Knowing that she had been handed an opportunity to greatly advance her control over Keera, Scarlet forced herself to stand tall - well, as tall as she could with her petite frame - and project an air of strength and confidence, as if the fight had happened exactly as she wanted and everything had been under complete control. That meant ignoring her blinding headache and hoping that Keera didn’t notice the blood that had seeped from her nose or that she was tasting on her tongue.

“Are you alright?” she asked, looking at Keera.

Keera only nodded, still rubbing the spray into her monster’s crystal and looking quite shaken.

“Good. Do you want to go back into the middle of the area or do you want to join me and take a bath? The rest of the area seems to be safe, but look out nonetheless, okay?” she asked, turning back to the river, because she felt a trickle of blood seeping from her nose.

“I… I’ll go back and prepare a fire pit.” Keera stammered.

Hearing that, Scarlet stealthily let out a sigh of relief and started taking her clothes off. She now knew why there had been no fish in the area, the watersnake had probably been the cause for that, occupying it. She didn’t even want to think about keeping one of her monsters under control but still, if it was a moment of do or die, she would have to try. Knowing that, she placed Cyca’s crystal in such a way that she could let her out at any moment without shredding her pouch.

As soon as she was naked, she walked out into the water, letting it flow around her and kneeling down to wash the sweat that was pouring from her off. The short, psionic combat against the snake had taken a lot from her and even now, she was able to feel resistance. It was nothing she couldn’t handle and the actual strength seemed to be about the same, maybe a little higher, than Cyca’s but the snake had not yet given up. But Scarlet would control it, she would control Crysna, as she had decided to name it. And she would be strong enough to control both Crysna and Cysa at the same time, so they could fight together.

Dunking her head under water, she washed her mouth out and cleaned her nose, getting rid of the blood that had leaked, before starting to deal with the rest of her body, letting the water carry away the dirt and sweat from a day of walking. After washing, she laid on her back, keeping a leg in the dirt below to hold her position, and floated, letting the water wash around her and take away the headache she was feeling.

When her headache had mostly subsided and she felt clean, she got her clothes, washing them in the river before getting out and looked for a patch of sunlight. There was a nice, large rock rock that would allow her to spread herself next to her clothes, letting the warm rock below and the warm, sinking sun above take away the water.

Lying there, she thought about Crysna and its powers. It had used water and a strong bite but when she had gotten out of the water, the two damp spots where it had attacked with its water attack, as she was sure that had been the thing to do Keera’s monster in, had no longer been damp. She was curious what that meant, the water wouldn’t have dried or drained away, would it? She just didn’t know, but she didn’t think so. Getting up, despite her quite comfortable position, she walked over and checked. But she couldn’t make out a difference, the sand seemed uniformly dry, not even a little damp.

She would have to find out, even if only to assuage her curiosity. And if the water Crysna made was somehow not real water, or whatever it meant, it might not be safe to drink. But calling Crysna would have to wait for the next day, before that, she didn’t want to bother. She would let the snake stew in its crystal, letting it out for her convenience on her own time.

Finally, she felt up to project power in front of Keera again, it wouldn’t do for Scarlet to show weakness, it might undermine her plans. And it would be a shame if Keera turned out to be useless.

Getting her feet under herself, she walked to camp, carrying her clothes over her arm. Mentally, she was feeling out her mind, trying to assess how much of her strength had returned, if she was capable of having Cyca next to her when she came back. It would show how little she had been affected, of course, having Crysna with her would be even better but sadly that was completely out of the question.

She decided that the appearance of strength was key, so she let the crystal drop from her hand, carefully letting Cyca out. The instant Cyca was out, Scarlet knew that it wouldn’t be as easy as before, it was as if Cyca could feel the other crystal and her instinct was to devour it, powering herself up. And there was no way Scarlet would let go of her new monster, so she would have to blot that instinct from Cyca’s mind. But only as it related to Crysna, other monsters would still be food.

She felt her headache return, even intensify, but not to the point of becoming unbearable, so she pushed it down, forcing a calm mask on her face as she walked up to camp. Keera was sitting at a fire-pit, staring into space with tears running down her face. Somehow, Scarlet felt her headache intensify, as if another type of headache had been added to the one from overusing her psionic powers. She had quite a few skills but dealing with crying, emotional people was something she was not adept at. So, she dealt with it in the only way she could, by ignoring it.

Instead, she simply walked to her pack, put on her second set of clothes and used a nearby shrub to hang up the mostly dry set. The unisize coverall didn’t fit her well but there were a few buckles to tighten it so, while it bagged around her, it didn’t hinder her.

Once dressed, she looked around if Keera had already started on a latrine and then digging one, behind a dense bush. It took some time but the repetitive labour helped with the headache, even if she started to sweat again.

Afterwards, she started to gather some dry wood and at that task she was joined by Keera.

“Thank you, for saving me back there. I’m really not sure what I would do without you.” Keera said, having dried her eyes, even if she was still a little hoarse.

“It’s alright. I told you, I will teach you. I hope you will listen to me, even if you might not know why I tell you to do something.” Scarlet answered.

“Mhm, I will.” Keera answered, with a wan smile.

“Good. Now, let’s get some food.”

With that, Scarlet gathered the wood she had and moved back to the firepit. Preparing food was quite simple that evening, there was no meat or fish, so they just added together the various plants they had gathered during the day and roasted them when it was needed according to their memories of the binder from the Doctor. Some of it was bland and boring but they had stumbled across a plant very similar to wild mustard which added more spice than either of them was really comfortable with. Both of them laughed about the heat and drained their water bottles, knowing that they easily could replenish them. The laughter helped with the tension they both were under, even if neither of them would have admitted it.

“Could I take first watch? I doubt that I’ll be able to sleep any time soon. My mind goes back to the snake shooting out of the water and instantly attacking. I froze, you know? I had my crystal monster out, and still, I froze.” Keera asked.

“Sure, I could sleep. But if you need me to listen, I can do that.” Scarlet answered, hiding the fact that amongst the things she liked to do, listening to someone's problems was quite far to the bottom of things. She had once heard that listening to another’s problems was a good path to gain their trust, so she offered.

“Maybe tomorrow. I don’t even know what I could say.”

“That’s okay. I’ll try to come up with a better way to train you, maybe I’ll have a great idea sometime in the night.” Scarlet assured her, while starting to open her sleeping back and crawling into it, together with Cyca, before pushing the other back into crystal form and anchoring the control over both crystals into a continuous, sustained process.

She was lying there, looking into the sky. The night before, she had been in the forest, the canopy hiding the sky. Now, they were just between a couple of bushes, so she was able to see the sky in all its glory. It made her wonder, which of those stars were those of the Federation.

But, under the moons of Verdun, she realised that it really didn’t matter. On Verdun, it didn’t matter if the Federation had hundreds of planets. On Verdun, only the power of an individual mattered.

With a smile on her face, she fell asleep. Dreaming dreams of power and freedom.