After carefully wetting Keera’s lips, trying to get at least some water into the unconscious woman, Scarlet settled down for the night, trying to find a state of aware tranquility. Her body was rather tired, thanks to the efforts of the day, as was her mind, but it would just not do to fail in her set task.

As she sat there, her eyes looking out over the lake without seeing it, she slowly felt herself calm, only focusing on her breathing. It was almost like her meditation, just that she didn’t try to lose herself in the exercise, she just wanted to rest her mind and body. In the beginning, she only focused on her body, the beating of her heart, the pulsing of her blood and the slow, measured breaths flowing into her nose and out of her mouth.

But with each beat of her heart, she was able to notice a little more of the world around her, at first, she just heard the wind blowing. A few heartbeats later, she heard the soft noises of the woods, the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew through the trees, the creaking of the branches and even trunks as they shifted.

With just the beats of her heart as a measure of time, she quickly lost track of it, letting her mind roam, listening to the sounds of nature, many of them unknown to her. Some might be animals, some might even be crystal monsters, but neither her mundane senses nor her psionic, sometimes called sixth, sense was warning her. She felt perfectly calm, peaceful. It was a pleasant sensation, one she had not known at many points in her life.

A small part of her mind felt it was hilarious, she was on one of the most dangerous and primal planets known to man, but she felt more at home than she had felt in Nova Yor, the city that had birthed her.

Suddenly, she felt her nose scrunch up and something akin to a bad smell intruded into her senses. Not that it was anything as mundane as a smell, no what she felt was a vicious smell, a desire to cause pain and humiliation. It was just inside her ability to sense, too far away to sense in anything but the state of tranquility she had reached before, but as soon as she had smelled it, her calm had fled, anxiety over a possible confrontation with what-, or rather who-, ever gave off that smell disturbing her mind.

At first, she tried to force herself to calm down but after a few moments, she noticed just how contradictionary that was. Pushing the thoughts of danger and her anxiety from her mind, she completely focused on her breathing, trying to think of nothing but the air rushing in and out of her body. Once she was fully aware of her breaths, she added the beats of her heart to her awareness, feeling how each beat sent blood flowing through her body, thinking of nothing but those functions.

Again, she felt the smell intruding, but now, she simply accepted its existence, not trying to frantically focus on it, instead keeping her mind on her breathing. The not-smell spurred some memories, her mind almost unconsciously making the connection, remembering where she had felt the sensation before. She had smelled it in the darkness when Telram had stalked Keera and her. Scarlet’s tranquil frame of mind was gone, the knowledge that someone was after them, and quite close, was too disturbing.

She had a rough idea where the sensation had come from, but what she should do with that knowledge, she wasn’t sure.

Keera had told her that Telram was not notably more powerful than she was, but that was only what he had let her see, only what had been necessary to keep Keera under control. Scarlet was quite sure that she needed to take the information with a sack of salt, not just a grain, considering that every psion on Verdun was in an unspoken competition for control and power. She had found a few interesting tricks concerning the control of Crystal Monsters and she knew full well that she wouldn’t share those, unless she got something equally valuable in return. So, thinking that others would show their full strength and casually reveal possible trump-cards was foolish. No, she had to treat Telram as seriously dangerous and capable of killing her.

She considered abandoning Keera, simply booking it into the night, but that would cost her a valuable resource for no real gain. Even if Telram took Keera, made her his in any way possible, Scarlet doubted that it was Keera who he was after. No, she had stood up to him and threatened him, he would come after her and fleeing would only postpone the confrontation, probably allowing him to choose the circumstances.

Another question was how he had found them, while it could be coincidence, she strongly doubted it. She believed in coincidences, they happened every day, but for the single person who had cause to pursue them, just accidentally following the same path they had taken? That was no coincidence.

Then it dawned upon her, he might have felt the search-pulse Keera had given off on their first evening, found their abandoned camp and followed after it, slowly catching up to them. After the first day, she had hardly tried to conceal their tracks, so confident that she would have lost any pursuers on that day. Before she could get angry at herself, she pushed the annoyance away from her, there was time for recriminations later. Now, she had a pursuer to deal with. Not knowing how long Keera would be unconscious meant that he would find Keera the next day, there was no way Scarlet would be able to carry Keera, certainly not fast or far enough to get away from him.

No, she would have to take him out if she wanted to keep Keera and herself safe.

After a minute of consideration, she took off her backpack and thought about taking off her crystal pouch. She was just not sure if there was a trick to detect dormant crystals, so she placed it next to her pack, knowing that if it came to open combat she was in trouble anyway. There could be no fairness in this fight, so every slight advantage when it came to sneakiness was valuable. After a moment of hesitation, she applied the same passive sealing-trick she used during sleep, allowing her to focus every bit of her attention elsewhere.

With stealth in mind, she walked down to the lake, using mud to liberally cover her face and hands, every bit of skin that was exposed, even her hair got the mud-treatment, hopefully hiding it in the dark.

Thus covered in mud and dark thoughts on her mind, she slowly started towards the sensation she had felt, her mind solely focused on staying undetected, her mind blank of everything else. Her mind needed to be nothing but a whisper in the wind, unexpected, undetected, until she struck with explosive violence.

Focused on nothing but setting one foot in front of the other, she didn’t feel the passing of time, didn’t notice the mud slowly drying on her face, only focusing on that sensation of malice she had felt before, following it as if it was a bad smell in the wind.

Once she was close enough, she started looking for traps, not necessarily to hurt or hinder approaching foes, but simply to alarm a sleeping person that someone was coming. She had considered using something like that but had put it on the backburner due to lack of tools.

Her caution proved warranted, there were thin threads between the trees, dark and hard to see in the darkness. Following one, she found a small box filled with rocks, the simplest noise-maker one could imagine. Now even more cautious, she carefully stepped over them, almost expecting another set right behind them. But no, they seemed to be solely focused on animals and such, maybe he felt secure in his position as a predator.

Careful not to disturb any leaves or cause any noise, Scarlet sneaked closer until she noticed a sleeping form next to a burned down campfire. Still cautious of a trap, she waited, ascertaining that it was a living, breathing human, not a decoy placed there if he was attacked in the night.

Finally satisfied that it wasn’t a trap, that it was their pursuer, she moved forward, not in haste, not in fear, moving with deadly purpose. For the first time, she would strike to kill, not to immediately defend herself, but preventive.

Poised to strike, she stopped herself, changing her aim. Originally, she had planned to strike into the left side of his chest, hoping to get his heart before cutting into his throat, going for the jugular. But no, that would be stupid, she realised.

With all the speed and strength she could muster, she stabbed, once, twice, three times, into his stomach, each time twisting the knife before ripping it back out. It only took seconds, the sudden pain too much for Telram to do more than expel the air in his body in a pained scream. Once that was done, Scarlet turned, running as fast as she could.