"Nayru's nips!" Alice shot back in fright, gawking at what she saw before her. Why was this little boy here of all places?! Why could she not see his face?! "Please don't use Her name in vain, Alessa." The soldier clad in chainmail, Ruby Devilheart crossed her arms with strained patience, "We've been over this. Please at least try to avoid blurting it out around me... I'm doing you a favor, here." Alice's hand clutched at her heart. The sight of that lad nearly caused her Actor's Illusion to break. Oh yes by the way the well-mannered Hylian woman you've been escorting through the forest is actually a deceptive evil Poe-bitch. Alice was more than sure that would go over fantastically well with this goody two-shoes Hyrule Guard brat. "Sorry, Ruby," Alice Alessa faked kindness, as per usual, "You know I don't mean to offend... Can we stop here for a moment? I thought I saw something... peculiar." A sigh came from Ruby's lips, and she brought her steed to a halt. In response, the caravan behind her slowed to a stop along the forest trail as well. Already defeated, her voice trailed off, "It's best we don't stop in these woods... At least hurry, Alessa." Alessa--Alice in an immaculate disguise of a beautiful young countess--gently slipped from her perch on the caravan, adding, "Thank you, dearie. I know I must mean you trouble..." Being careful to keep up her ruse, Alice gently pushed aside the underbrush in the sort of delicate manner befitting a lady in a gown. She silently remarked how good she was getting at this whole acting thing, even with the occasional outburst... but... ...Did she really see that boy? ...Was it really... him...? ... After a minute of wandering back along the path, Alice glanced back over her shoulder. Thankfully, Ruby seemed to be out of earshot. Here she was. This was that entity... the Twister. She was sure of it. "I had been wondering if you only appeared to the insane," Alice admitted, "But I guess that doesn't mean I'm not crazy too..." She feigned arrogance, trying to fight the urge inside her to tremble--the overwhelming need to flee. All of her surroundings grew dark and dim. She had heard the tales. As she grew closer to him, chills ran down her incorporeal spine. She could feel the unseen eyes penetrating her illusion effortlessly, so she reluctantly decided to drop it--revealing her true, ghastly figure as a Poe. A nervous gulp ran down her throat. Her glowing eyes were wide. It was difficult to scare a ghost, she thought, but this... thing... had done it. Her eyes trailed up along the three, over the rope, past the noose, and into the faceless face of a young boy glaring down upon her. His body was dead, and yet twitching still, as if stuck in the eternal purgatory--the eternal agony--of the last moments of suffocation right before death. Despite that, she could feel its glare--stabbing, piercing into not her eyes but her very soul and mind... the soul of a young girl she barely knew, it seemed... "W-well! I-i-if you're not going to say anything... M-Mister... Twister, is it...? Sh-shall I begin the gamble...?" With quaking hands, she pulled a handful of rupees from her purse, as well as two fistfuls of Mini-Bombs, and gently set them on the ground beneath where his body hung. With sudden realization she had no idea how any of this functioned, only hearing rumors and hearsay. Maybe she was just going crazy... Her hand quaked over her sacrifices, eyes too afraid to look up. "Th-that's how it works, right? Is that the right amount of rupees...? Y-you'll turn my Mini-Bombs into something else, right?" When a tiny drop struck her hand, she nearly screamed in horror, jumping back a safe distance--the little boy's blood on the tip of her hand. "OH!" A tiny voice squeaked out, "That wasp quite a jolt!" The tiny bee-picori Buzzari buzzed out of Alice's purse, his head tilting quizzically, "Oh my! I am sorry, ma'am! I meant to enter someone else's little bag, not yours! Beease forgive me!" Buzzari's head whipped around, looking up at the boy hanging from the tree. "Oh my! I rebeet, oh my! That looks painful! Are you alright...? If you don't mind, let me give you a little sting--just to see if you're okay! I would bee quite concerned if you didn't twitch!" With that said, he flew up to the dangling boy to give his calf a little poke with a Shock-Enchanted sting of his stinger... ...and unwittingly wagered his Shock Enchantment, all of his own rupees, Alice's Mini-Bomb Supply, Alice's Lv3 Profession, and 7 of her own rupees all at once. Oh boy. The expression on Alice's face was one of absolute horror, for at least three different reasons.
