Like prodding a sleeping dragon, there was always a feeling that the wrong move or an ill-timed exposure of an emotional vulnerability might leave you set upon, as surely as an investigative rodent crawling down tarantula's burrow. It didn't matter how far technology had evolved or the thickness of your walls. Certain entities just had a 'get you' feel about them.

"Potential... And interference," came the sickly-pale brunette's reply, haunting the young warrior with a gaze most shadowy. "One is shown guidance. The other is warned. Desire is but one shard of the broken mirror..."

That sensation of slipping into ice-cold water? Nerves standing on end, bones crying out in dulled ache... It happened now, only to be accompanied, just as suddenly, by precisely the reverse, as if warmth had come flooding around, like a mother gathering her child into a welcoming blanket.

The ebb and flow of Elfleda's metaphysical tides were alarming, indeed. Perhaps just a demonstration of her worded sentiments or, just as likely, simply how being around her could be.

Like wisps of smoke, Elfleda's raised hand had fingers moving to where knife had stabbed cleanly through Rhiannon's flesh. A delicately soothing, "Hmmm..." Then a further smile. "The resolve has strengthened you... Is it that which brings me to you?"