[It's cute, a little like a puppy snapping and snarling, trying to puff up to appear bigger. Five continues to advance. She is languid, calm, though gradually her overbright smile fades. When they are face to face again, she is bold enough to put her hands on his shoulders. He's thin, flushed and trembling, too cold beneath the warmth of her hands.]

You're shivering... poor thing. [It's almost pitying, or it would be if not for the way she stares into his eyes, unblinking. Unnerving. Such a strange, bright blue. She's fascinated by it. It is not an aberration of nature she knows by name, but the part of the Flower in her that still lives, pulsing in her veins — it knows.

This sickness was not so different from what it was, after all.] Shhh... shhh... there, there.

[She can hear the short, panicked staccato of his breathing, and for a time she is still: her touch is light. She murmurs to him soothingly.

Then she asks:]

How are you going to make me regret it?

[Her grip tightens, bracing like iron, and she wrenches his arm behind his back: sudden, almost perfunctory. Something she's done a million times before.] Can you fight, huh? Tell me! Show me!