Broken.

Trains.

Saffia hated flying. She could not handle it at all, and therefore traveled by train or car only. She had originally come to the Americas aboard a steamer with her beloved, deceased Lucius. How she missed him. Grief was a concept that she had issues with. One would think several hundred years of life would teach someone how to handle death. After all, wasn't she reborn from death?

Trains.

Loud, noisy things, she truly did not enjoy them. It was, indeed, barely tolerable as a way to travel. But it was faster than driving from her previous home in New Orleans. Her luggage was sparse, very few things had survived the storm. In a way she had lost everything - all of her accumulated memories of Lucius and their familiar, Janice. She closed her eyes against the grief that threatened to well up in her again.

Trains.

The soot filled air, stinking of iron and oil, steel and dirt caused her to sneeze. She was home. Nachton. She had heard of it of course, and Lucius had forbidden her from entering the city limits. He feared the city and she had no idea why. Supposedly her clan was gentle with the mortals and tended towards partnership with them. Lucius always made sure to treat both of the familiars they had lived with quite well. Sasha, who had left them to become a nurse, and had died in the war. War. Such a wasteful thing. Janice...who Lucius had tried to hold onto, to get her safe, leaving Saffia to tend to herself.

Grief.

She pushed it away again, promising herself a few moments to cry later. For now she had to find her way to the Clan holdings. She would be safe there. For all that Lucius had hated Nachton, he had spoken well of their Clan and the sense of camaraderie.

Safety.

She collected her two bags - one the replacement laptop that her insurance had purchased her very quickly, the other a small garment bag holding a few changes of clothing. She was well off, she had always been well off, and the insurance settlement had left her wiith more money than she knew what to do with.

Home.

She stopped in the small bookstore for a moment, looking at the romance display. A strong heroic man with long platinum blond hair holding a woman in his arms. She looked up at him with utter love and devotion. Few would recognize her as Elisabeth Bennett, popular romance author. Elisabeth was happy. Elisabeth was in love. Elisabeth wrote about love because she was in love.

The more fool she. She turned away from the display as two teenaged girls eagerly plucked copies of her last book from the paperbacks, exclaiming delight over it being finally released. Should she tell them?

Nah. Let them hold onto their dreams. Humanity needed those. One of the girls spotted her and whispered to her friend, "Oh my god. She looks just like her. Is it her? Can we ask?" Saffia sighed as the teenagers asked her. Why ruin their dreams?

"No. I am not the writer of those books," She lied creatively and through her teeth. "I am however a writer, you'll find my books in the young adult section. I'm Saffia Bennett." She acted like she was fine, happy, gave the girls a smile and headed out with her laptop and garment bag to find her way home. She never let any see how broken she really was. She was headed home.

Home. Not such an odd concept after all.