Nyxis woke up with a different kind of pain. It's something that reached deeper than bones and flesh. It squeezed his heart and constricted his throat. In short, he's not going to get better with that kind of a pain in his soul.

He pushed himself off his rock and went out of the cavern and into the next one which he labeled as the kitchen and dining hall rolled into one. The girl was not there. He checked the cauldron for something to eat. The fire was cold and the dark cauldron was empty. Now that he thought about it, the sea was quiet right now. The roar of the water was nowhere to be heard.

Nyxis moved to the stacked kegs. With the current state of his arms, he could only move them up and down so lifting lids was not a problem. The first keg, the one closer to yet another curtained doorway, contained a foreign fruit even for him. He picked one up and studied its red, pointy surface. It's like swinx fruits but its spikes weren't spikes at all.

He smelled it once and a sweet aroma filled his nose. Was it edible? He was about to pop one into his mouth when a voice screamed from behind. "What are you doing? That is not how it is eaten!"

Nyxis turned to see the girl carrying a basket load of ocean produce and, yes, more seaweeds. Blood drained from his face at the sight of the greenish weed that only grew on the seabed. Monsters, the lot of them. The slender stalks swayed as the girl put the basket aside and trudged towards him.

She took the spiky fruit from him and popped it open with her thumbs. It gave a satisfying plop! before giving way to a fleshy pink delight inside. The girl hefted it from its spiky shell and laid it in his palm. "Eat no more than two or you will end up with a bad case of loose bowels," she warned.

"Did you try it?"

The girl glared at him. "Shut up."

She turned away from him and attended to her catch. Nyxis chewed the fruit, its sweet flavor exploding in his tongue and coating his mouth. He watched the girl wrestle with a large animal that looked like a fish but longer, bigger and...eviler.

The girl kept deliberate care in avoiding teeth as long as Nyxis's shortest finger. She grunted as she grabbed hold of its tail. It flopped around and smacked her on the nose, sending her to her rear. "Stay still, you slimy mongrel!" she screamed as she lunged for the creature once more. "I want to eat you!"

The eel gave a silent cry of indignation and continued flopping around more violently than the last time. The girl growled. A small smile had been plastered on Nyxis's face for gods knew how long. It's just so...silly.

"Do not just stand there!" the girl screamed at him, jarring him away from his reverie. "For Ytrin's sake, help me out here or we would not be eating on time!"

Nyxis snapped out of his amusement and looked around. There's something with him that always helped him in times like these. Where...? "Did I fall with something when you found me?" he asked the girl.

The girl looked up from wrestling with the fish only to be smacked on the nose yet again. She gave an audible oomph before answering. "I think I stowed that satchel behind those kegs."

Nyxis nodded and went to the place she told him. There it was—a satchel familiar to him at the same time not. He dragged it out of the dark and opened it. He was surprised at how his hands moved inside and drew a vial with red liquid sloshing inside and a set of metal tools that looked too complex. He got back to the girl and the eel and found that she wasn't having much luck. She was already huffing and the fish didn't look like it's ready to give up just yet.

Nyxis approached the thrashing animal, popped the vial's cork, and lunged for the fish. The girl opened her mouth to demand an answer but he had already emptied the contents on the fish's head. The creature went still, the smell of trelliva wafting in the cavern's thick air. With enough dexterity his aching fingers could muster, he slit the fish's skin with the complex scissors and cut its flesh with the thin metal knives.

How in Umazure did he know what to do with the knives and how did he figure out that trelliva would paralyze the animal? Strange.

"What are you doing?" the girl demanded as Nyxis pried the skin off the fish like ripping apart a piece of paper. Nyxis looked up to find the girl fuming with her tan face deep red. "Trelliva is toxic for us!"

"No, it is not," Nyxis chopped off the creature's head with accuracy and speed he didn't expect to come from him. The fish's blood stained his fingers red. "That amount of dosage will simply give the meat some exotic flavor. What time are you living in? Trelliva was declared safe for consumption ages ago."

The girl opened her mouth but no words came out. Nyxis winked at her as he presented her with his latest creation. Rows of evenly cut fish flesh and a pile of fish skin on the side. "So, how was it?"

The girl snatched the meat from him and turned away. "Fine," she admitted. Quite begrudgingly, too.

Nyxis found a keg with water in it and drew some to wash the blood off his fingers, keeping the water from dousing his bandages. "So, did you think that I am handy in the kitchen?" He returned to the girl's side as she dumped the fish into a cauldron. The fire was already burning beneath it.

Well, this girl had been here for longer than he thought. She wouldn't have set up a fire that fast. Even experienced apothecaries found it hard to build a stable fire with nothing but a flint. How he knew that information was another mystery he didn't want to think about now.

The girl clicked her tongue as she moved to continue chopping the same orange crop she had been feeding him. "Thank you for dealing with the fish."

"Do you usually go fishing?" Nyxis glanced behind him to where the cave led out towards the open ocean.

The girl shrugged, the sound of her knife hitting the chopping board echoing around them in a series of shrill, booming sounds. "I go out to catch produce when the sea is not that violent," she replied. "That is usually once every two weeks."

Nyxis pouted. "Shame I did not fall in during that day."

"You are out of luck, it seems."

Nyxis chuckled lightly and was surprised when he found the girl riding along with his amusement. When the girl realized he was looking at her, she killed her smile as quickly. Was that a blush creeping to her cheeks? Perhaps, that's just a trick of the light. "I still have not forgiven you for insulting me," the girl added after a minute.

Nyxis's amusement petered off at that reminder. "I was not expecting you to forgive me just because I chopped your fish," he said. "I should at least do something when I am off leeching food from you, right?"

The girl stopped chopping to look at him, really look at him. "This is the first time someone I saved tried helping out in the kitchen while injured," she hummed as if satisfied. "At least you still have something good inside you."

Nyxis frowned as he took the chopped crops and dumped it into the boiling cauldron. "Were you expecting less? I mean, I have not been exactly nice to you."

"I was expecting more," the girl admitted. "That is why I was disappointed when you were acting like that."

He found himself laughing at his stupidity. "It was the potions talking," he joked. Then he dropped his voice as he set the chopping board aside. "I guess I was just...lost."

The chopping sounds stopped. He turned to the girl to find her staring at him with soft eyes. The orange in her irises reminded Nyxis of the sun. "We are all a little lost at times, Nyxis," she said. "That is fine."

"What is your name?" Nyxis found himself asking.

The girl smiled at him. "Denara."