The following morning, Seoyeon woke up to a stiff neck and strangely enough, a roll of gauze and a tiny bag filled with a strange paste in it laying by the metal bars of her cell. She reached for it, wincing at the sore, painful sensation in her ribs. She inspected the tiny bag more thoroughly, understanding after a minute or two that it was some kind of paste for either wounds or bruises. Seoyeon looked up. 

”Did one of you put the medicine in my cell?” 

The only one who was awake seemed to be Kyungsoo, who she heard shuffle a small distance from her. ”I think it was given to us by the jökul, because I have it too,” his voice was quiet and hoarse. 

”How do we know it’s not poisoned?” 

”We don’t. But then again, why would they want to poison someone who they need in exchange for supplies?” 

”You’re right,” she muttered under her breath, eyes still focused on the dark paste. Without further ado, she unbuckled her belt and lifted up her shirt—thanking whoever had been guarding them the night prior for taking the lights out—and felt with the tip of her two fingers for the bruises on her ribs, applying the paste wherever needed. She then grabbed a hold of the gauze, and wrapped it around where the paste and her bruises were. This was a bit more of a challenge, since she was wrapping it blindly and had to rip the excess off with her teeth. 

It seemed like an eternity later when she finally managed to tie the bandage together, fixing her shirt and wrapping the belt around her waist as carefully as possible so as to not hurt herself too much. 

Once Seoyeon was finally done, she leaned back in her cell, closing her eyes as she wondered why they had been so nice to offer what seemed to be all of the supplies necessary to heal themselves. Weren’t they captives? 

A violent cough broke her train of thoughts and her attention moved immediately to the cell on her left, which was occupied by Seulgi herself. If she remembered correctly, the latter had looked rather pale and weak the evening prior. Was she getting sick? 

Seoyeon blinked, and swallowed away her concern with a horrifying feeling in . 

Why did it matter so much anyway? Why was she getting so worked up about it? 

Seulgi coughed again, though this time the sound was followed by shuffling until she could basically make out her silhouette sitting up straight. 

”Chanyeol? Is anyone there?” 

Seoyeon looked towards Kyungsoo, whose silhouette had not moved an inch from when she last talked to him. Considering how hostile he had sounded a while ago, he probably had no will to announce his state of consciousness to the sick girl. 

Which left Seoyeon for the job, obviously. 

”I’m awake,” she whispered, leaning on the bars that separated her cell with Seulgi’s. ”Everyone else is asleep.” 

”Oh,” her tone bore a resigned realisation, and she slumped soon back on the floor. 

”Are you…” Seoyeon trailed off in the hands of her own insecurity and cleared , trying to tell herself that asking about a person's condition was not strange and that human decency was perfectly normal. ”Are you okay?”

A moment of silence passed. ”I feel really sick, but that’s what cold temperatures do to us Igneans. If we’re exposed to a cold environment for too long we lose our powers momentarily and get really sick. Since our bodies are created to handle extremely high temperatures, low ones kind of throw everything off and our bodies don’t really know how to react in order to adapt.” 

She nodded, taking in the information. ”You could ask for help? Since they’ll trade you back for supplies in Ignea I reckon they’ll keep you and your brother healthy if you have to.” 

”It’s okay,” Seulgi’s hoarse voice echoed. ”I have a better plan, but that’s for when the rest wake up.” 

**********

Seoyeon knew the ship’s matter and space had been warped with the use of magic in order to create a large facility in a small space as such, but she did not imagine it would take so long to find the chief’s cabin. She spared a brief glance in Kyungsoo’s direction, eyes narrowed at his unusual silence. He seemed to have been lost in his own thoughts, and he hadn’t even touched his food earlier that day. She knew he was grieving, but the male was slowly starting to shut off and it was becoming mildly concerning. 

But those thoughts didn’t stay at the top of her mind for long as the guard who had cuffed their wrists with ice knocked on the dark-colored wooden door. She didn’t know why they were brought here, only that the jökul suddenly opened their cells, 

A short moment later, a muffled come in, resounded from within the cabin, and the guard pushed the door open rather delicately, before he threw the both of them inside without warning, and closed the door shut. 

Seoyeon took a spare moment to gaze around. The cabin was big, but not overly so. There laid a desk by its middle, where the chief was sitting by, flipping through a thick, mossy book. In fact—much to her surprise—the entire cabin was filled to the brim with papers, maps, journals and books, all scattered across shelves. There seemed to be some paintings hung by the walls too, but a cloth was covering the content to each of them, almost like he didn’t want the paintings to be admired. Small lanterns lit up the space with a dim, solemn light and a small, tight bed laid at the corner of the cabin. This didn’t seem like the room of a chief or captain, this seemed like the living space of a scholar. 

Hannes himself was doubled over his book, barely sparing the two a glance as he, without looking away from whatever he was reading, flickered his fingers gesturing towards two of the chairs that were placed close to his desk. ”Please, do sit down.” 

At the same time, the shackles of ice that was trapping her wrists dissipated completely, and Seoyeon rubbed her wrists warm wondering why he had taken their cuffs off.

It seemed too confident. Too suspicious. 

She shared a glance with Kyungsoo, but the male did not seem to read through her intentions at all as he sat down without any further complaint. 

But Seoyeon was not intent on giving up, and she wanted to take her chances when they were presented to her. ”Why did you let us free of your ice?”

Hannes finally closed his book, and turned to her with a nonplussed stare. ”Well, if I want to study your powers, your wrists need to be freed of my ice.” 

She scoffed. ”And what tells you I will let you do that? They activate on my command only.” 

”I know that.”

”And what tells you that now that you freed us, we won’t attempt to attack you and escape?” 

Hannes chuckled and his pale lips curved into an amused smile. He turned his body so that