Standing in the shallow water, Scarlet wondered why she had been so angry at Keera. Sure, the observation that Keera’s blunder might have brought Telram onto their trail would have been useful to induce feelings of guilt into Keera, binding Keera tighter to herself but she hadn’t even thought about choosing her words to that effect, she had merely lashed out. Feeling the water around her, she decided that having Crysna with her might be a good idea and, carefully controlling her mind, let him out of his crystal as well. She wasn’t able to have both of them out to fight, she was quite sure that if she were to try, the fight would turn into a wild free-for-all, with only one monster remaining at the end, maybe one of hers, maybe their opponent, but keeping them controlled outside of combat was quite possible.

The snake slithered into the water, obviously enjoying that it was in his own element before curling around Scarlet and getting petted a bit. The smooth and cool scales made it an unique feeling, even as she felt a tinge of jealousy from Cyca who stood at the shore, watching the other two in the water. Feeling clean, Scarlet waded out of the lake, carefully ignoring Keera, wanting the other to come to her, seeking her approval and forgiveness. Instead, she picked a reasonably smooth looking patch of grass, stretching herself out in the sun with both her crystal monsters making themselves comfortable on her, looking for some more attention. Giving it to them, allowed Scarlet to relax her mind, their simple pleasure flowing back through the controlling link, soothing her mind. She had to keep herself from relaxing too much, the combination of her monsters’ contentment and the warm light of the sun was conspiring with the exhaustion from her nightly endeavour and tried to make her fall asleep.

Luckily, it only took a few minutes for Keera to fold and Scarlet felt the familiar presence come closer, yet, she continued to ignore her, even when she blocked part of the warm sun. She wasn’t going to give Keera an inch of an opening, until the other was figuratively, maybe even literally, on her knees, asking to be acknowledged.

“Scarlet?” Keera’s voice asked, soft but not yet desperate enough for her taste, so she merely opened her eyes, while keeping her face a stoic mask. Keera looked guilty, just the way Scarlet wanted her to feel, so she simply kept eye-contact, giving the other a chance to speak, to grovel.

“What exactly happened? I only remember to try subduing the crystal monster and I think Crysna attacked it. After that, nothing, until I woke up and saw something crouched nearby, caked in mud, holding a bloody knife. Please, just tell me what is going on.” she asked, her voice turning pleading at the end.

Feeling that the proper order of things was mostly restored, Scarlet closed her eyes but opened her mouth to speak.

“First of all, step aside, you are blocking my sun.” she ordered, her voice calm, bordering on bored. The contentment of her monsters allowed her to project absolute carelessness. Instantly, the warmth of the sun was back but no footsteps hinted at the fact that Keera had moved away, no, the other was waiting at her leisure. As things should be.

After letting her wait for a few moments more, she started speaking.

“You remember correctly. It seems that, when a crystal monster is attacked during the subdual-process, there is some sort of feedback, rather violent, it knocked you out for quite a while. I might have to check if you suffered any further damage, later.” Scarlet mused, her voice still deliberately calm, as if the possibility of Keera having brain-damage was no more exciting than the fact that she had been blocking her sun, maybe a little less so.

“Anyway, I dragged you into camp, made sure that you’d be comfortable and all that but in the evening, I noticed something at the edge of my detection-range and when I investigated a little, I realised it was Telram, following us.” she continued.

“After the effort I went through to make sure we couldn’t be followed on our first day, I went through the events since then, trying to figure out how he managed to follow us and the only thing I can think of is your outburst, that he picked up our trail from there, following after us to teach us a lesson.” she let that idea hang there and, in the following silence, she easily heard that Keera’s breathing was a little laboured, as if she was about to go into a panic-attack.

“I won’t let him hurt you.” Scarlet broke the silence, trying to project as much confidence and strength as she could, her words carefully chosen to send a certain message to Keera.

“And he won’t, I made sure of that in the night. He won’t come after you, ever again.” Scarlet finished, the statement similar to what she had said earlier, only this time, the message had changed.

“Thank you.” Keera’s voice, barely audible, sounded just like Scarlet wanted her to sound, shaken and grateful.

“Don’t worry about it. Now, I want to check if you were hurt yesterday.” Scarlet got up, Crysna wrapping himself around her arm and placing his head on her shoulder, while she kept Cyca in her arm, gently stroking her fur. Looking over, Keera was kneeling on the ground nearby, her legs folded beneath her.

“Don’t resist.” she told Keera, reaching out with her free arm, placing her hand at Keera’s temple, the contact amplifying the mental connection.

On the surface, Keera’s mind looked just fine and Scarlet deliberately made a show of not looking at Keera’s surface-thoughts, instead only looking for possible damage. It wasn’t something she was good at, her talents were in other areas. In addition, while using psionics to heal mental conditions or assist in treating some physical ones was possible, it was a highly specialised subject that needed special and very advanced training.

Part of her wondered if Doctor Oak had such training, he called himself a Doctor after all, but she didn’t know and, for herself, knew that she’d never let anyone monkey with her mind on the necessary level. She’d rather die. It was testament of the developing trust that Keera’s mind was as open to her as it was, something that Scarlet, in the privacy of her mind, greatly welcomed.

“It looks like that, other than that bit of a scare, you are just fine.” Scarlet said after retreating from Keera’s mind. On an impulse, before pulling her hand back, Scarlet caressed Keera’s face, just a little, feeling that some positive reinforcement was a good idea, after Keera had literally be brought to her knees.

“What did you do to Telram?” Keera asked, after a second of thought.

“Do you truly want to know?” Scarlet asked in return, knowing that Keera’s mind would most likely conjure up a much better, more heroic, version of the story, compared to the truth. “He won’t attack anyone, ever again.” she continued, before waiting for Keera’s response.

Keera looked pensive for a second, still looking up at the standing Scarlet, before nodding.

“No, I don’t think so. Thank you, again.” Keera admitted.

“Good. Now, I would like to get some distance between us and the camp-site, I let out a search-pulse, who knows who noticed it.” Scarlet finished their conversation, deliberately turning around and walking towards her discarded clothes, picking them up before walking over to their camp, pulling her other set of clothes from her pack.

Keera had followed behind her, so Scarlet decided that Keera could do some extra work. She felt her empty stomach protest at the idea to continue their march without some breakfast, which was the right task for Keera. Taking the knife, that had claimed a life only hours earlier, she turned to Keera, holding the cleaned knife at the blade, with the grip towards the other.

“Could you prepare breakfast? I need to wash my clothes, they got a little dirty in the night.” Scarlet asked she noticed that Keera hesitated for a second, before carefully taking the knife. To add to the message she had been trying to send, Scarlet turned around, slowly walking towards the lake with her dirty clothes. As she did, her senses were on high alert, just in case her ‘show of trust’ was misplaced. But no attack from behind came, just the sound of Keera starting to go through their packs, deciding which of their supplies to use for food.

At the water, Scarlet wondered if she should have checked whether Telram had anything useful with him, some tools or something like that, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure about the rules they were operating out here. For now, the main rule seemed to be, that there were no rules. But what if that was more a case of “Don’t get caught!” and the Doctor would be willing to use looted equipment against them? She was reasonably sure that the Doctor needed to operate within his own rules or he would get a revolt, so he wouldn’t go after anyone without reason, some sort of justification that he could hold up to rally the psions behind him. Shaking her head, she knelt, watching how Crysna slithered into the water, and started washing the dirty clothes.