It was dark when a hand on her shoulder shook Seoyeon awake.  Groggy and grumbling, she tried to brush it off and roll over to go back to sleep, but it was persistent.

“Get up,” said a deep male voice.  “We need to move on.”

Seoyeon stopped reaching for her blankets and lay still for a moment, trying to process where she was and why she was so cold and stiff.

Then she opened her eyes, and her heart sank.  She was still in the Neuma.  Her hand was still injured.  And Captain Park was still her only companion.

Not to mention they were being chased by dragons.

Captain Park was crouching over her, holding a small, burning piece of wood in his hand.  The shadows the fire cast made him look extremely tired.  Maybe he was extremely tired.  Seoyeon certainly was.

“What time is it?” she grumbled as she sat up.  Pain shot through her back and she stiffened, grimacing.

“Dawn.”  Captain Park straightened.

“Dawn?” repeated Seoyeon, yawning.  She looked around.  “Where?”

Captain Park didn’t respond.

“It’s still dark,” Seoyeon pointed out.

“The sun doesn’t rise this deep in the Neuma,” was all he said.  Seoyeon was too sleep deprived to question him further.  Yawning, she got to her feet and stretched, trying to ease out the aches in her back from sleeping on the ground.  Her satchel lay a couple of feet away, neatly propped up and tied shut in a manner she hadn’t left it the previous night because it was hard to buckle it shut with only one functioning hand, and the knife that Captain Park had loaned her was not where she had left it on the ground before going to sleep.  Presumably he had taken it back.

Seoyeon looped the satchel over her shoulder, adjusting the thick silk overskirt that she had turned into a sort of cloak.  It was heavy and not all that warm and parts of it were rigid from dirt.

“What’s for breakfast?” she wondered.  The pangs of hunger from the previous day had died down, but her stomach felt hollow.

“Depends.”  Captain Park’s tone was terse.  “Do you have food?”

“No.”  Seoyeon didn’t think the herbs counted.  Those that were edible were barely enough to even make up a mouthful.

“Nothing, then.”

“Nothing?”

“Miss Han.”  He was beginning to sound a little impatient.  “I don’t normally walk around with a week’s supply of food in my pockets just in case the spoilt daughter of the governor decides to go on a jolly in the Neuma.”

Seoyeon’s jaw dropped.

“I am not spoilt!” she retorted, her cheeks heating with anger.  “And I didn’t want to come here, either!  It’s hardly my fault—”

He interrupted.  “You were warned more than once not to leave the fortress in the evening.”

Seoyeon clamped shut, but it didn’t stop her from fuming.  Captain Park scattered the ashes from the fire into the ground with his foot before starting off further into the outcrop of rocks.  The only indication he gave for Seoyeon to follow was a brief glance back at her over his shoulder.  Once she had more or less caught up, he closed his fingers around the flames in his hand to put them out.

The outcrop was much bigger than Seoyeon had expected.  The rocks rose to at least twice Captain Park’s height on either side, forming a passage that twisted and turned.  By the time they finally got to the end of it, Seoyeon was absolutely starving.

Still a couple of steps ahead, Captain Park put out his arm to halt her and then stepped out into the open, alert for any danger.  He stood poised for a few moments, and then turned to beckon her on with a quick jerk of his head.  The ground was flat and largely even, and he strode off at a pace Seoyeon could barely keep up with.  Twinges of pain shot through her ankle, but she ignored them as best she could and gritted her teeth as she limped hastily after him.

Her determination didn’t last as long as she would have liked.  Prolonged exercise on a bad ankle and empty stomach soon gave way to proper pain, and she slowed to a halt.

“Is it really necessary to go so fast?” she panted, out of breath.  Captain Park looked back at her.  Seoyeon couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but from the way he slowed before finally turning back to her, he once again seemed annoyed.

“Dragons aren’t the only things in the Neuma,” he said, “and while you might not be used to the dark, bear in mind that everything that lives on this plane is.  We’re currently very exposed and that makes us vulnerable.”

Seoyeon wanted to scream at him, but she did actually understand where he was coming from.  It was dark all around them, and they were out in the open, and dragons could fly, which made it very likely that the two of them could be caught.

“Can we just go a bit slower?” she requested wearily.  “I’m not asking to stop.”  She very nearly said something about her ankle, but she didn’t know how he would respond, and Seoyeon didn’t want him getting even more annoyed with her for complaining the entire time.

He hesitated.  Figuring he was going to tell her off again, Seoyeon reluctantly steeled herself and took a couple of steps forward.  She nearly tripped as she came alongside him, managing to catch herself at the last moment.

“All right,” he conceded in a low voice, looking her up and down.  His hand was near her elbow, almost as if he’d been about to steady her.

To Seoyeon’s surprise, he let her set the pace and walked a couple of feet behind her.  She wasn’t sure where they were going, and so she went on in the direction he’d originally been going.  He directed her to turn a few times, just slightly off the course they were heading in.  After the fifth occasion, Seoyeon became curious enough to ask where they were heading.

“Running water,” he grunted.  “Worst case scenario, we can get by without food for a couple of weeks, but water and sleep are essential.”

Seoyeon almost missed her footing.  A couple of weeks without food sounded like an absolute nightmare.  It hadn’t even been a day and she was already beginning to feel a bit weak and dizzy from the lack of food.

“Besides,” he added, “we’ll find more plants and hopefully animals near water.”

It was another couple of moments before he tacked on, “predators too.”

Seoyeon hoped he was wrong.

“How do you know where water is?” she asked, trying to distract herself.  He didn’t answer.

Whatever method Captain Park was using to figure out where they needed to go, it did work.  To Seoyeon, it felt like hours later — with no meals and no sunlight, she had no easy way of telling the time — but eventually the ground turned uneven again and began to slope gently up, and the tinkling sound of a stream met her ears.  If she’d had the energy, she would have run over to it, but she was so tired she almost flopped down as soon as she heard the stream rather than pushing on to its banks.

Feeling very lightheaded, Seoyeon sat down with a grateful sigh on a small rock just by the stream and pulled off her shoes.  Her entire body ached, which she hadn’t thought would be a possible result from a walk, and her feet had swollen.  They were both incredibly sore, though in addition to her twisted ankle, the ball of her left foot felt like it was being stabbed whenever she put pressure on it, and so, with a quick glance at Captain Park to ensure that he wasn’t looking at her bare ankles, she slipped her feet into the stream to soothe them.

Captain Park looked up briefly at the splash, and then stood up from where he had been crouching to scoop water into his mouth and moved upstream of her.  He said nothing as he drank his fill and then set about doing something else as Seoyeon sat there with her eyes half closed, enjoying the flow of water softly massaging her feet.  Part of her told her that the water ought to be cold, but then she was near freezing herself and she supposed the temperature of the water wasn’t going to be noticeably different.

A large hand nudged her on the shoulder, and she returned to reality to see that Captain Park was offering her a water flask.  It was similar to her own, though substantially bigger.

“Drink up,” he told her.  “We shouldn’t linger.”

Seoyeon took it from him and drank.  She only realised how thirsty she was when the water reached , and she gulped it down greedily.  It could have been full of sediment and she probably still would have drunk it eagerly.  The weight in her stomach was enough to dull the edge of her hunger, and she drained the flask dry before handing it back.  Wordlessly, Captain Park stooped to refill it.

It was a good idea, Seoyeon decided, and so she rummaged around in her satchel for her own flask.

“Mine too, please,” she requested, holding it out to him.  He looked a little surprised, and then annoyed, but he took it anyway, and Seoyeon drew her feet up out of the water and massaged her toes in an attempt to warm them.  Her feet still hurt quite a lot, but she did at least feel that she’d be able to walk on them for a bit longer.

Her flask landed damply in her lap.  Grimacing, Seoyeon left her feet