Ariadne handed over the bandage without protest. Not only was she skittish about touching someone's hand, but she was no healer. The last thing she ever wanted to do was make an injury worse with her haphazard fixes, picked up on the road over the last nine years.

"It's funny," she said, sitting back on her heels. "Most people make fun of me for it. The optimism. They say it's naive to hope for the best, to see the bright side."

And that bothered her. More than she could articulate, really.