"Deleth, wait!" Efet tried to scramble up the rocks after him. She felt awful; she hadn't meant to upset him, but that angry scar marring his arm had thrown her for a loop. Deleth, still so sure-footed even on these slippery rocks, easily summitted the ridge over the river and left her behind, still desperately picking her way up to him. "Deleth, come back! Please!" she cried out after him.

He'd climbed a ridge of great boulders that rose up over the riverbank. The massive trees that overhung the river dropped thick ropes of vine into her path; the spray from the river flew up into her face; and Efet had to grab handfuls of the little bushy weeds that grew from muddy cracks in the boulder to pull herself upward. In her haste, she hadn't even put her shoes on, and she grimaced at the feel of the slick rocks under her tender feet. At last, she dragged herself up to find Deleth crouching on the very edge of the ridge by a bent-backed tree so old, it's gnarled roots had grown over and around the boulder, reaching down to plunge into the river one way, and towards the canopy of trees the other. Efet was near to crying by the time she limped over to Deleth, who kept his back to her.

"Please don't leave me behind." Efet cringed at the crack in her voice. "I-I didn't mean to upset you." I'll die out here without you went unsaid. When he did not speak, she went to her knees and crawled up beside him, seating herself on the curve of one of the gnarled old tree's roots. He was wearing his shirt now, that ridiculous pointy shouldered shirt that covered the scar on his arm. He was looking down at the roaring river, just over the edge of the boulder, and for a moment she had a mad fear he'd throw himself in.

"You cannot ask me about my scar," Deleth said. His voice was even; he'd regained control of himself. He turned his head to look at Efet, and his eyes were large and sorrowful. "You cannot," he emphasized.

She swallowed. "I won't."

Deleth went still again, but did not break their gaze. "I shouldn't have yelled at you and frightened you like that. I'm - I'm sorry, Efet. You meant no harm. You were just concerned about my injury."

A Romulan apology? Efet actually felt a little dizzy. How many aliens had ever had a Romulan look them in the eyes and sincerely apologize for their behavior? She'd always been told they were too proud and spiteful to do anything like that. For the first time, Efet wondered what sort of misconceptions Deleth had been taught about her people. They were really both victims of circumstance; each of them molded by their cultures and political forces outside of their control. She managed to hold that intense stare and nodded.

"If you ever want to tell me anything, I'll listen. And if not - I'll respect that. You have my word, Deleth."

He sniffed, and then looked down at his hands, which were folded in front of him. "Let's go back and build camp."

Relieved he was ready to start over, Efet went to stand, but in her eagerness she moved a little too fast, and her feet slipped on the knobbly old root she had been sitting on. She felt her heart skip about five beats, and her hands flew out to catch hold of something - anything. She caught hold of the root but it was slippery, sliding through her hands. Her body slid down and she felt her feet fly out into the void over the edge. Efet flailed in terror, hearing the river roaring far beneath her, and dug her fingers in, catching hold of one of those pathetic weeds growing out of a crevice. She distantly thought she heard Deleth scream her name.

Her bare legs dangled over the edge of the ridge. Her feet brushed against the face of the boulder, but it was too slick and she couldn't find a foothold. She was holding herself up by her grip on that bushy weed, the stalk of which was biting into her palms. Efet shrieked in fear. Deleth's face appeared above her, and he thrust a hand down to her.

"Take my hand!"

"I can't!" Efet was shaking with terror. She could feel the weed's roots giving way under her body weight. "I'll slip and fall!"

"I'll hold you! Take my hand!" Deleth pleaded.

Summoning everything that was left of her strength and bravery, and silently offering up a farewell to her friends and family if she did not survive, Efet reached up and grasped his hand. His fingers were terrifyingly strong, and hot to the touch. They closed around her hand like a vice and he lifted up. For a moment, Efet was suspended by the one hand, dangling over the edge of the ridge out into space, the river crashing and roiling below, and then he pulled her up and to him, so she could cling to his chest as he brought them both back to safety.

"Open your eyes."

Efet shook her head.

"Open your eyes," he repeated. "We're safe."

Cautiously, Efet peeked an eye open. They were crouching on the ridge, about a meter from the edge, and Deleth was still holding her. She had yet to release her grip on his shirt. She looked up at him, and was surprised to see his face contorted in concern, his eyes wide, and that a slight tremor of adrenaline was still racking his body. He'd actually been... frightened? That she would go over the edge and die? Efet was struck by another realization: Deleth was just as afraid of being left alone here as she was. Maybe more. She was reminded again of how young he seemed. After a moment, Deleth seemed to realize he still held her in his arms; his arms slackened, releasing her, and he drew a shaky breath.

"Help me remember, as I've lost count," Deleth said as they carefully made their way back down to the pools. "That's the, what, fifth time I've saved your life?"

"I'll repay you someday," Efet told him sweetly.

Deleth made a rude noise but said nothing. They made it back to their (now dry) clothing and as they dressed, a thought seemed to come to him. "I have to teach you to fight."

"To fight?" Efet looked perplexed. "Why?"

"In case the Klingons come for us. Or some of the other prisoners. There'll be more soon, there always are."

"I've never been in a fight in my life!"

"All the more reason to learn now."

After they made their little camp, Deleth found a couple sticks and tossed one to Efet. She fumbled and dropped it, then snatched it up from the muddy ground, feeling very small under Deleth's eyes. She had narrowly escaped death by drowning and falling several times, and only because he'd pulled her out of them. She knew she slowed him down and felt like a burden. She wanted him to respect her but her talents - engineering and taking equipment apart and putting it back together, better - could not be shown in this jungle environment. Deleth held the stick with both hands, one at each end, and she copied him.

"I'll show you the most common attacks and the counters for the bat'leth-"

"This is a bat'leth?" Efet asked in disbelief. She'd seen the iconic Klingon weapon in holos, and these two pitiful sticks did not look much like bat'leths.

"It's the only thing we have," Deleth said airily. He dropped into a stance, circled her, then performed a slow, deliberate slashing motion that Efet leaped back from. "Ah! Good instincts. So, as you're so much shorter than them, Klingons will usually slash downwards at you-"

Efet was panting after only three minutes of training. "Deleth, how am I going to beat a Klingon warrior in single combat?"

"I've seen it done," Deleth told her, resetting them both to run through a counter-attack again. "I'm a Romulan, remember? My people have defeated Klingons time and time again. They are big and fierce, but overconfident - and they underestimate little aliens like yourself."

Efet took heart at that, but she still wasn't sure why they needed to train to fight Klingons at all. "You don't really think the guards will come for us, do you? Why not kill us to start with?"

"I've seen the Klingon guards come for prisoners," Deleth said in a dark tone.

Efet's eyes popped. "Oh."

"I have tried to avoid the guards as much as possible. But the rock walls block the signals even from their own people, and I've seen the guards take a hovercraft over the walls to communicate with some kind of array up there." He nodded vaguely in the direction of the massive rock wall in the distance. "Once in awhile, a ship lands and brings prisoners. But prisoners never leave alive. And sometimes, Klingons come and they - hunt."

"Hunt?!" Efet gasped.

"I don't think the guards here are Qo'NoS' best and brightest. I suspect the guards are, in some way, condemned here as well. They may be entertaining themselves." Deleth growled through his teeth. "This valley is a cage, and we are the prey trapped inside."

Efet thought of the young Klingon guard, the one who had pity on her that first day and given her rations. How could he be a murderer and a monster the way Deleth characterized the Klingon guards? But, she rationalized, Deleth had been here longer than her - months, perhaps. Some of the guards had come and gone in that time, and it sounded like there had been other prisoners, prisoners who had not survived. It was possible some of the guards had been sadistic individuals. After a break for water, they resumed their training. She followed along gamely as Deleth tried to teach her how to use an attacker's own momentum against him to send him crashing to the ground. Her first effort failed spectacularly.

Deleth smiled fondly as she huffed and puffed, trying to send him sprawling. "Try again."

"Ugh!" Efet flipped her braid away from her face. "I'm just not a born fighter!"

That seemed to surprise Deleth. "What, do you think I was born to fight? I wasn't any worse than you when I started at the academy. You can learn, as I did."

Efet gave him a sidelong look. "Aren't you a warrior?" It certainly seemed like Deleth knew how to fight, and he was physically strong and intimidating. She had vaguely assumed, based on all that, he'd been part of some Romulan shock troops that had been captured by the Klingons.

"I was just a pilot before I was brought here," Deleth told her.

If Deleth, with all his physical prowess, had spent his entire career keeping a helmsman's chair warm on a Romulan starship's bridge, then Efet did not want to meet the sort of Romulans who made hand-to-hand combat into their careers, that was for sure.