless little smile that winked out of existence the moment he stepped back. From there it was another two blows, one to lower her eyes and one to lower her head and her ears. You're weird. You're weird. You're weird. Are you's sick? You're weird. Sick. Weird. She trembled a little; was this what life was gonna be like? She, being afraid of the judgment of another being simply because he had shown promise in not being a bad man?
I'm not weird, she muttered defiantly into her feet, but fighting spirit was sorely lacking. Her overly submissive posture was not one to be ignored but, as he had moved back, so too did she shuffled backward over the shrubby grass and the buried sand to be a good distance away. Once there, she stood a little, but the shaking was obvious and she probably looked more like a beggar than the daughter of Inferni's king. She had certainly always been pretty bad at playing the role of princess, following an ideal lifestyle of yearning to be a guardian with the slightest newly sparked interest in instruments, but not quite as bad as she was now that she didn't look like a princess.
I'm not, she quietly assured him, despite her eyes screaming out that she was far from okay.