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So, so tired.

The battle had nearly completely wiped the energy right out of the poor horsewoman, Zhiqiang had been a gods-send, but it still tore in to her that she had to do that to poor Mengyao - insanity or not. Subconsciously, she lifted a ragged sleeve covered hand to rub cheek below her marked eye, frowning openly, unaware of the blood smear that she left from aching fingers. She was a mess, but she didn't care, she just wanted to find somewhere to sit down. Think. Breathe.

As she took steady steps in to the tent, she looked down at her feet, making sure that she had not dirtied up the floor under her, red steps having stopped ages ago, but her sullen paranoia and the whispers in her ears had her looking every few moments. Hearing the familiar voice of the horsewoman, though, cut through her psyche like a knife, head bobbing up to see Lan, her eyes betrayed her, expressing both sadness and relief in waves. Lan was here, she was alright. Walking towards her, she just wanted to be near someone she knew.

"Lan." Is all she said, for she wore her feelings on her sleeve, a woman of little words.

"You better or I won't forgive you," she threatened after them pretending to be back to normal again. She would need a little bit longer to get back to normal.

That was all she needed and thus she was happy to let him go chase after his companions while she continued to rest again before she would try once more. For the time being Yuzhi noticed no one trying to, once again, pull herself up from the depths of despair and personal failure.

Was she making too much of her own situation? Perhaps but then she was not used to this sort of thing. Not entirely.

The dark skinned priestess didn't linger as the rest of her group began to head out again. She turned to follow, falling into step beside Soren, mismatched eyes directed down at the vial in her hand as she turned out over and over slowly.

[Exit]

Alex may not have been a horseman, but he was an initiate, and he had heard Medea's call. Weakened from his fight with the hunters that had ended in dissipation, he made his way to the horseman tent. He felt incredibly out of place amongst those who entered and exited, and soon saw that he was the only student initiate among those who were gathered in the tent. Still, the call had come to him as well, so he could only assume that it was okay for him to be here.

He slowly and wearily shuffled his way towards where Medea sat, intent on asking her some questions...until he saw how despondent she appeared. It halted any words he might have had dead on his tongue, and he stood in silence, watching her for a moment. Was this really the same woman that he had sought out for help only a couple of months before, when the students had been captured? She looked almost frail and elderly in comparison to how she had been then.

His pale eye finally shifted away from her, and to the vials that sat in rows upon a table, her words as he did so surprising enough to make him jump a tiny bit.

"This will..will save them?" He whispered, as he reached out to take on of the vials for himself. So..so he could maybe get them back after all. Mort, Amrita....

...Yin.

"Thank you." He murmured softly, not even completely sure she was actually listening to him.

Without another word he turned and slowly made his way back out, bracing himself before stepping through the tent flap and back out into the strange unknown circumstances ahead of him.

((Exit))

In moments of his death his essence returned to the tent and reformed, bit by aching bit, back into their original form. Shik groaned as he lifted a shaky hand to rub at his face, turning so that his wings weren't pinned beneath him. Immediately he had wanted to get up and go find the group before something else happened, but his first attempt to sit up was dizzying and made him reconsider a few minutes of rest.

Gods, he hoped that vial was worth something. And he hoped Yuzhi had managed to snag one while she had been here as well, because someone was getting a dagger in the gut if they lost another person to the fog creatures.

The mist clung to him and hissed for his help to find Home as he laid there - they were prompted by a silent but most effective <******** you.

Shaheen had followed after the smaller horsewoman, Yuzhi, who seemed to know the way back to the tent. Anticipation clenched deep in her belly as they had made their way along. She needed to find Shik, needed to make sure that he was okay as well, needed to thank him for what he had done...it was a debt she didn't think she could ever repay, not in the span of her lifetime at least.

And so when they entered the tent, her dark gaze sought out only one horseman, and she quickly strode in, large wings folding in snugly behind her as her eyes continued their search.

"Shikoba?" Her voice joined that of Yuzhi's, searching for the giant brute of a man that she had grown up with and had become her closest companion since the fall of the isles, despite their ongoing differences. He had to be here, he had to have reformed as himself, and not as one of those monsters like she had.

Yuzhi let out a small sigh though whether of relief or not it was uncertain since her expression remained stoic and neutral. Dumb oaf.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, "We cured him," she said simply not really indicating she was the one that smashed a vial against the Reaper's forehead in a fit of theatrics that her brother would be mighty proud of. "Apparently insanity is catching but that's all I really got from him, he had others he needed to find so I left him at that. I am sure he's very sorry for your wounds."

After all, the Reaper hadn't been in his right mind at the time.

"I am fine enough," she nodded a bit and then seemed a bit restless, "I don't like it here. It smells weird and the fog is too dense." For the most part she was content for the other Horsewoman to speak up for herself.

Yuzhi watched the display with a quiet stare. These were things she'd likely never had. People insisted on treating her as if she was too small to feel anything of these emotions. Patting on the head, being called Little Small, getting teased for her size, she just simply turned away. Pure and simple, she didn't need to see these things. More over Yuzhi felt that did not need them.

Give her friends, give her family. No matter how much they talk down to her treat her as a child, she'd be fine with that. Quietly the small Scholar drew herself up and shuffled off to sit on her own.

She wasn't moping but she wasn't entirely happy. Small, youthful exteriors had their prices to pay. Either way she quietly built up her metaphorical brick wall facing away from others so they could not see her expression or tell anything she was thinking, crouched down she traced her fingertips against the ground as she mouthed the words of her favorite tales to herself.

(SORRYSORRY. Yuzhi feels got ahead of me. OTL)