On nights like these, the heat and light of the fire brought in as much danger as it did comfort, but the increasingly frigid air made it harder and harder for Citra to resist its lure. She tempered her unease by traveling around the city, which brought with it its own set of risks, to different fires lest she become too predictable in her habits. Without a dyr to watch her back, she could never be too careful - and the abundance of caution had kept her alive thus far.

As a result, she sat alone by a nearby fire when movement in the darkness beyond caught her attention. Shifting so that she could more easily get to her feet, Citra peered at the shadowed figure that had collapsed onto the darkened street. Whatever was going on, she wanted no part of it. Quietly, carefully, with her hand by her dagger, she stood and stepped back out of the fire’s immediate circle of light, aiming for the safety of darkness while also loathe to relinquish the warmth of the fire. With her back to the ruins of a wagon, she waited and watched the other person.

The other girl may have been a pitiful sight, but Citra had long since stopped being moved by pitiful sights. Elderkeep was not kind to those who dared to care for another, let alone show compassion for a complete stranger. In a city where death came swift and arbitrary, solitude and strength were the closest one could get to safety. Citra was not about to risk hers for this unknown entity.

She did not approach, and she kept her hand on her dagger. But bad dreams were a familiar feature in her life, and she knew all too well the clammy, shaky, fragility that accompanied the transition from a nightmare to consciousness. Though she didn’t want to approach the girl, Citra could still offer her approximation of comfort. “It was just a dream.” Echoes of reassurances that she had once heard many times over, her words were tempered by the bluntness of her tone and the rough, unused quality of her voice. “It can’t hurt you.”

Lies, all of it, but perhaps better than nothing.

Despite not seeing her, at least as far as Citra could tell, the girl seemed to not mind conversing with an unfamiliar voice that spoke up from the shadows. Unprompted, she spoke of her nightmare - a baby brother whom she had somehow hurt in a way that also caused herself pain - and the lurking teenager’s hand tightened around the hilt of her dagger. It was, at best, an ominous premise that had suspicion creeping down Citra’s spine as her mind jumped to the worst possible interpretations. They were in Elderkeep, after all. “What did you do to him?” A pause. “And why wouldn’t he understand?”

He didn’t have a dyr. The words chilled Citra to the bone. This girl had given her brother to them - the Eldouir, she assumed - because he didn’t have a dyr. This girl was dangerous. Even if it haunted her now, in the dead of night, Citra didn’t trust that the stranger wouldn’t still do the same, and she wasn’t about to test the theory using herself. Elderkeep made people harsher, not kinder. She flexed her fingers where they stayed wrapped around the hilt of her dagger. “Where is your dyr?”

It’s dangerous out here. On that, they could agree. The other girl had a dyr named Yule. Citra had no way of knowing what element he controlled, but that meant the stranger was one of the dangers in the night. “It’s dangerous,” She confirmed. “And it’s good you can go back to sleep.” A sleeping Dresmondi was safer than a conscious one. Citra prepared to disappear back into relative safety of the shadows and put some distance between her and this girl who had sacrificed her dyrless brother for Tribute. She would ask one more question before she fled, however: “What is your name?” Once she had her answer, Citra would silently turn to leave.