(Yo, this is a double update, so if you skipped to this chapter, you missed the other update! Told ya I'd do two chapters in one update. I am never doing this again.)

She stood ankle deep in sand. The cool wind nipped her skin as it prickled her exposed flesh with grains of sand. Angelina gazed at the moonless sky, an indigo blanket of stars. It was finally cold enough to let her hair down. She would have to cut it soon. As much as she preferred it long, it was too difficult to maintain. She wasn't going to waste precious water to keep it clean.

She began to wonder when her father was going to be done. Angelina idly glanced at the violet tent behind her. He did have a tendency to draw things out, especially if circumstances were in his favor. Angelina yawned. She was getting bored. Her only form of amusement was reading, but her books always seemed to go missing when she had guests. She knew her parents were behind the disappearance of her books, and while that mildly irritated her, there wasn't much she could do about it.

Her thin, disc-like earrings slapped the sides of her neck. The wind was blowing harder, spraying Angelina with more sand. She put her back to the wind and closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" The sharp voice of her mother cut into the evening air.

Angelina lazily opened one eye. Her mother walked around from the front of the tent. She could feel the priestess's glare burning into her skin. Her mother was not pleased with Angelina's hair.

"Your father wishes to see you." She said curtly. "You have an important guest tonight."

Angelina began to bunch her hair back into a high ponytail. "You say that every time someone comes to visit. It starts to lose its value after a certain period of time."

The priestess began to fuss over her daughter's hair. Angelina briefly pondered if her hair would turn into her mother's pale shade of lilac when she grew older.

Once her mother was satisfied with Angelina's hair, the two of them returned to the tent.

It was considerably warmer inside. There was little lighting in the tent. Only a few candles flickered on the low table in the center.

Her father sat facing the opening of the tent. His golden adornments flashed in the dull lighting. Even in the poor lighting, she could see him smile and gestured for her to sit beside him. Whoever her father had invited was sitting with their back to her. They didn't rise to greet her, which was unusual to Angelina. What was more bizarre was that neither of her parents called the blatant display of disrespect. Not that she cared for it, but her parents had some twisted satisfaction in reprimanding guests. Something wasn't right.

"My dear daughter," Her father crooned as she knelt next to him. "I would like you to meet our new Hierophant."

She stared at her father in disbelief. Hierophant of what? They weren't running the country yet.

He slightly inclined his head forward and extended his hand toward their guest.

Warily, she met the gaze of her visitor and screamed.

She was staring at her faceless self.

Her head smacked against the floor, jolting her awake. Grunting, she sat up slowly, rubbing the sore spot on her head. She really needed to stop flipping out of the bed like that. She was lucky she didn't land on her face, or worse, her arm—

The tactician's shoulders tensed.

Wait a second.

This wasn't her room. Her breath quickened as she sat on the cold, stone floor.

Not again. She pulled off the wet sheets tangled around her legs. There was a mild, salty odor to them. Angelina first attributed the smell to sweat, but after grabbing a rather soaked part of the sheet, she recoiled in disgust. Now that she thought about it, her small clothes and shorts felt pretty damp. She tossed the wadded up sheets on the bed and hastily wiped her hand on her shirt.

This was humiliating. The fabled tactician of the Exalt's army not only wet the bed, she was captured twice in the same day. Oh, how the bards would sing about her blunder for eternity.

Angelina grumbled bitterly to herself as she groped around the room. It was dark, other than the glowing outline of the door. Finding the door was easy; bumping into every bit of furniture was not. She probably had stubbed her toe at least half a dozen times before reaching the blasted door.

She tested the handle and was delighted that it was unlocked. Angelina gingerly opened the door. It was short hallway that opened to a massive room. Unlike her previous prison, this place was constructed entirely out of stone. She opened the door a bit wider.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

Angelina yanked the door shut. She squeezed the handle tightly and leaned backward. There was a tug from the other side of the door, and she responded by sharply pulling the door back. She could hear someone sigh loudly.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Angelina lifted her voice. "Oh like I'm gonna believe that right after you kidnapped me."

"Honey, we didn't kidnap you." The voice said nonchalantly. "No offense, babe, but you aren't really worth much to us."

"So you expect me to believe you took me in out of the kindness in your hearts?"

The owner of the voice snorted. "Basically."

"But you guys knocked me out."

There was a pause, "We…what?"

"One of you hexed me." The cold sensation of something being draped over her mind was unmistakable. She knew what being hexed felt. If anything, she was surprised she still felt the chilling side effect.

The person on the other side fell silent. Maybe they were debating whether or not to lock her in. They certainly were in the position to do so. Angelina heard them muttering.

"…It seems that I have had some 'miscommunication' with one of my colleges. Do you know who hexed you—never mind, I know who did it." They sighed again. "I am terribly sorry for what happened. Asking you to trust me is going to be a bit of a stretch, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I thought so, however, if you are interested, I can take you to your friend."

Her grip on the handle loosened. It could be a trap. Who was she kidding, it was a trap. But then, if they really wanted them dead, why would they have healed Yen'fay in the first place? Maybe to preserve him for daily torturing or to sell him to the slavers. It was entirely possible that the moment she opened the door, the person outside would kill her. Of course, Angelina was in no position to get out.

"He's stable," The voice continued. "But he isn't faring so well. One of his organs got punctured, so he's in a lot of pain—"

"What about his head?" Angelina pressed her forehead against the door.

"Some bruising around the face. Other than that, his noggin should be alright. You mentioned something about 'head trauma', but he'll be fine. He might be dizzy for a while, but that's the worst of it."

"Will he make it?"

"…It's too early to say. His organ was perforated and he has lost a great deal of blood." A touch of sadness was heard in the voice. "Poor bastard, he keeps crying out for someone."

Angelina cracked the door open as tears dribbled down her chin. She recognized the person standing outside the door. It was the woman she entrusted Yen'fay to.

Claudia smiled meekly at Angelina, "You wouldn't happen to be 'Say'ri', would you?"

Angelina sniffed loudly. "No, but I should see him." She dropped her gaze. "I…I got him into this mess. I should help him through it. And don't think I'm coming out because I trust you."

"Of course not, honey." The Falcon Knight chuckled before seeing the tactician's soaked shorts. "Do…do you want to change your pants?"

Angelina burst into tears, hiding her face in her hand. "Yes, I'm sorry."

Claudia did not take Angelina to Yen'fay right away. Even after cleaning the tactician up, she insisted that Angelina needed to eat.

"Honey, I could hear your stomach howling through the walls last night. Honestly, you could wake the dead with that thing." A fine bowl of soup settled in front of Angelina. "When you finish eating this THEN we can go. I'm not going to let your hunger wake up that poor man."

Angelina learned quickly that the soup was too hot to gulp down, lest she wanted to scald her mouth and throat.

The two of them sat in the massive chamber Angelina saw earlier. Claudia briefly mentioned her house was once a mead hall, but she didn't delve further.

"So, how's your arm?" Claudia slowly took a sip from her tankard.

She looked up from her idle stirring. "Huh?"

"Well does it hurt?"

Now that she thought about it, her arm didn't hurt. Angelina realized that her arm was no longer in a sling. She had been so caught up with the bad dream and the foreign surroundings that she had completely forgotten about her arm. She cautiously raised her arm when Claudia hissed at her.

"Don't do that. Your shoulder can't handle too much movement."

Angelina habitually ran her fingers over her shoulder and felt a thin rod under the taut bandages.

"What is this?" She pointed at her shoulder.

"Mm? Oh, that's to keep your shoulder in place." Claudia gesticulated to her collarbone. "You probably can't feel it because of your chest wraps, but you're wearing a harness to keep your shoulder in place."

"Wouldn't a sling be easier?"

Claudia bobbed her head side to side. "Yes, except you can use everything below your elbow. You've lost a lot of muscle in that arm, so we are going to build it back slowly."

She opened and closed her left hand. "But aren't the muscles in my arm connected to the ones in my shoulder? Won't moving them hurt?"

"It'll hurt. You might get some aches and bolts of pain if you strain yourself." Claudia irritably looked at her cup, unhappy that she drained it so quickly. "But I'm not so stupid as to let you do that. I put a lot of work into your arm, and I intend to finish what I started." Her cool green eyes flicked up from her drink to the tactician's face. "…You better start eating, sweet heart. I don't know how long he's got."

She discovered that Yen'fay was housed in a separate building. Angelina was staying in a converted mead hall with Claudia and her brother, Marcus. They were charged with nursing her back to health. Yen'fay, however, his injuries was beyond either of the siblings' skills, and was entrusted to the head of the village. Claudia reassured Angelina several times that if anyone could save Yen'fay, Sejal would be the one to do it.

Her fears about Claudia and the others were somewhat assuaged when they strolled through the village. It was morning and the market had just opened up. Some of the people called out to Claudia as they walked by. The Falcon Knight would give an upwards nod in response. She jokingly said something about "people I owe money to", and Angelina nodded in response. Perhaps if she had been in a better mood, she would have laughed.

Sejal's house was not the largest in the town. Angelina probably wouldn't have found it if Claudia wasn't guiding her. The matriarch's house squatted at the edge of town behind the stables. While it wasn't the main structure, it was still big in housing standards. The house was made almost made entirely out of stone and was topped by a dark wooden roof. It was two stories tall and seemed to bulge around the middle, or maybe she was imagining things. Claudia said that Angelina was under the effects of potent painkillers. She was bound to experience something strange.

Claudia practically waltzed through the door, not even bothering to knock. She was immediately swarmed by several children, who were all begging her to help them with their chores.

"Not now, nuggets, I'm busy." She shooed them away. "Don't pester our guest either, she doesn't know squat about gardening."

"I know some things." Angelina said defensively.

Claudia raised her brow and lowered her eyelids. "If I show you a weed and vegetable, could you tell the difference?"

She popped her good shoulder up. "Maybe?"

"A 'maybe' isn't going to save a garden. It might make it worse, actually." Claudia parted the herd of children and beckoned Angelina to follow. The kids seemed to stare through the tactician as she walked by. It was unsettling and eerie.

There were other things besides the children that bothered Angelina. She couldn't describe it, but her whole body felt tingly and energized. It wasn't a refreshing sense of energy either, it was like the tired thrill of an adrenaline rush or the dry heat of pent up stress. As much as she wanted to sit by Yen'fay, she didn't know how long she could stay in this house. The atmosphere was making her nauseous.

Claudia did not linger when they arrived at his door. She hurriedly explained that she was needed elsewhere before leaving the tactician alone.

She didn't realize how fast her heart was beating until Claudia was gone. Her stomach churned restlessly in her stomach as something hot hitched in her throat. She had to see him. No, she shouldn't. After all she had done. She—

Just open the door.

The world blurred for a few moments and she found herself in the room. She was sweating. Her whole body was hot like she spent too much time in the sun. The room seemed to swerve around her as she moved about. She was going to vomit. They must have poisoned her, that's why Claudia made her eat—

Angelina felt the hem of her shorts being pulled. She jerked her chin down to see a child looking back at her.

"Can you watch him? I need to pee."

Her gaze finally fell upon the figure in the bed. A cold blanket of stability and regret settled over her shoulders.

"Yes." She said quietly.

The young girl tottered out of the room and silently closed the door.

He was watching her. Yen'fay's normally hooded eyes were almost fully opened. His eyes were dark like rich soil after a summer storm. Had he been looking at her since she walked in, or did he notice her when the girl spoke? It didn't matter, she had his attention now. All the strategies in the world couldn't help her navigate through this mess.

His gaze was trained on her as she pulled up a stool by his bed side. He reminded her of a hawk she encountered once. Angelina had been out hunting when she stumbled upon this raptor. It sat on a low branch, face bloodied and chest puffed out. It stared at her, cool and indifferent to her presence. And yet, she had the feeling that it didn't want her there. The bird judged her with those cold, unflinching eyes before leaving.

Angelina actually thought the bird was more readable than the man before her. She got the strong impression that Yen'fay didn't want her in the room, but there was something else she couldn't discern. She would see it in the small spasms under his eyes and the corners of his mouth. Angelina wanted to align this with the pain he was enduring, and yet, she felt it was more than that. Even in his impaired state, Yen'fay was an enigma, and this somewhat annoyed the tactician. She couldn't really comfort him if all his walls were up.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to try.

Angelina was limited in what she could do. He wasn't her bosom buddy, so she couldn't snicker and a say a single line of a shared joke. He wasn't her rival, which meant she couldn't regale over past brawls. In fact, there was very little she knew about Yen'fay. Other than the fact that he liked tea and meditated on the floor, those were his only pleasures he was aware of. He probably thought of her as a nuisance— if he ever thought of her at all. She was a constant thorn in his side, and he was too polite to say so.

Yen'fay parted his lips, but the voice that came out was not his own."…Angelina."

"Yes?" She knotted her fist in her lap.

His face suddenly drooped with worry. "Say'ri…have you seen her?" He pitifully gasped for air as he shifted on the bed. "Is...is she safe?"

She squeezed her fist, digging her ragged nails into her palm. Angelina didn't know which Say'ri he was referring to. She couldn't lie to him, not after what she had put him through. If she lied to him to ease his fears and he remembered it, would he honestly want to be her friend? However, if she told him the truth, his condition would worsen and he would die.

"Please," He begged. "tell me, Angelina."

Why did he have to say her name? Why couldn't he call her "tactician"? And why in Naga's name wasn't she in his position? He didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve it either, but seeing him grope madly for the affirmation of his sister's safety was madness.

"Yen'fay," Angelina relaxed her fist and gently placed it on the bed. "Your sister… is safe. No one can hurt her now." The tactician dropped her gaze to the floor.

She flinched when the bottom of his hand skimmed across her knuckles. Yen'fay delicately curled his fingers under palm as she faced him. There was such warmth in his eyes. His stoic demeanor had dissipated, for the walls had crumbled and the gates flung open. Despite his injuries and agony, he seemed happy, more so then when he was well. The violet bruises that marred his face paled when he smiled.

He didn't need to speak to convey his thoughts.

The tactician was glad when the girl returned and told her that Sejal wanted to speak with her. She hastily left the room before she could be suffocated by his kindness. Once she was far enough from the door, she broke down and cried.

The one time he let her in was the time she least deserved it.

(*LOUD SCREAMING* TEN FUCKING CHAPTERS. OH MY SWEET PEAS IN A POD, I MADE IT TO TEN CHAPTERS. Have you guys seen the bird screaming into a cup video? Because that's exactly how I feel right now.

This is incredible. I never thought I was going to get this far. Wow. I just-I never thought so many of you would read this. This is perfect, because now I know there are other people who love this ship as much as I do. It is a small fleet of ships, but we are sturdy force, I tell you. For those of you who are reading this out of curiosity, I highly recommend courting Yen'fay in Awakening. Ah, but I digress.

Why did this take so long? Because I decided to rewrite both chapters.

BUT before I go, I would love to thank all of you again for reading this. All of you who have reviewed are hella. All of you who have favorited are rad. All of you who have followed are super fine. And all of you who have read have dangerously good tastes.

I would also like to thank the lovely Singer of Water, for cryin-laughing with me when we write.

Time to cry over fictional characters.

Until next time! ~Darkargo )