Hey, it's me again. Sorry I haven't posted in a while; things have been kind of busy lately and I've been a little overrun with lots of stuff. Anyway, I'm hoping to get back onto a somewhat-consistent schedule, so...yeah.

Moon sat, silent, over the small fire she'd made. She watched her kill roast for a few minutes, using the tip of her hunting dagger to turn it over every so often, and then she deemed it ready to eat and jabbed her knife into the side of the meat, tossing one piece to Isabella and taking the other for herself.

"Hey!" Isabella protested, "You always get the big half!"

Moon rolled her eyes. "I killed it. I get as much as I want."

Isabella was silent after that. The meat was warm in her hands, and after the cold of the mountain she'd just climbed, she was glad of it. She tore into it before she could stop herself, and only after she was done did she remember her manners. She gave Moon a sheepish look.

Moon wasn't paying attention, having done the same to her own food, and after she was finished she licked her hands clean and then set her knife back in its sheath on her belt. She turned back to Isabella, her voice quiet. "You want to know why I left Danville," she said, "Don't you?"

Isabella nodded. "And about that robot guy, too."

Moon held up a hand. "One thing at a time."

"Fine," Isabella grumbled, scooting a little closer to the fire to keep warm. She wished she'd brought a jacket; even Moon had found a deer-hide to wrap around herself. Isabella didn't approve of the head still being on it, but she tried her best to ignore that. Moon had given her dinner, after all. She didn't really like Moon but she was still grateful for that.

Moon took a minute to settle herself, keeping her deer-hide pulled tight around her, and then turned back to Isabella. "I left home on my seventh birthday - I'd been traveling for just over three years when I met him. His name was Six-Bolt Hudson. He had a real name, but I don't remember. He was the only human friend I'd ever had."

"You told us you never had any friends," Isabella interrupted, frowning.

Moon gave her an irritated look. "Do you want me to explain this or not?"

"Sorry," Isabella said quickly.

Without a pause Moon continued: "I met him in Bangor. I was ten; he was twelve. I'd never made a friend before, and I hadn't made another one since. I met him when I was out hunting; I hadn't meant to befriend him so quickly, but he taught me a few things and convinced me to stay with him for a while. He was one of those mad-genius types, always building and tinkering with things. Your two friends remind me a bit of him, actually, when they're in the middle of building something. He'd make these little remote-control robots and things. He built me a big music box for my eleventh birthday. I wanted to give him something back, but he hadn't been very interested in what I did to survive. He said he preferred mechanical things to living ones - he said life wasn't good enough, that he couldn't toy around with it as much as he wanted to. He tried to teach me what he knew, but he didn't get very far. Most of the things he had me build for him didn't work. But that was okay. I knew how to survive anyway. After a while we were okay together, I guess.

"But then it all went to hell. I was eleven at the time. There was just this one day where he'd been really irritated about something. I asked him what it was but he wouldn't tell me. I guess he'd just turned sour - things escalated and we wound up fighting. Even though he was bigger than me I'd been fighting for years, and he knew he didn't stand a chance against me. So he called in those little robots he'd built to help him. He pulled a knife on me, said he'd kill me if I didn't skip town. Eventually I wound up pushing him over the cliff. I didn't mean to - it just kind of happened, I guess. I remember for a while I just sat there and watched him as he fell - I didn't really know what happened till after...it was just all kind of a blur...

"For a while I thought he was dead. I'd long since gone, of course; there was no reason for me to stay there, not anymore, not after what had happened. It was almost a year later when I saw him again. He'd built himself up into this huge machine, said he was coming to kill me. It was easy enough for me to stay away from him, but he's been looking for me ever since."

"That's why you keep traveling all the time," Isabella whispered, her eyes wide, "That's why you wanted to leave Danville."

Moon shook her head. "That's only part of it," she told her, "I'd been traveling for years before that, and so I was pretty used to it. I hadn't meant to settle in the first place, though, but I guess I didn't really mind him coming after me. I was going to move on anyway, and I wasn't going to settle again."

"Until Danville," Isabella put in quietly. "Why did you decide to stay here, anyway?"

Moon gave her a narrow-eyed look. "I didn't," she replied, "I wasn't planning on staying."

"You've been here for a few weeks," Isabella told her.

"Which is why it's about time I moved on."

Isabella frowned. "You can't do that. What about Phineas? What'll happen to him?"

"That's not my problem," Moon retorted, "I was going to move on anyway. This just happened to come up."

"You can't just leave him to die! Don't you get it? This is your problem, Moon! It's your fault this guy's even here at all! You have to deal with this!" Isabella cried, her hands curling into tight fists at her sides. She gave Moon a hard glare, hoping that she could make her understand.

Moon only sat, silent. "What will you do for me?" she asked, "If I go and rescue your friend, what do I get?"

"You don't get it!" Isabella screamed, "This is your problem! You have to fix this! You can't just run away and expect everything to be fine! You have to deal with this on your own!"

"Maybe I am dealing with it," Moon snapped, "If Six-Bolt wants me so bad he'll come and chase after me again. It's all too easy to make sure he doesn't catch me."

"But what about Phineas?" Isabella crossed her arms, giving Moon an angry look, "Are you going to just let him die?"

Moon stared down at her, her eyes even. After a moment, however, Isabella was certain she saw them waver. "Maybe he'll forget about him once he finds out that I'm gone. He's more interested in me than in him."

Isabella shook her head. "That's not good enough. You have to deal with this now."

Moon only sat, silent. She kept her eyes low to the ground, refusing to meet Isabella's stare. After a long silence she spoke. "I can't."

"Why not?" Isabella demanded, "Give me one good reason."

Moon still wouldn't meet her eyes. "Because I can't. He's a machine now. I can't fight him."

"Well, what about Phineas? You can't just let that guy kill him!"

"I don't know," was all Moon said.