Tommy passed by without even looking up. Thankfully, he seemed to just be making rounds and not looking for her or anything in specific at all. Once he moved into the Hollows, her eyes shifted around the street, took a deep breath and began her exercises.

After a few minutes of concentrating making sure her body moved in the right way, her mind wandered.

"Irisa?"

She was sitting at a table scribbling in her journal. She didn't have anything else to do while Nolan went to visit a lady. She didn't know why he insisted on acting as if he had to protect her mind. She was a virgin, but she knew well about what happened in these places. She didn't acknowledge his voice. Nor did she look up when he sat down.

"Now what did I do?" Nolan sighed, used to this silent treatment and knew his only move was to sit there and find some way into her forgiveness. "Did someone bug you while I was gone? I stopped worrying about that when I was called down after you bit someone for accidently bumping you in passing." No response. "We're leaving in the morning. I know you hate it in cities. I'm not too fond of them either."

"If we can." She didn't look up as she spoke. She only kept scribbling.

Nolan caught her glance toward her subject and discretely turned to look. "Shtako." He turned to Irisa who finally turned her eyes up toward him and she saw his mind wind up.

She pursed her lips, "We could go now."

He sighed as he weighed the risk. He had pissed off this man a few months ago in a previous town and he seemed intent to kill him. However, the badlands were dangerous and he was exhausted, especially after his session and Irisa never really slept well. "We need a bed. At least for a night. Let's just get to those beds before he notices me."

"Too late." Irisa muttered as she closed her book and sat back.

The tall human man stood behind Nolan looking rather eager with that knife in his hand. Irisa watched the knife and pretty much just sensing Nolan.

"Look, me and my companian just want to rest and we'll be gone by sun up."

"You owe me a few hundred scrip. Five hundred and you leave now unharmed."

Nolan laughed, "I just gave my last scrip for rooms and that nice blonde upstairs. I didn't even come here with half that much."

"Get your scrip back for one of those rooms and give it to me. She can come with me for the night. I have a bed for her, though sleep is not really part of the deal."

Irisa's eyes glared up at him as she tensed. Nolan was up and in the man's face in a flash, "She's a teenager, you sick bastard."

"She looks old enough." As his eyes rested on Irisa's budding chest, a fist met his jaw and Irisa jumped out of her chair and watched the flurry. Next thing she knew, they were escorted out by the lawkeepers.

In the roller, she stared out at the nightsky as Nolan drove, still seething. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't need to do that. Or at least left something for me."

Nolan shook his head, "He touched a sore spot, kid. And last time you helped, you got a smack on the head and a cut on your calf that I barely stopped the bleeding on."

"So, I know what not to do next time. Doesn't someone need to get hurt to know how not to get hurt?"

"You found an Irathiant in that town, didn't you?"

She looked out the window again. The way he said that made it sound like he didn't approve. Like he expected her to ignore her true self. She heard him sigh.

"I mean that does make sense, but I just don't want you hurt. I like that you can take care of yourself, but... you're a kid."

"Not anymore. Like that shtako bag said. I'm old enough."

Nolan shook his head, "Maybe it's a human flaw that our perception has a hard time catching up with the reality of our kids growing up."

Irisa rolled her eyes, "Or that their kid is not even human?"

Nolan glanced at her and realized he touched a sore spot with her. He never went further into that subject. Looking out into the landscape, he did give something to her, "Sometimes I forget this planet isn't human anymore either."

She swallowed. Her people's arrival changed this world forever. She looked down as he began one of his tales. The stories that calmed her when she was a child annoyed her now. "Stop the roller."

He looked at her worried, "What?"

"Stop the roller!"

He sighed and stopped. "Look, I'll shut up." Before he finished the sentence, she dashed off and looking around as she found a spot behind a small hill. He turned his head chuckling at himself for panicking when she just needed a pit stop.

Once they were going again, she glanced over at him, "It was in one of those roofless rollers."

He looked over and saw a disc. "One of those old convertibles? What is that? A scrip chip?" He couldn't really tell in the dark.

"It was in a player." She looked it over in her hand, "Probably not worth much scrip, but it was there. No one was looking." She shrugged.

He smiled at her in a twisted proud moment. "We don't take from living people, Irisa. They could hunt you down."

"I didn't see anyone. Maybe he or she was dead."

He smirked. He did raise her. Oh well. "Put it in there and see what plays."

Irisa wrinkled her nose at the sound that emerged. Some song about Jackson. "Ok, enough." She reached to take it out, but Nolan's hand rested gently on hers. He knew better than to grip her wrists.

"I loved this song when it was on the radio in the day."

"Fine, but you owe me a music disc with music I like."

"You like music?"

She smiled at him and it was better for the moment. Things were back to their groove.

She noticed a shadow growing and she paused in her reverie and movements as she looked to the sky. A storm was coming. She put her holsters back on, placing knives in them and went down to make sure no one was taking advantage of the merchants hurringly locking up shop.