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You have been Sosued! <3
There was little common ground they could find, indeed. A heart of darkness and deception met a head of honesty and rigid morality, whose true heart was long since denied and a mystery even to herself. She did not fear being in his debt, for she knew the debt was truly owed to God, as the designer of wayfarer's journeys and her own sense of justice. Such a debt could never go astray, or so Caspa believed. The discarded scraps of their meal lined the floor of his departure, and even his words of farewell contained a barely-concealed reference to his own sense of high worth. She stared after him in mystified fascination. Although she had known from the beginning that this was the origin of the Salsolan scent, the conscious knowledge had not made itself available to her until that moment. The man was simply riding his borderlands for pleasure, casting a lordly eye about the place: she had intruded, not upon his own territory, but near enough to be worthy of notice.
So much for traveller's honour! she had been claimed by him as surely as if she had wandered within Salsola for real, although dressed in a pretence of hospitality and wayfaring solidarity. She knew then she had been right to fear the cloaked rider, for he was both intelligent and proud, perhaps dangerously so. This was how the pack had been cast under his spell, perhaps (of course, her sample size was one, and that one was Denver, who it was plain to see was the kind of dog to fall easily under power's spell) a straight-forward charisma dressed in fine words and a savagely beautiful exterior. She did not even think any of the respect he had seemed to show had really been paid to her at all, but to the fact that he deserved her appreciation and was willing to act a part in order to get it.
Caspa brushed the rabbit-grease from her hands against the sides of her slender legs, shaking her head with wonderment as the distant silver flash of horseflesh vanished from visibility. Then she crouched to complete her dismemberment of the bicycle, keeping most of the wheel parts and wires. She had an idea for a contraption she could make to help transport items around the Court, a useful development hopefully as there were fewer and fewer hands to do the work all the time, and she had no horse to relieve herself of some of the burden - and never would own one of the creatures either, she was certain. They truly frightened her, but thinking of this strange aversion she found that her fear for the lichen-eyed rider had diminished somewhat, perhaps from the passage of time and addition of distance between them, but still more, she suspected, because she had recognised the real power he held in these lands, which removed some of the mystery. For Caspa, still, like a simple child - although she would have referred to it as the basic truth which was prominent in children, the most innocent and the closest to the divine - the unknown was the most unnerving thing. Pain, death and violence held little horror: when they were absent, only the imagination of their presence could inspire fear, but while you were free of suffering's grasp you were best off enjoying the time while it lasted, for it never would last forever. And when one of these primal foes had you in its grasp, there was only one thing to do: fight it, and if you were fighting with all your heart, there would be no room for fear.
When she had the rusty metal in a decent enough bundle to carry, she walked a little way down the path before finding it too heavy and dropping the entire thing. It rattled metalically as it fell, and she pushed aside high grasses to find another of the two-wheeled contraptions. This one was in better shape, and she dragged it upright to see how it worked: but none of it did, rusted stiff, except for the wheels. She pushed it around a little, amazed by the way it could balance and turn, and then inspiration hit and the woman stripped some brake wire from the frame before using it to tie on the bundle of spokes she had gleaned from the other bicycle. Directing it inexpertly but with growing confidence, she made for home pushing the handlebars along, making slow progress but strangely pleased with her metal find - much as she had dissected the personality of Sirius Revlis, despite what little clues he gave meaning her conclusions lacked accuracy or potency, Caspa was a butcher by training, and she had never lost the knack or liking to take things apart and find out how they worked. This mechanical contraption would be a delight to dismember, and its inanimate status meant it wouldn't even mind. Now the confrontation was over, she found herself strangely pleased by the way it had gone, and almost hoping herself that as the man's final words had conjectured, they would indeed meet again, some day.
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