( ❝ . . . rendezvous ❞ — open, joining )

[DANYLA]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Life was finicky, yes, as were the people who bore it, but Danyla knew it was a love of many to define it, and a need for others to shape it into something they could completely understand. Perhaps it was his experience that kept Danyla from finding the same interest in definition, in unraveling the mysteries of existence; he didn't care to comprehend all of it, because it would not change how unpredictable people could be, how cruel or kind. His master would not have released him from his golden leash if he had somehow attained the knowledge of life and death, because that would equate to power, and his master was not one to allow opportunity to slip free. Because it didn't matter, Danyla made no attempts to attribute a meaning. For him, in his life, he'd fallen into a sort of tunnel-vision, able to see only how he could perform at his best to meet his master's expectations, to evade punishment. Danyla did not think of death, only that the chances he would serve his master until his final breath were high enough that...well, he would not have been the first slave to die after a long-life of servitude. Far from it.

And yet here he was, free, or something like it. Temporary as it may be, he wasn't certain what to do with himself. Some part of him wondered if he might finally be able to live for himself, instead of another person, but there was so much of the unknown involved and slave-catchers who would be glad to drag him back that he didn't dare give it more thought.

Danyla became a bit of a ghost haunting the territory, skirting around company. It was easier now that the gold glitter was gone, and with it, attention. He would not be so remarkable as he was, and he needed the time to adjust, so he avoided people as best he could. A child was...different. He had helped a fellow slave raise her children, and had buried his grief when they were sold. "Andaran atish’an, Danny. I...think you can stay." They wouldn't turn aside a child, would they? They hadn't sent him away. "Yes, you can stay. Do you need anything?"