Cougartooth Swamp Oops

The weather was getting a little warmer and with it, came the blossoming of new flowers, some arriving a little earlier than usual this year. After everything that happened, Cat threw herself into a nature hike, intending on looking for wild onion and maybe some other plants to bring home.

Going to the swamp in Lauderhill seemed like a good idea, in theory. Until Catriona got there and stood at the edge not far from her parents' car. Was she really going to head into the wilderness again after what happened on a fucking ski slope? Fuck. It hurt her head to think about. She almost turned around then and there and got back in the car, but Cat was stubborn. She wasn't going to let one experience... or two or three... in nature stop her from enjoying what she loved most.

Besides, she was packing bear mace, a flamethrower attached to her wrist, and magic to keep anyone or anything from fucking with her. She was getting some fucking onions today and that was that.

Cat made her way into the swamp area, grateful for the lined wellies on her feet. Trucking through mud and leftover snow just to find plants that perhaps hadn't had a chance to blossom yet. She needed this though. More than anything else. She only wished she had thought to ask a friend to join her.

As Cat travelled through the swamp, occasionally, she'd magically transfer some plants into the tote she brought with her containing different pots of dirt. Sometimes she'd use her hands. It was good. She wasn't thinking about her guilt. Her sadness. Indra. Just quietly reconnecting with nature.

It was in the shadow by the marsh she found them. Wild onions. Cat smiled and made her way over, deciding to try them then and there, not realizing their resemblance to some other deadlier plant life found in the wild. She cut a bulb off from its stem and bit into one of the petals. It didn't really taste like an onion? Nor did it smell like it either. Cat frowned and took a photo of the plant and looked it up on her phone, grateful she still had service.

What Catriona found was enough to make her want to crawl out of her skin. It wasn't a wild onion plant. The word, death camas, popped up in each search she made, as she frantically scrolled through website after website.

"No, no, no, no, no!" She muttered nervously to herself, feeling so absolutely stupid. She had been fed off of by vampires, almost killed by werebears but it was a fucking plant that was going to do her in?! Catriona shrieked and dropped to the ground, trying to heave up whatever she swallowed, imagining it in her system, flooding her body with its toxicity. She almost felt like she could visualize the poison within her, unaware her eyes were silver, as she slowly, mentally, magically pulled the toxic substance out through her pores. The poison pooled on her skin, through her clothes and began to drip, drip, drip to the ground beneath her, leaving nothing behind to damage its temporary host. When it was over, Catriona fell backwards onto the wet earth, panting, exhausted with an itchy rash that stretched down her arms from her chest and neck.

"What the fuck."

Fitz-Lloyd hadn't seen it all happen. But he'd seen a bit.

Having been drawn by what had sounded like a person in distress, he had come through the trees and the grubby underbrush of the swampy terrain with some caution, but unable to help his own curiosity. The woman, sweating, retching, distressed. He felt a flutter of his own alarm that kept him back, watching rather than helping, but it was when she went down on the ground, blotchy and speaking to herself in confusion that he finally broke himself out of his own spell of disbelief.

Pulling his own boots from the mud he'd begun to sink by inches into, he hauled toward her, trying not to seem like he was coming at her, and definitely no longer sneaking. It was a difficult balance. "Hey oh uh... are you alright, miss?" His fingers clutched around the strap of the bug cage he had slung to the side of his hip--a comfort for himself as he pushed himself out of his comfort zone for the millionth time this year.

Was she having an allergic reaction to something?! He didn't know much about that and feared he'd have to uselessly watch her die or... something.

Catriona panted as she stared up at the treetops, the poison gone but magic leaving its mark on her, as she stretched her arms up and out to look at blotchy, itchy skin on her hands. What the fuck just happened? Was that? A new power? Or was she about to puke her guts out and die there in the swamp?!

No. That was magic. Cat knew the signs of new magic. Unless it was her plant power? But, that didn't make sense either. She had controlled the poison, willed it out of her system and it was gone. Right?

Catriona refrained from scratching with gritted teeth and was content to just lay there in the muddy grass when she heard a voice.

She lifted her head and neck up from her position on the ground and looked over towards the sound, noticing the familiar accent right away.

"Aye. Fine. I'm just a fucking idiot." Laid her head back in the grass and pointed at the death camas.

"Whatever you do, don't eat that."

He noticed the accent as well, but not entirely consciously. It made him feel more in place than her out of place. And besides, there were more pressing matters. She was doing a neat trick of trying to match her skin to her hair.

He stopped some feet away, wary of crowding a woman entirely vulnerable... and when she pointed his gaze trailed toward the plants she indicated. He didn't recognize them, but as he tended not to eat plants he didn't recognize, he would take her at her word.

"Are you saying that... you did?" That would explain a fair bit of what he'd witnessed, but he was still very unsettled about it.

Cat nodded and closed her eyes, perhaps putting too much trust in a stranger she'd just met in the woods. But, well, she had other priorities. Concerns. Somehow the arrival of a new power, while life-saving in this case, had given her a headache. And a rash. She recalled when she discovered her second power. The first person she told about it was...

Nope. Not going there today.

"Don't worry though, I got it all out of my system."

She opened her eyes to look at her hands, scratching them a little beneath her fingernails.

"Probably."

He got a little closer and crouched to set down his net he'd been carrying. Got a slightly better look at her.

Didn't really know what she meant about getting it out of her system, sort of assumed she'd made herself sick on purpose even if there wasn't much evidence for that in this landscape. Steeled himself to be helpful rather than merely a panicked bystander.

"How uncertain is... probably?"

"Uhhh..." Catriona began, trying to figure that out herself. She was fairly certain it was all out of her system. Unless a rash was part of the side effects of death camas and not magic.

"I ultimately have no idea. I'm pretty sure this-" Cat held up her hands. "-Is a result of magic though," She said, as if it was the most normal and sane conclusion she could possibly come to. It was, in a way.

She felt altogether fine if she was being honest with herself. Really tired and itchy, but fine?

When she held up her hands he leaned a bit back, naturally wary, and made more so by things he didn't especially understand.

But unknown magic was less terrifying than an unknown person, so he felt he was doing alright. She wasn't a vampire, obviously. Nor was she like him... so she seemed to believe she was one of those others? He'd seen the news, heard the rumors, paid too much attention to miss everything. And then there had been that anxious young lady who had helped him when he'd been burned...

So instead of questioning the magic, he questioned, "Magic can give you a rash?"

"Oh sure. A rash, nausea, a migraine, make you pass out. Magic can do all kinds of awful shit to you."

Her eyes went silver and she felt the familiar chill go down her spine. Hm. Seems she wasn't the only magical being in the swamp that day but Cat knew better to call someone out, especially if there was a chance he was a shifter. Made her sit up though.

Catriona wasn't in the best mindset these days. Wasn't really taking good care of herself. Didn't really care about how much she told this man she'd just met. A nature hike had been an attempt to do something special just for her, and she'd gone and ruined it by being an idiot.

Though maybe. Maybe it was for the best.

Catriona got to her feet and wandered over to the deadly plant in question, studying it for a moment. She felt tired; drained. But she was also curious. With a quick flex of her magic, one of the leaves snapped off the stem of the death camas and floated towards her, hovering a few inches from her face.

Oh that sounded...

Unpleasant.

Sure, his own life came with its own problems. Pain and trouble and necessity. But it had been this way all his life for him and it wasn't anything that lasted long or that he didn't have a handle on. Imagine breaking out into hives every time the moon rose regardless of moon phase or something!

She seemed disconnected, barley cognizant of him, lost in her own headspace. He stood up and stepped back as she went on the move, approaching the plants she'd marked as dangerous. Staring in something akin to disbelief at her flex of magic, he covered his mouth briefly with the fingertips of both hand and simply watched.

Catriona glanced back at him, eyes silver, the leaf still hanging suspended in the air next to her face.

"Do you know how far the closest hospital is to here?" An innocent question, really!

Uh... uh-oh.

"Not... no... not really."

Kind of a lie. Granted he didn't pay that much attention to hospitals (it was against the rules for him to go to one, they couldn't help him much anyway), but he paid too much attention to everything ever to be clueless.

But for some reason he feared giving her some kind of... what? Permission?

cw: willing ingestion of a poisonous substance

---

He didn't know. That was... not great. But it wouldn't stop her. Catriona felt beyond exhausted but what else was new? This new power, if it was a new power and not a reaction of the poison she had previously ingested, brought about a certain reckless confidence within her.

"Guess we'll find out soon if this doesn't work."

She opened her mouth and directed the leaf inside, chomping down on it and swallowing.

Once it was inside, she tried to feel what she felt before. Panic. Dread. Urgency.

Apparently she didn't even need permission!

It was a familiar sense of trepidation that rolled up on him now as he watched her eat it! One hand over his mouth in complete shock and the other up he walked toward her a few steps, completely worried, eyes coloring yellow abruptly. No, no no no, she should not have done that!

But what could he do? Tackle her into the swamp and dig it out of her mouth like a disobedient toddler with a penchant for eating garbage?

Rooting a few steps from her, he was involved in something he was not enjoying but unable to bring himself to bail.

Please don't need to go to the hospital.

Cat closed her eyes as he approached, trying to tune him out. To tune all of it out. Focus on the poison within.

But, uhhhh, nothing was happening. Like at all.

She opened her eyes and stared at her unwilling accomplice, a panicked expression on her face.

He stared back.

"Is... it not working?" It being... whatever it was she was trying to do.

His voice had gone very calm to combat the truth like he had some power here by sheer hope.

Her eyes flashed silver for an instant, more out of panic than with purpose.

Catriona tried again to focus on the poison, but she couldn't visualize it as she had before.

"No. Oh God. Okay. One more time."

Closed her eyes. Cat thought of the leaf she just ingested, how it felt on her tongue. Imagined the poison seeping into her system.

It was then that she saw it. She could visualize it again, and although it took the remaining magical strength she had left that day, she began the process of directing it out through her pores. It pooled again, this time in the crevice of her collarbone before splashing down her coat onto the mud beneath her boots.

She drew a deep, haggard breath inward, then out. Felt a little weak but at least she knew for certain that she could do it. It was a new power.

From the outside, there really wasn't so much going on. She closed her eyes and he wondered what was going through her head but he had very little concept for it. Maybe she was just calming herself down. That, he could get.

There was some... oily scent on the air that felt dangerous, though, and so not for the first time this encounter, he took a bit of a cautious step back, still feeling prickly and like being an opossum right now would have been a wonderful defense. But no... no no, not in front of the young lady. He knew better and he could control himself better. His sense of unease was nothing new, even if this situation was incredibly weird.

She was... drippy and it was just bad all around.

But with her sigh coming in place of panic, he dared to hope, feeling a pins and needles anxiety of his own that needed soothed. "You're not really going to die, are you?" He didn't know enough about this plant to figure if it was a fatal dosing she'd given herself or just the sort of poison that would make you wish you were a dead for a while before it let you go.

Cat shook her head, willing herself to glance at the man, finally taking him in. He seemed on edge, which wouldn't do, especially if he was a shifter. Didn't need him turning into a polar bear or some shit.

Catriona wasn't typically considered a reckless person but lately, she encountered a burgeoning need to feel anything other than the pain and heartache she felt. So yeah, she willingly ingested a poisonous substance, not knowing if she'd be able to flex her magic a second time. But it worked! So, she didn't need to feel bad about it, right?

"No, I don't think so." Not today anyway and not from this. Cat had certainly suffered far worse in the last year alone.

"I'm Cat, by the way." She stated as she found a tree stump to sit on. She definitely needed to sit down a few moments before even thinking about going anywhere else.

He wasn't especially loving all the doubtful phrasing. Didn't think so. But... well, she was talking and not writhing around on the ground, and while she looked properly terrible, he could believe that she wasn't currently, actively dying. Even if she did have a very swampy quality to her person right now that he could not bring himself to draw nearer to... but he could not leave her so nonchalantly as would have been necessary to carry on with his bug expedition.

Especially as she was introducing herself now, trapping him in social niceties.

She sat down, he pat himself down, taking stock of what he had on him. "Oh... uhm. Fitz-Lloyd. Do you... would water help, Cat?" He had his canteen at least if she was... keen. Or maybe she had her own if she was out here with some intention other than dying.

Fitz-Lloyd. She committed the name to memory and gave him a polite smile through the itchiness she felt stretching down through to her midsection from her arms and neck. Awful. Just awful. What a fucking annoying side effect!

She eyed the canteen and shook her head. "No, thank you." Catriona didn't want to risk drinking from something that could turn her into an animal the next full moon if he was, in fact, a shifter.

Maybe he was a psychic who didn't know it yet.

"Are you a psychic?" Cat decided to ask, getting right to it.

He didn't much like lying. They were very hard to uphold and stressed him out. Besides, he didn't really see a point to doing so here. What could he possibly say? Yes, I am, my power is... uh... and then he'd be stuck.

Besides, he was still struggling to get a sense of where she was emotionally. He felt pretty spooked.

"No..." he told her simply, wishing he knew what to do that was useful or at least would get him out of here.

Not a psychic. Cat was fairly certain he wasn't a daywalking vampire, so that really only left one option. Shifter.

Unless he was lying to her or didn't know about his powers but Catriona sort of doubted it by his expression and general demeanour.

"I see." She cleared her throat. "Sorry, if I startled you. I think I just discovered a new power, but I had to make sure."

Now was his time to try and make a gentle exit, maybe?

"It's okay, I'm fine." You know, in the ways that counted. "Does that happen often, discovering new... things?"

That was not a gentle exit. Or an exit at all.

He wanted to know a bit more, and Catriona didn't care enough to keep things from a stranger. Well, some things, anyway.

She shook her head.

"Tends to only happen to me when I'm in a state of duress." A rueful smile as she looked at the muddy ground around her tree stump.

"Ah."

Duress, he understood.

"Did you know before you... ate? The first time?"

Why was he doing this, she probably didn't want to answer anything about any of this, but frankly he was just mystified. And had a tendency to cover up mild terror with behaving aggressively unbothered. Which apparently meant being curious right now.

Cat shook her head slowly, considering.

"I thought it was wild onion. They look a lot alike, I guess."

She was feeling reckless but she wasn't trying to wind up in the hospital.

Right?

Cat felt her eyes sting with tears, and she laughed a little, trying to cover it up. "Sorry. Just not the first time I've nearly died this year, and it's only March." More awkward, uncomfortable laughter. Ha ha ha!

Alright, he could buy that. As someone with a long history of eating things he'd found in the woods (usually bugs and usually not... you know, like this!) he couldn't really judge someone. Especially as she... seemed like she knew what she was doing? He questioned that conclusion as he came to it himself, still very spooked by her demeanor.

But even as he was trying to twist himself up into something he could deal with, she was making more sense of it. She was troubled! And... crying! Oh dear. He... probably shouldn't be witnessing this, but running away now was even worse. He toed closer, wondering if she wanted to be comforted or??

"Oh... that's. I'm really sorry, do you... want... to talk about it?" Was that the right thing to say, help.

Did she want to talk about it? A chortle of uncomfortable laughter left her lips. Catriona gasped and looked visibly pained.

The last time she told someone she suspected was also a shifter about the incident in Graupel Canyon, it had only made her feel worse.

But here was this man, offering to listen to something really fucking difficult to hear, even if they were strangers.

"I, uh, okay. Uh." More tears. More laughter that felt out of place given how she was truly feeling. "I was nearly killed by a werebear." There. It was out in the open. Perhaps he'd heard about the video of bears fighting that was circling online. Maybe he hadn't. Cat hadn't watched it. Didn't want to see Indra-

Don't think about him.

She took him up on it. It must have really been plaguing her terribly if she was willing to tell some random bugcatcher in a swamp about it, even a little. It softened his desire to make tracks. He wasn't very good at people, but he was pretty empathetic, he thought. It was hard to turn away from someone suffering and he kind of wished her little stump afforded him room to sit next to her but... well, he'd have had to work up the nerve anyway, so it was fine. He'd just stand here.

Then she mentioned... oh werebears. They were in the news later, filtering around. The sorts of things he couldn't ignore, even if he hadn't been that invested in it. While he didn't distrust bigger predators, he stayed largely clear for these kinds of reasons. Smaller animals never attracted this kind of attention.

But she'd... she'd almost been killed? Sympathy crumpled his face and his thoughts. "You were there? That incident at that ski lodge?"

So he had heard about it. Cat nodded. She was there.

"Aye." Her voice was hoarse. Catriona wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and sniffed. Noticed her tote of different pots of dirt laying in the mud.

"Have you ever experienced moments where everything just feels so... empty? Hollow?"

It was a hard question to answer. He didn't think he knew exactly what she was talking about. His life had never been so harrowing that he was made to feel like he'd narrowly escaped some sort of horrible end. It seemed like she was very shaken up, and while he could have been like 'everyone feels like that sometimes, right?' he didn't... actually believe that.

The spooky feeling remained but its companion was compassion now.

"You've experienced something most people never will... I think it's normal to feel quite badly." Though he was far from knowing the full scope of it, you could not tell someone experiencing trauma to just get over it, however it manifested.

It was normal to feel quite badly. It didn't feel normal. It felt awful. But Catriona recognized the compassion and kindness he offered her, even if she was a stranger he'd come across in the swamp. It was so easy just to jump to horrible conclusions about shifters after what happened. To make the leap that they weren't worth getting involved with in any capacity. Then there were moments like these that grounded her; made her feel guilty for ever discriminating against someone for something they couldn't help. As much as she told herself Indra had been the exception, it wasn't totally true. There was the kindness and bravery Asha had shown her. The wedding she went to likely contained more shifters than humans and it had been a lovely affair up until meeting Cliff.

Maybe it was normal. Maybe she would just feel like shit for a while, and that was okay. Today had almost turned disastrous but she developed a new power; a sign of strength; growth, even?

"I'm just so tired of feeling this way."

He had no idea how to help her. Wasn't even sure that there were any clean cut answers.

She was out here earnestly seeking... not trouble, he didn't think. Even when she'd taken her second bite of a plant that tried to kill her--he didn't well much on that, still not understanding what he'd been witness to today--he didn't really think it was trouble she was after. Control, maybe...? On her own life and her own feelings.

"Mmm..." That was normal, too, but he didn't want to laden her down with the idea that her troubles should not feel so weighty and suffocating. "Feelings do get very heavy sometimes, don't they." He rubbed his own arm in sympathy for the rash that still mottled her skin. "But look. You're still out here. You marched out and seized the day."

And poisoned yourself, but that was beside the point.

Feelings certainly felt heavy. So much so for Catriona that she didn’t feel like herself anymore. Just a shell of who she once was and yet her magic defied that idea entirely, didn’t it?

It was a confusing place to find herself.

She couldn’t help the small laugh that left her lips as he mentioned she seized the day.

"I’m not sure I seized it but thank you for saying so."

"Could be a lot easier to just hide," he pointed out, feeling confident in saying it because that had been his own path. Not that what she was talking about was the same as his problems, but... you know, sometimes it was just a matter of doing something. "Is... I'm sorry, I don't want to pry, but is it a matter of... being frightened?"

That was a feeling he knew, so of course he gravitated toward it as a point to perhaps understand first.

A matter of being frightened. Catriona had certainly been frightened. Horrified, even. It was one thing to fend off a shifted werebear on her own but to lose a friend in the process was another thing entirely. So, yes. She felt frightened. Horrified. Sad. Depressed. Grief-stricken. Angry. Self-pity. She felt a lot of things - too many to break down in that very moment. It was easier just to say yes. Yes, she was frightened. It wasn’t like it was a lie, anyway.

"I imagine that’s part of it, yeah." Witnessing three massive bears fight in front of you did that, she supposed. "Also loss," Cat added, a little quieter as she scratched her hands with her fingernails, finding some relief in it, however temporary.

Part of it. Right. It was never so simple as anyone would like. Nothing anyone could slap a label on and a bandaid and say hooray, all is well! Some things you would fight with for your entire life.

He hoped that wasn't the case for her.

And besides, she'd offered him another crumb on the trail. He decided to stop hovering and cast a glance sideways. There were no more convenient seats, but there was a bit of land that was drier nearby and he walked toward it to lower himself down even as he asked, "What did you lose?" And merely chose to hope that she understood that none of his questions were compulsory to answer. She could release them both from this conversation the moment she wanted to.

Catriona bit down on her lower lip and considered what she lost. Who she lost. A kind and caring man who was ripped from the earth too soon. She would never see Indra again. Never hear his voice again. Hear him laugh at some dumb shit she said. Probably wouldn't even be invited to the funeral, and she couldn't decide if that was for the best.

"A friend," She commented quietly, eyes downcast. It was hard not to play the last time she saw him in her mind. Before the attack. When he would hardly speak to her. Her unanswered messages. How angry she had been at him after The Waffle Palace.

How she'd never get a chance to find out what she did. How she wished she could have left him alone. Face the danger on her own.

A friend.

He assumed this had something to do with the bear attack, but he couldn't quite figure out... how. Still, it seemed to weigh on her greatly. Perhaps someone had not believed her and she'd had to cut them out. Or maybe it was worse than that.

He sat now, knees up so he could rest his hands there. His bug cage at his hip buzzed slightly--a few grasshoppers in there who would have liked the freedom, but he didn't pay them much mind. He was watching this strange psychic woman who sounded the same as he did and trying to decide why he was still here.

"That's a deep wound, lass." Acknowledgement. "Do you want to talk about them?"

It was a deep wound. Deeper than she ever imagined it would be. Here was another offer to talk about Indra. It was a lot harder than it should be but she'd try. Catriona felt a bit freer speaking to a stranger than a close friend. Which was odd. She guessed. Maybe it was because after this moment passed, she likely wouldn't run into the shifter ever again.

"He was... kind," Cat began. "Entertained my love of horror movies even though they weren't his favourite. Played music, busking and stuff. We were close for a time and then..." They weren't. Cat had grown frightened of what he could become. Had let herself put up a wall between them, kept him at a distance and then he just stopped responding to her texts until that horrible day.

"Did something change?" A prompt, observational. It was the best he could do, really, using his way of picking apart the world for his own sake and trying to apply it to her. Cat wasn't... his friend, she was scarcely anything to him. Just a woman who he couldn't seem to turn a blind eye to in the middle of nowhere.

The conversation was far more for her than it was for him. So he hoped she didn't mind it.

Cat nodded in response to his question, glancing over at him. Noticed, for the first time, that he had a cage of some kind on him.

"We, uh, grew apart I guess." Easier than explaining the truth, especially if the truth came with a possibility for offence. A shifter may not really like to hear about her thoughts on shifters being dangerous.

"He was a werebear." She frowned deeply.

That was the sort of thing that shifted the perspective a little. Not just a friend, a werebear. And she'd been attacked and...?

She'd known, and he almost didn't dare ask but he was really trying to understand her, so he did. "Was he one of the ones...?" He left the thought half finished, not wanting to ask if he'd attacked her, but his understanding of the situation, even the public knowledge, was very limited. He just stayed away from questionable people, easy. If he obsessed over everything that happened to everyone else even just in town he'd have been a mess.

Catriona itched the palm of her right hand with her left as he search for clarification.

"No. I mean. He was. But. He was there to help."

And it had cost him.

Sort of felt like fucked up storytelling time the way they were seated; Cat on a tree stump, Fitz-Lloyd on the ground. Gather round children, come listen to the twisted tale of Cobalt Ridge!

"I don't know who the werebear was who attacked me, and I don't know who the werebear was who attacked my friend." If she did, what would she do with the information? Take it to the police? Seek vengeance of some kind on her own? It was hard to really say.

Help... her? That seemed like the most obvious conclusion, and so he accepted it instead of forcing her to spell it out.

"And then you lost him...?"

It made him wish he'd paid so much more attention to those reports so that he didn't have to take small grasps in the dark at her expense. It felt bad and he worried he was doing this all completely wrong.

Cat nodded. Her thoughts were sporadic as offered just slices of information for him to understand. She wasn't the best storyteller, apparently.

"Aye. He's... gone."

The weight of this information was not light. She understood she was giving news only a handful of people really knew about, though many probably suspected based on the video footage alone. Footage that Catriona didn't plan on watching. Not if she could help it.

"I'm sorry."

This was very easy to say and mean it. What a loss that must have been. Fitz had never... lost anyone important to him. He'd only moved far away, and that was sometimes hard enough. To think of someone just... gone forever.

She was afraid after what had happened to her, but the real damage came in what had happened to someone else. What a horrible double hit to take.

He offered his condolences, and she smiled a little ruefully.

"Thanks. Um. For listening, mate."

It helped. In a way. To talk to someone who didn't know her about it. Didn't know what she was like before it happened. There were no expectations for her to resume to normal. She could just... be.

"Felt the least I could do." And in the end, certainly far easier than trying to figure out how to haul her to the hospital from here. He recalled the fright of all of that and was glad to find it had faded. Even if she still looked less than perfect, mottled and worn, she certainly wasn't dying.

"I... know it's none of my business, and I won't pretend it is, but I do hope you... give yourself credit. Being here. Growing maybe a little." New power, she'd claimed, and he still was bewildered by it in spite of accepting what he'd seen and heard as fact.