Mission 1 - Team B

Drake watched her carefully as she took those few steps. He stood by her side, prepared to assist her if she needed it. "Don't be sorry. It's not your fault. It could've happened to any of us." He smiled reassuringly. "And setback or not, we're going to complete the mission."

"Yes, it could have happened to any of us, but it didn't, it happened to me, so I take the blame." She smiled slightly back at him, though behind that smile was complete guilt. She started to turn around and walk back the other way. She must have turned funny because a pain began to run through her ribcage. Emilia took in a sharp breath but released it after a few moments. She shook her head as she restarted her walking. She thought about the journey ahead and groaned. They had a long way back, then another days walk into the forest. Emilia wondered what she was really doing here, not just in the desert, but at the academy in general. Yes, she wanted to follow her parents footsteps, but she knew she was clumsy at times, she wasn't someone you'd peg as a fighter. She sighed but then was reminded by the nagging pain not to do that. Thinking about her reasons for going to the academy she remembered the actual reason they ventured out here. The stone. "Oh!" She said, "had anyone grabbed the stone from the chest?" She hadn't noticed, but she couldn't have at the time the monster was beaten, she was a bit busy being in pain.

"It's cold, urban, flat, quaint, and decently rainy. I love it!" Fried smiled "The cities feel personal and have a natural beauty to them." He thought of canals that ran thru Amsterdam and wiped the sweat off his brow. "It's awesome" He told Lesnia.

Lesnia smiled. Fried seemed very enthusiastic about his home country, "That's.. Great!" she said trying to sound at least half as enthusiastic. She had meant to say just 'okay' since that was what she thought of it, but her real choice of words seemed a lot less negative. In reality the place he described was pretty much the place where she would least likely want to go. It sounded boring, cold, and way too.. Peaceful. I mean, sure she liked peace, peace was good, a lot better than war, but, with peace where's the fun? Where's the hustle and bustle of a crowded street? Or the rush of running everywhere? As for the cold, she couldn't stand it, cold felt so uncomfortable, nothing compared to the kiss of the sun on your shoulders or the happiness felt from a warm summer's breeze. And there was no such thing as decent rain, it was all the same, cold, clammy, and it ruined everything, and with rain comes clouds, a fortress of grey. In return she started to talk about her home, "Well, I come from a small country called Alicarna, you've probably never heard of it. It's by a river trade route in the desert. It's busy, sunny, and fun! There's always someone new to talk to and always something to do and learn with the market venders. I'm proud of my father and what he's made of it, he's the Ruler of Alicarna." she ran on. She found herself as equally happy to talk about her home as Fried was.

Fried listened as Lesnia described her home. He had never heard of Alicarna but it sounded great, except for the heat. The cold was where Fried belonged, but he had decided to travel the world when he graduated so naturally he would travel to Alicarna someday. "Sounds cool," Fried smiled earnestly, "I'll probably swing thru there someday."

Drake's fingers brushed the silver key in his pocket. "No, but I still have the key. I might as well open now, I suppose..." He muttered, making his way over to the chest. After removing the key, he inserted it into the slot, twisted it once to the left, and received a successful "click" from the chest. When he opened it, his eyes were greeted by the ruby twinkle of a jem, sitting peacefully at the bottom. It was the ruby stone they had traveled such a long distance for. In person, it seemed so insignificant. Part of him wondered why the Academy even needed it.

"Got it." He said, gently scooping the stone into his palm.

Lesnia started to walk toward the doorway as she said, "I could probably give you a grand tour or something." she said, she thought of it now, inviting all of her friends to a vacation in Alicarna, joy. "Let's go back inside, they're probably wondering what's taking so long." she said walking back through the door. She notice Drake with the ruby they had been looking for, it didn't seem too impressive, but, never the less it was important. "Where are we going to carry that?" she asked.

Drake shrugged, examining the stone with a curious gaze as if he were questioning it's true value. "I dunno. I have some room in my bag." He said, shifting his icy gaze over to Lesnia. "Or we could store it somewhere else, if you'd like?"

Lesnia's eyes darted to each pack, everyone of them seemed full except for a little bit of Drake's and Fried's. Her face smushed together in question, "Hmm, it doesn't look too heavy, since Emilia wont be able to carry much she can at least carry the Ruby." she said looking at Emilia, "If you want." she added. It was then she heard a familiar bird screech and a shadow eclipsed the doorway as the winged creature flew in and landed on her shoulder. She smiled up at him, "Hey, Hogren!" she said stroking her feathered friend.

The stone wasn't what she expected. It wasn't anything remarkable as she had pictured it. It was just your general ruby. "Oh of course," she said, "It's the least I could do, considering..." She trailed off. "I've already said this to Drake, but I'm sorry to burden you like this." Emilia felt horrible for what happened, it was just in her nature to feel guilt on her behalf. The stone was small and very easy to carry. She worried about the trip back, for the hunt and the fight. She might just have to teach one of her teammates to use her bow, just enough for long range game.. If there was any. When it came to fighting she was obviously useless, she'd have to work on her pain tolerance if she was going to get back into fighting.

Lesnia smiled a little, "I know how you feel, but your not going to be useless, trust me. You'll have tons to do in other ways." she winked. She took some of the aloe vera cactus out of her bag and put it in front of Emilia. She then pulled out a tiny cutting knife from her belt and then went to her bag and rummaged around until she felt the smooth cool surface of and empty bottle of potion and went over to Emilia as well. "Now," she began sitting down beside her friend, "here is how we extract the healing juices of the aloe plant. As I have told Fried these can help heal cuts, burns, and almost any skin irritation." she put the knife in one hand and a spine in the other, "First you cut it open like this." she said while taking but, a tiny nick at the end of the spine, causing a clear liquid to drip out. "This," she said refering to the liquid, "is the healing aloe. Then all you have to do is put it into the bottle." she said squeezing at the spine like the way you squeeze toothpaste. Lesnia smiled hopping up looking at her work, "There you have it!" she said then stroking Hogren. She noticed that the sun was going down and she said, "If you want we can split into two teams, one to set up camp and one for the aloe."

Fried smiled, he was eager for the sun to set. The heat was brutal. Wiping the sweat off his brow he asked, "What do I need to do?"

Fried came in and asked what he needed to do, she looked at Fried as she walked over to the pack with the tent in it and pulled out the tent case, "You can do whatever you wish, aloe vera or tent building, I don't know about you, but I choose tent building." she said pulling out everything. She looked at all the parts and just stared. How the heck do you build this thing? she thought as her eyebrows knitted together in question. She rummaged around for a manual, and instruction sheet of some kind but she found none. She sighed and got to work at sorting the parts into different categories and started to try to fit some together that looked like they may work and cramming some together to make them work. In the end she came up with a shapes that resembled a triangle, a pentagon, and fish all in one, each and every piece on the verge of breaking apart. The instant she stepped away from it to wipe the sweat of her brow, with a crunch it fell to the ground leaving her to pathetically stomp her foot in frustration and roar with anger. She kicked a piece of the stupid thing as she went to sat down breathing heavily in exasperation. But, she still wouldn't ask for someone to help her. She would just set out a sleeping bag and that was that. Why did I even start building that thing in the first place when we are in doors? she thought feeling dimwitted. She lay back her head and looked up at the ceiling and groaned.

Drake shook his head. "You're not being a burden, Emilia, trust me." He insisted, handing her the small, gleaming ruby. He then wiped beads of sweat away from his forehead and walked over to Lesnia, who seemed frustrated. "Anything I can help ya with?"

Lesnia, her head in her hands, anger easily seen on her face, "No!" she yelled quickly. Almost the moment she said it she regretted it, she quickly said, "I'm sorry, it's just this dumb tent, I was never taught how to put one up. Not like we need it, we're indoors, but.. If you want you can help put down sleeping bags and set up a fire." she said standing up and pulled out the pack with the sleeping bags. Hogren flew over and landed on the mess of tent she had left sitting there, and pecked at it. She thought of home, perhaps she could write a letter or something he could send home. It was a long way away and would take about four days to get there and back, but Hogren was a smart and loyal raptor and she new he could do it. Maybe he would like seeing Pressa again, she knew Pressa would love seeing Hogren as well.. She would have to ask if anyone brought a pen and paper tonight.

Emilia followed as Lesnia had, extracting the aloe from the cacti pieces. She watched as Lesnia struggled with the tent, but striffled a smile. Emilia had always loved camping with her parents when she was younger. She loved being centred in the midde of nature, and she loved how much her brother hated it. She didn't know why exactly, and was always to busy laughing at his hatred to ask. She sighed deeply as she thought of her family, she missed them dearly, especially her brother, the only one she has left. She winced as she shifted her weight, but continued to extract the aloe. "would anyone mind passing me my bag?" She asked quietly. She was quite parched from the fighting she had done. "Anyone know how much water we have left?"

Lesnia snapped out of her daydreams of Pressa running to meet and stroke Hogren with delight and shook her head to erase her thoughts as she said, "Oh, shoot! I don't think we have any water left! We used it all on Aget. The closest thing that we could do is squeeze the water from the cactus fruit Fried brought in. That might do for today, that means we will have to take the needles off of them.." she said sighing. There was tons of work to be done it seemed, Fried and Emilia could probably work on the needles, Drake and Lesnia setting up camp, or vise versa. She was exhausted and worn to the core from the fight all she wanted to do was flop to the ground and sleep, but so was everyone, and she wasn't going to be the first to stop. She went over to a bag and gently under tossed Emilia a pack and started to pick up rocks to border a fire.

Drake was suprised by her snappy attitude, and for a second, he was almost offended, but he instantly buried those thoughts and nodded casually. "Yeah, I'll set up camp." He muttered, heading over to the forgotten pile of bags they had carried on the trip. He removed whatever sleeping bags were present, including his own, and rolled them out in an orderly fashion. He then paused and stared at the floor, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. After a few moments of pondering, he walked back over to Lesnia.

"What can we use to build a fire out here?"

Fried reached into his bag and pulled out one if the fruits. He examined it for a few seconds before asking Lesnia how one would best extract the juices from held fruit. He was parched, eager to wet his throat, which was now as dry as the desert he was in.

It was a good question Drake asked but, she knew in a dry desert there is always things to make a fire, "There is probably some dry brush outside, if you want I guess I'll get it." she said laying the rocks on the ground and arranged them into a circle, and started to walk outside when Fried asked how to get the juices, she thought about it a moment and said, "Well, first you might want to get rid of the spikes, but, after that it's just like getting lemon juice from a lemon, all you have to do is cut it in half and squeeze. Then what we have left is edible and we can eat it for dinner." she said quickly as she went out the door way. She noticed how fast the sun had dropped in so little time, the temperature too. She took a quick glance at the desert greenery around her and quickly found some dry yellow grasses and took some by the handfuls, though being weary of snakes that may be hiding in it though, luckily there was none. She came back inside and dropped the tinder in the pit and said, "We should get the fire going soon, the sun will be gone in a matter of minuets."

Emilia continued the aloe extraction as she watched the sun's slow descent. She looked up at Fried, "want to pass me some of those?" She asked Fried quietly as she pointed to the fruit. She wasn't sure how to "de-spike" the thing. It looked difficult. She began to become uncomfortable from sitting in the same position, moving around at least a little bit probably wasn't a bad idea. "Unless you feel like helping me up so I can walk around for a minute. I probably shouldn't stay in the same position at any great length of time."

Drake shuffled through the items in his bag and grabbed a box of matches. "No problemo." He said quite cheerfully, removing an individual match. He than scraped it across the ground, sparking a small fire, and lit the grasses. "Fire's done." He stated simply, blowing on the flames to promote growth.

Lesnia nodded in approval, "Excellent." she was glad they had matches for she had no clue how to light fire without them. She went over to Emilia and said, "You can probably stand up without a problem, it's probably a good idea too. If you want I can continue the de-spiking." she said sitting down at the ground. She looked at a fruit on the ground and got a knife and started to hack at the thorns till they broke off or were just nubs. Now that she had enough space to put her hand she easily sliced off the res of the thorns and finally cut the fruit in half. She looked up at Drake and asked, "Hey, could you please find something to put this water in, perhaps another used potion bottle?" Things were almost finished now, and she couldn't wait to go to sleep.

Emilia stood up on her own surprised at how little pain there was. "You are amazing Lesnia," she smiled. "Thank you for helping me." She started to walk around stretching out her legs. She was quite worried about the pain actually, but now that she knows that she can move without too much restraint, she could help out more. She sat back down next to Lesnia and followed as she did. "What kind of person would I be if I can't do the only job asked of me. I hardly think you guys would forgive me for just sitting around when things needed to be done."

Lesnia grinned and nodded as she said, "Your welcome, and if you really want to, I would be glad to have your help, it will get the job done faster." and so the two went on with their work happily. Hogren even tried to join in, pecking at the needles, his sharp beak even breaking off a few. She looked around at everything and said, "I'd say things are almost done! After this we can sit back and relax an eat some flame roasted cactus! My favorite!" she said laughing a little. After a long day like this she really felt like having some of the deer Emilia had shot days before, she could almost taste the juiciness... Her stomach growled and she giggled in delight.