p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Neo let out a choked, strangled scream, her whole body shaking with the force of her rage as her fists pounded into the dirt and left small holes behind. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He should be here. They should have been celebrating their victory on the ashes of Vale. But the ship had gone down in an explosion bigger than even the one from the train. There...there was no way...no way anyone could have survived that. Not even the best of them. Shifting her weight, the mute girl tucked her legs up against her chest and rocked herself, biting her lip as she watched black smoke rising from the crash site. She should go check. She should go make sure that he was...that he was really…/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"strong id="docs-internal-guid-f1a9db82-9c2c-4518-c0c8-809357358a5f" style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"She couldn't even bring herself to think it, let alone speak it out loud. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"'Roman, please...please be alright. Please come back…' /spanspan style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"she thought as her lips mouthed the prayer. Grass crunched softly behind her and she was up in a flash, thin sword pulled from its parasol sheath as she wheeled to face the intruder. She was in no mood to trifle with anyone-no Huntsmen, Huntresses, soldiers...she wanted blood./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Easy there, Snowcone," came the hoarse but still familiar voice as Neo stared in disbelief at the singed, soot-covered figure, white coat and orange hair coated in a black-red slime. The weapon dropped from her hands as, quick as a flash, she was on him, leaping to wrap arms and legs around him as tightly as she could, as if to ensure that this was real, that this wasn't an hallucination. "Hey, hey…" he cooed, holding her small frame tightly against himself, one hand combing fingers soothingly through her hair. "It's okay. It's okay, Snowcone. I'm fine." His voice was soft and gentle in a way that it never was for anyone but her as she buried her face into his shoulder and let her tears flow, hitting him with her fists, though not nearly hard enough to hurt. "I know, I know. I'm an ass for making you worry like that. You can chew me out for it after we get out of here." Very carefully, he eased her to her feet, and after Neo had retrieved her parasol, she looked up at him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Don't ever scare me like that again, Dad," /spanspan style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"she signed before wrapping an arm around his. Roman gave her a smile and led her away from Beacon, hoping to find somewhere to hide soon./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"strong id="docs-internal-guid-f1a9db82-9c2c-4518-c0c8-809357358a5f" style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"She couldn't even bring herself to think it, let alone speak it out loud. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"'Roman, please...please be alright. Please come back…' /spanspan style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"she thought as her lips mouthed the prayer. Grass crunched softly behind her and she was up in a flash, thin sword pulled from its parasol sheath as she wheeled to face the intruder. She was in no mood to trifle with anyone-no Huntsmen, Huntresses, soldiers...she wanted blood./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"strong style="font-weight: normal;" /strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Easy there, Snowcone," came the hoarse but still familiar voice as Neo stared in disbelief at the singed, soot-covered figure, white coat and orange hair coated in a black-red slime. The weapon dropped from her hands as, quick as a flash, she was on him, leaping to wrap arms and legs around him as tightly as she could, as if to ensure that this was real, that this wasn't an hallucination. "Hey, hey…" he cooed, holding her small frame tightly against himself, one hand combing fingers soothingly through her hair. "It's okay. It's okay, Snowcone. I'm fine." His voice was soft and gentle in a way that it never was for anyone but her as she buried her face into his shoulder and let her tears flow, hitting him with her fists, though not nearly hard enough to hurt. "I know, I know. I'm an ass for making you worry like that. You can chew me out for it after we get out of here." Very carefully, he eased her to her feet, and after Neo had retrieved her parasol, she looked up at him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Don't ever scare me like that again, Dad," /spanspan style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"she signed before wrapping an arm around his. Roman gave her a smile and led her away from Beacon, hoping to find somewhere to hide soon./span/p