ENDOPLANET: DEER STALKING

Luhan felt incredibly sick.  It had taken him quite some time to convince the men to leave and they had taken Taehyung’s body with them – along with the book and the pills.  Luhan wasn’t yet sure how he was going to get them back, but he suspected that he was going to have to steal and hide them.  There was no way he could legitimately ask for them and expect his request to be granted – especially when the pills in particular would likely be sent for examination and probably destroyed, even more so if any of the military scientists managed to discover what they were for.  That meant that he had to get them as soon as possible.

Any further thinking on that was cut short almost immediately when he began to throw up and then collapsed to his knees.  Of all the rotten timing, he just had to be on ebb on top of everything else.  He was fortunate, though, that his ebb wasn’t nearly as bad or as noticeable as it could be: he’d known fire mages who had nearly burnt themselves to crisps when their power was on ebb, or sound manipulator mages who had completely lost their senses of balance and hearing and let off sounds so loud that the damage had been permanent.

For Luhan, the worst thing that happened was he became paralysed.  Sometimes for much longer lengths of time than others, it had to be admitted, but provided he was near a bed or in a chair and managed to get his eyes shut before the paralysis completely set in, it was always possible for him to pretend he was asleep.  That was more than a fire mage on fire could do, especially in a magiphobic land such as the one he lived in.

The paralysis this time around was a long one.  Luhan managed to stumble over to his bed beforehand, but didn’t quite manage to get into it before his legs could no longer move.  With the very last of his strength, he narrowed his eyes at his desk and a thick black quill raised itself before shooting into the air.  Luhan retained control of his eyes just long enough to see the feather vanish before his torso collapsed onto the bed and a strangled sigh escaped from him.

It was right in the dead of night that feeling began to return to his body.  He’d been lifted into his bed by his personal valet and a nearly-burnt-out lantern’s light was half hidden by the desk as it sat on a chair on the opposite side of the tent, a drooping figure beside it.  Luhan rolled his head carefully from one side to the other, listening to his valet’s gentle snores.

Eventually, he figured it was safe to try sitting up and eased himself upright with the help of trembling arms.

“Hyuk,” he called out gently, more than grateful that his valet’s loyalty towards him would forever supersede loyalty to the clan due to Luhan saving his life on two occasions with his telekinesis.  Hyuk had been completely freaked out by it the first time and had very nearly blown Luhan’s cover.  While Luhan had never explicitly told the valet that he was a spy, he was pretty sure that Hyuk knew.  The boy operated on a “best not to know” principle and never asked questions, but whenever Luhan ended up in a situation that might well prompt investigation, Hyuk would quietly be there to make sure that nothing about Luhan was incriminating.  “Hyuk.”

The boy jolted awake and looked around blearily before spotting Luhan shakily getting out of bed.

Hyuk was wide awake and on his feet in an instant.

“Sir—” he began, coming forward to help, but Luhan held out a hand and shook his head.

“I’ll manage.  Where did they take Taehyung’s body?  Do you know?”

Hyuk gave him a queer look before his face straightened out.  “Would you like me to bring the body back, sir?”

“No.  I need to go to it.”

Hyuk eyed him for a moment or two.  “Forgive me for being blunt, sir, but I don’t think you can walk straight at the moment and I don’t think it would be the best of ideas for you to go anywhere.”

Massaging his calf muscle in his right leg, Luhan sighed and pointed at his cloak.  It flopped off the back of the chair it had been resting on.  Hyuk mimicked his sigh and went to pick it up, but just as his fingers brushed the material, Luhan gathered himself together and straightened up, making a frustrated snatching motion with both his hands.  The cloak shot through the air and wrapped itself around him, shielding his face from view.  Despite having seen similar tricks before, Hyuk still looked a little startled.

Luhan retched, but figured he was otherwise okay.  It had been a good number of hours, but he appeared to have come out of ebb much quicker than expected, and that couldn’t be a bad thing in his book.

“Come with me,” he told Hyuk.  “Watch my back.”

Luhan could tell that Hyuk was trying hard not to roll his eyes as he followed Luhan’s orders, slipping up his own cloak around his head as they left the tent.

There was no need for a lantern outside even though it was the dead of night: enough campfires were scattered around to provide just enough light to pick out a path, even if most of them had burnt down to glowing embers by now.  A few other soldiers were wandering around, but Luhan and Hyuk melted into the shadows, avoiding them.  They were about halfway across the camp when Hyuk took the lead, soundlessly directing Luhan towards an area Luhan had never had to go to before, though he was aware that it was a closed off area in the camp behind the medical facilities wher