The stage was dark except for the soft spotlight that pooled around her as she sat in front of a dresser with a large mirror. The day had fallen away, the reminder she had donated a kiss for charity. The awkward kiss that was collected with the woman the man actually desired standing watch. The realization that Colt was, in fact, not only dating someone but someone she thought was an awesome person.

All that was left was the mirror, the ray of light and the quiet strands of music drifting to her from the piano as the song began. "Look at me, and tell me who I am. Why I am, what I am. Call me a fool, and it's true I am. I don't know, who I am."

The timing was perfect, she was singing from her heart and that emotion colored the words as she sang. Few people in Rhy'din ever heard her sing, and the few that were watching the rehearsal now were listening intently. The melody seemed a soulful match to her voice and the pain that was shining through, that uncertainty of self and worth caused more than one of the silent audience to tear up.

"It's such a shame, I'm such a sham. No one knows who I am." She rose from the chair, taking tentative steps toward the edge of the stage, her chin lifting as her voice grew in strength and longing. "Am I the face of the future" Am I the face of the past' Am I the one who must finish last?" Plaintive, questioning as she reached hands out toward some invisible partner.

"Look at me, and tell me who I am. Why I am, what I am. Will I survive" Who will give a damn" If no one knows who I am?" Her path circling back to look in the mirror. "Nobody knows - Not even you -" One hand lifting to point at the image reflected there. "No one knows who I am..." The last note of the song mingled with the slowly diminishing sounds of the piano as it completed the stanza.

The entire theater remained silent, thick with the reluctance to shatter the magic spell that had been wrought by the performance. Finally Mr. Balagan, the productions director, called out. "Brilliant, Robyn, that was your best performance yet!"

She rose and gave a short bow toward the sound of the voice, the lights were still down so she couldn't see him. "Thank you, Mr. Balagan." Moving toward the side stage to where some of her co-stars were waiting for the call for what would be up next.

"We will end there for the day. It is a good place to leave, no one will top that I think." Mr. Balagan bellowed and there was a rush of whispers, this would be the shortest rehearsal they had all week, most stretching over twelve hours long.

"Way to go Robyn, now we can go and get some drinks and do some karaoke!" Tiny, a petite woman that was playing the part of Emma rushed to Robyn's side, looping an arm in hers and chattering excitedly.

Robyn laughed a bit. "Fine fine, but what does that say that we go from rehearsing a musical for work and then go hit a bar to sing for fun?"

"That we're awesome." Said Hugh, the lead male as he slipped his arms over top of both of the womens shoulders, his face now between the two as he spoke. "And sexy." He winked at both women and stepped back. "I'm going to get changed, meet you at the bar in thirty?"

Robyn laughed again, both hands rising in a surrender pose. "Fine, fine. But this time you are singing "I feel pretty' before we leave, Hugh." She knew that he would, he was secure in his masculinity and he could sing the hell out of the song.

Her mood was better, but somewhere in the back of her thoughts she was still brooding about the fact that Valentine really, really was a fine right bastard.

((Lyrics: No one knows who I am, from the Jekyll and Hyde musical.))

The thing about being a Granger was that you grew up in Rhy'din and Rhy'din grew up with you. Your father did business with that guys father, uncle, brother. Your uncle did business with the same brother and the Inn, and the warehouses down by the docks. Every person you went to school with had a relative that worked for one of your relatives. If you were smart, pretty, talented, quiet, shy, easy-going, even tempered it didn't f**king matter because you were a Granger and that was the first adjective people used when describing you.

She'd been gone for over a year and she was just still some Granger girl that, while the gossip rags said she was getting all the men, had the one guy she was interested in stomp on her feelings as quickly as he had drawn them out. When Kevin, a classmate of her brothers, had come to her to say that the guy she'd been seen with the other evening had come in, and within minutes taken some other woman up to one of the rooms....well, that had stung. Badly.

Stupid crushes, that was what she usually stuck to in her "love life." Watch them from afar or talk with them on rare occasion but never with any intent on dating them. Never because that meant opening yourself up for hurt and because she had forgotten that little life lesson life had set about reminding her in as painful a way as it could manage.

A mad dash from the Inn would hopefully not show up in the gossip rags the next day, she really did try to keep any emotional outbursts more private but everything at once had proven too much. He had just said he wanted to give them a try when he " hell he must have run away from her and to the other woman to have been there for Kevin to see. What the hell was wrong with her" Why would he say those things if he didn't mean it' If he had just walked away when she gave him that opening....That would not have hurt as much, not even close.

So there she was, running in hiking boots that after the first five miles were proving to be a very poor decision. The running didn't stop, she'd done marathon training when she was in New York and although she usually didn't run that far every day she could do it. Problem was her thoughts kept up, spinning in her head like a mocking mantra.

The thought of finding Shane, or Gigi popped into her head, they were both good at calming her in their own ways. Shane would listen and empathize, Gigi would smack some sense into her and remind her that she'd warned Robyn not to go for any man too quickly. Had she gone too quickly' Hell, after a few weeks they had just managed to get a semi-date in.

It's never a good idea to run in the glen when you aren't paying attention. Bad things lurk there waiting for the unsuspecting, those that were not undead, immortal or armed to the teeth. It was also a good place to set up an ambush for a person that was known to run certain paths, then all you had to do was be patient. The men that waited in the shadows of the huge oak trees were patient. They had been told by an informant that the woman they were looking for had left the Inn in a rush, upset and distracted.

A little over fourteen miles had been put behind her since she left the Inn, her left foot ached from the hiking boots, and she was starting to grow fatigued from lack of sleep and insufficient food that day. When someone came running up behind her she wasn't paying attention, maybe if she hadn't been so focused on her thoughts she could have done more.

When a ham-sized hand wrapped over her mouth and an arm the size of a small tree trunk snaked around her waist her mind finally snapped to the present and long hours of training triggered an instinctual response She delivered a stomp to the mans foot followed immediately by a deer kick - the intention to dig her heel into his privates hard enough to force him to release. The grip loosened just enough for her to twist and throw a quick punch to his lowest rib and she heard a satisfying crack. That satisfaction was momentary as something heavy and hard connected with the back of her head and the world went grey, and then black. Somewhere between the hit and the sensation of falling Robyn couldn't help but think that if St. Valentine had just stayed the heck out of her life that this wouldn't have happened.