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She should be anywhere else but here.

What had inspired her thought? The stone bridges. More specifically, the fact that, as she was walking across one, a tiny misstep had led to her scraping the delicate pink skin of her paw. She had made it across, well enough, and a glance at her paw had confirmed the obvious- it wasn’t bleeding, and it hadn’t really broken skin.

It hurt, though. A lot.

Her paw was held just above ground, delicately, as she limped along, refusing to put her weight on it. There was another stone bridge nearby, but- hold on. Something glinted, far below, and just like that Hikari’s entire attention shifted toward it. Whatever it was, it was bright, and, in her curiosity, she hadn’t even noticed that she had put her paw back down. The sting of the scrape had subsided, and with it her flare for the dramatic, too.

The movement out of the corner of her eye is what draws her attention away from it. The stranger is tall, and she’s pretty. Very pretty. For a moment, Hikari finds her mind racing between scenarios- maybe she could pretend her paw was hurt worse than it was? Or maybe-

What was that? Hikari doesn’t even know if the stranger saw it, but she’s hoping she had. So she can try to talk to her more. Or so she knows she wasn’t alone in it and just imagining things. Either one worked.