What is this? Is Faecat actually posting a new fic up? Why yes, yes she is. However, I am not the only creator in this one: roudyredd is my co-author. She was actually a winner in my 2000th review contest on Science and Fiction, and her requested prize was to RP; this is what has come of it! A rather amazing story if I dare say so myself. At anyrate! Share the love, roudyredd would love to hear from you too (isn't that right? Well, even if not, tuff, there ya go. ^_~)

Anywho! Here are your usual beginning of story notifications: I, nor roudyredd own any of the Transformers characters (though we may have various objects or animals that may hold their names). All of that belong to Hasbro and all the buyers of the names and rights and all that rot. Definitely not us.

This story revolves around OC's. If you don't care for OC's, this is probably not a fic for you. Yes, canon characters will have rolls in this fic, but they probably won't be very long. Just so's ya knows.

Scatterblade and Charlie : belong to roudyredd

Illusory: belongs to me

Others to come.

Event One

The illusions of our minds are scattered to the winds as we look upon the beginning and think of nothing but the end. The story everyone wants to hear, is all that happens in between. Wake the illusions and speak clearly. Everyone is listening.

Guard duty. Hardly a fitting duty for a front-liner such as himself, but Scatterblade was a mech to make any duty enjoyable. Of course, tormenting the little Decepticon scientist he was in charge of safeguarding made it all worth while.

Smiling as the small mech scrambled across his cage to get away from the constant pelting of small bits of this-and-that Scatterblade kept flinging at him, the front-liner tried to remember exactly why this particular scientist was so important. Sure, the higher-ups wanted to question him, they always wanted to question the more interesting prisoners, but this one – he was odd in every mention of the word. A microbot with optics several sizes too large for his tiny head, and even more absurd were the spectacle attachments he had that made the already oversized optics look dramatically larger.

"You're so weird," Scatterblade mumbled as he threw more small bits at the scuttling mech. It was one of the few entertainments he had at their temporary camp. "I doubt you could even lift a laser scalpel, let alone actually use one. What kind of scientist are you?"

"Like I vould tell you, pest!" The little scientist hissed.

"Eh, doesn't really matter to me. I'm not the one you have to tell." To Scatterblade's intense amusement, the most recent bit of random scrap hit the little scientist right between his freakishly large optics and knocked the mech from his many legs, leaving him flailing like some strange insect trapped on its back.

"You vill regret, Autobot, you vill regret!"

"Scatterblade," Traildust grumbled, "can't you leave him alone long enough to get a few joors of recharge? I'm tired of hearing the little fragger yell at you."

"Ah, it's just a little fun Traildust. Lighten up."

"I just want to recharge so we can move on. I don't like it here, feels too open."

"You worry too much. I've been this way a thousand times easy. The 'Con's never come this far in." The front-liner stretched, his slightly larger than standard frame shadowing both of his companions – both built for more speed, less for the brutal up-front kind of fighting Scatterblade was made for – his black armor reflected the pale light of the moons hanging in the sky above them. "This is the easy part."

Not too far away, another mech groaned. "I can't wait for this to be over, I don't know what I was thinking going on this mission in the first place."

"Oh, maybe that it was in your job description when you signed on?" Scatterblade teased. "You're not usually so glum Speedrunner, what's gotten into you?"

The young mech shrugged as he adjusted himself into a more comfortable position. He was weary, unable to recharge the past several orns as they traveled with their single prisoner to the rendezvous point. "I don't like being separated from the team," he admitted gloomily.

"Come on, buddy, we're not far now," Scatterblade tried to assure his young friend.

"Far enough!" The little insect-like prisoner screeched merrily.

Before any of the mechs could comprehend what could have brought such glee to their captive, a loud shriek announced the discharge of a plasma rifle.

Scatterblade was up and seeking out their attackers in an instant, only to freeze at the still form of Traildust laying at his feet. "Primus..."

The mech had no face anymore, the blast almost completely decapitated him. Scatterblade watched in horror as the young mech's spark fluttered one last time before vanishing completely.

"Traildust!" Speedrunner roared in desperate anger as he launched himself toward their enemies, now appearing in the gloom of the night like dark shadows surrounding them. The mech was fast, too fast to track as he rushed through the small ambush party. One mech fell before he even realized the speedster was there, his spark extinguished before he hit the ground. Another suffered a similar fate to Traildust as the small mech released several point blank blaster shots in his face. By the time Speedrunner hit the third mech, it seemed everyone had found their momentum; Scatterblade finally moving to help his comrade face their foes, the Decepticons recognizing the threat of the smaller mech.

Everything after that was a blur to him; he remembered hitting the 'Cons like a brick wall, he remembered the ship looming in the distance, he remembered Speedrunner falling to the ground with a large hole in the center of his chest and not getting back up. He memorized the mech standing over his young comrade – the mech that had deactivated him – even as that same mech turned to Scatterblade with burning red optics.

"Stop!" Scatterblade barely registered the voice of their once prisoner as he continued to struggle against the mechs that had trapped his arms; when had that happened? They were effectively pinning him, making him an easy target for the other mech.

"What? Why?" The murder asked disgustedly.

"Because, Steelgear; zhis von is mine." The sheer malice in the tiny mech's voice was enough to send a shiver through Scatterblade. "He vill make an excellent specimen!"

Steelgear relented, dropping the weapon he had aimed at the Autobot. "Whatever you say, Scalpel." After all, there would be no living if he defied the creepy little scientist his new specimen. No living at all.

"Are you ready, Autobot?" Scalpel crooned as he climbed the writhing front-liner. "Ve vill make you regret, oh yes, you vill regret...very deeply."

The Decepticon was good to his word; Scatterblade did regret. He regretted that he hadn't just squished the microbot when he'd had the chance. He regretted that he had been so lax that night, he had been trained better than that, but familiarity had given him too much confidence. Most of all, he regretted that he had not been able to save his teammates.

-x-::-:-:-::-x-::-:-:-::-x-

A small, sleek femme strode easily through a broken city. She glanced around cautiously every few kliks; this was not a place for a lone femme to be traveling, but she knew well enough how to keep herself safe – so long as she saw the danger coming.

Finally reaching her destination, the femme slid into a rather dilapidated hovel of a building, pausing as she crossed the threshold. For a moment all other systems went to minimal operation levels, diverting all attention and power to her sensors, looking for the one presence she knew would be there, and for any that should not have been.

"Enter, femme," a deep voice rumbled, knocking loose rust and grime that had only been clinging to the walls by sheer will to be there. "I'm the only one here."

"I hardly expected you to respect the premiss of our agreement, Heavyloader." The dim light reflecting on her armor made the femme look gray and dusty, while almost completely hiding the dark colored mech she was meeting with. "Somehow I acquired the feeling that this meeting would be an ambuscade."

The mech breached the encompassing shadows, a dark amusement on his face. "Who says it's not? You are far too valuable to us to let you keep wondering around faction-less..." He was a large mech, easily three times the size of the femme and marked heavily with the scars of many battles. Obviously he could take a hit and walk with it. That in its self was a little unnerving to the much smaller femme, but the tone of his voice was something beyond reason. She got the feeling that the ever questionable option of 'no' had been completely denied as soon as she had walked into the same room as the intimidating mech. "You will join with us." He pointedly held out a faction brand – not a marker that could easily be removed, but a brand that would require much work and pain to be rid of; not to mention the pain it would cause burning into her frame.

"As you already know, I will not join either side. I do not care about your war, or what you do with it." She attempted to exude the confidence normally carried to these meetings.

She really didn't care for this war – if both factions were to destroy each other completely, she was sure that she would be no more concerned. However, the look of this mech had her on edge. If he had been placed under orders to bring the femme into his faction, he would; or she was sure she would be offlined for his attempts.

"I did not ask."

"The answer is still 'no'. Now, if you are prepared to deal our normal business – my information is rather high priced this orn. It does involve the location of key factors of power..."

The mech's optics fell to barely perceived slits as he watched her. "So your initial offer suggested..."

The femme was somewhat relieved that he seemed truly interested in the information she had to offer, at least, that is what she thought. "And my price?"

"Was high."

"It still is."

He thought for a moment more before giving a slight nod of his head and the femme received notification of credit transfer. Once the credits were fully secured and properly shifted and stowed to prevent any double-crossing, she began un-coding the information for transfer, but before it was complete, the mech grabbed her arm and was attempting to push the brand onto her chestplate.

"What do you think you're doing!" She demanded, only just managing to slip far enough that the brand missed her – mostly. Her left shoulder was grazed by the sticky solution of the brand and slowly started burning a partial mark into the metal. The femme was unable to pull her arm completely from his grasp though, and the mech attempted again.

She was thankful in that moment that she had spent so much time learning the intricate arts of close combat and pulled her hidden blades. After two deep gashes to the offending arm encouraged the mech to release hers. It wouldn't stop him – clearly, the mech had scars that ran deeper than the cuts the femme had inflicted – but it was enough to provide her the half klik she needed to escape the ramshackle room.

The femme's chosen means of survival provided her an upper-hand as she rushed through the twists, turns, tunnels, nooks, crannies, and crevices of the areas in which she operated.

Heavyloader's large size was intimidating, and powerful without doubt, but worked heavily against him when it came to chasing the illusive femme. She was able to loose him not too far into the run, but as she had expected, he had not come alone. It seems the Decepticons were serious this time. Either she would join them, or she would be removed from the equation, as it were. Apparently, they were confident enough in their own skills, or had been so sure that forcing her to join would be successful, that offlining the fememe didn't seem to be something they were concerned with.

It quickly became clear that the femme's only hope – which was a good one for her, considering her smaller size – was that she knew of a tunnel that would quickly take her far from this area and opened out into a port station. Once there, she stole upon the first ship going out and then ejected before she was detected aboard.

She had come to lay her fate in the hands of whatever chose to design her future as she floated through the vastness of space. It seemed like a blessing when the small blue planet came into view. It looked rather promising with some signals good enough to warrant some interest to the femme, there was sentient life here.

However, not long after she made planetfall did she discover that there was something else here – clear Decepticon and Autobot signatures.

The war had spread all the way out to this secluded region of the universe. So much for for her hopes of finding a peaceful place to exist.

-x-::-:-:-::-x-::-:-:-::-x-

Charlie rolled again in her sleeping bag. Labor day weekend at Bear Lake was looking better every passing hour. She had promised her friends that she would go camping with them, but despite the size of their rather large group, she found herself to be the only one awake at this early hour of the morning.

Deciding that such an agreeable fall morning deserved to be enjoyed to it's fullest, Charlie took to the hiking paths. The sun was making its way up into the sky, pouring into the canyon like liquid gold. Trees had been turning colors for the past few weeks creating a beautiful display as golds, reds and oranges lit the campgrounds on fire beneath the rising sun's glow. This was something Charlie had always wanted to see; growing up in southern California left her rather inexperienced in the changing of seasons. Logan, Utah seemed more than happy to oblige her.

The river seemed to call to Charlie as she passed. Its freezing waters were normally tinted a soft green, due to the foliage collecting at the bottom, but currently it was filled to the brim with flood waters and very little greenery found stability there. Near the water, the banks were bare and exposed, roots from nearby trees were now hanging off the side of the bank like crooked fingers seeking purchase on in the too soft land.

She paid close attention to the way the falling leaves changed the campgrounds, it looked like a completely different place and to Charlie it made everything look more alive. A small bridge invited her to cross, leading her deeper into the forested areas of the campgrounds where she spotted something that was most definitely not alive.

Two trees grew close to each other, their branches weaving together in a way that only years of such close growth could weave, casting a single shape into deep shadows. A car sat pressed against the trees, looking suspiciously clean of any of the falling leaves that covered everything else around it, though it was completely abandoned and obviously wrecked.

Charlie's brow furrowed as she tried to fathom how a car could have gotten this far; there were roads on this side of the river, and perhaps a cabin or two, but the area would have been difficult to drive through, let alone to crash. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. The other notable thing was something else that was missing; there were no other signs of a wreck besides the car itself. The ground was undisturbed, trees undamaged. If this car had crashed here, there should have been some evidence of the event.

Approaching the vehicle she got a better look at the damage. The back and sides of the car were in very good shape, only a little dirtied by mud crusted onto the bottom as if the car had been driven through the mud during the flood times. All of the damage seemed confined to the front.

It looked as if the front end had been nearly destroyed by a front end collision; the bumper was completely torn off, the grill smashed in deeply with bits of engine peaking through, both headlights seemed intact, aside from how they hung at strange angles and the hood itself was crumpled deeply.

Charlie pressed her hands to the window so she could see inside the wrecked vehicle. There was nothing, and no one, inside. She sighed with relief. If the car was abandoned then hopefully whomever had been involved was okay.

Illusory's sensors pinged at the approach of a life form, but she pushed it off as nothing more than one of the small creatures that tended to roam this area and further settled into her recharge cycle. She was bored beyond belief with recharge seeming to be the only escape from the monotony of her current situation. Hiding wasn't something she was unused to, but at this length it was pushing at her limits. She just wished she knew how connected to the sentient species of this planet the warring factions had become. It was simply too risky to have one of the creatures run to one of the other 'bots on this planet and turn her in.

She jolted slightly at the feeling of contact when the organic creature touched her, all of her sensors came roaring to life causing a very quiet hum to vibrate through her frame. As readings came back to her from preliminary scans she realized this was one of the sentient creatures. What was it doing all the way out here? And alone, according to her scans...

Charlie felt the oddest sensation run through her arms, like tickling electricity crawling over her skin. She jumped back, tripping over a tree root, fell and scrambled away from the car. "Oh, Jeezz!" She exclaimed as she shook her arms as if to dislodge whatever was crawling on her. A tingling sensation ran through her spine like it usually did when she was disturbed by something. She sat in the dirt and leaves just staring at the car. Had that just been her over active imagination jumping to life? She sat there for a long time just easing her heart rate down and staring at the white vehicle. "What the heck just happened?" she whispered aloud. It wasn't a question directed to anyone in particular, just an old habit of talking to herself resurfacing in the face of nerves.

Illusory's curiosity was quickly winning out over caution - after all, there were no spark signatures for as far as her sensors could reach, and this human was by its self... "I scanned you," she stated matter-of-factually, though she kept her voice very quiet so as not to entirely terrify the human, and also to prevent her voice from traveling further than the immediate area.

Charlie jumped again, spinning around quickly to her feet. "Rachel?" She called hoping it had been one of the girls from camp that had spoken. After a moment of with no answer, the words she had heard registered.

Scan.

She felt her heart rate pick up, taking on a rather panicked tempo. Turning back to the car, she took a step forward. "Is.. is someone in there?" She asked her voice higher than it usually was. She had looked inside the car, there hadn't been anyone there, she was sure of it.

Seeing the human's odd response, Illusory decided that perhaps a direct approach wasn't the right way, so she took a few kliks to duplicate the humans appearance, altering it slightly so that she didn't appear exactly the same. She created a holoform of a human femme of about the same age as this one, pale blond hair pulled back behind her head in a loose tie. Her clothing was very similar to the human femme's sense she wasn't sure what was acceptable for this area. Her holoform optics were the only thing she refused to give on, and they mimicked her own Neutral declaring yellow color. "I am here."

The girl could see now that there was a woman inside the car, sitting innocently enough in the driver's seat. She hurried to the car and opened the door. "Are you okay? How long have you been out here?" She asked, concern quickly overwhelming her previous confusion.

Illusory did not move her holoform from its place, she simply looked at the human with curiosity. "The damage looks worse than it actually is. I am fully functional." After another moments pause she answered; "I have been here for quite some time, it is they only place I have deemed safe enough."

Charlie gave the woman an odd look. Her statement concerned her further. Maybe there was some head trauma? "Okay," she said slowly. "What do you mean 'safe enough'? Logan's pretty safe. I mean, there's so many cops they spend all their time catching speeders." She scrutinizing her for any damage, or obvious signs of abuse.

When she was sure there was nothing apparent, she realized the way the woman was looking at her. Curiosity evident in her strangely pale eyes. "You're not from around here, are ya?" She said with a welcoming smile.

A broad smile broke across Illusory's holoform's face. "No, I am not. I have come from...quite a distance. Though I have to admit that this place is very interesting." Did this human know of the Cybertronians that existed on her planet? Sometimes it was so hard to tell what information was 'common' and what was secreted away. Especially when one spent all of her time tucked away in a rural area with little to no contact to any informational devices available. "I have limited access to your informational networks - I do not know that your 'cops' would be enough to prevent those with interest in my existence from pursuing me."

Charlie's smile fled and was replaced by a worried frown. "Are you…sure you're okay?" There was obviously something not quite right about this woman.

"I am entirely functional," Illusory assured the human. "Simply...a little detached, you might say."

Charlie gave her a look that very clearly stated she did not believe her. "You sound like a person who's been living under a rock for the past fifty years. And I'm pretty sure my grandparents never said that they were 'functional'." She used her fingers to make quotations in the air at the word.

"How else should I describe my state of operation?" Illusory realized she had a rather formal style of speech - it was a personal choice, nothing to do with where or how she had been brought up – however, there was something she didn't quite understand. "How does one live 'under a rock'?"

Charlie stared the blond in shock before bursting into laughter. "It means to be behind the times. Where are you from again?" She decided that this was one weird chick, but fun.

"That...is a complicated question to answer." The femme-in-diguise studied the human for another moment, trying to judge if she should simply avoid the subject all together, or mislead this organic femme somehow. "It is quite some distance from here. A desolate little place near Tygar Pax. Hardly anyone really knows of it anymore."

Charlie might have only been to Utah, Idaho and Wyoming so far in her life, but she was sure there wasn't a place in the US called Tygar Pax. The sense of something wrong with this woman grew stronger. She was either mentally ill or she was...well, Charlie's imagination was rampant with ideas. This weird woman could be a serial killer. Or a psychopath. Or both.

Forcing these out of her mind, Charlie tried to press on and gather more information about this strange woman out in the middle of no where, hiding in a wrecked car. "Why are you out here? In a broken down car?" Something else occurred to her; "You must be starving! How long have you been out here?"

Illusory shrugged, "It has been a while. My stores are running low, but as long as I maintain a low level of function, they will last quite some time yet. I am 'out here' because it is secluded and away from the general populace. It is far easier to remain hidden, and the 'broken down car' is merely for appearances."

Charlie was now at a complete loss for words. "W-what?" She stammered after a few moments, now certain this woman needed help. Most likely of the 'special' variety. "Do you…want to come to my camp for a minute? We can call a tow truck or an ambulance. We could go to the hospital, get you looked at."

"I do not need assistance, but thank you for your concern. As much as I would like to see more of this area, I do not dare move too close to civilization. That is where they will likely be looking." She turned her yellow eyes to the human femme. "Thank you for speaking with me though, it was a nice distraction form the 'everyday'. I will not keep you any longer." With that the hologram faded into nothingness and Illusory pulled her door closed once more.

Awestruck and a little upset, Charlie rushed to the car. "No. You can't stay out here, you'll die," she said attempting to pull the door open, only to find it locked. "You can't stay here!" She said sternly and loud enough to be sure the woman could hear her.

"I can," Illusory stated. "It is far safer here for now, and there is no need for shouting, I can hear you just fine."

"I'm serious. I didn't see any food in there. I didn't even know you were in there, and what's this crap about your car being just for show?" she demanded. She really did want to help this woman, the thought of leaving her out here alone, with no food and nothing but a wrecked car for shelter made her feel queasy.

Nights were cold as it was and the wind didn't help much. As if to demonstrate, icy winds blew at Charlie as she struggled with the unrelenting car door. It was enough to make her stop to pull her jacket closed, zipping it up against the chill.

With a heavy venting of warm air, Illusory began to think she shouldn't have interacted with this human at all. "I do not require 'food'." She allowed her engine to rumble a little with her disappointment in herself. She knew better than to draw attention to herself when she was in hiding, she had just been so eager to jump at the opportunity for something outside of the monotony. "And I have chosen this damaged form to better excuse the reason for why a car would be out this far from civilization."

Charlie just stood there trying to comprehend what the girl had said. The engine had rumbled as if it were still running, but she knew the car wasn't running before, and she hadn't heard it start up. Not only that, but the damage made it clear that this car couldn't run.

A creeping suspicion began to worm its way under her skin. "That was you?" She asked stepping away from the girl and her car.

"Who else would it have been?"

She shook her head. "No I mean, how'd you get this car to run? It's too busted up to turn over..."

Illusory pondered for a moment, before deciding that she didn't care about remaining 'undercover' anymore. What would one human do anyway? She opened her drive's side door, revealing the emptiness of the seat and revved her engine again.

Charlie's jaw dropped and she scrambled backward in an attempt to run away. She felt her back hit a tree and used the momentum to turn herself around. Unfortunately she had paid too little attention to where she had been going, suddenly the ground beneath her was gone and icy cold water welcomed her with a tumultuous embrace. She found herself twirled, twisted, and pulled to the bottom of the swollen river. She tried to kick off once her feet found purchase on the bottom. Once she broke surface, it was a struggle to keep her head above water as the current pulled her downstream.

Illusory hadn't quite expected that kind of response, and a shock of concern washed through her. She wasn't well versed on humans, but she knew that as a 'warm blooded mammal' they didn't respond well to extreme cold, and she knew the water to be very cold, as well as the temperature of the air around them. She pulled her door shut again and drove herself to the bank of the river, hoping the human had made it out of the water okay.

What she saw was the human grabbing for rocks before she was slammed into them, her hands slipped right over them. The current was too strong and she couldn't find a solid, graspable surface.

Coughing as water splashed in her mouth, threatening to choke her, Charlie see the next rock coming. It was large, like an island jutting out of the water and easily left her breathless after she was propelled against it. Her arms wrapped around it, but her grip was weak, her mind fuzzy from the harsh impact, and her limbs growing chill due to the icy waters. She was slipping in more ways than one.

Seeing the human was clearly in danger, Illusory drove quickly down the river bank until she was close to her, then jumped the bank - transforming into her bipedal mode even as her tires left the solid ground so that her movements carried easily into swift strides. She quickly scooped the human from the waters and hoisted her close to her optics to scan her quickly. The shade of blue the organic was taking on was highly troubling to the femme.

Feeling herself free of the water, the redhead tried to heave big breaths of air. It hurt badly, but soon she was able to breathe again. Her arms were shaking from the exertion of fighting the stream. Her whole body was shaking because of the cold water now soaking her clothes. Eyes tightly closed in reflexive denial of a fate she hadn't wanted to see coming, Charlie focused on breathing deeply to reintroduce oxygen into her lungs and relax. Her chest and back ached horribly from where the rocks had hit her.

Not liking the way the human shivered one bit, Illusory did the only thing that came to her processor. She transformed back into her vehicle mode, careful to drop the human onto her back seat during the transformation so that she didn't get pinched or bumped in the process. "You should not have run into the water," she scolded softly, raising her internal temperature to warm the human.

Charlie opened her eyes at the voice. It took her a moment to register where she was; inside the car. The car that the strange girl had come from, and vanished into. The car that had run when it clearly should not have been able to. The car that opened its own doors, and continued to run without a driver to operate it. She tried sitting up but immediately laid back down as pain and dizziness overtook her. "I-I didn't mean to r-run into the water," she stammered nervously, "you-you scared me a little." Really 'a little' hardly explained the level of fear the whole scene had struck in her, was still striking inside of her, but the – what did she call it? – wasn't hurting her, so she thought she should at least try to sound a little braver than she felt.

"I apologize for that," Illusory sounded truly sorry, "I should not have interacted with you."

Charlie caught her breath back and sat up trying not to wince out loud. The dizziness was gone and the pain was fading, at least she knew nothing was broken. Taking a moment to build some courage, she looked around the empty car, being sure that she wasn't just overlooking the girl somehow. "So…" she shivered before finishing, "what are you?"

"Just as I appear to be," Illusory kicked her internal heat higher to help dry and warm the human. "I am Cybertronian."

"You're a what?" she was confused by the term.

Maybe these creatures didn't know of the aliens invading their world? "I am Cybertronian. An...well, an alien to your world. I come from a planet known as Cybertron."

Charlie was surprised to say the least, though she wasn't sure why after everything she had just seen. "An alien…car," she said bluntly not really understanding how a car could be an alien.

"No. I am not a 'car', that is just the alternate form I scanned to remain hidden while on your planet. I am an autonomous robot - a species highly advanced beyond your own, which is why if you are unaware of us, I should not be making any contact at all. I am only lucky that others do not know of my presence here, or I am sure I would pay for this dearly."

"There's… you're not alone here? On the planet, here?" She asked, then revised her question. "Why are you hiding from them?" Charlie wanted to know. For some reason, she wasn't scared anymore. Something about this being just called to her. It didn't seems like it, she?, was going to hurt her. After all, the robot had saved her from the river, how bad could she be?

Illusory vented again, this time the sound was weary and annoyed. "There are others here, yes, though I cannot say how many or really where they are. I am hiding from them because they are fighting a foolish war that I want no part of...but they would drag me into anyway." A frustrated rumble shook through her frame at the memories of what had lead to her being here. The subject needed to be changed. "Are you recovering all right? Should I escort you to one of your 'hospitals' for assistance?"

"I think I'll be okay," she said nodding in self assurance. "Just need to get back to.,." her expression fell at the thought, "camp. I should head back to camp. I've got dry clothes there." She opened the door and stepped out. A small part of her amazed that this alien was so willing to let her just walk away. "It was a…nice meeting you." She laughed. "Sorry! We never properly introduced ourselves! You don't even know my name, it's Charlie."

"It was very pleasant to meet you too, Charlie. My designation is Illusory. Be safe, and try not to fall into the river again. It is not healthy for your species to become so cold." Illusory allowed her door to remain open as she watched the human. It really had been a nice change of things to talk to someone, she just knew she would want to talk again.