Zoey's POV

I was bored. Rythian told me not to distract him under any circumstances. I wasn't distracting! Huffing, I decided to play an eensy-weensy little prank on Rythian. In other words, I used spell he taught me (Moaventium) to move the dirt into a postition.. The mud spelled out 'Fart'!

I started giggling, but muffled it quickly, so as not to disturb Rythian.

Then, I used the same spell to make a giant 'Z'. I was smiling uncontrollably.

That's when it hit. The arrow. I was standing next to my 'Fart' sign, when I was shot in the arm.

I screeched.

Rythian's POV

Panicking now, I left the ingredients lying on the floor and ran towards the source of the high pitched squeal. Zoey was running towards me with an arrow stuck deep into her left bicep.

"Rythian!" She cried, looking up at me with a tear stained face, "Rythian, it hurts,"

I pulled her into my arms and carried her over to the mud fort. I placed her down on the ground and crouched down on her left side.

"Now, this is going to hurt a little. Be brave." I stated, then, I put my left hand on her arm,, my right gripping the arrow, and pulled.

Zoey fought to hold back a scream again, making her sound as if she had been gagged. I quickly applied pressure to the wound, to stop the bleeding. I cleaned up the remaining blood, and bandaged Zoey's arm. After that, I went back to my condenser, calmly.

"Sampacherie, Doefantiant, Creoquell.."

Zoey sat quietly and watched.

Every so often there was a slight sniffle, but nothing enough to make me loose my concentration.

The condenser was actually quite beautiful, the green and blue mixing into cyan, turquoise. Those colours swirling around, in and out of each other, like a tree in the autumn, when some of its leaves are green, and others the crimson red that comes with the season, and when the wind blows, the leaves fall, sway and fly around each other.

I had to tear away from the images in my head, and see to Zoey. But she was transfixed too; I had to wave my hand in front of her for her to come back down to earth.

The young woman was still in shock. She wasn't quite acting as bubbly and excited as she usually would, however, upon the mention of a little adventure, Zoey sprung up and into action. Taking charge, she got boots, capes, hats, gloves, and even tried to bring the top of her cape over her nose, mimicking me. I felt the material of my own mask moving slightly, and realized that I was smiling. I seemed to smile a lot more around her.

"I'm pretty sure I saw a volcano somewhere around here.. " I said, and immediately Zoey was following in my footsteps, track for track, stumble for stumble. You would have thought it distracting or annoying, but Zoey brought on a kind airiness that made me more feel that she looked up to me, like a child following their sibling, copying their exact movements. And that's just what she was doing. At one point in the journey, I reached up to scratch my head. Well, you can make a good guess as to what Zoey did a moment after. What was cute and fun, started getting, well, distracting and annoying.

I almost shouted at her. I nearly did.

But then I noticed, she didn't know that she was getting to me. How could she ever deserve to be shouted at? I turned around, calmer now, to tell her kindly to 'Please stop copying me now, it's getting really annoying' but she turned around also.

I almost laughed. I nearly did.

However, I decided against it as I lightly tapped her on the shoulder and asked her my question. She politely replied that she would of course stop, and muttered a small sorry to the end. You can fix anything with calm and respectful responses. It's a shame Sjin didn't know my rules, because a gentleman never starts a fight, but he can finish one.

I smiled again. Wow, I had smiled more in the last few days than I thought I ever had done in my life!