27.1 : I must not...

Serenity sits quietly alone, mopping up wine-coloured blood from her snow-white fur with a torn damp rag. She soaks the rag in a bucket and with each squeeze the redness of the swirling water deepens in colour.

She meditates, breathing in and out in slow, controlled movements. Under her breath, almost imperceptibly, she mutters to herself "I must not run in ahead of my party... I must not run in ahead of my party..."

Why could she not learn? The endless fights, the countless monsters slain, the many cuts and wounds. Even being knocked unconscious and crashing to the ground again and again, still she cannot stop the urge to run head long into battle... "I must not run in ahead of my party..."

Perhaps, had she like-minded fighters to battle shoulder-to-shoulder with, she might be unstoppable. But Destiny, who runs as far as possible at the first sign of a fight, Watch... sorry, Kenny, who disappears and only reappears to be devoured out of existence over and over and over, then there's Hoskgak... the lumbering Half-orc. The number of times Serenity had leapt into combat, only to turn and see Hoskgak, still far in the distance, whilst she battled overwhelming numbers of foes. "I must not run in ahead of my party... I must not run in ahead of my party..."