Back at the camp, Scarlet gave Keera enough time to make herself halfway presentable while planning the next steps. As she sat on a fallen log, Cyca jumped, unbidden, from the spot where she had made it sit and landed on her lap, again acting very much like a domesticated cat and demanding to be scratched and petted. The action of her crystal monster made her rather curious, she would have taken almost any bet that Cyca had never interacted with a domesticated cat, so why would she, for some reason Scarlet’s mind had assigned her cat the female pronoun, act like one. How would she even know how a domesticated cat acted towards a human and why would a being that was, in actuality, a fist-sized piece of rock act like a domesticated cat, just because the shell if formed looked to Scarlet like a domesticated cat. Just trying to make sense of that caused her to run into enough unknowns to start a migraine, so she re-focused herself on the training-plan for Keera while satisfying the demand for scratches placed onto her by Cyca.

The first step would be general rules, dos and don'ts for the camp, things like how to roughly navigate using the sun, how to dig a latrine, things like that. Afterwards, they would have to try and learn more about their crystal monsters, as Scarlet had no doubt that the abilities of their monsters and their control over them would ultimately the skill that could make or break them on Verdun. Not just because they needed them to harvest other crystals, which would allow them access to the town, food and some out-world goods but also because their abilities might be the best tool to keep themselves safe from predators, both the four and two-legged kind.

Unless she was mistaken, the Doctor was using something she had never heard of to boost his ability, when he had struck against Roger just after they had woken up, she had felt the difference, not just between Roger and the Doctor but she had gleaned a rough, very rough, idea of the difference between the Doctor and herself. That she had felt the difference without being on the receiving end was enough to scare her, as it meant that the Doctor was more powerful than herself by an order of magnitudes. Unless the Federation had exiled one of their most powerful psions, maybe even the most powerful psion alive, and sent him to harvest crystals on a secret planet, it would mean that the Doctor had boosted his power level more than experience, age and continued meditation could account for. All those could boost a psions power, the reason why ranks in Psicom roughly correlated with personal, psionic power, but only to a point, the baseline was still the foundation for their power.

And if there was one thing Scarlet had always craved, it was personal power, the power to keep herself safe and to reject those she wanted to reject. For the first time since coming to Verdun, she thought that maybe, just maybe, being sent here was not such a bad thing at all. She would be satisfied with being the biggest fish in a small pond, the queen of a kingdom of one, so to speak. If she just had the power to keep her kingdom, to defend her pond and smite those that challenged her rule. Looking over to Keera, who was now dressed again, she realised that maybe, her Queendom didn’t need to be of just one.

At the other side of the clearing, Keera had first stripped her drenched clothes off, hanging them over a branch to dry before digging into her pack, looking for a change of clothing which she found stuffed together with the sleeping back. But there was still no towel, causing her to use her hands to get as much water off her as she could before slipping into the other clothes, realising that it was a one-size-fits-no-one-overall that barely fit her tall and muscular frame. Moving a little in the, now slightly clammy, clothes, she noticed that if she moved too much, she would quickly bust one or more seams. But it wasn’t as if she was able to do anything about it, it was not like she was a seamstress, doing more than sewing on a button was not something she was capable of.

Looking up, she noticed that Scarlet was sitting with her back to her, looking lost in thought as she stroked her cat-like crystal monster. After a few moments of Keera watching Scarlet, the other turned to her and there was a strange look in her eyes and a slight smile on her face. The smile gave Keera hope that she might truly have misunderstood the pixie, maybe she wasn’t that bad afterall.

“I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get some food before we start your training, how about you?” Scarlet asked, after she had noticed Keera watching her.

“Sounds good. What flavour do you like?” Keera asked, looking at the ration bars the Doctor had given them.

“No, no ration bars, have you forgotten that you got us food earlier?” Scarlet asked with a smile, moving to pick up the fish from the rock she had placed it on.

“You mean, we eat that?” Keera asked, again looking rather insecure.

“Sure, or do you don’t like fish?” Scarlet asked with a wide, slightly mocking grin, saying, “Are you really that picky?” without using any words.

“No, fish is fine.” Keera’s words did not match her mien, but Scarlet used a bit of selective ignorance and simply ignored her, sitting on one of the logs and gesturing for Keera to take a second one, nearby.

“Now, it’s been a while since I had my survival training and obviously on another type of fish, so don’t expect miracles but watch closely.” Scarlet ordered.

Keera suddenly got very big eyes when she noticed that Scarlet had a not only a fish in her hand but that her other hand held a slender, black knife, quite obviously not designed as anything but a concealed weapon. There was just one, small glimmer of steel running down the blade, where it was sharpened, the rest was matte black, making the knife hard to see. It looked just like what would want to use to stab someone’s back in a dark alley, as even cutting a throat might be too much stress for the thin blade. The weapon brought images of Scarlet back to Keera’s mind, images that scared her.

Scarlet noticed the gasp but chose to, again, apply selective ignorance, trying to gut and scale the fish. Cutting through the fish’s flesh was easy thanks to the razor edge but once she got to the bones, things changed, her knife too slender to succeed. Even thinking about scraping off the scales made her cringe in pity for her poor knife, but it was not the only blade she had, so she simply put it aside, not wanting to place the dirty knife back in its sheath. With a small movement, she pulled a second knife, a push-knife concealed in her belt and used the much more solid blade to start scaling the fish. It worked a lot better, even if the shorter blade made her make a bigger mess and sully her hands.

To Keera, the silvery scales, some fish blood and guts, coating Scarlet’s hands made her lose focus, even as she tried to keep her eyes and mind on the process those hands were engaged in, it was almost impossible, her mind conjuring up images of Scarlet’s hand red with blood, sometimes standing over a corpse, sometimes gleefully cutting someone apart, conjuring knives from somewhere she couldn’t see. The frowning, concentrated look on Scarlet’s face as she prepared the fish was replaced with a chilling, gleeful smile in Keera’s mind, a smile that, for some reason, drew Keera in, the movements of the hands turning almost hypnotic, drawing her mind in, almost like the dance of a cobra, drawing her in, despite the fear she was feeling.

It took Scarlet some time, but she managed to get quite a bit of cleaned flesh from the fish, placing the fleshy bits on the rock she had prepared as a pan, hoping that the fire would heat them enough to cook them in a reasonable time. Afterwards, she used some water to clean her knife, knowing that it would be no different from the river water and cleaned and cut up the vegetables she had collected earlier, placing them next to the fish. Lighting the fire was quite easy, there was a lot of dry brush and twigs around, giving her more tinder than she needed but also making her wonder about forest fires. But the fire-pit Keera had prepared was quite large and the ground around it was cleaned in a large radius, just in case of sparks.

With the fire gaining strength and the rock already placed next to it, Scarlet looked at Keera, who seemed to be lost in her mind.

“So, after your accident, I would say we need a latrine-pit, for the future.” Scarlet said, a slight smirk on her face, startling Keera out of her visions.