@vyndictate liked for a starter!
Lene thinks she’s started to hallucinate. Perhaps her loneliness has finally caught up with her, and her mind has snapped. Yes, that’s got to be it. While she understand that, technically, people she knows might have a chance to wind up... Wherever this is... Why would she ever be so lucky? Why would the gods choose to do her a kindness now? After repeatedly taking everything from her? Her mother, her father, any sort of identity that would come with knowing them, after taking her away from her own world? Lene won’t believe it. She won’t. She will not allow her heart to be hurt again, not when she’s already so vulnerable.
So, when she spots what she thinks is Ares’ silhouette -- (of course she can recognise it; how long have they been friends? Besides, only one person can look that over-dramatic by just standing as far as Lene knows, and it’s Ares) she does not rush up to him in joy to spill all her emotions of how lonely she was, how happy she is to see someone she knows, how relieved she is to see he’s safe. What Lene does instead is wrap her shawl tightly around her shoulders and saunter right past the supposed-Ares-thing.
One step further. Two steps. Three steps.
Gods damn her, she can’t do it. Her heart wants to hope, as much as her mind berates her for opening herself up to be disappointed.
Whirling round in a flurry of colour and perfume, she stares reproachfully at him, hands on her hips. In what she hopes is a very commanding tone (and definitely not sounding like she’s on the verge of tears), she says: “If you’re some kind of apparition from this weird city I am going to take this wooden sword and I’m going to hit you very, very hard with it.” She takes a shuddering breath, fingers curling into the fabric of her skirt. “So. You’d better be the real Ares, understand? Or else!”
