Thump Thump Thump...

Nastasia's heart was pounding fiercely as her body jolted to wakefulness. Chest heaving with her mind in a daze, she tried to calm her erratic breathing. After a moment her breaths evened out and her thoughts were able to move forward.

It was vague, but she recalled the darkness that she had been trapped in. The feeling similar to being confined in a small space that one couldn't crawl out of. It had her swallowing back the rising panic that made her fingers tremble and her breaths go ragged anew.

Not wanting to revisit that feeling she banished the thought and focused on the voice and the words she spoke. While the voice referred to herself in the third person, Nastasia could not pull the name from the edge of her thoughts.

She remembered bits and pieces of what had been said to her. The point that stood out the most was a broken warning about the man she met at the banquet. At least, Nastasia was pretty sure the one mentioned was she drew the portrait of. The one she was intending to gather information about in order to track him down.

The dark eyes that had locked on to her then had been simply chilling. Recalling that man brought an uneasiness to grip at her heart. If it weren't for the fact that the man had spoken English, she would do her best to keep them from ever crossing paths again.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her family again. Her mother was sickly and her grandfather was too old to work. They relied on her.

It seemed that in this world, Chinese was the only spoken language. If that man spoke English, then perhaps he was from the same world as her. Or, perhaps, he knew someone from her world that had come to this one. He had been her hope for finding a way home.

Now, however, he was a person to be wary of.

The voice, whose name escaped her memory, claimed responsibility for bringing her to this world. It wasn't an accident that she was brought here. There was a purpose. That voice probably knew how to bring her back to her original world.

Yet, it sounded as if the voice went through some difficulty to shift her into this world, or realm as it's called here. The voice probably wouldn't be willing to send her back just like that. There was something the voice wanted her to do, but Nastasia could not recall what it was; if the voice had mentioned it at all.

There was a vague recollection of what transpired in that darkness.

Even if it were vague, Nastasia could grasp from the pieces she could remember, that it had something to do with that terrifying man. So, she wouldn't look for him to inquire after a way home. Instead, she would try to gather information and attempt to understand just who this man was and why the voice seemed to hold a bit fear toward him.

In doing so, perhaps she would also find the reason the voice had brought her here. That is, if she couldn't find a way to come into contact with the voice again. For asking after it of the voice, and getting the answer from the voice, would be ideal. There would be no need to guess or second guess the voice's purpose for bringing her into this realm.

This had all been thought out and decided in a mere moment.

Long enough for the sleep to clear from her head and her breaths to even out. Turning over, Nastasia was both startled to find Li Yu Rong sleeping beside her and finding it a matter of course that he was there. From the beginning, he was always sneaking into her bed whenever he found the chance.

It was to the point that she had long since lost any feelings of discomfort from his presence, in bed, beside her. In fact, it had now become something of a comfort. In this world where she knew no one and had nothing, stripped of her familiarity, his constant support was a reassuring and soothing warmth.

Gaze tracing down the sharp, handsome, lines of his face that were eased from sleep, Nastasia reached out a had to touch. Gasping at the unconscious act, she retracted her hand as if burned, rolling around to face the other direction.

She almost indulged in a very bad desire.

Swallowing it down, Nastasia decided to leave the bed. Moonlight was shining through the open windows. She wasn't entirely aware of how late it was but still made the decision to get up and find Paoxiao.

Wanting to know how it went with the buying of the shop had been forcibly shoved to the fore. To attempt blanketing the warmth she felt for Li Yu Rong. She tried to snuff it out, but her mind traitorously traveled back to earlier that day when Li Yu Rong pinned her to the bed and kissed her.

A hand reached out and grabbed hold of her arm, preventing her from moving any further. That hand yanked backward, the abrupt and strong movement had Nastasia splayed out across a broad chest before she could react. An arm snaked around her waist, holding her in place.

"Don't go. Stay here." Li Yu Rong said, voice heavy with sleep.

Nastasia shook her head. "Let go," she said as her heart thumped heavily from their close contact. "I go find Paoxiao, important."

Li Yu Rong tightened his arm around her waist. "You can deal with your shop business in the morning." He then forced her head to lay down on his chest. After which, he began to pet her head. "Lu Se Ying said that you fainted from overworking yourself. You need to rest."

Then, after a breath, he added. "You're always staying up rather late studying words and writing, so, for now, you'll cut that time in half."

Nastasia forced her head up as she said in protest, forgetting to be flustered at their closeness. "Cannot! Not get better as fast." Learning a language was already difficult enough. If she cut back the time she spent on it, it would take even longer to make any improvements.

Besides, the reason she fainted wasn't from overexerting herself. She wasn't a delicate female that fell at the slightest difficulty. All she had been able to do, besides the two chances she's had to leave the palace, was to laze about when she set aside her learning. Rather, this all came about from the voice forcing her to unconsciousness, but she couldn't exactly say that.

Not only would it be something difficult to believe, the voice didn't seem to want itself known to others. While suspicious in itself, Nastasia did not feel that the voice was anything sinister. There was something gentle and warm about it.

Brushing loose strands of hair behind her ear, Li Yu Rong shook his head. "There's no rush." He then shifted their position so that Asya was laying beside him, using his arm as a pillow while the other held her to him. "I'd rather you be well and healthy... besides, you speak decently enough that it doesn't matter if you hold back a few days."

Nastasia wanted to continue protesting, but his embrace was comfortable and warm. It lulled her brain to become fuzzy and eyes to grow heavy with the want to sleep. She muttered weakly. "Not enough, it hard to know what to say and what to speak." At the end of her words, she spoke with a yawn.

"See," Li Yu Rong pointed out, "even though you've slept for so long your body still wants to sleep." He moved the hand holding her to him to run his fingers through her hair, hoping to further draw the girl in his arms into slumber.

"Hmm..." she hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. For now, she decided to let it go.

Her brain was too tired to keep up the argument. Li Yu Rong's warmth and the way that he combed his fingers through her hair was drawing her even deeper into such a drowsy state. For some reason, she was suddenly so tired.

Tomorrow, Nastasia decided, she would discuss this again; determined to win.