Seoyeon was very disorientated.  In no time at all, she was in the watchtower sitting in front of the gigantic watch fire, teeth chattering from a combination of cold and shock.  Soldiers were bustling everywhere.  Lieutenant Kim was barking orders while the medics tried to get a good look at Seoyeon, but she was too busy attempting to see what had happened to Chanyeol to let them check properly.  Some part of her brain was still trying to process that not even half an hour before, she’d been surrounded by monsters in the Neuma and facing a very probable death there.

One of the medics managed to make her sit still long enough to disinfect and bandage up the injuries on her face and finger.  Seoyeon was dazed enough to not really feel the sting of the medication, though she did flinch when the cloth he was using to wipe the blood off her face came a bit too close to her eye.  She didn’t really understand what was going on, and she didn’t like not understanding.

A sudden commotion at the door to the watchfire room had everybody rushing around even faster than they were before, and Seoyeon finally managed to grab hold of a fistful of Lieutenant Kim’s tunic as he hurried past her to talk to whoever had just arrived.  She was dimly aware that she’d used her injured hand from the pain (and the medic telling her she shouldn’t), but she managed to drag Lieutenant Kim to a halt.

“What’s happening?” she asked as he turned towards her, trying to pull himself out of her grip.  “Where’s Chanyeol?”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m very busy right now,” he said distractedly before he stopped and turned to look at her properly.  “Chanyeol?” he repeated.

For a split second, Seoyeon wondered if Chanyeol had lied to her about his name, since it was a very odd reaction for Lieutenant Kim to have, but then she remembered that she’d actually learnt Captain Park’s name before entering the Neuma, so that couldn’t be the case.

“Chanyeol.”  She nodded.  “Is he okay?  He didn’t look okay—”

Lieutenant Kim glanced towards the door before turning back to her with a very serious expression.  “Ma’am,” he said, “I don’t know what’s happened between the two of you, but please remember what befits your status.”

Before Seoyeon could make head or tails of that, he’d hurried over to the door.

Oh Sehun was apparently the first to have arrived from the fortress.  He was wearing riding boots and drenched from head to toe, shaking water out of his hair.  Seoyeon couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the noise, and he soon disappeared around the other side of the watchfire.

Barely two minutes later, his lanky form was standing in front of her with a very worried-looking Lieutenant Kim beside him.

“Ma’am,” Oh Sehun began, “I take it you’ve been with Captain Park all this while?”

Seoyeon blinked up at him.

“Are you sure she’ll know?” Lieutenant Kim murmured anxiously.

“I have to ask,” Oh Sehun began, half directed to the lieutenant and half directed to Seoyeon.  “Ma’am, would you be able to tell me what Captain Park was doing before he collapsed?  How long as he been in this condition?”

Seoyeon looked between Oh Sehun and Lieutenant Kim.  “He was fine until we got back here,” she said, trying to work out from their expressions just how bad the news was.  “Before that, he was… he was using phoenix fire and opening up the Neuma whorl, but he seemed okay—”

Sehun turned to Lieutenant Kim with a very confused look.  “I guess it’s possible it’s Burnout?” he said helplessly.

Seoyeon shook her head.  “He burnt out twice in the Neuma, but he didn’t look like this.”

“What’s Phoenix Fire?” asked Lieutenant Kim.

“I’ve no—”

The door suddenly burst open again and Seoyeon’s father came in at a near run.  Sehun swore under his breath and disappeared quicker than ought to have been possible, while Lieutenant Kim straightened up in order to greet the governor.  He barely had the opportunity to salute before Seoyeon’s father had found Seoyeon and dropped to his knees to wrap her up in a bone-crushing hug.  Seoyeon didn’t have the energy to squawk.  If anything, his sudden appearance sent her deeper into shock.  She could hear his voice as he rocked her back and forth, but she couldn’t make out a word he was saying, and she gradually became aware that she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Eventually, her father pulled her to her feet, and then hooked his arms under her knees and her back, lifting her as though she were only four years old and weighed little more than couple of books.  Seoyeon rested her head tiredly against his shoulder and closed her eyes.  The tears seemed to have stopped, though her face was starting to feel sticky.  She could just about make out that her father was talking to Lieutenant Kim, and that Lieutenant Kim was objecting to whatever he was saying, but her father put in the final word and started walking.

Seoyeon was asleep before they were out of the door.  The Borderlander flames from the watchtower fire flickered across her dreams.

It was well past midday when Seoyeon finally opened her eyes again.  Jieun was tiptoeing around her room, carefully dusting things here and there, and Seoyeon blinked at her in confusion for several moments as she tried to remember who she was.  Eventually, the maid turned around, saw that she was awake, and dropped everything she was holding with a startled squawk.

Seoyeon yawned and stretched.  Her muscles ached from sleeping on something far too comfortable.

“What time is it?” she mumbled, pushing back the covers on her bed.  They were a bit too warm, especially after sleeping only in her clothes or with Chanyeol’s cloak draped over her for so long.

“An hour or two after lunch, ma’am,” Jieun told her, just about managing to calm down.  “I believe that Kim Minseok has prepared some soup for you, whenever you’re up to eating it.  He didn’t want to give you anything heavier because you’ve been missing for weeks and he wasn’t sure how well you’ve been eating.”  She swallowed.  “If I may be permitted to say so, ma’am, you look like you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

Seoyeon paused mid-stretch and dropped her arms in surprise.  She’d always considered herself a healthy sort of weight, but after the best part of a month walking almost all day, every day, with rationed meals and severe limitations on nutrition, she supposed she probably had lost an awful lot of weight.

“Oh,” she said.  She couldn’t think of anything else to say.  She couldn’t tell from Jieun’s expression whether the woman thought it was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was clear that at least some people (by the name of Minseok, if not others too) thought that it was potentially a bad thing.

Jieun bent to pick up everything she’d dropped.  Seoyeon blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked around at her room.  It was very strange to be back in it.  Everything was more or less as she remembered it, but she felt like a stranger there.  It was tame and safe in a manner that was very disquieting after being in the Neuma.

That reminded her of Chanyeol, and of the condi