Bright sun was shining on her eyelids, making her stir and bury her face in her pillow, trying to get it out of her eyes. She didn't want to get up yet...

Suddenly, it occurred to her that she had apparently gone to sleep in her clothes. Doing so was quite uncomfortable, and not something she would have normally done. Sitting bolt upright, she blinked, looking around the camp, and suddenly the events of the last two days came rushing back.

It was apparently quite early in the morning; Bardic and the faeries sat around the campfire, eating breakfast. Ruby, looking up, spotted her and must have told the other two, for they both looked in her direction. Bardic, rising, grabbed one of their tin plates laying nearby, a plate filled with still-warm food, and carried it over to her, placing it in her hands despite her protests.

"No, thanks," she said, trying to give it back to him. "I'm...not hungry."

"Eat anyway," he told her firmly. "You need the food." Returning to his place in the campfire, she saw him watching her, making sure she ate all of the food. Sighing, she raised the slightly burnt meat to her mouth, taking a bite. With the first bite, her stomach immediately demanded more, now. Realizing that maybe he had been right, she began to devour the food hungrily.

She finished in record time, and before she even asked for more, she got some. She ate two more plates full of food before she was finally full--it was amazing how hungry she was! At last done eating and forgetting about her ankle, she tried to rise and stretch, and immediately sat back down with a gasp of pain.

The others were around her in an instant; Ruby bent down to inspect her ankle, frowning slightly as she did so. "Broken," the fairy said at last, sighing. "I can fix it, though." Closing her eyes, she set her hands lightly on either side of Rella's ankle. Looking at her ankle and the faerie out of the corner of her eye, remembering how she could see through their illusions when she did so, she was still surprised to see a glow of light blue flooding throughout her entire foot, coming from the fairy woman, from a deep, seemingly endless pool of the light blue glow that she knew must be Ruby's magic.

The fairy sighed, taking her hands off Ruby's ankle and sitting back. "It should be fixed," Ruby told her. "Try it."

Letting Bardic help her up, she delicately tested it, putting some small weight on it before balancing entirely on both feet. "It--it doesn't hurt at all!"

Ruby, rising, proceeded to take her by the arm and lead her off, stating in a very motherly way, "Now what you need is a bath."

Remembering that she was covered from head to toe in mud, dirt, and grime, Rella blushed and didn't protest as the fairy led her to the small stream they had used before as a bathing site. With a quick wave of her hand, Ruby activated the spell that kept soap from leaking into the rest of the stream's water and poisoning the fish, and kept the fish out of their small bathing area. Rella was surprised to find that, even if she looked at it straight on, she could still see the outlines of the spell, in the light blue color she was already beginning to associate with Ruby's magic.

She decided not to mention her newfound ability to Ruby right now, and instead stripped without embarrassment, slipping with a sigh of relief into the warm water, heated by the same spell that protected the fish from the soap and the bather from the fish. The water was almost too hot, yet not quite, just the right temperature for soaking all your cares away, even though it made her many cuts, scrapes, and bruises sting, making her wince in pain.

Seeing Ruby staring at him, she winced again, realizing that her entire body was covered in bruises and dried blood. "I'll...tell you what happened later, alright?" Looking up towards the faerie, she saw her nod wordlessly, leaving soap, a washrag, and a towel atop a conveniently nearby rock. The fairy left, but then returned a moment later, carrying clean clothes from Rella's pack, one of her plain off-white dresses, one that had survived the days at Rhianna's without getting too soiled and torn.

Rella scrubbed herself until she was pink and washed her hair thoroughly, and when she stepped out of the stream and wrapped herself in a towel, she felt almost human again. Stepping into the dress Ruby had brought, she did her best to get the knots out of her thankfully clean, damp hair. Finally done, she took a deep breath, gathered her stuff in her arms, and walked back out to the campsite.

The others watched her as she walked over to their packs and placed the towel, soap, rag, and hairbrush where they belonged; they tried to be inconspicuous about it, but failed utterly. At last, slightly unsteady on her feet, she walked over to the campfire and sat, in the empty space in between Bardic and Emerald.

The others continued watching her, each of them wearing varied expressions of worry. They all looked funny; so funny that she started to laugh, and once she started, she couldn't seem to stop, even though she knew her laughter was becoming more than slightly hysterical.

"I--I'm sorry--you guys just looked so--" Choking on the words, tears began to pour down her cheeks. Embarrassed, she hid her face in her hands, but couldn't seem to stop crying.

"Rella," Emerald said softly, still watched her concernedly, "what happened?"

Hiccuping and sobbing between words, she kept her face hidden in her hands, but somehow managed to tell them, forcing the words out past the tears that threatened to smother her. As she spoke, she was reliving it all in her mind; the fear, the pain, the hurt--memories rose to smother her, making her choke on her own tears. "Make it--make it stop," she heard a voice say incoherently, and realized it was her own. Before she had time to wonder at herself, she lost her balance and fell backwards, and everything faded away into blackness.

Bardic realized too late that Rella was about to faint, and didn't succeed in catching her before she hit the ground. He started towards her, but Emerald was there first, frowning and leaning over her, placing her hands on either side of Rella's face.

What the hell is she doing? he wondered irritably, but decided not to ask. After a moment, she sat back, sighing and rubbing the side of her head. "Just what I thought." Turning, she looked at Ruby. "The trauma awakened her power, and she's apparently an empath besides, so she's only amplifying the hurt for herself."

"Excuse me, would someone like to explain to me what's going on?" Bardic interrupted, knowing he was being rude but not particularly caring at the moment.

Emerald, blinking as though she had forgotten he was there, looked up at him. "Sorry, I forgot you weren't a mage. Basically, when you have latent magical power, sometimes great trauma or stress can awaken it when you might not otherwise have to trouble with it. That's what happened to Rella. She also has empathic powers, which neither of us noticed until now, so they probably just now showed up along with the rest of her magic. She keeps remembering being raped, and her empathy is amplifying the emotions she felt and making her feel them again, only about ten times worse. It's no wonder she passed out." Sighing, she stared morosely at the unconscious girl. "The question is, what do we do about it?"

Looking towards Ruby, she continued. "We can put shields around her for now, to protect her from herself. But where in hell are we going to find an empath to teach her? There's not really that many of them, and neither of us has studied it."

"Then again, the Queen is an empath," Ruby replied, giving Emerald a meaningful look. Emerald looked thoughtful, then nodded.

Bardic wondered at this silent exchange, but decided not to ask; even if he did, the faeries probably wouldn't tell him. Instead, he just sat back, watching as Emerald bent over the unconscious girl, eyes closed and concentrating.

"Rella. Wake up."

Emerald's voice came, cold and demanding, out of the darkness. Sitting straight up with a gasp, she looked about her with confusion. "What...what happened? Did I...did I faint?"

"Yes, Rella, you did." Emerald sighed and sat back, looking somewhat put-out. "Do you know what an empath is?"

"An empath...?" Blinking, she shook her head to clear it, wondering what in the world empaths had to do with her fainting. "Um, yeah, I do...they're...mages who work with emotions, or something like that, right?"

"Basically, yes." Emerald sighed again. "Well, Rella, you're an empath. Great trauma and stress awakens magical power sometimes, and you're now suddenly an empath and a mage. Your empathy was feeding on your memories and amplifying your emotions, making you feel it all over again. So you passed out."

"I...oh." She might have questioned it, but she suddenly felt quite exhausted, and besides that, it fit the situation perfectly. Her bruises were starting to ache, and all she really wanted to do was go back to sleep.

"So now we have to get someone to teach you both empathy and magecraft," Emerald continued, going on as if Rella hadn't even spoken. "We think we know someone who might help, but...we don't know. For now, you're fine; I put a shield around you."

She wondered if she should test it with her newfound ability to see magic, but decided she was too tired to try. "I'm...tired. Can I go back to sleep now?"

Emerald opened her mouth to protest, but Ruby shook her head at her. "Of course you can," Bardic put in, ignoring the looks the two faeries gave him for so casually taking over. "We can talk more in the morning."

"Thanks. Cause I'm exhausted...don't know...why..." Yawning, she staggered over to her bedroll and fell into it, and was asleep at once.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, as near opposite Rella's mood as weather could possibly get. All three of the others watched her worriedly throughout the rest of the day; she would have laughed at them, but she didn't feel much like laughing, or smiling, or anything else. She hadn't for days, as a matter of fact. Not since the ball...

She firmly shoved that thought and the memories it brought out of her mind, and looked up, to see the other three watching her again. The faeries immediately looked in other directions as soon as she looked at them, and she couldn't help it; she smiled.

Bardic smiled back; actually, it was more like a grin. "At last, the Depressed One smiles," he teased her. She swatted at him; he ducked out of the way.

"Yeah well, I'd like to see how you feel if--" she began, starting a sharp retort; then her smile faded, and she cut off in mid-sentence. "I'll...be right back." Turning, she strolled off into the woods; Emerald started to follow her, but Ruby shook her head at her. "No. She needs to be alone."

Emerald shook her head, looking morose as she sat back down. "She actually smiled."

"She'll smile again," Bardic said determinedly.

A shriek echoed through the woods, not too far off from their campsite. Bardic's head jerked up. "That was Rella," he said, and was on his feet, had grabbed his bow and quiver, and was running before either of the faeries could say a word.