[ She cannot apprehend this blood or the magic that comes from it. It is a foreign substance to her, unlike any blood she has ever known, imbued with force that hums outside of her grasp like a color she cannot see or sound she cannot hear.

She makes her very annoyed, and this annoyance is fuel to defiance, and defiance is the engine that drives discovery. She observes his boots with a fiercely furrowed brow and eyes that glitter in tandem with them, as if to wrest something from them by force of will. ]

That would be the start of the problems, yes.

[ There - there. Something pings inside her skull, towards the back, and she brings a hand up absently to touch the tangled mess of it. Damp meets her fingers. ]

Woe - as in the feeling, not the exclamation!!

[ She gives her name with peevishness that suggests she has had to go over that quite a lot. Woe drags her shoulders back and does not look at the tower as she inclines her head to it, spinning on her own slippered heel to begin the ascent. ]

If anything is waiting for us, don't get in my way...I will not tolerate heroics or cowardice. Remain still, and do nothing. [ She casts a glance back (and up) at him. ] And don't look at whatever it is, for pity's sake. You're halfway to hysterics already.