|M| {The Light within the Dark} |1x1| Alura x Siks |

[SikstaSlathalin]

Seeing the awkwardness of the Darlighter made both of the outcast Inkkin smirk and glance at each other as they watched her grasp at straws for conversation. And her unconscious attempt at a joke only made Firegale laugh and study the strange woman more closely. "Thanks." Was all she said before turning back to cooking the leeches.

But Forcebreaker was far too amused at seeing the stoic Nightstrider squirm to let it go that easily. "Not one for conversation huh?" Lumbering closer he looked into her eyes with a smirk. "That's something you'll need to work on if you aim to bring trading relations between our two peoples. And part of that is giving people your real name I'd think?"

Walking slowly around her he looked her up and down some more like a Cave Lizard sizing up a meal. "And giving us more info about your city and culture might help too." Coming back to her front he crossed his arms over his chest still with that smirk on his face. "It'll need to be you since you're the one making the try. Won't be able to foist it off on another of your kind."

[Alura]

A faint twitch of the left eye was all the reaction Narcerena allowed herself. She was used to insubordinate apprentices and the ever-grating demands and proselytising of the Darklighter Channelers to open the Fighter clan to them, but something about such things coming from this outsider in particular really dug under her skin. She felt she had shared caverns' worth of information already, but to a Nightstrider name was a tricky thing. On the one hand, being part of the clan meant an abandonment of self in some ways - and in that names became of little importance.

On the other hand, a name gave power to those who knew it. Perhaps Forcebreaker had already divined that about her, not just that she did not offer it - but that it was more than rudeness or oversight. Many of her own kind did not know her name, and there was cause for that. There was cause for abandoning their family names during their trials and apprenticeships. A wounded friend calling out in the dark was less powerful than one calling you by name. They were loyal to each other, but in the end their responsibilities to the survival of the Darklighters outweighted that desire to risk more lives protecting one... The Lightbringers were not poor hunters, particularly not when it came to trapping the young and the weak. Capture was a good way to bait others, which in part was why Narcerena had found it odd that Forcebreaker had found her so odd to begin... She supposed since most of the Darklighters she met in the tunnels were going mad or more than half-dead, he had not seen the malice with which the Inkkin responded if they recognised that The Culling was underway. Still, she asked herself if she could leave these two behind and was surprised to find a small prick of guilt. She wished no ill will to either, but the potential alliances Forcebreaker had offered were worth far more than the small treasure cache he had looted. For that perhaps she owed him some effort to aid him. If his friends agreed to her offer, then she had promised to help safeguard them as well.

It was all becoming more complicated by the minute... No, she decided. Simple. She had a duty of care to them that she would honour, if not for their own sakes than for what their help represented to her own people.

Drawing herself back from her thoughts, she lifted her face up in the firelight and blew a breath slowly through her nostrils. She resisted the urge to fold her arms and square off her body towards Forcebreaker's to match his attitude. Swallowing a sarcastic response, she reminded herself that she had no love nor skill in bantering with people the way those like Arsenthia did.

"Narcerena." Narrowing her eyes as she looked away from Firegale, she asked Forcebreaker, "What is it that you want to know about our 'city and culture'?"