In the shade of the forest, the day was a bit cooler than Kharin and Leeteuk were used to, but with the effort of walking, a trying exercise at present, the temperature drop was actually welcome.  During the day, the woods did not seem quite so ominous either as they could actually see the birds and some of the small creatures that caused the rustling sounds they had been hearing throughout the night.  Beyond the shade, the day was only partially cloudy and it was lovely; a result they were both glad for and annoyed at.

                They had been walking for a couple hours before Leeteuk had to call for a rest.  His ankle had been throbbing for most of the morning and the crutches were getting inordinately heavy; stone simply did not get any lighter over time.  “I just need to rest for a moment,” he explained as he leaned against a tree trunk and allowed his body to slide down the rough bark, using his good leg to support him.  He grimaced as he settled on the ground, the bad leg difficult to maneuver and fairly unresponsive.

                Kharin looked at him and then up and down the path uncertainly.  Abruptly, her shoulders slumped and she propped herself against the tree next to him.  “We’re getting there, right?” she asked softly as she peered at her hands in her lap, her palms facing up.

                “One step at a time,” Leeteuk assured her wearily before he placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.  Carefully, he leaned his head back against the trunk and looked up at the foliage, watching as light filtered through the leaves when the breeze shifted them.  After a moment, his hands came to rest against the ground, listening without really trying to.

                It was easy to be lulled into a sense of complacency when they stopped moving forward and simply took the time to breathe.  His ankle didn’t hurt so bad just now and even Kharin seemed more at ease sitting since her face had relaxed, indicating her side wasn’t bothering her that much just now.  Leeteuk caught himself staring as a cloud drifted by in front of him when he heard a strange humming sound in his ears.  A glance at Kharin showed that her head was nodding on her chest, rising and falling gently with each quiet breath.

                “Hey,” he started to say as he reached out to wake her, losing contact with the earth from both hands as he shifted.  The sound stopped and he paused, mid reach.  Tentatively, he placed his hands back down again and the humming sound returned, slightly louder this time.  “Kharin,” he called as he looked up and down the road.

                Kharin woke up quickly, alert to the sound of her name.  “What is it?” she asked as she started to push herself up.

                “Something’s coming,” he warned softly as he looked up river and noticed a plume of dust rising up in a familiar pattern.

                “Is it another patrol?” Kharin asked quickly, straining her eyes to see.

                Leeteuk nodded.  “I don’t know if it’s the same one though,” he mused.  “Come on then.  Let’s get to hiding,” he suggested as he saw another group of moving figures combing the forest edge.  They were obviously looking for something.  Hurriedly, he hauled himself up with a rising seat and waited for Kharin, not even bothering to summon the crutches.

                She paused for a moment more, but when it became a definite risk of them being seen, she grabbed his arm and pulled them both into the shadows at their feet.  The eerie sensation of going through water encompassed them and they emerged into the shadow realm, much more in control than the first time.  Leeteuk clung to Kharin for support, reluctant to put weight on his broken ankle, and watched the moving shadows from a distance.

                “They seem to be about the same size as the last one,” he thought out loud, his expression pensive.

                “But why would they turn around?” Kharin asked.  If they had given up already, wouldn’t they just continue on?  Or had it all been a trick to allow them time to lower their guard?  Something felt odd about this patrol but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

                Leeteuk shrugged, distracted by the shadows moving directly towards them.  He cringed reflexively when they flew by them, white blurs speeding under them as if they didn’t exist.  “They’re fast,” he sighed somewhat wistfully, watching the larger blur of white ride by from the road.  He hated having to hide too.  It galled him to no end and a look at Kharin showed that she was similarly tense.

                She watched the group intensely, the wheels in her mind turning.  They were grouped together tighter than the last patrol.  She was sure of it.  Impatiently, she waited for them to get out of range of seeing her before slipping through as she had done the last time, leaving Leeteuk floundering briefly as his support disappeared, to his surprise.

                “Kharin!” he yelled too late as she sank through the light.  “Dammit!”  Tensely, he waited, balancing precariously on his good foot, and watched the shadow that represented her step out from the cover of the trees.  “What are you doing?” he whispered to himself, slightly worried.  “Hey.  Hey!” he cried uselessly as her shadow suddenly sprinted after the patrol.

                Vainly, Leeteuk tried to hop after her, wincing at each impact but more afraid that she was going to lose him.  Why she had followed them in the first place?  He was forced to give up after a few seconds, the effort needed too much to keep going and risk hurting himself further.  “Kharin!” he screamed into the emptiness, a new fear reaching into him.  What if she left him here?  Was it possible she could forget him or lose him entirely?

                Forcibly, he caught hold of himself and took a deep breath.  “Calm down, Teuk,” he told himself as he looked around the monochromatic landscape.  “She probably had a very good reason.  Just breathe…”  Painfully, he sat down on the ground and watched the direction she had run in.  She couldn’t get very far very fast…not with her side the way it was.  How long would it take her to give up and come back for him?

                He was still fretting worriedly, eyes staring out into space when a figure popped up in the distance ahead of him.  “Leeteuk!” she screamed raggedly, taking a second to locate the elementalist seated in the dark part of this world as he had made it out from the shadow of the trees.  Kharin hurried to him as fast as she could, holding the painful stitch in her side as she ran.  “The patrol!” she cried as she finally came within reaching distance, a mixture of fear and worry in her voice.

                “What?!” he asked worriedly, afraid for her reaction and what it might mean.

                “Come on,” she urged, grabbing his arm and hauling them both forcefully to the normal realm.  They could just see the patrol still heading down the road, quite out of distance of their abilities.  “I saw them,” she finally explained briefly, watching the departing group with a pained expression as she seemed torn between trying to follow them and pull him along too.

                “Who did you see,” Leeteuk demanded as he raised himself up to her level and forced her to look him in the eyes.

                “Two.  The patrol had two of them.”  She struggled to find the words to express how happy she was to see that they were alive and how terrified she was that they had been captured.

                Leeteuk’s eyes widened in mingled hope and horror.  “Who?  Do you know who they had?!” he asked urgently, his grip on her arms tightening unintentionally.

                Kharin shook her head slowly.  “They were hard to see.  Kyuhyun or Siwon and maybe…” she hesitated to say the next one.

                She didn’t have to finish before Leeteuk’s face paled and he stared after the patrol with a forlorn expression.  “Eleanara…” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

                “I saw their hair…” she explained quietly, her own feelings jumbled inside her.  The desire for immediate action warred with the shock of the news and the futility of following them on foot as they were.  Even uninjured, they would not have been able to catch up to the riders.

                “Why didn’t you do anything?” he asked, his voice breaking.

                “Don’t you think I wanted to?” she retorted, following his gaze.  “Gods!  I would have, too…  But I couldn’t risk hitting them,” she admitted angrily as her hands balled into fists.  She did not have the control necessary to make sure they weren’t caught in her attack and above all else, she did not want to cause them harm.  She was startled out of her own anger when she heard Leeteuk actually growl.

                The earth elementalist was glaring after the departing patrol, his jaw clenched and teeth bared.  Every muscle in his body was tense and there was a dark look in his eyes.  Immediately, he summoned up two crutches and started moving forward, new purpose in his step.  He did not need to look back to know that Kharin was following along, catching up quickly and keeping pace with him.  She was still faster than him, undoubtedly but now…  They could not afford any more time lost.

                It pained him to think that anyone had been captured.  Especially her…  Savagely, he shoved his pain and fear to the back of his mind; he would deal with them later.  “I’m coming, Nara,” he breathed through clenched teeth.

~~~~~~

                After much deliberation, which amounted to all of a few minutes, Kyuhyun had decided that he didn’t like being a captive.  He hated riding, hated the rider behind him and hated being bound and blindfolded all the time.  More than anything, he hated that smug bastard Kwan who kept Eleanara at his side at all times.  He didn’t honestly believe that the captain would cause her any serious harm but he didn’t like seeing her hurt any more than he liked being hurt himself…

                Still…  Kyuhyun focused on his ability.  He knew his control was lacking as his last disastrous attempt had shown, but that did not mean he was powerless.  The blindfold and the bindings were also strong deterrents against using his ability but that did not mean it was impossible…just more dangerous than usual.

                Intently, he tried to focus on who was around him and where Eleanara was but it was impossible to tell unless she or Kwan said something.  They had been riding for a while already; it was hard to keep track of time when he couldn’t mark the position of the sun, but they hadn’t stopped for a break yet.  It had to be almost noon or thereabout.  His biggest concern was whether he was going to try and do this while on horseback or wait until they were on foot.

                If he waited though, he would probably end up near Eleanara again and he wanted her as far away from him as possible.  Even he had no idea what the result would be.  Impatiently, he decided he would wait until he heard Kwan.  The captain always called the stop.  Having decided he was going to do something, the waiting was even worse and he was fraught with worry and tension.

                In agitation, he worked at his wrists, feeling the bite of the ropes as they dug into his skin.  It was something else to focus on beside his opportunity.  Carefully, he envisioned what he wanted and clung to the hope that it would be enough.

                At last, he heard Kwan’s voice call out from ahead.  “Pull up!  We’ll break here!” he commanded as the party ground to a halt.

                Kyuhyun grit his teeth and took a deep breath.  With all the strength he could muster, he called the fire within him and directed it out, praying quietly that it would not ignite him too.

                Eleanara had been riding as if in a daze, tired of feeling off balance and constantly steadied by Kwan.  She continued to wonder how Kyuhyun was faring somewhere behind her but was more than happy when the captain gave the call to stop for now.  She was ready to stretch her legs at the least.

                They had not stopped yet when a dull roar sounded behind them, followed by the ear splitting scream of men and horses that rose into this horrible cacophony of sound that drowned out rational thought.  Self-preservation took over in the next instant as she felt a wave of heat approach even around Kwan’s body and a null heat barrier snapped into existence around them in a limited area.

                She felt the fury of the flames and cringed in on herself, screaming in terror and feeling Kwan lean forward to protect her further from the heat even as the horse lurched under them, desperate to get away.  Kwan’s arms tightened on either side of her to keep her from falling off as he pulled hard on the reins.  After a brief struggle, the armored man managed to get the terrified creature under control and they could feel it trembling beneath them as a dread silence settled behind them.

                Shakily, Kwan pulled the horse around to see what had happened.  His eyes widened in horror as he saw the remains of his patrol and their horses, little more than burning carcasses around Kyu and He-Sung who were both lying on the ground, their horse gone.  A perfect circle of untouched soil ringed them about six feet in diameter but beyond that for about thirty feet was a charred ring of black where the flames had burned the earth and everything above it.  The five he had combing the forest were making their way over warily, unharmed but nervous and very upset.

                For the first time in a long while, Kwan felt an overwhelming sense of anger take root as he glared at the fire elementalist.  If he hadn’t already spent himself in that stupid attempt at getting free, it was likely the captain would have thrashed him.  As it was, Eleanara’s frightened whimper caught his attention and he took a calming breath as he looked down at the bound woman.  “Your friend is very foolish,” he muttered blandly as he kicked the horse to get him moving forward.

                “Kyu?” she asked softly, fighting the impulse to be sick as the stench overwhelmed her senses.

                As Kwan looked down at He-Sung and Kyu, he could see they were both flushed by the heat of the flames but were otherwise unharmed.  An annoyed look around showed the horse they had been riding was a considerable distance behind them, still moving uncertainly away from the group upriver…  The captain glared at the retreating creature darkly and decided it was not worth recapturing as the riders were alive and while Kyuhyun looked fairly insensible, He-Sung was slowly getting up, appearing very dazed.  “Alive,” he finally answered tersely, making her flinch.

                Abruptly, he gestured for the five riders to converge on him.  They did so warily, eyeing the elementalist with no small amount of alarm and anger.  He had wiped out nineteen of their companions and friends in the blink of an eye.  They had no love for him and it showed on their faces.  He could hear some of them muttering unpleasantly under their breath.  “Enough!” Kwan stated fiercely, drawing their attention in an instant.  Hurriedly, he chose one of the other riders to take He-Sung’s place while the latter clambered up behind one of the other men.

                Tae Hyun did so reluctantly, but Kyuhyun was hauled into place in front of him, his body weak and unresisting, utterly spent from the display of power that had decimated the patrol.  Kwan rode close to the pair and grabbed the front of Kyuhyun’s shirt, giving him a firm shake so his head snapped back once.  The young man groaned weakly in protest at the treatment.  “You have made things considerably more difficult for yourself,” he growled softly, unable to maintain his neutrality.

                Kyuhyun mustered the barest of smirks that did not last.  His attempt had failed.  He wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish, but it hadn’t worked and he was, in fact, in a worse position than he’d been earlier.  “Eleanara?” he asked softly, well aware she would be nearby if Kwan was here.  He was briefly worried that something might have happened to her in his attempt but relief washed through him in the next moment.

                Kwan nudged her gently with his free hand to prompt her and she started, “I-I’m alright.”

                “No thanks to you,” Kwan growled as he released the shirt forcefully.  The only reason he was alive was because she had pulled up a barrier to stop the flames from incinerating them both.  He was still fuming that nearly his entire patrol had been destroyed by his attempt to lash out.  This was going to make things considerably more difficult when he got to Enrhyll.  They would have to ride harder than he wanted to as well.  Abruptly, he steadied Eleanara in front of him again and kicked the horse forward, leaving the bodies of his burning patrol behind.  The other five horses filed in behind him, with two carrying double, keeping pace easily and eager to get away.

                Eleanara and Kyuhyun settled reluctantly, resigned to the hurried ride.  They knew they would not stop for a break soon now and could only hope that they would at least have the blindfolds removed later on.  The fire elementalist was wearier than he cared to admit and he wasn’t sure how to feel about the results of his attempt.  He had not seen the end result but he knew that smell and the sound around them was much reduced.  It shook him to realize how little control he had and how close he had come to hurting Eleanara with his power too.  With a feeling of intense gloom, he clenched his jaw and struggled to focus on what was to come.

~~~~~~

                It was closer to midmorning when Siwon finally woke up.  The sound of Eun Mi working at the table drew his attention as his mind swam through the fog of sleep and came back to consciousness, feeling distinctly stiff.  As he tried to sit up, a groan escaped him when every muscle in his body complained vehemently about moving.  Briefly, he started to panic, worried that he was somehow more injured for sleeping until Eun Mi heard him and came to his side.

                “Easy,” she soothed, pressing his shoulders back down to the cot, a bemused smile pulling at her lips.

                Siwon’s face expressed confusion and he murmured, “It hurts to move…”

                “It hurt to move before,” she pointed out easily as she folded her hands in her lap patiently.  At his annoyed expression, she laughed lightly and shook her head.  “I know what you mean.  I’m afraid you overextended yourself yesterday.”  She leaned forward slightly to place her hand on his forehead, noting that he was still a little bit warm, but not feverish.

                “But you said it was okay,” Siwon muttered, his brow furrowing.

                “I said I’d help you to walk yesterday.  I made no promises beyond that and I did warn you,” she stated simply, one brow quirked knowingly.

                “That’s not fair,” he grumbled as he tried to sit up and failed again.  A heavy sigh escaped him as he set his head back down and stared at the ceiling.

                Eun Mi’s smiled faded and she watched him sadly.  It was not that she found his plight amusing but he was like many of her patients, only they complained a great deal more.  “Yong-Soo should be back soon,” she offered, looking out the window briefly to see if her cousin was returning from his hunting foray yet.  “In the meantime, are you hungry?”

                Siwon had looked out the window when she had, surprised at how light it was as he hadn’t realized it was so late in the morning.  The alarm quickly gave way to the realization that he was very hungry as soon as she mentioned it.  He quirked his mouth uncertainly and then admitted quietly, “I am hungry.”  He was grateful that his stomach had not felt the need to second that statement.

                Knowingly, she nodded and stood up.  “Let’s see if we can get you sitting up,” she smiled warmly as she started to slip an arm under his shoulders.

                He cringed immediately but then firmed his jaw and waited until he felt her pressing upward before he tried to assist.  His abdomen argued vehemently about the action and his arms weren’t much better, so much so that he wasn’t quite able to stifle the pained groan that came out anyway.  It seemed an eternity of aching before he was up and could feel Eun Mi’s hands resting lightly against his shoulder, comforting and supportive.  He gave her a wan smile as she smoothed his hair almost reflexively.

                “There we go,” she smiled, stepping around to the front of him, keeping one hand lightly on his closest shoulder just in case.

                Holding himself still left him with a vague sense of pain but nothing more than that.  The deep breath he took was also mildly painful, but it felt good too and he laughed half-heartedly at his predicament, another thing that hurt.  He wasn’t sure if he should be more annoyed with her or with himself but with how he felt now, his activities for today would definitely be curtailed.  It was a realization that did not sit well with him.

                Eun Mi seemed to sense some of his unease as she kept the cheerful smile on her face but refrained from saying anything else.  She retrieved the pot that had been resting next to the fire and brought it to the table.  More porridge…  She caught his expression as he caught sight of breakfast and laughed.  “It’s not that bad.”

                Siwon didn’t argue.  It wasn’t that it was bad, but it was a very familiar food and one he was getting bored with.  Porridge had been breakfast often enough in the monastery.  Instead, he simply waited for her to serve some into a wooden bowl and accepted it with a quiet, “Thank you.”  Even the simple act of raising the spoon from the bowl to his mouth required more effort than he would have thought and he started to frown halfway through the bowl.  “Why do I hurt all over?” he asked finally, still mystified by that result.  He knew why his legs hurt but the rest of him?

                The healer, who had returned to the table and had been separating the parts of the herbs she had on top, turned around and gave him a level gaze.  She refrained from reiterating what she had said earlier and answered him honestly, “When one is injured as badly as you were, a simple act of walking might well require more from the rest of you just to function.  That is what happened yesterday.”  His legs could carry him, with a little help, but he had used the rest of his body to stabilize his person both in standing and in moving with Yong-Soo’s help.

                Siwon looked frustrated at first and then resigned as he wearily took another bite, resting the spoon back in the bowl.  “You could have warned me,” he muttered.

                “Would you have listened?” Eun Mi countered immediately, watching him with her head tilted to the side slightly.

                The elementalist stared at the porridge gloomily and declined to answer, which was response enough for both of them.  “Can’t you just do what you did yesterday?  With the tea and salve stuff?” he finally asked after taking another bite of food.

                Eun Mi shook her head and tsked at him.  “Oh no you don’t,” she chided easily, swinging around on the chair to look at him better.  “I agreed to help you yesterday.  Today, you will hurt yourself more if I let you even try to do that again.”

                “This isn’t hurt?” he asked, a dry expression on his face.

                “No.  You’re sore today.  There’s a big difference,” she stated, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.

                The door opened then and Yong-Soo appraised the pair uncertainly as he stopped in the doorway, a string of ground birds in his hand.  “Okay…  What did I miss?” he laughed, breaking the tension in the room as the pair looked at him instead.

                “Siwon wasn’t expecting to be sore today,” she explained, gesturing at the elementalist pointedly.

                “You never said anything about it,” he defended himself, looking at her and then back at Yong-Soo for some sort of support.

                “Aish.  You are a brat sometimes,” Yong-Soo chuckled lightly as he stepped inside and ruffled her hair with his free hand, to her consternation, before he hung the birds on a hook by the fire.

                “Hey!” she cried, vainly trying to smooth the mussed hair before sighing and taking it down to worry about later.  Since she wasn’t wearing the bandana as she had been the other day, the black locks spilled down her back and over her shoulders.

                Siwon had not seen her with her hair down yet and when she glanced back at over him, her expression still perturbed, he didn’t feel quite so annoyed.  The pulled back horsetail gave her a more severe look but with her hair down, framing her face, she actually looked more the young woman she was and considerably softer.  “I still think I deserved some sort of warning,” he added softly.

                The healer relented after a moment and sighed.  “You might be right…” she spoke slowly.  She sometimes forgot things that were obvious to her weren’t always that easy to see for others.  He might well have been completely ignorant of that…  The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.  She doubted very much that he would have been exposed to such injuries in the monastery and would have had no reason to know one way or the other.  And since he’d had the light elementalist with him after they left the monastery, such concerns would not have even mattered.

                “How are your friends today?” Yong-Soo interrupted, extending the familiar bowl of water to Siwon as he came up to stand near his cousin.

                The two that had been speaking looked surprised at first and then Siwon’s expression became attentive and focused as he looked at the shimmering water.  Eagerly, he reached for the bowl, wincing when he forgot about his soreness, and paused when he heard Eun Mi sigh.  “Can’t you at least finish eating first?”

                The water elementalist glanced at the bowl of water and then at the bowl of food before finishing the latter in all of three bites and then grabbed the former from Yong-Soo.  Eun Mi retrieved the empty bowl from his lap and was amused that he didn’t even seem to notice as he swallowed and stared at the bowl.  He held it for a few seconds before settling it on his lap when maintaining the suspended position got too tiresome.  There was a definite sense of need in his expression as he stared raptly at the water.

                As he had been doing more of late, he started with Kyuhyun and Eleanara, pulling up their images easily.  His expression saddened as he saw they were still riding, blindfold and bound.  They looked otherwise unharmed, but that did not make him feel any better since they were still captives.  Siwon watched them for a little while longer, taking a moment to glower at the man behind Eleanara, before releasing the image and going on to another pair.

                He was glad to see that Summer and Eunhyuk were doing well.  They had changed again and seemed to be watching a younger boy and what appeared to be his instructor sparring.  The duo made him smile as even the instructor seemed like a kid when interacting with the boy.  It made him feel just that much better to know that they were at least doing well wherever they were.  A small bit of the tension inside of him uncoiled at the sight and he switched over to the final pair.

                Kharin and Leeteuk were walking again.  They had decided to stay close to the forest but they appeared to be making decent progress.  It looked like Leeteuk was hurting a bit more than usual but they were both free and no worse off than they were the last time he saw them.  He watched as they slowed down and settled against one of the trees for a rest.  Siwon smiled slowly before he looked away, relief and concern warring within him.

                “Here,” Eun Mi offered softly as she held a steaming mug of what smelled like tea out to him.

                Reluctantly, Siwon set the bowl of water aside and accepted the tea with a nod of thanks.  It smelled like the type she’d given him the other day for soreness.  He sipped at it slowly while he watched Yong-Soo and Eun Mi sitting at the table.  She had returned to separating herbs while her cousin watched her, earning several looks from the herbalist as she worked.  Eventually, he got bored himself and took the birds out to clean them for later.

                Carefully, Siwon set the empty mug to the side and slowly started to test his limits.  He quickly found them very early on, to his consternation.  Siwon was not good at meditating or pushing the pain away but he could be inordinately stubborn and this was one of those times.  Despite the pain, he forced his aching body to swing throbbing legs over the side of the bed and gathered himself to try standing.  He wasn’t asking for that much…just to get standing.

                Intently, he stared at the floor with his arms braced against the edge of the cot as he took a breath.  He heard Eun Mi shifting briefly before he made his attempt and he pressed himself to try before she could stop him.  Abruptly, he pushed himself up, feeling pain flare to life up and down his body.  A weak cry escaped him as his body rebelled and he pitched forward reaching ineffectively for the chair directly in front of him as his vision blurred.

                Eun Mi was there in an instant as she stepped in front of him and slipped her arms around his upper body, using her whole body to stop his forward momentum as much as possible.  He was more solid than she anticipated and she had to take a step back which only delayed her own inability to support him as he sagged in her arms.  “Siwon…” she murmured before losing the rest of her control as she crumpled under his weight.  They landed in a heap on the floor, knocking the chair over in the process.

                That was how Yong-Soo found them when he rushed inside after hearing the general commotion of them falling.  His worry quickly dissolved into a fit of laughter he stifled with difficulty as he hurriedly cleaned his hands and then bent to help them.  “What in the world?” he chuckled with a bemused look at Eun Mi who seemed pinned despite her best efforts otherwise.

                 “Would you just help me already?” she asked, blushing furiously.  She was so glad that Siwon wasn’t able to see her just now.  A glance over confirmed that he had briefly lost consciousness with his head resting on her shoulder.

                “Alright.  Alright,” Yong-Soo chuckled before he reached down to pick the elementalist up under his arms.  “Get his legs, Eun,” he nodded as she hurriedly scrambled to her feet, wincing and brushing herself off, still bright red.

                Eun Mi eyed her cousin as he continued to smile but hurriedly picked up Siwon’s feet, better able to carry him with his assistance.  Carefully, they laid him back down on the cot and while Yong-Soo continued to laugh to himself as he stepped back outside to finish what he had started, Eun Mi pulled the chair up and sat down at Siwon’s side, attentive.  Lightly, she brushed his bangs back and tried to make him as comfortable as possible, fussing with the wrappings needlessly and checking the pillow his head rested on.

                When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to wake up immediately, she sighed and resigned herself to resuming what she had broken off when he tried to walk.  Yong-Soo came back inside not too much later, the birds cleaned and ready to be cooked.  While she finished her task, he set them on a roasting spit to start lunch.  Eun Mi put her supplies away and dropped them off downstairs, returning with a handful of tubers and another handful of herb packets.

                Quietly, the pair fixed lunch and waited for Siwon to wake up.  The smell of food seemed to rouse him later in the early afternoon.  With help, he was coaxed back into a sitting position, more sore than he had been this morning.  Eun Mi handed him a small plate of food and watched him carefully, making sure he finished it and then gave him more tea to drink.  Yong-Soo assisted him in stepping outside just for a bit not long after their meal and by the time they returned inside, Siwon was feeling the effects of being vertical again.

                For the rest of the day, he napped on and off, drinking when told.  Eun Mi and Yong-Soo kept him company and remained indoors, finding plenty to keep themselves occupied in the meantime.  Fighting exhaustion, Siwon mostly forgot about the scrying bowl and neither Eun Mi nor Yong-Soo was keeping an eye out, so none of them saw the remnants of the patrol that galloped by on the main road.  They were far enough back that most of the sounds of travelers never got to them and since the patrol was focusing on speed, they were not making a great deal of noise in the first place.  The trio inside remained oblivious to the happenings beyond their cabin and were left alone, all but ignored in the patrol’s drive to return to the capitol city.

(a/n:  Thank you for being patient!  I am very sorry for the delay with this one.  It's been a crazy busy week and I haven't had a great deal of down time.  I hope you've enjoyed this update and thank you as always for continuing to follow me!  It means a lot to me that you continue to follow me and your comments and responses always make me smile.  Take care and I hope you are having a great weekend.  <3 )