A.N.: I was without Internet for about a week. In the middle of this time, I realized that this really shouldn't stop me from writing more, and without an Internet to distract me, maybe I'll get some work done!

"Ugh," Alex said as she got up and stretched in the morning. Apis had already gone to see if he could find some fresh water. Their waterskins weren't empty, but it was always a good idea to fill up if you could find a good source. "Why am I so sore?"

"Probably just from the walking. You're not wearing heavy enough armor that sleeping it in should affect you."

"Huh?" Alex said.

"Well see, if you sleep in medium or heavier armor, you take a penalty the next day from fatigue."

"Ah, because you can't sleep well in armor?"

"Something like that. I don't know, the creators of D&G never actually tried it in real life. Mostly they wanted to make sleeping more difficult."

"Sounds annoying," Alex said. She licked her fingers and tried to pat down a tuft of Justin's hair that was still sticking up from sleeping on it. Justin smirked slightly.

Apis walked into the camp, and Justin and Alex turned to greet him. He was carrying all three of their waterskins, freshly topped off.

"The path ahead is going to start to get a bit more difficult," he explained. "But I don't think it's anything you two can't handle. We can pace ourselves."

"How is it going to get more difficult?" Justin asked.

"It transitions from mostly open fields like we've been walking in thus far to a dense forest. That means lots of brambles, branches and roots to watch out for."

"That does sound like it could be tough. I'd hate for us to slow you down," Justin said.

"It's all right," Apis reassured him. "That's the beauty of honey - it keeps. Not to mention, Frank likes to step carefully in the forest so as not to spill anything. I imagine you'll be able to keep up with anything."

Frank stuck out his tongue and brayed. Apis laughed and patted him on the back.

"Frank reminds me that the finances of the situation determined that the risk of losing any product outweighs the increased profit over time by hurrying. We worked out the math together a while ago."

"Hey look, Frank is smarter than you," Justin said to Alex. Alex stuck out her own tongue, but smiled as she did so.

"Please, Frank is smarter than I am," Apis said. "Who do you think suggested doing a risk/reward analysis of the honey in the first place?"

Frank brayed again.

"All right, all right," Apis said. "Frank and I are going to go ahead for a bit, scout out the path and all. Why don't you two finish packing up camp, and then continue along the path? We'll either find someplace to wait for you or backtrack toward you if we have to, depending on the trail conditions. Hopefully we won't have to backtrack too much, of course."

Justin nodded, fully understanding Apis. "Makes sense enough," he said.

"All right, excellent," Apis returned. He and Frank began to head for the trail. Meanwhile, Alex began to roll up her sleeping roll, and Justin began to dump dirt to put out the breakfast fire.

"It's weird," Justin said once Apis was out of earshot. "I know he said that they didn't want to backtrack if they could avoid it, but it doesn't make sense to risk having to backtrack the cart at all. Ideally, Frank and the cart should stay with us."

"Maybe he doesn't trust us with Frank and the cart?" Alex suggested.

"Could be, though I imagine Frank could take care of himself. Ah well, I'll chalk it up to not understanding the ways of the mysterious druids."

"Makes sense. Now roll up your sleeping roll," Alex commanded. Justin rolled his eyes but did as he was told. It wouldn't take too much effort, and so it was probably easier than arguing with Alex, losing, and having to do it anyway. Somehow, despite his fairly decent intelligence, Alex was still able to confuse, trick, and convince him into doing things. Much like the other people in her life, he'd learned to pick his battles.

"What do you mean, there's something weird about them?" Apis said to Frank as they walked along, Justin and Alex left behind them, still packing. "I mean, I did notice the way they jumped apart when they were snuggling up but that just means they're a bit shy, I figure."

Frank hawed.

"Well it's none of our business if they are or aren't -"

Frank interrupted him, hawing even more loudly.

"What do you mean I don't get it?"

Frank hawed again.

"You're not talking about that at all?"

Frank hawed in agreement, nodding.

"So, wait, tell me again - what's odd about them?"

Frank sighed, then delivered a short speech of braying and hawing.

"Huh, that is strange. You sure you heard them correctly?"

Frank affirmed this was the case.

"Well, I have heard vague rumors about Illumined ones. You think they might be among them?"

Frank shrugged.

A.N.: So yeah, judging from the past few chapters, I have apparently changed my mind about "subtle Jalex angst" and decided to go for the "sledgehammer of Jalex tension" approach. I hope you will forgive me.

Also, I noticed something weird about this story. Previously, I felt like I had sort of two 'modes' of writing, with distinct styles. I don't have good words for them, but one is more novel-ish and the other is - well the other is basically my Holiday Special universe. This seems to fall somewhere between those, though. (Originally I had intended for it to be more like the latter, but it doesn't quite feel like it, for some reason.) If pressed, I would say that this style is more like a script - lots of dialogue. I don't particularly like doing that, except for my Holiday Specials, but I am finding myself falling into it here. Any suggestions would be well welcome!