Annie was beginning to wonder whether this might all be a huge, cruel prank being orchestrated by some old bully who'd been biding their time since the seventh grade. If it was, it was a really elaborate prank, which involved tricking an ancient magical artifact into selecting the world's most painfully incapable witch for participation in an international tournament so that she would embarrass herself and/or die in front of half of magical society. It certainly beat the old prank that involved sitting behind her in class and sticking the tip of her ponytail in a full inkpot. She didn't know a single bully who was sharp enough to pull off something of this magnitude... which meant that it was real. It was really, really real. 

Why on earth had she submitted her name? Why had she, for even a single moment, thought that this might be a good idea? Why? She definitely liked the idea of being selected as a champion far more than the reality of it. Being in the running was exciting, but lacked any real pressure. It meant she could continue working to better herself in anticipation of potentially being selected, but there was no rush. As long as she hadn't failed in an official capacity, it had seemed possible that she might one day do well. But now that she'd been chosen? It was going to be all pressure, tons of rushing, and if she failed, it would matter. Soon they were all going to find out she was a fraud. What if she performed so poorly that they kept her back a year in school? What if nobody at Salem ever spoke to her again? She'd already humiliated herself in front of a tiny chamber full of every important school administrator on the planet, plus every other champion! The champions from all of the other schools would probably go back to their dorms and celebrate their good luck – not their good luck in being chosen, but in being chosen to compete against a talentless hack like her. This was so, so bad.

She couldn't get out of that chamber fast enough. The second she was able, she'd high tailed it straight out of the cramped space, her beloved wand in hand. She'd charged straight into the hallway with her head down and hadn't stopped until she arrived near the entrance to the great hall. She pressed her back into the wall, thankful that the stone walls of the castle were there to hold her up. She still looked a bit peaked – more so than usual, anyway – but she knew she wouldn't be sick again. It was just a stress reaction. She'd experienced it a hundred times before, whether it was because of a pop quiz or a major potions practical. When these stressful things happened her heart seemed to plummet straight into her stomach, upsetting and displacing the contents and making it impossible for her to keep anything down without exploding. It wasn't usually so bad. Most of the time it just meant showing up to an exam with her hair shellacked to her face with perspiration, occasionally accompanied by peculiar noises from her intestinal region. Today, however? Today had been the worst. She couldn't imagine what she'd be like on the day of the competition... that is, if she even made it to the competition.

It had certainly been an interesting wand weighing. She had thought Mr. Ollivander was going to faint when he realized she held two wands, he had looked at her so appalled. Sure, wands were kinda important, but raised Muggle Kayla didn't think who had whom's wand was worth all that much of a fuss. Especially when there was such a good explanation.

Speaking of that explanation... She tried to catch up with the other witch when the ceremony ended, but Annie hightailed it out of there a startled deer with the wide white shock of her eyes only contributing to the impression. Kayla followed at a less breakneck pace, catching sight of Annie up ahead as the girl scuttled straight towards the entrance hall for - the doors? Did she mean to go outside? By the time Kayla had gotten there, her pity and alarm had been transfused with a healthy dose of bewilderment when she didn't see Annie at all.

Then, turning her head, she spotted the other girl against the wall.

"Annie?" she asked, approaching cautiously. "You okay?"

Annie heard the question, but instead of responding, she paused, her brow furrowing. Was she okay? The answer to that question sort of depended on what Kayla meant by 'okay.' Was she currently alive? Well, yes.... but did it count if she felt like she'd be better off dead? Neither 'yes' or 'no' seemed like adequate responses at this juncture, so she settled for a defeated sort of shrug, and when her shoulders fell you'd think she'd been using them to mimic Atlas, holding up the world. She accompanied the shrug with bottomless sigh. Kayla was being incredibly nice right now, and it was enough to make Annie feel guilty for giving her a half answer. “I'm...” she started haltingly, swallowing before she continued, “Yes. I'm, um... I'm better.” That seemed like a lie, too, honestly. She released yet another shuddery sigh, seemingly unable to help herself. It was like she had a sigh quota to meet and was trying to squeeze a few more in before her certain death at the hands of the maniacal educators who had planned this tournament of humiliation.

“Are you mad at me?” Annie asked suddenly, while looking down at her poor, abused wand – for a moment it may have been unclear whether she was addressing the wand or Kayla. “I wouldn't have given it to you if I didn't have to, um... you know. I just... I feel really, really bad.” She hazarded a glance up at her classmate, still feeling bashful over the whole ordeal. “I wasn't really thinking clearly, I guess. But it's... it won't...um, what... did he say? Is it okay? My wand and everything?”

Annie didn't look up at her, but gave a dejected affirmative. Kayla slid in furtively the last few feet to the girl's side then and stood looking at her out of the corner of her eyes, taking in her downcast gaze, her slumped shoulders, the eventual shuddering sigh. With simple deliberation, Kayla abruptly sat. Her hand flap-flap-flapped at the stone beside her just to the left of Annie's foot, an invitation for the other girl to join her.

Her air of calm straightforwardness was interrupted by sudden wide-eyed surprise. "No," she said, blinking, "No, of course not, why would I be? Girl, you had to run. I understand. It would've been worse if your wand hadn't gotten weighed at all because you took it with you." She sensed the underlying tone in Annie's voice, and wordlessly understood: though her mother had been a witch, Kayla had never known her, growing up among muggles in her small North Carolina town.  Wands were not so intensely personal to her, not the way they seemed to be to other witches and wizards. It was, after all, inherently a stick. But the way Ollivander and the others had reacted to her carrying Annie's wand...

She hesitated. "Well," she said. "He was kinda haughty about it. My having your wand, that is. But he said it was a good wand and your unicorn core was from a wonderful creature with a good kick. Fine for the competition, straight as an arrow - oh, and that it was one of his creations. I didn't know that yours was an Ollivander's wand." The way she looked up at Annie now clearly invited explanation in an open, curious sort of way.

Wow, today was shaping up to be one shiny gem of a day, wasn't it? First she'd puked, then she'd had to awkwardly walk in on a ceremony-in-progress, and now she had to sit on the floor? It was enough to make her wish that the tournament was taking place tonight so that she could get the dying over with and her misery would come to its overdue end. She was reluctant to find a way to sit next to her schoolmate, since floors were kind of gross, and it took her a few moments of active, hand flailing contemplation before she was able to determine that simply dropping to her knees was the least destructive course of action. With yet another sigh, she spread her skirt over her knees, trying to keep from flashing anybody as she settled on the ground. At least they weren't in the bathroom – that was the one positive to throwing a pity party for herself at a new venue – though it said a lot that the one bright spot to her day was that she was unlikely to sit in pee.

”No, of course not, why would I be? Girl, you had to run. I understand. It would've been worse if your wand hadn't gotten weighed at all because you took it with you.”

Annie nodded a few times. Kayla had a point. Even so, it would probably still be a while before Annie was able to untangle all of her emotionally charged thoughts and see this situation clearly. “For a moment I guess I was just scared that, um... you know how wands sometimes... when you don't take care of them, how they just...” she paused “die?” She winced at the mention of the very idea. She'd never seen it happen herself, but it was part of wandlore. If a wand didn't like the way you were treating it then it could decide to end the relationship, no matter how long the witch and the wand had been joined. The thought that she may have offended her wand occurred to her in the bathroom for just a fleeting moment, and the stress of it had nearly killed her on the spot. She could feel its energy in her hands, however, the same as always – though maybe a little hungrier than normal. It had missed her.

Annie felt some hunger within her, too – she was desperate to know what the wandmaker had said about her wand. She listened with the most rapt attention as Kayla went on, recounting her wand weighing with detail after delicious detail. Her eyes were as round as they got when the other witch concluded her retelling.

“He knew the unicorn?” she asked, her voice growing hoarse as she reached the end of the question, her eyebrows leaping upward in awe. “The actual unicorn? He knew it? Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed, hugging the wand to her chest for a moment. That bit of information had distracted her thoroughly from her plight, if only temporarily. She drew her wand away from her chest and cradled it in her two cupped hands, looking at it with a new recognition. That was a calming idea, somehow – that the source of power in her wand had come from a real, live unicorn that some person had met, and she'd also met that person! She so wished she'd been there to hear every last detail! “Merlin, I love unicorns so much – you have absolutely no idea,” she rambled quickly, without so much as taking a breath or pausing between words. She paused for a moment, taking an opportunity to actually breathe, before she got around to responding to Kayla's curiosity regarding the origin of her wand.

“My mother's English?” she explained, an inexplicable interrogative tone to her voice. “She just wanted me to have an Ollivander's wand because, um,” she paused – she wanted to say that they were the best, but she didn't want to insult Kayla's wand, which seemed fine, as far as she could tell. “Because she likes them,” Annie finished lamely. “I mean, well, because her wand is from there?” It was true enough. “She went here when she was in school. To Hogwarts, I mean. Did your... um... I mean,” she floundered, “Oh. Oh, wait. Are you muggleborn? I'm sorry. I totally forgot.”   

Annie waffled about a bit before sitting. Kayla watched the dance of hesitation, head cocked and not understanding her reluctance. But then, she had slept in a tree more than once. She wouldn't.

"Oh," she said. "Yeah." They shared a moment of uncomfortable silence. "I don't think it was long enough for that," she offered finally. The death of a wand wasn't something she knew much about, but it sounded unpleasant. As for her - well, she had no problem letting someone else touch or hold her wand, but it was true she'd get uneasy when parted from it for any long amount of time. The thought of it dying... she could get another wand. But it would never be the same as this first one, her true wand, which had chosen her. To a girl who had only discovered the wizarding world five years ago, to be able to ruminate on its warm cherry wood was inexpressible comfort even during the summers when she wasn't allowed to use it.

At least Annie seemed to perk up when Kayla relayed the wandmaker's words to her - she became very animated indeed to the extent that, watching her squee over unicorns, Kayla's brows rose in honest and not unpleasant surprise. "Yes," she said, laughing a little. "Yes, he said he knew it." Annie looked much happier now and Kayla was glad to have been able to deliver some good news so that the other student would stop looking like she really just wanted to go find a corner somewhere and die. Kayla grinned. "I think I have some idea," she said. "Hey, I guess you've heard there are supposed to be unicorns in the Forbidden Forest?"

She watched Annie curiously through her explanation, sensing no implied insult to the words the other girl bit back. "Close enough," she said easily. "I was raised by my dad, and he's a muggle. That's cool though, that you have an Ollivander wand. He's supposed to be the best, right? I would've loved to come to London and get one from him when I was 11." Subtly she stroked her wand where it lay in her lap, just a bare one-fingered touch. Of course, nothing could be better than you. She beamed the thought as hard as she could from her mind, not wanting it to get a complex.

“There are!” Annie exclaimed brightly, referring to the rumor that the forest surrounding the castle was teeming with unicorns who were in training for the World Hide-And-Seek Championship. It was something that came up every so often, usually when Annie felt the need to explode with passion and ramble about her undying love of the unicorn, as if the knowledge that they were so close and yet completely inaccessible was supposed to be comforting. No! It was no comforting! It was physically painful!

“It drives me so crazy!” she insisted dramatically, “I've wanted to see one for, like, pretty much my entire life,” she went on, unable to keep the passion out of her voice as she rushed the words out of her mouth at a mile a minute. “And people have told me they've seen them near my house, in the woods out there, and I have lived there for literally my entire life and I have never seen one ever!” It was possible that, like good luck and eligible bachelors, the unicorns of the world had decided to stay as far away from Annie Enright as possible. If not, the reason she hadn't ever seen one certainly wasn't due to lack of interest.

She definitely liked talking unicorns, but she also liked talking about her family – mostly because her family, love them or hate them, reminded her of home, and that was a place she missed. Try as she might, she just could not seem to get comfortable at this castle – not with all of the pressure on her, and certainly not with the knowledge that her sojourn at Hogwarts was only temporary. That probably explained why she was able to look fondly upon the memory of being dragged through magical London by the wrist while her mother offhandedly berated the wand they'd purchased for her.

“It's a really good wand,” she explained, holding it a little tighter and embracing the feeling of the core reaching out to her in the wake of their separation. “I've held other people's wands before? And, and it's just – they don't feel right. I don't even think I could use someone else's wand because, it's.... it's like... I wouldn't know how to get the magic out?” she explained, capping off her admission with a chuckle that seemed somehow self deprecating. “Mine's, um... it's really plain, though. I guess it's kind of ugly,” she added half heartedly, just repeating her mother's words, but without the single-minded confidence her mother always exhibited when she said anything of the sort. “I wonder what it would look like if I got it somewhere different, like if we'd just gone into Salem or something. Or if I'd used a family wand, maybe.” She shrugged, somewhat defeated. She supposed she'd never know.

Kayla laughed. "There are spells to attract them, right?" she asked. "I mean, I think there are. I don't think you'd have a problem, since they like -" she hesitated, blinking at Annie - "girls. You should go into the Forest and try, one day."

She had never seen an unicorn herself, but then, no matter how much time she spent in them the woods near her town weren't magical at all. She wasn't as enthusiastic as Annie was, either, but Kayla thought it might be quite nice to see one before she left Hogwarts.

She flapped a hand dismissively. "It's not ugly," she said with a snort. "It's yours, isn't it?" She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. "Is it ever weird to you how they do that, though?" she asked in a lower voice. "Wands. How they feel... sentient?"

“I can't go into that forest!” Annie squeaked frantically, her eyes growing wide at the very suggestion. “I think unicorns are like... like the only good thing in there! Everything else is really, really dangerous,” she warned her fellow champion seriously, since Kayla seemed to think that the Forbidden Forest was just a cute name for a fun little nature preserve. “And besides, I'd definitely get into trouble, and I cannot get into trouble,” she added, sighing. The girl, in addition to having an irrational fear of breaking school rules, was trying to use this trip to successfully impress her mother so that she might be able to spend part of her summer... erm... deliberately disobeying her mother. She wanted to spend an entire month with her estranged older brother and his boyfriend, she wanted to attend a super off-limits muggle art program, and she wanted to relax for once! If she messed up before then by going traipsing through forbidden forests in search of unicorns then her Summer was going to be ruined in January – not to mention the fact that she could get eaten! She didn't want to risk it.

”It's not ugly. It's yours, isn't it? Is it ever weird to you how they do that, though? Wands. How they feel... sentient?"

“I don't think it's weird?” Annie replied tentatively, that unnecessary interrogative tone slipping into her voice again. “Wands are supposed to feel like that. They're conduits of magic, right? So they're... they're, um...” she floundered, trying to think about how to put it. She squinted her eyes as she thought. Wands were complicated – they were what they were. Having grown up surrounded by magic, Annie had never had any preconceived notions or ignorance to battle when it came to her relationship with wands, so thinking about them like they were some new concept was a challenge.

“I... guess it's like... like, your wand is like your magic organ? Like, your heart circulates blood, and your wand circulates magic? Like that?” It didn't sound quite right, she realized, but it was more or less true. The fact that people didn't purchase handmade organs at the store and keep them outside of their bodies didn't seem important. This was a metaphor, after all. “They kind of are alive, but they're part of you, too, I guess... which is why it would really suck if mine died. What would I even do?” she asked. “Oh my gosh, I'm so glad it didn't,” Annie sighed with relief, hugging her wand toward her chest again. “But after I die in the tournament, you can have it.”  Annie tilted her head back and slammed it into the wall behind her. She'd almost let herself forget about the tournament, but nothing good could last. She produced a pathetic little moan  from somewhere toward the back of her throat. Wand or no wand, she was doomed.

"No!" Kayla protested. "It's totally fine, I go in there all the time! Nothing's eaten me yet, has it?" She grinned at Annie proudly. Sure, the Forest was a little spookier than she was used to, weirdly dark at all times of the day... but as long as there were trees to scamper up, she wasn't terribly worried about getting surprised by anything. "I mean, I don't want to run into any giant spiders, but there are so many amazing plants there! Ones they could only show us in books at Salem. There's - right, you know fairy's lace? It grows everywhere here. I have to special order it at home! I even saw a bowtruckle the other day."

She said this in a tone not dissimilar to the one Annie had taken upon discussing unicorns. Just it hadn't been that happy to see her (read: had attempted to yank all her hair out because she'd been climbing its tree) didn't dissuade her from being happy to see it. They were the cutest little fellas, practically plants themselves - and only found in old-growth forests.

Unlike Annie, Kayla was not comforted by the thought of a free organ about. She didn't press the issue. She loved her wand and would never want to be without it, but she'd always thought it a little odd to be carrying around something semi-sentient on her body at all times. Annie didn't seem to feel the same way and she didn't want to have the girl think her weird or non-wizarding by pushing the topic. Besides, that was a conversation for another day as the other student promptly reminded her with a miserable groan. This was why Kayla'd followed her and all. Right.

At least she'd distracted her long enough with unicorns that Annie probably didn't feel nauseous anymore.

"You'll be fiiiiine," she said with a laughing huff, folding her arms over her knees. "No one's died in a Tournament since - well, since the last Tournament, but that was only because of Voldemort." She hastened to tack that on before Annie could get discouraged by the reminder that yes, someone had died at the last one. "There's no way Ferrie would let us die in this. He'd probably wade in after us and smack the obstacles with his cane if he thought there was the slightest chance of that."

“All the time?” Annie asked, visibly shocked at the revelation that, not only had Kayla been in the forest before, but that she'd lived to tell about it – and hadn't been sent back home with a note pinned to her robes about how she'd been a disappointment to her nation and a failure to her school. The whole forbidden nature of the forbidden forest had been built up in her mind to the point where she was basically convinced that if you weren't mauled alive by a creature, a member of the administration would  immediately track you down and murder you with a crossbow. She didn't care what the plants in the forest could do if going in there to look at them resulted in her life getting ruined forever!

“Don't they have, um... I mean, aren't the greenhouses pretty good for...um, you know, looking at plants?” she asked. For all Annie knew that was like asking a foodie if they'd tried the fast food version of their favorite gourmet dish. She only took Herbology herself because of the relevance to potions and medical magic – plus, she'd been told that she'd be foolish to come all the way to Hogwarts and not take a herbology class in their state of the art facilities. Plants just weren't really her thing. That honor was really reserved for horses. And crying.

And speaking of thoroughly emotional overreactions... thank goodness for Kayla and her tendency to make elective mortal peril sound like a walk in the park.

”You'll be fiiiiine. No one's died in a Tournament since - well, since the last Tournament, but that was only because of Voldemort. There's no way Ferrie would let us die in this. He'd probably wade in after us and smack the obstacles with his cane if he thought there was the slightest chance of that.”

“Maybe you'll be fine, but I'll be dead!” Annie squeaked, lifting her head up for the sole purpose of being able to thwack it against the wall again. She shut her eyes and sighed. “I guess I'll have to invite my mom. Are we allowed to do that? Invite our parents? I mean, it's far, but my mother is in the country all the time for work,” she mused, opening her eyes again with a flutter of her lashes. Annie wasn't entirely sure whether or not having her mother present at the scene of her death was wise, but didn't it sound bad to not invite her? Whether or not she decided to show up was always a bit hit or miss. Usually it depended on who else would be present at any given event – namely who else was likely to see her there, and whether or not it would put a check or a minus next to her name under the reputation column... or whether or not Annie was likely to embarrass her.

"Yup," she said proudly. And, "Oh, those are very nice too, but it's not the same. The feel of the forest is wilder, the plants there and all when you try to do magic with them. It's more difficult." She grinned. "More of a challenge. I don't have to ask permission to work with anything in there, unlike the greenhouses."

Strangely, Annie did not seem reassured by the mental image of their Headmaster wading in to take on whatever they couldn't handle. Kayla shrugged. "You won't die," she said. "The taskmasters wouldn't give us anything we couldn't handle with just our school training. They don't want us to die either; it would look really terrible if we did. Besides, you'll be with me and Damien. We can help you." Fortunately those who scored the tasks seemed to approve of teamwork. Salem, more than any other school, had already shown themselves more likely to support each other during the challenges. She didn't see why this task would be any different.

"Yeah, I think all the families of the Champions are invited." Kayla's own family would likely not be able to attend - not because they wouldn't come in a heartbeat - but because they were Muggle. It was the only bittersweet thing about her being chosen for this task.

“Well, um...” Annie stammered, unsure how to point out that the reason she didn't have to ask permission to work with plants in the forest was because going in there was already expressly forbidden. She shifted a bit uncomfortably, wondering if there was any value to opening her mouth and mentioning it, but ultimately deciding against it. She just shook her head, to indicate that she'd lost track of her thoughts. Other people made breaking the rules seem so easy! Didn't anybody else feel that crippling writhing in their intestinal area when faced with a decision regarding whether or not to do something that they'd been told was wrong? Did nobody else feel guilt? Apparently Annie was the only person in the world who was still unaware that warnings and rules were optional.

”You won't die. The taskmasters wouldn't give us anything we couldn't handle with just our school training. They don't want us to die either; it would look really terrible if we did. Besides, you'll be with me and Damien. We can help you.”

“But do you ever get the feeling that, like...” Annie faltered, trying to put words to what she was thinking without coming off like a whiny brat. She paused, sighed, then continued. “Sometimes it just seems like the kids from the other schools learn completely different material. Does it seem like that to you? Some of them are, like... really, really smart.” If there was much truth to that then it hadn't effected the results of the tournament too much so far, however. Even so, Annie had been raised to believe that second place meant first loser, and that was reflected in the scores. She didn't know what to think about a lot of the foreign students. Then again, she hadn't known what to think about most of her own classmates back home, either. She was lucky to be paired with Kayla and Damien. They were both nice and talented and normal. And she already trusted Kayla enough to pass off her wand to her on a whim. Maybe this wouldn't be terrible. Maybe she'd live to see her seventeenth birthday after all – and, more importantly, maybe she'd get that trip to Portland.

”Yeah, I think all the families of the Champions are invited.”

“I wish I could invite my brother, but he definitely has to work,” she told Kayla, sounded truly bummed. The whole family usually had access to the ambassadorial portkey privileges that her mother enjoyed, but those privileges didn't extend to disowned siblings in Portland – which sucked, because Christopher was the family member she really wanted to see. Unlike the rest of her family, she was actually convinced her brother liked her, and it might not have been terrible to have someone in the audience actually rooting for her when the day of the task came around. “Is your family coming?” Annie asked her schoolmate curiously. Maybe she'd have happier news.

"Yeah, they do," Kayla said, surprised by the question. "I mean, the school system's different in different countries, even muggle schools. Everyone knows Durmstrang is all Dark and ambitious, for example. But it doesn't mean they're better than we are."

It maybe wasn't the best thing to do, stereotyping the Durmstrang students, but it was true Kayla hadn't met a nice one yet. They never wanted to talk to her. The Salemite, who could and would try to make friends with absolutely anybody, was confused and appalled by this universally icy reception. It certainly lent credence to all the rumors about the school...

Kayla stood up and dusted off her skirt, feeling a little sympathy for Annie but also a little lurking bitterness. She would have loved for any of her brothers to come, or even just her father. Of course, they would have thought it all very odd, but she imagined they would have liked it too. There was such a lot at Hogwarts she wished she could show Adrian, her youngest brother. He was the only one besides herself now who'd ever left the country.

"No," she said. "Hogwarts is supposed to have all sorts of spells on it, right? To make it unplottable and all. And my family are muggles. I don't know if they'd even be able to see the castle." To keep the other girl from dwelling on the subject she offered Annie a hand up, a bright smile materializing on her face. "At least you'll have your mom here, right? Better one than none."

Not wanting to seem rude, Annie took the proffered hand and rose to her feet, surreptitiously wiping her palm off on the front of her skirt once she'd risen to her full, not particularly imposing height. She adjusted her clothing and brushed off her backside, clearly relieved to finally be off of the disgusting floor. She sighed softly as she straightened herself out, tugging gently on her cardigan to try and get it to sit right. “Well, um,” Annie stammered as she tugged, “I'll invite my mom, but I'm not, um... it's just, I don't know if she'll really come. She might, but...” she trailed off with a shrug, trying to seem nonplussed by this information, which never really worked out for Annie. She couldn't keep that severe frown off of her face, her forehead crumpling against her will. That had always been the way of things – Mummy did what Mummy liked. Sometimes the things Mummy liked lined up with the things Annie wanted, sometimes they didn't. It wasn't up to her. If she pitched a fit about it, she'd be punished. She was simply left to hope for the best.

“Well, thanks for... um.. just thanks, I guess,” Annie smiled awkwardly as the two girls stood, seemingly on the verge of departing. She still held her wand in her hands, afraid to put it down after her strange close call. She clutched it in front of her, her fingers dancing on the handle. She couldn't seem to keep them still. “I think I'm going to, to, um... well, my friend is... I mean. Sorry. Sorry,” she sighed, trying to get her thoughts in order before she managed to sound anymore like a brain damaged toddler. “What I meant was, um, I'm just going to get something to eat, since now my stomach is, like...well, you know,” she laughed nervously, “And I'm going to meet my friend if that's... if that's okay?” she asked, a slightly anxious note to her voice. She needed to have a few more people talk her down from her ledge of anxiety before she was able to get any sleep tonight. The sooner she got to work collecting tender assurances, the better.