Had the circumstances been different, or rather, had she been surrounded by a different group of people, Lumen might have been more sympathetic toward Dalila. She didn’t have to be a telepath or empath – or whatever -- to know that Dalila was seriously addled from being in a car accident. Despite the fact that things were still on edge between then (and that was putting it lightly), she would have stifled a good deal of her contempt in order to be a strong support for her friend to hold on to. That was one of the few positive qualities that Lumen possessed: she was a good friend, even if all her cursing and general bad temper said otherwise. One thing that she did not do well was hurt feelings and currently, she was experiencing those in an over-abundance. Some – well, actually many – would argue that now was neither the time nor the place to dwell on petty things, but then again, Lumen was never one to go for the most rational of options. At Dalila’s comment, she looked over her shoulder with look of supreme annoyance. No, she hadn’t forgotten that the other elemental couldn’t hear, but that didn’t stop Dalila from knowing that she was being loud on purpose – therefore, point made. It was fortunate that she couldn’t hear her friend’s thoughts; she would have resented Dalila’s thought that she wouldn’t be able to do much to help them. As far as elemental abilities were concerned, no, she didn’t have much in the way of power; however, Lumen hadn’t grown up in the environment she had without learning at least a few ways of defending herself.
If she was feeling more confident at the moment – what? She may not be saying it out loud, but she wasn’t about to deny that the situation wasn’t extremely weird – Lumen might have given her walking stick a little twirl at Mr. Wrigley’s statement. She was silent when it came to deciding their next course of action, mostly because she didn’t see how her opinion would matter and she was in no mood to be told her idea wasn’t very good. Mr. Wrigley was certainly taking Darklis and Dalila’s critiques with stride, but Lumen knew herself too well to think that she would do the same. Where ever the group went, she would follow, but if things got the least bit hairy, she wouldn’t hesitate to save herself and Dalila – forget the rest.
For all the time that she spent around Dalila, Lumen was perhaps better suited for dealing with her opposing elements than others. Sure, it wasn’t comfortable, and just the presence of a water elemental was enough to get under her skin and grate against the grain. Outside of her friend, who she made many allowances for, she wasn’t likely to offer much patience for other water elementals. That is, unless it served a purpose, and right now, she wanted to annoy Dalila by not speaking to her. It was a whole lot better than freaking out as they traveled down the desolate dirt road. Lumen didn’t say a word as she looked over her shoulder at Darklis with a raised eyebrow to reinforce Mr. Wrigley’s question. Her eyes lingered on the vampire for just a moment before looking over at Dalila with a smug smile on her face. Load of good the fanger is if she can’t even be out during the day. We’ll see how well she protects you come sun up. For all her posturing, Lumen didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of the thoughts she sent at her friend.